Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 424—First Gen, Civil Engineer. 337 GRE, 2.99 GPA. Johnson vs Darden.

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MBA Wire Taps 424—First Gen, Civil Engineer. 337 GRE, 2.99 GPA. Johnson vs Darden. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:16
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, May 12, 2025. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. And Alex, how are things going this week?
• 0:29
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 0:30
  Speaker A: So again, as a reminder, you're a former admissions officer from the Wharton School, current Clear Admit community manager and podcaster, and you also, so far as I know, continue to teach digital marketing at Columbia Business School and London Business School, which I'm grateful for because you just gave me some good insights on some digital marketing stuff that we were talking about before we came on air. And also as a reminder, I'm the co founder of Clear Admit, worked in admissions at Wharton where I met you, you, Alex, for the first time. And I have an MBA from Wharton as well. But what's going on in the NBA world this week? Anything exciting to report?
• 1:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we're sort of getting now toward the end of the sort of round three cycle, so some decision deadlines last week and this upcoming week we've got Wharton Kellogg, McDonough, ISC Sloan, Yale Carlson, Columbia Foster Anderson and Washington Olin amongst the top schools releasing round three decisions. So activity is kicking on.
• 1:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm impressed. These schools are really busy and they're still going to be coming to hang out with us in Boston. So I guess because we have a bunch of stuff going on, but let's actually get into that. So this week on Wednesday night, we're doing our MBA fair. It's an annual event in person being hosted this year by MIT Sloan in their beautiful, relatively new MBA facility. I'm so grateful to them for hosting this event. We're going to have panels. I've been working on the questions because I'm emceeing all these panels that we're going to do about, you know, just about the MBA degree, a whole bunch of sessions on admissions tips. We're doing a thing about financing the degree and as well as a panel on consulting careers with the head of HR from Bain. So should be a lot of fun. Great opportunity to network. As far as I know, schools are bringing alumni. So yeah, I'm really excited about this. We only do it once a year, but it's so great to have. You know, I think it's 25 schools joining us this year and it's, it's all the best schools in the US plus LBs as well. So it should be fun.
• 2:25
  Speaker B: No, absolutely. Fantastic. I've said this on a number of occasions. The fact that we can get all these top programs in one room together at this time of the season to kick off the sort of next cycle is really testament to what Clear Admit's done over the last several years.
• 2:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. And if you can't make it, I mean, obviously if you're in the Boston area or even within a train ride, come up and join us. You can sign up at bit ly mbafair2025. But if you can't make it later in the month, on May 20th and 21st, we're going to sit down with Berkeley, Georgia Tech, UNC, UVA, Foster, Columbia, Stanford, Wharton, UT, Austin, and Yale over the course of a couple of events. You can sign up for those virtual events at Bit Ly AppOverview25. We did a couple of those virtual events last week, and just lots of fun. And as you say, this is like the beginning of the next cycle. So it's really exciting to start to see some new prospects and people getting ready to apply. So, yeah, this is really fun now.
• 3:28
  Speaker B: Brilliant. And full disclosure, you've now completed one of those events. The next ones tonight. Yeah, because we're recording this obviously earlier in the week.
• 3:36
  Speaker A: That's correct.
• 3:36
  Speaker B: But give me a, Give me a nugget. Something that you learned last night through hosting this event, Graham.
• 3:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, so something that I was kind of interested in. So we talked. One of the questions in the event for the panelists was about, you know, GMAT or gre, like, which test should you take? And the answer was, you know, oh, take, you know, take whichever one you want. But the other thing that came out, and I, you know, I would like to take credit for this, but I didn't prompt it. But the other thing that came out was a discussion around waivers, and schools were saying, hey, keep in mind that if you try to waive the test, which not all the schools on the panel I was seeing allow for waivers, but those that do were saying things like, look, we offer it, but keep in mind you're depriving us of an additional data point if you don't take the test. So be careful about going through that process. And in many instances, they also point out there are other hoops to jump through if you do get a waiver, you got to show us your quantitative transcript scores and things like that. So, yeah, just be aware that for most candidates, like, taking one of these tests is probably the way to go.
