Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: When aliens land on Earth and find
[00:00:01] Speaker B: that there are 400 episodes of this
[00:00:03] Speaker A: show, they will really be puzzled about our society.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: It's a difficult decision.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:08] Speaker C: And we can't really help them.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Well, hopefully we haven't left them more confused than they started. Yeah. This is a tough call, but hopefully we've muddied the waters for them further.
[00:00:18] Speaker C: Anyway, I think this is a very difficult decision, Graham. I've rabbited on and I've come up with no solution.
And I had another thought on that. That's just completely escaped me.
Did it begin? Graham, we know plenty of failures from which you can draw.
Is it go have a drink?
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Step one. Yeah.
[00:00:39] Speaker D: Or a beer.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Or a beer. Yeah. As you would.
[00:00:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Are you asking for a raise on
[00:00:44] Speaker B: the podcast right here?
[00:00:44] Speaker C: Like, I knew I couldn't pronounce it correctly. That's why I said some school that's famous, but defense tech makes perfect sense based off of their background. And obviously that's an exploding area. Pun intended, etc.
[00:00:57] Speaker D: Etc.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: Are we done?
Not quite.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, July 13, 2026. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Happy 500th episode, Alex.
[00:01:32] Speaker C: Good. Very.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: I cannot believe that we've recorded so many of these. And actually, I feel like with all the time spent recording these, we probably could have completed our second MBAs or something. I mean, that's been a lot of hours that we've put in to this.
[00:01:46] Speaker C: No, but it's been. It's been a really good. I've really enjoyed it, quite honestly.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, same. And, you know, it's funny, you know Dennis, who produces our show week in and week out, you know, sometimes I joke with him about how, you know, he's not applying to business school.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: He's not, you know, necessarily particularly interested in business school.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: And I always ask him, like, how
[00:02:04] Speaker B: do you manage to listen to these
[00:02:05] Speaker A: week, week and week out? And he says that actually it's. He really likes the rapport that you and I have and that, you know, he can kind of tell that we have fun doing this and that makes the show work. So.
[00:02:16] Speaker C: So, yeah, he's very.
Yeah. Says all the right things. I appreciate.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
So I went and did some digging, though, because I thought it'd be kind of fun to just look back on 500 episodes. And so obviously we've reviewed candidacies or decision dilemmas of over a thousand business School applicants from virtually every corner of the planet and obvious applying to all kinds of different top programs. We've also had a lot of special guests on the show over the years, ranging from, you know, business school deans to admissions directors from, you know, all
[00:02:49] Speaker B: the big names, professors, admissions experts.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: And of course, we even had Sam Fuld, who is the general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, join the show. That was just a personal highlight for me.
[00:03:00] Speaker C: You had to drop that one in. Yeah.
[00:03:03] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: And then I went back also, and I saw the very first episode of
[00:03:06] Speaker B: the show aired on March 6th in 2018. And actually, full disclosure, Jeanette Brown, who
[00:03:13] Speaker A: is the editor in chief at the time for Clear Admit, she hosted some
[00:03:18] Speaker B: of those early shows and you joined her.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: You were often a guest. And then when she kind of rolled off of her role, I moved in
[00:03:24] Speaker B: and started doing them with you.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: And I think we really kicked things
[00:03:28] Speaker B: into gear in July of 2019.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: So about a year into the existence of the podcast, with the very first episode of Wiretaps.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: That was literally seven years ago, to be exact.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: It was on July 15, 2019. And so somehow from that point on, we have managed to publish a Wiretaps
[00:03:46] Speaker B: episode every single week while still peppering
[00:03:50] Speaker A: in some ADCOM Q&As or special guest shows. And so it's really just been quite the run. And I'm just so. I'm proud of it.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: I really am.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. No, I am, too. And especially, like you say that consistency every week.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:01] Speaker C: We've been able to publish an episode of Wiretaps, so.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: And yeah, you said a thousand plus candidates that we've reviewed for one reason or another. So, yeah, very, very good.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And we've had, you know, hundreds of thousands of listens.
