[00:00:14] Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your wiretaps for Monday, February 26, 2024. Are you looking for an MBA program where you'll be more than just a number? Vanderbilt Business offers a personalized learning experience to help each student reach their unique career goals. Whether you're looking to switch careers entirely or accelerate the path you're on, the Vanderbilt MBA program will provide you with the individual support you need to propel your career forward. Vanderbilt is currently waiving their $200 application fee for MBA wiretaps. Listeners to learn more about the Vanderbilt MBA program and to claim your application fee waiver, visit business vanderbilt.edu clearadmit. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Greg.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: So we're back to our usual format for this week. Know, last week we spent a lot of time talking about Wharton's TBD. And, man, there's a lot to tackle this week. There's a lot of kind of news in our industry and just lots of things been going on. But give me a recap. What have you seen happening on the wires? And are there any deadlines or things that we need to be aware of coming up here?
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Yeah, the big thing is whether, and we're recording this podcast on Tuesday, whether Sloan released its interview invites last week, which it should have done. I would say nine out of ten that they released their interview invites last week. If not, it certainly should be this week, and they're the last big school to release interview invites. Wharton obviously was a week before, hence we had that break with the TBD session, which hopefully, folks.
So basically, interview invites for all the schools that release them at one time should be completed at this point. There will still be a few schools trickling interview invites out, but they're going to get fewer and far between as we get closer then to those March release dates. But they're still not till probably the third week of March 2 and third week of March. So there is still a little bit of time.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think I was looking at the wires, at that live wire in particular, and seeing a handful of like Columbia, Yale, USC, Marshall, just some invites kind of trickling in from those schools that do it in that fashion. So we'll see. I did want to mention we have one more kind of webinar that I'm going to mc on February 20 eigth. So that's going to be this Wednesday at noon Eastern. And it's a webinar about masters in management programs. So not MBAs, but masters in management. And I'm going to be sitting down with admissions officers from Chicago, Booth, Kellogg at Northwestern, University of Michigan, and Duke Fuqua. And if you're a college student or a current master's student who went into a master's straight out of college and is looking to do a master's in management, you can sign up by going to.
So sign up for that if that's of interest. We also have this. Ask me anything coming up. It's like a chat room that we're going to run with NYU Stern. And that's going to be on Wednesday, March 6 at 11:00 a.m.. Eastern. 08:00 a.m.. Pacific. So a little early for you, West Coasters, but join us for that. And you can sign up for that at bit Lee Canyuama for askme anything. So that should be fun. Alex, I want to jump right into the news and stuff as you have been tracking. We continue to award Amazon gift cards for people who earn likes on the wires. Basically, if you get 30 likes, you get a star. And we're giving out a $10 gift card on Amazon for people who earn their first star. You can get a second gift card. If you get two stars, that's a $20 card. And if you actually get to three stars, which requires you getting 90 likes, you can get a $50 Amazon gift card. So you're tracking that. I know you've seen already some activity, right?
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's really good. So congratulations to those folks. But it's really good because basically it's the community helping each other by commenting, interacting and providing insights that other folks appreciate.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah, and I know a lot of people, a lot of the admissions consultants out there say, oh, don't look at the livewire, it's going to make you nervous. But I actually think that it provides this community and a way for people to kind of keep abreast of what's happening. And as long as people can comment and like each other's comments, I think we've built something that's really useful.
So I know you said we shouldn't devote much time to this, but I want to talk just briefly about the Financial Times ranking of global MBA programs. It's something they do every year. I think the non us crowd puts a lot of stock in the FT ranking. And I would actually argue that all non us schools put a ton of stock in the, you know, the US has us news, which only ranks american programs. And so people kind of focus on that in the United States. But the FT is big business. I mean, it's a big ranking. And so I thought I'd just share some of the ranking data. And I'd love to get your take, Alex, because I know you have an opinion on this. So I'll run down the top ten overall.
As probably many of our listeners know, Wharton came in number one. They were not in the ranking last year because they did not submit enough data from their alumni. So that was a big fiasco. But they're back and they're actually back on top. So it was kind of impressive. So Wharton, number one, insead number two. We have a tie in third place between Columbia business school and SDA Bocconi in Milan, number five, ESA in Barcelona, followed by a tie at number six between Kellogg and MIT.
