Episode Transcript
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, May 5, 2025. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going?
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: So, Alex, just to remind our listeners, you're a former admission officer from Wharton, current Clear Admit community manager and podcaster, and you also teach digital marketing at a couple of top MBA programs, including Columbia and LBs. And I'm the co founder of Clear Admit, also worked in admissions at Wharton where you and I first met, and earned my MBA there. Let's get into what's happening though, this week. What's the latest?
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Well, round three is, you know, as we we've said before, it's a much shorter cycle. So actually we're seeing quite a few decision releases for round three. Last week. McCombs, Darden, Tuck, Ross, they were amongst the school schedule to release those decisions this upcoming week. Goiz, Etter, Haas and Duke are among those releasing final decisions. So, yeah, there's quite a lot of activity in terms of Round three. A bit of wait list activity, a bit of interview invite activity and so on and so forth.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: And I've seen, I mean, we've actually sent out a couple emails on behalf of schools who are still saying, hey, you can still apply. A lot of these schools, they have this kind of round three deadline and then they shift into kind of a rolling kind of policy where you can apply until even June and still get a decision if there's room left in the class. So it seems like schools are open to hearing from candidates and I'm guessing that that's related to some of the uncertainty around yield and matriculation with some of the visa policies and things that people are maybe worried about with respect to the current administration in the U.S. and so there's still opportunity. If you're on the fence about applying in round three, some of the schools you're considering might still actually let you apply. It's worth investig.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And I don't know yet that we have a real good handle on the actual number of applications and applicant volume for this season. I think Round one, it looked like things were up, I suppose, but maybe round two wasn't quite so strong.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah, if I had to guess, I'm going to say we're sort of, it's been like a flat year, maybe even down a little bit because those later rounds didn't prove to be as robust as the early rounds. But we'll see. Yeah, we'll know more as schools kind of share that information.
You know, I think some of the publications usually share it. I feel like P and Q always runs an article about that at some point. We are actually, you know, speaking of all this stuff, we're actually running a survey right now. It's just a spot survey with a few questions. And it's for people holding offers to go to business school this fall. Ideally international, you know, so not Americans. We're kind of curious to know, you know, what are your plans? Like, are you. What are you worried about? Are you, you know, are you going to be matriculating or not? And some really good questions. Just how the schools are kind of guiding you through this process of getting your visa and getting off to school. So if you have a moment and you're tuned in, head over and take the survey. You can just go to bit ly MBA 25 USA.
So definitely take it. It's our way to just sort of keep our finger on the pulse. We're really curious about how people are thinking about these things right now.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Speaking of all this, I mean, this is just as you know, this is going to be the beginning. This is the first week of a whole month of events. And so tomorrow I'm actually sitting down at noon Eastern with admissions representatives from Tuck, Duke, INSEAD, LBs and Ross, and we're going to do a roundtable. It's part of this MBA application overview series that runs throughout the month of May. We have four events in total. You can sign up for these events at bit ly appoverview25. I'm really looking forward to this. Going to catch up with an old friend of ours, Alex David Simpson is going to be the one from London Business School doing the panel. And I've just been peeking at all the other folks coming because we're sitting down later in the month with Harvard and Stanford and Columbia and Foster and UT Austin. And a lot of great people are taking part in these panels from the admissions team. So I'm really looking forward to it.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: No, it's fantastic. And I assume we've got plenty of signups and these are really popular events to sort of get the next season underway for folks. So absolutely fantastic. And tell David I said hello and I'm still here.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: I will tell them. Yeah, but it is a real.
