Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 456: Marine Corps to MBA. Egypt, via London. 10 years in HR.

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MBA Wire Taps 456: Marine Corps to MBA. Egypt, via London. 10 years in HR. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: This is Anne kilby at Georgetown McDonough and you're listening to Clear Admit's MBA podcast. Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is is your Wiretaps for Monday, November 17, 2025. Emory University's full time MBA powers growth in your career, your leadership and your future. Built on a foundation of cross functional problem solving, leadership development and career readiness, this top 20 MBA program delivers a high return on investment with top five career outcomes. Step into a global network that's connected by design and supportive by nature. It's Explore the Emory MBA at Emory Biz ClearAdmit. That's Emory Biz ClearAdmit. I'm joined as always by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
• 1:05
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 1:06
  Speaker A: So once again, big episode. We're going to dive into class profiles for Kellogg and Tuck that finally came out. We're going to discuss some pretty big news about an industry icon, Donna Clark over at Darden and then catch up with some real humans at Foster. And then you picked out three candidates, as always. So lots to tackle. What's going on though in this cycle? Has there been much happening on Livewire, some of those schools that maybe trickle out interview invitations finally getting around to sending them out?
• 1:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. We're seeing more interview invites as we will do over even over the next, you know, a couple more weeks at least before that piece of the process closes up. And then this upcoming week, just a couple of deadlines. Rotman has around two deadline and actually Georgia Tech Shell is going to release their round one decision. So there's still a lot of activity. But we are starting to get into a bit of a lull stage before all the round one decisions sort of come out in that first week of December, second week of December and so forth.
• 2:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, those are what we call decision weeks and it's going to be quite busy then in the meantime, everyone's kind of just lingering on Livewire waiting for news. But yeah, it's, you know, this is always a fun time of year and I'm hoping that those of you who are interviewing who've tuned in or, you know, having success in your interviews and that that's all going well. We're going to hang out on the 25th of this month. It's a Tuesday. We'll do a live stream on YouTube. You can come watch us post questions, get answers. We'll take any questions you have and you just have to subscribe to our YouTube channel if you want to Be kind of alerted when we go live. It's just bit le ca. YouTube live. Yeah, that's. Those are fun, Alex. This will be, I think, our third one and we've had a nice core group of folks joining us for those. And I think some of them listen to this show as well because they just can't get enough of us. But it's been, it's been, it's been a lot of fun. So I'm looking forward to that. Otherwise, we do have some events coming up in December. On December 2nd and 3rd, we're going to connect with admissions directors from a handful of Masters in Management programs. So if you're interested in master's in management, which is typically an early career, either zero years of work experience or maybe one or two at most type programs, come and join us because that'll be really interesting. We've got, you know, Michigan, Chicago, Kellogg, NC at LBs, a bunch of great schools taking part and that you can just sign up@clearadmit.com events. You'll see the event listed there. We actually, on a related note, Alex, we published a set of admissions tips for Masters in Management applicants. And it was an interesting piece. I mean, you know, the way that we did it is Cole, who's been writing for the site, he, he actually connected with admissions deans and directors at a bunch of these Masters in Management programs. And so he kind of summed it up in like three things. He said, be intentional, know your why before you apply. That kind of rhymes. I liked that he said, explain the F why this school and why you. And then he said, be authentic, tell your story. Which we hear over and over again. So that's if you're interested in those kind of programs, come to the events. Read this admissions tip. There's some pretty good stuff in there.
• 4:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. And that applies to MBA admissions too, I would think.
• 4:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And speaking of that, we did publish a couple of other admissions tips. Like we did one about how do you define your post MBA career goals? It's a classic tip that's probably one of the pieces on our site that is read most frequently over the years and years that we've been running it out there. There's also a video, Alex, where you and I talk at length about this. And then we had one other admissions tip which is about how to address unemployment or gaps in employment. Feels timely for those of you who maybe are, you know, without work or, you know, we've been hearing a lot about layoffs and things. So this is a really good primer on how to handle that stuff in your application. And the good news is that this does not disqualify you from, like, having a strong application to business school. There are just certain things you need to do to kind of provide context.
