Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This episode contains brief discussion of sexual assault and professional misconduct. Listeners sensitive to these subjects should skip ahead. When you reach the 16 minute and 40 second mark, just jump on ahead to the 25 minute and 29 second mark.
Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, January 13, 2025. Are you looking for an MBA program where you'll be more than just a number? Vanderbilt Business offers a personalized learning experience to help each student reach their unique career goals. Whether you're looking to switch careers entirely or accelerate the path you're on, the Vanderbilt MBA program will provide you with the individual support you need to propel your career forward. Forward. Vanderbilt is currently waiving their $200 application fee for MBA Wiretaps listeners. To learn more about the Vanderbilt MBA program, to claim your application fee waiver, Visit Business Vanderbilt. Edu ClearAdmit. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going?
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: So I got to ask you, did you make any New Year's resolutions in the end? Because, you know, last week we left our listeners kind of hanging because we hadn't yet finalized any resolutions. So are there any resolutions that you've made for this year?
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Really? Nothing really substantial, Just to be a little bit more thoughtful.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Okay. That's a good one. Yeah. I gave this some thought, too, and I didn't have anything, you know, like, profound. But I did note that I would like to be able to run 20km, because I haven't done that before.
And I want to record a bunch of music that's been sitting around, like songs that I've written. So try to kind of. And I guess I should add, because I know what you're going to say, I'll try to get everything onto Spotify and Apple Music. Cause I did.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Only if you want people to listen to it, Gray.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Right, right. I know. So, anyway, so those are a couple of mines, so we'll see how we do on those by the end of the year.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Do you know what is the worst moment in my life? Most painful moment in my life?
[00:02:17] Speaker A: No.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Completing the New York marathon. So don't go beyond that 20k.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Okay. All right, we'll do. I was gonna say, I thought when you, like, broke your leg or something, but. Wow. Okay. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have any desire to run. Insane amounts of. Yeah, no. 20 seems like a nice mark, but what's going on in the NBA universe, because we're still in the thick of round two deadlines, right?
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah, we still got plenty of round two deadlines this upcoming week. Sloan McCombs, Warrington out of Florida, Brigham Young, Marriott Mirage also has a round two deadline. Rotman, University of Toronto, Rotman. And then round three deadlines for Insead and Stern, and even a round four deadline for Marilyn Smith. So still some activity in terms of those deadlines. Obviously last week was a huge, huge week for round one, Round two deadlines.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Yeah. I still can't believe you said There were like 28 deadlines last week. So hopefully people are breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief as they've gotten in some of their applications. And now comes that hard part of waiting for interview invites and such. Before we turn to admissions tips and the rest of the show, I did want to mention our events are now kind of solidified for next month. We're doing two events about deferred enrollment. So that's those programs you apply to when you're in college and you get a kind of save a seat. They save a seat for you at a top MBA program while you go off and work for a couple of years. So on February 5th and 12th, we'll be meeting with different schools including the likes of Wharton and Stanford and Columbia Chicago, a whole bunch of programs that we're going to sit down with. If you want to sign up for those events, you have to go to bit LEED 0225 for February 25th. So those events coming up next month and following those, we'll have two more events about master's in management programs. Again, these are for college students who want to go straight in and get a kind of one year master's program, master's degree before they hit the workforce. And you can sign up for those events at bit ly mim 0225 and those, you know, again, these are all on Wednesdays in February. They're always at noon Eastern. Last about and we have panels of top MBA program admissions directors talking with us. So should be fun.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Did you see, speaking of mims, I don't know if you saw this. UNC Kenan Flagler introduced a Master's in management that they're going to be rolling out. So I feel like, I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like there are a bunch of schools, whether it's Tepper, Emory, Chicago, Booth, unc, they're all kind of getting into the MIM game. And you already had programs like Ross and Duke and others that were in this space. So something Seems to be going on here with these Masters in Management programs too.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So is Keenan Flagler, are they attending your MIM event?
