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, November 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 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, it's a claim your application fee waiver, visit business.vanderbilt.edu clearadmit. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: So what's the latest and greatest with the MBA admissions gossip and Livewire posts and everything else?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Well, I am just going to tell you, I'm 60.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Yes, really. Today, Yesterday.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Congratulations.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: So, yeah, wow.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Happy birthday. You didn't tell me or anything. I didn't even know this. Wow. This is awesome.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I'm not actually 60 yet, Graham. When it airs, I'm 60 on Sunday. Which means as folks listen to this, I'm bloody 60.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Excuse my language. Yes.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that's old, man.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see it as an achievement, accomplishment. I'm very proud I made it to 60. So there we go.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, you know, hanging out with you when you were much younger at the pub, I would say the same thing. You know, it's good.
No, but, no, that's. Congratulations. Well, we'll celebrate officially when it gets here, but we're recording in advance, as you say. All right. But what's going on in the MBA universe?
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, obviously we're still in the thick of round, round one interview invites. Some are still trickling out.
You know, quite a few programs have sort of finalized their invitation. Still not quite sure what's going on at Kellogg. I think they have changed their process a little bit from previous years in terms of how those interview invites are coming out, but I don't know that.
Just sort of looking at some of the activity on Livewire. This upcoming week, Duke is scheduled to release its round one interview invites. I did see a query about that on Livewire Wide. They seem quite late. Well, obviously they had their early action deadline, so round one deadline produced sort of a little bit later.
And we have ISA Cox, Georgia Tech, Schaller and Imperial. They're releasing final decisions next week. So yeah, plenty of activity on Livewire.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's going to lead us right in. I guess there'll be a little bit of a lull around Thanksgiving and then as soon as we hit early December, all the big decisions are going to be coming down for round one. So yeah, it's going to be busy on my side. I just wanted to mention we have a couple of events coming up in December that are for Masters in Management programs. So if you're an undergrad or somebody who has just a year, maybe even 2 of work experience, most of these programs are open to you. You start immediately. And we're going to sit with Duke, Emory, Notre Dame on December 3rd and then on December 4th we're going to sit down with Carnegie Mellon, Chicago Booth, Georgetown, Indiana and Michigan. Ross, these are all at noon Eastern and you can sign up for these events at bit ly camim 24. We also, Alex, are still running our survey which is all about relationships. Not those kind, but the kind that you forge when you're applying to business school with admissions officers, faculty, current students, alumni. So please take the survey if you have the surveys that we run are kind of what keeps the company alive. Taking the surveys really helps us. You can go to bit ly casurvey fall24 Alex, the other thing that I wanted to get your take on is you saw we ran an article, you may recall the Wall Street Journal did a big article about application volume and how last season application volume was through the roof and it's because of job layoffs and AI and the MBA is on turbo and numbers. Never before seen. Kind of a vibe to that article. So we ran an article called Unpacking 24's High MBA Application Volume. Did you see that article and do you have any thoughts?
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I have to say I read the article. I actually read it this morning because I saw it on your LinkedIn profile. Obviously you should be seeing it on clearing this website and reading it, but I read it in detail and actually congratulations to Peggy. I think she does a really good job and Lauren of these types of long form content pieces.
But yeah, I mean it's great that we saw an uptick in application volume last season and it certainly signals that the NBA is alive and well and and so on and so forth.
But yeah, these things go in cycles in my mind and sort of pre pandemic as the article uncovered, we saw these sorts of numbers so it seems like we're returning to those levels. I know when I was working at the Wharton School, Graham, in the early 2000, sort of mid to. From the early to mid 2000s, anyway, we were seeing application volumes higher than what we're seeing now at Wharton, so.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: So. So these are ebbs and flows. I do think that we are going through a significant transformation now with AI and how that's affecting the job market and how it's affecting the need for folks to reskill and be effective in what will essentially be a new business world.
And I think, and I hope that top tier business schools are that place to go to in order to reskill.