The signups have been brisk. Well, yeah, we always have good conversations. And what's cool about these events is we do about an hour of kind of Q and A where I pepper the admissions reps with different questions and then each of the schools does a breakout. So you can actually go and hang out with David from LBS or, you know, whoever it is from Tuck or, you know, any of the schools that you're interested in and ask questions specific to their program. So it should be fun. We'll be doing them all month. There's two this week on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then there's a couple towards the end of the month on May 20th and 21st. In the middle of that, I'm jumping on a plane and going to Boston and meeting up with other Clear Admit team members. And we're going to put on our big MBA fair in Boston hosted by MIT Sloan. We've got 25 schools presenting at that fair, lots of panels and alums coming. Should be a lot of fun. Yeah, I can't wait for that, Alex.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's going to be a terrific event. The only, I would say it's the only MBA admissions event that brings this caliber of programs all together in one place at one time.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. So I know we've been going on and on about this for the last month, plus because we're so excited and been promoting it, but yeah, I hope to see a lot of our listeners who are in the Boston area coming out to that or even if you're in New York, jump on the Amtrak, come up. It's going to be a worthwhile evening and as you say, a chance to connect with all these schools at once. On the website, Alex, we've been running a lot of really good content. We did this piece more relevant to people who are maybe heading off to school this fall, about best laptops for business schools. So we actually did a little digging and tried to figure out, we actually looked at what schools are recommending that you bring in terms of processing power and all that stuff and came up with a list. And probably no surprise, but the top three laptops were an Apple MacBook Pro, Dell XPS 15, and a Lenovo ThinkPad X1. So those were the kind of three price, no object, kind of best possible laptops. But I think in the article there's also a section on like, if you're looking to, you know, get in on a more of a budget, there's, there's some options there, too. So we, we did some digging. I think that's a useful article that's on the site now.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Nice. Does it, does it have an explainer on how to download Deep Seat locally onto your laptop?
[00:07:02] Speaker A: I don't know. I did not, I did not see that in the article.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think if I was going to business school, I'd want to have an LLM right on my laptop.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm now in a mode where I've always got ChatGPT open in a separate window. Yeah, it's.
So the other thing we did was we ran a story about consulting as part of our real numbers of business schools. And so this is a really simple piece which is just literally a chart that lists the schools that send the highest percentage of their grads into consulting jobs. And so I wondered if you wanted to guess at what some of the top top schools are in this domain. So this is just. Could be any kind of top 30 MBA program. Any ideas who sits towards the top of that list?
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Darden.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Darden is number four with 43% of their students who get employment heading into consulting.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Yeah, Kellogg.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: No, they're actually not in the. Well, they're on the list, obviously, but they're not in the top 10. So the number one school is INSEAD Goizade. Oh, Goizade is. Yeah, they're number seven with 41%.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: INSEAD's number one with 55%.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Right behind them is. Well, right behind. I say Dartmouth is number two, and they're at 44%. An interesting school comes in at number three, which is Georgia Tech Scheller with 43%. So they're doing really well in the consulting domain as well. And then rounding out that sort of top group is LBs with 42%.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's interesting. And, you know, Elliot on our team also did an interesting piece speaking of placements about regional kind of like sort of what happens geographically when folks graduate from these top schools. Like, where are they landing? And it turns out that that 23 of the top 30 US programs placed over 40% of their graduates into jobs in the region that the school is located in.
So there is a high degree of kind of regionality to even the top schools. And in fact, there are seven MBA programs where over 74% of graduates accepted jobs in the same region where the business school is located. At the top of the list. Rice Business school is at 85% in the Southwest west region. NYU, Stern, 83% into the Northeast. Marshall at USC, 81%, Carlson at Minnesota, 80% land in the Midwest, and then SMU Cox, 80% in the Southwest. And as you might imagine, both Haas and Anderson sending high percentages of people into California on the West Coast. So those are some of the, you know, most concentrated Regional sort of placements. But Even in the M7, you know, five of the M7 schools have very strong regional job placement.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: Only Booth and all except Booth and Kellogg. Because nobody wants to.
I'm kidding. People love Chicago. I know that. And the Midwest. But clearly the center of gravity for NBA alums is going to be East coast, west coast. Maybe a bit more in Texas now.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. So Booth and Kellogg are the two that are more geographically diverse when it comes to job placement.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: By necessity is kind of my point.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And there are two other top MBA programs that are actually the most diverse and it's not Kellogg and Booth. And those two are Tapper. No.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: And Ross.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: No. Wrong on. They're both good. Those are both pretty good. But the top two are actually Darden and Fuqua when it comes to how, you know, how that makes sense, like how far scattered are their grads. So yeah, it's just interesting to see.