[00:05:10] Speaker A: No, because literally, like we set these events up way in advance and they just announced this, I want to say, last week. So I don't know that they're. I mean, I have the feeling we'll have them on at some point for an event, but not yet. Yeah. So this is all new. Now. We did run some admissions tips. So for those of you either finalizing essays or getting ready for the interview stage, there were a few different admissions tips on the site that I want to call your attention to. The first is one about essay polishing. This is just like what are those final things you want to do with your essays before you click submit. So if you're in that process with a Stern app this week or insead or whichever school you're trying to target, take a look at that. We also did two really good interview related tips. One is just sort of explains the sort of open versus invitation only interviews. As we know some schools will try to interview everybody, others they will call you if they're interested. And we also also did an important tip about blind interviews versus application based interviews. So good stuff there if you're starting to get ready or thinking about interviews.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And best of luck everyone that's waiting to hear about potential interviews.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think if we know this for many, many years, but I think we're going to see some Yale interview invitations start floating out there pretty quickly. And some of these other schools that are usually quick to the, you know, quick to get them out. So we'll see.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: EPA, I think is another one.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. So stay tuned. We also did a few Real Humans pieces. I won't get into a ton of depth on these, but we did Real Humans pieces where we connected with current students in the MBA programs at Arizona State Cary and Minnesota Carlson. We also caught up with Master's in management students at Georgetown McDonough. So those are all on the site. If you're interested in those programs, you can check them out. But Alex, the only other thing I wanted to cover this week before we talk about the candidates are a couple more career reports. So we got career reports from both Duke and Georgetown over the holidays. And I wanted to run through the numbers as we've been doing and get your take. So let's start with Duke Fuqua. I'll give you the numbers and yeah, we'll see what you think. So their average salary, starting salary for grads was $175,000. That's the same as it was last year. Average bonus for Those who received one was 30,000. There were 340 seeking employment, and that's out of 399. So about 85% of students at Fuqua were categorized as looking for work. That number was 88% last year. So similar now, of those seeking, 85% had an offer within three months of graduation and 82% had accepted an offer within that three month time frame. Now, there was a quote from the head of career services over at Fuqua. She said, in a year marked by significant market recalibration and rapidly changing recruitment and hiring practices, our class of 24 has demonstrated exceptional adaptability and strength. So that was kind of an interesting statement. I'll be curious to hear what you think about that. And then in terms of the industries and regions, here's what we have with Fuqua. Number one is consulting. 39% of the class went into consulting. That's down from 43%. They also sent 25% of their students into finance. That's up from 21%. They sent 12% into technology jobs, that's down from 17%. 7% into health care, that's up from 6. 7% into consumer packaged goods, and that's also up from 6% last year. In terms of where people landed, the Northeast was the number one landing spot and that was 28% up from 21% last year. They sent 17% to the south. That's pretty much the same. They sent 16% out to the West Coast. That's down from 20%. They sent 15% to the Southwest. That's the same as last year. They sent 14% to the Mid Atlantic, which is up from 10%. And they sent 10% to the Midwest, which is down from 12%. So those are the numbers with Fuqua. What do you make of these, Alex?
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I like the quote because I think we've seen that evidence through the other career reports that we've commented on.
These are very challenging, very interesting times. I think for career management officers.
They've got to, you know, I think they've got to be more creative in terms of connecting students with employment opportunities. When things are really, really good, it's a lot easier for them because they, you know, it's simply consulting, finance and tech takes up the majority and so on and so forth. So I think kudos for them acknowledging the headwinds that they're facing, but kudos for them for managing it really really? Well, I think the numbers are very good, especially for this tier of program.
And, you know, 175 average salary. Graham is the same as Harvard.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: So I think that's pretty good.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: I know. So one thing that jumped out at me is, you know, I feel like a few years ago, let's say maybe pre pandemic. But, you know, we were thinking about how, wow, finally there is a third leg to the stool of recruiting in mba in the MBA universe, which is, you know, had always been dominated by consulting and financial services. And that third leg was tech. You know, it was like, wow, some of these schools are almost at like a third, a third, a third, or, you know, kind of even split across those three areas. And, man, has that really shifted. I mean, we now see technology down to like 12% at Fuqua, but we also see healthcare, consumer packaged goods coming up a bit. So, yeah, just interesting. And I'm also, I will say, I mean, we've asked Elliot on our team to begin aggregating all this stuff, and we're going to publish some really great articles that just sort of highlight trends. But I think that the Northeast seems to be doing quite well in terms of employment opportunities, as does the Mid Atlantic, at least so far. And just anecdotally from what I've been seeing come by as we talk about these. So let's move on, though.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: But I would argue that Mid Atlantic, you expect that from Duke. So as you were reading out those percentages, I was quite interested. More Northeast, Mid Atlantic holding. Well, that to me made a lot of sense. But they're also following other trends that we're seeing with other programs. A drop in consulting and an increase in financial services.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Right. Which makes sense then. Yeah. Let's talk about Georgetown McDonough, because they also shared their numbers.