So assuming all the docs align or whatever the right term is, I think MBA programs have a real role to play.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: Over the next several years, assuming that they're innovating themselves to prepare their candidates. So. Yeah. Very interesting times.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. And I think the key point in that article for me was just that, like you said, we've seen bigger numbers before and those numbers were kind of on the march upward before the kind of pandemic lull. We had this like post pandemic lull with the layoffs, and now things are back. And so that's great. But a school like Harvard, you know, they had 9,800 applications last year. Well, they had like 10,000 plus apps in 2017. So it's not, you know, this isn't sort of new. It's just, you know, like you were saying, it's alive and well. You know, I did hear a story the other day, Alex, I think it was in Poland. They replaced some podcaster hosts like, you know, people like you and me with AI, and it didn't go well. So that's lucky for us. I guess there was some kind of problem with the AI host interviewing someone who was dead. You know, you can. There's some of these AI programs where you could talk to famous dead people. Right. And interview them or. And so some kind of scandal. So now they went back to having real people hosting. So I think you and I are safe for at least a little bit longer.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah, possibly. But I'm a big fan of Notebook lm.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: I think that's what they used.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Is that what they use? I mean, I think so. I'm a huge fan of it and I stuck the PDF of my book in it and I. And they did a terrific podcast about my book. It even sounded quite accurate.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: That's excellent.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: So. So, yeah, I mean, these are really fascinating times and I do believe reskilling, I mean, I'm doing it myself. I'm Learning a load of Python right now just to try to make my own knowledge base more relevant and current. So. Yeah, so. So, yeah, I mean, school is a great place right now, I think.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm. I'm actually doing a session at the GMAC conference in Europe, all about how you can use AI in the admissions office. So helping ADM officers and recruiting professionals, marketing folks in these business schools, to sort of see different ways to use these tools. So I've been having a lot of fun working with these tools over the last couple of months as I prepare for that. Alex, do you want to say a word about our website and the community and some of the things that we've put in place with this star system?
[00:08:59] Speaker B: I will in a minute, but you've just gone down a rabbit hole. Graham, you're going to have to give us a couple of highlights in terms of what you're going to talk about.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating because what I did is I put together, we did a survey of you, I think, about 30 schools to ask them how they're using these tools in the process, because so many people talk about how applicants are using the tools to write essays or prepare for interviews. And I wanted to know, well, what are schools doing internally? And so on this panel that I'm going to present, I'm going to share the data from our survey, but I also have two admissions and marketing folks from different schools coming to share, like, very concrete examples of what they're doing. And it really ranges. I mean, the marketing person has been doing. She's a big. You can't market. What is this famous expression? You can't market. Market what you can't measure. So she's really into Excel and she uses, you know, I think it's ChatGPT or one of the tools, maybe copilot, to help her with very complex Excel formulae. Right. So that. That's been her. One of her biggest things and obviously as a marketer, using it to help brainstorm, copy, et cetera. On the admissions side, the person I'm working with has been doing a lot of interesting things around, you know, kind of how do you draft a letter or a series of notes to a certain type of candidate? You know, maybe you're trying to appeal to women or people from a certain, certain market. So just using ChatGPT to kind of come up with ideas and first drafts and. Yeah, so it's going to be a lot of fun. I can't wait.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: No, I mean, I think every week I'm thinking of new ways to use these tools. So my advice to anyone is just start using them because the more you use them, the more creative you think about how to use them.
So yeah, anyway, you asked me a very different question. Do you want to repeat it or shall I just answer it?
