[00:00:16] Speaker A: Welcome to the clear admit MBA admissions podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your wiretaps for Monday, July 22, 2024. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things this week?
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: So what's cooking?
We're now I'm knee deep in essay talk because we've been doing these events and everything, our webinars and things about essay writing and stuff. But what's going on? What are you seeing on the wires?
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, like we mentioned previously, things have quietened down on livewire in terms of schools are clearly, you know, fine tuning their incoming class. We'll start getting into sort of preterm activity here reasonably soon. So.
Yeah, not a lot of movement on the waitlists over the last week or so. So things have tightened up.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And I will say, yeah, I've had a couple of conversations with admissions directors who at top schools in the last week and, yeah, they were feeling like they know where they're at at this point.
They know there'll be a couple more that melt away, but they've already got that sort of baked in. Right. So they've admitted a little more than they need. So, yeah, I think that things are pretty quiet now. We'll see. I mean, you never know. But it seems like we're wrapping up last admission cycle.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Let's move on to the next.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So, and speaking of that, we've got another event this Wednesday. It'll be the third in our series. I'm going to sit down with admissions directors from Carnegie, Mellon, Tepper, Chicago Booth, Georgetown, McDonough, Cornell, Johnson and Vanderbilt. Owen. And so I'm going to ask these admissions directors questions about their essay topics. And as those of you who've been tuning in to those, we've done two of them already, already this month. This is a really popular series because we dig pretty deep into the essay questions. And I feel like, I mean, it's great because the admissions officers who take part in these webinars are always pretty forthcoming and sometimes they're revealing, like, new tweaks to their essay questions on our webinars. And so it's been a lot of fun and. Yeah, more to come.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Terrific events and lots and lots of participation.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's been great. We've been setting records for the number of people tuning in, and we have one more of these the following week. So next week there'll be another one with Yale and Columbia and Michigan and ESA. So, yeah, stay tuned. You can sign up by going to bit ly summeressays. If you haven't signed up yet, please do so. Other than that, Alex on the website, we've continued to do our admissions director Q and A's.
Lauren on our team caught up with Lindsay Lloyd, who is a listener of the show.
I don't know. She used to listen, Lindsey from NYU Stern, and she. We asked her a little bit about kind of the life of an application and that sort of thing, and that's the question we ask all admissions directors. And she said, every single application we receive is read in its entirety by multiple reviewers on the MBA admissions team and evaluated holistically across three dimensions, academic potential, professional achievements and aspirations, and alignment with Stern core values. Our emphasis on both intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence, what we call IQ plus EQ, is top of mind throughout the reading and evaluation process.
And she also added, we offer regular mock application workshops with Stern admissions officers via Zoom throughout the year, and they're very helpful for demystifying the process. So, Alex, I picked that quote from Lindsay because she touched on some stuff that I think really resonates with what we talk about in our book, like this idea of understanding what are Stern's core values and keeping that in mind as you're writing that application. You talk about that a lot.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's super, super important and I think Stern should get a lot of credit, I think maybe along with Sloan, for really pushing EQ very early on.
When I talk about early on, I'm talking about years ago rather than just only focusing on sort of IQ and professional accomplishments. But the EQ stuff, they've been really pushing for several lots of years, actually, at this point, and I think it's super, super important.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: Yeah, so that was great. And that interview is really interesting. Obviously, I love these Q and A's that we do on the website. We also caught up with Sherry Hubert over at Duke's Fuqua school and we asked her if she had any tips about essay writing and she said that this is great. She said, a common mistake that I've seen from applicants is unintentionally not explaining aspects of their application that do not speak to their strengths. I like to advise applicants not to assume that we in admissions will be able to read between the lines and piece together the context of an area of their strength. Sorry, of an area of their application that they may feel is not a strong indicator of their abilities. If there's something that is in an applicant's profile that they feel is not a strength, they should tell us what they've done to shore up that area. By being proactive, an applicant demonstrates self awareness and humility along with the drive to improve. So I just love, because she's talking about don't make them play detective and figure out why this was bad or what went wrong. Just be, own it and be out in front. And I think that's really great advice.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. How do you pronounce Duke's business school grade?
[00:05:46] Speaker A: We talk about the fuqua. Yeah. And actually, I guess it was at the event we did in Chicago, I mentioned that, although in a recent interview that I did with Sherry, which is gonna, we'll air it in this podcast feed in not too long, I mentioned that we say few qualify fuqua. That's an easy way to remember it. And she said, yeah, that's true, but be careful. I mean, we want everyone to apply and we're going to evaluate everyone's applications. It's not just for the few, it's for everyone can apply.