I think we're well over 400,000 listens at this point. The most popular shows, you know, in terms of. They tend to be the ones where we have some important guests or whatever. So the first one is this interview we did with the admissions dean at hbs. What's funny is this is the past admissions dean and I'm curious to see. I'm going to Just a little bit of a spoiler here. I've got Rupal Ghadia, who's the current director of admissions at hbs. She's going to be coming on the show later this summer. So I'm wondering if her episode will unseed the current number one slot, which is an older admissions director Q and A with Chad Losey, who used to be the admissions Dean over at hbs, the number two most popular show in the history of the show is the 7 hardest MBA interview questions and how to Answer them. You did that one, I believe, with Jeanette, pretty early on. Now, some of these episodes, episodes that have high listen counts are the older ones, right. Because they've been around the longest. So by nature, they just keep accumulating listens. We did a great show with Keith Bevins, who's the head of sort of HR and hiring over at Bain and Company. He's also a partner there, but he oversees a lot of the recruitment. And Donna Levinson from MIT Sloan is on the list of the most popular ones. She's actually coming back on the show in a couple weeks. Here we did one with Dartmouth Dean of Admissions. Those are kind of the ones that are on this list of kind of accumulating the most listens. And then I also just peeked into, like, you know, where are people tuning in from? And it turns out that most of our listeners are in the United States by far and away. That's our biggest market. I think it's like half of our listeners, if not more. And then we've got other countries making appearances on the list. India is number two. The UK is number three. Where you're located.
Canada and Japan rounding out the top five. And there are many other countries with lots of listeners, from Brazil to Taiwan, Nigeria, Germany. I mean, the list goes on and on. The cities. Do you want to just take a quick guess at what cities people have most often tuned in from?
[00:06:17] Speaker C: New York.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: That's number one. Yeah. Number two threw me a little bit.
[00:06:25] Speaker C: San Francisco.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: No, it's Chicago. And I just. Yeah, so Chicago's number two, L.A. was three.
Then Houston, D.C. boston, Brooklyn is coming up. And I guess that's because I guess the first one's really like Manhattan. I don't know why it's splitting those out. And then Mumbai comes after that. That's the first international city. Then San Francisco, Philadelphia, Austin and London. And I'm thinking Austin's got to all be the. The admissions team over at.
McCombs, because they tune in. I know, regularly. But anyway, so, yeah, it's been so much fun. Anything else that you wanted to share about the show and what we've accomplished?
[00:07:03] Speaker C: No, no. I mean, I just think it's brilliant. I really enjoy the chat each week and sort of. It's just also like, a chance for us to sort of share the current status of MBA admissions, you know, over the years, etcetera, and keep us sort of our ear to the ground and so on and so forth. So I think it's been a really useful exercise and I really enjoy it.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Yeah, same.
[00:07:27] Speaker E: Hey, Graham and Alex, this is Lindsay Lloyd, executive director of MBA admissions at NYU Stern.
500 episodes is a huge milestone. Delivering an episode every week, no matter what, is a true testament to your commitment. Congrats on number 500 and thank you for being part of my commute every Monday morning. Cheers.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: So I guess we should just get into our regular business because we have a lot going on this week. We've got some pretty exciting news from LBs, facts and figures about the value of the MBA admissions director. Q&As from Ese and Duke, our last real Humans alum for the season, an admissions tip. And of course you did pick some candidates to talk about this week. So I suggest we dive in. One thing I wanted to mention is that in just a few days time, we're doing a special event at 10:00am Central European Time. This is for international candidates to business school and it's going to be a sort of ask me anything discussion with Travis Feierbacher. And he is an immigration lawyer and he just is an expert on all things visas, kind of working, working papers, staying, you know, in the US after graduation to work. So we're going to go through that with him. And we picked this time zone of, you know, kind of Europe to accommodate everyone in kind of Asia and Europe, et cetera, who might be looking at business school and particularly business school in the United States. So you can join that event by just going to clearadmit.com events and sign up. Also we have our essay workshop series. We're going to do five of those events over the course of the last two weeks in July. Again, you can check out the website for more, but we're sitting down with virtually every top school to talk about their essay essays and get insights and tips directly from the source.
But Alex, one big thing I mentioned to you before we came on air and teased it at the top of the show too is London Business School announced earlier this past week, so about a week ago that they received a 25 million pound gift for MBA scholarships. And it's a gift from philanthropists David and Molly Pyatt and it's one of the largest donations in the school's history and it's really helping the school, I think in an area that they wanted to kind of up their game in, in terms of being able to give out more scholarship dollars. So yeah, Any, any thoughts on this?
[00:09:45] Speaker C: I think it's a fantastic win for London Business School, of which I'm somewhat affiliated with. So I'm very happy about this. And, and yeah, as we talked about just before we came on air, you know, typically European schools don't have as much scholarship per student as their US Counterparts. So this helps tip that balance, I think.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah, totally agree. So terrific news. And I did connect briefly with David Simpson, who's Director of admissions, MBA admissions over there. He was very excited.
