MBA Wire Taps 344—GRE 304, FIT. GRE 326, Education innovator. Attend MBA or wait

March 18, 2024 00:33:33
MBA Wire Taps 344—GRE 304, FIT. GRE 326, Education innovator. Attend MBA or wait
Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast
MBA Wire Taps 344—GRE 304, FIT. GRE 326, Education innovator. Attend MBA or wait

Mar 18 2024 | 00:33:33

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Hosted By

Graham Richmond Alex Brown

Show Notes

In this week's MBA Admissions podcast we began by discussing the wave of Round 2 MBA application decisions that are forthcoming. Interview invites are now dwindling for Round 2 as we approach the end of Round 2. Georgetown / McDonough, IESE, Emory / Goizueta, Chicago / Booth, Berkeley / Haas, Texas / McCombs, UCLA / Anderson and INSEAD are releasing their final Round 2 decisions this week.

Graham highlighted two recently published admissions tips focused on Round 2 waitlists, and financing the MBA. The latter was written by Juno, which operates a platform to group admitted MBA candidates and source low interest rate student loans.

Graham then noted four Real Humans Alumni pieces: alums from California Irvine / Merage working at Johnson & Johnson, Notre Dame / Mendoza working at Amazon, Rice / Jones working at Goldman Sachs and Duke / Fuqua working at Kearney.

Finally, Graham highlighted a recently published piece on INSEAD, which had a focus on International Women’s Day.

For this week, for the candidate profile review portion of the show, Alex selected two ApplyWire entries and one DecisionWire entry.

This week’s first MBA admissions candidate has a very interesting profile having graduated from FIT, with a strong GPA; she is also a first-generation college graduate and has seven years of experience. We are very concerned with her lower GRE score of 304. Any increase in that score should have a very positive impact on MBA options.

This week’s second MBA candidate has a very good academic profile, along with a 326 GRE. They are very focused on the education sector, with a long term goal of starting their own school. We really like the profile, and wonder if they should also add Harvard and Stanford to their list of target programs.

The final MBA candidate for this week has several offers from top-30 programs, with significant scholarships. They are also on the waitlist for UNC / Kenan Flagler. They only have two years of experience and are considering whether to attend next season, or to wait and reapply.

This episode was recorded in Paris, France and Cornwall, England. It was produced and engineered by the fabulous Dennis Crowley in Philadelphia, USA. Thanks to all of you who’ve been joining us and please remember to rate and review this show wherever you listen!