London business school sits alone in the number eight spot. Cornell Johnson number nine, and University of Chicago booth, number ten.
I don't know. Alex, I'm going to ask you one question about this overall top ten. Who's missing from the top ten that you would have expected to see in that first batch of ten?
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Well, there are a few, but certainly Harvard and Stamford would clearly stand out for their exclusion. So it is quite bizarre that a ranking is. I mean, obviously financial Times is a huge business brand and they would create a methodology that just simply doesn't reflect reality. Now, no doubt, yes. Wharton is a top three us based program and we're both affiliated with Wharton, so we're quite happy to see them at the top.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: And INSEAD is a top euro based program, so it's nice to see them second. But Harvard and Stanford should be in that top ten and in my book should be in the top three. So there you go.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it is strange. And now if you look at it just based on the US, the one thing that I find is useful because I think it's really hard to mix non us and us programs or I almost feel like regionally is the way to rank. There should be an Asia ranking, a us ranking, a Europe. So if you look at just the top 16 in the US, you get Wharton, Columbia, Kellogg, MIT, Cornell, Chicago. So they were all in the top ten. And then Harvard, Dartmouth, Duke, Yale, UVa, UCLA, Berkeley, NYU, Stanford and University of Washington Foster. So that's the top 16 of just the american programs on the list. Just picking them out.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: So which top 16 programs missing then? Did you say Ross?
[00:07:51] Speaker A: No. Yeah, so Ross is missing and I honestly don't know what happened. They're not in the ranking. It's not that they're further out, it's just that they're not in the ranking. So something happened there, maybe similar to what happened to Wharton last year, or maybe they chose not to participate. I don't know. The other two schools that come to mind that are right on the cusp, I think, are the next two actually, are Carnegie Mellon and USC Marshall. But otherwise this list of 16, or now 18, if you throw in Carnegie Mellon and USC, sort of tracks to the sort of top schools that we think of.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's like throwing those 16 schools into a bag of marbles and then just selecting them randomly and saying, all right, there's your list.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it is a little bit strange. Now, on the Europe side, I'll give you the top ten in Europe. Again, excluding any non european schools, it goes INSEAD boconi, ESA, London business school. Then we get into HEC, esade, ie, ESCP, and then Oxford and Cambridge. So that rounds things out, I will say impressive showings for bocconi and ESCP being in that kind of top ten Europe lists. But, yeah, I mean, the only school that's not there that I normally think of as being a top kind of european program or top ten european program at least, is IMD. And go figure, they're at number eleven, so they're right there. But yeah. Interesting. Any thoughts on that? LBS is in fourth, so behind Boconi and ESA. Does that fit with you or do you think they should be higher?
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if LBS is getting penalized for Brexit. I mean, who knows? There might be a reason for that. Not that lbs caused Brexit, but I mean, it's a bit of a shit show around here in the UK now because of Brexit.
I hate to use that blunt sort of phrase.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah, there goes our explicit rating on the podcast channel.
No, but yeah, you actually make a good point. And we're going to talk about lbs career placement stats in a minute here. And I think you might be onto something, so I'm going to just hold that thought.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: That's certainly possible because at the end of the day, lbs and INSEAD over the years have been considered the top two programs in Europe. But Europe is sort of balkanizing a little bit now. It's UK and the European Union rather than all being part of the same sort of employment region or whatever. So it might have an effect.
And the city, I think, must be shrinking. Right. Because all I read in the press is less companies are using the London Stock Exchange to float their next offering. Right. They're going off other places. None of this can be good, right?
If you're UK focused like myself.
But yeah. Anyway, LBS. Fantastic program.
Anyway, I'll leave it at that.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: So we'll move on from that ranking. It's always fun to kind of Monday morning quarterback these rankings over on the website. We did run an admissions tip. It was in honor of Valentine's day, so going back a couple of weeks here, but we ran this admissions tip about applying to business school as a couple. It's actually quite useful if you are happen to be in that situation. It's got some good tips, and it refers to an episode of the podcast that we recorded like four years ago from the archives where we had a couple come on the show and talk about their process. And it was a lot of fun. And it's kind of a blast from the past because I gave it a quick listen as I was kind of getting ready for this show. And it was like four years ago at the beginning of COVID So it was just interesting to hear yours and my take on what was going to happen to Covid, to schools because of COVID And it was like March of 2020 that we recorded that crazy times.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: And that couple, didn't they get admit offers at really prestigious opportunities? Right?