[00:10:14] Speaker F: This is David Simpson, Admissions Director at London Business School. I want to say Congratulations on the 500th episode of the Clear Admit podcast. What an achievement. I've known you both for many years. You're so knowledgeable and experienced and I think it's a fantastic and unique resource for anyone applying to business school. I often listen to it myself and I love the theme tune. Congratulations guys.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: So let's see other news and notes. So there were, there were three things that we did on the website that I thought were worthwhile and they're related. So the first is I ran an opinion piece that I wrote called the MBA is Not a Stock Price and I'm just going to read you a quick quote from it because I think it'll better explain it than I could do off the cuff here. But basically it feels like every so often someone declares the MBA as either being broken and kind of dead or back with a vengeance. And you know, applications rise, the degree is suddenly indispensable again, hiring slows and it's perceived to be in decline.
Salaries move a few thousand dollars one way or the other and sweeping conclusions quickly follow. The NBA isn't a stock price and its value shouldn't rise and fall with every quarterly fluctuation or headline grabbing statistic. So the op ed kind of goes on from there. But it's basically was a response to this Wall Street Journal article that was pointing out how, oh, you know, the starting salaries may start to come down based on some fore testing that was done in survey work that GMAC did by a couple, by a few thousand dollars. So anyway, I just felt the need to kind of weigh in and point out that like we've seen a lot of ups and downs over the years. So I wanted to get my 2 cents in there and appreciate everyone on the team kind of helping me to craft that.
[00:11:52] Speaker C: Yeah, and I think it's a really well reasoned piece quite honestly.
And you know, there's obviously a lot of noise out there in the marketplace in terms of, you know, the, the value of the NBA and is AI going to change That, I mean, sure, it is going to change that, but we don't know yet the full implications of that. And as long as MBA programs are reacting and responding and able to turn out folks that are really AI literate in their industries and so on and so forth, I think the MBA remains a huge opportunity.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I could not agree more. I also think that the other thing
[00:12:30] Speaker B: we had fun with, so once I wrote this op ed, put it on
[00:12:33] Speaker A: the site, and then this was an opinion thing, but we then decided as
[00:12:37] Speaker B: a team that it might be interesting to actually look at some numbers.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: And so Elliot on our team published an article called 10 years of M7 MBA salary growth. And essentially the median base salaries for graduates at the likes of Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg Booth, MIT and Columbia have grown 40% over the last 10 years, nicely outpacing inflation, despite one of the
[00:12:59] Speaker B: most inflationary periods that the US has seen in decades.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: I think you got to go back
[00:13:04] Speaker B: to the sevent and the kind of
[00:13:06] Speaker A: oil crisis to have a worse time period. So, yeah, so that was interesting too in that it showed how salaries have changed with time.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: And we had 10 years worth of data in there, so that was really, really eye opening.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: And then Lauren on our team went and mined interviews that she'd conducted with MBA alumni working at Amazon, Google Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI and kind of focusing
[00:13:33] Speaker B: on like, what's the degree worth?
[00:13:35] Speaker A: And you know, I have a couple of quotes from that piece that I thought were good. And you know, one of those alums
[00:13:41] Speaker B: said the ability to think structurally, communicate
[00:13:44] Speaker A: across functions and operate in conditions of
[00:13:47] Speaker B: genuine uncertainty is what makes the MBA so valuable.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Another said it's such a privilege to
[00:13:53] Speaker B: have the opportunity to spend two years of your life focused on growing, learning
[00:13:57] Speaker A: and becoming a better version of yourself. And, and they recommend be intentional in how you spend your time.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: But above all, have fun and make the most memories. It's truly the best. Two years. So there's a whole load of quotes in that piece.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: But again, just a couple of pieces that we ran alongside that MBA is not a stock price that I think support, you know, what we've been saying in terms of the value.
[00:14:18] Speaker C: Yeah, no, Very, very good.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Moving right along, we did an MBA admissions tip on the site about applying
[00:14:24] Speaker B: to business school as a younger applicant.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: And if you are younger and you're listening to the show, you should definitely read this. But essentially it gets into why academics are so important, why leadership potential is really critical, why having clear goals is very helpful, and the need to kind of nail the why now.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: And to demonstrate maturity where possible.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: These are all factors and it's a lengthy article, but I recommend people read that if you're applying to business school as a younger candidate.
[00:14:53] Speaker G: Hey, Graham, this is Candi Lee Labal here, president of AGAC and founder of MBA Clarity. I want to say congratulations to you and the entire Clear Admit team. Congratulations to Alex, to Elliot, to everyone on 500 podcasts. That is such an amazing milestone.