Let's start with the big headline number, which is starting salary. So Georgetown McDonough grads in the class of 24 earned an average of $146,000 starting salary. That's actually down a little bit from 149 last year, but pretty darn close. Average signing bonus was actually $33,000 at Georgetown. So that's pretty high. For those who received a bonus, they gave the numbers a little differently than some of their peers. They said there are 249 students in the class, and 166 of those students reported the industry that they got a job in. So that's about 66% of the class and then 131 shared salary. So I guess some of these students Maybe knew what industry and what job they gotten, but they hadn't maybe finished negotiating the salary. So about half of the class shared salary information.
They did also mention that for those not seeking employment, 45% of them were starting their own business.
So now let's turn though, back to those seeking. Right. So of those seeking, 89% had an offer within three months. That's off a little bit from last year. It was 93%. 84% had accepted an offer within three months. And that's also down a little bit from 92.5% last year. In terms of the industries and region stuff, consulting leads the way at Georgetown. McDonough, with 36% of the class heading into consulting. That's virtually unchanged. So it was 35% last year. They had 27% of their students go into financial services. That's up a tick from 25.8percent into technology. That's down from 18%. So a fairly big drop there.8percent went into healthcare. Healthcare was not in the top five last year. So it kind of burst into the group year at 8%. I presume it was less than 5% last year. Year, if memory serves, but it wasn't in the top five. Consumer packaged goods, also 8%, and that's up from 5% in terms of placements. Mid Atlantic leads the way for Georgetown. As you would expect, 46% of the class landed in the Mid Atlantic. That was 39% last year. 24% headed to the Northeast. That's down a tick from 31% last year. 7% went out to the West coast, also down from 10%. And then they sent 4% to the Midwest, 4% to the south, and 4% to the Southeast. Those are all pretty darn similar to last year. So what do you make of Georgetown's numbers?
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I was a little bit confused by some of the numbers you were throwing out at the beginning, Graham. I have to think about that a little bit more when I've had a couple more cups of tea.
But yeah, it's not surprising that they're seeing an increasing number of hires going to their local region. I think that's a trend we'll see more of for this type of program. 146,000 average salary is very good, slightly down from last year, but very good reflective on in terms of the tier that they're in. So they'll be in the tier lower than Duke in the next tier down. So you see that difference in average starting salary.
And yeah, the trends, I mean, they held constant with consulting so that's very good.
They. They increase financial services, and that is a trend that we are clearly seeing drop off in tech, which makes me wonder if Amazon's not hiring, because I believe there's an Amazon presence quite close to Georgetown. Yeah, east coast. So, yeah. So, yeah, again, these programs are facing very interesting headwinds, but I do think overall, career management offices are taking on this challenge.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I think with Georgetown, I think one of the reasons the consulting number stayed strong might be related to the amount of government consulting that's in the D.C. market. So that's probably helping them. But, yeah, these numbers are good. I mean, I think, yeah, you know, starting salaries off a tiny bit from last year. But as you say, like, this is. I mean, this is $146,000 starting salary, and Georgetown is, you know, they're sort of top 20 school. They're not a top 10 school. So it's pretty darn good. Right. So in any event, so I think for now, I haven't seen any additional ones come our way. So we may not have to talk careers next week, but I cannot wait for Elliot to begin on our team to begin aggregating all this data and share some stuff. So we're hard. He's hard at work on that. Apparently. He knows, and it should be fun to go through.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: All right, so let's talk about our candidates for this week. One last thing. If you do want to reach out to Alex or me, you just write to infoearadmit.com use the subject line wiretaps and we will write you back. We love getting your mail, so please don't be shy. You can also rate and review the podcast wherever you listen, but otherwise. Alex, are you ready to talk candidates?
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Let's kick on.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: All right, so this is WireTaps Candidate number one.
Our first candidate this week is applying to Duke and to Yale. So they have two schools on the target list. They want to end up as a head of strategy and growth. Or that. I'm sorry, they've currently been working as a head of strategy and growth and they want to move into consulting, potentially consumer goods. There's a family business angle.
They mentioned some companies, though, so it sounds like it's probably consulting in the short term because they mentioned Carney, BCG, Ernst and Young, and PwC. Their GRE score is a whopping 331. They had a GPA of 3.2. But they did point out that they earned their BA in Economics and that they studied at the best college in India for that subject matter. So they are located in India. They've been working for just about four years and they would love to land in either New York, London or maybe back in Mumbai after business school. They also indicate that they did or they're currently earning a master's in economics as well and that they're performing quite well in that they're doing it sort of part time, remote, while working in their family business.
