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, December 30, 2024.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Are you looking for an MBA program.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Where you'll be more than just a number?
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Vanderbilt Business offers a personalized learning experience to help each stud reach their unique career goals. Whether you're looking to switch careers entirely or accelerate the path you're on, the Vanderbilt MBA program will provide you with the individual support you need to propel your career forward. Vanderbilt is currently waiving their $200 application fee for MBA Wiretaps listeners. To learn more about the Vanderbilt MBA program and to claim your application fee waiver, Visit Business Vanderbilt.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Edu ClearAdmit. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things this week?
[00:01:01] Speaker C: Very good, thank you, Graham.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: So we're coming up on the end of the year. I hope that everyone tuning in has been having a really great holiday break. Do you have any plans for New Year's Eve, Alex?
[00:01:11] Speaker C: I'm sure I do. Excuse me? I'm sure I do, but I don't know exactly what they are at this point, but probably won't see in the new year.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Oh, wow. You'll be asleep. Yes, got it. All right, so what's going on? This is, you know, later this week is New Year's, but there's also some deadlines this week, right, for round two.
[00:01:35] Speaker C: Yeah, this upcoming week. So obviously we'll pass the New year threshold midweek and on Friday, London Business School and Wharton will have their round two deadlines. And clearly the following week will have lots of round two deadlines. But yeah, so, so round two is coming right out as thick and fast in the new year as it does every year. But yeah, if you're applying London Business School, Wharton, you're probably not just completely chilling out for the New Year.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You're going to be writing those essays on New Year's Eve or something. Hopefully not. Hopefully you get it all buttoned up and in before.
So speaking of news, if people, you know, we're still open to getting your messages. So if you call us and leave a mess, you can call 215-568-2590. Leave a message with news from round one. If you got in somewhere and you're happy about it, it would be a great kind of end of year gifts for Alex and I to hear your voices and to hear just the good news from our community. You can also just record a voice memo on your phone and then email it to infoearadmit.com Alex There hasn't been a lot of news cause it's kind of between the holidays and everything. But we did run an admissions tip on the website about something called the GMAC Standard Letter of recommendation. And I'm not sure that all of our listeners know this, but some time ago, in an effort to simplify the admissions process for recommenders, GMAC who make the GMAT exam worked with schools to come up with kind of a standard letter of recommendation or a set of questions and a kind of form to fill out. And many schools have adopted that. So that makes it much easier for your recommender because they can sort of stamp out the same thing multiple times. So we did a tip on how your recommenders should tackle this and it includes what are the questions? And there are only four questions in this letter of recommendation and they're pretty straightforward, but they're the classic stuff like tell us how you know the applicant and how does the performance of the applicant compare to that of other well qualified individuals in similar roles. And then the last one is describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you've given the applicant and what was their response. And then there's a fourth question which is just a kind of open ended anything else we should know? So we in our admissions tip take you through those questions and explain how your recommenders may want to respond. So it's really good advice and I am glad that that letter kind of exists because it just seems like it simplifies things quite a bit.
[00:04:11] Speaker C: It definitely makes it easier for the candidate, definitely makes it easier for the recommender if they're applying to multiple schools. But in that case, be very, very careful. Copying and pasting is not the way to go.