And it just goes to show that all of you at clearadmint have, have truly become a voice of wisdom, of knowledge, of clarity in the MBA admissions space. And I've learned so much from you guys and I, your listeners have. So congratulations and I'm super excited to see what's next for you guys.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Am I missing anything, Alex, on that front, in terms of if you're younger, things you need to be aware of,
[00:15:36] Speaker C: I think you hit the major markers there. Yeah, obviously ADCOM is looking more at potential because you are less, well, less far on in your career. But they're also looking for folks that can really establish why now is the right time for them to take, take this two year experience and so forth. So, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, very good.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: And I will say I was a little sad. We had our team meeting the other day and Lauren alerted us to the fact that she had run out of the Real Humans alumni for the season. And this is something we do every spring into the summer. So it's normal that we've run out. But I think there must have been like 50 some alums that she connected with and we've been profiling a lot of them on the show. So the very last one is this woman named Mariana who went to London Business school and is currently a consultant at Bain.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: I'm almost certain that she started out
[00:16:31] Speaker A: working for Bain in the States and now is in the UK or something. So used kind of the MBA to kind of return to her current employer, but to do a transfer. And she's originally from, she says, both Mexico City and San Diego.
She's 28, went to undergrad at Georgetown where she studied international political economy and business.
And before business school, as I said,
[00:16:53] Speaker B: she was at Bain.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: She also worked at a number of different startups in the education and fashion sectors.
And then obviously now she's back at Bain and we asked her, why did you go to LBs? And she said, I knew I wanted
[00:17:06] Speaker B: to pursue an MBA in Europe because I was looking to move away from the US and have a more international experience.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: A two year program was important to
[00:17:14] Speaker B: me and I wanted Enough time to build meaningful relationships, explore different career paths, and fully immerse myself in the experience.
I was particularly drawn to LBS because of its diversity, global perspective and program flexibility, which allowed me to tailor the MBA experience to my interests and goals.
And then she goes on to say, one of the most valuable aspects of the MBA is the long term network you build. And some of the most insightful conversations and opportunities come from people with very different experiences and perspectives from your own. So, yeah, that's our last real human. Well, obviously we'll have more of them next spring, but yeah, that was a great run this year, I thought.
[00:17:53] Speaker C: Yeah, no, really, really good. And yeah, we don't often see folks choosing an MBA outside of their geographic market and so forth. So, yeah, very interesting.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And I wonder if, you know, the fact that she has returned to Bain, maybe she felt she had that flexibility to go somewhere different.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: And then I do think she's maybe
[00:18:14] Speaker B: stayed in Europe or.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: I don't know for sure, but it sounded like it. So that would be kind of interesting too.
Last couple of things before we get into our candidates for this week, we
[00:18:23] Speaker B: continue our admissions director Q and A series.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: I can't include all of them on
[00:18:28] Speaker B: the show every week now because there
[00:18:29] Speaker A: are too many of them that we're publishing, but I wanted to highlight a couple.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: So this week we've got Allison Jamison of Duke Fuqua.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: Allison is terrific. I've spent a lot of time talking with her over the years and she, I mean, this interview that's on our
[00:18:42] Speaker B: site is so in depth. I noted that there was an admissions
[00:18:45] Speaker A: consultant, I can't remember from which firm, who put it up on the Internet on LinkedIn and was like, wow, this is a thorough description of how admissions works because Allison really pulled back the curtain on how they review files, etc.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: So a couple of things from her in this article.
She said on essays.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: She says, our iconic 25 Random Things essay remains one of our favorite questions
[00:19:09] Speaker B: because it gives applicants the freedom to share the experiences, values, interests, and relationships that have influenced who they are.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: My advice is to use that space thoughtfully.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: We learn a great deal about your
[00:19:21] Speaker A: professional accomplishments from your resume.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: Use the essay to tell us something we wouldn't otherwise know.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: So that's good advice, I think, on that 25 random things. I love that question, Alex. It's kind of a fun exercise.
And then in general, she just offered
[00:19:38] Speaker B: up a quick sort of tidbit of advice. She said, authenticity is far more compelling than perfection.
And that was in the context of her talking about, like, hey, you know, it's got to be your voice, and I'd rather it be your voice with some, you know, kind of maybe it's imperfect than something that's so finely tuned that it no longer sounds like you. And finally, on the value of the mba, she said, in a world where access to information and analysis is becoming increasingly widespread, the ability to exercise sound judgment, work effectively with others, and navigate ambiguity becomes even more important.
Those are skills that are developed through experience and community, and they are benefits that continue to pay dividends throughout your career and your life.
So, yeah, it's pretty good. Advice and thoughts from Alison at Duke.
[00:20:28] Speaker C: She didn't talk about how to pronounce the school name Fuqua?
[00:20:33] Speaker B: No, I don't think so.
Not in this interview, but yes.
And then the other admissions director we caught up with is Patrick Valen and he is at esa and we asked him to kind of comment and he, you know, they have an interesting process at esa, so as you may recall, they interviewed candidates that they're interested in and if you don't get an interview, you're rejected.
