MBA Wire Taps 264—Booth said no, now what? South African for next season. 720 GMAT, increased to 760

This week's show kicks off with a discussion of the fact that 12 leading MBA programs are releasing their Round 1 decisions in the coming days, including Harvard and Stanford on Thursday. Graham then highlighted the Real Humans piece for MIT / Sloan, and shared numbers from the recently published employment report for Dartmouth / Tuck. Alex underlined the huge median starting salary of $175k, which was likely nudged upwards by a disproportionate number of students going into consulting (47%).  Graham was recording this episode from sunny Barcelona, while attending the European GMAC conference on the campus of IESE. As usual, our show features three candidate profile reviews, selected from ApplyWire: The first candidate comes from India and has outstanding numbers, as well as what appears to be very strong work experience. They applied in Round 1 to Chicago / Booth, and were not invited to interview. This appears to be a puzzling decision, and it makes it difficult to develop an appropriate Round 2 strategy. Alex and Graham speculated on some of the reasons why Booth may not have invited them for the interview and offered suggestions for a path forward. This week's second candidate is from South Africa and is targeting next season. They also have good numbers, and what looks like decent work experience and outside activities. Alex and Graham like that they are planning ahead, and think they should be targeting M7 in Round 1 next season. This week's final profile review is for a Latin American real estate developer and architect that had a 720 GMAT and retook it and earned a 760. Alex and Graham thought the 720 would have been good enough, based on the rest of the file, so this new development means the candidate will land with very good options. This episode was recorded in Cornwall, England and Barcelona, Spain. It was produced and engineered in West Philadelphia by Dennis Crowley. Please remember to rate and review this podcast wherever you listen and to 'stay safe everybody'!