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Yeah, we have this new thing on the website. What new? For this season, we're bringing back a very popular campaign that you can talk about.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Anyway, the point is, what we try to do, obviously on our website is build some community, get some conversation going on Livewire and Decision Wire and Apply wire and so on and so forth. We have this contributor system. You know, if your posts get likes and your comments get likes, et cetera, you get certain, you get upticked. It's basically how Reddit works. We sort of borrowed the idea from this sort of karma points off of Reddit. But in any event, to cut a long story short, if you get a certain number of likes, 30 likes, you get a star, etc. And we're rewarding folks that get these stars through a campaign. And Graham, you might know a bit more in the detail of that campaign. Effectively, if you get stars, you get Amazon points. Despite Jeff Bezos latest whatever, we're still supporting Amazon.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, I don't know the details exactly, but I know that if you get a star, you get an Amazon card for a certain amount, a gift card, and then if you get two stars, there's more money and three, et cetera. So as you rack up the likes and contribute good content on the site, you're rewarded. But yeah, probably enough said on that. I did want to mention that we ran a really nice piece in honor of Veterans Day last week about two NYU Stern MBA students, their class of 25, this guy named Brad Cassidy and another guy named Caleb Primos. And they are actually co presidents of Stearns Veterans Club and they just shared their journeys to business school. It was part of our Fridays from the Front Line, which is a column that you initiated, Alex, like 20 years ago where we kind of chronicle what's happening out there in the NBA universe. So that was a really nice read and it's a nice way to honor some veterans on Veterans Day.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Brilliant. We have Armistice Day, Veterans Day, all celebrating those that serve their country.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: And yeah, absolutely. Fantastic.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Now speaking of that, we did connect with a bunch of students as usual for our Real Human series. So I'll go through. We talked with students at Wharton, I'll start there. We actually caught up with this guy named Bobby who is from Belport, New York. And he is a graduate of the U.S. naval Academy, spent eight years in the Navy. And we asked him one of the questions was, why did you choose Wharton? And so he gave a great answer and it was so good that I thought I should share it. He said Wharton had all the attributes I was looking for in an MBA program. It allows for academic flexibility with over 20 majors and concentrations, has robust professional programming and resources, and an unbelievably diverse and impressive student body. But the most prominent factors that led me to choosing Wharton were a strong commitment to leadership development and expertise in teaching data driven decision making. So that's what Bobby had to say about his choice to head off to Wharton. Thought it was fitting to have a Naval Academy grad as our post Veterans Day episode here. But yeah, so it was just nice to hear that. Very articulate.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm a huge fan obviously of Wharton, having worked there for several years and that sort of data driven philosophy. I know in the marketing department, which was obviously the department that I was most sort of keen on, they're renowned for their data driven marketing with Peter Feder and some of the other faculty. So that doesn't surprise me at all.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Then we headed down towards D.C. we caught up with students at Maryland at the Smith School. And we spoke with Alexandra, who is originally from Northville, Michigan. She went to Eastern Michigan University and then spent eight years in the Army. So another military veteran. And one of the things that we asked her is like, what's one thing you would change or do differently about your application process? And she said, one thing I would do differently is not wait so long to submit applications. I was so focused on making them perfect that I nearly missed the deadlines. It taught me a valuable lesson. Doing your best is what really matters, not chasing perfection. So there you have it. Pretty good advice from Alexandra, especially as maybe some of our listeners are thinking about round two and getting everything ready for submission. Yeah.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: And it sounds like great advice in terms of rolling out a new. A new product like an mvp.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Some part of a conversation we've been having before we came on air, but there we go.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. And then the last school that we caught up with students from is Cambridge Judge. And we spoke with. You're going to love this. We talked to this guy named Aaron from Calgary, Canada. He went to the University of Calgary. He has a bachelor's in geophysics and he spent five years working at Shell and seems like a very sharp guy. But we asked him, why did you choose Cambridge and he said I wanted to attend a program that would enable me to advance my career in the energy sector, return to full time, work sooner and gain an experiential education. The Cambridge MBA provided me with these opportunities. In addition to being a top university in an appealing setting, the program, one year in duration, offers a concentration in energy and environment, which stood out to me as unique among top business schools and aligned with my career goals. The opportunity to work on projects such as the Global Consulting project will broaden my perspective, allowing me to gain a well rounded and experiential business education. And Alex, I don't know if you tuned in, but I had actually sat down with Emily Brierly, who's the head of admissions over at Cambridge Judge, and she did talk a lot about the sort of experiential side of their mba. And so I can see why Aaron is mentioning that. Obviously it was appealing to him.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Fantastic. Do you know if Aaron's planning to go back to Canada from Cambridge or was that clear?
