Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 455: Australian, test waiver. Indian, retaking GRE. Real estate, family business.

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MBA Wire Taps 455: Australian, test waiver. Indian, retaking GRE. Real estate, family business. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:16
  Speaker B: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, November 10, 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. Explore the Emory MBA at Emory Biz. ClearAdmit. That's Emory Biz slash ClearAdmit. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, what's going on this week?
• 0:58
  Speaker A: All very good, Graham.
• 0:59
  Speaker B: So we have a packed show this week. We're going to talk about a bunch of real humans profiles. We got class profiles finally from Stanford, MIT and Chicago Booth. We'll do our candidate reviews but first I just want to turn to you and see what's going on on Livewire. Like what? Where are we in the cycle and are people, I guess people are interviewing right now at a lot of these top schools.
• 1:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. And still plenty of interview invites coming out. So not, not to neglect those, especially the schools that trickled them out. Saw a few California schools, more so last week, Texas and so on and so forth. And this upcoming week we've actually got some decision release dates for next week. So Fuqua is, well, actually Fuqua's scheduled to release some interview invites. It's Colombia's last day for rolling out interview invites. Next week for round one.
• 1:52
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:52
  Speaker A: Fisher has an early action deadline. Broad, I think you call it. Michigan State's Broad has a round one decision deadline. Imperial College also does and Said has its stage two decision release deadline. So plenty of activity this upcoming week.
• 2:13
  Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, well let's look forward to. We also have an event this week on Wednesday. I'm going to sit down with admissions directors from Berkeley, Haas, Chicago Booth, Columbia and Yale Som to talk about deferred enrollment. This is the second part in a two parter. Last week I caught up with admissions directors from, what was it, Wharton Darden and Carnegie Mellon Tepper. Really fun session last week, which you just saw the transcript from. And yeah, I'm looking forward to the second edition here. And it's just all about, you know, these programs where you're a senior in college or you're currently in grad school and have never had sort of full time work experience. You can apply to business school, lock in a spot and then go off and work for two to five years before turning up in an MBA program. As I always say, that's something I wish that had existed when I was in college, because it would have taken a lot of the stress out of the equation.
• 3:02
  Speaker A: Yeah. But I'm going to pull you up on that, Graham.
• 3:04
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 3:05
  Speaker A: Did you really think that you were considering an MBA whilst you were still in college?
• 3:10
  Speaker B: I did. You know, it's really funny. So. Yeah. So here's something very funny. When I first met Elliot, who's the co founder of Clear Admit.
• 3:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 3:17
  Speaker B: We were at Swarthmore College together, and I met him. We were in tennis class. We had to. Swarthmore has this sort of gym requirement even at the university level. So I chose tennis. So did he. We're playing tennis. We're starting to talk. And he's like, are you thinking you're ever going to. What are you going to do in the future? I said, well, I don't really know, but I think someday I'd like to get an mba, and I would love to go to Wharton, because I, you know, we were not too far from Philadelphia, and that was the school that was really on my radar.
• 3:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 3:41
  Speaker B: And he brought that back up to me many, many years later. And I totally had forgotten the conversation in the interim, but it was on my radar and even went to Wharton's admissions office in between sophomore and junior year at Swarthmore. I walked in, I'm like, hey, I'm kind of interested. And I just remember them kind of having this attitude of, that's great, but why don't you call us in like, five years? And so whereas now, if I walked in as a Swarthmore student, you know, to the. They'd be like, oh, you know, we have this Molis early access program. Why don't you take this information about it, you know, so. So, yeah, so it is. I. But I do recognize a lot of people don't know, and that's fine. You can apply the way everyone else does. But if you do know, why not get a leg up and just get sort of sorted?
• 4:22
  Speaker A: And at that time, we had the sub matriculation program, so Wharton undergrads could get an early admission into the MBA program, but no one else.
• 4:33
  Speaker B: Right. I didn't like those. When I was at Wharton, there were some of those students in the program, and I. I did not like them because they always got perfect grades on everything, and they kind of blew the curve because they were such. So. So much more studious than older kind of MBA students.