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So I don't want to spoil it, but there were offers at Harvard, at Wharton, Stanford, et cetera. So, yeah, they had some decisions to make. Tune in. That was episode 97 if you want to go back into the archives and hear a much younger version of Alex and myself.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Oh, boy.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: So the other thing we did is we continue to roll out more of those real numbers posts that we put up on the site. So we did a post about minority students, percentage of women, and percentage of international students.
If you're interested in the numbers. These are just articles we put up that literally grab all the school's data and put it in one place, which I find to be really convenient. So if you're just curious about percentage of women at some of these programs.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Stuff like that, but then you order them alphabetically, not by numbers, which really does annoy me, too.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: It's funny you bring this up every time we talk about it on the show, and then I always forget to tell Lauren, just put them in order of most women to least or whatever. But I got to make a note of that to talk to her. Yeah.
So then we did a couple of real humans stories. So we connected with a bunch of students at Columbia, and I thought, you would appreciate this. We always ask when we talk to these students, what's one thing you would change or do differently? And the student we connected with at Columbia said, I would take my GMAT earlier. So you're going to be a big fan of this because she said, I knew that an MBA was in my plans and I scheduled a test, but then it was canceled due to Covid. This is a woman, I think she's based in China. And so they had a lot of shutdowns and things. And she said, then I didn't bother to schedule another one until I had already started applying to business school and it was just so late and I wish I'd had more. Yeah. So take the test early. We also did a real humans for HEC Paris, and I thought this was interesting. We asked a question, what is one thing you would do again as a part of your application process?
And I thought you would love this. This candidate says, pinpointing what I want from my MBA experience initially enabled me to have clear priorities when making my selection. I recommend everyone to get to the bottom of the personal reasons for doing an MBA and what they want out of it by delving deeper than the more common drivers, like career and financial benefits. This will not only help with selecting a business school that is a good fit, but also help with many aspects of the application process, like essays and interviews. So what do you make of that, Alex?
[00:14:08] Speaker B: I think it's really good insight and stuff, but the other thing it really highlights, Graham, is you prepare really hard for these podcast shows because you reading all this stuff and coming up with really good insights.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I try to go through and pick mean, I did think that this person, it's really easy to make a list of programs by starting salary or return on investment or that kind of thing.
But it is harder when you realize that a lot of these schools can get you where you want to go, jobs wise, to then figure out what's that next layer of fit. But it can be quite useful, as this person points out, with your essays and interviews. So there you have it. So we have one more thing to do before we can talk about our candidates. And that is there are two schools that finally release their employment reports, their outcomes for the class of 23, and those are Columbia and lbs. And so I was going to give you the numbers as we always do. There was quite a bit of clamoring for Columbia to release these numbers. They were kind of later than usual. And I know I saw on our site and on Reddit, people were wondering where the numbers were. So I'll start with Columbia. They had 829 students across their j term and regular fall start date, and that's a little bit fewer students. They had 865 at the same time last year in the class prior. So 125 of those students returned to a sponsoring employer. That number is up from 105. And I think that makes sense, right. If the job market is a little bit more cooling off, then that sponsorship that you have, you're not going to go out and play the free agent market.
23 students started their own company. That's down a little bit from 27 last year. So again, maybe fits with the economic environment we're in.
84% of Columbia graduates had a job within three months of graduation.
That was actually 95% last year. So that's a big drop in the percent with an offer within three months. And it's lower than a lot of the peer schools. So it's a little bit of a head scratcher because most of our peer schools we've seen around 90 or plus percent. So this is lower than that. Median salary stayed the same. $175,000 bonus on average. Was are the kind of basic numbers. I'll give you the industries. Alex Consulting. 36%. That's up a little bit from 33%.