There's a lot of additional detail here. They have a bunch of hobbies, they've done, you know, outside activities. And they also mentioned that, you know, that they joined the family business like right after graduating. So they've had this extensive experience in family business. And Alex, I. I'm not sure why you picked this one out. I may have some ideas, but there are two things that they bring to our attention that I suspect you're going to want to talk about. One of them is this sort of issue around recommendations. Like they're working in a family business, so who can write their letters? So they ask some questions about that. But then the other thing that they mention is that they had a dip in two subjects in undergrad. So I think it was a D and a C or something in two subjects that really kind of hurt their transcript. And they mentioned that they said this was due to being sexually assaulted by a professor and that they were then kind of failed essentially in those classes when they complained about the incident.
So they're wondering what to do about that. And. Yeah, so, Alex, I'll leave that there. What's your take? And yeah, what do you think this candidate should be doing?
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it is quite a quandary. I think they're applying next season. So obviously targeting round one is going to be really important.
Coming from India, potentially overrepresented. So that's part of their plans. That's very good. They've got a great GRE score of 331.
So I don't think ADCOM is going to have concern in terms of their academic prowess. Are they going to do really well in academically in these programs with this slightly lower gpa. They're also doing this Masters in Economics online that can help bolster their overall profile. But yeah, having a couple of grades on the transcript that potentially, you know, ADCOM will see and be concerned about, how should they approach providing that context?
And clearly this, this is a very troubling matter. I mean, you know, sexual assault as an undergraduate student, being a victim of sexual assault as an undergraduate student has to be a Very traumatizing experience.
How should they approach it? I mean, my view.
Graham, and I'll just get you to respond. I think this is a really important issue to discuss.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: Is. Yeah, maybe it's worth a paragraph in the optional essay to draw attention directly to the grades and make a short sort of summary without being sort of overbearing about it.
Especially difficult challenge to do this, Graeme.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a really. I mean, it's a. I mean, first of all, as you say, I mean, sexual assault is a terrible thing. And it's, you know, I feel bad that this person, what they endured, you know, as an undergraduate. At the same time, if I put my admissions hat on and just looking at the file, I'm seeing a GPA that's not terrible. I mean, and a really strong test score. And so I guess if there was some kind of, if this is documented in some way, that would be helpful. Because if I'm going to be super cynical, and I know people don't probably want to hear this, but I'm going to be really cynical. And I'm looking at the transcripts and I see these two bad grades. And then there's an optional essay that says, well, I got these bad grades because the teacher assaulted me. But then there's no paper trail of that or any kind of incident report or whatever. It's sort of like, how do we know what happened?
You risk this sort of like, is this kind of a sour grapes situation?
So that's the thing. So I don't know. I mean, I do think they need to call attention to these grades because they're low grades and an otherwise pretty good transcript. But I think, I don't know, it might be safer to just sort of say, look, I performed poorly in these two classes. I'm aware of that.
I hope that the rest of my transcript demonstrates my academic ability along with this master's I've pursued and my performance on the test. I mean, that might be sufficient without opening the can of worms.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Would you then add to that explanation that what there are extenuating circumstance that I would be happy to share but don't feel comfortable sharing at this stage or something like that.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Yeah, boy, I don't know. Because then you open up this Pandora's box of like, if you're the admissions reader, you hate playing detective, right? So you start saying, what, what happened? Was there like a cheating incident? Or like, what, you know, because you might, your, your brain is not going to go to, oh, they were assaulted by the teacher. No, you're going to first think maybe there was, you know, maybe they cheated or something happened, you know, So I don't know. It's. It's a really tough scenario. And part of me feels like they're probably best off, given the rest of their profile, being pretty strong. It's sort of like, why not just ride the test, ride the grades in their masters and just point out, yeah, did not perform on these two subjects and hope the committee can. Can look past that. But it's. It is challenging. Obviously, if there was an incident, like if there's something on their transcript that indicates, like, that this was you, there was a report filed, and it's something on their academic record that would be different, like, you know, then they should absolutely just, you know, point that out. Yeah, it's tough.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: Now. Now you've got me a bit more puzzled by the best approach.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: I know it's tricky.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: I think we don't completely agree, which is quite interesting.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. It's a really.