[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, August 24, 2026. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. How are things going, Alex?
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: So I got to give a shout out. It's my sister's birthday, August 24th, so I got to give her a shout out. I don't think she listens. She has a lot better things to do. But who knows? Maybe. Maybe she'll tune in.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Happy birthday.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So you know what's been, you know, this is obviously late August. There are a ton of application deadlines in September. This is the time when people start to have to make hard, hard choices. You know, where they're like, oh, I was going to apply to eight schools in round one and suddenly that' four schools. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Like, we. I know it seems like it might be candidate specific. Right. Sometimes we tell people, spread your odds in the first round. Sometimes we say, go, go all in in the first round and apply to, you know, safeties in round two. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it depends. I mean, the biggest driver of that sort of mixed signal, as it were, would be if the candidates potentially overrepresented.
If that's the case, then they really need to get all their ducks in a row for round one versus if you're not overrepresented, then you can be more strategic about who you apply to in round one versus then coming back in round two and so on and so forth. So for non overrepresented candidates, there's really no meaningful difference between applying in round one or round two other than, obviously you get your results more expeditiously, which can be a huge advantage in of itself.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. Good thoughts there. I mean, obviously I know everyone's buckling down working on their apps at this point, but I did want to mention. So we got a bunch of stuff to cover today. I got a couple of adcom Q&As that we did on the website that I want to just share some notes from. And then we said, you and I will have a discussion about the use of AI in MBA admissions because we've been hearing a lot about this from the schools when we did our events in July. So I just want to have a conversation about that and then obviously we'll talk about some candidates as well.
Questions quickly on September 1st. So not too long from now, we're going to do an open kind of office hours live stream on YouTube, so just subscribe to the Clearbit YouTube channel to be alerted to that. It'll be at noon Eastern and we'll just take your questions, talk about round one strategy, interviews and even round two related stuff. Obviously, we're doing our big event series called Inside the MBA Admissions Process. Late September. They're going to be, I think it's five or six events. They're all at noon Eastern. I think they're running like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in towards the end of the month, a couple weeks in a row. So a lot of great schools joining us, including the entirety of the M7, so tune in for that. But Alex, one thing. Moving on to, like, what we've been doing on the website, we did run an admissions tip recently about the GMAC Common Letter of Recommendation.
This is a letter of rec that many schools all use. Right. So it's a way to kind of simplify the process for your recommenders because they just fill out one sort of style of recommendation in terms of the questions they have to answer and then they can use that for multiple schools. But we do a whole breakdown of all the components of that, what questions are asked and how your recommenders should look at it. So definitely required reading, if you're probably right now frantically calling upon your recs to get their stuff in. But any event, that's up on the site too.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Yeah, and prepping recommenders is a super important aspect of preparing great, you know, applications overall. Right. So, and it is great that the majority of schools, or a lot of schools, have now adopted the GMAT letter of recommendation, because that used to be a real big bug bear for candidates several years ago, where each school had a slightly nuanced different approach to the types of questions they're asking and so forth. So, yeah, I think this is a really good initiative coming out of gmac.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Yeah, totally agree. You know, and I think in doing these admissions events all the time with our colleagues at all these top schools, one of the things I hear them say is that as great as recommendations can be in terms of providing insight into the candidate, they're often a place where there's a big missed opportunity on the part of the candidate who's not, you know, has not prepped, the recommender has not given the recommender their career goals, shared why they're interested in the school. So it really is. And, you know, I've heard admissions directors describe it as a little bit of a management exercise, like, are you Able to get someone who already likes you and wants to support you to sort of follow, you know, to kind of go through this process. So it's a little bit of a can you manage up test.
So yeah, so don't think that it's just a question of like, oh, here are the names of my recommenders and you're done with it. You really should talk with them, get them to, yeah, just put forth the best possible effort and for it to be consistent with the whole puzzle that you're assembling as part of which is your application. So speaking of applications, we continue to connect with admissions directors. I wanted to share some quotes. We caught up with Claire Fitzgibbon from Notre Dame Mendoza and we asked her for her thoughts on essays and here's what she had to say.
