Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Welcome to the clear admit MBA admissions podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your wiretaps for Monday, September 23, 2024. For more than 100 years, Emory University's Goisueta business School has been a training ground for principal leaders and a laboratory for powerful insights. Whether you're looking to accelerate your career or make a career pivot, Emory's one year and two year full time MBA programs prepare you for a lifetime of career confidence. Learn more about Emory's top 20 MBA with top five career outcomes offering world class academics and small by design classes delivered in a dynamic global city. More at Emory Biz Clearadmit, I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: So what do we have on tap? Are there more deadlines or are we getting through them all?
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah, no, we've got a few more deadlines this week, and we're certainly not out of the woods yet with deadlines in the next several weeks. But this week it's Imperial College rotman, who actually only just recently announced their deadlines, or at least I only recently discovered their deadlines. Dartmouth, Tuck and I, we're also seeing the first sort of tranche of interview invites on Livewire, which is sort of really signals the beginning of the season for Livewire activity itself. So Kellogg, which is notorious for trying to interview all their applicants.
So post deadline, those interview invites tend to go out quite quickly.
If you're a Kellogg candidate, you want to avoid getting the waiver.
And Yale is also notorious for very quickly getting out early invites. We don't know exactly the calculus that they use to determine who gets those invites. I would presume it's based off of outstanding numbers because it's certainly before they then review the applications in detail, in which time others, over the interview invite season, they trickle those invites out. So, yeah, there's activity now is really starting to pick up on Livewire.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah, and you're making a great point with Yale, they always get a batch out of invites early. But don't fear, not if you have applied to Yale and did not get an interview immediately following application, many of them will come out later. It's just that they have a process where they kind of identify some people first and then do the bulk of them later. So there'll be more to come. We do have, Alex, one more webinar in our webinar series from September here. And so this Wednesday, I'm going to sit down and speak with admissions directors from Duke, Carnegie Mellon, Tepper Columbia Business School, Texas McCombs and Georgetown McDonough. And so there's still, you can still sign up for that. We've had great attendance and signups for these events, but you can go to bit ly insidemba if you want to join us for that final event in the series. It's been a blast over these last couple of weeks. And then we also, I think I mentioned this last week on the show, but we're doing this West Coast MBA webinar, and that's going to be in October, I believe it's the 16 October, and it's going to feature Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, UC Irvine, and maybe one more. I'm still kind of, we're still kind of figuring that out, but at least those four, you can sign up for that at bit Lee Westcoast MBA. And that's going to be, you know, just all about earning your MBA out on the west coast, specifically in California. And. Yeah. So stay tuned. We've also got a real humans.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Hold on, hold on. You got to stop. You got to let me talk, Graham.
All right, well, yeah, maybe one more. Yeah, come on, Marshall, get with the program here. But tell me something that you learned from your webinar, from the webinar series that you hosted last week.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So last week we sat down with, what was it, Berkeley and Tuck. And, I mean, yeah, it was a really good group. We had Unc.
I'm trying to think who else was on that webinar. There were five schools, but it's all kind of escaping me, as you put me on the spot. But one thing that was interesting was that Lawrence at Tuck, who's their director of admission, he talked about how they're really intentional about indicating sort of what they're looking for and then mapping each of those traits to specific components of the application. He's like, we want people who are intelligent, and we're going to look for that here, here and here. And it was really specific. And he went through that. That was useful.
Yeah, we just learned a lot about, well, Yale was on that as well. And they talked about, they have this behavioral assessment that you do after you've submitted. And they talked through that, which I'd never heard much about how that works. It sounds like it's actually no pressure. There's no prep. It's only a 20 minutes test. And it's mostly used to help people not to kind of take points away from your candidacy. So, yeah, lots of tidbits coming out in these webinars, and that's why we're doing them to just give people a little extra edge as they apply. So yeah, it was a lot of fun.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: And anyone that missed the webinars, how can they watch them? Graham, here's an advert for our YouTube channel.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: Yeah, we have a YouTube channel. I don't even know the address for it, but if you just go into YouTube and type in clear admit, you will find us. And yeah, they're all posted there, usually not right away, but within a couple of days. So yeah, they're there. You can watch them and leave comments and share them, etcetera. So, yeah, that's been good. We've got that rolling now. And even these podcasts pop into that channel, too.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: So one other thing I was going to say is we're going to be gathering together a group of current students and alumni from top schools for a real humans webinar. That'll happen in late October. And right now we've got students from Tuck, Columbia business school, Darden and Duke. So that'll be fun. More to come on that. Alex, there were some news items that I wanted to share with you and get your take on. I know you have strong opinions about NBA rankings. And the other thing that's interesting is there's just been, it seems like a lot of MBA rankings. Like there's sort of some new entrants. Like LinkedIn we had, you know, the FT did theirs, Bloomberg just published theirs. So there's been all these rankings. And I kind of wanted to give you like the top tens for a couple of them and see if you had any point of view. I mean, for LinkedIn, they actually expanded this year to rank 100 programs and to include international schools because last year it was us only. They did a lot of things that frankly, our article about their first ranking last year recommended that they do. So I don't know if they read our article, Alex, I don't want to take credit, but I feel like they did everything we said they should do.