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:14] Speaker A: Welcome to the clear admit MBA admissions podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your wiretaps for Monday, March 18, 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 this week? [00:00:59] Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham. [00:01:00] Speaker A: So, before we get into it, I forgot to tell you, I did a crazy thing. I bought tickets to go see the Philadelphia Phillies play the New York Mets in London this summer. I'm going to take the kids and go to a baseball game in London. So I bet this is not on your radar because you're not a baseball fan. But I don't know why. It seems like every year they've been doing one series in the UK. So I'm going to get on. [00:01:23] Speaker B: So where would they play that? [00:01:24] Speaker A: Someplace called London Stadium. It's like in the east of London. I think there is a football club that plays there. I just can't remember which one it is, actually. It'll come to me, maybe, but, yeah, so it's like a football stadium. I guess they somehow are able to repurpose it. And I have no idea if it'll be empty or if it'll be completely packed. I don't know what know people in London think of so well. [00:01:44] Speaker B: You'll get some expats like yourself going to the. I guess. [00:01:48] Speaker A: Yeah, probably. [00:01:49] Speaker B: We tend to watch cricket. [00:01:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So we'll see. So tell me what's going on in the NBA universe. I know this was. Last week was a crazy week and there's more to come, right? [00:02:01] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I mean, last week was really busy. Again, these are what we call decision weeks. Round two. There's three or four weeks of them. And last week we saw decisions from Ross, Duke, Darden, Keenan, Flagler, Ise, and of course, our sponsor, Vanderville Owen School. So that was really good. So lots of activity on Livewire, people getting admitted. Now there's time to think about their next options. And then this upcoming week is equally busy. We've got McDonough Ise Goyzera, Booth, Hass, McCombs, Anderson, insead amongst the schools releasing decisions. And we have application deadlines, too, for ISC, Goyzetta and Oxford. And what you'll notice with all the schools that I'm talking about, aside from Booth, I haven't really mentioned any of the M seven s. They'll be the following week. So we've got a pretty intense period of activity and we talk about these deadlines when schools publish their release of decisions. We do know many schools will actually start to release the positive news days before the official deadline because they like to do it by phone. So, yeah, lots of excitement on live work and a little bit of anxiety. No. [00:03:31] Speaker A: Yeah, no. So this is the busiest time. You mentioned Vanderbilt, actually. Yeah. I always forget to talk about this, but, you know, there's a little ad that I read at the beginning of each show because they're our sponsor, but I did want to. It's so great that they're helping us with this show and sponsoring and that they waive the application fee for people who listen to the show. So, very cool stuff. So, yeah, I think it seems like it's drawn out this year where we've know, three pretty heavy weeks last week, this week and the following, basically with lots of decisions. So hang in there, everybody. It's a crazy time. Let's see other stuff going on. Alex, we did run a couple of admissions tips that are very timely over on the website. So we ran a tip on how to navigate the round two waitlist. So if you are unfortunate enough to end up on the waitlist coming out of round two, there's some specific advice that we offer there about what it means and in some ways how it differs from around one waitlist. So read that if you're in that boat. We also did a piece. So actually, our friends over at Juno, who we partner with, who help students to get loans when they go to business school, they actually authored an interesting piece on how to finance your MBA. And I will say it's not like an infomercial. It's not at all. It's actually quite limited in terms of what they talk about, their product. It's really about should you take government loans, should you get more scholarship dollars or fellowships or what are all the things that you need to be considering? So if you are someone who's been fortunate enough to get into school, you should read that piece. And I should just give a shout out to Juno. I mean, I'm a big believer in what they've done which is essentially every year they get together all the people who've gotten into top business schools, and they take them all and they go to banks and they say, hey, we have these thousands of people who all need to get loans. What would you do if we could bring them all to you? And so it's this amazing kind of, they usually get way lower interest rates than anyone could get individually. So it's just the power of the group kind thing. And it's free, so you can sign up for. You have to look on our website. I should know this, but I think you just go to our website and you can jump in and you just put your name and email in or something and you get on their list, and then they just come to you and tell you what the rate is that they've been able to secure and you're not obligated to do it or anything. So it seems like a win win. But I met those guys about a year ago and it's