Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, March 9, 2026. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: So I had a nice. I was away last week and had a good old trip to Morocco, which is a country I'd never visited. It was, it was really interesting. Had a good time there and I'm feeling recharged and ready for what's going to be a pretty exciting spring.
So, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: No, Very good. Welcome back.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: So we have a packed show in part because I was away, a lot of stuff happened. So we've got some pretty big news out of Duke. We've got a range of admissions tips. The arrival of our Real Humans alumni series for 26, which features grads at BCG, Bain, Amazon and Morgan Stanley. We'll get into that. And of course, three great candidates to discuss that you picked out. But first, what's the news on your end? Like when. I don't know if you've got a sense of this. I feel like you have. You always make a little map and tell us. But when will folks hear if they've been admitted in round two to a top business school?
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean next week. Well, sorry, this upcoming week we're going to.
A few schools are releasing decisions. So Fuqua and Ross are the biggest schools and they have a lot of cross applicants, I think, so they'll be quite excited. Kenan, Flagler, Mendoza Cox and Imperial Business School are also releasing decisions. And then we're also moving into that round three time frame. So Terry Ise and Marilyn Smith have round three deadlines.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Okay. Wow. Yeah. And I also saw, or I think I saw, Carnegie Mellon was giving out some round two decisions last week, so. Yeah, yeah. So we're starting to get into it. Is there a day or a couple of days later in the month when a lot of the sort of M7 schools are giving? Is it like the last week of March that some of those come through?
[00:02:19] Speaker B: You probably know the date better than me, Graham. So you.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: You let him know. But yeah, I mean, the following week and the week after, we'll see an explosion of round two decisions. No doubt. And I know that we're planning a live stream event like we did for round one.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: And so forth. So, yes, exciting times coming up in the next couple of weeks.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And I can't remember the date for that, but I think it's March 25th and I'll give more details on that next week because we're lining up some guests and admissions directors are going to pop by that live stream. So that should be fun.
Yeah. Other stuff that's going on, we have, we're a little less than, well, now less than two weeks away from our March 19 big event, which is called Design for the the Global Advantage of a US mba. This is really for, you know, international students considering an MBA in the US and we've got an amazing roster of schools. We're going to be joined by representatives, whether it's admissions, career services, et cetera, from Duke, Columbia, Stanford, Yale, Berkeley, Cornell, mit, Kellogg, Chicago, nyu, uva, Darden, ucla, Michigan, and Dartmouth. Tuck. So that's going to be a really great event. It's in a series of three panels which are organized around, you know, oh, what do international candidates bring to an American MBA classroom? And then some stuff about how do you get your student visa and kind of make that move to life in the US and then the final thing is about how do you stay and recruit and get jobs and visas and things in America after business school? So. Should be fun. It's going to be a whirlwind because we're doing like three short panels in a row with all these different guests. So we'll see how it all goes. But I'm excited.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: No, I think this is going to be a fantastic event. We've already got a couple of hundred folks signed up for it and I predict this is probably going to be our largest online event that we've ever hosted. I don't know what our top number is for prior events. Maybe is it 5 or 600 signed up?