Highly recommend. Take a look at the article. It's on the site. I love seeing all these, you know, little sort of breakdowns because it's not something you see anywhere else really. No one else is paying attention.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: We make this point time and time again. Right. It's really important to know where you want to be. Work post mba.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: To really help you select which is the best school. To help. Help. Help get you there. And typically it's going to be a school that's already in that region.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Because of this regionality issue. Right. So I think this is, I mean this is very illuminating but I think it's something that we really push for folks to think about and so forth.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: Now some of it could be self perpetuating in the sense that people choose to go to these schools because they want to be in that region. But anyway, it's important to know, I'd.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Say quite a lot of it is as you say, and those schools that are more regionally diverse, it is by necessity. Right. There's just not.
Then their current location isn't a center of gravity for MBA alumni.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Right. So they send to other markets. In any event, we have really interesting stuff. We also continue to profile. Speaking of jobs and where people land, we continue to profile alumni of leading MBA programs. So I want to run through a few of those. We caught up with Andrea who works at Pepsi PepsiCo and Andrea went to Michigan and graduated in 24 and is currently an associate marketing manager. She hails from Puerto Rico and went to MIT as an undergrad and you know, had worked as a product manager, done some startup e Commerce stuff and as I say, is now with Pepsi. And we did ask Andrea, like, what's one piece of advice you wish you'd been given during your mba? And she says, prioritize personal wellness as much as professional growth. The MBA experience moves fast and it's easy to put things like sleep, hobbies or exercise on the back burner. I wish I'd been more intentional and disciplined about carving out time for myself over the two years. It makes a difference. So there's some good advice from Andrea, who's now at Pepsi Post Ross.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah, no, very good.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: And then we caught up with Yaritsa, who is working at Accenture and attended Emory. Guizueta is working as a senior strategy consultant over at Accenture, originally from Lawrence, Massachusetts and went to Bentley University studying economics for undergr.
And you know, basically we asked, we asked Yuritsa for some advice and we, you know, we said like, what's again, one piece of advice you wished you'd been given during your mba? And Yuritza says, I wish someone had told me it was perfectly okay to try different things during my mba. I entered the program with a very specific goal and a predetermined path, which made me focus narrowly on that objective. In hindsight, I realized that stepping outside my comfort zone, exploring areas beyond my immediate focus, could have enriched my learning experience and personal growth. So I thought that was, you know, pretty, pretty good advice too. And we keep hearing that as we talk to these alums, like, hey, don't, don't be afraid to take a weird course or try something different. You know, that kind of thing.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it runs a little counterintuitive, intuitive to the idea that you need to have a plan before you go so that you can make the most out of the MBA program. So I think there's a, there's a sweet spot between the two. Right. Make sure you do have a well developed plan so you can make the most out of the myriad resources. But don't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone along the way or try something very different totally.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: And then continue along here. We also talked with Vittorio, who is working at bcg, having completed his MBA at ESE in Spain. Vittorio, as you might imagine, hails from Italy. He's from Genoa, Italy, and he went to the University of Genoa and studied industrial and management. Eng had worked in a number of roles prior to business school. It sounds like some kind of roles around innovation and sort of tech work. Right. And so we asked Vittorio if he had any surprises when he was going through the recruiting process with bcg. And I thought this was really, really, really good advice. And I know some of our listeners want to work in consulting, so I had to share this. He says we often think that cracking the case is everything, you know, during the case interviews for consulting jobs. He says, but that's not true. Communication style, presence, and how you connect during the fit interview matter even more. You still need to solve the case, but it's about collaborating with your interviewer, listening to hints, and finding the solution together.
Ultimately, they want someone that they'd enjoy working with day to day. So I thought that was really interesting advice and good for anyone trying to recruit at BCG or McKinsey or any of these top firms.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's. I think it makes a lot of sense and it's standard advice I give folks that are interviewing. One piece the interviewer wants to gauge is will they like working with you late at night?