So in any event, I'll give you the top ten. Stanford, InsEad, Harvard, Wharton, MIT, Indian School of Business, Northwestern, Kellogg, Dartmouth, Columbia, Chicago. Booth, what do you make of that top ten?
[00:07:15] Speaker B: The us programs belong in the top ten, right? If we to rank. So can you just list out those us programs again?
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So they're eight of. So eight of the top ten are us. So Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, Mit, Kellogg, Tuck, Columbia, Chicago.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good list. And Tuck, we would consider perhaps in the tier just behind the m seven, but in the top ten, you've listed the m seven, so they've got the right pretty close to the right us programs in that top ten. I always find it quite difficult. I know FT tries to do this integrating international MBA programs with us based MBA programs just simply because the applicant pool tends not to apply to programs in different geographies. Right? You tend to know where you want to do your MBA, et cetera, et cetera. So comparing INSEAD and IASB and so forth with US based programs I do think is challenging. But there's no doubt insead's top of the heap in Europe along with LBS ISP's top of the heap in India. So yeah, I don't have too much negative to say. Quite frankly, I think they did a.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: Much better job this year. Now I only shared the top ten because things get a little head scratching when you go outside of that. So, for example, there's a program whu Otto Besheim in Germany, and they were actually ranked number 13 in this ranking. So that means they came out ahead of programs like NYU Stern who were ranked 23rd, or even Michigan. Ross ranked at number 30.
And my thought was the data that we have on our site would suggest that people are not choosing who over NYU or Michigan. So that's always a little bit puzzling to me, like how some of these discrepancies arise. But in any event, I'm happy.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: But it gets back to my earlier point, unless the candidate wants to have a career in, and I guess in this case, is it Germany?
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah, Germany. Yeah.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So yeah, if your goals are to work in Germany, then this program may well be a better fit for you than NYU Stern or Michigan Ross. But for all candidates, is that program better than Stern and Ross? Probably not.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Right? So in any event, very interesting. And then the other one that just came out that we did an article.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: On is, this was ridiculous, by the.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Way, is the Bloomberg Business Week ranking. Now, on the one hand, they get it right in the sense that they do us schools and international schools sort of separately. I think it is hard to mix these geographies sometimes, so they do them separately. So I'll give you the top ten in the US and then let you weigh in. We had Stanford at number one, which they've actually been at for maybe six times in a row now in this ranking, followed by Chicago, Booth, Kellogg, Dartmouth, Uva, Darden, Harvard, Wharton, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon. And rounding out the top ten is MIT Sloan. So what do you think of that group?
[00:10:29] Speaker B: I think they took the top 20, stocked them all in a hat and pulled out the top ten from that hat and decided that's their rank order.
I will say that, yes, Stanford belongs at number one or number two.
Right. Harvard's up there, should be up there at number one or number two. Wharton right behind them. We have a very rigorous sort of tier system that we understand and have developed through data off of decision wire and so forth.
But yeah, they're all top 20 programs, they fit in the top 20, but it seems like a bit of a random order to me, quite honestly. Graeme.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the one thing about the businessweak ranking that was interesting is I noticed that schools like tuck and Darden seem to be doing well. There's some rankings around kind of teamwork and learning environment or that sort of stuff. And so I think there may be a little bit of a bias towards the smaller programs. You see Stanford coming in at the top of the heap. They're not a giant program, so I don't know what's driving it. But I agree with you, it's a little bit different than what we see. I mean, these are all great programs but yeah, you can quibble with the.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Order, but if you have a bias towards smaller programs, then you have a bias towards programs in that sort of top 16 top ten tier versus the m seven tier. Now, Stanford is an outlier there, we know that. But there's definitely a correlation between the very top tiers and the size of the program, top tier programs, because they can attract a larger applicant pool of quality candidates. It's so simple and obvious to me.