• 5:14
  Speaker B: Yeah. And also, what are you doing during that sort of gap and unemployment? So if you're not working, what other activities are you undertaking? That can be quite revealing, I think, to add. Com.
• 5:27
  Speaker A: Yeah. So like, like wallowing in self pity, for example.
• 5:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. Not good.
• 5:31
  Speaker A: No, I'm just. Yeah. No, but you're right. The admissions team wants to know, like, what do you do, you know, how did you use that time, aside from looking for your next job? So good stuff there. I did want to. There are a couple of just sort of news items in our industry. You and I both know quite well. Donna Clark, she's the admissions dean at, you know, Dard. She had worked there, I think, for over 23 years, but she. Over the period, over a period of time, because she's kind of. She was there early in her career and then has come back in recent years. But in the interim, I think she did some work at unc. Kenan Flagler, she was also admissions director at Tuck over at Dartmouth. So this is someone in our industry who's like, I mean, you know, a veteran and she is stepping down. She's going to be moving on to kind of a, I think, some sort of strategy role for Darden working with the dean there. But she's no longer going to be, you know, the face of the admissions team. And so we wrote a little piece about her. And I just wanted to read a comment that I gave for the piece because Lauren on her team said, hey, we're doing this piece about Donna and like, inside Baseball Secret here. Don and I actually grew up in the same hometown, so we, we have this, like, weird connection to this little town. And so I was thinking about her and I gave this quote for the article, which Lauren on our team dropped into the piece. And I just said, if there was a hall of fame in the MBA admissions world, Donna Clark would be a first ballot unanimous selection. While I could go on about her incredible work at uva, UNC and Dartmouth, I think what stands out most to me is how wonderfully down to earth and approachable she has always remained. The admissions process can be very stressful for applicants, but leaders like Donna are a ray of sunshine in the proverbial storm of the application process. So. Yeah, so it's just. It's sad to see her, you know, leaving that role, but I know she's going to add value in the new role she's taking on and. Yeah, just such an amazing individual in our industry.
• 7:24
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. No, very good. I remember Dawna from my time when I was at Wharton, I think maybe even when I was at University of Delaware, but. Yeah, yeah. No, a terrific, terrific person.
• 7:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. She must be as old as you are.
• 7:39
  Speaker B: Well, I. Either that or she's figured out how to beat time. Yeah.
• 7:46
  Speaker A: The other thing we did on the site is we ran a piece about veteran, like for Veterans Day last week, we did this whole piece about how, like, what are the support systems out there for veterans, whether it's supporting them, applying to business school or having success in the program. And so there's just a whole really, really good piece that Peggy put together about admissions events, veterans clubs, financial aid, transitional programs to help you kind of make that leap. So it's a really good piece. If you are in the military thinking about an mba, this is kind of must read stuff. And we did that in honor of Veterans Day last week. So that was pretty cool.
• 8:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, ADCOM really respect veterans in the admissions process. I mean, obviously it's not guaranteed admissions, but this type of experience is, and especially on the leadership side can really help them stand out.
• 8:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that's actually a really good segue, Alex, because we, as part of our Real Human series, we connected with students at University of Washington Foster last week and we connected with this woman named Joelle. She is 29, from Olympia, Washington originally, and she was in the military before business school. She spent seven years as a logistics officer in the army and I guess she had studied. Where did she go? I'm trying to look for her university information. She went to Central Washington University and then, I guess then into the military afterwards. And so she gave us some great quotes because we asked a number of questions, as always. And one of the things we said is, what do you think is your most valuable or differentiated contribution to the class of 27 at Foster? And she says, I have unique experiences coming from the military. I spent the majority of my career serving in varying leadership roles ranging from 50 to 100 direct reports. And that taught me a lot about personal relationships and the importance empathetic leadership and the importance of empathetic leadership. And I believe that will help me to contribute as a team member to my cohort and leverage leadership skills to bring small teams together as well as. So that was pretty good. We also asked her for a fun fact about herself and this is kind of related. She said, I earned my private pilot, private pilot's license when I was 19 and I've jumped out of an airplane over 50 times. And then the last thing. Yeah, go ahead.
