Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 342—First gen, Naval Officer. One-year vs Two-year MBA. Sloan vs Haas vs Ross

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MBA Wire Taps 342—First gen, Naval Officer. One-year vs Two-year MBA. Sloan vs Haas vs Ross · 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, March 4, 2024. Are you looking for an MBA program where you'll more than just a number, Vanderbilt Business offers a personalized learning experience to help each student reach their unique career goals. Whether you're looking to switch careers entirely or accelerate the path you're on, the Vanderbilt MBA program will provide you with the individual support you need to propel your career forward. Vanderbilt is currently waiving their $200 application fee for MBA wiretaps. Listeners to learn more about the Vanderbilt MBA program and to claim your application fee waiver, visit business vanderbilt.edu clearadmit. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
• 0:59
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 1:00
  Speaker A: So, I can't believe it's. You know, I can kind of finally see some light at the end of the tunnel. You may not know this, but the US is going to daylight savings this coming weekend. And this is something I don't want to get on a soapbox. But Europe, we're not changing for another three weeks. And I got to say, when I first moved to Europe, it was synced with the US. And I'm sure the UK was as well. And for some reason, that's gone off the rails. And it seems like every year it's a struggle because now we're going to be 1 hour less different from the. Anyway, this is just one of those nonsensical things that I feel like the world needs to get on the same page with. But that's my soapbox.
• 1:38
  Speaker B: It's challenging, too, when you work in a global. I mean, obviously, Claire admits we're quite a small. Well, we'll call ourselves boutique. But we are global, right?
• 1:50
  Speaker A: We are.
• 1:50
  Speaker B: So hopefully I show up at the meetings at the right time in the next two or three weeks.
• 1:54
  Speaker A: Well, now that we've documented this on the podcast, you have no excuse for being late to our meeting.
• 1:59
  Speaker B: Doesn't always work. That.
• 2:01
  Speaker A: I know, I know. So what happened last week, though, in terms of MBA admissions stuff? Because I know on the last show we recorded, we were talking about MIT and whether they would issue their invites, which they did. But what's going on?
• 2:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, thankfully, MIT delivered literally within the day of prediction. So that was good. So all the top schools have effectively released interview invite decisions. A few will still trickle them out. So if you're in one of those buckets, maybe Stamford, maybe. Yeah, there'll be several others that fit that. Yale, perhaps there's still a little bit of hope, but, yeah, I mean, that hope does tick away at each. The fixed. There's a fixed number of non invites each day. Anyway, I'm not going to go into the math, but people get the idea. But people are still interviewing. So we're in the thick of the interview season, as it were. But also round three. Well, we've got a couple of things going on. We've got some round three application deadlines already in the hopper. So a couple more of those coming up next week. I should know who they are, right? But I do. Who are they insead on Tuesday? It's actually round four for them and Keenan Flagler and Tepper on Monday. But Wednesday of this upcoming week, Tepa releases its round two decisions.
• 3:34
  Speaker A: Oh, wow. Okay.
• 3:35
  Speaker B: So they're really the first of the big schools to release. The following week, there'll be a couple more, and then we get into what we call decision weeks for round two, where all the top schools effectively release those round two decisions. So that just gives us an indication of where we're at in the round two cycle. Tepa kicks us off next week with round two decisions.
• 4:01
  Speaker A: Oh, cool. Yeah, I can't wait for these decision weeks. It's always fun to see the results. As you were saying, there are some schools that are still trickling out invites, and I actually saw a really helpful post up on Livewire. A candidate had called the UCLA admissions office just to sort of, I don't know, inquire about something, and they found out that they're still trickling out invites until like, March 22. So some of the schools really will send out invites up to the wire. And I appreciate that person posting to Livewire about that. That's what it's there for.
• 4:29
  Speaker B: Yeah, I did see that, Graham. But I will qualify that. March 22 is probably the date they're releasing or rolling out their round two final decision. So the likelihood of getting an invite in the last week it gets slimmer. Is going to be really slim.