[00:16:44] Speaker A: I think he might be. I know that he seems quite keen on the new directions in the energy sector. So he did work at Shell, which is traditional kind of oil and gas company. Right. But he's quite keen on. I think I got to go back and reread it, maybe geothermal stuff or there's lots of other ways to potentially generate energy. And. Yeah, so I don't know, I'd have to go back and reread, but I thought maybe there was something going back to North America.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: It's not often we see folks that go from North America to do an MBA in Europe to return directly to North America. So it's nice to see that sort of contrast a little bit.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. The only other thing I had before we talk about this week's candidates is that we did run a special episode of the podcast last week which was I sat down with someone, Ann Kilby, who's a dean of admissions at Georgetown, McDonough and his current student in their kind of flex program that they have where it's an online with a little bit of in person and so really nice conversation just to understand this person's background. And the woman that joined us was named Shreya and she works in finance. So really nice conversation. So if you're interested in McDonough and in particular in how some of these more flexible MBA offerings work, tune into that. Otherwise, Alex, should we get on with this week's candidates?
[00:18:05] Speaker B: Let's kick on.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: All right, so this is WireTaps candidate number one. Our first candidate has 10 schools on the target list. They're going to be trying to start in the fall of 25. And those schools are Berkeley, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Michigan, Oxford, Chicago, unc, uva, Darden, and Yale. This person's been working as a social impact consultant, and they want to pivot into more traditional consulting, Strategy Consulting with BCG McKinsey. As a couple of the firms that they named. Their GRE is a 323GPA, is a very solid 3.82. They have 8 years of work experience, and this candidate is located in India.
And they did share the fact that they are a reapplicant to most of these schools. They applied very late in round two last. Last year, and that they also said they've interviewed at Haas, Ross and Tuck this year, and they say they have an extensive experience in the education sector, nonprofit and social impact consulting, all of it in India. This candidate is female, and she's just kind of wondering, you know, what we think of her chances as a reapplicant.
And also, you know, mentioned that she sounds like she's taken the GRE a couple of times and wanted our take on her scores because they were kind of mismatched in terms of fluctuations in the math and the verbal. But, Alex, what do you make of this candidate?
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think as a reapplicant, you know, they're coming back, they've made some adjustments and hopefully sort of slightly improved their profile. Coming back into round one, I think is helpful, and that should boost their opportunities a little bit. Getting interview invites from Hass and Ross, I think is a really good positive signal. They've got an. They obviously interviewed at top two, but I think that was a automatic based on when they applied. So. So. So all sort of signals are looking reasonably positive. I'd like to have seen a slightly higher GRE score, if I'm going to be completely honest.
But nevertheless, that seems like a really super GPA at 3.82.
So I don't know if that's a converted GPA from India, and even. Even if it is a converted GPA from India, that sounds like an extraordinary sort of academic record.
So if that is the case, I. E. They have a really strong academic record, maybe we can be a little bit more sort of forgiving with the green.
And, you know, their work experience sounds really interesting and, you know, more social impact in the nonprofit sector.
So these are the sorts of candidates that MBA admissions folks tend to want to root for a little bit. So I would think Graham, as A reapplicant coming back. There will be some opportunities here. I do just wish that GRE was just slightly higher.
But nevertheless getting an interview invite at Haas is a strong signal.
[00:21:19] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. I think as a re app as you say, coming back in round one to at least half of the schools on her list was very smart and she's getting some results in terms of interviews so we'll see how the chips fall. One thing that really jumped out at me is she mentioned that outside of work she co founded a food distribution program back in 2020 that's still running. She also, I love this, she works as an arts, crafts and dance instructor in a special and has been doing that for the last five years. So some nice kind of long term community sort of commitments and I think that shows that this is someone could add a lot to a business school community. And you know, it turns out her family runs a group of K to 12 schools that she maybe hopes to lead in the long term. So that sort of education thread being woven throughout. Yeah, I like this candidate and I think as you, you know it'd be great to have a higher test score might result in more, potentially more scholarship dollars. But you know, you look at the range of schools she has and I think for a lot of them A323 is going to be close enough. And you couple it with that high GPA and she'll probably get into a few of these. That's my guess.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Must have luck to her. But things are looking good right now, obviously getting those early interview invites.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. So thanking her for her post. Let's move on though and talk about Wiretap's candidate number two.
