Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 332—Overcoming a super low GPA? Chemical engineer, to strategy. Columbia vs Kellogg

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MBA Wire Taps 332—Overcoming a super low GPA? Chemical engineer, to strategy. Columbia vs Kellogg · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:14
  Speaker A: Welcome to the clear Admit MBA Admissions podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your wiretaps for Monday, January 8, 2024. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
• 0:27
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 0:28
  Speaker A: So your year is off to a decent start.
• 0:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, so far I'm into day three of this year and I mean, obviously we're recording this a couple of days ahead, but so far so good.
• 0:40
  Speaker A: Yeah. And what do we have to look forward to this week? Because I know last week there was just this flood of deadlines, but there's still more this week, right, for round two applications?
• 0:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, last week, like you say, there's probably about 20 top schools had deadlines. This week you've got Tepa, Goyzetta, Keenan, Flagler, Cambridge judge, Fuqua, Ise. Kellogg and Johnson are among the schools, and Ross actually among the schools with deadlines. And we still haven't talked about the perennial lagger, Sloan and stern. They're the following week.
• 1:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think they're like 18th or I don't remember when it is, but yeah, it's later. Smart on their part, I would say. It is interesting though, you see this kind of tiering of schools almost with the route. The first week seemed like it was the m seven, mostly with the exception of obviously Sloan and Kellogg. But yeah, just interesting, I guess. Well, one thing I wanted to mention is that tomorrow we have an event. So tomorrow, January 9 at noon Eastern, we're doing a special event with Carnegie Mellon Tepper. It's a webinar that's about their master's in business analytics. So this is a specialized master's program. You can sign up to attend that at bit Lee, CMU analytics. All one word, all lowercase. So that's the first event. And then we've got another event coming up later in the month which are real humans event, which I've been talking about the last couple of weeks here. That's on January 24 from 08:00 p.m. To 09:00 p.m.. Eastern. So that's a nighttime event for you folks tuning in in the US. You can sign up at Bit Lee, CA Realhumans. And I do know that we're going to have students from Tuck, from Stern, Georgetown and Foster. At least that's what's been confirmed so far. There may be more than that, but that's where we are at this point. So those are always fun. They're kind of ask me anythings with current students. Super helpful if you're interested in any of those schools. And then obviously in February, we'll have a bunch of events around deferred enrollment and masters in management. So stay tuned for all that. We'll get to that later, though. But, yeah, getting back into the swing of things with the events.
• 2:45
  Speaker B: Yeah. Fantastic. And obviously in February, we'll have a clear admit plus conversation Q and A, whatever you want to call it.
• 2:54
  Speaker A: That'll be February 5, I think. Right? Is that what we said? I think so, yeah.
• 2:57
  Speaker B: We're going to go the Monday, first Monday of the month.
• 2:59
  Speaker A: Yeah. So we'll do that. That's always at noon Eastern. The other thing, over on the website, we did run some admissions tips that I think are really timely if you're one of those candidates that's racing to get in some apps this week. So one of the admissions tips was about essay polishing. And this is like, if you have your final, you're about to hit submit and you want to just do one more kind of read through. It's a set of tips on what to look for and how to kind of just finalize everything. So that was useful. Definitely read that if you're in that late stage of getting apps in. And then the other thing, can't they.
• 3:32
  Speaker B: Just put it into Chat GPT Graham and ask it for a critic?
• 3:35
  Speaker A: I guess they teach it.
• 3:37
  Speaker B: That's what I would do.
• 3:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, it might help to, if they're trying to. Well, that brings me to the next tip, which is about word counts, right? So I guarantee you that Chat GPT could probably take an essay that's like 20 words over the limit and help kind of bring it down to size. But we have a whole tip on how to deal with word counts. And there are some, obviously, we often say plus or minus five or plus or -10% I mean, there's all these different rules, quote, that are out there, and then there are all the caveats, like when a school gives you a word range or a page limit, or when their online application actually truncates the essay at a certain number of words. So read that. If you're kind of grappling with word count issues, should be very useful. Alex, I know that I had said we were kind of done with real human stuff for the students, but we actually had two more that ran last week. One was from students at Yale Som. I think we caught up with like six students there. I can't remember, it's like four or six, one or the other. And I want to actually share a quote so one of the women that we caught up with, who's a first year at Yale, her name's Eliza, and we always ask them, hey, any advice that you have for traveling through the application process? And I thought you would love this, Alex. She says, the most valuable thing I did during my application process.