[00:04:22] Speaker A: I think we've actually had a thousand before when we did a couple of different essay workshop events, but we'll see. Yeah, I think we'll get close. Yeah. So we'll see how it goes.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's, I mean, it's so topical and I think it's an area where there's a lot of misinformation and uncertainty. And clearly this session is going to be designed to clarify a lot of concerns for international students.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: So it should be very good.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So you can sign up for that. Just go to clearadmit.com events and I will give a small plug. On May 11, we're going to do our big annual in person MBA fair, which I've been mentioning for the last few weeks. We, we have a killer roster of schools. I think we now have 22 or 23 schools coming, including Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, you know, Chicago, Kellogg, Berkeley, Yale. I mean, the list goes on, but it's all the top schools in the United States. It's being hosted at Georgia Tech sheller down in Atlanta. You can sign up for that also just go to clearadmit.com forward/events. So, yeah, lots to come, Alex. And we will have some virtual events in May as well. Our kind of initial application strategy series for people thinking about applying next cycle. So, yeah, it should be fun. There's just a busy time of year every. Every. Every year this time for us.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. Fantastic.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: So, other stuff. We published our top in person MBA events for March because it's the beginning of the month. So you can go to the site if you're looking to see like what schools are coming to your city. You know, people love in person stuff these days. I think in an era of AI and streaming and online events, people do still like to press the flesh, as we say. So you can go and go to some of these events. We have a whole listing organized by school and by date and everything. So you can check that out on the site. And the other thing we did is we did an article about Duke Fuqua. They have hired a dean, basically, Mary Frances Luce. She is the new dean there, but I will say she's been the interim dean since August of 24. So they sort of have officially anointed her as the non interim but permanent dean. So she's starting. I think that'll start on April 1st. But we did a nice piece on her. She's actually a Fuqua alum and really accomplished and, you know, I've heard nothing but amazing things about her. So they've got her now inked to a deal.
And that's great news for Fuqua.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: No, Very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: We also ran some admissions tips. We did a tip about making the most of your welcome weekends. A lot of the business schools do welcome events in April to, you know, basically welcome round one, and in some cases round two, admits to campus and to sort of, you know, sell them on the program. And we had a series, there's sort of like five tips in this article. And you know, the tips are basically go. If you, if you are invited to welcome weekend, you should go.
Number two was you should go with questions in hand.
Number three was you should really use your time to gauge fit, like see what you think of the other people you're talking with, you know, faculty, everyone.
Number four was have fun. But don't get sort of fooled. I mean, these are kind of red carpet type events. So, you know, don't, don't, you know, just recognize that it's not going to be like this every day when you're in a business school with all the amazing buffets and food and things. And then the last thing was if you're double booked, like if you have two admits from round one or two and you're, you know, trying to decide which one to go to. And this, I think, is your advice, Alex, you say go to your top choice or the school that you know at that point in time is your top choice.
And the reason is, is that. What's the reason? Is it because I can't remember. I know you have a good reason for this.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Well, the reason basically is it's the beginning of sort of looking for housing, networking, etc. Etc. So if you do have a favorite over the schools you're selecting from, you know, lots of folks would default counterintuitively to that, their second choice to see if they're making the right decision to go to their first choice. But they're missing out on a lot of opportunity to begin that networking and.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: And so forth. So I would really encourage folks to go to their first choice. And yeah, like the hood is, then it biases them further to that choice, which effectively is probably a good thing. I will mention you said, you know, have fun. I think there was a Wharton welcome weekend where I would. I had a bit too much fun.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: I can't imagine that happening.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: You want to rein it back a little bit too?
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, it's funny you're talking about this now, but I think you once told me that if you go to your second choice thinking, well, I need to kick the tires on this program because I already am pretty sure that the other one's my favorite. You might find out or you might end up being kind of wooed into thinking that it's your first choice. Right. Because it's. So these welcome events are so much fun and they really roll out the red carp. So. Yeah. But I will also say that, I mean, just the other day I was texting with a guy, a classmate of mine from Wharton, who I met. He was the first person I met at the welcome weekend and we became friends and stayed friends throughout our entire, you know, kind of time at Wharton. And so it does matter. You do meet people, they become part of your network. And. Yeah. So you. So go to the school that you think you want to attend.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: And obviously we're talking about welcome weekend events that happen on the same weekend. If you have the opportunity, go to several welcome weekends, of course, if that's the case.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, great point. The other thing we did is we ran an admissions tip about a totally different topic, but this is more for people who might be applying in the future. And this is about considering pre MBA courses before applying. There are any number of reasons that you might need to do that, but we go through, you know, who should be thinking about that, what are the courses that are out there, how many of these things you need to do, and a little bit more on that. So you can see that on the website as well.