They read their applications by region, so there's like someone in charge of each region. And his argument in the article is that that allows them to really make sure that they're understanding someone in the context of the place that they're coming from.
[00:21:11] Speaker D: Hey, Graham and Alex, it's Eric Chambers from the Graduate Management Admission Council, or GMAC as most know it, and your former Wharton colleague from about a million years ago. So I just wanted to congratulate you on recording your 500th episode.
And as someone who has both joined and hosted podcasts in the past, I know how much work goes into them. So 500 podcasts is absolutely amazing.
And knowing both of you from our time at Wharton, I know the topics, guests, and the advice that you have provided to the audience is focused on them, as I know you hope the audience gets a transparent and genuine behind the scenes look at the admissions process, how schools evaluate candidates, how best candidates can show their full selves to the schools they're applying to, and much, much more.
So thanks again for all that you do to help support candidates and educate the GME community on the wide range of topics that you've covered, and all the best to both of you, hopefully hosting many, many more great podcasts in the future. Again, congrats.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: And then the last thing is, I don't know if you know about this, but they do this thing for some candidates that's called an assessment day. And I'll just read what he says about it. He says applicants may also be asked to join us for an assessment day where they either attend in person in Barcelona, New York or Sao Paulo, or virtually for a number of reasons. Not everyone who ends up being admitted to the program receives an invitation to the assessment. So don't be anxious either way. Those who do attend the assessment will do an MBA exercise that will last a few hours. Generally speaking, this is a chance for the admissions team to see how you work and think, but it is also an opportunity for the applicant to get a taste for the ESA MBA experience.
So what do you think of that, Alex? Because I didn't know. I mean, I've heard about this before, but I didn't know too much about it.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: I've heard about it, but talk about how to create anxiety in the admissions process.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I wonder what determines whether you get it or not.
[00:23:04] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. So I think they need to be really transparent in terms of what drives folks that get it and those that don't because otherwise it is just designed to create a lot of anxiety. I mean, hopefully it's a good experience when people participate and it sounds like a smart thing to do, but I would really, if I was in that admissions office, I'd be really pushing to make sure it's very clear what the criteria are for people selected for that process.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And it reminds me a little bit of, you know, it's like kind of like maybe a Wharton team based discussion or IMD does a kind of similar kind of assessment. But you're right. I wonder if what they're. Maybe they don't have the capacity to invite everyone. And so I wonder if what they're doing is like if someone's a complete superstar, off the charts with everything, maybe they don't have to do it. I don't, I don't know what's.
[00:23:56] Speaker C: Yeah, but you're wondering and speculating.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: I know, I know.
[00:23:59] Speaker C: You know, I'm sure, sure. Reddit has a bit of a thing with something like this.
So. Yeah, I mean, again, if I was running that admissions, I would either just make it invitation for all folks were considering admitting or be very clear on the criteria.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's tricky. But in any event, then the other thing I wanted to share from Patrick is he did comment on the value of the mba and he said the benefits students value most are the ones that are difficult to measure in advance.
One of those is judgment. Throughout the mba, students are constantly challenged to make decisions in complex situations where there is no single correct answer. Many students come to the MBA focused on what they want to do next, but they leave with a clearer sense of the type of leader they want to become.
So this notion of like, you know, I think part of the way people are answering this question is they're moving away from, well, what's that? First job I've got out of business school. And more thinking about what's the long term value of this degree and how does it really shape someone? So, but, yeah, so interesting.
[00:25:01] Speaker C: Yeah. But yeah, both the adcom, I think, very good in terms of. They both talked about the importance of judgment. They both talked about the importance of making decisions with. With more, you know, in a. More of an ambiguous sort of environment and so on and so forth. So, so. And that makes a lot of sense to me.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Especially nowadays.
And I loved, I think it was Allison from Duke, this idea that, you know, she's sort of talking about the, almost like the democratization of access to information and analysis. And so what does that leave you with? You have to be able to judge and make decisions.
[00:25:35] Speaker C: There's no longer a competitive advantage. Right. Everybody has access to Claude.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:25:40] Speaker C: I mean, the other day I just put in my, my, my novel and asked it to create me a screenplay.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: Oh, that's right, I saw you wrote about that.
[00:25:48] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely Fantastic. A really well developed screenplay. I mean, I use Fable 5, so. And we have till July 12th, which. Maybe July. That would be 12th after this recording.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, July 12th before we publish this. But they'll probably extend it again. They extended it before, so, yeah. Here's a quick advertisement for those that are looking at what AI tool to subscribe to. To subscribe to Claude and use Fable 5 as quickly as possible.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds interesting, I guess. Yeah. So those are obviously, those are the main news items and things that I wanted to cover.