Financial services is 35.7%. So just down a tad from 36.9% last year, but pretty similar technology, 10.8%, and that's down from 16%. Real estate, 3.3, pretty much unchanged from last year. And then consumer goods took the fifth spot at 3.2%.
It was lower last year, I presume, because last year healthcare was in the fifth spot at 2.6%. So in any event, that's kind of the industry data, the regional data Columbia doesn't really publish. They don't give us breakdowns like other schools do about where people land within the US, but they did this year give us kind of a global pie chart where they showed 86% of people landing in the United States, 5% in Europe, 4% in Asia, 2% in central and South America, and then 1% each to Middle East, North Africa and Canada. So, Alex, what do you make of Columbia's placement stats?
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, obviously that 84% three months out with a job is quite an outlier. Yeah, don't think we saw that data point at other M seven programs. And I'm wondering if, because they're heavily reliant on New York City marketplace, whether there was a wrinkle there in New York City that had a significant impact or a greater impact on Columbia than it would have done on other programs. Many top programs rely on New York City, but probably just not to the same extent as Columbia.
To me that would be a little bit interesting to really understand that. And I assume 83% of folks that did get jobs ended up in New York City.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: 84% in the US. So I'm saying 83. Well, anyway, I'm joking there a little bit, but they have a high proportion of their us folks, I assume in New York City, so there must be something going on there.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it is interesting. So I think the key things for me were that slightly lower rate of employment within three months, as well as the decrease in tech jobs from 16% to 10%. Those jumped out. Yeah, I agree with you that 86% landing in the US, I think of the lion share that's landing in the kind of northeast or maybe even New York metropolitan area. But for some reason they don't share the breakdown, even though their downtown counterpart, NYU, does share that data. So I don't know why they don't share it.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: And quite honestly, their average starting salary, did you say it held the same, right?
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah, 175.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: And for m seven, that's probably on the lower end of the range now.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess it's starting to creep up, but yeah, we'll see. So they held kind of steady there. Let's turn to lbs real quick and then we can get into our candidates. So LBS has just shy of about 500 students, which is. That's where they always land, pretty much. LBS showed 91% with a job offer within three months.
37 of those 500 or so students started their own company, which is a number that actually grew from last year. It was 28 students last year. And I should mention that that 91% who had an offer within three months, that is down a tick. They were at 94% last year, but still above the 90 mark. Pretty good in terms of the mean salary, it was $120,000, so much lower than the US schools. But I think similar to INSEAD, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. Interestingly, the average bonus compensation for those who receive bonuses was $60,000. So seems like they're bigger bonuses. And I don't know if that has something to do with taxes in Europe or who knows? But those are the kind of basic counting. Stats industries consulting. 45%, that's up from 37. Financial services, 26%, holding pretty steady. It was 27 last year. Technology is at 21% and that's down from 29% last year. And then they have another category with just other. They kind of lump everything else into. So it's just 8% did other stuff, which includes, like consumer and retail.
I guess they're just lumping it all together. In terms of the regional placements, they tend to do well. Like Colombia, they give you just more markets. So they have the UK, 55% landed in the UK. That's down significantly. It was 63% last year, which is why I was thinking about Brexit before when you mentioned it. Asia, 12%.
It was 11% last year. North America, 10%, up a little bit. It was 7% last year. Europe, not including the UK, 8%. That's up a tick from 7% last year. And then African, Middle East, 7%. Latin America, 7%. And those are pretty unchanged. They're both up like a percentage a point or something. So what do you make of lBS's numbers?
[00:21:49] Speaker B: I actually think their average starting salary might be a little up on NCAGs. I know we reported that, but I can't remember specifically.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: I know I got to go back and look it up.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: But we do know the european based programs average starting salary is generally lower than the US based programs.
These numbers don't look too bad, I don't think, out of lbs, quite honestly.
And, yeah, there's not much, you know, 91% have secured the job three months out, very close to their number the previous year, which again, reinforces this idea that 84% at Columbia is just od.
Everything else just seems to align reasonably well, I think.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: Yeah, and I just looked it up. So INSEAD was at 113,000 but euros. So that's like 120 years. It's similar. So not too far afield. Yeah, I think.
I was talking to folks at LBS.