• 4:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. Agreed. In any event, it's been cool to see there's just a lot of activity on Livewire and people helping each other, which is great. You mentioned Wednesday of this coming week as being, I think you said that's when Tepper is doing their announcement for round two decisions. It's also the day that we're doing an NYU stern chat in one of the chat rooms on our site. It's going to be an ask me anything. So Wednesday, March 6, at 11:00 a.m. Eastern 08:00 a.m.. Pacific and you can sign up for that in advance, which I believe you have to do at bit Lenyuama because we're going to set up a special room and I guess they're going to have some admissions folks, maybe even alums there to kind of chat. Should be fun. So join us on Wednesday for that. The other thing, Alex, is we continue to do that stars stuff on the wires where I'm now seeing more and more of our community members earning those likes and getting stars. If you get 30 likes, you get a star. If you have 62 stars, 90 likes is three stars. That's the top level of kind of contributor on our site, and we're doing awards for that. So as we've been saying the last couple of weeks, you can get a $10 Amazon gift card when you've earned your first star. You can get a $20 gift card when you get two stars. And if you get to three stars, we'll send you a $50 Amazon gift card. So keep sort of throwing out the helpful comments and hopefully you'll earn those likes on the site and earn your way to some Amazon stuff. So that's kind of fun. I know you've been tracking.
• 6:23
  Speaker B: No, very good, very good.
• 6:25
  Speaker A: Over on the website, we did a couple of admissions tips that are very relevant. One is about what we called unusual interview practices, which, by the way, I think the Wharton TBD falls into that as well. But we cover a bunch of different things in that tip. And we did a second tip also about interviews called post interview protocol. And that's all about what do you do after the interview. A lot of these schools will allow you to kind of submit a thank you letter, that kind of stuff. So we give a lot of advice there. There are a couple of schools, I want to say HBS, maybe MIT or I can't remember, maybe MIT is before the interview. But HBS has that post interview reflection. So I think we might talk about that too, in there. Anyway, read those tips if you're in the interview process. Another thing is that we continue to roll out those real numbers pieces. So, Alex, I want to play a little game here. We did two posts for real numbers. One was GMAT averages and the other was GRE averages. And this is all us schools because it turns out that the non us schools are a bit murkier about what they release in terms of these data points in some instances. So we'll stick to the US GMAT averages. Who do you think leads the way with the highest GMAT average among top business schools.
• 7:37
  Speaker B: Stanford.
• 7:38
  Speaker A: You know what? It's interesting. So Stanford has an average GMAT score of 738 hvs posted, 740. But that's their median score, so it's sort of hard to know, right? But those two are at the top. But here's the funny thing. Who do you think is.
• 7:54
  Speaker B: Do you know the difference, Graham? The mean and the median?
• 7:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, actually I do. But I don't think I could tell you what that means in terms. Know which of these schools really has the better GMAT test takers.
• 8:06
  Speaker B: So which is the median? Which is the mean?
• 8:08
  Speaker A: So the median is the midpoint of all.
• 8:11
  Speaker B: No, I'm not asking you the math definition. Stanford was the median or the mean.
• 8:16
  Speaker A: Oh, sorry. Stanford used the mean and Harvard used the median in. Okay, yeah, so it's kind of interesting, but who do you think is in third? Because this was not what I expected at all.
• 8:27
  Speaker B: In third? Well, you would probably throw in wartner's Third, but since you say it's unexpected, maybe. Booth.
• 8:37
  Speaker A: No, it's Haas. So Berkeley. Haas with a 733 average or median on the test. So very high.
• 8:44
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know what it is? It's the power of the small school.
• 8:48
  Speaker A: Right?
• 8:49
  Speaker B: Small school numbers.
• 8:50
  Speaker A: Well, and I also think. I do wonder if Berkeley's location in California, being a public institution and know kind of neighbors to Stanford means they're attracting a lot of candidates who are California focused and pretty talented and looking at Stanford and Berkeley, and they have high test scores. So in any event, it's hard to say, but it was just interesting to see. And I think Wharton. You're right. Wharton and Columbia are kind of right afterwards at like 730 or so. So anyway, that was just kind of fun. Then we had the GRE averages. And who do you think has the highest GRE scores? Give me your top three.