• 10:07
  Speaker B: And she made those choices every time.
• 10:09
  Speaker A: I guess so. And then last thing she said is we asked like, what's one thing you would change or do differently about the application process. And she said I would give myself more grace. Understand that this process is two way and that you have something to offer these MBA programs too. Don't let any hiccups or gaps in your resume make you second guess your credibility for getting into these programs. Prepare yourself and show your authentic self and it will all work out. So just really nice thoughts from Joelle who is currently at Foster and yeah, I thought it was a apropos candidate to select in light of last week's Veterans Day and stuff.
• 10:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, very good.
• 10:45
  Speaker A: Yeah. Last thing we're going to do before we talk about the candidates you've picked out is I mentioned at the top of the show, Kellogg and Tuck have come out with their class stats. So we'll start with Kellogg and I'm just gonna. These are the kind of class profile for the class of 27. As I mentioned last week, these are coming out much later this year. I'm not sure what's going on, but schools have been a bit more. Just taking more time to put them together, let's say. So catalog. They enrolled 534 students in the class of 27. That's a slight uptick from last year, but only by a few students. The class is 37% international, which is down a bit compared to the prior cycle. I think it was 40 last year. Kellogg didn't report the percentage of women this year, which I just don't. I mean, I guess they don't want any heat from the government or something. I don't know what's going on there, but did not share that percentage. And we know, you know, they're typically a school that has a pretty good, you know, upper 40% type range. So I don't know what' going on there. They did share academic metrics. You know, the class had an average GPA of 3.68, average GMAT of 733 on the old test and a 687 on the new. The GRE scores were pretty strong as well, 162 on both quant and verbal, you know, 5.1 years average work experience. So overall a slightly larger class at Kellogg with very stable academic stats and A small dip in international representation and no idea about the female representation. What do you think of this, Alex?
• 12:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, the stats look good. I mean, they're pretty standard, I think, for a school like Kellogg. Doesn't surprise me. They're not reporting female representation given the current climate in the United States, which is really a big shame, but, you know, let's not get political about that. But, yeah, no, I mean, everything. Yeah. Based. Based off of academic stats and so forth, it seems like, you know, the GRE is a little bit lower than the relative score compared to a 733. But that's quite typical of other programs, I think.
• 12:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, because.
• 12:52
  Speaker B: Right.
• 12:52
  Speaker A: We're talking about like a 324 combined score on the GRE, which. Yeah, that doesn't map to a 733, but the school's been doing this. Are a lot of the schools. There are a couple of exceptions. I've been doing this forever. For some reason. They. Yeah. Anyway, let's turn to Tuck. So at Dartmouth, tuck, the Class 27, includes 305 students. That's up a little bit as well. It was 296 last year, so just a handful more students. Women make up 45% of the class, which is a slight increase. International students represent 25%, which is down from 30% in the prior class. The average GPA is 3.6, average GMAT holding steady at 727. For candidates submitting the GRE, the average was 162 verbal, 160 quant. And notably, and this is kind of interesting, more than half of the class past submitted GRE scores this year, meaning that the GRE eclipsed the GMAT as the most common test in Tuck's incoming cohort. Students arrive with, you know, 5.75 years of work experience on average. So, you know, I would say overall, it looks like they, you know, modest increase in class size and gender diversity, a little bit of a drop in international representation and a continued shift towards GRE usage, which, frankly, I think we're seeing across the board. But any thoughts on Tuck from your side?