If you want to write to Alex or I and maybe even send us a note to say congratulations on your 500th episode, you can do so by writing to infoearadmit.com use the subject line Wiretaps.
[00:26:43] Speaker H: Hi, this is Meghna from Wiretaps episode 431. And starting at HBS this fall, congratulations, Alex and Graham on 500 episodes. I just wanted to say that your podcast, website and many other resources that you've created were so helpful for me and I'm sure many others going through the business school application process. So thank you both for all that you do.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Otherwise. Alex, should we talk? I know you did pick a couple of candidates because we, you know, we want to talk candidates because that's the bread and butter of the show.
[00:27:11] Speaker C: Yeah, let's kick on.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: All right, so this is wiretaps candidates number one.
So our first candidate this week has just two schools on the target list. And they are going to be applying this summer and fall and they want to start in the fall of 27. The two schools are Harvard and Stanford.
This candidate is coming from a family business background post mba. They talk about wanting to get into healthcare or pharma.
They have a GRE score of 3 32. They have a GPA of 3.7 and four years of work experience. As I said, in family business. They're located in South America and they gave us some additional background. They said that they attended a top 20 US university for undergrad where they had a 3.73 in econ.
That was their GPA. They did win some research and academic awards as an undergraduate. And their GRE, as I said, was a 332. They mentioned they are a male candidate, 26 years old. They have two different roles in a family business. The first is that they are, I guess, working with a small division within the family business to make leather goods. And they led the entire launch of their own brand from the ground up, including, you know, hiring a team, building out retail placements. They have their own retail locations now as well as, you know, some distribution from larger retailers. And he mentions they've had 1.5 million in sales over the last two years.
The second role is working in a
[00:28:43] Speaker A: kind of a regional sales leadership role
[00:28:46] Speaker B: for a distribution business.
And mentions leading two teams, so like 40 plus people total.
And also led a strategic pivot within that group that quadrupled their regional sales
[00:28:59] Speaker A: sales target over three years to $250,000 extracurriculars.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: This person indicates they are the regional chair of a global professional organization.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: And that's all I've got, Alex.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: And I know you had left this person a note. I don't know if you had any interaction with them, but what are your
[00:29:16] Speaker A: thoughts on this candidate?
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Because those are two pretty darn good
[00:29:18] Speaker A: schools that they're looking at.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Harvard and Stanford, right?
[00:29:21] Speaker I: Yeah.
[00:29:21] Speaker C: I mean, I think they can apply to these two programs in round one and then see how they fare with the understanding that, you know, they might need to come back in round two and look at a couple of other programs if they're not successful. But quite honestly, the raw ingredient here looks really strong. Right.
Decent gpa, undergrad, complemented With a really strong GRE score.
It looks like their work experience in the family business is very strong. It's given them really good exposure to leadership, to impact, etc. Etc. In a couple of different ways.
So, you know, presumably that extracurricular that they listed is somewhat impactful. I mean, it might be interesting to see if they have any other hobbies and interests that they pursue and, and, and, and so forth. I'm not sure we know exactly. Do we know which country they're from?
[00:30:18] Speaker B: No, just South America.
[00:30:20] Speaker C: Yeah, South America. So hopefully for them they're from Argentina. But even, even if they are, they might be knocked out the World cup by the time we, this happens because South America is really doing poorly in the World cup this, this year, which, which is, I'd say a shame, but since I'm European, I'm actually quite excited about that.
But nevertheless, there's a lot to like here. The, the, the one thing that does cause me a little bit of pause is making sure that they do a really good job of expressing their goals because there's nothing in what they talked about in their, their experience to me, that appears to be related to healthcare and pharmaceuticals, so.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:31:05] Speaker C: So I just want to make sure that there's a really good rationale for why they're pursuing these goals. Connects. It makes sense and it probably does. We just haven't seen the connection.
So as long as they've got really well developed goals, make sense of everything.
Target these schools in round one.
Just start to explore a couple of other programs maybe if they need to come back in round two. But I think this is a really strong profile from South America. Graham.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And so the numbers are just absolutely stellar and that, that goes a long way. I, I would argue that, you know, like, like you were saying. I, I don't think they should just apply to these two. I mean, I guess they could try it in round one like you said, but I would almost be inclined if there is a third school that they like apply to that one in round one as well. I mean, they don't need to be in round one necessarily, but I just feel like with the way that sort of immigration goes, everything else, like, it never hurts to just get your decision and be done by Christmas and figure it all out over the course of the spring. But I, I, you know, the only thing that jumped out at me aside from that goals issue was, you know, when someone says that their extracurriculars are regional chair of a global professional organization, I sort of say, well, that that's kind of professional adjacent. And so I'm kind of wondering what else does this person do?