• 9:25
  Speaker B: Yale.
• 9:26
  Speaker A: So, yeah, Yale is number one with a 330 average. And I feel like we have to say this. If you use the conversion chart from GRE to GMAT, yale is the only school whose GMAT average and GRE average are actually the same. Everyone else kind of uses the GRE to basically accept lower GMAT type scores. I mean, that's what it seems to look like, but, yeah, just kind of fascinating. Stanford's next with 328. Any idea who's in third?
• 9:53
  Speaker B: Has.
• 9:55
  Speaker A: No, it's. It's Harvard business school with 326.
• 9:58
  Speaker B: That makes sense.
• 9:59
  Speaker A: And they're tied with Kellogg and NYU, also at 326. So anyway, kind of fun stats, and I think we will run a GMAT averages score for Europe for the top european schools. But I was talking with Lauren on our team, and Gre wise, we don't have that data for european schools. They're not consistent about reporting it. So just not as much of a thing, I guess, for those programs.
• 10:21
  Speaker B: And I would guess that the average of the very top schools in Europe is probably 1020 points lower. Is that right?
• 10:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Oh, it'll be lower. Yeah, I think that's right. I think NCD and LBs will probably lead the way, but they'll be more. A little bit lower. So we'll see. Hopefully that'll come out in the next week or so. I'm also really excited to say that we've started our real Humans alumni series. And that's a series where basically Lauren on our team goes to all the top business schools in the world and says, hey, we want to talk to people who've graduated from your program and who are working at leading companies that we know clear admit site users are interested in learning about. And so we kicked it off with two students or two grads. Sorry. The first is this woman named Diana who went to Chicago Booth. She graduated, actually in 23, so very recently, and she's working as an investment banking associate at city. And we always ask them, they all get asked the same questions. And it's a lot of things about applying to business school, but also about recruiting for the job that they're in and surprises, et cetera. And the thing that Diana shared that I thought was worth noting here is we asked her, what piece of advice do you wish you'd been given during your MBA? And she says, quote, it's easy to get distracted because there's so many things to do and social events going on. And I would say, know what you want out of your MBA experience and explore programs at school, even after you get your job. She's like, after I got my job at city, I chose to explore the private equity programs at booth, such as the PE lab, the SpITC, and the private equity case challenge. I got so much out of these programs and was really glad that I maximized my learning experience at booth. And she goes on to say elsewhere in the interview that I think those experience have actually helped her in her role at Citi doing investment. So just, I thought that was good advice, like, know what you want and don't just kind of rest on your laurels once you've landed the job that you want.
• 12:15
  Speaker B: She's probably using private equity to get into, I mean, investment banking to move into private equity, right?
• 12:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, I would think so. And so that's why that made a lot of sense.
• 12:24
  Speaker B: So that makes perfect sense, what she's done. Yeah.
• 12:26
  Speaker A: And then our second real human who is a grad of a top MBA program is this guy named Anant. He is a graduate from ESE in Barcelona, and he graduated back in 22. He's now a senior consultant at alliance. And the thing that I thought was fun is that another question we often ask is, were there any surprises regarding your current employer's recruiting process? And so Anat says, kind of in consulting, we ended up focusing a little too much on the case interviews. But sometimes interviewers throw a curveball. For example, in one of my interviews, the interviewer focused the conversation largely on discussing the macroeconomic situation and getting my views on how that could impact the industry, which was something I had not expected or prepared for. But being aware of what is happening in the market and world is generally expected of an MBA and staying on top of it can come in handy. So I thought that was really good advice. Do you agree?
• 13:22
  Speaker B: I would agree, but, yeah, it just seems like that's just too obvious. I'm not criticizing the comment. I think the comment is very good to remind folks. But, yeah, if you're going to be a consultant, you need to understand the marketplace.