You get a lot of schools say, well, we're small and we're intimate and this, that and the other, and I like that they take advantage of that and create a more intimate environment. But there's a fundamental reason why they're smaller and yeah, we can leave it at that. But yeah, Stanford absolutely belongs at the top, there's no doubt about that. But the rest of their order, and it's a bit of a shame because I'm a big fan of business Week. They started this ranking system. Kudos to John Byrne.
They innovated. When we were at Wharton, we were always excited when they ranked us at number one. Their ranking was very rigorous.
Obviously we always agreed with it back then because we were ranked number one, but they did it every second year. It was very. Whatever. But I just think the way school these rankings are being done these days is just. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is what it is.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: It's for the clicks. I'll quickly just list out the top ten european programs, according to Bloomberg. And that is number one, Imdeenenhouse, followed by Esa, followed by Bocconi, London Business School, insEad, St. Gallen, Oxford, Cambridge, Esade and Mannheim.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Yeah, all really good, strong european programs, but I wouldn't put them in that order.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I tend to agree. I mean, great news for IMD to kind of rise up to the top there. They'd been historically a great, great MBA program in Europe and then had sort of fallen off the pace and the ranking. So they must be really excited about that. But yeah, I agree. The ordering, again, these are all great schools, but something the ordering doesn't quite jibe. So in any event, probably enough on rankings we did for those of you applying to school, maybe more on your mind. Admissions tips we ran a really good tip about. It's called five questions to ask yourself before submitting the optional essay.
Definitely must read stuff.
Those optional essays can be tricky to navigate, and so this will help you figure that out. And there's even a video, Alex, that accompanies that where I think we talk about the optional essay, too. So we also caught up with Erin Nixon, who is the new admissions director at Stanford GSB. And, Alex, you'll love this. We asked her to kind of talk about advice for writing their famous what matters most to you and why essay. And she said, we recommend taking the time to think about what is authentic to you. Some people find it helpful to talk with family, friends, or close colleagues as thought partners before they sit down to write. I know that many people wish our advice were more formulaic or cookie cutter, but the truth is that when I'm reading your application, I'm 100% focused on understanding your story. I'm not comparing you to other people. I have no right answer in mind. I really just want to get to know you. So it's not about what the admissions team wants to hear. Instead, what it is, is that you want to tell us. What is it that you really want to tell us about you? You don't have to pitch yourself to us, and there is no one specific GSB archetype that we're looking for. If anything, the way to stand out is to sit with and embrace the things that make you who you really are. So what do you make of that, Alex?
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Love it. Absolutely love it. And again, my advice is do the Stanford first essay draft, even if you're not applying to Stanford. It's a really good. I think it's a really good exercise in, you know, self reflection or whatever it might be to sort of then set you up for your admissions essays and approach at other schools.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Other big news on the site is that we have launched our Real Humans series for students this year. It's that time of year already. I can't believe it. But where we interview current students and ask them about their journey to the program that they're attending and lots of details about what it's like. So that's back for the new season. We started that with Rice Jones in Texas and Michigan State. And there'll be many, many more schools. We can do about 50 of them over the next couple of months. So those are all in the pipeline and coming. And then, Alex, one more thing before we talk about our candidates. I have two class of 26 profiles for you to weigh in on, and those are from Yale and Uva Darden. So I'll give you the Yale numbers. Just get your kind of take. Yale's new class has 347 students in it. That's a little bit bigger than last year, where they were at 339. Undergraduate GPA is 3.68. That's up a tick from 3.64 last year. GRE is 330, holding steady from last year. The GMAT is 730. It was 720 last year. They also broke out and gave GMAT focus average scores, which is something we've been wondering what schools would do. So, Yale, they're always way on the ball when it comes to stats. So they actually shared. GMAT focus average is a 675. I looked at the concordance tables, and that's actually a 730 on the old test. So very consistent with their other old test score average. They have 4.9 average years of work experience in the incoming class, 39% women. That's basically the same exact number they had last year. 42 countries represented. 48% of the student body are international passport holders. That stat is a little different than what other schools share. So harder to do. Apples to apples. And they mentioned that 56% of their incoming class identify as students of color, and that's up 8% from last year. So what do you think of these Yale numbers?