• 4:47
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 4:48
  Speaker B: All right. But we digress. So in terms of events Though beyond this Wednesday's deferred enrollment event on December 2nd and 3rd. So in a few weeks time we're doing some more programming for kind of younger folks, which is around Masters in management programs. And so these are for either college seniors or people with maybe a year or two of experience. And so I'm going to sit down on those two days with University of Michigan Chicago, Booth, Kellogg, insead, lbs, uc, Irvine, Emory, Carnegie Mellon and Georgetown. So a lot of good schools offering master's in management. And this is kind of fun. We started doing this about a year ago, I think for the first time. And so, yeah, we're going to keep it up and talking to more schools than ever before. So it should be fun.
• 5:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, very good.
• 5:30
  Speaker B: And of course, mark your calendars. Tuesday, November 25th. You can connect with Alex and I on YouTube live stream. We just do office hours. Ask us whatever you want, you know, questions about interviewing, questions about where to go to business school or your round two applications. We're ready to take them. You just have to subscribe to our YouTube channel in order to be alerted to the live stream when it's starting. Bit ly ca YouTube Live. And as always for any of our events, our webinars and things, just go to clearmit.com events. So, Alex. Yeah, lots coming up and I'm excited.
• 6:03
  Speaker A: I guess, other questions that might come up. What do I do now? I've interviewed and I've got to wait another month.
• 6:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, go for a run.
• 6:10
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 6:11
  Speaker B: But speaking of Masters in management, we actually, we have a new writer that's joined our team, Cole Claiborne, and he actually used to write for U.S. news & World Report covering business school. And he just put a article together for us about math, Master's in management. And it's a really interesting kind of thing. It just explores like, why would you do a Master's in management? And I recognize for a lot of our listeners who are more MBA centric, you might wonder, like, well, what is this thing? And so he goes through eight reasons why it could be really interesting. And one of the things that sort of stuck out to me was the idea that it's actually he pitches this notion that it's kind of a faster, less expensive way to get business skills and get into the workforce because it's just a one year program in almost all instances. So in any event, there are a number of things in there, but you can check that out on the site if you're interested in exploring Masters in Management offerings.
• 7:00
  Speaker A: Very good.
• 7:01
  Speaker B: We also ran A bunch of admissions tips. There are three of them. One is about considering the campus. Like how do you evaluate a school in terms of facilities, surroundings, atmosphere. We did another one about volunteer experience. Like how do you position your volunteer experience? Those are both probably more round two oriented for folks. But then if you've just interviewed. We did one of our more important admissions tips about what do you do after the interview? How do you, you know, what sort of should go into a thank you note. What about these schools that have additional activities that you have to engage in. Like you know, Harvard requires you to do a little essay and so there's a good admissions tip and a video I believe that you and I recorded up on that post on the site.
• 7:43
  Speaker A: No. Very good. And again, I'm a big fan of what Harvard does post interview. I'm surprised some other schools haven't followed in that direction.
• 7:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think there will be more to come. There are some schools that if you get an interview invitation, you have to do something. I think LBS has a little Kira thing that you have to go and do some questions online if that happens. And I know that MIT has you write some stuff. So yeah, there'll be more and more of that I think as schools try to kind of. Yeah. Just get the authentic candidate and not something that's maybe overly polished. So in any event, we have a bunch of real humans that we've published on the website again profiling current students who are first year years in the MBA programs that we love to talk about. And for starters, I'll start with I guess LBS here. And there's a guy at LBS named Alexander, class of 27, he's 29. He's from somewhere called. I'm going to probably mispronounce this but Chichester UK did. Is that. Did I butcher that?
• 8:40
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 8:41
  Speaker B: How do you say it? Oh my God. All right. I never would have. All right, well anyway, that's where he's from. He went to McGill though, undergraduate. Oh, okay.
• 8:53
  Speaker A: What about that Scottish city you keep mispronouncing?
• 8:56
  Speaker B: I think I say it right. Edinburgh.
• 8:59
  Speaker A: That's better. Edinburgh, not Edinburgh, which is what I tend to hear.