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. There are reasons for this dip in grades. So rather than just saying, you know, my grade, you know, I got a couple of bad grades here, but hopefully everything else is strong, so just ignore it. Is. I don't know that that's the right approach.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I guess they could say they had a. They could say something to the extent that, you know, they had these two bad grades, they're with the same professor who they had a really difficult experience with and that they. If the committee wants further information, they can elaborate on that. Maybe that is the best way to go, like you're suggesting.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: I think that's good.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Other question for you about this candidate. Before we talk about our second candidate. What do they do about recommendations? Because they mentioned, could they have someone who works with them who's kind of a mentor and doesn't have the same family name, write a letter that someone employed in the family business, as long.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: As they're not an uncle or an aunt or something like that.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's fine. I mean, obviously what we normally say is turn to outsiders, clients, customers, legal counsel, your accountant, whoever's, you know, someone on the outside that can sort of assess you more objectively than an uncle or a parent or something. But. But yeah, they just need to navigate that. Otherwise, I mean, I think the only other thing that jumped out at me is they only have two schools on their target list and they have plenty of time. But part of me says, you know, Indian male, overrepresented, pretty good numbers, but, you know, Maybe throw in a few more schools there. Like, I don't know that I would just apply to two.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Yeah, no, completely agree. Five or six schools. Round one for all five or six schools.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. So we'll let them reflect on that. And you know, they want to do consulting, so a number of schools come to mind. We have a great article on the site about which schools tend to place the most people into those top consulting jobs. So. But let's move on and talk about WireTaps. Candidate number two.
So our second candidate this week has seven schools on the target list. And again, it looks like it's an early bird. So they're going to be applying to round one to all these programs next fall. They have Columbia, Tuck, Harvard, mit, nyu, Wharton and Yale on their list. They've been working at a big four finance company doing transformation consulting.
So they want to get into consulting consulting after business school, meaning non finance consulting, I guess. And they have a 695 on the GMAT, which we checked before we came on air here. And that translates to like a 750 or maybe even a 760 on the old test. So very, very good GMAT score. They had an undergraduate GPA of 3.6. They've been working for four years located in the US and they do say that they will have four years by the time that they matriculate. So they've probably been working for a little more than a little less than that at this point. They've been covering the energy sector, so they have a lot of exposure to that. And the reason I mention that is because they're kind of interested in the long term after doing some consulting of getting into a role as a leader of a renewable energy company.
And, you know, so they're open to other things too. But that, that's their kind of plan A. They said they had solid undergraduate extracurriculars with a lot of leadership experience. And again, they're planning on applying in round one to all of these schools. So, Alex, what do you make of this candidacy?
[00:27:27] Speaker B: I mean, like you say, well, as before we came on out, it'd be good to know a little bit more about their personality and some of their activities outside of work and seeing if that sort of complements and helps sort of further develop their profile. Because what we know about this candidate I think looks really super strong. I mean, their numbers are outstanding, you know, so let's presume that their work experience, they can get strong wrecks and can show impact and growth at work.
And, you know, obviously the Sectors that they've got experience in is sort of the energy sector that's really important and their focus on renewable energy in the longer run makes a lot, a lot of sense.
So to me this is your atypical, potentially outstanding candidate. If we knew a little bit more about their sort of outside of work type commitments and so on and interests and hobbies and so on and so forth. So yeah, and you know, yeah, best of luck to them, I think. Yeah. Hopefully a great candidate.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I mean I would be curious to know like yeah, where did they go to undergrad? What were those undergraduate extracurriculars and yeah, what are they doing now outside of work. But the numbers definitely line here and I love that they've got their ducks in a row. They're way out in front on these round one applications for next year. Great goals or very kind of logical goals. So yeah, everything lines up with this candidate I would say. So they just need to execute and they have time to do it, which is terrific. So I want to thank them for their post. I also want to go back, I forgot to say for our first candidate this week, I do want to thank them for sharing and obviously ton of bravery involved in sharing what they shared on applywire so want to mention that as well. Let's move on and talk talk about our final candidate for this week which is wiretaps candidate number three.