[00:17:36] Speaker B: I mean, frankly, Graham, I love their transparency on the numbers side for the test taking specifically, and I hope all schools, I just really like this. So I think they're the first school that really has an average or a median GRE score. That's equivalent to their GMAT score. They've done this now for a couple of years, whereas we've seen other schools have a significantly lower average or median GRE relative to their GMAT, which just seems a little.
It's odd, but Yale has bucked that trend and I'm hoping other schools follow. And I love the fact that they revealed also the average for the new GMAT test at 675. And again, I know other schools will follow suit because they're going to have to over the next couple of years. Be nice to see if others are doing that in this year's class profile.
So kudos to Yale. It looks like their app volume's probably up just like everyone else. They didn't report it, but the number of folks in the class ticks up a little bit. Yeah, looks like their stats just look, you know, they look good. Really good.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Really good for Darden. I'll give you those numbers. 355 students in the incoming class. That's almost the same. It was 352 last year. Percent. Women is 38%. That's up 1% from last year. They have 30 countries represented pretty similar to last year. Average number years work experience is 5.7. That's down slightly from 5.9 last year. Average undergraduate GPA is up to 3.56 from 3.51. Average GMAT is a 718. They also shared the median, which is a 720. Last year the average was 716. So that's up a little bit. And then the Grenada combined score average is 321. So, Alex, what do you make of.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: Those numbers again, relative to last year? These are good numbers, but it is striking to me the stats over the test scores and the GPA are.
Well, I don't know if significant is the right word, but they're lower than Yale. Now, we would suggest that Yale is in the higher tier, but we always think that that's pretty close. Right. So Yale's in that top ten tier, Darden's in the top 16 tier and so forth. But there is definitely a little bit of a difference on the academic profile piece of it that's worth noting. Graham?
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. But, yeah, both schools with really impressive numbers. But yeah, you're right. There's some differences on the tests.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. No, I mean, these numbers at Darden are very, very good. It's just quite interesting to contrast them directly with Yale and just cued us to Yale because their test score numbers and GPA numbers are more akin to the m seven than they are to the top 16. I guess the broader point I'm trying to make.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. So, yeah, so I guess you had picked out three candidates to talk about. We'll do that. Now, I did want to mention I had the pleasure of sitting down with Emily Brierly from Cambridge, judge recorded a podcast with her that's going to be coming probably in a couple of weeks. We got to produce it and then get it all together. But stay tuned for that if you're interested in Cambridge judge, we also have another one coming out from lbs that'll actually be out later this week with any luck. So stay tuned for that. You can listen wherever you're listening to this show. If you want to write to Alex or to me, you can write to infocleeradmit.com dot, use the subject line wiretaps, and we will write you back. Alex, anything else? 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 is currently a student, and they're applying a deferred enrollment programs. And so they have Columbia, MIT, Wharton, Darden, and Yale on the target list. And for those of you who maybe don't know, deferred enrollment means you apply when you're a senior in college or potentially in your. You could be in a master's program that you joined directly from undergrad, and you get a spot in an MBA program and you then work for two to five years before matriculating. So that's what this person is attempting to do. Their post MBA target industry is pharma. They list companies like Amgen, AstraZeneca, J. And J. Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, etcetera. Their GPA in undergrad thus far is a 3.5. They're located in New Jersey, and they plan, as I said, on joining a deferred enrollment program. They have not yet taken the GMAT, but their target score is a 705 on the new version of the exam, which I think is going to equate to somewhere around a 750, if you're used to the older scale. They've already had a couple of internships with pharma companies, Novartis and Nordisk, they mentioned.
And they even in those experience, led other groups of interns to solve problems. And they've had some little bits of leadership. They have a stem background. Their degree is going to be in cell biology, and they've also won a competition for best business development pitch. I guess they're working on a startup idea. And. Yeah, so that's something that they're kind of, you know, in process with while studying and while apparently thinking about applying to business school. So, Alex, what do you make of this candidacy?
[00:23:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think that this candidate is doing all the right things as a potential deferred admit candidate. So they are, like you say, a bit of a different beast.
They don't have that post undergrad professional experience upon which to reflect at the time they apply.
The idea is they go and gain that experience before they actually enrol. But ADCOM has got to make some judgments here because, again, they have just essentially less data points to work with. But ADCOm really wants to pick the very best out of these out of undergraduate programs to secure them into their class. Because, quite frankly, these folks might be applying to other master's programs. Right.