So she was kind of saying, don't make us sound too hyper, hyper selective or something like, we don't want people to be scared of that. But that's how I remembered how to pronounce it, for sure.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: It's an old joke I heard many, many years ago.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So the last admissions director we caught up with was Becky Gallagher at the University of Bath School of Management in, in the United Kingdom. And again, along the lines of essay and kind of application advice. One of the things that she said is she said, we see frequently that successful applications draw on specific experiences to exemplify their skills and knowledge, but we also welcome honest reflections of areas for future growth. We want to hear their own voice. So if they used AI to help write their answers, we expect them to check back over the answer and make sure that it aligns accurately with their beliefs and values. Finally, it's important to take your time on an application to follow the instructions provided and adhere to the word limit for each question. So some pretty good key bits of advice that we hear a lot. It's like, don't blow past the word limits. Proofread the stuff. And then I thought it was interesting that she mentioned AI specifically as sort of like, hey, you know what? If you're going to use AI, make sure you're kind of, it's still aligning with, like, what you're trying to express in an authentic way.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: I think that's the key. Be authentic. I mean, it's just fundamental. Lots of admissions officers would put that at the top of their list.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And we did. When I was out at the GMAC conference with a bunch of the business schools I mentioned, I caught up with a number of admissions directors. And I did these little kind of man on the street interviews and took them to the lobby, talked to, and one of the questions, Alex, thanks to you, that I asked them about was AI and using AI in the application process. The first of those interviews has aired. It's in this feed. Wherever you're listening to this podcast, you can find it. And it was with Amy Mitson from Tuck over at Dartmouth. But there's more to come. I caught up with admissions directors from Yale and MIT and Duke, as I mentioned, and Cornell, Cambridge. There's a whole list of them. They're going to be coming out. We'll try to run at least one if in a couple a week. These are short ten minute podcast episodes. A great way to get up to speed on a given school's kind of admissions process. And some tips, because most of these admissions directors I sat down with had some really nice advice to offer. So stay tuned for those. And Alex, thanks for your help in shaping the questions that I asked them, because that was great.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, brilliant. I'm looking forward to listening to them.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So other than that, people, if you want to reach out to Alex or me, you can just write
[email protected] dot. Use the subject line wiretaps and we will email you back. We always love to hear from you. We also love when you comment on the entries on our website. If you post an applywire entry or Livewire entry, you can always leave comments there and we'll go back and forth with you. But, yeah, other than that, Alex, anything on your mind before we talk about this week's candidates, let's kick on. All right, so this is wiretaps candidate number one.
Our first candidate this week has six schools on the target list, and they're looking to start school in the fall of 25. They've got Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford, Chicago, Booth and Wharton on the target list for now. They've been working in private credit prior to business school, and after business school, they're thinking about investment banking or maybe venture capital or private equity.
Definitely something in finance. Let's leave it there. They have a 720 on the GMat. They have a GPA of 3.73. They've been working for five years. And they mentioned that they are a 27 year old male us citizen. And as I said, five years experience. By the time round one applications will come. So they'll actually have closer to six years by the time they start business school. They went to a well known public university in the midwest, studied economics, and they had a concentration in business. And as I mentioned, they had that 720 on the GMAT. They've taken the test three times, and that is their best score that they kind of wanted to underline that, I guess. They've done quite a bit of work, as I said, in finance, and specifically, they're working at a credit fund overseeing closing of debt securitizations. It's kind of out of my depth. Even though I have an MBA, I get lost in some of the finance stuff. And they mentioned that they did not do extracurriculars in college because they were helping to take care of a sick family member throughout their college career. They literally would go home every Friday and stay at home until Sunday to then return to campus. So they kind of missed out on some extracurriculars. But they have been volunteering at an organization and doing some work, I guess, with kind of helping combat hunger and also with habitat for Humanity. So they've done, they say, over 100 hours of community service with a couple of organizations, and I guess they also mentioned their regular member at their Mai Thai gym. So there's some other things. They're also on the board of a nonprofit. That's a recent occurrence. So they're kind of wondering, though, this is the main question. Are they qualified enough for m seven schools, or is it not realistic? So, Alex, you weighed in on this on the website, but what's your take on this candidacy?
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think to answer the question right up front, I think they're certainly qualified enough.
Does that necessarily mean that they're going to get accepted? That's the question. Right. And what we tend to see at the top business schools is probably 50% of the applicant pool that's applying are qualified enough. And then it's like, well, but how do you then separate yourself, differentiate yourself from those qualified candidates? So that's going to be the challenge. I think their work experience sounds good and strong.