• 13:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. And someone once told me, before you go into an interview for a job in the business world, it never hurts to read that week's economist or some kind of business oriented global magazine that helps you to sort of just make sure you're aware of what's going on in the world because it is easy.
• 13:51
  Speaker B: And there's no excuse anymore. Right, Graham? I mean, we have access to all this information.
• 13:56
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 13:57
  Speaker B: I read the BBC app every morning, the general news all around the world, and I love it for half an hour. I feel like I kind of have a good sort of understanding of geopolitical stuff, not just what's going on in my own backyard. And as much criticism as the BBC gets, I still think it's an outstanding news media organization.
• 14:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there's a ton of access, as you say, to information, and there's no real excuse. And I also think, though, that in defensive MBA students, it is easy to just get sort of lost in the day to day of the MBA program and your friends, and it's like a break from the real world. So I could see how someone would know, potentially unprepared. So, yeah, definitely good advice if you're interviewing for jobs. The last thing I wanted to mention before we talk about this week's candidates is that we did a piece on our Fridays from the front line series where we had this guy named Brian Ward, who's an NYU Stern and Wagner. He's a joint degree in public policy and business at NYU, graduating in 24, and he basically wrote a piece about impact investing. I don't want to spoil it or anything, but he has been doing work for the NYU Impact investment Fund, which invests what they call patient capital into social enterprises, expecting long term social and financial returns in the sectors of financial inclusion, environment, healthcare and aging, education, and food systems. So it's a really fascinating read because he talks all about this fund and the investments they've made, and they're about to make, I think, their fifth investment. So it's a relatively new thing. And, yeah, just this idea of how you can be a part of the finance but also doing good and helping the world. So it was just an interesting read, and it's on the site that went up, I guess, last week. So check it out.
• 15:53
  Speaker B: No, absolutely brilliant. I'm right. Doing a deep dive on this area of trust, and obviously, social welfare and sustainability are a big piece of that. Now, in terms of trusting business folks that we do business with, are they exploitative, extractive in terms of the planet, or are they negative and so on and so forth? But you know what I read the other day? I know this is a complete tangent, but it's pretty horrifying, right? We need to go ride around in electric vehicles. And I'm recording this on my iPhone device, and I've actually got my iPad recording a backup. I have all these devices with these renewable batteries, but they all rely on cobalt, 80% of which comes from the democratic Republic of Congo. And the mining that goes on there and everything involved in it is awful.
• 16:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, I've heard about this.
• 16:56
  Speaker B: Completely undermined.
• 16:58
  Speaker A: No pun intended.
• 16:59
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I've just bought a battery for my solar. Anyway, I know that's a complete tangent, but there are certain paradoxes in this movement to sustainability that need to be addressed. Fast fashion is another one, but, yeah, we don't have time to talk about that.
• 17:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, we'll have to do a separate show on this stuff and maybe get a professor to join us or something. That would be kind of cool.
• 17:26
  Speaker B: You're doubting my level of kidding. I'm kidding.
• 17:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. We need to get a real. I mean, just what is interesting to me, though, is that this stuff wasn't happening when I was at Wharton or during that era, even at Stern probably, too. So it's just nice to see that students are increasingly aware and taking steps. But yeah, good article. Read it on the site. The only other thing I wanted to mention is we aired a special edition, or just a one off edition of the podcast where I interviewed J. R. McGrath, who's the executive director of master's admissions at Tepper. And it was actually an episode where we just had him on the show because he's been in this industry for like 20 plus years. And we just talked about different kind of MBA course offerings. So Tepper is well positioned because they have a whole bunch of hybrid executive, traditional, accelerated, all these different. So we talked through kind of the different types of mbas that one could pursue and how you might go about making that decision. So not just for Tepper kind of fans, it's really a general podcast for people who are thinking about what type of MBA they want to pursue. So you can tune into that. It's where it should be in the feed where you're listening to this episode right now. Other than that, Alex, we haven't had any reviews in a while, so I'm going to just make a little plug. If people have a chance over on Apple, leave us a review. We love to see those. You can also write to us at info@clearadmit.com use the subject line wiretaps and we'll share any words that you share, either on this show or also with our team, just to help keep everybody motivated as we continue to record these week in and week out. But Alex, that's all I got. Shall we get into our candidates for this week?