really cool to hear about the story. And they're like a bunch of. [00:05:48] Speaker B: I mean, I've not met them, but it seems like a really good facility that they provide. [00:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So other stuff going on. We did a piece about know to mark International Women's Day. They had all these just amazing kind of profiles of women who'd graduated from different programs. I didn't see it, MBA, executive, all this stuff. And so we just kind of profiled some of the women that fell into that group. And I love they have this great kind of tagline which is gender has no ambition. I thought that was a great tagline. And, yeah, so you can read. There's, I think maybe five or six women that were profiled, all doing pretty different things and really interesting work and things. So check that out on the site. And then we continue, speaking of kind of graduates of business schools, we continue to roll out our regular real humans pieces where we connect with alums from leading business schools who are working at companies that we know the cleared Mitt community are interested in joining, potentially. So we connected with Sophia, who graduated from UC Irvine back in 22. She works at Johnson and Johnson in their marketing leadership development program. So that's like a rotational program. And we also connected, Gus, there are a bunch of them, so I'm just going to go quick. But we connected with Tanique, who went to Notre Dame. Mendoza graduated in 23 and works at Amazon, actually in the AWS area of Amazon. And this is kind of a fun for anyone interested in Amazon. I thought this was, we, we asked her, were there any surprises regarding your current employer's recruitment process? And she said that Amazon has a really rigorous interview and onboarding process, and it surprised her how different it was from other companies. But she said that she thinks that the challenge of that process really prepared her for the intensity of the internship and then the full time job. So, little note, if you're interviewing with Amazon, get ready. Be prepared. Let's see, the other two that we connected with were Ken. He went to rice, graduated in 23. He works at Goldman as a private wealth advisor. And you'll love this, Alex. He said, we always say, do you have any advice that you would give or that you wish you had been given when you were doing your MBA? And he said, quote, interesting people, like, interesting people take time to document your life experiences and use those to tell stories that extract traits aligned with your desired job. Know that everyone has fascinating stories, but the key is to tell them in an equally captivating way. So I thought that was just interesting as an observation. [00:08:29] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I've not heard that perspective before, but it makes a lot of sense, too. [00:08:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And then the last woman we connected with, this woman named Caroline, who went to Duke, graduated back in 21, and she's already a manager at Carney, so in the consulting universe. And I just thought this was kind of a fun fact. So before she went to Duke, she said, I'm a 2012 Olympian. I was on Team USA as, I guess, slalom kayaker from age 15 to 20. She said, being part of Team USA was an honor and a privilege and something I would not trade for anything. I leveraged my work ethic and discipline for something meaningful and got to see 15 plus countries across five continents and their respective people and cultures very early in life. So, I mean, she's gone on to be a top consulting manager at Carney, but just really know she was in the Olympics. I mean, it's amazing. [00:09:21] Speaker B: I think that's when you just think about it, an olympian athlete is top of the. Yeah, absolutely fantastic. And we were coming up to the Paris Olympics, Greg. [00:09:32] Speaker A: I know. Yeah, they're definitely cleaning and building the city is a buz here. Yeah, definitely. I can give some more updates on that in future shows, but, yeah, it's definitely going to be a big thing this summer. [00:09:44] Speaker B: Very good. [00:09:45] Speaker A: I got to decide if I want to flee my apartment and rent it out for thousands of dollars or stay and watch the Olympics, then go to. [00:09:51] Speaker B: London and watch some baseball or whatever it is. [00:09:54] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. All right. Anything else? I guess, as always, people, if you're listening. You can write to Alex and I just write to [email protected] use the subject line wiretaps. We haven't gotten any reviews of the show in a while, so if you're willing to write a review, please do so over on Apple Podcasts. You can rate the show wherever you're listening, Spotify, et cetera. So please do that, too. But Alex, are you ready to talk about this week's candidates? [00:10:19] Speaker B: I'm just wondering if we've got any listeners. Graham, if we're not getting any reviews, do we actually have any listeners? [00:10:25] Speaker A: I believe we do. Actually, I'm pretty certain because I get a report that tells me there are people tuning in each week and, you know, they're listening and maybe they're running or they're doing something else so they're not able to write a review, but I don't know. Yeah, so just help us out if you can. We love emails, love reviews. So otherwise, Alex, let's move on. And let's talk about wiretaps. Candidate