[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, November 9, 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. Thanks.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: So this week we've got a class profile from Tuck, Real Humans at London Business School, some post interview admissions tips, and of course a couple of candidates to discuss. But like last week, I want to plug the fact that we're currently running a survey on our website.
It's a survey for people applying to business school or even those who, if you're still listening to the show, are already enrolled in business school. So we're looking to just understand the decisions that candidates take on that journey to business school. So you can go to Bit lyrics.
Please take the survey. It really helps not only shape the future of MBA admissions, but also helps, you know, everything with everything that we do here at Clear Admit. So head over and take the survey if you can. Alex, what do we have to look forward to this week? It's the week of November 9th. I mean, are there still deadlines or what are we looking at here?
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, things are slowing down. There's a couple of interview invite releases, I think. Actually FUK was scheduled to release some interview invites, but decision decisions coming out of Washington Olin and Imperial Business School.
So sort of final round one or early, early decisions and so forth.
And, and yeah, there are, there are programs that are continuing to trickle out those interview invites, as we know that will continue for a little, little, little bit of while longer. So. So yeah, things are still reasonably busy on Livewire, but we've sort of eclipsed the peak, I would say, for interview invites as a sort of a fair assessment.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Yeah, all right, that makes sense. I mean, one thing that's going to happen this week is we have a number of Clear Admit hosted virtual events that I encourage people to attend. So today we're connecting with Wharton and in particular their Lauder program to talk about that. It's a special degree that you do in parallel with Wharton.
I'm going to get this wrong, but it's sort of an international business degree with a language component that is, you know, something that only you can only do it if you're a Wharton student.
And maybe the law school can participate as well, but it's not a standalone degree is what I'm trying to say. So it's kind of a cool opportunity at Wharton. So we'll have a webinar about that. And then Tomorrow on the 10th, we've got a consulting webinar about how to get jobs in consulting post mba and someone from Vanderbilt's career service office is going to help facilitate that.
And then if that wasn't enough, Thursday we're doing an event with Harvard Business School called Inside HBS Admissions. And so we'll have one of their admissions directors, along with I believe at least one, if not more than one students at HBS to just talk about the program. So that should be fun.
Anyway, yeah, there's more stuff coming the week after. We've got deferred enrollment events. If you're a college student thinking about locking in a seat at business school, you can attend those on November 17 and 18.
But yeah, lots coming up, Alex. And yeah, it's still, still busy. This is, I think this year 2026 will set a record for the number of VIR events that we've hosted. And even for, you know, we did our one big in person event back in Atlanta. So it's been a banner year for cleared bit on the events front.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think events are a way to go forward in terms of these virtual events. I think they're super useful for candidates.
And schools, I think are becoming more willing to participate because their cost of participation is a lot easier. Right. Than having to travel and so forth. So, yeah, really good, really good avenue. I think at Clear,
[00:04:01] Speaker A: I thought they were more willing to participate because they love the way we organize moderate and you know, pull off these events.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: That is entirely possible.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: I will say one thing that I like about our events that I think is unique is that we always bring multiple schools together, almost always for our, you know, our big series, the essay series, you know, these different series. And I think that helps candidates because there's this sort of economy of scale. You can kind of tune in once and hear advice from five schools. So that that's useful too.
Speaking about advice, we did offer an admissions tip on the website for what you do after you've interviewed. Aside from panicking and wondering if you're going to get in, you need to send a thank you. And so we have all this sort of information on how you might go about doing that in terms of the timing, delivery method, what you should include. So there's a lot of good advice in that admissions tip. It's
[email protected] now.
Alex, we got another school profile. I don't know if you've noticed, but these are coming out. It feels later and later in the season each year.
I think part of that from talking to admissions directors, I know some would say, oh, this is because the class profiles, they had less applications and so they're nervous about releasing their stats. But I actually learned from an admissions director that some of it is actually related to the immigration stuff that's going on in the sense that many schools gave candidates until October 1st to show up for business school and so to kind of tune in remotely if they had to, if they were struggling with visa stuff, because the visa thing is, has been such a moving target in the United States.
And so you can't produce your class profile if you don't know who's in your class until October 1st. So these profiles used to be out, you know, September, October. Now it's more November, it feels like, or October, November. So anyway, that's just some of the things working behind the scenes on this. But I've got Dartmouth Tuck's profile for you, and I wanted to share the numbers and get your feedback. Alex. So are you ready to roll here? I'm going to read some numbers to you.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: That's roll.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: All right, so they had 2,237 applications.
That's actually down 31% from last year. So they had far fewer applications this year.
They had a class size of 282 students. That's also down a bit from 304.
They had 46% women in the class that has joined. That's actually up 2 percentage points from 44. They had 39% international students. That's up from 34%. That's, uh, the average GMAT focus score was a six hundred and eighty two. And that's up from six hundred and seventy one.
Uh, the average GMAT was a three hundred and twenty GRE. Sorry, was a three hundred and twenty two. And that's unchanged from last year. Uh, they have an average undergraduate GPA in this class of 3.5. That's off very slightly. It was 3.6 last year. Uh, they have six years of average work experience in the class. That was 5.75 years last year.