They admitted this was a tougher year than the prior year, but they were pretty happy with the outcomes. And I think they should be. I mean, they're above 90% in placement within three months. I think it's interesting, they have a lot of people starting their own companies, which is nice to see. If you look at the percentage, they have a relatively smaller class than, say, Columbia or Wharton or something. They have a decent number of people starting their own company. So that's a good sign, too. So in any event, probably enough said.
Obviously, if you want to write to Alex or myself, you can just write to
[email protected] and use the subject line wiretaps. And we'll get back to you, Alex. Anything else before we talk about the candidates you've picked out, because you picked out some really interesting candidates this week.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Yeah, we've got to be quick, but let's kick on.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: All right, so this is wiretaps candidate number one.
So our first candidate this week is applying to school to start in the fall of 25. So a bit of an early bird. They've got Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, Chicago, Wharton, and Yale on the target list. This person's been working as a pro bono coordinator for a top law firm. So helping that law firm to take on pro bono work, they would love to get into consulting or maybe nonprofit social impact type work after business school. The GMAT score is a 740, and the GPA is a 3.76. Out of an Ivy League school, they have three years of work experience. They're located in the northeast. They would love to stay there. They did mention that that three, seven, six came with honors. This is a first Gen hispanic female. And get this, Alex, I'm sure this is maybe why you picked this. They grew up in a rural and very dangerous town in Mexico. Parents were very low income or unemployed, and the father was kidnapped twice by the local cartel.
And the story goes on from there. I mean, this person took a bus 6 hours each way just to take the SATs, got a full ride to attend that Ivy League, but then when they arrived, had no money, and was, like, sort of scrounging for food at times.
They'll have four years of work experience by the time they matriculate, and they've done a lot of OD jobs over the years, too, including managing a hotel, working with asylum seekers. So this is someone with a lot of what I would call life experience, as well as a pretty interesting academic and personal profile. But, Alex, what do you make of this candidacy? And, yeah, I mean, how is this going to play out for them?
[00:25:24] Speaker B: Well, I don't think we've had anybody post on apply wire, let alone be featured on wiretaps. That has come so far. Right?
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: So when we talk about come so far and you talked about that lived experience, it's like, rather than just rating candidates and comparing them where they all are now, it's like, how far have they come to get to where they are now? And this has got to be the poster child for that.
You explained, in terms of growing up in a poor place in Mexico and various other things, I mean, it's absolutely extraordinary. And here's someone with a 740 GMAT who graduated an Ivy League school with a three, seven, six, had to eat out of food pantries or whatever during their time at an Ivy League school. I mean, to me, it's extraordinary. Graham. So even just on that basis, I would say top schools will really want to seek out this type of candidacy.
I hope they do a good job with their sort of work profile in terms of explaining it and so on and so forth, because they said they've done quite a few seemingly disparate things, but interesting things. So if their story really plays out from their work experience standpoint, they can show impact and growth and the lights that we like to look for.
I think they should be choosing whichever school they want to go. Mean, I'm just really phenomenally impressed with how far this person has come.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Yeah, same here. I think what we could do is open up the phone lines and let the admissions directors at any of these schools call in to bid on this.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't have Stanford on their list. And that was one of my questions.
Why are they avoiding Stanford? I mean, to me, if they've got this sort of reason to be that passion that's guiding them through their life or whatever as a consequence of maybe their early childhood experiences, I mean, Stanford would love a profile like this.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I wonder if they're not applying there because they fear they would get stuck on the west coast. But keep in mind.
Or maybe they fear they would fall in love with the west coast and stay out there or something because they want to land in the northeast. But, I mean, obviously, while most Stanford grads do stay out west, it's not because they can't come out east. Like, I think there's certainly no.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: You make a good point. I didn't get that location. Northeast, so it's possible.
An extraordinary candidate. I don't think we need to waste a lot of time on this. We are nearly 30 minutes into the show. This person, to me, is like a poster child for when we talk about that sort of lived experience as well as how far someone's come.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I think as long as their recs line up and people are saying great things about them and they don't sort of blow the kind of application process itself. I think they have all the ingredients here for success, for sure.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: No, it's crazy. And their numbers are just superb. It's like, ridiculous.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. So probably enough said. Appreciate them sharing their story. I mean, what a compelling story. So let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two.