number one. [00:10:52] Speaker B: Let'S kick on. [00:10:54] Speaker A: So our first candidate this week is looking at seven schools, and those schools are Berkeley, Columbia, HEC, Paris, ESA, iNSEAD, MIT, and Stanford. And this person's been working in what they call apparel, materials and product development. So working in kind of the fashion space, they want to get into consumer goods after business school. GRE score is a 304 GPA, 3.67 years of work experience. This candidate is located on the west coast, and they're going to be applying, just FYI, for next year. So they're kind of an early bird. And this person writes, my background is entirely different than other MBAs that I usually see applying. I went to fit, which is the fashion Institute of Technology in New York City for undergrad, and I graduated in three years with a decent GPA, as I said earlier, three, six. Even though it's a well known school in the fashion industry, I'm not sure how well known it is with MBA programs. And then this person mentions, I've been struggling with the GRE test, and I'm hoping that my GPA will help me with that lower score. Also, I do have a business certificate from Columbia School of Professional Services. I think that SPS stands for, which covered classes like accounting and finance. I would submit that along with my application. They also mentioned I'm a Latina woman, first generation college graduate. So, Alex, what do you make? I mean, this person has some top schools on their list and also some, you know, HEC, ESC, and Inca. So a few of the top european schools, but yeah. What do you make of this? I mean, how unusual is it for someone to come from the fashion background? And what do you think of the kind of Gre issue? [00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, if fashion background doesn't surprise me, they're applying to some european schools too. [00:12:36] Speaker A: Right. [00:12:36] Speaker B: So I think Europe is a pretty good center for fashion itself. Right? Italy and even Paris, I suppose. But yeah. No, actually, I think there's some really interesting aspects of this profile. In as much as they went to fit, I think that will be perceived very well. They're Latina, first generation. They completed their degree in three years, so there's lots to light there. And I'm assuming with seven years of experience, they've hopefully done some interesting things and they could talk about their growth and their impact and other things that we'd like to address. But the challenge that they'll face is their GRE score at 304 is going to cause significant pause, especially for the very top programs. As someone that's potentially nontraditional, they've really got to show how they fit in and align and so forth. And a piece of that is actually to do as well as they can on the standardized test. So I would really encourage them to push really hard, and I think you said this in the comments, for them to get some additional support to really bump that GRe score up to the extent that they can. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:10] Speaker B: The admissions committees are really going to want to root for this candidate. We've talked about this sort of idea before, like certain candidates profiles, ADComs really want, but this GRE score is going to give them pretty big pause. I mean, we'll talk about this a little bit later on. Another candidate, too, about the GRE. But will some schools take a punt? Quite possibly. But if they can up the score. [00:14:42] Speaker A: It'S going to make a huge agree, I think. So a couple of thoughts. One is the score. I recognize that it is possible that they could get in, although I do think most of the US schools will pass on. That mean it's possible. Right. But it's a long think, and I don't think that the Columbia School of Professional Services certificate is going to be enough. My understanding is that I'd want to see graded coursework. So I would recommend that if they, ideally in parallel, that they aim to boost the jury, but that they also maybe take business fundamentals or a graded course. It could be online in accounting, statistics, calculus, whatever, some of those core foundational subjects that schools look for. And I think this is exacerbated by the fact that it would be one thing if they had a 304, but they had majored in finance or something. But this is someone who comes from arguably a more qualitative background and so it's like a red flag. Right. So I think, yeah, spending time to boost that score will really, I mean, pay dividends too because they might see scholarship dollars. There are all kinds of reasons to think that it's a good thing, but otherwise, I love the candidacy and the only thing I would ask is they may want to look at Bocconi as well because as you point out, it's actually Milan and Paris to an extent that are sort of the center of fashion in Europe and know a top, top MBA program in Europe. Right. So I just would mention that they may want to throw that into the. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to like and they have, I think, you know, it would be worth it. It could pay huge dividends to just hire a tutor and work on the test for a couple of months or something. That would go a long way. [00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I completely agree. [00:16:25] Speaker A: So in any event, I want to thank that person for sharing their profile. Super fascinating. And I think they're going to have a great career and that the MBA is a perfect tool to kind of take them to the next level. So they're on the right track. I think they just have some more work to do before they apply. But let's move on, Alex, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week is looking at six schools and those schools are Indiana, Kellogg, Notre Dame, Chicago Booth, Wharton and Washington University Olin. They indicate that it sounds like they're going to be applying for next season, even though I feel like maybe we're getting a lot of people put 24, but I think they mean 25. We can talk more about that. They've had a really interesting pre MBA career in nonprofit and K to twelve education and post MBA. They're interested in still being involved in that, but more on maybe a consulting or investment side. So they're really interested in education and kind of the future of education and kind of innovation in that space. They talk about joining companies like Accenture, Deloitte or McKinsey. They have a Gre score of 326 and an undergraduate GPA of 3.67. They've been working for six years and they are located in Indiana. They want to land in St. Louis. So very specific kind of target in terms of that post MBA location. This candidate mentions that they taught for two years at an underresourced school and earned a master's of education. For the past four years, they've worked for a nonprofit and graduate school program that recruits and forms talented teachers. And as I said earlier, they mentioned they really have this desire to go to business school to develop management skills and hard finance skills that would be needed to make an impact in launching and funding innovation in education. So in any event, eventually they have a long term goal of launching and leading their own K to twelve school in St. Louis. So really interesting. Also another. I mean, this is like nontraditional week. Alex, you got another nontraditional candidate. What do you make of this person's chances? [00:18:38] Speaker B: Well, one thing I really like about this candidate is their current experience really aligns very, very well with their post MBA goals and specifically their long term goal. So they're being very deliberate about their experience currently in education. Getting an MBA for a certain tool set that's very important for them for that long run, and then in the shorter run, sort of getting a little bit more experience with the MBA before they set up their own K through twelve school in St. Louis. I think that sort of methodical sort of planning is really, really good. They are a nontraditional candidate, but in this case, I think they can show that they've got a really deliberate plan and a really valid reason for getting the MBA to help them execute on that plan. So presumably over the six years of experience or whatever, or certainly the more recent experience, they can really show that sort of impact and growth that's important. Doesn't matter what type of work you do, you should be able to show both of those issues. But their work experience is very nontraditional. So they will have to show that they fit in, et cetera, et cetera. But I think they can do that. Their numbers are perfectly fine. 326 is at the median for top programs other than perhaps one or two. And they're very respectable GPA of three, six, seven. I think this person is, to me, this person's M seven. Now, they might decide to do an MBA more locally, and I know some of their school selection is regionally based because they know specifically where they want to be in the long run. So they're not looking for an MBA to give them lots of geographic option. They want to be in St. Louis at the end of the day. They might even go to a program that might not be their very best, but serves them well for that marketplace and they can get better scholarships, potentially, yeah. [00:21:01] Speaker A: So just to play devil's advocate, let's fast forward and imagine this person a few years down the road post MBA. Maybe they've done some consulting and now they're trying to set up their school in and they might need investors or they might need to convince government officials. And so I think it certainly wouldn't hurt to have, they have Wharton on their list, they have Kellogg on their mean those schools would go a long way in helping. You know I recall actually someone here in Paris who set up a school know this was someone who had like a master's in education but they also had gone to Yale Som and I remember that being that was like kind of prominently I was made aware of that. I can't remember what it was maybe on the website when I was looking at the school or whatever. So it can be useful both for kind of convincing the parents that might be wanting to send their children as well as any government or investors or I don't know what kind of a school this is going to be. I guess you wouldn't say investors so much as kind of supporters. But in any, just the reason I mentioned that is because what I saw in this candidacy, you know maybe this person should take a flyer on a Harvard or a Stanford as well as the Whartons and Kellogg's and booths on the list. And I was like wondering whether they needed to have right now they have this kind of, it's like a few m seven and then some sort of top 25 schools. And I was like there's nothing in the middle. But I wondered if they have too many of those non kind of top schools on the list. I mean these are all great schools. So