She says our essay prompt asks applicants to lay out their detailed short and long term post MBA career plans and to connect those goals to their own background experiences and the specific resources. At Notre Dame, what we're really looking for here is coherence and specificity. We want to see the through line from where you've been to where you're going. And we mean it when we say be specific. Naming an industry is a start, but naming the function and telling us why Notre Dame specifically is not an MBA generically is what gets you there, is what makes an essay memorable. A common mistake is treating the essay as a highlight reel of accomplishments that are already visible elsewhere in the application. We can see your resume. Great candidates use the essay to add the context and reasoning that the resume cannot. Why an mba? Why now? Why at Notre Dame? The one thing I tell every applicant is sitting down to write, don't hedge. The admissions committee appreciates when you take a position on where you're headed, even if it feels like a risk to be that specific.
So I thought that was kind of an interesting thing. I mean, a lot of really good advice that applies to any school I think that you're applying to pretty much.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say that. I mean, this is really good advice across the board in terms of being specific. Why mba, why now?
And certainly why in this case Mendoza and so forth making that argument. And I think some candidates, they fall a bit short, especially, you know, if they're treating some of these programs potentially as safety schools. I think they'll fall into a big trap because, you know, if you are not paying attention to the detail, these schools can sniff that out and it's not good.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Oh yeah, yeah, agreed. And then we also, as you know, like in our admissions director Q and A's for the site this year we've been asking schools to comment on return on investment and what else, but kind of how do you measure the value beyond just the obvious kind of starting salary? And so Claire also chimed in on that one and she said, I thought this was really brilliant. She said, the employment outcomes matter, but the harder to quantify value is the network and the formation that happens alongside the the coursework. Two years immersed in a tight knit, mission driven community changes how you make decisions for the rest of your career, not just what job you take next. So I thought that was well said too, in terms of there's obviously more about getting an MBA than just, oh, this is the job I'm getting in the salary effort.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So a lot about relationships.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. We also caught up with Luke Brescher, who is the admissions director at Washington University Olin in St. Louis. And we asked him as well to sort of weigh in on, well, what do you think about essays? What are you looking for? And Luke had this to say. He said, the strongest essays are authentic and reflective. Rather than simply repeating information from a resume, applicants should help us understand the experiences that have shaped them, what they've learned along the way, and how those experiences connect to their future goals. One of the most common mistakes we see is applicants not fully answering the prompt or relying on generic responses. Make sure you're responding to Olin's essay questions specifically and not simply reusing an essay written for another program. We occasionally see another school's name appear in an application, which is an easy mistake to avoid with a careful final review. My advice is to be genuine, be specific, and use the essay as an opportunity to help us understand who you are beyond your resume.
So, Alex, I picked that quote because I think it reflects a lot on what Claire was saying at Notre Dame as well. This idea of going beyond the resume. Don't just share the highlight reel. Give us the why.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: I was going to say exactly the same thing, but honestly, it sounds like these folks know each other and they're preaching to the same whatever. But again, it makes a lot, a lot of sense.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think that's actually the perfect segue into a little discussion that I wanted to have with you. That's been a long time coming about AI and the use of AI in applying to business school in terms of producing your application materials. And, you know, obviously, you know, we just heard a couple of schools talking about things that make essays shine. But, you know, you did A really interesting thing which I want you to talk us through, which is, you know, you went through all the events we did in July, right, where we talked with admissions directors, and we had asked every admissions director in those webinars, what's the policy?
What do you think of AI?
So I know that somebody could use AI to brainstorm, to write, to edit their grammar check, or even to translate materials. Where do you, what do you. How do. How should candidates think about this? Because there's a lot on the table and a lot of, you know, schools have different kind of policies, right?
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'll just, again, I'll explain a little bit about how. So we developed an article based off of this theme, right?
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: And within that article, we've basically got quotes from all the top adcom at all the top schools on their guidance for how people should use AI and any POT policy that their schools might have adopted to this point. And so how did I do that? Right.
Quite simply, I used AI, Right. So I subscribed to Claude to Anthropic's Claude models. So I use Claude cowork. I stuck all the transcripts into a folder and then I prompted it to get the quotes and to help me build out the story of, which has then been edited by our team, etc. Etc.