Hopefully they have some activities, hobbies, interests, whatever that would give their candidacy some color.
But yeah, like you were saying, like, I don't know how leather goods or whatever else they're doing with the family business necessarily relates to pharma. So they're going to need to create that through line, as we call it.
[00:32:39] Speaker I: Hi, Graham and Alex, this is Camila DeWitt, consultant for GMAC, longtime listener and friend. Congratulations on reaching out 500 episodes. What an incredible milestone. Over the years, you have helped thousands of candidates make some of the most important decisions of their lives.
Through thoughtful conversations, practical advice, you've made graduate management education more accessible, more transparent and a lot less intimidating. Thank you for all your hard work. And here's to the next 500 episodes.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: And actually that reminds me, I had a great time chatting with Camilla DeWitt the other day who's going to be on a special episode of the show that may actually air later this week.
She is the former admissions director and head of career services from ESADE in Barcelona and then currently works for GMAC and has been in this industry for ages. And she talked a lot about because she has that career services hat, she talked a lot about, you know, the importance of like understanding.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: Like what?
[00:33:44] Speaker A: How do you connect these dots? And right now, as you said, this person hasn't connected the dots, at least not for us in this post.
[00:33:49] Speaker C: Right.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: But otherwise, I think there's a ton of potential. So they just need to get it together, get the apps in and I'm sure they'll land on their feet. As you said, very strong application from South America. World cup stuff aside, let's move on and talk about WireTaps. Candidate number two.
So our second candidate this week has eight schools on the target list and they are a mix of kind of European and American schools. So we've got Cambridge, HEC, ESA, INSEAD, LBs and Oxford. But then there's also Wharton and Kellogg on the list from the United States. This person also, like our first candidate, wants to start school in the fall of 27.
They've been working in the energy sector sector focusing on liquefied natural gas and new fuels. But after business school, they're thinking about making a move into consulting and they do mention Accenture, Bain, BCG and a whole host of top strategy consulting companies. Their gmat score is a 665. If you're keeping score at home and you know the old scale better, that's like a 710, maybe 720 if, if we're being generous. They have a perfect 4.0 GPA from undergraduate, five and a half years of work experience and they would love to land in Europe after business school. Their current location is India and they mentioned they're trying to make this pivot from energy to energy strategy consulting. So all those consulting firms I mentioned they would ideally want to work in kind of the energy practice or focused on energy clients.
They mentioned that they did really well in undergrad. I mean they were an India based chemical engineering gold medalist ranked number one. So they, they did very well in undergrad. They've also done very well at work. They have a whole number of accolades that they can point to as well
[00:35:39] Speaker B: as some merit based promotions.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: They've done some international work it sounds like in terms of, they did like a six month international leadership role coordinating, coordinating USAID funded social impact work in Zambia. So they know had some other things going on besides work. They also mentioned, you know, they're a national level footballer, they've led two different Toastmasters clubs, the list goes on. But they've got a lot going on in their kind of outside of work zone. They also mentioned that besides doing energy strategy consulting after business school, in the longer run they want to return it sounds like to India to help scale a GCC based family business which they've been supporting on, you know, kind of on the side for the last nine months. So in any event that's kind of the background. Alex, what do you make of this candidacy? Because there's a lot of good stuff here but there's also a fairly long
[00:36:31] Speaker B: list of schools and you know, different continents. So. Yeah.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: What do you make of this person?
[00:36:34] Speaker C: I mean quite frankly this, this person again has a ridiculously good profile.
I mean they're, they're a 4.0 chemical engineer ranked number one.
I mean and they got a gold medal or whatever but I mean that's really wicked smart.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:54] Speaker C: So and, and you know their work experience looks really good. Their outside of work stuff looks really good. Hopefully they're enjoying the World Cup. I know India doesn't participate but, or, or didn't qualify but surely they're passionate about England and, or whatever and hope, you know, rooting for us to, to, to kick on. But, but, but the point is there's so much to like here. Now they're India based or they're from India I'm presuming. So they really need to target round one just to sort of overcome the potential for Being overrepresented, they want to work in Europe post mba. So yeah, maybe focusing just a little bit more cleanly on the European schools.
But even so, you know, if they do want to target a couple of US based programs, target the very best, just go for the very top.
The one thing that's just a little bit, I'm a little bit on the fence about is this GMAT score. I mean 665 is quite decent.
Well it's actually very good for the most normal human beings. Right. But this, I don't think this is a normal human being. So I'm looking at a 665 thinking, well surely this should be 695 or 705 if it reflects someone that's capable of getting a top degree in chemical engineering.