I don't want to put my foot in my mouth by saying, but I just think that I felt like, wow, they could take a flyer on some of these very top schools. They have good numbers, a really interesting story and clear plans. And so why know they could leave Washington University Olin on the list as the local kind of safety where they might get a big scholarship or something. But I don't know that they need many others. [00:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I completely agree with you Graham, but also with Stanford for example, what matters most to you and why they should be able to write a really strong essay because again they're focused, they're very deliberate about seemingly what they want to do in the long run, which is really tied to what they're currently doing even though it's different. So I think that would really augment them well in the Stanford admissions process. Yeah, probably Harvard as well too, right? But yeah, I agree. If they do decide to do that, maybe they take one more go at the GRE, even at 326, if they think they can get a 330, it's really going to help. [00:23:35] Speaker A: Would help with maybe with the scholarship and stuff. [00:23:38] Speaker B: Yeah, if they're applying next season is my point. So they've got some time. [00:23:42] Speaker A: Right. So in any event, very interesting profile. One of the key differences between both of our first two, these two apply wire entries that we've talked about this week are nontraditional. Right. But here, the feather in the cap here, I think, is the fact that the numbers are pretty well in line with the top candidates getting into these schools. So it's a little more reassuring to see the high GPA, high test score coupled together. We don't know what the grades were in the masters that this person pursued, but I presume they were fine. Yeah, a little more reassuring. And that's why that first candidate we talked about really needs to think about the test. So in any event, great stuff. Let's move on and talk about wiretap candidate number three. So this candidate is a decision wire entry that you picked, Alex, and I'll give the kind of rundown and then we'll talk it through. This person applied to rice, they applied to Rochester. They applied to UNC. Keenan Flagler, and they applied to Washington University, Olin, which we were just talking about, and then also Wisconsin. And they had some really good admissions results. They ended up getting into rice with $80,000, Simon with 68,000, Washington Holland with 136,000, and Wisconsin with 101,000. So lots of scholarship dollars. Obviously, they're trying to start school this fall. They want to work in consulting and maybe eventually entrepreneurship. And they list McKinsey as one of the target companies. This person's based in Indiana, and they had a 3.59 GPA in undergrad, and they had a gre of 302. So pretty low GRE score. I mean, lower than our first candidate that we talked about today. And they indicate in the notes that they were waitlisted at UNC in round two and that the scholarships they received are full tuition at Olin and Wisconsin. Makes sense, given those big numbers. And they say that they just don't know what school to choose or if they should even get their MBA right now. They indicate that they are 24 years old and barely have two years of full time professional work experience by the time they enroll. So they're on a fairly low income salary right now, and they really could use our advice. So, Alex, what do you make of this? There are a lot of moving parts here. It's like, which school should they pick amongst the ones they're in at? There's this waitlist scenario with UNC, but then there's also this broader idea of, like, should they go at all? So, yeah. What do you make of this? [00:26:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it is quite interesting if you look at these programs that they've gotten very good offers from, they're probably sort of top 20, top 25 programs, even. Top 25, top 30 programs. [00:26:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:25] Speaker B: I would say that if you look at what tier that they fall in, and I think they've got a couple of issues with their profile, which potentially eliminates them at this juncture from potentially m seven top 16, or whatever it might be. And that is the test score 302, Keenan Flagler, which is a top 16. Put them on the waitlist. No, Keenan Flagler's top 20. Put them on the waitlist. [00:26:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:26:56] Speaker B: For example. So if they want to get off the waitlist for Keenan Flaglers, I would really focus heavily on getting that gre score retaken. Right. And then the other side of it is they only got two years of experience, which is very much on the short side in the spectrum of years of work experience. So their opportunity to date, to really show impact and growth will be much more limited. The question that they pose is not just which school should they go to, but should they wait? And I'm going to make a couple of comments about this and then let you carry on. Graham. One's about the schools themselves, and I'll address that first. This is somewhat of an indication to me, and this is purely anecdotal, Graham. And you can shoot me down very quickly, that the weaker marketplace for domestic candidates in the US for top programs, because if these schools, which are still very good schools, they're in the top 30, are willing to give