Each school you still want to tweak the response to fit the context of each of the programs and so forth.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's, you know, we talk about that in some of the videos we recorded that are up on the site or in even the recommendation guide that we publish on the site as well. Where yeah, recommenders ideally know a little bit about each school you're applying to and kind of your fit with the program and that would then come through in the letter. Other than that, Alex, we did do we continue to connect with students at leading MBA programs? So we caught up with students at the University of Toronto, the Rotman School and in particular, so I think there's six students that we profiled. But one of them, her name is Fiorella and she's from Lima, Peru, she studied economics as an undergrad and has worked before business school seven years in impact investing and fintech globally and with a little bit of a focus on Latin America. And we asked her, what is one thing you would change or do differently. And it's funny because most candidates who answer that question talk about the application process. But Fiorella decided to talk a little bit about her first semester in business school. And so here's what she said. She said I'd focus on prioritizing what I value most and am most interested in. During my first term, I participated in three case competitions, attended several events, and joined both the RSIF and FinHub fellowship. I felt somewhat drained and realized that I need to be more selective about the commitments I take on. However, every experience has been a valuable learning opportunity. So my advice is also not to be afraid to try new things. So that's kind of a, I guess, sort of a spread yourself thin kind of lesson there. But, you know, there is a lot on offer in these programs. So she's making a good point.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And you'll see quite a few folks answered this question by saying, I wish I had more clarity in my goals, my focus, and so on and so forth. And they sort of speak to the same issue. Right. You don't want to start the MBA and get totally distracted by all the wealth of different opportunities that are presented. You really want to narrow your focus and really sort of explore the areas that will be most meaningful to your trajectory. But then, as this candidate says, you still want to add a few sort of curious elements to it, I guess.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So if you're interested in Rotman, which is a great MBA program, obviously Fiorella talked about how she went there because they're quite noted in the domain of finance. Right. And that's her area. So if you want to know more about that program, there's five other students we talked to. You can read their profiles on the site.
[00:07:12] Speaker C: They also have a really good AI Innovation center, what it's called, but they're very much noted for that.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I forgot about that. So, yeah, learn more about Rotman on the site. The other thing, Alex, as we promised last week, we have two more career reports that have come out. It is interesting all the schools are dropping these rather late this year. In fact, next week we're going to talk about, I think Wharton just dropped and Kellogg, maybe Columbia. So these are just coming out fast and furious in the middle of the holidays, which is interesting. But in any event, so let's talk about Stanford and Michigan this start with Stanford, and as usual, I'll give you the numbers and you can let me know what you think. So Stanford had 432 grads in the class of 2024, and of that, 249 of them were seeking employment, which is 58%. Now, that's down. I mean, last year it was 62%, and I believe it was even higher the year before. If memory serves, 88% of those seeking employment had a job offer within three months.
That's only down a tick from 89% last year. And 80% had accepted an offer. That's down a little bit. It was 82% last year. The median salary for those who took jobs and stuff is $185,000. That's up from $182,500 last year. Bonuses averaged $30,000. And about half of the graduates who got jobs did receive a bonus. Now, of the people I was kind of curious about, like, well, what? So 58% are looking for work, but then what about the rest? And so of that other group who are not looking for jobs, 23% are starting their own venture. Now, that could be a kind of startup. It also, in many instances, is what we call a search fund. So someone raising capital to maybe buy a company and sort of transform it. And then there's another chunk of students, about 19% who are either sponsored, so they're returning back to their current employer, or they're continuing with their education, or there's like a small handful who just for other reasons were not looking for work, which they didn't disclose. So that's the breakdown there. When we look at kind of industry and region, we get the following. So finance was the number one job industry, and that was true last year as well. 37% people heading into finance. That's almost unchanged from last year. 22% went off into tech jobs. That's down a tick from 24%. 14% went into consulting, down 1% from last year. Healthcare. 6% of the class went into healthcare. That's up 2% from last year. Media and entertainment took 5% of graduates, and that was actually less than 3% last year. So coming up a little bit for media and Entertainment, and then 5% went into the energy sector. And that as well is up from 3% last year. In terms of the regional placements, 45% of Stanford grads stayed on the West coast. That's down from 50% last year. 31% headed to the Northeast. That's unchanged. And then we had 4% to the Midwest, 4% to the South, 4% to the Southwest, 3% to the Mid Atlantic and 7% working overseas. All those numbers that I just read, those in Midwest, south, et cetera, they're all up a little bit from the prior year. So Alex, what do you make of Stanford's numbers?
[00:10:46] Speaker C: That's a lot of percent, Graham, that you articulated.