• 9:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, but sometimes people say Edinburgh in America so you know there's even worse. So this guy Alex went to McGill, double major in Econ and International development. He. You will not believe. I know you're a football person, but I think you'll appreciate this. His pre MBA work experience was that he was captain and a. And just a player on the Canadian national Sevens team for rugby for six years. So this guy, I've played seven. Okay, so you know what that is? I, I actually have no idea what that is. It's. It's. I guess normally there are more than seven people on a side.
• 9:39
  Speaker A: Well, you should know this. You're in France. I think France are probably world champions at sevens, but it's basically seven players the, the front row of the scrum. So that's three players and then four out back. It's a fantastically fast game of rugby.
• 9:55
  Speaker B: Oh, wow. So that, that was his thing. And you know, he. It's a great interview, actually. I encourage everyone to read it if you're interested in, you know, kind of an MBA or particularly LBs. But we did ask him, you know, a number of questions and one of the questions was, what's one thing you would absolutely do again as part of your application process? And he said, reach out to current and former LBS students. They offered me invaluable insight into what life is really like on campus, helped me address any gaps in my application, and even helped me to prep for the interviews and case study component of the application. So sounds like he not only had some nice interactions, but people were helpful to him as he traveled through the admissions process, which is great.
• 10:34
  Speaker A: Yeah. But that's great advice for anyone applying to any of the top programs. There are lots of resources to take advantage of and I think engaging with current students and alums has to be right at the top of the heap.
• 10:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And that's why I picked that quote because I think it's relevant whether you're LBS or not. Also caught up with a bunch of students at Indiana Kelly, one of whom is named Caitlin. She's 26, she's from Santa Cruz, California. Did I pronounce that right? And she majored. She went to UC Davis where she majored in genetics and genomics. Or genomics. I guess I'm out of my element today entirely. But in any event, so her pre MBA career was. She was a production manager in biotech for a place called Claret Bioscience. She did three and a half years there and now she's at Kelly. And we asked her, why did you choose Kelley? Like what prompted you to attend? And she said, I chose Indiana University Kelley for a wide array of reasons. Indiana has a strong academic program and they also have elements to their MBA program that other schools do not offer. For example, Kelley has a month long ME Inc. Program before classes start, which allows for development of professional and networking skills in addition to strong academics and Rankings. I felt a strong sense of community and belonging at Kelley, and the faculty and students are very welcoming and emphasize collaboration over competition. So I picked that out because we actually, many moons ago, I think, did a podcast about this Me Inc. Thing that they do at Kelly, which is essentially like Career Services, runs it and you come in and they do all kinds of things with you to really help you figure out what your plan is. And, you know, because it's a small program, they can be really hands on. And I will say, I mean, the number of people who have told me that they love life in Bloomington, Indiana is just. Everyone always says that. And I've been there. It's a really nice college town, so I can understand how she ended up there. And yeah, sounds like she's really enjoying it.
• 12:29
  Speaker A: Yeah. And again, this is a feature of the. The smaller programs. They can do more of these unique offerings and really personalize the experience for their candidates. I know we've heard this sentiment, I think from Warrington, Florida, talk about this directly. And it's not surprising to me that Indiana and Callie does some really cool things in this regard.
• 12:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, totally. For our last Real Human this week we caught up with Rachel, who's currently at CMU. Tepper, class of 27. She's 25 from Woodbridge, Connecticut, and she went to Carnegie Mellon for undergrad where she studied mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering. So really easy stuff. And she worked as an R and D engineer in new product development for Medtronic for two and a half years. Medtronic's a big medical devices company. And we said, I always just try to cherry pick some fun quotes. So one of the things we asked her was, what would you have skipped if you could in the application process? And I get really tired of reading these real humans where almost everyone's like, oh, I wouldn't have taken the test. People hate taking tests. But she had a really good answer that I thought was kind of fun. And she said, honestly, if I could have skipped any part of the application process, it would have been writing the first drafts of my essay. I found it challenging to articulate my goals and interests in a way that felt both authentic and concise. Striking the right balance between passion and professionalism wasn't easy. And I often second guessed whether I was telling my story effectively. What helped me push through was leaning on my family and friends. They reminded me that my story was worth sharing and encouraged me to stop overthinking the tone and formality. Their support helped me shift my mindset from trying to write to the perfect essay, to simply letting my passion and purpose come through naturally. Once I embraced that, the process became much more rewarding. So I thought that was really interesting.