this level of scholarship to a domestic candidate with a 302 GRE, it tells me something that their domestic pools are light. Now, again, I'm only basing this off one anecdote. Let's see how that plays out. But for this candidate particularly, I would say if you are going to wait, because I think they've got really good options based on their GRE score, quite frankly, kind of amazing with two years of experience. So I would hesitate about waiting unless they plan to retake that GRE and get it in the ballpark of top 16 m seven type programs. And if they do that, wait a year or two, get some really good impact level experience, then, yeah, maybe their options in a couple of years time are completely different, but I don't think they'll be completely different if they don't retake the GRE. I think that's always going to be a limiting factor. So I think the offers on the table with that Gre are really good at this juncture. [00:29:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Frankly, I was kind of blown away. I mean, this person has barely any work experience. They'd have two years by the time they start business school, which is quite unorthodox. Right. And they have a low GRE score. I mean, it's well below the averages at the top schools, and it's even below the averages at these, what you would call, I guess, top 25, 30 type schools. Right. I guess. I'm not surprised they got in. I'm surprised that they got in with such large scholarships, which I agree with you. That means there's something going on here. And I actually think there are a bunch of factors that we don't have information on. Right. So they didn't tell us. We don't know if this is a male or a female, for instance. And we know women are sought after in the applicant pool more so than men because there are far more men applying than women. We don't know if this person like what their lived experience has been. I mean, maybe they've had real socioeconomic difficulties or maybe they're an underrepresented minority. There are lots of factors that could go into why the scholarship money is on the table or what the results have been, and we don't have that info, so it's hard to speculate. But, yeah, I tend to agree. Basically, I think the move here is they either decide they're going to wait, work some more, retake that test, and get it up into the zone of where they would need to be, and then look at probably a slightly different list of target schools. Like you said, they could crack into the top 20. I mean, we're seeing some evidence. Right, with the UNC result, we are seeing evidence that they're close. Right. That's a top 20 type school and they're on the waitlist. Right. And I guarantee you if they were to take the GRE and get a 320 and tell UNC, they probably would get in off the waitlist. So that's a really interesting kind of dynamic we're seeing here. But as you say, if they're not willing to retake the test and then they should go, but then the question becomes, where should they go? They didn't really tell us where they want to be after business school. I don't think they did. Right. In terms of where they want to live. When you look at the schools on their list that had accepted mean, they're all kind of clustered in the rankings. And so some of it would depend. Know. If I knew they wanted to live in Texas, I'd say, yeah, rice is a pretty fantastic option. Right. Whereas if they want to settle in the Midwest, then you might think about Wisconsin or Washu or something. Right. So those are the ones with the biggest scholarship. [00:31:38] Speaker B: But, yeah, I think the challenge that they're facing. Graham, again, I'm guessing it's a bit hypothetical, but they probably worked a couple of years and they're probably thinking, well, I want to get on a different trajectory. And what's one way to do that? That's getting an MBA. [00:31:54] Speaker A: Right. So they're not happy with their. [00:31:56] Speaker B: So they're probably not in a good work situation now. And I think I sort of got that from some of their response, and they're using their MBA to elevate themselves, whereas if they applied in a couple of years time, was able to self elevate at this juncture and so forth, I think they would get so many much more options. [00:32:16] Speaker A: Yes. [00:32:17] Speaker B: But I can see the temptation, if they are in a work situation that they're not completely thrilled with, to take one of these scholarship offers that's on the table is quite compelling. [00:32:27] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, these are good schools, and depending on what they want to do, there would be options open to them. So I think, yeah, it is an interesting dilemma, and we don't really have a definitive response here, but I think hopefully we've put up some good food for thought as they contemplate this and decide on their next move. But still pretty fascinating to see the great offers and, yeah. So I want to wish them the best of luck and thank them for sharing this dilemma with us. Hopefully we shed a little bit of light. Alex, we've done it. We've wrapped up our three candidates for the week. I do want to wish everyone the best of luck as they're awaiting decisions. I know this coming week has a lot of them and as does next week. So hang in there, everybody. And, yeah, Alex, I'll see you next week for another show. [00:33:11] Speaker B: Very good. Best luck, everyone. Stay safe.

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