We also did some very deep dive articles about Wharton and Columbia's deferred enrollment offerings and some admissions tips straight from their admissions director's mouths because we had them on an event. And so we turned their comments from the event into some really nice content on the website. So you can read those if you're thinking about deferred enrollment for Wharton or Columbia.
Yeah, so those are some of the news and notes items. We do have the new Kind of Real Humans alumni series, and this is something we do every year where we try to connect with people who have graduated from top MBA programs and are working at companies that we know our listeners are often interested in. So we work with the schools to sort of identify these grads and we do these real humans. And so I wanted to. There are four of them this week, Alex, that I want to just quickly kind of run through because it's just so impressive to hear about these folks and what they've done. So we have Samira, who went to Rice and graduated back in 24, and she's a consultant at Bain and Company. She's from India originally. She's 31. She went to undergrad, I guess in Hyderabad in India, and she studied electrical and electronics engineering. And she also has a master's in biology or in biotech from Texas A and M. So pretty interesting background. Anyway, she obviously went to Rice for an mba and she had been doing kind of life sciences stuff before and then ended up at Bain after business school. And then we asked her what is one thing you would absolutely do again as part of your job search?
And she said, network extensively with relevant alumni over LinkedIn and via coffee chats. Even if the success rate of great of a great chat feels low, the sheer volume of conversations provided me with essential insights into different company cultures and the nature of the consulting industry.
So I think what she's saying is she had enough conversations where when she went into that Bain interview process, she really felt like she knew the company and its culture.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: Yeah, and the advice makes perfect sense. I mean, we have Access now through LinkedIn to a huge network of folks from your school, from the industry you're targeting, from the companies that you're targeting, and so on and so forth. So make the most of that.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So moving right along, we also heard from Ali, who is a NYU Stern grad, class of 23. So she's been out for a few years now.
She is a project leader at bcg, which as you may know, is a, that's a rung up from what MBAs are hired into typically. So she's already been there long enough to make that move. She's also 31, based out of Rochester or was born in Rochester, New York. Went to. This is fascinating. She went to NYU Tisch School of the Arts and studied acting as an undergrad.
But then somehow after working at HBO and kind of digital marketing and content, she sort of spun that into getting, getting an MBA at Stern and then has been with BCG since she graduated. And we asked her what's a piece of advice that you wish you had been given during your mba? And here's what she said. I wish someone had told me how nonlinear careers really are and how that's a good thing. Coming from a non traditional background, I sometimes felt pressure to tell a perfectly polished story about how every step connects it. In reality, the most interesting careers are built from curiosity, experimentation, and a few unexpected turns. Your MBA is not about locking yourself into one identity. It's about expanding your options. Take classes outside your comfort zone, meet people who think differently than you do, and try things that feel slightly scary. You're not supposed to have it all figured out and that's okay. So I thought that was good advice.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah, no, really good.
Again, it runs a little bit counter to the advice that we provide in terms of making sure you've got a well developed plan and goals going into the mba.
But I think there's a nice balance there, hitting the middle. You can still have a well developed plan while still experimenting and still exploring, etc. Etc. But I certainly wouldn't give up on the importance of a plan.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I agree. And I think maybe part of what she's saying too is there's probably, I mean, she's not giving advice about applying to business school and what you would say in your essay. I think she's, you know, thinking more big picture about just generally. So I think it works. But yeah, good point there.
We also talked with Felipe, who's a Harvard grad who works at Amazon. He only graduated in 25, so he's just joined Amazon not so long ago.