• 14:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. And again, it gets this idea that schools want your authentic self. So once you stop worrying about presenting the perfect essay, then present the essay that best reflects exactly who you are.
• 14:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, totally. So, so that was great. I mean, and there are, you know.
• 14:43
  Speaker A: And use AI to help brainstorm that. But there we go.
• 14:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, your weekly plug for AI. Yes. So those are the real humans we had, you know, obviously at each of those schools, LBs, Indiana and Carnegie Mellon, we caught up with I think five or six students. So if you're interested in those schools, go read those pieces. For sure. The last thing I want to talk about before we talk candidates is, you know, we have these class profiles that have finally started to come out. And I looked at this, Alex. Some of these schools are releasing their class profiles almost two months, months later than they did last year or at least six weeks later. So I don't know what's going on, what the delay is, but I've got the numbers here. We're going to start with Stanford because we have three M7 schools that have reported their numbers. We have Stanford, MIT and Chicago. But I'll start with Stanford. So they have enrolled, first of all, they had 7,259 applications this past year and they enrolled from that 434 students. So talk about low odds of, you know, that's a really, you know, challenging process there. Obviously they had 424 students last year. So they actually grew the class by, you know, 10 slots. Right. So class profile does hold pretty steady, you know, in terms of like GPA 7 3.76 versus 3.75 last year. The average GMAT for the old edition is 738, which is unchanged. The average GRE 328 is up 1 point. Women 45%. That's up from 44% international, down 1 percentage. They're 38% international. They were 39 last year. Average work experience is 5.3 years. It was 5.1 last year. So ever so slightly more experienced, I guess, but basically very tiny moves. Overall this school is still hyper selective and you know, they still enroll a pretty decent sized class. When you think about, you know, we were just talking about some of the schools that have 100 or, you know, two less than 200 students. Stanford has 434. So any thoughts on Stanford?
• 16:43
  Speaker A: Why didn't they report the new GMAT.
• 16:45
  Speaker B: School Oh, yeah, that's an interesting question. I have to go back and look. But I didn't. Yeah, I don't know that they're reporting the Focus Edition yet or if they are, maybe I didn't have last year. So it didn't. I can double check. But.
• 16:58
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 16:58
  Speaker B: But yeah, you know, but yeah, the.
• 16:59
  Speaker A: Numbers look very similar to last year, but you're always going to get slight movements. Right. So it seems like their class is very, very similar based on those metrics.
• 17:08
  Speaker B: Yeah. And actually I do have it here in my notes. It's 689. 689 is the average.
• 17:13
  Speaker A: That makes sense. 690, 730, whatever. That seems about right.
• 17:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's. So it's consistent with MIT Sloan, which is our next school here again, Class 27. They actually grew their class to 450 students this year. They had 433 last year. So they added some folks. The academic marks are essentially steady. Median GP 3.69 versus 3.7 last year. Median GMAT, 720, which is down a little bit from 730. But you have to keep in mind that they're starting to shift away from the older tests. And they actually reported a median gmat focus of 675, which is, you know.
• 17:49
  Speaker A: Probably both those numbers are down.
• 17:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:52
  Speaker A: 675 is not a high score relative to other top M7 programs. And going from 630 to 620 seems like a bit of a drop.
• 18:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. So I don't know what's going on there, but they did share GRE scores. And one thing I. I will say is I feel like the GRE continues to eat away at gmat. So be careful to put too much stock in some of these. But the GRE. Here's something really strange. Okay. Middle 80% on quant is 159 to 170. But then for verbal, they gave a median of 162. So I like, they basically.
• 18:25
  Speaker A: What's going on?
• 18:26
  Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, they released the GRE information in two different ways and they like, they share the middle 80% for quant and the median for verbal. I'm just reporting the numbers as they publish them. But it is a little confusing.
• 18:36
  Speaker A: Something's up with Sloan's numbers this year on test scores.