• 4:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Great advice.
• 4:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. So anybody else? It's been a lot of fun. The other thing is we've got a new initiative which, Alex, once again, like another interesting idea. But this, this was your idea, if memory serves. Right. So we're. We really want to hear from people who applied this past year and got into school, and we want them to post a Decision Wire. And so we've set up a kind of incentive where for every post that we get on Decision Wire, we're going to give $10 to the Forte foundation, which is a foundation that promotes women in management education. So that's a new thing that's happening. We love those Decision Wire entries because I think they really help the community to understand, like, you know, how someone's journey turned out. Like, where did you apply, where'd you get in, what kind of scholarship you might have received and where you're going. So, Alex, I want to just thank you for coming up with that idea. We are also giving every fifth entry an Amazon gift card as well. But I'm really excited about this support we're going to provide to Forte.
• 5:32
  Speaker B: I can't believe I had such a good idea.
• 5:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, you're like sort of, you know, the person who started Forte, Right. Or you have some kind of connection to them? No.
• 5:42
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I mean, Alyssa Sangster, I mean, obviously she was a colleague when I was working at Wharton. Yeah, I forget exactly which school she was at, but obviously, you know, we. We would be at various events.
• 5:57
  Speaker A: Right.
• 5:58
  Speaker B: Together. And then, yeah, I donated some money a year or two ago in memory of one of our other colleagues to the Forte, Laurie Stewart. And yeah, I just think it's a fantastic organization and its goals and mission is absolutely spot on.
• 6:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, totally. So if you haven't submitted a Decision Wire entry, if you're someone who applied this year, you already know where you're going, please go over to the site and do so. Otherwise, Alex, we've done some good content over on the website. Some new articles have come out, as always, and one of them is about what you can do with an mba. I think it's a great primer if you're someone who's new in the cycle, joining this podcast and going to be applying this summer. Read that article. It really outlines the different paths that are available to people. Go to business school. And as you'll quickly understand, there are a ton of paths open. But it's great to have a kind of roadmap. So we did that and we also, Elliot, on our team, continues to mine the career stats data from the class of 24 at all the top business schools. And we did an Interesting story about entrepreneurship and essentially I'll give you a quote from the article. It says while most MBA graduates pursue high paying corporate roles, a notable number launch entrepreneurial ventures immediately after graduation. Among top MBA programs such as Harvard Business School and Stanford gsb, entrepreneurship is the chosen career path for a significant portion of the class of 24. Those two schools really lead the way in this domain. So it's just interesting to see and there's all kinds of charts and breakdowns as to why that's the case.
• 7:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I've always said this, like if you want to be an entrepreneur, getting an MBA can be a really good pathway forward and it's really incumbent to get into the best MBA you possibly can because there's so many sort of potential resources, networks, various other things that are fundamental to being a successful entrepreneur. So it doesn't surprise me at all that the best MBA programs for entrepreneurship are the very best MBA program. So look at your MBA program ranking 123456. There'd be 123456 in terms of opportunities for entrepreneurship.
• 8:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, totally. So check out that post if you're interested in entrepreneurship. We also continue to catch up with recent MBA grads so alums who are out there in the workforce doing exciting things. And so I'll give you a couple for this week. We talked with Patrick who is an HEC Paris MBA grad. He graduated back in 23 and he started a search fund called Ankara Transmission and he's basically raised money to purchase a company. He's 32 years old, lives here in Paris, originally from Lebanon and you know, was a kind of a civil engineering major but you know, before business school and you know, he went to hec, he also had done a bunch of work in consulting so I guess he'd worked for PwC or something before HEC. And we asked him what's a piece of advice that you wish you'd been given during your mba? And he said, I had the opportunity to have an outstanding mentor who supported me throughout my whole MBA journey to get the best out of my time at HCC by regularly sharing his wisdom and advice. An MBA is explorative but requires intentionality to have a sense of direction and select activities accordingly. So I thought that was good, good advice and I think, you know, yeah, it's great to have mentors and many of these programs have like baked in opportunities for you to have a mentor, whether it's somebody in the careers office or a second year stud alumni, et cetera. But I think it's important advice that Patrick has given us here.