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Which definitely will happen. Right? So, yeah. So continuing along, because we have a couple more here, we talked to Daniel, who went to UC Irvine Mirage, and he works at Disney now as a senior analyst. And Daniel's originally from Quito, Ecuador, and he had studied in Quito, had a bachelor's in civil engineering and had done some work at actually Anheuser Busch in Bev in kind of consumer packaged goods before going to business school. And we asked him what's a piece of advice you would have liked to have been given during your mba? And Daniel says, get involved in professional clubs starting in your first year. They are a great resource for you to practice your leadership skills and network with people who might work in the company you want or have the role you are aspiring to get. So that's more on the other side of like, hey, if you know what you want, get in those professional clubs right away when you arrive at business school and start working at it.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Yeah, very, very good and quite, very important advice.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. And then our last Real Humans alum that we caught up with is a guy named Chris. He went to Columbia, graduated back in 23, and he's actually a founder at a company called Small Bear. So he's an entrepreneur and he comes from Richmond, Virginia.
He had studied at James Madison University undergrad and then worked in tech, a place called Epic Systems. He had a whole bunch of tech jobs before business school. And we asked him, how did you choo your current company? Although he's an entrepreneur. So like, how did he choose this current role? And what factors figured most prominently into your decision of where to Work. And so he says, after he completed his internship and actually signed his return offer with Amazon, by the way, I took the entrepreneurship through acquisition class at Columbia on a whim. And this is where I learned that there's another way to own and lead a company by buying it with money from banks and external investors. The concept was a revelation to me, and I realized that after a couple years at Amazon, I could afford to take off another two years to either start a company or find one to buy. And that's exactly what he's done. So he went to Amazon for a bit, and then all the while was kind of thinking about starting or buying a company. And it's that class that he took, Entrepreneurship through Acquisition, that opened this sort of door for him. So it was really interesting, and it's a great interview. He has a lot of good insights.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely fantastic. I mean, that is another way to end up running your own business, right? Buy one that's available.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So in any event, really cool stuff. We continue. I think there's still a lot more of these to come, so we'll continue to kind of profile folks as we get these articles out. One other tidbit I had before we talk about this week's candidates is just that I caught up with a real friend to the podcast, Shelley Heinrich, who is currently at smu, Cox.
She's like, I think an associate dean or assistant dean there, running admissions careers, the whole thing there. She's terrific. And we did a podcast with her about Texas. I mean, she had been at. Some of. Some of our listeners know her because she was previously admissions director over at Georgetown, McDonough, and had been on the show in that capacity. And now she's in Texas. She's originally from Texas, and she talked about the move back and also particularly how SMU blends career services with admissions. The two are in the same office running as one, basically. And it's a really interesting and innovative way to kind of combine inputs and outputs. She had a lot to say and talked a lot about just kind of jobs, growth and everything that's happening in Texas. So it's in the feed. Wherever you're listening to the show, you can find it. And I encourage people to tune in because she's a real great. Just always a great guest on the show.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. Fantastic. And again, something we've talked about on this show is the growth in companies moving to Texas. So it has to be an advantage to those programs based in Texas. And we talked about the regionality of programs so it's a. It's a big win. Win, yeah.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: And we do see schools like smu, Cox, Rice, they're kind of. They keep coming up in the rankings and it's probably because they're having good placements and high application volume and things like that. So in any event, I think that's all I have. Before we talk about the candidates. Did you have anything before we get into them?
[00:20:01] Speaker B: Let's kick on.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: All right, so this is WireTaps candidate number one.