So this candidate, as you've been doing the last few weeks, Alex, you picked a decision wire entry. This person applied to Columbia, Duke and Stern and they ran the table. They got into all three and with Fuqua they actually got a $70,000 scholarship. They did not get get scholarship offers from Columbia or Stern, but they were accepted to both of those programs. They're going to be starting school this fall and they want to work in investment banking and they mention a lot of the usual suspects as companies, you know, Goldman and Bank of America, Barclays, Citibank. I won't list them all but they're all here. They had a 3.5 GPA as an undergrad. This person lives in New York and actually mentioned this is a female candidate and she says she has a strong preference to be in New York City for investment banking, networking and recruitment. She also indicates that she currently lives in New York and doesn't really want to move. Her top choice is Columbia but the big dilemma is there's no money there like so no scholarship was granted. She has emailed reached out to these schools both, it sounds like both Columbia and Stern to see if they're willing to give some money because at Duke she has this Forte Fellowship. And so that was, you know, that's kind of where things stand now, actually, when she posted, she asked if she could email Columbia and CERN to negotiate. She then got feedback on the site saying, yes, go ahead. And she has asked, but she hasn't heard back yet. So what do you make of this? I mean, someone in New York wants to work in investment banking. What's the path here?
[00:30:58] Speaker B: There's a couple of reasons why I chose this. This entry on Decision Wire. On the one hand, I think it's actually a pretty straightforward choice, go to Colombia. But we could talk about that a little bit more detail in a minute. But also we have a contributor on Decision Wire who really always provides outstanding, detailed advice, especially in the finance sector in terms of careers. So those are of you that might be listening that are interested in investment banking.
I would just look at this entry on Decision Wire and you can link to it from the site, sort of episode post and so forth, and read the detail of the response because it's absolutely fantastic. And thank you to that person for continuing supporting Clear admit I should say that over several years now, absolutely fantastic. But, yeah, I mean, this candidate has sort of explicitly stated they want to stay in New York for their MBA as a preference. So that obviously leans towards Columbia and Stern. I mean, there is the argument that actually this might be your only opportunity to get out of the city for a couple of years and Fuqua will still provide you access to investment banking back into New York or, you know, coming back after the mba. But it does seem that their preference is absolutely, they love the vibe of the city, etc. Etc. To stay there. That's better, makes recruiting more accessible and easier. And I think the higher the profile of the program that you attend, the more access you have to, you know, certain levels of banks, etc. Etc. So, quite frankly, Graham, I think Colombia, Columbia seems to be the choice. I mean, you could make an argument for Stern. Stern does send a higher percentage, I think, directly into investment banking. But in terms of overall finance, I think Colombia might well be the right choice.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, I mean, the only thing that was kind of striking me was this idea, like you say, sometimes the NBA is your only chance. Sort of take a break from the rat race of the city and stuff. And she's got a lot of money at Fuqua, and so you sort of say, wow, why not? And we just went over the numbers and Fuqua's number one destination Destination is the Northeast in terms of regions that it's sending people into post mba. But, you know, with the great comments from our poster, who, yeah, I would like to thank as well, there were a number of points made about how, wow, you're in New York. It's so easy to go down to the banks, meet them in person.
Maybe that ups the stakes a little bit because you're, you know, it's not a phone call. It's like, hey, you're coming by the office, so you're a little bit more out in front, but you're, you know, you have this access and, you know, the banks make. Make room for people from Columbia and Stern for sure. So it's, you know, if. If this candidate, I mean, it sounds like she really wants to stay in New York, doesn't. Won't have to move, I would, the only thing I would say to her is if you do go to Columbia and you don't move, et cetera, don't fall into the habit of, like, just maintaining your exact same life pre mba, you know, your same peer group. Like, throw yourself in headlong to the MBA experience because you will meet a lot of amazing people. And even though it, it, I can see how it's tempting to sort of social, you know, already.
It is, you know, it's an experience, and I think diving in is going to make it a better experience.
But, yeah, I feel like the sort of signs point to Colombia here.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Is there an argument for Stern over Colombia?
[00:34:32] Speaker A: Well, you and I talked about this before we came on air, which is, you know, like, Stern sends more people into investment banking often. But, you know, that's in part because Columbia grads, a lot of them want to do asset management and other things, but it's not for lack of, like, I think the spots are there. And, you know, Columbia's Ivy League and has some advantages, typically ranks ahead of Stern and most of the rankings, so. And it sounds like it's her first choice. I mean, she said that. So I think Eileen, Columbia still very good. Yeah.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: Best of luck to her.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Thanks for picking this out. I love all these dilemmas, and it's just fun to see these entries come in on decision wire, and especially when members of the community, like our friend here, chime in and give great advice. So excellent stuff. Alex, we've done it again. Three candidates, three really interesting discussions. Tackling new territory as always. So appreciate you picking these out and let's get together next. We can do it again.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: Very good. Best luck, everyone. Stay safe.