• 19:06
  Speaker B: Let's kick on.
• 19:07
  Speaker A: All right, so this is wiretaps candidate number one. Our first candidate this week has six schools on the target list, and they're looking to start business school in the fall of 25. This person's been working in the military, so they're in the Navy. And after business school, they're thinking about technology, jobs, and in particular, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft. So a lot of the usual suspects there. This candidate has a 320 on the GRe, I should note. They've taken that test twice, and they're thinking about whether or not they need to take it a third time. They actually asked us about that, which we'll get into. They have a 3.64 gpa, five years of work experience located in the Bay area. And Alex, before we get into discussing this candidacy, I did want to mention that they wrote in their notes, they said, hey, alex and Graham, huge fan of the podcast. I listen every day during my commute. Thanks for all the valuable insights you share, I'd love to get your thoughts on my profile. And they did share some additional things, like the fact that they're a first generation college student, they're an underrepresented minority. They actually almost failed out of high school for a number of reasons. So they ended up doing a kind of community college that then morphed over into a public state school to finish their undergraduate degree. They actually are currently about to start an MS in computer science. That's kind of an online course that they're doing via University of Pennsylvania. So lots going on there. And again, as I said, five years of experience as a naval officer, currently working at a nuclear power school as an instructor. So, yeah, I'll just stop there because there's a lot more that we could get into. But what do you think are the key considerations here? And what about this gre? Because they were asking about that.
• 20:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, obviously the fact that they're a first generation candidate, underrepresented minority, but more so, this notion of first generation struggled in high school, that certainly can be sort of as a result of the environment, the support structures that they're around and so on and so forth. They didn't recognize, obviously, the value of education at the time. And they fully admit that as a result of that, they went to, like you say, a community college. And that's where they seem to turn things around pretty impressively, I would say. Right. They got a three six GPA added, getting an associate's degree, moved on to a bachelor's degree at a public state school at a three six four in chemical engineering. Graham? As you know, I'm a huge admirer of folks that go off and do those types of degrees.
• 21:51
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 21:51
  Speaker B: So absolutely fantastic sort of turnaround, I would say. Right. Which, again, I think ADcOm really admire subsequent to that five years as a naval officer, currently instructing in the nuclear power area and so forth. So I would assume as an instructor in such a sensitive area and so on and so forth, this experience is going to play very well, or quite well in admissions and so forth. So that looks really good, too. They have just started an MS, an online MS in computer science. So we had a little bit of back and forth about that because I just wanted to make it clear they're still in the navy. They're doing that, and they're sort of doing that to sort of prepare themselves for this transition as more of a tech career post to MBA.
• 22:52
  Speaker A: Right.
• 22:52
  Speaker B: Although I think nuclear must be pretty tech focused and so forth. I think that they can show that they have the self awareness to add to that preparation. That's very good. Lots of other things that I like about this candidate, Graham. This 320 in the GRE is definitely probably their weakest spot. And as you articulated in the real numbers series that we've run, the very top schools are looking for 330s, right. In terms of their medians or mid 320s. So I would argue that. I know they've taken it twice, they're planning to take it a third time. Any additional point they can get over that 320 will be helpful because they are targeting the very top schools, and this is the weakest area of their profile, or at least it appears to be. Whatever they can do, if they can nodge it up to 323, 324, whatever it might be, I think that'd be really helpful. And I think, again, this is a sort of candidate that ADCOM would root for. Right. They can see that this candidate's taken big strides and really moved forward. I think overall they've got a lot of the right ingredient, and if they could bump up the gre a little bit more, it will have impact.