I think Stanford has done very well. I mean we talked last week about Harvard's career report and their sort of average salary, median salary was at 175. Well, Stanford's 185. So you would think, well that automatically places Stanford above Harvard in terms of looking at this kind of stuff. But you also have to factor in small numbers, Stanford, big numbers, Harvard, Harvard's got, you know, graduating a thousand folks, etc. Etc. So I wouldn't just read into it that one is $10,000 greater than the other. But nevertheless, I think this is really good from Stanford. It's also very interesting that when people think of Stanford they don't necessarily directly think of finance, kind of like Kellogg Finance or whatever. But nonetheless this is a lot of buy side finance opportunity, no doubt. And that's what Harvard and Stanford and Wharton to some extent are really good at placing folks in relative to the other M7. So I think a lot of that 185 is probably buy side finance.
So yeah, I mean quite frankly Graham, I just think Stanford's produced a really strong career report here. Again, given the sort of wider context of the current economy.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I would agree. I mean I think that. And by the way, just in case folks tuning in or not, finance experts, buy side would include Alex. Like what? Venture capital, private equity, those types of jobs where. And those are coveted jobs and there are a lot of them out on the west coast. So that makes sense. I think two other minor things. One is we've seen the shift where more Stanford grads are actually heading towards the northeast than this over the last couple of years than had traditionally done so. And I think some of that's due to the kind of slowdown in the tech sector and again Stanford's strengths in private equity, where there are a lot of jobs in New York too.
Anyway, that's one thing. The other thing I noticed is that I looked at the summer internship placements for the class of 25 and one of the things I'll note there is that the top three sectors are finance tech, which that mirrors the kind of placements for full time grads. But the third is healthcare this year and that means that consulting is fourth. And so I think we're going to see next year, when this report comes out next year for those 25 grads, I would have to think we're going to see even fewer consulting jobs placed out of Stanford. But we will see because the internships are usually the gateway. Right. So in any event. So, yeah, good news out of Stanford, very high starting salary.
[00:13:42] Speaker C: Yeah. On that point though, Graham, I think that is super interesting, that one, that they produce that data and that you picked up on it, Consulting number four is definitely something to, you know, obviously we'll be looking at it much more closely next season and if we see these data points from other schools, it'll be quite interesting. But I'm a big believer that consulting is the one feeder industry that is going to, I'm not saying struggle. It's going to change dramatically as a result of all this AI stuff. Transformation, on the one hand, you could argue, presents a lot of opportunity for consulting because all businesses are going to need to transform. On the other hand, a lot of the type of tasks that entry level consultants do can now be done by these AI tools. So it's going to be super interesting.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Yeah. So here on the flip side, though, let's talk about Michigan Ross, because this is a school that relies very heavily on consulting placements. And you'll see that in the data I'm about to share. So we'll go through the numbers and again, curious to get your thoughts because it's a really different kind of program from Stanford when it comes to the placements. So median salary for Michigan grads is $170,000. It's down a little bit. It was 175 last year. Signing bonus average $30,000, which is just like Stanford. They had 84.6% of their graduates who had a job offer within three months of graduation. That's down from 96%. So that's down quite a bit. And then within six months, it's up to 90.8% of those looking for work who had an offer. Now, Michigan didn't share, at least in the report I went through. I did not see the kind of, well, how many students were searching. But I think a much higher percentage of Ross students are searching for work than say, at Stanford because there's less of them setting off to start their own companies, et cetera. So I'm guessing it's a very high percentage. If we look at the regional or, sorry, the industry placements, we'll go with consulting at number one, 36% of Ross grads went into consulting. That's down from 45%.