Our first candidate this week has just five schools on the target list. They're looking to start school in the fall of 26. And the schools they're looking at are Columbia, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford and Wharton. This person's been working in consulting at LEK Consulting. They are in Australia and they are Australian. They want to stay in consulting after business school. They had a 695 on the GMAT, in case you're still on the old scale. That's like a 740, 750. Very good score. 3.7 GPA as an undergraduate. They've been working for four years. And they went to school for undergrad actually in New Zealand at one of the top ranked universities there, the University of Auckland. They double majored in econ and finance. They earn multiple first in course awards during their time. They had a big upward trajectory on their gpa, which we'll get into in a moment here. And as I said, they've been working at LEK Consulting, all kinds of different projects, but with a heavy focus on energy, infrastructure and climate. And that ultimately is kind of an interest of theirs. They're going to return to consulting after business school, but they do talk about wanting to maybe join or start. Start a clean tech company down the road. Alex, you had some nice interaction with this candidate when they shared their profile on the website. So I'll let you take it from here. What do you think of this candidate? And. Yeah, just. Yeah. What are their chances? And they had some concerns that I wanted you to get into as well?
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. I thought they were from New Zealand originally, or at least that's what I inferred, but maybe. Did they say explicitly they're Australian?
[00:21:48] Speaker A: I thought they did, but maybe I'm. I could be totally wrong. It could be that they're. Maybe they're originally from. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, maybe they're from New Zealand.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I just inferred that from where they did their undergrad. It makes no difference. So I don't want them to think, oh, wow, because I'm Australian or I'm from New Zealand. It's going to change the dynamic. It's not going to make any impact at all. Both geographies are quite sought after, I would say yes. For top MBA programs in the U.S. why is that? Because they're not overrepresented.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: Right. So not to say that they're not different. Like I know Australians and New Zealand, you know, Australia, New Zealand are different countries but from the admissions standpoint point they're both sought after and it doesn't matter whether you're one from one or the other.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so that, that, that helps. A 695 GMAT.
Fantastic. They got an 80 percentile on the quant. I think that's going to be very good. I know that they, they are a little bit worried for early math grades in their undergrad.
If I was them, I think I would articulate that in, in a very short optional essay.
They have evidence further on in their academic career that they've overcome that. They obviously have a very strong GMAT score. So I don't think it's going to be an issue for the, for the candidate but the issue might be if they don't address it I. E. An ADCOM just looks at their transcript, sees some Cs and makes some, you know, assumptions based off of that. So addressing it's going to, I think is, is the right way to go. It looks like their work experience is really good. Their passion, their interest in, in climate, in work, outside of work is really super important. So it aligns with, you know, what you want your MBA alums to be engaged in for, for these top programs. So as long as they can show impact through their work, which I think clearly they can, they've got real good evidence for that and show decent progression.
Graham, I think this is a top candidate for top MBA programs.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: Yeah, could not agree more. I mean this is, yeah, this person, assuming they, you know, do a nice job on their application materials, they should be able to get into one of these schools on their target list. I do want to just point out, you know, they have Oxford on the list which is a one year program in the uk So I just want to make sure that they should be thinking about like where do they want to be? I mean they talk about wanting to go back to Australia after business school.
So I, I, yeah, I just want them to make sure that they look into what the network is and I assume, you know, Oxford probably is a great global network but it's a very different program. And now I will say, you know, this person wants to return to consulting. They're in consulting and so they may not need a two year program. Although I would argue that, that you know, the, well, the caliber of candidate who attends Stanford, for example, is going to be different than the caliber of candidate who attends Oxford. Just in terms of the select, I mean, selectivity. I mean these programs have very different acceptance rates. So. Yeah. Just something to keep in mind.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Yeah. The only thing that maybe Oxford has a really strong focus on climate, which wouldn't surprise me at all. Right. Obviously we don't have that understanding in front of us, but maybe there's a real strong climate, climate focus at Oxford and that's why they're on the list. But yeah, you're exactly right. That's a little bit of an outlier relative to the other top programs that they have on the list. I mean, Oxford is a top program, but it is different to, to, to the M7. But I also think when, when an international candidate is, is planning to return to their home country directly after the mba, then it's less about the regionality of these top MBA programs where they place and more about what does the alumni networks look like from each of these schools in my home country. That's what's going to be critical.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And the only other thing I would add to that is just that if they are interested in clean tech and you know, they may want to do some digging and I know one school that comes to mind when it comes to sort of environmental studies and climate is, is Yale because they actually have a joint degree that they offer with the mba, so. And there, there are others out there too, but, so I would encourage them to do some digging just to make sure that they're aware of what's on offer at some of these programs. But again, this is a top candidate with great, you know, great numbers, ticks a lot of the boxes, so should be in good shape.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Yeah, very good.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: All right, let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two.