• 9:39
  Speaker B: No, absolutely. But I also like that focus on intentionality. I think that's really important.
• 9:45
  Speaker A: We also caught up with Rufus, who went to Washington Olin in St. Louis and is currently working as a senior financial analyst at Applied Materials, a semiconductor company. Rufus is 33, originally from Accra in Ghana and went to school in Ghana, studied electrical and electronic engineering before business school, and also had done four years of engineering work and a couple years in audit before attending Olin. And we asked Rufus what's one thing you would change or do differently as part of your job search? And Rufus said, not necessarily change, but I would have spent time getting another offer from another company to give me leverage in negotiating my offer with Applied Materials. I was very excited to secure the Applied Materials job early in my last semester. So I just ended my recruiting process and focused on enjoying my final semester at Washu. I don't regret that, but it would have been interesting to pursue another offer while still enjoying my final year. So that was kind of interesting advice, I guess, you know, maybe to up the salary or something. Right?
• 10:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'd not not heard that advice before and I. I think I would have gone the pathway that they went. Right. Get the offer and just enjoy the mba.
• 10:59
  Speaker A: Same. Totally. Yeah. And then the last candidate that we caught up with or alum that we caught up with is what's he. Her name is Envisha and she went to Ohio State University, Fisher, and is currently an assistant VP of Global Operations at Bank of America. And I believe it's like her. Her role is a rotational role, if I understand correctly. She's just 26 years old, hails from Columbus, Ohio, went to OSU for undergrad as well and did this special program that they have where kind of a deferred enrollment, basically, you know, she was accepted to F as a senior in undergrad and then went and worked for a couple years before coming back and now has completed the MBA and is already back in the. In the workforce at 26 years old. And we asked her what's a piece of advice you'd wish you'd been given during your mba? And she said to not treat the MBA as a transaction, but rather an investment in myself and my future. Many hesitate to apply to such programs due to the cost of attendance. Many applied just to get the diploma, the title boost and the paycheck increase, which as mentioned, was my initial driver as well, and or three letters on the end of their name. But once I started treating The MBA as an intrinsic and extrinsic journey. I created more value for me than just a post grad job, bigger paycheck and change in name. So I thought that was good advice in terms of just thinking big picture about the degree and not only kind of short term career goal, salary, title, et cetera.
• 12:32
  Speaker B: Yeah. And then ultimately making the most out of that two year MBA experience.
• 12:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So those are the kind of, you know, news and notes from the website. I will say as a little preview here, next week we're going to run, I think it'll be next week, a podcast, like a special podcast that I recorded with Christy Murray, who's the dean of Career services over at Georgetown McDonough. And it was a wide ranging discussion about, you know, the kind of recruitment process in these kind of top MBA programs and the job market. I mean, lots of different things we covered. And I thought she did a fantastic job and she was really just very eloquent. Lots of great advice. And I know most people tuning in are listening to figure out how to get into business school, but Christy gave some good advice about how to maximize your time in business school with respect to getting the job you want and stuff. So that's forthcoming. You'll be able to find it wherever you're listening to this episode. So stay tuned for that.
• 13:27
  Speaker B: Very good.
• 13:28
  Speaker A: I don't have anything else. Obviously it's been a while since we've had reviews or ratings. So if people can, you know, if you're listening to the show, please write a review, post it on. Apple has a great platform for reviewing the show. Spotify, you can rate the show. We appreciate all that stuff. And you can also just email us@infoearadmit.com use the subject line wiretaps and we will write you back. Alex, anything else before we dive into our candidates for this week?
• 13:53
  Speaker B: Let's kick on.