• 18:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, something. I don't know what's going on there. So now women, 47%, which is a really great number, but it is down from 49 last year, but still very strong. International 42%. That's up from 40 average years of work experience remains five. So, you know, a hair less, you know, on this test scores, as you point out, and a little more international overall. But I, I think still pretty consistent with last year. But I don't know why. I. I gotta say, I'm not a fan of these ranges and so I just want an average or median, please.
• 19:11
  Speaker A: But anyway, no, I mean, the numbers again, are very, very good. It's just a bit odd in terms of their reporting of their test scores.
• 19:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, totally.
• 19:21
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:22
  Speaker B: Chicago Booth, class of 27 again, they had 5,876 applications. That's up from 5,125 apps. And out of those. Yeah, and out of those apps they enrolled 635. Last year they had 632. So they have like three more students. But they had, what is it, almost, what, 700 additional applications this past year. So.
• 19:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, but I mean, the goal for most programs is to hold the number of students in class to the same.
• 19:51
  Speaker B: Yes, roughly.
• 19:53
  Speaker A: So, yeah, maybe they're. That selectivity went up a little.
• 19:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm guessing it did because as we look at the other numbers, academics ticked up on the GMAT. So the average GMAT score, 736. On the old test, they also listed an average GMAT focus score of 670, which is lower than MIT's, but still, that probably. That's probably what. I don't have my chart in front of me to convert, but I think that's at least a 727 30. You know, I mean, it's got to be.
• 20:19
  Speaker A: Seems a little lower.
• 20:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe GRE, they had a 163 average on the quant, 161 on verbal, which is exactly the same as last year. The average GPA identical, 3.6 women, 41%. Down ever so slightly from 42% international up to 37%, which we used to be 35%. And again, five years average work experience, no change there. So, you know, all three of these schools, things are really similar to last year, surprisingly so, given, you know, was a lot of chaos in the spring when people were trying to matriculate with visas and, you know, sort of the, the administration chasing after some of these schools and. But for one reason or another, these three held very steady. Overall, I would say.
• 21:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, overall, absolutely. Just a little bit funky in some of the reporting.
• 21:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. All right, so I think that's it on the kind of news and notes portion. We should probably talk candidates. I did want to remind everyone, please Rate and review this, this show. It really helps us. And I, you know, I would say like, I'm not so sure that everyone knows about this show. So if you know anyone else who's applying, just let them, you know, let, let them in on your little secret. It's, it's we, we do this every week and it's really to accompany you as you go through the process. And yeah, the more listeners, the better. So spread the word. Alex, anything else on your side?
• 21:38
  Speaker A: Let's kick on.
• 21:39
  Speaker B: All right, so let's talk about wiretaps. Candidate number one. So our first candidate this week is looking to start school next fall. And they have seven schools that they're considering. They're looking at Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Michigan, Stern and Darden. This person's been doing equities research and is looking to pivot into the consumer goods domain. So they mentioned companies like 3M, Coca Cola, LVMH, Nestle, Nike, PepsiCo and more. They have a 3.7 undergrad degree, 8 years of experience, and they're located in Australia. They would love to land in New York after business school. And in the notes, this candidate mentioned that they are applying for a test waiver. So that's why I don't have a test score to share with you. And that's why all the schools on their target list are schools that allow you to apply for a waiver. And there's some rationale here. This candidate says they have a CPA undergraduate degree was in commerce or business and they graduated in the top 10% of their class with high distinction. They also did share that they have an additional undergraduate degree that's non quantitative and that they did not do as well in. So remember they that 3.7 in their business undergrad, but they have a, I don't know what it was in, but they have a 2.6 in this other undergraduate degree. They indicate they have lots of extracurricular activities with high achievements in both sport and kind of community involvement. And then they finally share they are non white Australian female with a public school education background. So Alex, you actually posed some questions to this candidate and I don't think she responded yet. But what's your take on this? Because it's a really interesting scenario.