He's 32, from Brazil originally, but he did go to undergrad in the US where he studied electrical engineering. And he had worked at Amazon as a senior technical program manager and an electrical engineer prior to business school. And he'd also worked with Meta a bit too. So he's been with, what do they call them, the Magnificent Seven type companies for a while and he's returned to Amazon and we said, what piece of advice do you wish you'd been given during your mba? And he said, and I love this, he says, learn how to use AI, not to replace your thought process, but to structure it. Learn how to push back, ask for more information, work with it to build strong arguments. Most importantly, build real solutions to your own problems. My mental model now is if I'm doing something manually, twice, automate it with AI. There's no excuse for today's MBAs to leave school without being super nimble with LLMs. Yeah, so that was interesting advice.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: No, really interesting. But also it's great advice to sort of future proof your own sort of survival in what's going to be a quite an interesting, you know, time over the next several years in terms of employability, et cetera, et cetera. So I would absolutely concur.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. And then last but not least, we caught up with Elliot who went to Carnegie Mellon. Tepper also graduated just in 25, and he is an investment banking and associate at Morgan Stanley. He's 28, he's from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania originally. And he went to Colby College, which is a great liberal arts college. He studied global studies and he obviously went to Tepper, focused on finance and accounting.
He had been working in corporate learning and development prior to business school and now obviously he's doing investment banking. And I love this. You know, we asked one of the questions we ask is, why did you choose to attend business school? And everyone always gives this like paragraph long kind of response. So his response was to pivot into investment banking, period. Yeah, but then one thing we, we asked him what's one thing you would change or do differently as part of your job search? And he said, I would do a bit better job at budgeting and planning how much the recruiting process will cost.
All the trips to New York City and back, as well as accommodations and food really add up. So here's someone who he's landed at a top bank out of Tepper. So that's a testament to Tepper's strength in finance. But Tepper's not in New York City, so he had to go up to New York, obviously, repeatedly to meet with banks, et cetera. And he's just saying keep an eye on that because there's a budget associated with that. And I'm assuming he had to fly each time. Right. Because it's kind of a long drive. So.
Yeah. So just something that people maybe don't think about.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, I hate to say it, but that gives advantage to grads at Stern and Columbia and so on and so forth that are doing heavy recruiting and networking in New York City.
So. So. But we know that TEP is very good on the analytics side and so has some really strong programs for investment banking. But, yes, the disadvantage is you don't have that direct access on your doorstep.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: So weighing. That's important.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So good advice. Anyway, those real humans. So that's. Those are the first four that we've Costa.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Sandwiches in Pittsburgh is cheaper, though.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: I'm sure it is.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: I will say that.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And they have some very good sandwiches
[00:18:22] Speaker B: in Pittsburgh, just for the record.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: But you know, what I was going to say is that Lauren on our team, who does the Real Human series, she mentioned that she's got dozens of these now stacked up because we've been getting them from all alumni at all the top schools at all the top companies. So there'll be more of these to come. But it's a fun series and it's always a nice sign of spring that we're kicking these off so that they'll run all through the spring.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: So more. More to come. Obviously, if you want to reach out to Alex and I, you can just write to infoearadmit.com and use the subject line wiretaps. But otherwise, Alex, I guess we better talk about the candidates that you picked out this week.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Let's kick on.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: All right, so this is Wiretaps Candidate number.
Our first candidate this week has 12 schools on the Target list. And those schools are Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, INSEAD, LBs, MIT, Kellogg, Wharton, Stanford, and Yale. It's sort of like Ivy League plus LBs and INSEAD. I guess Kellogg's not an IB, but anyway, they have a lot of the top schools on their list in both the US and Europe. They want to start school in 27, so they're going to be applying this summer and fall and stuff.
They have been working in risk management for Citi. Citibank, but in Chennai in India, and they are hoping to do finance or investment banking or maybe even private equity after business school. They have a 7.5 GPA out of 10, and that's out of India, which means it's a pretty good score. We don't see a lot of like eights or nines in these programs. They have two and a half years of work experience.
They're 25 years old, Indian male, and they mentioned they do have. They've already obtained the Chartered accountant, I guess, status. And they, I guess, have been doing a lot of other, you know, sort of what I would call certification type stuff. You know, they have something called the acca, the C. CIA, which has nothing to do with the Central Intelligence Agency. It's a certified internal audio auditor. In any event, they have lots of. They've done CFA Level one.