• 13:54
  Speaker A: All right, so this is wiretaps candidate number one. So our first candidate this week is looking to start business school in, it looks like the fall of 27, at least that's what they wrote here. And they've got six schools on the target list. Those schools are Duke, Georgia Tech, Michigan, mit, UNC and Vanderbilt. This candidate has been working in the renewable energy sector as an engineer and they're thinking about consulting after business school, although they also mentioned some other possible targets which I won't get into because it's kind of a long list. But I think consulting is the very near term goal. They had a 3, 5, 7, undergraduate GPA. They've got three years of work experience located in the Midwest of the United States and they want to stay there or potentially land on land on the east coast after business school. They note that they are a white male, 25 years old. They're American. They come from a low income state and a low income family. Their first generation, they got their bachelor's in civil engineering from an SEC state school, took the GRE during their junior year and scored a 317 without much studying and they're going to retake it before they apply to business school. They also mentioned that they started out as like a civil engineer doing kind of consulting and that they've kind of moved into this role as a sort of like power line engineer. And it seems like they've had quite a bit of leadership. They're sort of really helping to grow a firm and you know, they've got a really interesting background. They have like a side hustle helping tradesmen to get contracts with the government as opposed to just kind of small contracts with private citizens. And then, you know, they were pretty active in college socially in terms of, you know, they were in a fraternity, they were on some boards and things. It sounds like they're less active now but they do some Habitat for Humanity and work at the local animal shelter from time to time. But that's about, you know, the, the extent of their outside activities. Any event. Alex, they, you know, kind of wondering what we think of their profile and they also are wondering if we can help them to narrow their list of schools down because they have, you know, they actually mentioned some additional schools in the notes notes here too. So they're trying to think about where to apply and what our advice generally.
• 16:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I think there's quite a lot of potential here with this candidate, the gre. I would really study hard and make sure they optimize and maximize their GRE score and hope that comes in in the high 300 20s, I think, you know, they're an engineer, they got a very decent gpa. I think if they can back that up with a really strong GRE score with this type of work experience that they have, if they can really show impact and growth, which I think is quite evident in what they've described, they were active in college, that looked very good. I like the fact that they've come very far, I think, right. First generation, low income and so on and so forth. So the top MBA programs will respect that trajectory that they've been on, how far they've come, their lived experience and so forth. So I really think this candidate has quite a lot of upside and a lot of potential if they can really nail that GRE and frankly I think they could elevate some of their targeting top 16, 1 or 2 M7 and at least in the first round have a real good sort of go at some reach programs because there's potentially a lot of potential. Graham, is basically what I'm waffling on about.
• 17:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I could not agree more. I mean, I think one of the things that struck me about this candidate was they talked about their current job, right? So they basically, they've moved around a little bit and they've landed in this current role which is a company that built a solar farms, right. And they basically are creating a power line engineering department in this firm. They're the only engineer of their discipline in the firm and they, you know, they're creating standards, processes, reviewing stuff. I mean they are the technical expert for the company in this domain and they really, this has given them that sort of taste for management which is what's prompting, you know, the decision to apply to business school. And I don't know, just as I read that stuff, I was like, wow, this person is, you know, they've taken some jumps in terms of, you know, getting different into different roles and seems like there's good leadership happening here. And so, yeah, I agree. Get a really high score in the GRE and then tailor that target school list towards the top end because I think that they could be quite compelling, GPA strong. They had a lot of activities in college, they're doing some things currently. They have a clear set of goals, it seems. So I feel like a lot of potential, as you say. And it sounds like they're not applying right away so they have some time to get this all in order.
• 18:58
  Speaker B: They're stressing about recommendations. Graham, so how should they prepare select recommenders in their case?
• 19:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, ideally something from the current, current job especially given how impressive that sounds. But it's. Yeah, I think, you know, you always want to have, you know, people who know you really well and have worked closely with you and can sort of judge your leadership capacity, teamwork skills, et cetera. Was there something in the comments that I missed that was specific to this? Like are they worried that they won't be able to get a letter from their current employer or. It's not that, that.
• 19:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think it's about their current employer, but I think it's more their recommenders don't, you know, they don't have mba, so it's a little bit less familiar, the process.
• 19:44
  Speaker A: Right.
• 19:45
  Speaker B: So it's just really understanding the best way to prepare your recommenders, provide them the right resources and so on and so forth. I mean, I might be making all this up, maybe I just thought that they wrote this.