• 23:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, quite frankly, I think they're missing a trick here because if they would take the GMAT or GRE and got a competitive score so, you know, high 320s or you know, 7, 7, you know, whatever, 695 or something, then I think they should be applying to M7. But by going after the waiver process, they've eliminated some of the top programs from their target schools because top program, the very top, don't accept GMAT waivers. Right. So I think she should really think long and hard about that and maybe this is the right thing for them and they're perfectly fine with it. But I think she should scrutinise that decision on her part. Obviously, if she wants to apply in round two, she doesn't have much time to take the test, but it might be something worth exploring. The only other thing that I would ask is what happened with this other undergraduate degree program. I would certainly use the optional essay to explain, contextualize, everything, because everything else about this profile, Graham, looks really interesting. And I would think that if they did have a competitive test score to complement everything else, they would have some pretty interesting opportunities. Just assuming. And I think they, they articulated this. Assuming that their work experience does show that impact and growth, etc. Etc. That we're so keen on. So, yeah, I think, I think they're missing a bit of a trick here, Graham.
• 25:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, I, I agree and I, I, you know, there's so much, I have a lot of question marks here. It's sort of like, did they do that other undergraduate degree in parallel? That doesn't make sense. Normally you would, you know, if it was in parallel, it'd be just sort of a double major, a joint, you know, dual degree kind of thing. And then the would be kind of blended. So it must be that they did a degree and then went and got, you know, this business degree. In addition, I wonder if they were living somewhere else and then moved to Australia. You know, who knows? Right. But I do agree with you that, you know, the GPA, 37, CPA. Ordinarily, you'd say, yeah, this person's really, you know, qualified and may very well get some waivers because Australian female. This is not a common.
• 25:45
  Speaker A: They'll get the waivers. Yeah, that's, that's indisputable. Yeah, but we'll, we'll. But it still eliminates them from targeting schools that don't accept waivers.
• 25:55
  Speaker B: Right. And I would point to one other thing, which is this person wants to land in New York after business school. And, you know, I would argue that, you know, why close yourself off to some of the very top schools that maybe have the kind of network where you can get yourself that job and stay in the States long term. So. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think you're right. There's A missed opportunity. Go out and take the gre. There's still, you know, we still have a couple of months, almost until the deadlines for round two. So I, yeah, I do agree. Taking the test would potentially open up.
• 26:25
  Speaker A: Probably three months for Sloan.
• 26:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But, you know, whether it's, you know, and also you think about consumer goods, you know, gosh, you know, some really amazing marketing and operations departments at places like Wharton or Kellogg. Harvard's quite strong with consumer good companies too. I mean, there's just a lot of options out there at the top. And this is not to diminish the schools that are on her list. She has a lot of great school schools on our list. But I just, I don't know, I feel like deciding where you're going to apply based on which schools require a test is not how I would go about doing this. Correct. So in any event, let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate has a laser focus on schools in the uk. This person's applying to just judge Imperial, lds, Oxford and Insead as a bit of a wild card. They're going to try to start school next fall. They've been working as a senior product manager in data science, a lot of work in. In AI and they're thinking about consulting and tech after business school. And they, they mentioned some of the really big names like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. They have a GRE score of 325. Their undergraduate GPA is a 6.39 application of 10. They're in India, they have six years of work experience and they want to land in London. And that's why they have the focus on these European schools They mentioned. They are an Indian male, 26 years old. They've been working in consulting and product management. They've had a number of different roles. They've worked at Deloitte, Amex, Forbes. They've had some. They had a promotion while they were at Forbes as well. And they also, I think in parallel did a startup. It didn't work out, but they, they started a company and I think even as an undergrad, they also launched and sold successfully a startup as an undergrad. And they do say that that may have contributed to their not so great performance in undergrad because they were busy running a company. At the same time, they do mention that they want to work ideally in kind of as a PM tech role at, in a startup or something in London after school. And they did wonder about their undergraduate grades. Alex, I'm going to put that question to you, right? Is the GRE strong enough given, you know, that they had a kind of not so great result. I also want to ask you another question, which is this is an Indian male working, you know, in a kind of technical role. Is there, is there concern here about overrepresentation in the pool as they apply to these programs?
• 28:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, to the latter point that's possible. There's not much they can do about that in terms of obviously they've got to get their applications in and so forth. I think they have applied already to some of the programs and maybe they're also targeting the January rounds. So they got to do that. They're going to retake. Well, I think as we record this, they've just retaken the GRE.