• 4:52
  Speaker B: Listen to wiretaps.
• 4:54
  Speaker A: No, that would have been good. She said, the most valuable thing I did during my application process was spending time, one, getting to know myself, like my reasons for wanting an MBA and for wanting to pursue this career path, and two, getting to know the different MBA programs. This meant a lot more introspection than I expected, and talking with friends, family and recommenders about my goals and values. It also meant speaking with many current students and recent alums to understand what their experience was at different programs. So that sounds like pretty good advice. I mean, we always talk about that, right?
• 5:28
  Speaker B: It's all about fit.
• 5:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:30
  Speaker B: And that's outstanding. Yes.
• 5:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that's probably why she got in. I mean, she obviously did a lot of homework.
• 5:35
  Speaker B: Sorry, I was just eating a bit of Christmas cake because you asked me that question. I thought I could sneak a bit in while she would talk.
• 5:40
  Speaker A: There you go. Excellent. Well, tis the season. The other one that we did is we had real humans from Berkeley Haas, and there again, we caught up with a whole bunch of students. But I wanted to share a quote from Isaiah, who's a first year at Haas, and his quote is only about essays, and I thought this was good. He said, allow yourself to write freely when brainstorming ideas in the early stages of crafting your essays, don't place limits on yourself by feeling like you have to have the foundation of your essay written the first time you sit down to write. Enjoy the process. Allow yourself to be creative when structuring your story in a way that is truly authentic to you. Your story is unique and interesting, so it helps to find anecdotes from your life that are meaningful to you and can speak to the type of person you are and aspire to become. The essay writing experience can be somewhat of a therapeutic exercise if you allow yourself to embrace the journey and not be solely focused on the end result. I thought that last line, Alex was particularly useful. And again, something we talk about.
• 6:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, really nice approach. And I think we talk about this also from time to time, that the MBA application process is actually a really good sort of reflection on where you are in your career, in your life, and your goals and your plans and what you want to do. So independent of just getting into the NBA program of choice. It's a really good sort of mechanism for that. Like they said, deep introspection and so on and so forth, which I think is valuable for everybody to go through at some point in their career, right?
• 7:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I just thought it was both Eliza and Isaiah were pretty eloquent. And I guess it makes no surprise they're right there. Some of these top MBA programs, and they got in. But good advice. Other thing, Alex. I got to say, we didn't get any reviews, or we kind of got Cole in our Christmas stockings, almost like we didn't get no letters. So I'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt and say that they were busy with the holidays. But if you want to reach out to Alex and I, you can write to info@clearedmit.com use the subject line wiretaps. Or obviously, you can leave reviews on Apple podcasts, or you can rate the show across almost any platform, including Spotify, where I know a lot of you are listening, so please give us a rating or review if you can. Maybe that's your New Year's resolution, if you're a regular listener of the show.
• 7:59
  Speaker B: Do you know people are still listening? Graham, have you checked the stats? Maybe that's the problem.
• 8:05
  Speaker A: Actually, I did. Look. And people are definitely listening. We run, the last couple of episodes were on Christmas Day and New Year's Day because that's. We run them on Mondays. And people tuned in, so I don't know what that says about those people. But hey, there you go. So other than that, you've picked out two apply wire entries and one decision wire entry. That's kind of a doozy for this week. So should we move on and talk about those?
• 8:29
  Speaker B: Yes, let's kick on.
• 8:31
  Speaker A: All right, so this is wiretaps. Candidate number one. Our first candidate is looking to start in the fall of 24, and they have five schools on their target list. Those schools are Berkeley, Columbia, insead, Chicago, Booth, and UCLA. This person's been working at Amazon before business school, and they want to get into either consulting or tech. The companies that they name as targets are Bain, BCG, McKinsey, and then Apple and Google. They have a GMAT score of 730. Their GPA is a 2.5, and they've been working for seven years. They are located, obviously, in Seattle, since they're working for Amazon there. Alex, you went back and forth with this candidate, and I know you and I both initially were like, uh oh, that GPA is a little low, especially for this group of target schools. But what do you make of this candidacy? Because on the surface you've know, seven years at Amazon sounds pretty impressive. Right. But what do you make of this?