This person lives and breathes accounting and all that stuff. Right. And they've been working at Citi, as I said. They're thinking that they want to make that sort of career pivot, though, into banking and maybe private equity out of accounting. So they're targeting M7 LDS itself.
And they were curious what we thought of their profile as well as what kind of a GMAT score they would need to be competitive. So, Alex, what do you make of this candidate?
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the thing that they have most control over right now is their GMAT score. Right. So they're applying for next season to make that clear, not this season.
So, you know, I would encourage them to do whatever they can to really match, maximize their score. And it needs to be over and above the median of the target programs that they're targeting. Right. So they're going to have to get sort of that 685, 695 or above, I would imagine. Right. The problem that they'll face is they're potentially going to be overrepresented in the applicant pool.
You know, sort of accountants transitioning to finance. That's quite popular.
Coming from India, we know that that's potentially overrepresented and so forth.
So that means two things. They're going to need to apply in the first round, I would suggest.
So that's common advice for folks that are potentially overrepresented.
And I had another thought on that. That's just completely escape me. But they also need to sort of potentially show how they stand out a little bit. Right. So we're not familiar with what they do outside of work, it sounds to me, through what they've indicated to us on ApplyWire that they're doing really well at work and they're getting a lot of credentials along the way to sort of certify that they're doing well and so forth. So we would presume they'll also get good references, recommendations to support that. But what is their passion outside of work?
Why are they wanting to transition from doing what they're currently doing in sort of accounting, auditing, back office, whatever it might be to the finance side? So learning a little bit more about that too would be very helpful. And then finally, I think they're being very ambitious with their target list of schools. As you said, they're all Ivy league or they're M7 or they're top schools in Europe and so forth. They'll be able to make this transition by going to a top 16 program, for example, in the US and I would encourage them to look a little bit different beyond just the M7 and again, make sure when they come up with that sort of overall list of schools that they apply to that a couple of schools in that top 16 they apply to in round one, don't be thinking, well, I'll go after my more safety type schools. I don't think there'll be safety, but whatever in round two, make sure they're also in round one.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I could not agree more. So the one thing that really jumped out at me is that they want to work in banking, right. And finance. And they don't have NYU Stern on the list. You know, they don't have Tepper, which we just, you know, we just heard about.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: Accounter would be a good, would be a good target, I would think.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: So I would throw those two into the mix. There are probably some that I would subtract from this. You know, obviously it would really behoove them to figure out where they want to be. I mean, because there's a big difference between going to INSEAD in a 10 month kind of program versus going to the, the States. So. So it'd be good for them to figure that stuff out. But I could not agree more with you that when I read this profile I was like, wait, where's the other stuff? Because right now they sound like numbers, numbers, numbers, accounting, accounting, accounting. And there's nothing, you know, they didn't share. Like what else do they do? I mean, obviously they're spending a lot of their spare time, as you said, working on certifications and things. But if they're going to make the cut, they need a really good GMAT score and they need to find a way to be interesting.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: And that could be that, you know, I don't know, maybe they're a runner, maybe they're a cyclist, maybe they love to cook or some. Maybe there's things that they do, volunteer work, et cetera, but that' not here and we don't know what that is. So I'm hoping that those elements are strong because they don't have a ton of work experience yet. Even though it sounds like it's pretty good, you know, they're a little bit younger, 25, two and a half years of experience. So, yeah, they're going to need to do well on this test and probably, as you say, cast a slightly wider net and maybe, I mean, not necessarily more schools. They could probably apply to fewer than the 12 that they have on their list.
But they, you know, might want to vary the difficulty level of these schools. Right. Because right now it's like all reaches, you could argue, or, you know, that kind of thing.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Talk about running, Graham, what's your best 5k time at this point?