• 29:22
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 29:23
  Speaker A: So if they come back with a 330 type score, I would get that into the programs that they've already applied asap. I think one of them was Oxford said, and they've just had a deadline to which they applied, so they should be able to update that score. And I think that's important because like you said, the undergraduate degree isn't overwhelming. They suggest that they were compromised, as you said, because they were running a startup which seems like it's very successful. But that doesn't really excite adcom because they're like, well, what if they come to our program, they start working on a startup and start bailing out of classes. So to think that that's just a good excuse isn't going to cut it. Coming back with the stronger GRE score and showing that they're really committed to the academic program now, etc. Etc. Is going to be a better strategy there. So, so, but yeah, so get, get the high, hopefully a higher GRE score and get applications in and those to where they've already applied update their applications, assuming they haven't yet been denied it, which, which would be unfortunate obviously, but, but overall I can see that, you know, this is probably a pretty, a pretty strong candidate. Graham, you know, from a data science and engineering perspective, you know, top firms are going to like this profile.
• 31:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. And they have some brand in their past experience with some of those companies. So I mean, I will say though, as on the accounting stat side, yeah, the 639 undergrad GPA and the 325 GRE don't jump off the page and particularly in an overrepresented group. So I'm hoping that they did really well on the test, which they retook last week. Week, apparently. Right. So we'll see how that turns out. But I, I will say I want to give them kudos for. They're so focused on landing in London and they have a good list of schools for doing just that. Right. I mean, I think exactly. You know, you could argue that maybe, I mean depending on how things go, like they might want to even look at a Manchester, which is a very good MBA program. Maybe even better than Imperials. When you talk about full time mba. Yes. In Manchester. But I mean Manchester's are not a terrible train ride down to, to London and a lot of people out of that program go work in London.
• 31:47
  Speaker A: So yeah, Imperial's campus right in the middle of lo. Yeah, that's fantastic.
• 31:51
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. So in any event. But I feel like yeah, this person, hopefully the G. GRE goes well. That retake that they took and hopefully it went well. Sorry. And they, you know, can. And as you said, that's a key thing. Most schools. I never met an admissions officer. Well, there's maybe one exception who doesn't want an updated score. I mean it, it only helps the school. Right. If you have a better score when they go to report their stats, they'd love to have that better score. Right. So usually with the exception of like you can't wait till the end of the cycle but you know, here we're early in the cycle with a place like Oxford where they just applied. So get it in. But yeah, great. Really appreciate them sharing their profile and you know, they had some dialogue with you which we love. A little secret here. Insider tip. If you want to be featured on wiretaps, write back. When Alex, you know, evaluates your profile on the website, he always picks people who write to him. That's my, at least that's been my experience. All right, let's move on though and talk about WireTaps. Candidate number three. So our last candidate this week has six schools on the target list and the schools are Berkeley, Boston College, mit, Rice, SMU and UT Austin. So it seems like it's like a Texas or Boston or bust approach here. This person wants to start in 26. They have just two years of full time work experience, 3.5 GPA from undergrad. They had a 330 on the GRE which is a very strong score. They've been working in real estate and actually within a family business. So it's their family's business. And as a result, even though they have two years of like full time post collegiate work experience, they technically have seven years of work in real estate. Presumably because they've been, you know, every summer during school year, whatever, they've been involved in the family business. They're located in Houston. They're thinking they want to be back in Texas after business school. But I guess maybe they're in, you know, they like Boston maybe as a place to live for a couple of years. So they have that on their list. They do mention that they've had, you know, these class, these two years of work experience. They've really owned a real estate brokerage with 10 agents. And you know, they. What's kind of interesting though is that their undergrad, it sounds like, was healthcare. They majored in bio and had a business minor. So I'm not sure where that comes from. But they seem to be pretty focused on real estate now and their, you know, long term goal is to kind of run the family business and, and be, you know, be entrepreneurial and stuff. So you asked them some questions though Alex, about outside activities and you know, and they, they shared some additional details here. But they, you know, one of which is they want to stay in real estate. It's, you know, they're also mentioned they're worried about working in their family's business and that it's, you know, kind of hard to get a recommendation as a result. So any advice you have on that. And then they did say that outside of work they dance and do community work here and there. So what do you make of this candidate? It's kind of an interesting non traditional candidacy.