• 24:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't know that I mentioned the school targets at the beginning, but it's Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton, so it's a top list. Right. And so that's why we're pushing them on the test. I agree. The other thing.
• 24:40
  Speaker B: No Sloan there. Graham? That's a bit surprising.
• 24:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, Sloan's not there. The other thing that's interesting is that while Harvard and Stanford will be need based, the other schools are really merit based when it comes to scholarship dollars. And that's where getting a higher GRE score may translate to direct dollars from some of these schools because it's merit based. So I think that one thing I did want to point out is that they mentioned. So they're basically training sailors to run nuclear reactors, presumably on subs or something. Right. And they said that the place where they're doing the training, where they lead a team of instructors, they have 20 direct reports, is responsible for training about 900 sailors annually. They have a really interesting role and some serious leadership experience. So I just wanted to mention that to underline how strong the work experience is. And, yeah, you don't see this every day. And they do a bunch of extracurriculars. They're involved with big brothers and big sisters, and they do some consulting for nonprofits. So like you say, they have all the ingredients. I would just love for them to, if they can really buckle down get a tutor, whatever you need to do. If they could add like five points to that score, they may see some serious dollars and great results with their applications.
• 26:00
  Speaker B: Yeah, couldn't agree more.
• 26:01
  Speaker A: All right, so I want to thank.
• 26:02
  Speaker B: Them and look at Sloan.
• 26:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, maybe add Sloan. I want to thank them for the kind words about the podcast. Luckily, there are a lot of back episodes, so they can go back and listen as they're driving every day. Let's move on, though, and talk about wiretapped candidate number two. So our second candidate this week is also targeting the fall of 25. This person has nine schools on the target list, and they are Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Emory, Kellogg, NYU, Rice, UT Austin and Uva Darden. This person's been working pre MBA at Ernst and young Parthenon. So in consulting, and they are going to stay in consulting. In fact, they're sponsored and they will be going directly back to Ernst Young Parthenon. They have a Gre score of 324. Their GPA is a whopping 3.9, and they have three years of work experience. They're currently out of Dallas. They would love to just go back to Dallas. In fact, they're going to have to, right, because they're sponsored. So they're targeting the Dallas area. They mentioned that they are a sponsored candidate, as I said, and that they're kind of focusing more on one year programs where possible. And so that means that on that list I just said you've got Kellogg, Emory, Cornell and NYU that do offer kind of accelerated programs. So I just put that out there. They mentioned that. It seems to be a preference. And Alex, why don't you take over here and tell me, because you had a back and forth with them. You were kind of pushing them on this a little bit and trying to get more details. So what's the skinny here?
• 27:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, obviously they're sponsored by their firm, so that says something about their work output. And I assume they're doing well at Ernst and young Parthenon. They got a three nine GPA. So they obviously perform very well academically over a four year period. I always think a really high GPA is super impressive. It shows commitment over a strong period of time. So for one, I'm a little suspicious about their GRE at 324, whether they took the GRE after they learned that they could get sponsorship and whether they put all their effort into getting their very, very best score. I mean, maybe they did, right, but 324 is certainly within range. Even though some of the very top programs, it might be below the median. They're three years of work experience and they want to do this sort of one year option in preference because of the opportunity costs associated with an additional year out of mean. As you know, Graham, as you spent two years at Wharton, there is a difference between the overall experience of a one year MBA and a two year, I think. And, you know, they are qualitatively sort of a very different experience. So just making sure that they have thought that through in detail and recognized that, yes, one year is their best outcome. I just wonder if they should take a punt on a couple more M seven programs. And as we talked before we came on the show, Graham, what if they got an admit at, you know, maybe even Harvard or Stanford? Is the one year still their best option versus something that could be life changing and so on and so forth? I know you would say when you were at Wharton, there were plenty of folks there that were sponsored, some of whom then would give up the sponsorship and go off in a different direction. Right. So just making sure that they've really thought this all through effectively, I think is important. The schools that they're targeting, I think they probably do have certainly the basic metrics to perform well, obviously Kellogg's would be at the higher end in the highest tier, so that's not a given. But I'm just a bit more curious whether the one year is definitely their best option.