[00:25:33] Speaker A: I think I once did a 5k in under 21 minutes, 20 minutes and change or something. But that was, you know. Yeah. Not so long ago. But it's. For some reason lately I haven't been. I've been focusing on trying to run longer.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: So haven't been. But yeah, that's been my best ever.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah. You're going to hold me to this New Year's resolution of trying to run 20. So I'm going to. I got a half marathon or whatever, so I got to keep working on this.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: All right. I guess I want to thank that person for sharing their profile. But let's move on and talk about WireTaps. Candidate number two.
So our second candidate this week has 10 schools on the target list. And they are all also going to be applying this coming fall to attend the following fall. So they've got time. They've got Cornell, Duke, Emory, Harvard, Michigan, Kellogg, Wharton, Toronto, UCLA and uva Darden on the list. And this person's been doing business planning in a leading multinational corporation in their home country. They don't say where their home country is, but they say it's South Asia, not India.
They want to work in marketing after business school. They've taken the GRE and scored a 316. They have a 3.58 GPA in undergrad, six years of work experience. They're open to living and working in the US or Canada after business school.
And you know, as I said, they've been working at their country's leading company and they're doing strategy and analysis type work there.
They've helped to commercially launch and drive new technologies business streams with positive revenue impact.
They've done a lot of work on budgeting. They also as a student did some internships and things with a country with the country's leading startup and you know, have exposure to like fundraising, things like that. And they mentioned have closely worked with CXOs who will be willing to write LoRs so letters of recommendation.
They do a bunch of volunteering and leadership as well.
They've trained high school students on leadership and community impact projects. They founded a platform that connects students with volunteering opportunities which they raised.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: They've done a lot, right?
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean there's a ton here, right. So yeah, they did give us a lot of so very active. I'll just summarize but the one other thing I did want to share is this person mentions that her parents passed away by the time she was 10. 10. So she grew up with severe financial and social difficulties and have worked, you know, since school and so has had to bear the cost not only of her own stuff but you know, she has younger siblings and so she's helped to kind of finance them and this is sort of the first opportunity that she feels stable and and has the funds to maybe go off and pursue an mba. So yeah, what do you make? She did say she's going to retake that GMAT of 360.
So what do you make of her candidacy?
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Yeah, retaking the GRE and I think that's what she needs to do.
I think the quant side of the GRE was actually quite strong so maybe there's still some English communication that she needs to develop a little further, etc. Etc. But if she can come back with a GRE that's at median for the school she's targeting or better obviously.
I think, I think she's outstanding. I mean crumbs like you started listing out all the different things that she's done.
She sounds to me like she's really been impactful at work as well as being impactful outside of work. Right. And that's kind of the two areas that ADCOM will explore.
So I think this candidate could be really super strong coming back with the stronger GRE score.
I do think, and we talked about this a couple, couple of points that we talked about before coming on air, she should try to target one or two of these programs in round one and not just wait for round two, why not test the water, etc. Etc.
So, you know, we've got several months for her to get a docs in a row.
Most pressing will be resolving this GRE score and then just making sure she selects the right recommenders.
Just because, you know, C suite folks, unless they work closely with you during your most impactful projects, they might not be the best choice. So just making sure that she selects folks that really understand her work product.
It's not about just getting the most famous folk to support her, but other than that, again, as you suggested before we came on air, she just seems really quite a wonderful human being.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I think you're making a great point about the letters of recommendation.
I think, yes, sometimes there is that tendency to be like, oh, I've worked with these really senior people, so they should write my letters. But if she has people that are closer to her work, you said, then they might be better choices. Yeah, I'm rooting for her to do a bit better on the GRE.
And as you said, she had a 162 quant, so she has a good quant score. But yeah, it'd be nice to get her up into the three twenties because that would really change the calculus here because otherwise she's very compelling and I think any number of these schools would want to have her.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: And again, I didn't reinforce it, but overcoming the hardships is crazy.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: Yeah, she's really dealt with a lot from losing her parents to then having to take care of her siblings and everything. So there's, there's a lot here. Also, I think it's kind of interesting that she's, you know, wants to do marketing. So it's not, not a kind of run of the mill thing. I mean, you know, you see a lot of people want to do consulting or banking, etc. So she has a real interest in marketing and that makes, you know, makes sense and fits with what she's done to date. So, yeah, I want to wish her the best of luck, thank her for sharing her profile and yeah, good luck as with that retake on the gre, because that'll be important.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Yes, very good.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three.