So, so, so, so that's very good.
And you know, we can learn a lot, I think, just from reading through that article. And I think some of the big themes are there is an expectation that candidates will use AI, Right. And you know, and you've used this, this term in a couple of times. I think, whether it's on. On this podcast or not, that actually if you're not using AI, you're not putting your best step forward forward, right? So AI is a tool, and it's a tool much like using Word Perfect or. Well, I shouldn't say Word Perfect Word. It used to be Word Perfect and Lotus 1, 2, 3, but now it's Excel. But these are tools, right, that we use in our everyday work, just like AI will be a tool that we use in our everyday life and work, etc. Etc.
How do, how to use it is. Is in preparation and brainstorming, etc. Etc.
But it shouldn't be used to write the essays, you know, from scratch. I think that's a very dangerous thing to do and it doesn't do you any good. And I'll give a very interesting example of this. I think it's interesting. I just thought of. Well, I saw a Facebook post this Morning. One of the top jockeys in. In. In America, Robbie Alvarado, has passed away. Right.
50 some years old. I don't know why he passed away, but obviously within the racing community of which I used to be involved, there's a lot of, you know, outcry or outreach or whatever you want to call it. People are mourning the loss of this jockey.
And one of my friends on Facebook, who happens to be a leading rider, leading jockey in one of the regions of the United States, obviously knew Robbie Alvarado very well.
They came up through the same sort of Riding Colony, etc. Etc.
And, you know, posted what appears to be quite a thoughtful post on the loss of Robbie Alvarado and what an influence he's been, etc. Etc.
And I read through it and I was disappointed in the end because I knew that he'd used AI to write that post.
And the reason why I knew that is. It's just sad. Is so AI now, what. What was said in the post was really nice and gracious and, you know, you know, if we didn't have this AI stuff hanging over, you could say, well, wow, that, that jock wrote. Wrote something really meaningful.
But when it occurred to me that he did use AI to write the post, I'm like, well, that's an opportunity missed. I'd love to have heard directly from this jockey, in this jockey's own words, how meaningful Robbie Alvarado had been to him in his career, in his personal life, etc. Etc. That would have been much more thoughtful, much more authentic, and I would have remembered it.
I don't remember what was in this post now. I just remember it said all the right things, but it was clearly written by AI I know that's a very odd example for those.
I used to work in a very niche industry.
But my point is, don't let AI write your essays, but use AI as a tool to help you develop your strategy for your essays as well as getting feedback on your written essays.
That's kind of how I would, in a big picture, sort of qualify, use it for brainstorming, for developing, and then use it for feedback, but do not use it to write the original drafts.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And we heard a lot of admissions directors commenting on how it sort of robs you of your voice. Right. And so, you know, that's my point
[00:15:11] Speaker B: with this jockey, the voice is just not there.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And they talked about, I think, you know, admissions directors are now used to seeing some of these AI authored essays from the past season, and they just Talked about how it's really, it's just kind of boring, you know, everything's kind of fine, but it's, there's something missing. It's almost like they'd like the occasional typo or something to show that it's a real, a real thing. And the other thing that had not occurred to me but that a couple of admissions directors commented on was this idea of, oh, just write. Let's say you're a French candidate applying to schools in America. You just write your essay in French and then hit translate and get. So that's another thing that I think is a little dangerous. I mean, you're doing yourself a disservice. Obviously the schools do not want you to do that. But. But I mean, I will argue that when you get to business school, you're going to be doing a lot of writing and reading in English. And so again, you're just not helping yourself, not only maybe with your application, but to get ready for the experience that is, you know, quite intense and in English at these schools. So as tempting as it would be, and I would also argue that I'm sure you remember this when you're reading files, you know, you get an application from someone in Sweden or, you know, Jakarta or, you know, wherever. And there are a couple of elements in the writing style that suggest this is a non native English speaker. And that's fine, you know, that's almost expected. Right. So anyway, yeah, so it is a challenging thing. And I think one of the things that puzzled me a little bit is some schools in the events we did would talk about how they have an official policy on AI and they included in the, in the application. Others said no. Our honor code kind of captures this, you know, which is that everything you're presenting is your own work kind of stuff. Right. So you got to read the fine print, make sure you understand what these schools are saying to, you know, that they allow. And I will say there are a couple of schools, I want to say LBs and maybe Harvard, that ask you to disclose if you've used any AI in your application. So do you have any thoughts on that? Like, what do you, what do you say?