• 30:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with you. And I'm thinking of, there was a friend of mine at Wharton who was sponsored by a non MBB firm, just like this person is here. And she was doing really well at Wharton and decided that, by the way, the sponsoring firm allowed you to go intern wherever the heck you wanted over the summer. It didn't matter. And so she ended up interning with, I think, Bain or something and then went to, you know, I was like, wow, you're going to give away all this money that your firm was going to sponsor you on? And she's like, oh, Bain agreed to pick up the tab. These negotiations happen. It's not uncommon. When I look at this person's profile and I say, wow, three nine GPA, a few years experience at a top, a decent consulting firm, obviously Gre score is maybe a couple of points lower than you'd want, but it's pretty good. And so, yeah, I was like, wow, are they leaving something on the table? And I also think one thing that's fascinating to me is you rarely see a sponsored candidate who's worried about opportunity costs because the firm is going to pay. And so this idea that they have to do in one year versus two. It is a little puzzling to me. I get that it means they'll have one year less of salary if they go for two years. But again, the firm is picking up the tab on the business school. So, yeah, I would have looked at some additional schools. And I also think the point you make is really important that a one year program is really different. You don't forge the same kind of connections and there's less elective coursework. It's just a really different experience. And you only get to do this once. I presume this person is pretty young. They only have three years of experience. And so, yeah, I'm sort of wondering, like, what's the rush?
• 32:12
  Speaker B: And that's the other thing. The other thing is they are at the younger end of the spectrum. Right. If they'd had seven or eight or nine years of experience, you could have an argument that maybe they're in a bit of a hurry to get back out post MBA.
• 32:26
  Speaker A: Right, exactly.
• 32:27
  Speaker B: But that's not the case. Should they look at a couple of european schools if they stick to this one year?
• 32:32
  Speaker A: I mean, I guess it thought, yeah.
• 32:34
  Speaker B: It'S interesting with the idea that they've got the guarantee to come back to the US. Right. So that could be an interesting.
• 32:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, obviously they'd have to make sure that Ernst Young Parthenon will sponsor any program. I presume they would sponsor an LBS or an INSEAD. Obviously being short is another option. I guess the question I would have for this person is where do they want to be in the very long term? Like what's their career plan? Because the short term is all kind of buttoned up. Right. They're going to go back to Dallas, work in consulting. But where do they want to be in ten years? And that would help me to help them think about school selection. But, yeah, I want to make sure they're not leaving anything on the table. And I do worry a little bit about this focus on just the one year kind of stuff. So hopefully they'll take that to heart. And, yeah, if they think they could eke out a few more points on the gre, why not? It could help. Especially if they take the strategy of going after some very top programs and not just looking at the kind of one year type stuff.
• 33:29
  Speaker B: Yeah. All right, very good.
• 33:30
  Speaker A: So I want to thank them for their post. We've got one more candidate. So let's talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So as we've been doing for, it seems like the last couple of months. Now we're going to talk about a decision wire entry. This is a candidate who applied to Berkeley, Duke, Harvard, Michigan, MIT, and Marshall. And the results are in. They ran the table with the exception of Harvard, where they did not get an offer, but they got in at Berkeley with $100,000 scholarship. They were accepted to Fuqua over at Duke for 100,000 as well. Michigan. Ross came in with $150,000, MIT, Sloan $75,000, and Marshall also matching Michigan's $150,000. This person is starting school this fall. They had a 760 on the GMAT. They're located in Europe. They want to work in either consulting or tech after business school. And they mentioned in the notes that they're torn between Haas, which remember, is giving them 100,000, sloan at 75k, or Ross one hundred and fifty k. And they say they have a slight preference for West coast because the ideal post MBA goal is tech or maybe consulting. They're terrified of taking on debt as an international student given that the h one b visa is unpredictable, recruiting is way down, high interest rates. So they're wondering, should I just take the money at Ross and enjoy my time? So, Alex, what say you and the peanut gallery on our site? Because I saw there were a bunch of comments.