• 9:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm guessing that their work experience has evolved and is strong. Right. Like just making that assumption. They worked in people management, then they moved into sort of operations management and strategic planning at Amazon, which sounds pretty good. And yeah, the GMAT, whilst it might not stand out at the very, very top schools, is still a blood. Well, excuse me, still a terrific score. Right. So they're smart, but this GPA is really completely at the other end of the spectrum. Right. So if the 730 really shows that, yeah, they are super smart, a 2.5 GPA does not show that. And some would argue that actually the GPA is more indicative of success than a standardized test. I'm sure others argue the other way around, but it's a reflection of four years of academic study and so forth. Yeah, now they had mental health issues which they fully sort of embraced or disclosed in our conversation. Seemingly they're a mitigating circumstance and it does look like they've had good success at work since they've really done a very strong GMAP test and so on and so forth. So it sounds like whatever the issues were, they've been able to overcome them and sort of are on the right track. But if I'm ADCOM, I probably would like to see some verification of that in terms of some more recent coursework that sort of shows that, one, that they're ready for what will be a rigorous first quarter of the NBA program and two, just shows a little bit of sort of self awareness on their part that a 25 is a real big hole to overcome, irregardless of the mitigating circumstance and so forth. So they're certainly going to need to tackle optional essays for each of the schools that they apply and be very upfront about this GPA. Don't try to bury it under the 730 GMAT because it's right there, front and center. So how they tackle that will be interesting. Obviously getting a strong GMAT helps, but again, I think they could take some additional steps. I know that they talk about their long term goal. I mean, their goals are in consulting and technology. Their long term goal, I assume, is technology in the healthcare mental health space because they talk about that something that they're sort of really interested in pursuing long term. So that could make for a really good story and a really good sort of overall overarching plan and so forth. But I think for the types of schools they're targeting, they're going to want to see a little bit more in terms of what they've done to mitigate that GPA.
• 12:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. So one thing I notice is 730 is kind of near the average for some of these schools on their target list. It's above for a couple, but it's also right on the average for others. And I was thinking, wow, when you have a low GPA, it'd be nice to have a kind of GMAT that's even on the other side of the. That's kind of above and beyond. And so 730 is great, but with the 25 it sort of comes down a bit. I have heard more than one admissions officer tell me that the four years of study is a better measure in their mind than just a three hour test. Right. So there is that as well as you were pointing out and then, yeah, I just wanted to better understand what happened in undergrad and how it relates to their goals because they mentioned that these long term goals, like you say in mental health, but that's not coming out in the entry here besides them saying that. So I'm kind of wondering, where do they go? How do they go to Bain, BCG, McKinsey or Apple or Google and then weave in that sort of mental health thing? So the other thing is, it sounds like they have some community service or professional development type activities. Hopefully they do some other things too. But let's assume, let's give them the benefit of the doubt that part of their profile is probably okay. But yeah, I agree. If they were to take business fundamentals or MBA math, that would help. The thing is that we're kind of down to the wire. But who knows? I mean, they could always indicate to the schools or send scores and results afterwards, which we see many candidates do.
• 14:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the case. If they haven't thought to do that, they should sign up now, write it in the optional essay that they're doing it, and articulate to the ADCom their plan because they've got all the prerequisites to apply. Because sometimes people might listen to us talking about this idea of, let's say, retaking a GMAT a little bit after a deadline or doing something like MBA math a little bit after the deadline. It's like, well, surely you've got to do all that before the application deadline. And in a lot of cases, yes, you do, to make sure your application is complete. But once your application is complete, AdCOM, some AdCOM are pretty flexible in terms of taking additional data points after the submission deadline. Right. So that's usually my sort of philosophy. Try to get it in within a month of the deadline and before interview invite decisions are finalized.
• 15:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. All right, so let's see how things turn out for them. Obviously, they're probably getting these apps in as we speak, so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully this advice, even if it's after the fact, helps them to kind of make some adjustments and keep admissions committees abreast of those changes. Let's move on, though, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week that you've picked, Alex, has six schools on the target list, and they also want to start this coming fall. The schools they're applying to are Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Chicago, Wharton, and Yale. This person was a chemical engineer before business school and still is, I guess, a chemical engineer. And they want to get into consulting. And they have a lot of the usual suspects. Bain, BCG, McKinsey, also deloitte on the list. They have a 720 on the GMAT and a 3.67 undergraduate GPA. They've been working for about five years. They're located in Alabama, in the US, and they mentioned that they actually transferred schools during undergraduate due to some family issues. And they said that their undergraduate GPA rose significantly and they were able to graduate cum laude, although they say it's from an unknown university. So we'll just mention that. Alex, what do you make of this? Because here's someone a bit more balanced. Right. The GMAT, 720, the GPA, three six seven sounds like pretty interesting work experience, but more technical. Probably. But what do you make of this?