• 14:12
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that is an interesting statistic. Right. The 50% GRE test takers, which has to be a problem for GMAC. I'm sure it's something that they're stressing about, and especially if it's equivalent to other programs. And again, if more than 50% of the class are taking the GRE and the average is 322, that's just. That is lower than a 727 GMAT oh, by all. Yeah, so. So, yeah, I don't really know what to make of that, but, yeah, I would. I would like to have seen a. An average GRE to be in the mid-30020s high. 300 20s to be equivalent.
• 14:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. It's a. Yeah, it's a little bit of a back door, almost that.
• 15:03
  Speaker B: Well, it's become a front door. That's the point.
• 15:05
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 15:06
  Speaker B: We've talked about this notion that it's been a back door for several years, but if it's more than 50%, it's their front door. So that creates a bit of an issue. Not an issue. It's just interesting, I think.
• 15:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. One other thing I mentioned, and I think I wrote you a message about this, but I'm going to be this week in Madrid at the GMAC conference. So GMAC does like a European conference with all the European MBA programs and business schools and all the. The kind of GMAC staff. So I'll probably get more, you know, information at that event about how things are going. But, yeah, it seems like for some reason the gre.
• 15:43
  Speaker B: Well, we know. We know how things are going. The point is, how are they reacting?
• 15:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
• 15:47
  Speaker B: Things are not going well.
• 15:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. Let's see. So I think those are the kind of, you know, housekeeping items. We can start talking candidates. But I did want to remind everyone, you can always write to Alex and I by writing to infoearadmit.com just use the subject line. Wiretaps will write you back. But, Alex, anything else on your mind before we talk about the candidates you've picked out?
• 16:08
  Speaker B: Let's kick on.
• 16:09
  Speaker A: All right, so this is WireTaps Candidate number one. Our first candidate this week has just a few schools on the target list, and they are Chicago, Booth, MIT Sloan, and UPenn Wharton. This candidate is looking to start next fall. They are in the military. They're actually a logistics officer in the Marine Corps. So they may want to connect with our real humans. From Foster, who I think also was a logistics officer, but in the army, me. This person's got five years of work experience so far in the Marines. They are thinking about consulting after business school. They mentioned Bain or BCG. They've taken the GRE and they have a 326 on the test. Their GPA from undergrad was a 3.2. They're located in Southern California and they're thinking about trying to get themselves to either Chicago or New York after business school. And they mentioned, you know, they're trying to transition out of the military into consulting. They think that, you know, they mentioned that in addition to like leadership, which we talked about with military work, that their job has been pretty heavy in data analytics and they want to build on that skill set in an MBA program to help them, you know, maybe, you know, work at MBB and help organizations with sort of optimization. They talk about some of the skills that they have in that domain. Their undergrad was in industrial engineering from a top five engineering school in the U.S. but they had a three, two, which we'll talk about. And they are, they say, going to try to take the GRE again after a bit more study. As a reminder, they had that 326. They think they can maybe boost that and they say that they really love the analytics bent at places like Sloan and Booth and that Wharton as well. They feel Wharton might be out of reach because of their gpa. And so they're asking us, what do we think? Yeah, Alex, what do you make of this candidacy?
• 18:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think Wharton's out of reach. If they do some of the right things and those right things, I think retake the GRE to help compensate for the lower GPA. So if they come back with a 330 plus, that's going to be really helpful I think in that case and really sort of fine tune these longer term goals. I think if they sort of really think long and hard about. All right, where do they see themselves in 10 years post MBB, sort of analytics type work, whatever it is they want to do straight out of a top mba. I think having a longer term goal narrative to anchor everything through through will really help them in the admissions process. But you know, obviously I'm sort of presuming that their logistics, you know, their experience in the Marine Corps will help them stand out, provides a lot of leadership, exposure, etc. Etc. So if that assumption is correct and they come back with a stronger GRE score, Graham, I think they can be a competitive candidate at the very top program. They might want to think about a couple of others in the next tier like Yale and Tuck and so forth. But I would, I, you know, if they're targeting round two, you know, you've got Booth and Sloan, Wharton, Yale, Tock. I think that's, that's a good set of schools to target.