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah, again, I think you got to be very honest, very transparent about answering these types of questions. There is an expectation that you are using AI. Yeah, again, you know, whether it's from sort of getting feedback on your essays or sort of developing strategy for your essays and so on and so forth, or preparing for your interview, interviews, etc. Etc. And obviously we at Clear Admit have really good AI tools that can help with all this stuff.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: So, yeah, maybe this is a little bit self serving, but you know, there is an expectation that you're using AI, right?
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: The question is how is it being used? And do not use it to just generate the draft copies of your essays.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Because that will. Once you've got a draft copy, trying to bash that into something that sounds authentic is going to be a really difficult challenge. But maybe you want to draft out five bullet points that you want to cover in your essays based off of your resume, the essay prompt, etc. Etc. And the AI tool can give you ideas for those five bullet points to help frame the essay. But you then write the essay, then you go back to the tool and say, all right, give me feedback on my written essay and so forth. So. So yeah, use these tools, but use them in a very smart way.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. Probably enough said there, but I think people should check out the article. There's. There's an article up on clearadmit.com with a ton of information about, you know, the way, basically what all the schools had to say. It's a, it's a fairly long article, so check that out as you're working on your materials. But yeah, I appreciate you kind of diving into this, Alex, because I think it's an important topic.
Other than that, I think we can get on to our candidates. I did want to remind people they can write to
[email protected] use the subject line wiretaps. And obviously in this feed where you're listening to the podcast, you're continuing to see more of our admissions director Q and A episodes. So Steve Thompson from Kellogg was on the show. There's just a ton of episodes here. Just, you know, obviously if you subscribe to the show and you'll get access to all of them and see them in your feed automatically. Anything else though, Alex, on your end? Before we talk candidates this week, let's kick on. All right, so this is Wiretaps candidate number one.
So our first candidate this week is looking to start school in the fall of 27 and has just one school on their target list. That school is Carnegie Mellon Tepper. The candidates shared that they are a military candidate. They have five years of experience in the military. They're hoping to pivot into consulting. They mention BCG, McKinsey, Vane, Deloitte Post, MBA. That's their kind of initial job. They also did. Also they shared the fact that they're thinking about, I've got to find where they said this, but they're hoping to pursue. Oh yeah, entrepreneurship through acquisition potentially after doing some consulting. And they're thinking about particularly businesses in the Pittsburgh area. And they mentioned something sort of blue collar, buying a company in that sort of domain. They have a GPA of 3.5.
That's from the, one of the service academies. They also did pursue a kind of business analytics certification which was like 12 credits and they had a 4.0 GPA in that additional coursework. They mentioned they've not taken the gmat. They're using the waiver process to apply to tepr. They want to land in Pittsburgh after business school. What do you think of this, Alex? Because there's, it's quite rare to see someone who just has one school in their target list and. Yeah. So. Yeah, what's your take?
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think it boils down to one question, Graham, and I'll bounce this back directly to you, not to put you under any pressure, but if your long term career is going to be in Pittsburgh, and that's their aspiration, obviously that's where they're going to settle down, et cetera, et cetera.
Are they better served getting an MBA from the best school in Pittsburgh or are they better served from getting an MBA from the best school in the
[00:21:20] Speaker A: U.S.
yeah, that is a, that's the million dollar question, I think.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: So for one, you know, Tepper, right. It's a really good program, but it's not the top school in the US So. So that's my point.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think I would argue that, you know, if you know, you want to be in Pittsburgh and honestly, if you know, you want to be in a lot of places like Tepper is a great MBA program, right. It's a top school. They have a lot of different strengths from, you know, technology, AI, you know, finance, especially computational finance. It's a really good school. And so if they know they want to be in Pittsburgh, this is a school that has to be on their list.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: What I don't understand is why they only have one school on their list. And you know, I was thinking this through, particularly when it comes to someone who's interested in entrepreneurship through acquisition, which is all about convincing wealthy individuals and investors to give you a whole bunch of money to create, usually a search fund to then go and identify that business, in this case a blue collar business in Pittsburgh that this guy wants to buy down the road. And that's where the network and the capital available comes into play. And so I was trying to run through my head I'm like, well, if they went to Wharton or Harvard, would that potentially make that task easier? And I think the answer is yes.