• 34:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean very interesting. And, and you know, we got to assume that they've done well in the family business, etc. Etc. And their goals make sense because they're going to come back and develop that and so forth. Super GRE score, decent GPA sets them up quite well. But there's a bit of a distinction between do they have seven years of work experience or do they have two years of work experience? So most top programs will put them in the column with two. Right. So it's two years post undergrad. So I just want to make sure that they're clear on that that so they will be considered someone earlier in the spectrum of work experience despite the fact that they've had all this family business experience during their undergrad, etc. Etc. So, so they really want to make the case a strong case. I guess my point being for the why now makes perfect sense versus in another year or two's time. And they, they could probably do that, you know, because they have all this other sort of pre undergraduate or whatever experience. But it's the quality of that experience, the impact, the growth. That's how they're going to be sort of measured. So to bear that in mind. And then, yeah, one of the challenges anyone that works in a family business faces is how do they source their recommends? And we have admissions tips on this video content and so on and so forth. But whether it's a business advisor that they've worked with, whether it's a mentor, but certainly not their family members, there's going to be a lot of consideration on the bias that the recommenders provide if it's too close to family and so forth. So they're going to have to think long and hard about that and so forth. Maybe you've got some ideas for specific sources of recommenders, but their numbers are good, Graham. I think, I mean, with the programs that they're targeting, they've got a nice spread of schools, not just geographically but in terms of different tiers. So I'm quite confident that they'll get a positive result. But is it the ideal result?
• 37:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, and I'm a little, I mean, I, so I understand, like, you know, you're right, they have a range, like Berkeley and MIT are going to be one level of difficulty to get into, whereas, you know, maybe Boston College or SMU might be another. Right. But it, what's interesting to me is just that have they picked these schools because of their strengths in family business and real estate? Because, I mean, I don't, you know, this is a pretty niche area. I mean, I do know that Cornell and I believe, you know, Wharton, maybe Columbia, those are schools that usually come to mind when you think about real estate. But I, so I don't know how they made this list other than, well, I want to be in Texas. And so obviously they have all the key schools from Texas on their list and that, that makes sense. The recommendations thing is a real concern. They need to be able to find, you know, somebody outside of the family to write the letter, as you point out. And, you know, I, I could think, I mean, you know, gosh, if they're running a, a branch of the firm or if they're, if they're regularly interacting with clients, customers, an accountant, a lawyer, I mean, there are lots of people who could do this, so they just need to find someone. And, you know, I will say, look, you might say, oh, but if it's their accountant or their lawyer, that person's kind of paid to say nice things about them anyway. You know, it's sort of, you know, But I do feel like in that instance, when you pick someone, make sure they're quite a bit older than you, have a lot of experience and can speak to, you know, what they've seen in young people in the past and why you're a standout. And so, but any event, I agree with you, the numbers 3, 5, 3, 30, they'll get into some of these schools, I think even with limited work experience. The question is will they get into Berkeley at mit And I'm less confident there. But as you say, some of it depends on how they pitch all that experience that they've had sort of on a part time basis and whether they can go and source the right sorts of recommenders and things. But I mean, it's interesting. I do like the focus and I think that, that you know, real estate is a, it's an important area. And yeah, a lot of these schools have, you know, pretty good content in that domain and yeah, so I think they're gonna, they're gonna land somewhere. And I, I, one thing you were saying about why now? Yeah, I think they could potentially insert some urgency maybe around something going on with the family business or you know, like maybe they need to take over and so they, they need to go and do this now so that they can then take the reins when they come back or something in any event. So yeah, I want to thank them for, you know, sharing their profile. And Alex, three really different candidates this week from all different corners of the, of the world. So really appreciate you doing this as always. Let's catch up next week and do it all again if you got time.
• 39:59
  Speaker A: Very good. Stay safe everyone. Take care.
• 40:15
  Speaker B: It.