• 35:05
  Speaker B: I mean, I think they'd still enjoy their time at Hass. What was the other one? Sloan. Sloan. But yeah, there is pressure there, right? It is classic. You've got the highest tier program offering seventy five k, the next tier program offering one hundred k, and the next tier program offering 150k.
• 35:29
  Speaker A: Right.
• 35:32
  Speaker B: Things occur for a reason. It seems like the outcomes are very consistent with the tiers of each of these programs. So they're coming from Europe and looking to work in the United States for a period of time. So they've got to mitigate that sort of. And I would think that Sloan would give them the highest opportunity to secure the appropriate employment. Sloan then hass, then Ross in terms of tiers, but they want to be in on the west coast ideally, or they say a slight preference fall. So that would elevate hass a little bit more because obviously they're right there. And you could do a lot of networking in person, networking during semesters and so on and so forth. I think that's a real advantage of being in the location that you want to be in post MBA. So that would maybe give hassle a little bit of leverage. But yeah, Ross at almost a free ride or a free ride, whatever that 150 really represents. We know by necessity Ross does a good job of placing people all throughout the United States. So there will be an alumni network for Ross in northern California. So they really want to scrutinize how well does Ross do? Because I would assume this candidate would be one of the top candidates at Ross. Right. There might be some advantage to that, too. So how does Ross place people in tech in northern California versus obviously has. And how does Sloan do it? Because they're coming from the east coast. Sloan would obviously offer them more of an opportunity. If East coast became more appealing, Sloan would be very, very good for that. Returning back to Europe, Sloan, MIT, the brand, the networks has got to be stronger. So thinking more long term, Sloan, I guess I could keep waffling on Graham. All three are really interesting options. I don't think there's an easy solution to this candidate's dilemma.
• 38:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's tricky. I mean, as you say, textbooked in terms of how the money is shaking out. The things that I'm thinking about though, is they may end up in Europe in the long term. Obviously they're going to try and get an h one b. If any of these programs are steM, I believe Haas and Sloan both are stem. I'm not sure about Ross. Maybe they are too. But if they get stem, then they have three years to work in the States and three tries to get that h one b, which then the Ods go up quite a bit. But I was just thinking about in Europe, both Berkeley and MIT have pretty big brands, I would say know with a lead there, particularly in the domain of technology. And yeah, I do think that MIT Sloan offer is quite also, I know they want to be on the west coast, but I'm just thinking about the beauty of MIT being on the east coast is that it does have closer access to Europe. And so in the longer run, their network will be more kind of in between the polls that if they're in Europe, if they're in the US, at least Sloan is kind of on the east coast. It's going to give them more access. So I did look at the numbers. MIT sends 24% into tech and 34% into consulting. They also send about a quarter of their class to the west coast. Haas, obviously, it's like 30% to tech, so a little bit more, but 28% to consulting, so a little bit less on the consulting side. And obviously when it comes to West coast placements, Haas is sending 75% of their graduates to the west coast to work. Right. They're staying out there and working. I mean, another thing to think about is one school's private, one school's public. I don't know if the person cares about that but makes for different things. I mean, Berkeley is part of a very large university of California kind of network. MIT is a private institution in Boston. So just things to think about but no one could kind of fault them. I will say that I do think the offers from Sloan and Haas are pretty darn compelling and I know that Ross is giving the most money but yeah, this is a tough call. I don't envy this person. Champagne problems, but it's not an easy call.
• 40:11
  Speaker B: I think we go for Sloan.
• 40:14
  Speaker A: All right, so that's going to put a wrap on this episode. Alex, you picked out three amazing candidates as always. I think some good lessons for our listeners who are tuning in and yeah, we'll do it in one week's time and appreciate you choosing these, Alex.
• 40:27
  Speaker B: Very good. Take care, everyone. Stay safe.