• 19:58
  Speaker A: No, but it's important advice anyway.
• 20:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's really important. And, you know, we, you know, Clarimit, we have the Admissions Academy videos on recommendations. There's probably two or three videos dedicated to that, as well as, obviously, some admissions tips dedicated to. Basically, there are two broad things to consider. One is how do you select the appropriate recommenders? And then secondly, how do you prepare them so that they can write a really supportive narrative for your candidacy? So make sure, certainly for this candidate, but for others to seek out that guidance on our site because it will prove really helpful.
• 20:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. And we even have a guide, a PDF guide that you can grab from our shop that's free if you're a registered user of the site. And you can download that on recommendations, too. I would say you're reminding me now, in one of the recent virtual webinars we did, the rep from the admissions officer from INSEAD went on about this and basically said, recs are really important. They show how good of a manager you are in terms of picking the right people and managing them through the process so that they submit their letters on time. But also she talked about, like, take your recommender out to lunch, sit down, make sure they understand how you're positioning yourself. And she even went so far as to say, ideally, the stories the recommender tell, compliment the stories you're telling. And it's not just the same stuff that you're thinking of the whole portfolio that you're putting together. And you might say to your recommender, hey, you should really talk about this, you know, in your letter. So, you know, she got quite granular. And a lot of that advice is in our guide and in our videos that we've recorded. So, yeah, really important advice. Don't sleep on the wrecks. It's not just a question of picking them out and then letting them, you know, just go to town. You've got to really guide them a bit.
• 21:48
  Speaker B: Yeah. Be proactive.
• 21:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, totally. So I want to thank that candidate for sharing their profile. Let's move on, though, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week is looking to start school in the fall of 26. They have eight schools on their target list, and those schools are Columbia, Harvard, mit, Kellogg, nyu, Stanford, Chicago and Yale. This person has been an engineer in their kind of pre MBA career. They're interested in consulting or although they're, they also mentioned tech and investment banking. It seems like they're a little all over the map. So they, they listed companies in all three of those domains. They have a 337 on the GRE which might be the highest score that I've ever seen and they have a 2.99 GPA, 9 years of work experience. This candidate is 33 years old, located in Canada. They would love to land in a major market either in Canada like Toronto or in the us. They mentioned New York, Chicago, Seattle. This is a Canadian citizen. They are first generation immigrant from Pakistan, first gen college grad as well. And they did mention that the latter portion of their undergraduate career they had a 3.5 GPA but the cumulative is a 299. They had some trouble in the first couple of years I think maybe health problems and just getting up to speed. So in terms of their background they have like nine years years of experience in municipal infrastructure and public sector engineering. They actually work for the city of Toronto and manage very large scale projects. They talk about, you know, doing some outside activities as well. They've got some certifications, you know the typical stuff that you would see, engineering, project management, Six Sigma kind of operations stuff. But in any event they, they, yeah, they've got a lot going on and I wanted to get your take on this candidate because on the one hand you see this off the charts GRE score, right, but a lower GPA of 2.99. I, you know this is in Canada and maybe the grading system's a bit harder but they did seem to admit that they, you know, kind of botched the first couple years and got better in the second half of their degree. So what do you make of this candidacy overall?