Financial services is 17.6%. That's up more than 3% from last year. Technology, 15% went into tech, and that's down from 15.5%. So just a little bit down. Healthcare, 9.2%. That's up from 5.7%. And then consumer packaged goods, also doing quite well. 7.7%. And that's up from 5.4%. In terms of the regions, Midwest is the number one region. 30% of grads head to the Midwest. That's kind of similar to last year. They sent 25% almost to the northeast. That's down a tick from 28%. 21% of the students went to the West Coast. That's actually up a couple percentage points. They sent 8.8% to the Southwest. That's down a tick. They also sent 4.8 to the south. That's actually up a little bit. And then Mid Atlantic, 6.6%. That's up about a percentage point. And then 4% of students went to work internationally. That doubled from 2% last year. So what do you make of Michigan's numbers?
[00:17:12] Speaker C: What was consulting down again? Graham? I missed that.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: So consulting was 36% this year. Last year it was 45%. So almost 10%. Down 9%.
[00:17:20] Speaker C: Yeah, so. So that's a big shift, I would say. Kudos to Michigan. Kudos to their career placement staff. They've done a terrific job getting that median salary, I think of 170. Again, given this sort of the broader context of the economy. Clearly consulting's taken that hit. And as you said, you know, there was quite a big drop off of the percent that had offers after three months.
That number's gone up now at the six month marker. So that's very good. It just strikes me that the career services folks at Michigan have done a fantastic job and had to work really hard with the students to try to reorganize because ideally, perhaps a lot of those students, they go to business school because they go into consulting. Those opportunities dropped off a little bit, but they managed to place them in lots of other types of areas, et cetera. So I think overall this is a good report given the broader context. Yeah.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: And I would argue that schools like Ross and Tuck and Yale, who have these very high, I mean, we'd seen 40%, 45% plus placements into consulting. They were probably, if you think of a stock portfolio, they were overbalanced in consulting placements. So coming back down, down to about a Third heading to consulting is probably smart. And what's interesting to see is this rise in healthcare and consumer packaged goods. Remember, we just talked about how Stanford sent a lot of people summer internships into healthcare. So I think there's growth there, but we'll see. Yeah, we'll see how it all shakes out. But absolutely, these are all pretty good numbers still for these top schools, even despite somewhat challenging employment sort of market.
[00:19:12] Speaker C: I would say they are good numbers, but they are also showing that the schools are having to work harder.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to say that we've got, let's see, we've got three candidates to talk about, so we got to get on to them. The only other thing I wanted to mention is we're still open to getting your emails. If you have, you know, any questions for us, you can write to infoearadmit.com use the subject line wiretaps, and we will write you back even during the holidays. So if you have a question about your candidacy or just want to share, you can also rate and review the show. We always appreciate that. If you're able. Over on Apple, they allow you to write reviews, which is super helpful for us in terms of spreading the word. But Alex, anything else before we talk about this week's candidates?
[00:19:53] Speaker C: Let's kick on.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: All right, so this is Wiretaps Candidate number one.
Our first candidate this week is applying to 13 schools. Now this, this is an early bird candidate, so they're probably going to be slimming this list down, but they currently have Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Harvard, Michigan, mit, Kellogg, nyu, Stanford, Chicago, Wharton, Darden, and Yale on the list. So all very top schools. They are working as a cloud engineer. And post mba, they talk about wanting to work in either consulting, technology, private equity, pharma, consumer goods, or entrepreneurship. And then they, they listed a bunch of companies in each of those domains. So I will spare you the lengthy list, but lots of options post MBA for this candidate. Their GRE is a 324 and their GPA is a 3.42. They have three years of work experience and they're located in Virginia. They are totally indifferent about where they live and work after business school. And they mentioned that they studied computer science with a minor in psychology as an undergrad. They talk about how it worked. They're involved in a lot of DEI initiatives. They also regularly volunteer and speak to high school students with a focus on what they call steam, so STEM plus Art to sort of promote that stuff. And yeah, they're just interested in getting the MBA to sort of of continue to evolve their career. Very, very focused on democratizing technology and you know, just wanting to get a better foundation of finance and marketing and other areas of business. So Alex, they have some time, which is great. We love an early bird, but what do you make of this candidacy?
[00:21:45] Speaker C: They just want to leave Virginia, Is that what you're saying?