So our second candidate this week is casting a slightly wider net. They've got 11 schools on their target list and those schools include Berkeley, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Michigan, Kellogg, Stern, Stanford, Chicago and Wharton. And they too are, you know, applying this summer and looking to start in the fall of 26.
They have been working for a big four consulting company. They also, it sounds like, have done a small startup and I guess something to do with maybe the sports spectator industry. They don't give us a Lot of details post mba they're thinking about consulting or maybe tech and they mention BCG, McKinsey and Apple as possible targets. This candidate has eight years of work experience. They are based in India, their GPS is converted so we don't know what the actual GPA is but they listed as a 3, 0. I'm assuming that it's probably better than that if they've converted from like maybe they went to school in India where the grading is quite harsh. They want to land in North America after business school and you asked them and they said they have yet to or that they're still working on the GRE. I believe that they took it and had like a 316 which they're not happy with with and they're taking it again with a target of 330 plus. They also do indicate that they do some running as an activity and they mentioned building communities as an outside interest of theirs. So what do you make of this candidate?
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I think this candidate one, they're from India, right? So unlike our first candidate from either Australia or New Zealand, they will be overrepresented geographically in the admissions pool. And the consequence of that is they really need to get their ducks in a row for round one.
So as long as they can apply to their target programs or the majority of their target programs in round one they can mitigate this issue of being potentially over represented.
The second thing they've got to do is get that GRE score that they're at targeting. So if they can get a 330 plus on the GRE that'll really help them sort of stand out a little bit.
Especially if their grades aren't outstanding, which they may be. Maybe it's a 7.5 on a 10 scale and their ranking is actually quite high in a rigorous engineering program or something like that. But we don't absolutely know that then obviously the other thing to look at and examine is the quality of their work experience. Eight years is a little bit long on the spectrum.
They list three different types of experiences. But the ADCOM is going to be really keen to understand impact that they've had over that time, measurable impact as well as sort of their growth over that time and how that then connects with their, their plans to pursue the mba.
You know I'm a big admirer of folks that can build impactful communities having experimented with that myself through my career. So if they can show some of that aptitude and impact also I think that help their overall profile. But key is going to Be applying round one. Have, you know, real impact. Show real impact through the, through the work experience and get that 330 plus GRE.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I could not agree more because when I, when I initially see Indian applicant, 8 years of experience, 3o GPA, I'm a little nervous. Right. Because they are overrepresented in the pool. Numbers are not jumping off the page. And so, yeah, they're going to need a big GRE or GMAT score to set themselves apart.
And yeah, the work experience, I mean, it seems there's some potential here. They have ample experience. It's a question of. Yeah, just making sure they really put their best foot forward. It sounds like they're active outside of work. So, yeah, they have a lot of the parts. It just. They're going to need to really work on that test. That would be my number one priority if I were this candidate until, you know, until I get a really high score. That's going to be really important. So I do want to wish them the best of luck as they work towards that and to thank them for sharing their profile. While let's move on though, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three.
So our final candidate this week, Alex, comes from a decision wire entry that you picked and this person they applied to Berkeley, Chicago, Booth, Indiana Kelly, ucla, UT Austin and uva Darden. And unless I'm doing my math wrong, it looks like they ran the table. They got in everywhere, and in fact, Kelly gave them an $80,000 scholarship. McCombs at UT Austin gave them 60 grand and Uva Darden gave him 30 grand. They did not get money from Berkeley, Booth or ucla, but they were accepted. So they're now telling us in their post that they're sort of trying to decide between Berkeley and Chicago. Booth, again, neither of them gave the money, but that's where they want to go. One of those two. Okay. And they said that post MBA, they're interested in both tech and pharmaceuticals. They had a 323 on the GRE and a 3.55 GPA in case you're keeping score at home. They want to land in the Bay Area, and they say studying at Haas feels like it would give me a natural edge for recruiting with tech companies. Booth seems to have a stronger brand globally, and it's hard for me to say no to that. However, I feel like I'd have to hustle a bit more at Booth to land tech jobs since it's not a tech focused school. And they then say cost is similar.