• 19:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, so I totally agree. Like, I think if they can take the test again and boost that score, it'll go a long way to washing away the concerns.
• 19:51
  Speaker B: I mean, I mean, look, look how much higher it would be than Top's current average, right. 322 that we were just talking about.
• 19:59
  Speaker A: So I think yeah, retaking the test, getting up into 330 zone will probably you know, quiet concerns about the 3 2. Remember that 3.2 is in industrial engineering. This is a military candidate which they didn't get into a lot of the details but remember the woman who's at Foster who had a similar role, logistics officer over in, in the army talked about like leading teams of 50 to 1 people. So I'm hoping that this person has some, you know, leadership chops that will help boost their candidacy. I like the goals. I agree they need to find fine tune the kind of long term, the short term goals make a ton of sense. We see lots of military candidates pivoting out of you know, the kind of public service that they're doing and into the private sector via consulting. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So yeah, I, I like this candidate. I wish them the best of luck as they try to take the test again and yeah, refine those goals and I think they'll be in pretty good shape and they should do some of the things that we mentioned in our article about military candidates. You know, connect with current students, all the stuff the veterans clubs, et cetera. So yeah, but I want to thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on and talk about WireTaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate has just one school on the target list and in fact you know the first person had just three. So this is a very slim week in terms of like the number of schools. This person is looking only at Chicago Booth or that's what they mention here. They're going to start school in the fall of 26. So they're applying now. They are a project package lead in their current role but they're, I'm not really sure like what that entails. We'll find out more in a moment I think but they're looking to get into either consulting or banking and so they list a bunch of banks in the potential target for firms and, and I, you know, I guess some consulting firms too but I don't see them here. So GRE is a 320 GPA from undergrad is a 3.87. They have six and a half years of work experience and they're located in the UK. They're hoping to land in the States afterwards and they mentioned that they've had six plus years of work experience in the UK energy industry. It'll be seven by the time they get to business school. And you know, they have had different roles, but, you know, from one of the roles that is a digital digitalization consultant. They also were recently promoted into this role that I mentioned earlier, package manager. I'm not really sure what that is, but I guess maybe you have to be an industry, energy industry person to know. They are, I think, from Egypt. I mean, they had their. They were educated in Cairo, Egypt. They don't explicitly state where they're from, but they did earn a BSc in mechanical engineering. That's that 3.87 GPA. The Jerry is a 320, 166 quant, 154 verbal. Some extracurriculars that they mentioned, mostly as an undergrad. They were head of the student public, Student union, Public services committee. They also were a professional football player until they were 20 when they stopped due to university commitments. They did serve as a college football team captain. And when I say football for the Americans in the audience, I mean soccer for everyone else. You know what I'm talking about. They have worked as a community volunteer, a peer coach, and they basically asked you this question, Alex, which they say they think their profile is okay, but the GRE verbal is well below Booth's average. And they're thinking that since Round two is approaching, they're debating whether to apply with the current score or retake the gre. And they're wondering what we think about their chances based on that. And they're also wondering if we have any other schools that we might recommend based on their profile.