They're indifferent where they go, but they currently live in Virginia anyway. No, I mean, I really like this candidate, Graham. I mean, you know, simple things like computer science major with a psychology minor, that's really got to set you up, you know, in terms of what sort of academic profiles are really in demand right now. I don't think you could get much of a better combination if you wanted to go into marketing, which is obviously my area of interest. But anyway, cloud engineered it looks, frankly, I think this is a really good candidate. They're planning a year ahead.
So by this time next year they'll have shrunk down that list of target programs to six or seven, five or six. They will have strengthened their goals and so on and so forth. So these elements that I would argue are a little bit weak at this point should develop over time. A lot of what we've read about this candidate and what you've articulated is simply a function of someone who is looking ahead and is not quite ready to pull the trigger.
So the only thing that I would really recommend that this candidate might do is potentially retake the GRE if they think they can squeeze a few extra points. Now their GRE is okay. It's 324. It's close to the median of the very top schools and at the median of the sort of next tiers down. But if they could get an outstanding GRE score, that sort of helps. I'm not saying mitigating a low GPA, but a 3, 4, 2 again isn't outstanding. Right? So if they could like really bolster that green, it looks like they're a really good person. They do a lot of mentoring, a lot of guidance, a lot of support. So that side of the application looks really strong. Lots of DEI, etc.
And presumably they're doing well at work, promotions, etc. Etc. So frankly, I think there's a lot to like here. I think with their current profile, as they strengthen their goals and so forth, they, they can target, let's say top 16, etc. But if they came back with that sort of golden GRE score, then that might just elevate them into the next bracket and certainly might Also free up more scholarship opportunity.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you've said it all here. I mean, my view is that this person's New Year's resolution should be to spend the spring trying to do better on the GRE because it'll open up scholarship dollars. And, and frankly, I think with schools like Stanford and Yale on their list where the average GRE is around 330, they risk falling short if they don't do this. So I feel like, why not take the time? This is what's so great about being an early bird. Take the time. This spring, take a class, whatever you need to do. Even if you think about you might have to spend a little money to get a tutor or take a class, that money will come back to you in spades when you get scholarship dollars of a substantial amount.
That's the one weak link other than, you know, the need to figure out the career plan, because they will want to pick a specific path for the purposes of applying to business school to just sort of shore things up. But yeah, that's that. I agree with you 100% on this one.
[00:25:20] Speaker C: Very good.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: All right, so let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two.
So our next candidate is going to be applying in round two. They want to start in the fall of 25 and they just have two schools on the target list. So they're working on applications to Berkeley and Stanford. This person's pre MBA career has been in insurance. They spent about three and a half years working in that domain. They want to be an entrepreneur after business school, start their own company. GRE score is a 318 and the GPA is a 3.59. This candidate is located in Georgia. They'd love to land in the Southeast as well when they're done with business school. And they mention in the notes that they left for us that they're looking to launch a tech startup, but they have no background in tech. They say that they come from a quant heavy background and undergraduate coursework, that they've, you know, been attending all the admissions events and that they're just applying to these two schools so that they can spend a lot of time on the essays and overcome what they feel is a less than average, average test score.
They do state that they are a serial entrepreneur with a history of profitable small businesses. They've also been promoted twice during their three and a half year tenure in the insurance industry. And they're involved in a lot of different extracurricular activities. But they again point out most of Their background work wise has been centered on finance or financial services and insurance. And they're wondering is it a red flag to pivot from that to tech entrepreneurship. And then finally they did share the fact that they transferred between two state schools in the southeast and that they, the one that they graduated from is a top 25 undergraduate business program. They also have a couple of professional designations that they earned post grad. And one last tidbit, Alex, on this candidate they mentioned, you know this, this test score which is a 318 on the green. I looked up their percentiles. They're in the 73rd percentile on the math section and they're in the 60th percentile on the verbal section. So what do you think of this candidacy?