So, Alex, you and Elliot on our team like made some comments on this post. I want you to share your thinking process on how they should decide here.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it is quite an interesting dilemma and if you look at the numbers and Elliot produced the numbers for on, on, on on the apply wire entry. Booth actually sends quite a few people in terms of raw numbers to the west coast into tech and so on and so forth. And you know, along that line they're not exactly comparable, but quite close to obviously what has is doing. And why is that? Because Booth's just a larger program so it's got more alums and, and so on and so forth.
So, so that would make me think actually they're probably a little bit better off going to Booth because of the, the, the reasons that they shared. It's a little bit more prestigious, it's an M7, it's a larger alumni base, etc. Etc. Hass is sort of in that next tier just outside along with Yale and, and, and Tuck mostly.
But then has his advantage will be proximity, right? And again we talked about regionality, et cetera, et cetera. Well, yes, Hass and you know, the west coast placement, tech placement on West coast, etc. Etc.
Is really strong. And I think the advantage that has will provide over Booth is the ease of access for internships and just other stuff to do in that general area during their MBA program.
And yes, I would agree with the original poster that they'd have to hustle harder doing all that from Chicago.
So I would say if they're completely non tech in terms of their career to date and wanting to transition into tech for their career post mba, there is an advantage likely of going to has to do that. If they've got more tech experience already in the bank, then I'd say Booth with its additional prestige is the way to go. So to me that would be how I would view that.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really. I mean this is a tricky thing, right, because for all the reasons you just described and I think, yeah, they, they need to think about how attractive are they to tech companies out of the box before they've got the NBA. What's their kind of background? We don't know that here unfortunately. But I think, I mean look, they're going to do well at either of these for the reasons that we described. If they go to Booth, they this kind of very global brand, et cetera and decent placement all around. I mean we just cited earlier in the show here that Booth is one of the top schools that does a really good job of sending graduates kind of everywhere and is less regionally focused. And you point out that's because they kind of have to be. But whatever the case, they're sending a lot of people out West. And it was interesting. Elliot broke down all those stats. He said, Look, Booth sends 65 students from the most recent class. They sent 65 students into tech, 18 students into health care, and 91 students out to the west coast in total. And when you compare those numbers to haas, they're actually bigger numbers than Haas because it's a bigger program. The only number that HAAS beats them on is they have 135 that landed on the West coast instead of 91. And that's because they're highly regional. But in any event, it's just interesting to look at both percentages and raw numbers. And I also, I do want to just say that this candidate needs to think about fit. I mean, these are different schools, different environments. You know, I mean, HAAS is smaller. I mean, there are a lot of different things about these schools. So I would encourage them to. Ideally, I guess the welcome events have probably happened, or maybe they're happening right now, but they should do their due diligence and, yeah, feel. Figure out where they would be happiest, because that's going to matter, too.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And whichever one they choose, believe in that choice. It's not. There's such different, you know, levels of MBA program that they're going to regret one over the other.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: No.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: Right, right. These are fantastic programs, but I do believe that it does. A large part of their decision will depend on their profile coming into the MBA program. Are they tech heavy already or aren't they? If they're not, then, yes, Hasma might have a bit of an edge.
[00:36:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyway, interesting points and congratulations to this candidate for that embarrassment of riches with getting. Running the table, getting some scholarship money at a handful of schools, too. So congrats to them. Best of luck as they make that decision. Alex, we've done it again. We spent more than a half an hour talking about all things MBA admissions, and I'm happy to do it again next week if you got time.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Very good. Take care, everyone. Stay safe.