• 23:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I. I think if they can retake the GRE in time for Round two, I mean, we still got, you know, some time for them to do that, then that makes most sense. Right. If they think that that 320 and that lower verbal score doesn't fully represent who they are and they can come back with a 3:25 and get that verbal up into the 160s or whatever it might be, then absolutely they should think about doing that. Now, if they're like, well, you know what? I can't retake the GRE in time for the Round two deadlines, but I can take it later in January, then that might still be a possibility too. Right. Because they already have a GRE score, so they already have the requisite requirements for a complete application, so they could use the optional essay if they did have a GRE scheduled sort of mid, late January or something for some of the programs that they're targeting. But I do think that coming back with a stronger GRE score is going to be super helpful. If it delays them for targeting round three then that's a little bit of a different conversation because I'm not a huge fan of round three, period. And they'd have to really show that they fill a really sort of a niche in a class profile or something to stand out in round three which maybe they can do that but I think it just becomes more challenging. So yeah, I would really look to have some intention of retaking this GRE and maybe they've taken the TOEFL or whatever it is other language test to prove that. But this GRE is a bit troublesome for me. And then the goals again. Goals are super important. We've got an admissions tip that we talk about publishing goals for this week. We talked about our prior candidate firming up their long term goals. I want to really them to think long and hard about that short term goal. Is it banking or is it consulting? Because they've listed both and I'm assuming it's actually investment banking. And then what's the to plan 10 years out and then anchor their narrative around that. I think that's really important. This candidate may have some really strong experience, Graham, and they have a super gpa so there's some ingredient here that's really interesting and obviously the fact that they were a football player is good for me, et cetera, et cetera. So there's ingredient here. I think they just got to put a bit more work into it.
• 26:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, I could not agree more. I mean I feel like, you know, on the one hand I'm like wow, they're from Egypt, they have an amazing undergraduate GPA and in a pretty difficult subject and they've worked in the UK for six years and it sounds like all in the energy industry. So they have this kind of nice niche background. But like you were saying, the goals is sort of, you know, they said oh, consulting or banking, then they listed a bunch of banks. I'm like well can they. And I feel like we talked about this last week with the candidate where it's like, oh maybe they want to go do investment banking and work on deals in the energy sector. You know, is there some way to kind of give their candidacy more to type play on the past experiences and allow them to stand out as a result. I could not agree more though that they need to retake the gre. I feel like they have time like you're saying go take it and get these apps in. And as far as schools I'm a little bit at a loss because I Don't know, you know, what kind of banking they want to do or, you know, like is it, do they want to focus on a certain type of deal that would be, you know, specific to a certain market. But if we're just talking about an investment banking, obviously Chicago booth is not a bad place. That's the one they have on the list. But they could add to that with a Stern or a Columbia or Wharton Johnson, Cornell Johnson. Yeah, so there are a number of schools that can get you there if that's what they want to do. But I like this cat, like I like, you know, this good extracurriculars as an undergrad. They seem like an interesting person. I mean, professional football player for a time. So there's a lot to like. I just. Yeah, the test right now is kind of holding them back and the goals are too fuzzy.
• 27:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:50
  Speaker A: I want to thank them for submitting. Hopefully this has helpful as they kind of work towards those round two deadlines. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate this week has the most schools on their target list of any of them that we talked about. This Four schools still very slim. Berkeley, Duke, Georgetown and Kellogg. It's funny because some weeks actually have people with like 15 schools on their list. All right, so they want us to start school also next fall. This person is an HR professional and they're thinking about nonprofit or kind of social impact. After business school they list their GPA as a 3.0. I have a feeling that that's been converted from something. They indicate they're located in India, in New Delhi. So I have a feeling that's probably a converted gpa. It'd be good to know what the kind of original number was. This person has 10 years of experience, so a lot more experience than what we typically would see. They want to get into non profit, as I said, and they indicate that they have a strong desire to work in a nonprofit organization. Based on this, they've shortlisted a few universities and they say the course curriculum of those universities aligns with my post MBA goals. And you did ask them, hey, are you taking a test? Because there was no test score and you know, you also asked about hobbies and they said I'm going to take the GMAT by the end of November. And you know, they also said that they're planning on enrolling in MBA math as a kind of primer to get ready for business school. And they say they will take up online volunteer work once they're done with the Test because you'd ask them about extracurriculars and that was kind of their response on that. So. Yeah. What do you make of this, Alex?