[00:27:30] Speaker C: They're in the 60th percentile for the verbal with a 15 4. Yeah, I thought you had to get closer to 160 for something like that. But I mean that would be to me the GRE score is the problem or at least the weakest elements of this Overall profile at 318.
And you know they've got a good GPA.
I assume they're from Atlanta, Georgia. I mean Georgia the state, not Georgia the country, right? Yes, that's correct. So, so, so I think we can make that assumption given some, some of the other narrative.
But you know, they've obviously got a good GPA and I like the fact that they're serial entrepreneur. They, I mean, I mean there's some qualities that'll come out from that I would assume through their overall narrative in their application. But I'm worried about this GRE score, Graham, and especially when they're only targeting these two programs. I mean, yeah, sure Haas is in a different tier to Stanford, but Hass is very selective in of itself, its admit rate is very low, etc. Etc. So I think they're going to need to broaden out their list of target programs if they need success in the admissions process this season.
And I would really encourage them if they can to try to bolster this verbal score on the gre. I mean obviously it looks like, but their quant profile is strong so I think that side of their profile is probably pretty good. I assume it's quite a quant heavy undergraduate transcript. But the verbal side is going to be a little bit problematic I would assume.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: Yeah, like you, I'm very concerned about this candidacy just because they're only applying to Stanford and Berkeley. And as you point out, Berkeley being a public school with low in state tuition or lower in state tuition, super competitive. So they have a very low acceptance rate. And I just worry 318 is a real outlier and that they're not going to be able to compensate with essays. It doesn't really work that way. So I'm nervous about that. I am a little nervous about what's a pretty big pivot from insurance and financial services into tech entrepreneurship. I'm just trying to figure out how the reader at Stanford or Haas on the admissions committee can see the path to that. Now. Maybe some of their, you know, serial entrepreneurship lends itself to, you know, gives them some credibility there, but it's, it's a leap. And I. And also part of me was like, wow, they want to be in the Southeast after business school. Maybe they should be looking at Emory and UNC and, you know, or Duke or something too. I mean, those are great schools that could probably help them on the path towards their goals or, you know, because I'm just worried they're not gonna have time probably realistically to retake the GRE between now and these deadlines. I mean, you know the deadlines better than I do. But I presume they're all within the next couple of weeks.
[00:30:42] Speaker C: No, absolutely. But I think you bring up a really good point. Duke and Amory, for example, would be, you know, they need to look at those programs very quickly.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So that would be my advice. Or wait and apply in the first round next year after shoring up their score. And, you know, they only have three and a half years of work experience, so they could, they could wait and apply in the fall if they really have their heart set on these top schools. But I just think they're going to need a better test. Test score. There's no way around it. So I do want to thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on, though, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three.
So our last candidate this week comes from a decision wire post, and this person is undecided. They don't know where to go. They applied to Chicago, Wharton and Yale. They're going to be starting school in the fall and they got. They got into all three. So super great results. They got into Chicago with $120,000 scholarship. They then got into Wharton who offered them $80,000, and they also got into Yale who offered them a whopping $170,000. Just so everyone knows, these are over the two years. So these are, you know, that Yale figure is, I believe, a full scholarship. As far as I understand, they want to work in Consulting and they'd love to work at either BCG or McKinsey. They had a Gmail score of 750. This candidate is located in Europe. And their short term goal again is government consulting for either McKinsey or BCG in D.C. so they want to work in Washington D.C. they would also consider a general management leadership development program and they're pretty location agnostic post mba but the long term goal is either entrepreneurship or politics and they say that Booth seems to be the best cultural fit. For me, I'm not sure Wharton would have better outcomes. Despite the higher price partners job opportunities may be best in Chicago. So yeah, Alex, this is an interesting dilemma. Where should this person go?
[00:32:43] Speaker C: Yeah, it's quite classic, isn't it? Because as we talked about before we came on air, I mean the scholarship dollar offers really reflective of the tiers these programs are in. So they get their best offer from Yale and then the next best from Chicago and then the next best from Wharton. And we would argue that Wharton is in a tier slightly above Chicago, in a tier slightly above Yale. All in the top 10 programs around the world. So well in the US anyway.