Although you can't do a GMAT waiver with those schools. And I wonder if that's driving this person's school target list. I don't know.
Yeah.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: I mean, no, quite honestly, I think what they're thinking makes a lot of sense. Right. I want to be in Pittsburgh. This is the best school in Pittsburgh. I'm going to apply to this school in round one, see how things fall out. And if necessary, I can apply to a load of schools in round two. And maybe I need to take the GMAT prior to doing that. So I kind of understand that thinking, but I think I just worry that they're limiting their opportunities. Do they want to make that decision now that they're going to go to Tepper, or do they want to make that decision in the spring when they've got options on the table, whether it's Tepper versus Wharton or whatever, knowing that they want to remain in Pittsburgh?
And even if they do get into Wharton, they might ultimately decide, know what? Tepper is the best option for me. But I think they're then making that decision based off of having a full set of options from which to make that decision. By only applying to Tepper, they're limiting their. I don't know if it's called optionality or whatever. Right.
So. So, you know, I. And obviously if Tepper accepts GMAT waivers, which I assume they've looked into.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah, they do.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: Then. Then it's an easier path to getting that admitted. Tepa, maybe they're looking at some scholarship, maybe they're not, because maybe they've getting GI Bill or whatever it might be.
But I still worry that there might be a tad of regret in not opening up their options by really prepping hard for the gmat, which probably they don't want to do, and, and, and targeting some of these other programs.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Yeah. It is amazing to me because I have a feeling if I were to say to this person, oh, you can apply to Harvard and Wharton too, and not have to take the tests, they would do it. Probably they would say, oh, yeah, I'll throw it, why not? But the fact that there's this. It's interesting that people really put this barrier because of the test and whether it's the GMAT or the gre.
So, yeah, I can't help but think there might be a missed opportunity here and that if I were them, I would try to Cast a wider net and see where I land. And yeah, we don't know what the scholarship situation. They may be have full tuition because of their military service but if they don't having a test and you know, could help them. Right. So in any event, yeah, this is an interesting quandary. Again they can't go wrong with Tepper. It's a really good school and you know, but I just wonder like I rarely would tell someone only apply to one school. I mean you normally want to sort of have a few different options and. Yeah. So in any event I wish them the best of luck. We don't know a lot else about them in terms of outside activities but they're military and that's usually usually a challenge for military anyway. They probably have had a very full plate for the last five years. In any event, I want to thank them for posting and thank them for their service.
Let's move on and talk about WireTaps. Candidate number two.
So our second candidate this week has five schools on the target list and their schools are Duke ESA in Barcelona, London business school, NYU Stern and and Yale School of Management. They also want to start school in the fall of 27. This person's been working in marketing and they're interested in pivoting into consulting. They have a GRE score of 317, a GPA of 3.43, although that GPA was just in a semester that they did in the United States. This candidate is actually from the UK and their undergraduate degree was a second class honor honors. So a 2.1.
Not to be confused with a 2.1 GPA. But in any event decent marks in undergrad in the UK but they did do a semester in the US where they had a 3.4. They've had eight years of work experience to date and they're seemingly, they claim, indifferent about whether they land in the US or Europe after business school, which may explain why they have three American schools on the list and then a couple schools in Europe. They mentioned that they've had a handful of years in HR before moving into kind of marketing and ad agency account management.
Again, eight years total work experience. At this point it'll be more like nine when they matriculate. They've had a lot of international exposure with clients. They actually, it sounds like they spent some time living in Australia for a role that they served in there.
And they mentioned that they, they recently created their own alcohol brand and that they're, you know, kind of went through the sort of product development, branding, package design, everything they own the ip, they have not yet launched and they're thinking they're going to put a pin in it if they're going to go off to business school. But in any event, they said they're based in the uk.