Also looks like they've got a decent amount of autonomy at work, some leadership and so on and so forth. So I would say, I mean, I'm kind of like you, Graham. I get a. A little bit lost in the jargon in terms of what they've actually done, but I would say it looks like they've done very well. We want to see that really backed up by strong Rex.
So let's hope that is the case, they obviously did well as an undergrad. 3.73. So I've got to check the box that they're smart, that 720 g mat is, again, it qualifies them. It's not outstanding, but they've taken the test three times. I think they can look beyond that now. And that combination of three, seven, 3720 is decent. Right.
I like the 373. And obviously, during undergrad, they couldn't get involved in extracurriculars. They were having to go home each weekend to take care of a sick family member, relative, or whatever it might be. That tells me a little bit about the character of this person, their sort of compassion, how they manage their priorities and so forth. And I think that also plays out in their extracurricular interests. And they seem to be sort of oriented towards doing stuff that helps others, helps sort of communities that are disadvantaged and so forth. They're now on a board of a non profit. I really think they can really push that and leverage that as potentially a point of differentiation. So, again, how do they truly qualify for these top m seven programs? So to the extent that they can ratchet up that impact on that board, and they articulated a few of the things that they're doing, and it sounds really, actually quite impactful and interesting. So really leveraging that. And then if they do that, yes, I think they qualify.
I would probably encourage them, if they know that going to business school this season is the right thing to do, to maybe look at one or two other programs outside the m seven, just to make sure they've got that spread.
And also targeting, like they are, several schools within the m seven, hoping that at least one of them bites.
So not just relying on one m seven. As we know, at the end of the day, a strong candidate might get denied, Booth, but get admitted at Wharton. Right. I mean, it just seems a bit odd on the surface, but that's the nuance of the process. So. So, yeah, I think there's a lot to like here, Graham. You know, are they guaranteed m seven? Absolutely not. But there's certainly some really great ingredient.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Yeah. So I guess a couple of things for me. Number one, I could not agree more that they probably should cast a wider nat. I also think they need to look, take a hard look at the schools on their current list for the role that they're looking to target. Right. So they have this list of. It's six of the. They don't have MIT on their list. They mentioned that they want to work as an asset originator at a private credit fund.
I would actually encourage them to take a look at the top 16 MBA programs or top 20 through the lens of which ones are actually strong in that domain. Does a NYU or a Cornell come into the mix just to make sure they're really doing their homework on that? Because right now, this list just feels like they just picked the schools that are m seven schools and didn't maybe think about strengths in the specific area that they're looking to target. The other thing I would say is they should be careful about jargon. They're like, worked as an FSO consultant at big four firm, and I was like, oh, what's that? You just have to make sure that you're an FSO is just financial services organization, but it's like you want to be careful, especially when you're working in a technical kind of domain like finance, to not lose people in acronyms.
In any event, I agree with you, though. The work experience sounds impressive. The only thing I'm a little concerned about, if I want to be a cynic here and play devil's advocate, is they had no activities in college. Sounds like they had a great reason for it, so they can write about that. But then since college, which is. I mean, right now it's four plus years. Coming up on five years, they mentioned they've done like 100 plus hours in community service. Well, that, you know, it's like 20 hours a year or something. Right. So I'm kind of wondering how active they are. It does seem like they have some new opportunities with this nonprofit board. They are a regular member at their gym, but I just want to make sure it doesn't feel like they've sort of put the pedal on the gas a little bit. Only recently, now that they know they're applying to business school. So I would really hope that there are things in their background that are going to be able to emerge as unique characteristics for this candidate. Maybe there is a longer term trend of helping those in need, like you were saying, based on things they were doing. Even as a younger person, who knows?
I just want to be careful here because the GMAT score is below average, GPA is great, and m seven, we know, as you say, it's a high risk maneuver. And so I would encourage them to cast a slightly wider net, but I think it's possible. They're certainly not crazy for looking at these top programs.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And your point regarding extracurricular or volunteer work now is very.
Yeah, I think that's important. Yeah.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: So any of it. I want to thank them for sharing their profile. Wish them the best of luck. I think, again, they have the ingredients. They just need to kind of put it together and keep in mind some of the things we talked about with respect to school selection.