So there's a little bit of a competition for the real top candidates coming out of undergrad. That's why, folks, that's why we're seeing more of these deferred admissions programs that we've seen over the last five or ten years cropping up. And so does this candidate fit the bucket? Well, I think it looks like they're doing really well on their internship side. It looks like they've got some entrepreneurial stuff going. They won some competitions at university, etcetera. So that side of it looks pretty strong.
Their GPA at 3.5, as we see with like two BL, and that maybe trying to push that up a little bit in their last year will be helpful. They're targeting a 705 on the GMAt. Well, if they're smart enough to be able to get that score, that will be really, really good. Right. So a combination of a very strong GMAT score and a competitive GPA is really important for deferred admissions candidates.
Maybe there's some opportunity to get a little bit more leadership on campus. I suppose they're already quite busy, but that might be another angle and opportunity to explore in their senior year, if that's what they're going into at this point.
So, quite frankly, Graeme, I think there's a lot of potential here, but they really want to nail that GMAT out the ballpark. Yeah, I think just to use a metaphor from your sport, you use them often.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: I always wondered whether you use them because maybe they're relevant for cricket as well, or something. Because there are a lot of these.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think so.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: All right, three quick points on this candidate. One, I could not agree more. The GMAT score is going to be important, and so this person needs to do their best to get a high score that will help because the GPA is not jumping off the page or anything. It's three, five. It's great. But, you know, with these deferred candidates, you often see really big numbers. So GMAT will be important. The only other two things I was kind of curious about is, like, where is this person studying? There's a difference between kind of a local college or something versus maybe Princeton if they're in New Jersey. Right? So that might be a factor, too, in how one interprets their grades. And then the last piece was, I just wondered if they had any non work slash career related hobbies. They didn't speak to that. I mean, they're doing a lot of stuff, you know, pharma, internships and thinking about a startup. But I just wondered, like, are there any other things that kind of would enrich the community that they're joining? So some to keep in mind as they move forward. Maybe they're a dancer or an ice hockey player. I have no idea, but it'd be good to know. Any event, really good candidate, and as you said, doing all the right things, and I want to wish them the best of luck and thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on, though, Alex, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two.
So our second candidate this week is, is applying to seven schools to start in the fall of 25. And those schools are Harvard, MIT, Kellogg in Chicago, Wharton, Darden, and Yale. I don't know if this is like, a total coincidence, Alex, but Darden and Yale are the two schools that we profiled this week with their class profiles, and they have both been on the list of our candidates thus far this week. This person's been doing impact consulting as their career pre MBA. They want to get into consulting or I guess stay in consulting and maybe do tech after getting the MBA. Their GMAT score is a 760 and their GPA is a 3.76. This candidate has four years of work experience to date located in India.
And you ask them when they're applying and stuff and they mentioned they applied already for round one. And they also shared the fact that they've had three promotions and four years of work experience.
They've also been helping to set up a global practice for the firm that they work with. They're going to have really good recs from their current employer. And yeah, they do some volunteer work. You know, they're. I guess some of that volunteer work is helping to helping first generation women with, like, work readiness. They also happen to be a multimedia art. They double majored at university, and so they do some art as a freelancer and a hobbyist. They did mention Alex and I wanted to get your take on this. They said that they're worried that they rushed their apps a little bit, and they think they would apply again next year if it doesn't work out. But they're wondering what we have to say about their profile.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: I mean, quite honestly, Graham, it sounds like a fantastic profile.
You know, the only potential not concern, but they're potentially from an overrepresented sort of applicant population. The only way to overcome that is to apply in round one, which they've done.
They talk about potentially rushing their applications in order to do that. Again, I think ADcom are pretty smart people when they're reviewing profiles. So even if the apps aren't absolutely perfect, they're able to identify real quality candidates when they're reviewing these profiles. So what have we got here? We've got someone with ridiculously extraordinary numbers, right? 763, seven, six.
Yeah.
You said they got Yale and Darden on their list. Well, they blow those numbers out of the ballpark, so that's very good.
They've four years of experience, so median four years are absolutely good.
You know, several promotions, they will get strong wrecks to back up and queued off to their recommenders for stepping up, et cetera, et cetera.
So everything sounds really good. Then they talk about this volunteer work, and it's sort of all about supporting women, etc. Etc.
I just really hope this person does land in one of these top programs that they've targeted in the first round, Graham, because it looks like they've got a. All the right ingredient to do that.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think I'm always nervous when someone says they might arrest their apps, but you're making a really good point, which is that admissions directors and readers are pretty good at identifying the. Separating the applicant from the application.