Um, and let's see. Students submitting the gre. This is a stat that Tuck shares. That's now at 59%. And I believe that's of, you know, so of the students who are in that class, 59% of them submitted a GRE. So that's a big number. We'll talk about that.
The other thing, Alex, that I think Poets and Quants was quick to jump on is the acceptance rate went way up, right, because they have fewer applications, but Roughly maintain their class size. So the acceptance rate was up 14 percentage points year to year. So good time to apply to Tuck. It's a great school. But anyway, what do you think of this, Alex?
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's quite interesting how Tuck has handled this, what many would argue is a significant drop in application volume. We've seen other schools reduce, deliberately reduce their class size as a result of that, or at least it seemed like they were doing that. I know we reported on that on this podcast maybe about a month ago, a couple of episodes, but top took a different approach. They wanted to closely retain their class size.
And with that, you're going to have a drop in the admit rate. Right? I mean, that's just, you know, that's a binary thing. If you have less applications and you want to maintain class size, then your admit rate is going to have to go up.
What I find quite interesting in that is when people apply to top tier business schools, there's no metric, there's no stat that will tell you what percent of that applicant pool is admissible. Right? Yeah. And we've often used this percentage, you know, 80% of people applying to top business schools are actually admissible. And then schools make their admissions decisions sort of with that sort of number in mind.
But if that is true and 80% of tux typical candidates are admissible by the metrics that they use, then increasing your admit rate to 40% isn't that big a deal. Right. Because you're still denying a significant number of folks that are still clearly admissible.
So, yeah, I mean, it's a bit of a headline thing in terms of changing the admit rate quite significantly, but a lot of it does depend on that number of those that are actually in fact admissible. And we just don't know that. The other thing to note again, is this test different, you know, the different tests we, we discussed this last week in our special TBD episode. But 59% of these folks taking the GRE, I mean, GMAC has lost the plot here. They have the best test, they have the most rigorous test, but candidates want to take the easiest test.
Clearly that's just black and white now in the data. And schools are not doing anything about that because they want to make their admissions processes as access accessible as possible. So when you've got those two forces sort of in tandem aligned effectively, we're just going to see a continued increase on the GRE and a continued decline on the gmam, which I think is a shame.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like, I mean, I think we Talk about this. It's almost like there's a catalyst happening where because of the lower application volume, schools want to make it as easy as possible to apply.
And so they can't. And like you say, Tuck is still admitting, you know, very good candidates. You can see that in the numbers, like in terms of the, the GPAs and, and stuff. But it also means they probably can't afford to be like, let's ignore GRE people in favor GMAT people, you know, because they just don't have the wealth of application volume to be picky in that way. So. Yeah.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: And yeah. And again, the reason why the GMAT's going up is simply because only the elite are taking the GMAT anymore. Those that are questioning it just a little bit say, well, you know, what the heck, just take the GRE and get a good score.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Oh, right, yeah, the GMAT scores are going up. Yeah. So the. Yeah, so because it's a smaller percentage. Yeah,
[00:11:12] Speaker B: yeah. We should expect to see a trend GMAT scores go up in this current environment.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Totally agree.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: And, yeah, and a higher percentage is taking the gre. So, yeah, you can infer from that what's actually going on.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I really do. So one thing I want to call out about Tuck here, because I know poets and quants was quick to call out the, oh, look at this acceptance rate, you know, sky is falling kind of stuff. And there's been no shortage of that kind of rhetoric, you know, New York Times, OP eds, et cetera. But one thing that I just was kind of impressed with is, look, they grew the percentage of women in their class. They grew the percent of international students in a market where, I mean, we just talked about last week how, you know, Ross's international application volume really plummeted. So I think when you look at the numbers here, like, wow, they brought in a class that looks to be pretty solid and they did reduce the size slightly, but we're talking about like 20 students or something. So. Yeah, so I just, you know, kind of hats off to Lawrence and Amy and the team over at admissions team, Tim over at Tuck, because they obviously did something right. They were in the right markets getting people who are qualified even if the volume went down.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Yeah, but this volume issue is across the board and it's definitely something the industry needs to look at very closely.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: Yeah, totally agree. So moving right along this week, we caught up with London business school students as part of our Real Humans series. And so we talked to, I want to say, five or maybe six first year students at LBs. One who I'm going to profile right now is named Charles. He is a first year at LBs. He's 30 years old. He comes from Auckland, New Zealand, and he studied at the University of Otago. Or is it Otago? I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right because I'm not from New Zealand. But he studied economics and marketing management and he is. Has been working as a senior strategy manager at a place called HelloFresh for five years. That's a tech company.
I hear their ads everywhere, so I know they're out there.
Let's see. We asked him, why did you choose London Business School? And Charles had this to say. He said the London location and how highly LBS alumni speak about their experience were the key factors in my decision. So London has so much opportunity and LBs's location allows you to make the most of it. I'm someone who enjoys being close to the action, so for me this was a big draw. I've been fortunate enough to work alongside some LBS alumni during my time at HelloFresh. And having coffee chats with them and hearing how highly they spoke about their experience at LBS was also key in my decision.