That's probably about all we need to know here. I mean, they mentioned they can speak French and don't have too many extra activities, extracurricular activities. But they did do some fundraising in 2024 for a cause that they care deeply about. They didn't say what it was, but. Alex, what do you make of this? This is kind of a. There's a lot here, but. Yeah, what do you think of this candidate?
[00:27:38] Speaker B: I mean, I think a candidate from the UK applying to, you know, top business schools in, in, in. In the US and obviously some in Europe, I mean, they're quite desirable. Right.
UK candidates aren't going to be overrepresented in, in the applicant pool and, and so forth. And it does also look like they've got some pretty good global experience. So not just UK experience. I mean, academically they went to the US for a little bit and then professionally they've done some stuff in different parts of. In different parts of the world, Australia, etc. Etc. So. So they bring a bit of a global perspective too. So. I like that.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: And so forth.
I'm so. I think there's some really good ingredients there. I, I think they would be better served by a stronger GRE score. They said they improved their score quite considerably to get to the 317, which signals to me that there might be some additional points in the bag in terms of. If they went back one more time and, and really push. Because if they had a score in the mid-320s.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: Then I think I'm starting to look at a really quite impressive candidate Overall, well rounded, etc. Etc.
So, so I would encourage them to do that. Even though even with the slightly lower GRE score, they might be competitive for the types of schools that they're targeting. But that is the one area that I'm a little bit concerned about.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I'm right there with you. Because the second class honors is probably like what a three, three type of. You know, it's not. You're not at the top of the class, you're not a first class honors.
And then the 317 is also a little bit below the average at most schools. Obviously ESA is a little bit different. I don't know off the top of my head, the average there, but I can Tell you that at Stern and Yale And Fuqua and LBs, that's going to be low. So I agree. And the problem we have with this candidate is that they have this accomplished career, eight years of experience, but it also means they've been out of the classroom for a long time. And so what I would look at as an admissions reader when I see a candidate like this is I would want to know that they're ready for business school and can hit the ground running. And317 doesn't say that to me because I can't, I can't base everything on the GPA because the GPA is like, you know, more than eight years ago.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: So in any event. Yeah, that's the concern. I do think you're right. Everything else is kind of interesting. Interesting work experience. They help set up an office for Middle East, North Africa region in their HR role that they had before. They seem entrepreneurial as you say, they're from the uk. You might be biased there but you know, they're from the UK and there aren't. It's true there aren't that many candidates to find a business school from the uk, especially to the US schools. So there is a lot to like here potentially. But I just wonder, are they shooting themselves in the foot by not having another go at that test?
Because again, they could probably apply in the second round. Right. And just work this fall, get a tutor, whatever you need to do, get that score up into the mid-30020s and all kinds of doors will open.
So I don't know. That's my thinking with this candidacy who is, you know, otherwise pretty darn qualified, I think to go off to a decent business school.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Yeah, completely agree.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Any thoughts on USA versus Europe? I mean they have a mix of schools here and I always wonder like, would they be better served just like figuring out where they want to land? Or do you think in this current era with immigration policies it makes sense to have a hedge here with some European options?
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I think a hedge makes sense. And I'll be perfectly frank. I think this candidate's not worked it all out yet. Yeah, so. So their experience looks really interesting. I'm not saying it's all over the map, but literally over the map. And you know, a post MBA career goal of consulting is a bit of a catch all for, you know, let's do an MBA then that's, you know, get some experience and lets me have exposure to lots of different things. Don't really see the long term vision here.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: And also again, like you say they're targeting some quite different programs, certainly geographically. So maybe they just need to focus a bit more on their career plan and so on and so forth and make sure it really does make a lot of sense.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. In any event, I want to thank them for showing their profile. There's a lot to like here. I just feel like they could improve some of the levers, namely test score and goals. In any event. Yeah. So, Alex, thanks for doing this.
We've done it once again, spent a little more than 30 minutes talking about all things MBA, admissions news and our candidates. So let's connect next week and do it all again.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: Very good. Take care, everyone. Stay safe.