• 16:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think the three six seven GPA is as an overall GPA, or at least it's the GPA at the second school that they attended in chemical engineering. I think that's got to tell me that they're pretty smart, right? I mean, chemical engineering is not an easy degree to complete, as we've talked about on several occasions. 720 GMAT, again, is a strong score. You would argue it's still below average from some of the schools that they're targeting, but nevertheless, it's still a strong score. Sure, they transferred schools during undergrad due to family issues, which again, is perfectly fine, but it would be interesting to note what the gpas were before the transfer and what the overall GPA would be when you mix it all together, because ADCOM should be able to look at that. Right? Right. They're still going to be interested in what happened in that first and second year or whenever they did make that transition. But I think it's safe to say this candidate's smart enough to be successful academically in these top programs that they're targeting. So the deeper point will be the quality of that experience that they've had and sort of their leadership, their various sort of impact and growth that we talk about. That's going to be really important because I'm getting the sense that because of COVID and also their transitions and movement, they haven't had a lot of outside of work activity involvement to help them further stand out. That makes me a little bit sort of queasy in terms of are they really an outstanding candidate for effectively they're targeting m seven plus Yale, right? Yeah. So they're aiming quite high and insead, but still. Yeah, InsEad, which is the best program outside of the US. Right. Actually they're not targeting insead.
• 18:44
  Speaker A: Oh no, sorry. That was the previous one. So this is all plus Yale. Sorry.
• 18:49
  Speaker B: They're aiming quite high. Which made me think Ross Fuqua, these are very good programs just in that next tier that might well be a good sort of addition for them to consider and so forth. But yeah, overall, if they show real quality at work, I think they're going to be in great shape. But that's a little bit of an unknown.
• 19:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I think that one of the things I thought of is just aiming pretty high and the numbers are fine. But I had that doubt like you. Okay. Three six seven. But that's just from the graduating institution. And they said if they mix it all together it gets lower. But they didn't say how low. Right. So are they suddenly at a three one or something? That would be a different story. And yeah, they're targeting the best of the best. Right. So I absolutely think that casting a slightly wider net might be in order here. We don't really know much about their work experience. I mean they're chemical engineer, but we don't have a lot of other details.
• 19:50
  Speaker B: Right.
• 19:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it does sound like the job is interesting. Like they've moved around a bit for the job, I'm getting a sense because they mentioned relocations and stuff. So I'm sure that it's probably good, but we just don't have enough data. In any event, if they were to cast a slightly wider net, I'd feel more comfortable. I do worry about just getting shut. Yeah. So we'll see. Hopefully they took that advice because I know you did mention Ross and Fuqua on the entry on the website.
• 20:19
  Speaker B: So hopefully they take that to, I mean, the other thing we don't know is their hobies and interests. Right. So they say that they've not been really involved in sort of activities and that, but maybe there's other stuff that they're doing that's super interesting or whatever that they're particularly passionate about that helps balance out the geeky engineering stuff that they do at work and that could help elevate their overall. Yeah, I'm just a little bit nervous. Maybe Ross and Fuqua is a good complement to what the schools are already targeting, but maybe they don't need that because they do actually have real quality work experience as well as interesting hobbies and interests.
• 21:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, possible. Well, I want to thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on and talk about our last candidate. So this is wiretaps candidate number three. So this one is a decision wire entry that you picked, Alex, we did have like a flurry of entries come in, and this is an undecided candidate who applied to Columbia, Duke, Michigan, Kellogg, Stern and Darden. And they got into, it looks like they got in everywhere except Michigan, it seems like. Yeah, they got into Columbia, they got into Duke with a scholarship of $60,000. They got into Kellogg, no money. I guess Columbia wouldn't have told them yet if they had money. So that's kind of for now, nothing. Stern gave them 50 grand as a scholarship and then Darden admitted them, but without a scholarship. So they're sort of mulling this all over. They're going to start school next fall. For those of you who are curious, this person wants to do consulting, ideally kind of mixed in with maybe pharma. So they have Bain and McKinsey, but they're also looking at J and J. Merck, Novartis and Pfizer. They had a 328 on the GRE and a 3.9 GPA. And they mentioned in the note, I'm currently deciding between Kellogg and Columbia. Post MBA goal is to pursue either a leadership development program in the pharma space or internal strategy consulting role. Geographically, my preference is East coast, such as New York, Philly, Boston or DC. I'm also applying to Wharton and Sloan in round two. Any thoughts? So, Alex, this is a really interesting one because of the layering with round two potential, but let's start with the offers that they have. So what do you make of the fact that they've already said, oh, I'm just looking at Columbia and Kellogg, even though they got into some other schools, too.