So hopefully that works. We'll see if they get interviews, they'll know very soon here as to what's going on. Did they get one of those first invites from mail, et cetera?
[00:30:26] Speaker B: Exactly. They might even have heard from Yale already. Right. They've got the profile to have heard from Yale already in terms of the GMAT and the GPA. I mean, we don't know how Yale makes those determinations for those early invites, but I got to suspect it's something to do with the academic profile. And we look at their class profile and we know how important the academic profile is to Yale. Right, relative to.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, I mean, I think, you know, as I wrote in my notes, I just wrote, will the fact that they're overrepresented and maybe rest their apps be a deal breaker or not? I think, you know, obviously verdict's not in. We'll see how that goes. Again, as you said, very good candidate, interesting work experience with lots of promotions and stuff. So I think they're going to find some success as you, as you suggest. So best of luck to them. I appreciate them sharing their profile. Let's turn now and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three.
So our final candidate this week, Alex, has five schools on the target list and they want to start in the fall of 25. Those schools are Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Wharton. Arguably a kind of top five sort of list. There certainly, you know, all m seven schools. This person has been a software engineer at a big tech. They've actually worked at a couple of FAANG companies.
They are thinking about working in consulting and maybe tech again after business school.
GRe score is a 330 and the GPA 3.4. They have five years of work experience and they are located in London. But in the notes they mentioned that they are actually a south korean female and again, software engineer, has worked at two FAANG companies and they also studied and worked in multiple locations in the US and London. So in the short term, they're thinking of moving into more a product and strategy role in tech or maybe consulting for specialized, like, tech type projects. And in the longer term, they're hoping to use technologies and product insights to innovate in the family business back home or potentially build their own company. They also shared the fact that they help with their current company's in company recruiting, doing interviews every week for the firm and that they do a fair amount of mentoring. They're mentoring a couple of interns, a college, college student as well as a teammate. And they've also had like a side gig, like a website that they built that at one time drew 30,000 sign ups. It's no longer in operation, but so they've had some kind of side gigs or outside activities in that domain. But Alex, what do you make of this candidacy? It's kind of interesting in terms of, you know, this person's personal background, south korean, but now in London, has studied in the US, work for a yemenite. Couple of fangs. But yeah. What do you make of this?
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I just picked some really good candidates this week, I think.
But, yeah, this is just another really strong candidate. I mean, obviously they're aiming really high. Like you said, five of the very, very best programs, despite what you might learn from the current rankings that are coming out. But yeah, working in London, software engineer, be nice to see that she can show some leadership. And so forth. Obviously, she's got brand name companies on her cv, but I'm less inclined to be wowed by the brand name and more inclined to be wowed by the quality of the projects and the outcomes and the impact and so on and so forth. So hopefully that really comes to fall through the applications, which I would reckon it probably does.
And, yeah, again, I think there's a lot to like about this candidate. It would be nice to know what she does when she switches off a little bit.
It seems like you talk about these extra things that she does. They seem to be still quite work related, mentor related, as well as building a website, which may well be sort of. She's a software engineer, so therefore she can build a website and do some pretty cool stuff. There's nothing wrong with that. I think that's brilliant that she does, but what does she do when she turns off?
That would be my only question. And that will come through hobbies and interest in activities and so on and so forth. Is there anything there that can further help her stand out? If not, I don't think it's a deal breaker. I think there's a lot of quality here, but that would be what I would be quite curious about.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I could not agree more. I mean, I was very excited to see this profile just because I'm thinking, wow, how often does the admissions team get a south korean female programmer who lives and works in London and has done so for a couple of different big companies? And, you know, and so I agree with you. Really interesting profile. The numbers are solid and the admissions team is going to root for her and want to find ways to bring her in, I guess. I did have that exact same question, though. I wrote in my notes, extracurriculars may not be super broad beyond kind of the workplace. So, yeah, would love to know, what's this person do with their spare time that will make them seem interesting and map that path to involvement on the MBA campus. So. But otherwise, yeah, should be pretty smooth sailing. I don't know if this person's applying now or in round two, but either way, not going to be overrepresented and should be quite interesting for the admissions team to read.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, so, Alex, we ran a little long because we had a lot of stuff to cover this week with your favorite rankings, but, yeah, appreciate you picking out these candidates and let's come back together next week and record another episode.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.