Our second candidate this week has seven schools on the target list. And there's a reason there's seven. It's because if my accounting is right and knowledge of the M7 is right, that's what their list is. It's Columbia, Harvard, mit, Kellogg, Stanford, Wharton and Booth. They want to start school next fall. They've been working in investment management prior to business school and they're thinking about kind of staying in that general domain after business school. They mentioned Goldman Sachs. This candidate has a 340 on the GRE and a 3.65. Now the one thing that's a bit of a wrinkle here is that this is a deferred MBA applicant. So when I said they're working in investment management, that's actually the job that they've lined up for when they graduate from college. So they haven't done it yet, but they have it secured. And then they say that they've done a bunch of internships in that domain as well. They also do a fair amount of social impact work and they've had some international experience on the side. And again, their post MBA goal, which is further afield for them as a deferred candidate, is going to be impact investing. So, Alex, we don't get to talk too much about deferred enrollment candidates. These are candidates who are still in college, usually seniors, and they're applying now to lock in a spot. But what do you make of this candidacy?
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, obviously the profile is strong for a deferred admissions candidate overall, I would think. I mean, getting a top score on the GRE certainly helps their GPA.
They report at 3.65. So that combination, I think is going to help them stand out and so forth.
They're doing all the right things in terms of sort of internships and their job coming straight out of undergrad to set them on that path. In terms of sort of investment management and so forth, they're doing social impact work, which again, folks, you know, is going to be positive. I'm a little bit curious if that's through leadership on campus and I think think that's an aspect that just wants clarifying a little bit. So if you're an ideal sort of prototypical, sort of deferred admissions candidate, you have leadership on campus, you have strong internships, you have a great academic profile, great test score as well as a job coming out, et cetera, et cetera. And it seems like they sort of fit each of those elements just with a little bit more clarity perhaps is required.
So they're targeting the top M7 programs and we had this conversation again before we came on air. Maybe they can just prune that list and just target the very, very best.
Because at the end of the day, if, if, you know, if they go on and work in these roles that they're articulating, if they're not successful through the deferred admissions process, they can always reapply in three or four years time and still retarget the very, very best program.
So I just think narrowing their focus a little bit more at this point might, might just yield a bit of a better result for them.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, so for example, you could say to this person, wow, you know, if you're dying to go to Wharton because you want to work in investment management and finance and stuff, in the long term, you know, is it Worth like sort of settling for a school on your list here that maybe isn't, you know, as great of a fit as Wharton would be for their goals or something, you know, and I think, you know, so that's a really good point. I think sometimes there's this tendency to say, oh well I just want to get in somewhere and then I'm done with it. Whereas this person, like you point out, if they just go and they already have a job lined up, it might be, I don't know where it is. It's an investment management. So they do that for a couple years. They have an amazing test score, solid gpa, continue with their activities and they could apply later and get into a top school then too. So yeah, I also just think seven schools as a college student applying deferred is quite a few to apply to. So you got to think about the recommenders, et cetera. So yeah, I would advise them to prune the list slightly. I suspect they're still going to end up with some offers but maybe apply to like four. You know, pick, pick the ones that they're most passionate about. So yeah, but I think it's great that someone who's deferred shared their profile. We love talking about this and we've been doing those events of late which is terrific. So in any event, let's move on though and talk about WireTaps. Candidate number three.
So our final candidate this week has six schools on the target list and they are not applying right away. They're going to be hoping to apply next year and start in the fall of 26. This candidate has Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford, Chicago, Wharton and Yale as targets. They're currently working as a financial auditor in public accounting. They're hoping to get into consulting and maybe non profit or social impact after business school. They've got companies like Accenture, Bain, BCG, Deloitte and McKinsey on the target list. GRE is a 320, GPA is a perfect 4.0. They only have two years of work experience to date but by the time they matriculate on this timeline that they mentioned, they'll have four years. They're located in Florida and they mentioned that they graduated with dual degrees in accounting and business analytics with minors in econ and writing from a local school. So not, not a sort of Ivy type school or something. They currently work for a big four firm and you know, as I said they'll have like four years at that firm by the time they matriculate. They do say that they are a high Performer sounds like they've you know, planning to get some very strong recommendations and they do some things outside of work as well, particularly with low income in like work in low income areas to help students to get off to college and pursue careers in business. And they also, you'll love this Alex. They volunteer at an animal shelter.