So our second candidate this week is also an early bird. Starting in the fall of 25, they've been working as a big four auditor. They're currently looking at Cornell, Tuck, Michigan, MIT, UCLA, USC and UVA Darden and they seem like they don't really have a clear path yet when it comes to their target industry. I mean, they mentioned consulting, tech and investment banking, which are the three main paths that one often takes out of business school. And so then they listed. I'm not even going to go through it. They listed sort of all the companies in those three domains. So a little bit of fuzziness there. Undergraduate GPA of 4.0. They also have a master's in accounting where they had a 3.79. So excellent marks. Three years of work experience, again with a big four in auditing. They're located in California and they mentioned that they want to pivot with an MBA into a more strategic role that allows for growth and making forward looking decisions, rather than auditing, which is kind of assessing what's happened, I guess you could argue, and is much more just analytical.
So the big thing, and I presume this is why you picked this person. I mean, I'll mention they're a us citizen of southeast asian kind of background, so asian american, and they did really well academically, and they do some volunteer work. But the reason you picked them, I'm guessing, Alex, is because they have a note here in which they say, I want to avoid taking the GMAT if possible, and I wanted to see if my stats make me competitive for a top 25 program with an exam waiver. So, Alex, is that why you picked them? And what do you have to say about that?
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, this was a conversation I wanted to have. Certainly I think they could be competitive for a top 25 program, but the reality is they've obviously done well academically. They've got a 40 GPA as an undergrad. They've also got a master's in accounting. Three, seven, nine. So there's no question that they're going to be smart enough.
Big four auditor, it's a decent career, but that's not the sort of career that top ADcom get really excited about, right? They want to see more on the front, facing the strategy side, so on and so forth, which is where they want to transition to, which I get that. And maybe into consulting or whatever, strategy consulting, whatever it might be. But I think they're missing a really good opportunity to get another data point on their profile that helps them stand out.
So, yeah, big four auditor, a couple of great degrees, some decent extracurriculars, but nothing really outstanding here would maybe put them in a couple of options, a top 16, top 25 type program. But if they came back with the test score at the median of the schools that they're targeting, it certainly may help them get more options, but it also might help them with scholarship offers, too, and so forth. So I know it's a lot of effort to do your best in these standardized tests and to prepare really well and to leave enough time to do a retake, but you're rewarded by that effort if you can pull it off. That's the point.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I think the first thing I thought of is, I'm like, wow, okay, so they're asian american, so likely a little bit overrepresented in the pool. They're actually quite young because they graduated college quickly, and so they're, like, 24 years old, three years of experience, and as you said, in auditing, which, I mean, there are a lot of people, this is a common, well tread path to business school, but. Exactly. It's well tread. And so they're also in that kind of overrepresented asian american group. They're probably overrepresented in coming from big four. And while the grades are great, I would want to see a test score to help kind of solidify the profile. And frankly, with younger candidates, the GMAT is pretty important because you don't have quite the track record of work experience that you can lean on. And, yeah, I just feel like they're selling themselves short, especially. I mean, this is an early bird, right? So they could literally sign up for a test prep class now and spend the next four months doing only that with their spare time, take the test, and then work on the apps, and they would have plenty of time. And I'd like to think that someone who's getting nearly perfect grades across the board in undergrad and in their master's in accounting would be capable of doing a reasonable job on the GMAT.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: And if it yields a bit of a scholarship of even, like, 30 or 40,000 or something. Right.
More than they would have gotten if they didn't take it. I mean, that's money. That effort is pretty well spent.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think it's a mistake. I know that some schools allow for a waiver, but I can tell you right now that we see it all the time. People apply with a waiver, and they get waitlisted, and then they're sitting on the waitlist, languishing away, and they need to take the test, basically.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: And remembering these waivers are just a legacy of the COVID crisis, this is not something schools used to do.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: So I don't think they like it.
And, yeah, it's risky.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And one other point on that is that application volume is up this year. I've not talked to a top school that has not told me that. And so when app volume goes up, these sort of waivers and things, they don't need to worry about candidates that haven't ticked all the boxes as much. Right, right. Anyway, probably enough said. I want to thank that person for sharing their profile, and they engaged in some dialogue with you on the post and stuff. So hopefully this is useful. I know we don't always give good news, but, you know, it's early enough where they should have time to work on the test and get it done.
Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three.
So our final candidate for this week is a decision wire entry that you picked Alex and this person.
Let's see, they applied to Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon and UCLA. They're going to be starting school in the fall. They want to work in consulting or tech. They had a 3.4 GPA in Undergrad, and they're located in New York right now. So they were admitted to all three schools. So they ran the table and they were given some scholarship dollars. So Berkeley gave them $0, but Tepper gave them 120,000. And Anderson, UCLA, gave them 140,000. So they're claiming that they're really trying to decide between the two schools that gave them money. So UCLA with 140, Carnegie Mellon with 120. And they say that they originally thought LA was their dream destination. However, after visiting Carnegie Mellon, they felt connected, more connected with the students and faculty and staff, and have just felt that there's been a lot of help coming their way from the school.
They come from tech, and they're really impressed with Carnegie Mellon's kind of tech focus. So, anyway, they put it out to our audience, and I know you weighed in. I think Elliot on our team weighed in, as well as our famous mysterious poster, anon 106 four six, who is a three star poster on our site and loves to weigh in on these decision wire entries. But yeah. What do you make of this person's dilemma?
[00:36:20] Speaker B: I think the key here, for sure, is their post MBA destination.
So they said, I had originally thought LA was my dream MBA destination. They're currently based in New York. So were they looking to do their MBA out of New York to return to New York to take a couple of years break? Or were they looking at the MBA to transition over to the West coast? So, knowing that, I think would provide a bit more clarity on this decision. And if they know that, if they know that they want to be back in New York after the NBA or they know they want to be in LA after the NBA, then that makes Tepper for New York and Anderson for LA easy choices. If they're now waffling about where they want to be because they were so enamored by hanging out in Pittsburgh for a while, that boggles my mind a little bit because I don't think going to TEPA distracts you on your post MBA sort of goals and stuff. But anyway, maybe it did.
But yeah, to me the decision should be completely where do they want to be post NBA, geographically and literally. If they're ambivalent to that now that is a big dilemma because yeah, Anderson is in, I would consider the higher tier than Tepper, but I would put Tepper at the front of their tier and Anderson towards the end of their tier. So I do think these two schools are reasonably close in terms of overall reputation, but they're obviously in very different geographies and so on and so forth. Being in Pittsburgh versus LA, the fit differences have got to be pretty big.
Yeah. Two great opportunities, lots of great scholarship money, but the biggest influence has to be where their post MBA career is going to be.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: Yeah, because I think they could get into consulting or tech, which I believe are the two industries they mentioned, from either program. And I would put the programs kind of on par in these domains.
And so it comes down to, like you said, where do they want to be after business school geographically, because I think there is a definite geographic pull. Most alumni are going to land east coast from Tepper, at least the lion's share, and then same thing with the west coast for UCLA. Now I can understand this idea, know Anderson as a destination for the NBA experience. I was just out there actually last week and it was nice to have warm sun in February and to be a stone's throw from the beach and all that. So I understand the appeal. With that said, I'm actually, I'm a big fan of Pittsburgh too, having grown up not too far from Pittsburgh, in Philadelphia and stuff.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: 6 hours away.
[00:39:20] Speaker A: Graham yeah, but I've been there. I have an aunt that lives there.
There's something I like about Pittsburgh, but I get it. They need to figure this out.
I understand the challenge here, but one thing that Elliot pointed out that I think is quite useful is that 120k from Tepper and 140 from Anderson is probably the same money given the cost of living in the two places. So just keep that in mind as well. But yeah, this is a tough call. I think they need to think about that. Geography, where do they want to live in the long term? Because that will probably play a role in making this decision ultimately.
So thanks for picking this out. I mean, all these, this week were great. Alex and I know we had a lot of stuff to cover at the top of the show, so appreciate you, like, tolerating that as we zip through it all. And hopefully we'll get done in under 40 minutes, so not too bad, but thanks for doing this, and I'll see you in one week's time. We'll do it all again.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.