But, yeah, we'll see how it turns out for them. Let's move on, though, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two, our second candidate this week, also wants to start in the fall of 25. This candidate has eleven schools on the target. Those schools are Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, lBs, Michigan, NYU, Stanford, Wharton, and Darden. This candidate has also been working in finance, pre business school, and they have a, it seems like maybe an entrepreneurial plan post MBA, but they. They just indicated other for their post MBA target. They have a whopping 760 on the GMAt. That's the GMAT Classic edition. And they have a 7.2 GPA. That's out of ten. And that's because this candidate is from India, where the scale is out of 100 or ten. They have eight years of work experience, and they mentioned that they actually are an entrepreneur. So they've been simultaneously working a full time job while kind of bootstrapping an entrepreneurial business in the retail domain. And they've also co founded an aided school that currently has 170 plus students. When they began, they only had 20. So they're, you know, making some progress with a kind of outside activities, kind of community service. They mentioned that in their regular job, which is an agribusiness job, they're working on a lending model, which will be the first one in India if it's implemented successfully. They have about seven years in India's largest public sector bank. So I guess it's trying to understand, like, this is one of those things where it's not 100% clear to me, but I think that they're working for a bank, but maybe it's a bank that does a lot of lending or something in agribusiness. I don't know. It's hard to follow here, but they've been working there in the lending department, and they're just wondering about what are their chances? And they have a wide range of schools. But Alex, you gave them some advice. I'm kind of curious if you could share that and just share your perspective on their candidacy.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of your points is well made. They've got to streamline and articulate their story effectively. It looks to me like they've done some really super interesting things from an entrepreneurial perspective. They're also innovating within the banking system, so they're effectively almost like an entrepreneur within a larger organization with their lending mechanism or whatever it is they're planning to roll out. Love the school stuff that they're doing. You know, you co found a school and you can show success with it in terms of enrolment and so forth. That's got to be a huge boost to the overall profile. Totally 760 on the GMAT. They're wicked smart. So I think if they get their story well developed and they tie it to really sort of substantial goals etc. Etc.
They're going to be in pretty good shape. I would say, just like we do for any candidate from an over represented country, India, that they really need to get their ducks in a row and target the first round. There's no reason why they don't.
Again, they've got the test score in place, they've probably got to work on their story over the summer and so forth, but if they get their applications in around 1 gram, they do a really good job of getting their story straight. I think they got such great opportunities to show impact and growth, which are the sort of fundamental building blocks in my mind of a strong candidacy.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I think it does sound. It's interesting because from the limited details we have, I agree, it sounds like there's a lot going on. Like they have their own business, they've been working for seven years at a bank, so they've had a lot of interesting experiences. They're doing, as you say, the kind of outside community service with the school they founded. So a lot of great ingredients. I still think like you're saying they need to apply early just because they're gonna be viewed as overrepresented coming from India, but yeah, I mean, the thing that I also like is, I mean, they're not gonna apply to eleven schools. I mean, I presume they won't. I mean that would be a lot. But I liked the fact that they have a decent range of programs on the list. I mean these are all top 20 schools, but there's obviously Stanford on the list, which is very hard to get into. But they also have some schools that are more towards the back end of the top 20. So I think that's smart.
Yeah. So I feel like they just. They do need to be better at articulating what it is that they're doing now, what they're going to do in the future, how it all fits together.
But they have time and hopefully they're coming to the webinars that we're running the essay workshops and maybe watching some of the videos on our website as well, with the admissions academy videos that you and I made just to help them shape their plan here.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And obviously the Stanford's first essay will help them tie it all together.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good one to start with. What matters most to you and why. Yes. A nice, broad topic.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: All right.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Why don't we thank them for submitting their profile? Hopefully, this advice has been useful. Let's turn our attention now to wiretaps. Candidate number three.
So our third candidate is rather unusual. They have 19 schools on their initial target list here, and it's kind of a who's who, but it's complicated because this person is actually looking to apply to masters in management programs. So they have, you know, Berkeley, Boston College, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell. The list goes on. I'm not going to read the whole. There's 19 schools here, but it's sort of a who's who of top business schools. They're looking to start in the fall of 25. They're currently a student at Arizona State University.
They aren't really sure about what they want to do after business school, but they think that it's going to involve either consulting or tech. And they list those types of companies as targets of BCG and, you know, Deloitte and Apple and Google and others. Right. Their GPA is currently a 4.23. I'm a little puzzled as to how you get more than a four.