So our final candidate this week comes from a decision wire entry that you've picked, Alex. So this person, they applied to Duke, Emory and Vanderbilt this past cycle here and they were fortunate enough to get acceptances at all of them. They actually got into duke with a $60,000 scholarship.
Then they went on to get an offer from emory with a $90,000 scholarship. And if that wasn't enough, Vanderbilt came in with a hundred and $50,000 scholarship, essentially a free ride. I believe they want to work in consulting after business school.
And if you're keeping score at home, they had a 745 on the GMAT Focus edition which is a ridiculously great score. That probably explains a little bit of the money being thrown thrown their way. They mentioned in their notes that they are an international student choosing between a dream school, Duke and a full ride. They are risk averse, they say risk averse given today's job market, especially for internationals. Plan A is consulting. Plan B supply chain or operations willing to take a calculated risk if brand and network meaningfully improve outcomes. Long term goal is entrepreneurship or continuing an industry.
So what do you think about this, Alex?
[00:32:55] Speaker B: I mean when you, I mean we've had this conversation a couple of times, this notion of risk averse.
So risk averse can mean two things. One is risk averse taking on debt and two is risk averse going to a school that doesn't provide as much access to opportunity.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: Yeah, great point.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: So those are the two end of the spectrums. And we would argue that Fuqua, you know, potentially there's more risk involved in Fuqua in as much as there's less money being provided. But we would argue that because it's in that top 16 bracket, it's potential access to MBB and you know, other consulting opportunities is, is higher. Yeah, so, so you know, if you're targeting consulting, investment banking or top tech sort of placement, you really, you know, going to the best school that you have access to does provide you more opportunity.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: That's the challenge.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Yeah. It's interesting. Elliot on our team weighed in and he's very familiar, as some of our listeners known know with the career placement stats. Right. So he's, he's kind of, that's his big thing is, you know, he's, he's constantly combing through these things and he did say, look, Fuqua is a great MBA program with very strong consulting, MBB job placement. So you know, and, and he goes on to make the point that you know, while you'd have to pay some tuition if you go to Fuqua, you'll easily make this back after a few years in consulting. Right. So, so that's, you know, down and I, the other thing I do want to just draw attention to is this person says that, that they're choosing between a dream school and a full ride. Right. So their dream is to go to Fuqua. And I would say, like you point out, the risk is not that high at a place like Duke. I mean, it's got a global brand. As I just point out, they place people really well. So I don't think. I mean, this does feel like they should probably go there, I would say, if they really wanted to kind of split the difference. Emory does very well with consulting, too, and is giving them 90 grand, so quite a bit more money.
But I, you know, it's. Obviously, it's hard to walk away from your dream. And if their dream is to be at Fuqua, I think they should probably just go there.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I would completely agree.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: So there's a regret issue too, right, if you go to Anne Marie or Owen and that. Will you regret giving up the opportunity to go to your dream school?
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So that's something to take into consideration as well.
In any event. Yeah. I want to wish them luck. As we always like to say. It's a nice problem to have to be. I mean, this person's been offered, like, well over 200,000 doll in total scholarship dollars across these three schools. And also, I know we always point this out, but it's fascinating to. Just to see, you know, 60 from a school in the top 16, 90 from a school in the top 20, and 150 from a school in the top 30. Right. So it's just fascinating to see how that always seems to. To shake out that way. But in any event, Alex, I think that's it for this week. We'll do it all again if you've got time next week. But thanks for picking these out, as always.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: Yes, very good. Stay safe, everyone. Especially those of you in, I would say, the Middle east or wherever. I mean.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: We are in pretty shocking times right now, but stay safe, good luck, and we'll do it again next week.