So they're authors in of themselves are at par I would argue, obviously independent of your career goals. Right. So for candidates the offers make a lot of sense for this candidate in particular.
So they're from Europe, they're going to come to the US to do their MBA and it looks like they're going to move with their partner and their partner is going to be seeking employment and so forth. So this absolutely adds a different dynamic to, you know, if it was someone, you know, U. S based US citizen making these decisions. So they've got to factor that in in terms of career aspirations and you know, then you might argue, well, Wharton, you know, there's a reason for these tears, warrants, it's in a tier above, etc. Yale obviously has perhaps the best international brand for those going back home for the university.
But not forgetting that Wharton is also part of an Ivy League and Wharton is just a super strong brand within the University of Penn sort of domain and so forth. There's just a lot of different dynamics going on here, Graham. Obviously we're connected to Wharton so we might be a bit biased but. But they want to work in Washington D.C. wharton's only a short train ride north of Washington D.C. so there's an advantage there for Wharton. It also gets to their own sort of tolerance for taking on debt and maybe they've just got their own personal resources because if they have a lot of tolerance for that and they have their own personal resources. Then yeah, I would argue Wharton in terms of proximity to DC, Et cetera, et cetera would be the choice here. But it is not clear cut.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny, they talk about partners job having good opportunities in Chicago. I would have to think that. I mean, I don't know if they're aware of this, but if you're living in Philadelphia, going to Wharton, it's an hour on the high speed train up to New York City. Right. So there's a lot of job opportunities between New York, Philadelphia, D.C. so I would have to think that their partner could find work in that region as well. But yeah, I think this shakes out as you would expect with the numbers they want to negotiate. I don't know how much luck they'll have. Obviously never hurts to ask. You just never know if they'll be able to extract some more dollars out of a booth or something or even maybe they can get Wharton to come up a little bit. But Wharton doesn't typically negotiate. So I think that's going to potentially be a dead end. My big thing was if I were them, I would look in the markets that they might land in, in Europe, post MBA in the long term places where they might be needing to raise money for a venture or for a political campaign. And just look at the strength of the alumni club in those markets.
So is there an alumni club, first of all? And how often does it meet? What goes on? What's the network like? Because one of the issues with Wharton versus these other two schools is just the size of that network. In part because Wharton has a lot of undergraduate business folks out in the world. But I think it's around 100,000 alumni of Wharton around the world. Not Penn, just Wharton. So it's a really big number and that does play a role when you're trying to raise money or maybe launch a political campaign, et cetera. So in any event, I would encourage this person to do the due diligence. They mentioned that they don't think they're going to be able to go to these campuses, which is a real shame. I mean, this is a big investment. I would encourage them get one of those cheap tickets in February or March and just go hit these schools. It doesn't take that long and it might really be worth it to see the facilities, meet some students and so on.
[00:37:03] Speaker C: I think that's a very good point. But also your point with the alumni networks just making sure. And you made this point. I think it's dead on. How active is the alumni club? Not just the volume of alum in your region, but how engaged are they?
[00:37:19] Speaker A: Yeah, agree. So in any event, I think, you know, obviously, best of luck. This is a great problem to have three top 10 admits to Wade through, but hopefully they, you know, reach a good decision and I'm sure they'll. They'll excel.
[00:37:32] Speaker C: I don't think we've helped them at all, Graham, but there we go. We've talked about it.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I'm sure they're going to land on their feet in any of these three programs, so it'll be fine. But in any event, I want to thank them for sharing their dilemma. And again, Alex, thanks for recording an episode and picking out candidates. I know we're in the midst of the holidays, but we keep our streak. Keep the streak alive for podcasts every week. So there you go. I'll see you next week.
[00:37:55] Speaker C: Very good. Take care, everyone. Stay safe.