• 24:05
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean congratulations on that GRE score. That will really help. You know that does stand out to some degree. But I want to caution them a little bit in terms of don't just presume then that the ADCOM will discount the 299Gpa. So I think they certainly need to address the GPA in the optional essay. I mean keep it quite succinct but obviously highlight the progression from the first couple of years to the latter couple of years. Add the context surrounding the first couple of years. They need to reassure ADCOM that that first couple of years isn't going to repeat, obviously. But Certainly getting the 337 GRE can help them reinforce the case that obviously they're clearly very smart and so forth. Not that they need to tell ADCOM that that wouldn't come across very well. But anyway, hopefully that you get the point. The other thing that's a little bit of an outlier is our first candidate. I mean there's some similarities between these two candidates, right. Both engineers, sort of civil engineer type focus and so on and so forth. But first candidates earlier in their career and so forth on a positive trajectory. This candidates had significantly more experience, six more years of work experience at 33. And I'm just a little bit concerned that their goals are still a little bit fuzzy. I think if you a little bit further along at the longer end of the spectrum with work experience, there's more presumption that you really understand why MBA and the next step after the MBA and have a long term sort of idea of where you want to be in the longer term. So I would challenge this candidate to really, you know, over the next several months think long and hard about that long term goal so that they can sort of address that more succinctly in their, in their applications. It's very easy to use consulting as a short term goal. Anyone can, can do that. It's more of a generalist sort of target. But I'd really like to see a long term ambition here to really flesh that out. But yeah, I do think there's a lot of potential quality here. They've probably worked on some really big projects that they can really highlight showing their impact and growth, etc. Etc. Again over a longer period of time. So the bar will be a little bit higher in terms of what we expect to see in terms of that impact. But I got to imagine their work experience will be a key strength. Their GRE is obviously outstanding, but they've got to overcome these two areas and you might argue, and we talked about this before we came on air, Graham, that they want to see maybe look at one or two programs in the next tier down just to make sure that they get an MBA opportunity that they're seeking. So they want to identify a couple of safety schools because they certainly don't want to be reapplying in a subsequent year. Right. They're already nine years in post undergrad.
• 27:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's not. Yeah, So I would say, yeah, I totally agree. I mean my concerns with this candidate are a little bit older fuzzy goals and a low gpa. Right. And those. That does not spell kind of top 10 MBA for me. I mean, I think they can apply to some of those, but I think, as you say, casting a slightly wider net would behoove them, especially because they don't want to go through this process twice. On the other hand, yeah, amazing work experience with the city of Toronto, Stel, as you say. So, yeah, it's kind of a mixed bag. And I, I do, you know, I mentioned they have some outside activities, but it's not. There's not a lot. I mean, they basically. They play squash, they play golf. You know, they're not. They write. You know, they're interested in bike riding and stuff. But I think they do a little bit of volunteer work, but it's. Yeah, so they have some work to do here. They need to definitely firm up the goals and. And, yeah, just go in eyes wide open with the fact that they're older and. And maybe a little overrepresented as an engineer. I mean, we see plenty of engineers applying to business school. So, yeah, it's. It's a mixed bag. Cast a slightly and, you know, figure out those goals and they should be in better shape.
• 28:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 28:45
  Speaker A: All right. I want to thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate for this week comes from a decision wire entry. And I'll give you the facts and figures on this candidate. They applied to Chicago, Booth, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Tuck Fuqua, Emory, Michigan, Kellogg, unc, uva, and Yale. I don't know how they managed to apply to all those schools, but in the end, they ended up with a handful of offers. They got into Carnegie mellon with an $80,000 scholarship. They also got into Cornell, again with 80 grand as their scholarship. Same thing with Michigan. Ross. They also got into UNC, no scholarship, and to UVA with an $84,000 scholarship. They are currently on the wait list at Duke, and they're trying to start school this fall. They want to work in investment banking, and they mention a handful of companies they're targeting, but it's the usual suspects. Bank of America, Barclays, JP Morgan, RBC, etc. GRE was a 320 and the GPA was a 3.21. They're located in Florida, and they do mention that the Darden acceptance was off the wait list, and they still got money even coming in off the wait list there. They're very happy that they have these different options. They are certain on banking. They don't want to do consulting, and they've put down a deposit. It sounds like at Ross and I Guess they did. Cornell has a multi tiered deposit system, I guess. So they gave some money to Cornell as well. So they're kind of locking in some different spots for now. And they're trying to also negotiate a bit now that they have some. Some money from Darden that's a little bit higher than the money they got at Ross and Cornell. In any event, the last thing that they shared is that they prefer the Duke area longer term. So that Research Triangle area down North Carolina. They do note that Cornell crushes New York investment banking, but they're wondering if they could get the same outcome from the other schools on the list. So what do you make of this? This is an interesting quandary.