• 22:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, they seem to have prioritized Columbia and Kellogg in terms of at the top of their current set of options. It seems to me like Kellogg is potentially a better fit for them and has that sort of a little bit more of a focus potentially on healthcare pharma. And Columbia has the edge in terms of location, is a better location. They want to be on the east coast. It doesn't have to be New York, but New York is mentioned first. Philadelphia, Boston. And so that's the question right now. And I think if Columbia comes back and gives them a scholarship, which, as you rightly point out, I don't think they've made those decisions yet, then that will impact their calculus and probably push Columbia ahead. But I do think Kellogg, their personal preferences and so on and so forth tends to lean toward Kellogg. And I think that's important in terms of the fit came if Columbia didn't come back with an award, I think in terms of their personal preferences, Kellogg would be a good choice. I would really scrutinize the alumni base in some of their preferred cities for Kellogg and just make sure there's a critical mass of those in that sort of pharma sector. They're also looking at potentially applying in round two. Well, I think they're planning to apply in round two and Wharton and Sloan are their targets, which to me makes perfect sense, especially Wharton with its very strong healthcare focus. I think Wharton sits at the top of the tree with those looking at healthcare. Wharton, then Kellogg potentially, then Fuqua and so on and so forth. And I know you're going to say, well, actually, Foucault with money is quite a good option right now because of their interest in pharma and healthcare. So they've got some great options. Graham? I'm leaning towards Kellogg at this point.
• 25:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it is pretty fantastic that they almost round the table. They got some money at a couple of schools. They got into two m seven s and now they're kind of doubling down. They're going to try to get into some additional schools. I do agree with you that if they want to be on the east coast and they're really interested in pharma, then Wharton is obviously a very good fit for that. Especially. I don't know if they've thought about this, but if they were to apply to the healthcare management major, which you have to apply and declare in advance, it's the only major at Wharton that you have to indicate in your application. So that would be the natural thing to do. Other than that, yeah, Kellogg's a great school for pharma, too. They want to land on the east coast. But we know. We just talked about this last week in the employment report. Kellogg's placing a decent number of people on the east coast, too. They tend to almost like. It's almost like a third of the class ends up midwest. A third east and a third mean they kind of really divide things up. Although some of these numbers have been shifting a little bit of late.
• 26:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, but you know what that means, don't you, Graham? It means twice as many Columbia alums are on the east coast than Kellogg.
• 26:14
  Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
• 26:15
  Speaker B: No, that's the mean. That does make a difference. Right. I mean, in terms of critical mass of interest in particular industries and so forth. So Colombia is probably, what, 80, 85% east coast.
• 26:30
  Speaker A: I think they don't share that data, right?
• 26:31
  Speaker B: That's right. The reason why they don't share it is they're probably 80, 85% east coast. Right? So that would be more than double Columbia, right?
• 26:42
  Speaker A: No, I think you're absolutely right. Columbia sends a lot of people to the east coast. As we were saying, they don't share that statistic, but it's probably a big number, and that does count for something. So, yeah, this is not an easy decision. I mean, if I were them, I would, as I said, go to welcome weekends or admitted students events, whatever you call them. And in the meantime, see how things go with Wharton and Sloan, because that could change things, too.
• 27:09
  Speaker B: Yeah. And again, they might get money at Columbia. That'll make the conversation quite different.
• 27:15
  Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. So, in any event, Alex, thanks for picking these out. It was a little bit of a quieter week with the holidays, so we actually managed to get through on time this week.
• 27:27
  Speaker B: Are we going to get through under 30 minutes, which is a record for us, Gray?
• 27:32
  Speaker A: Maybe. Yeah, we might. In any event, we'll gather again next week. And, yeah, best of luck to everyone who's kind of in the throes of finalizing. Round two applications. And obviously, again, happy new year to everybody. I'm hoping that everyone's year is off to a great start. And, Alex, I'll see you in one week's time.
• 27:48
  Speaker B: Yeah. Brilliant. Stay safe, everyone, and happy new year. Take care.