So in any event, what do you make of this candidate? Because they're you know, still a year out from applying and. Yeah, just kind of curious what you think.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I do like it when folks are a year out from applying because they're obviously thinking very deliberately about what they're doing and they can make decisions now that could potentially improve their profile when they do ultimately apply. So you know, for example for this candidate it, they got a 4.0 GPA. Fantastic. Now they say it's, I think they said it's from a non target school or you know, from a local school. But nevertheless I think if you get in, you know, a 4.0 that says a lot. So I really like that 326 GRE, that's going to be at or just a little bit below the median of some of these schools that they're targeting. So I'm going to question this person and say is this your best score?
If you think there's some scope for improvement, even a couple of points, you've got time, it's worth that retake and have another go at it. So if you imagine if they were a 4.0 with a 330 GRE, what that says about this person I think would be absolutely fantastic. And I say all this because, and I hate to say it Graham, but as an auditor you're not frontline front office type work.
I'm not saying there's a stigma attached to accountants and auditors but when you're measured against the strategy consultants or the investment bankers etc.
You might be at a slight disadvantage comparing other candidates in the admissions. I mean do you think that's fair to say, Graham?
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's also just a little ho hum like there are plenty of candidates in these types of roles and so to stand out is a bit harder. And yeah, you don't have those often like front facing, you know, which in.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: My mind says do everything that you can about what you can control. I if you can pump that GRE up a little bit, show again that you really outstanding in that regard. Obviously as an auditor they can show from their work productivity and their recommendations and everything else that they're an outstanding person in that role. But the other area is to keep pushing these extracurriculars and maybe through the extracurricular show even a little bit more leadership, etc, etc.
And show that humanity and various other things that they're obviously doing very well and push that to the extent that they can. Because their target school selection is quite top heavy. Right.
So to really sort of make themselves competitive for all these top schools, they are going to have to be very deliberate over the next several months. I think it's certainly very doable, but I want to push them to make that happen.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. Just two quick thoughts on this candidate. So the first is wholeheartedly agree that if they have this top heavy list they might want to make sure that they're putting their absolute best forward with the test score. And so they have time too. They have the luxury of time. Right. So that. I totally agree with you. The other thing that jumped out at me was, you know, it sounds like they're doing some interesting volunteer work. Obviously the work experience itself. Yeah, I said ho hum. But it's solid work experience and they'll have four years or so at matriculation. But I kind of wondered like, who is this person? Like what are they passionate about, what do they do for fun? And I think sometimes, especially with like auditors and accountants, you want to make sure that there's sort of this other dimension to the candidate, you know, like are they, I don't know, a ballet dancer or you know, are they playing in a flag football league on the weekends or you know, like what makes this person interesting and you know, what else do they do with their life. So I would encourage this candidate to develop that side as well because it's easier to stand out if you're the, you know, if you're the auditor who's also a cyclist at the weekend or doing something that sort of stands out and is just going to be interesting and allow the admissions reader to see you in certain clubs on campus. Maybe you're a photographer or a chef or whatever it is that you like to do. So I would encourage them to develop that side of their candidacy as well and obviously maintain their volunteer work and things. That's terrific as well. But yeah, no, I think as you say, we love to see people who are this far out because you can still make adjustments and increase your odds of admission. So it's terrific.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And don't give up that volunteer work just to take up photography.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: No, no, yeah, no, ideally it's both.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: In any event, I do want to thank them for posting. Alex, thanks for picking these out as always. We had a lot of good conversation today covering, you know, all things AI. And I'll have to give you a report after I go to that conference and make the presentation because I think I'm going to learn a lot as we go. But in any that let's connect next week and record another episode if you're around.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Yeah, very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care and happy birthday to me.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: Happy birthday.