• 30:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think if they want to go in the short term into New York, which is probably the. The it's the biggest market for investment banking, etc. Etc. Then I think Cornell, that sort of elevates Cornell against its peers for sure. This notion that they want to be in Raleigh, I assume they can do investment banking in Raleigh, but Charlotte. Yeah, yeah, in Charlotte. So. So that would obviously elevate Duke, but they don't have an offer yet from Duke. So all these programs are effectively in the same tier. I think, quite frankly, Graham, I just think Cornell's the right option in terms of any other discipline. I wouldn't be highlighting Cornell, but investment banking is right in its wheelhouse and it's got that pipeline into New York City. Even if they want to work in the Research Triangle in the longer term, getting that experience in New York City is. For an investment banker is probably really, really good.
• 31:56
  Speaker A: Right.
• 31:57
  Speaker B: So, yeah, I mean, I would go Johnson, but the. These programs are effectively in the same tier. So.
• 32:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's tricky. I mean, I think, you know, so UNC is in the Research Triangle, but they didn't get any money from UNC. So I. You can't walk away from $80,000 at Cornell, Michigan or D. In favor of UNC, even though the location might be great for where they want to be. I do think that. I was thinking about this and you could say, well, they want to be in the Southeast, while Darden is closer to the Southeast and maybe has a better network. But as you point out, Cornell has a better placement into investment banking, particularly in New York. And I would argue what's interesting about Cornell is that there's probably a very large alumni base and even more broadly, you're tapping into that sort of Ivy League network which may have a very broad base across places like Charlotte. Or the Research Triangle area, et cetera. So, yeah, I tend to agree with you. I think, you know, if they want to work in investment banking, Cornell is a really good place for that and they're getting good money. It's a great school. But that's not to say that Michigan and Darden are, or even Tepper are, you know, bad programs. I mean, these are all really good programs. I just think in the case of this person, given their goals for now, Johnson feels like the best choice. If Duke comes around with a waitlist offer, then, you know, maybe they come up on the list. Right. But, you know, even so, are they going to get $80,000 from Duke when they get off the waitlist? That feels unlikely to me.
• 33:22
  Speaker B: So, yeah, it's, yeah, it's tricky question for you, Graham.
• 33:26
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 33:27
  Speaker B: Last, last week we were debating between Haas and Booth for tech and sort of west coast placement. Right?
• 33:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:38
  Speaker B: What, what was the answer? Well, then they, they revealed to me where they're going.
• 33:43
  Speaker A: Oh, they did? Oh, I don't know. I, I, I mean, I remember we were kind of, kind of advocating. Well, yeah, we, I mean, we didn't really land anywhere. Right. We were kind of going back and forth, but yeah, but what, what did they decide?
• 33:56
  Speaker B: Has.
• 33:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Interesting.
• 33:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:00
  Speaker A: I mean, I think I understand that. I mean, you know, as we say, we ran that regional placements post on the site. I mean, region matters, right? So, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is interesting.
• 34:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, region matters. And, and like you say, having those opportunities in semester, I think that's probably what tips in favor of HASS for those go especially. I mean, we don't know this, but if this person is sort of pivoting into tech, for sure, yeah, that probably makes Hass a bit more appealing in that case. But yeah, no, they responded again to their decision while I post, so I thought I share.
• 34:35
  Speaker A: Did they listen to our advice? So they probably ignored our advice and made the decision on their own?
• 34:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, probably.
• 34:40
  Speaker A: All right, cool. Well, in any event, yeah, I want to thank this person this week for sharing their dilemma and congratulate them. And these are some pretty stunning offers, and it's not like their stats were jumping off the page. So I'm, I'm impressed. Impressed with what they landed with. And so they're going to be great whether they go to, you know, Johnson, Darden, Michigan. These are all really good programs, so best of luck to them, Alex. Next week we'll record. We'll have to figure it out. I'm going to be in Boston. We have our big fair, as you know, but hopefully. Yeah. I'll catch up with you while I'm in Boston, and we'll get next week's episode recorded. But I'm looking forward to it.
• 35:12
  Speaker B: Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care, Sam.