• 29:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think there's. I don't know if the word naive is correct, but there seems to be a little element of naivety about this overall profile and what they're pitching. They have a few challenges, right. They haven't taken the test. The test yet, and they're coming for that. We could call them sort of non traditional and so forth. So the test is going to be really, really important. So hopefully the test comes back at or above the median for the schools that they're targeting. They talk about post MBA goals, nonprofit social impact. I admire that. I think that's really good. Hopefully they got a concrete plan that aligns with that. So there's certain elements of social impact they're really interested in focusing on and so on and so forth. It does make me wonder why Yale example isn't on this target list, because that would be the first school that I would start thinking about, even if it's just, you know, from a branding perspective. It used to be a nonprofit mba, right. Or whatever it was before it changed to the mba. So, so, so that was missing for me a little bit there. You know, 10 years of experience. They're really going to have to hit the why now? And they're fit for each of the programs that they're targeting. That'll be super important. And a piece of that will be to really articulate well their goals should, both short and longer term to help with that. And then it's just, you know, they're ending up applying in round two. That's just going to be more challenging simply because they're from India. You know, that applications from that country tend to be a little overrepresented and so forth. So that's just going to create data set of challenges themselves. I think if they have determined they need to go and get an MBA now, maybe there's some change in their professional status or whatever. So now is absolutely the time for them to do this. They probably want to look at more programs in that sort of top 20, top 25 bracket. But again, it'll depend on where they come back with that test score. But they're leaving that test score rather late, so they won't have time to be able to retake it if they need to and so on and so forth. I mean, I wish them the best of luck and I hope that they, they, they can sort of overcome some of these hurdles, but there are a few hurdles for this profile at this point, Graham.
• 32:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I. One of the things that, you know, you were talking about how with all that work experience and a kind of non traditional background in hr, that the test will matter. And I would argue that because the other thing that makes that a thing is if their GPA is low, they listed as a three out of four here. That's another pressure point that makes the test really important. I am a little worried. I feel like 10 years of experience, this has a little bit of a. It had like a feel to me of like someone who, who is like, oh, I'm not happy in my career or maybe, you know, maybe they need to make a change or were laid off or something and they, they're like, oh, I'll do an mba. But they haven't, you know, done the, a lot of the hard work yet of thinking about exactly what they would do.
• 33:09
  Speaker B: Right.
• 33:09
  Speaker A: And you're right. You know, I just asked Clear admit our generative AI to, to kind of give me some ideas for schools. And Yale is at the top of the list right along with, you know, some of the other ones that like Stern is on the list. And obviously there are some of the schools that this person mentioned, like Berkeley and Duke on the list as well. But yeah, it was just kind of interesting. I think that that homework needs to be done and there needs to be a very clear kind of messaging. As we always say with an older candidate, they got to know exactly what they want and have that kind of maturity. I'm nervous though, that between the fact that we don't have a test, the GPA is low, they're older, and they don't really have outside activities that they. I mean, it sounds like, you know, their answer to you was, well, when I'm done, kind of with my preparation, I'll start to do some online volunteer work. And that, yeah, I need more. I need. And maybe this person does a lot of different things with their spare time and they're just thinking of that. We were narrowly defining extracurriculars as volunteer work, but hopefully there's something. Maybe they have a family who knows me. There are all kinds of things that people do. Right. That take up time.
• 34:13
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 34:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. In any event, I want to thank you for pick. Thanks for picking this because I think it's, you know, it's an imperfect candidacy or there's some, you know, blanks that need to be filled in. But it's an interesting one to discuss and hopefully this candidate finds this useful as they march towards those round two deadlines. For sure.
• 34:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. And kudos for them. I mean, obviously also recognizing that taking MBA math is a right sort of next step and so on and so forth. I mean, that's smart.
• 34:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So, Alex, thanks for doing this. As I mentioned you, we're going to have to record next week's in Spain because I'll be at the GMAC conference. So everyone stay tuned. We'll figure it out. Alex, we can find a time to do it. And.
• 34:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 34:53
  Speaker A: Yeah. I really appreciate all the work you do picking these out.
• 34:55
  Speaker B: Yeah. Very good. Good luck, everyone. Stay safe. Take.