So my point is sure with this current profile, with this current GMAT score, they may well get into all the top European based programs that they're targeting. Right? They may well, but if they came back, had the wherewithal to retake the test and get the 695, 705 or something that's probably more reflective of their academic aptitude then yeah, it's going to provide them access to these schools probably a little bit more easily, maybe provide them more scholarship access, provide them more access to potentially Harvard, Stanford, Wharton type opportunity as long as they target these programs in the first round. I just think the 665 is a little bit of a blip on an otherwise outstanding profile.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I could not agree more. I mean that was the thing that jumped out at me because as I said a 665 is like a 7 10. That's below the average at the top schools. Now granted, as you say, it may be good enough to get them into a handful of schools on their list and they are clearly super bright. But yeah, I just was like wow, are they leaving points on the table? And they did say the comments to you that yeah, I'm planning on maybe giving it another shot in August. And I agree with that. They should give it a shot. I would buckle down and study, you know, these tests. You can kind of learn these tests. And so I think it's, you know, the more time you put into practicing and taking full length kind of sample tests, the better off you are on game day. So yeah, otherwise I mean this person, I mean they just seem so interesting in that they've done all these different projects. They seem to have a pretty clear idea of like pivoting from working in
[00:40:03] Speaker B: energy to working in energy consulting.
[00:40:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: You could imagine how a McKinsey or a Carney or someone looking at this profile would, would be like, wow, we've got someone who has all this, you know, on the ground experience with liquefied natural gas and, you know, emerging other fuels and things and, and what a great person to plug in, especially once they have a top mba. The last thing I would encourage them
[00:40:24] Speaker B: to do is look into the sort
[00:40:26] Speaker A: of immigration rules and work kind of policies of these programs or in the countries of these programs or think about where they want to be. Right. Because they say Europe, but working in the UK is different than working in France. Right. So obviously if they go to London Business School, they can stay and work automatically for 18 months.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: That's sort of just part of earning an MBA.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: That's not the case in France and much of the eu, you've got to sort of petition and, and then get
[00:40:52] Speaker B: your employer to sponsor you. So it's a little different.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: So I would encourage them to do that homework and due diligence and, and that might be why they have a couple of US schools on the list.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: Because obviously in the US they could
[00:41:01] Speaker A: probably stay for up to three years as well. So just they need to figure this out because it's important. But yeah, I agree with you.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: This could be a really stellar candidate if they apply in round one and
[00:41:11] Speaker A: if they boost that score a little bit, they'll be really compelling.
[00:41:14] Speaker C: Yeah. And I know we're about to wrap up, but they did make a quick reference to the gmat. Superschool.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:41:22] Speaker C: Do we know yet are schools accepting superscores? We don't, so we need to explore that.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So I can tell you that some schools are not super happy about the existence of it.
[00:41:37] Speaker C: No, I wouldn't think so.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: The school's point of view is tell me when the rankings organizations accept super scores and then maybe we'll be on board. But, you know, until then, you know, so. So I think schools have mixed views on this and yeah, it is a good question and we should probably try to find out if anyone's going to come out publicly and say what they're going to do about it. So.
Yeah, but that is a good point. I would focus on getting a single score that's really good for now.
[00:42:02] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: In any event. Yeah. So, Alex, you know, it. This has just been so much fun. I know we had some, you know, a lot of folks kind of chiming in and telling us to, you know, kind of wishing us congratulations on hitting this milestone of 500 episodes. But I will say the thing for me that makes this most exciting, most interesting is, is just talking about these candidates. And my hope is that some of the people who've listened over the years, some of the people who's, you know, who we profiled or even just if
[00:42:30] Speaker B: you're tuning in and you're listening and
[00:42:31] Speaker A: someone sounds kind of like you. I'm hoping that the advice that we've given has been, you know, helpful and has shaped, you know, people's journey a little bit. And, you know, if it hasn't been, I guess no one's keeping score. But.
But exactly.
[00:42:44] Speaker C: Even. Even if it's not been helpful, we're going to continue doing it. So there you go.
[00:42:48] Speaker D: There you go.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: In any event. Yeah. I am going to warn you, though, definitely. Dennis once suggested to me that maybe we get people back on who we gave advice to.
[00:42:55] Speaker C: Oh, boy.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: To see, like, what happened.
So we'll see how that goes. But anyway, Alex, I so appreciate you and all the time you put into this and over the course of all these episodes. So thanks for being you and doing this week in and week out and. Yeah, we'll do it all next week, I guess.
[00:43:09] Speaker C: No, it's a lot of fun and. Same, same. Back to you. So take care, everyone. Stay safe. Good luck,
[00:43:23] Speaker A: Sam.