I thought that most american undergrads were out of four, but maybe they got a lot of a pluses or extra credit. So, a really good GPA in undergrad at ASU, they mentioned that they would love to land in New York. And just to better explain this whole process, they're saying that they want to do a mim. So a master's in management right out of college, but they then say to increase my chances of getting into my target MBA program later for the deferred enrollment. So this is a rising senior majoring in computer science, minoring in business, and they've had a number of, you know, internships. And, you know, it sounds like they've. They're ticking all the boxes with respect to, you know, they're a dancer since they were three years old. They've won numerous competitions around the world, it sounds like. So, you know, they're hitting all the boxes with respect to academic performance in undergrad and outside of activities. But, Alex, let's talk through this, because I just. It's a little confusing. And I think it's also unusual for us to discuss this kind of stuff on the show. So it's a great pick here, but tell me a little bit about what your thoughts are on this candidate and their approach.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's a great pick, but only for a few folks because it's certainly not traditional in terms of what they're trying to do. And the reason why I picked this is I wanted to use it to potentially dispel a few.
I mean, obviously the Mim programs and we represent them on the clear admit website and so forth can be very useful for a variety of different reasons. But I just want to make sure that this candidate who has expressed that they want to apply for a deferred MBA enrolment or they ultimately want to apply for an MBA, whether an Mim is the best route going forward for me, Mim may provide them better access to a business related career coming out of college, and if they think that is for sure the case, then, yeah, maybe an Mim makes sense that is tacking on an additional year of where they're at or at another school before they get into the full time professional career. But we know that many folks target and apply to top tier business schools with undergraduate degrees that are not related to business at all and can be very successful. And this person is already doing a computer science degree with a business minority. I'm just a little bit concerned that the mim might not be the best route. Now, if they wanted to apply for deferred admissions, they've still got to take the test, GMAT or Gre or whatever it is. They've got to do super, super well in that test because as an undergrad applying, there are less data points. So that puts a bit more scrutiny on the test. But everything else, Graeme about this candidate just smacks of being superstar potential. They've done, you know, great internships, they've got a ridiculous GPA, they've been on the dean list since they were born. They've extracurriculars seem outstanding in terms of their involvement at the school. They've been a dancer since they could walk, and they have prizes internationally to show that they dance at a very high level. So there's just lots of ingredients to say that if they just now applied to deferred MBA with a strong test score, they've got to be really interesting candidate. And even if they don't get admitted to a very top school through the deferred admissions process, then go get that job, start the career, apply in three years or four years time and again, assuming they got a decent career underway they should be really competitive.
[00:28:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. So, yeah, this candidate has, like, the makings of a superstar down the road. Right. But I think two quick points. Number one, I actually don't think that while schools allow you to apply for a deferred MBA while you're in a master's, if that master's began straight away when you finished undergrad, I don't think applying to an MBA from a master's in management is the best strategy. In fact, I would argue that it could be a terrible strategy, potentially. I think that when schools said that they don't mind you applying to a deferred MBA from a master's program that you're in, I think they're trying to. They're trying to draw in the kind of, oh, I'm doing a master's in biology or a master's in engineering or computer science. I don't think they're trying to draw in the business crowd. I think that the problem that this candidate would face is if you have a master's in management, you have to kind of prove the need for the MBA. And the best way to do that is to get the masters in management, go work for a few years, and then apply just regularly to an MBA program and say, yeah, the mim was great. It prepared me for my career. But now that I've worked for a while, I think I'd really benefit from the next level of kind of management education, which an MBA can afford me, because I'll be in a classroom with others who have experience, and I'd love to have that education post experience now. And so you can make that case, but you can't really make it when you're still in the mim. I think it's really gonna be a lot harder to make that case. So I could not agree with you more. This person should probably pivot and just apply to, like, deferred MBAs as a senior, assuming they can get a great test score, and then, you know, go work for a while. The only wrinkle that you and I talked about before we came on air is I wondered if this candidate might be an international student who came over to the US and is at ASU and maybe thinks that staying in school keeps that student visa alive. And then maybe with Opt, they work for a year after the mim, and then they're quickly heading off to a deferred MBA or something. I don't know what the rationale might be, but it did occur to me that if they were trying to play the visa game. Maybe that's what's happening but otherwise it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't think it is the right strategy to go to business school this way.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I completely agree.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: So in any event, it's just fascinating because on some levels we talk about this a lot but I think that admissions readers, they actually value people without a kind of business undergraduate degree in some respects and so to overload on it may just not be the right message. So, yeah, so in any event, this person has a strategy that we've mapped out potentially for them to follow if they're willing to pivot off their current plan. Alex, thanks for picking this out though. I really think it's interesting. And again, all three candidates this week, we're touching on different issues as always. So appreciate your time selecting these and let's do it again in one week's time if you're willing.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Yeah, very good. Best luck everyone. Facebook.