And then we asked Charles, what's one thing that you've learned about LBS that surprised you?
And he said, I've really enjoyed the business ethics course that you take when you first start the MBA program. I started LBS expecting to mostly focus on the more tangible elements of business education like accounting, marketing strategy. But the ethics course has been a highlight. What we're learning in the course is far more about giving us a toolkit than specifying how to be ethical.
The structure of the course with multiple lecturers means you can hear from professors who have built strong expertise in their respective areas.
So that's what Charles has to say about LBS so far. He's only a couple months in, but clearly enjoying it. And Alex, I know you're a little bit biased, but I presume this makes sense to you. I mean, you do some teaching for LBs, but yeah, it sounds like he's really excited to be in London and yeah. Enjoying the program.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, clearly London is a great environment in which to study your mba. And London Business School is one of the top two business schools in the world outside of.
Outside of the United States. So,
[00:15:03] Speaker A: yeah,
[00:15:03] Speaker B: yeah. And it's a great, vibrant campus. And yeah, any, any campus that's in London is going to be a really good place to start. I mean, Imperial. I've been to their campus too. It's absolutely fantastic. Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: And just in case you're curious, because maybe they don't have it in Cornwall, but HelloFresh is like a blue apron or any of these companies where I think you, you know, you kind of sign up and you get meals or ingredients for meals delivered to your home once a week. And, you know, it has everything you need to kind of make your, your meals for the week or something with recipes.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: It's not that I haven't heard from them. I just don't cook.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: You don't cook? Yeah, I just, I was kind of wondering if they get out to, you know, where you're located to. But it's. Yeah, but yeah, so that's where he's been working, which kind of sounds interesting. And yeah, I can't remember from. I have to go back to the article, but I can't remember what he's going to do next. But clearly some good, good experience.
In any event, Alex, I know we have a couple of candidates to cover. If people want to write to us and complain or sing our praises, you can write to infoearadmit.com use the subject line wiretaps. Alex, are you ready to talk about this week's candidates?
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Let's kick on.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: All right, so this is WireTaps candidate number one.
So our first candidate this week is applying to nine students schools.
And the schools are Chicago, Booth, Cornell, Johnson, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Harvard, Kellogg, UCLA and USC Marshall. So a fairly long school list. They've got a plan to start in the fall of 27. And I know from their comments and the exchange you, you had with them that they're applying in round two. So they're working actively on these applications right now.
They've been working at a software company, if memory serves. They. It's a strategy management software company and it's really small. I think they mentioned there's like four people at this company.
They've taken the GMAT. They have a 675 on the test, which, you know, 720, 730 if you're kind of looking at the old scale, they have a 3.88 GPA, 5 years working thus far. They are located in Germany.
But in an interesting twist, despite being from Germany, they went to undergrad in the United States. And while they were in undergrad, they had a scholarship to because they were the captain of a Division 1 rowing team.
They then, I guess also joined their national team.
And this is kind of interesting. They rode across the Atlantic Ocean and raised $100,000 for youth development charities.
While doing that, they Also do some additional mentoring and volunteering and they're thinking about consulting post MBA long term, though they have an interest in entrepreneurship or sustainability in the consumer packaged goods space.
They said, I would like to avoid going into debt for the mba. So, Alex, tell me what you think of this candidate. Then we have to tackle that last bit about the debt part.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like, why didn't they just say I want scholarship money?
It's like it's the same thing. Right.
And that's the only reason, I think, why I would guide them to have a little bit of a range of programs on their target list. Otherwise, I'd just say go for the very best. I mean, what a really interesting profile.
You know, a 388GPA. They're super smart. They were doing that as a college athlete, so that's very good.
You could argue that GMAT's not uber outstanding, but it is fairly outstanding. And we've talked about this idea that most people avoid the GMAT anymore.
So taking the GMAT and getting a very decent score is very good. I'd be quite interested to get a little bit of a better handle on their work experience, but I'm assuming that they've had a, an opportunity to have quite a high impact in their role since there's only four of them. They've worked for five years, so it's probably a little bit, you know, the smaller environment should sort of correlate with having potentially higher impact and so forth. So, so that should be very interesting. And clearly this rowing stuff is absolutely fantastic. I mean, how many folks can say that they rode across the Atlantic?
And you would say, well, what, what does that matter? You know, you top business schools aren't just going to accept folks on the idea that they've done something extraordinary like road across the Atlantic. And that's exactly true. But when you combine that with the more traditional elements of a strong candidate profile, like a great gpa, very good gmat, great work experience, and then you add on top of that an extraordinary event like rowing across the Atlantic. I mean, schools are going to love this profile, I think, Graham.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you know, we've, you know, we've recorded podcasts in weird places, but we have not, you know, rode out onto an ocean to, to get an episode in. But no, this is an impressive profile. And I think, yeah, the only, you know, you could quibble with the gmat. Could it be higher or lower? Maybe. And I, and I. But I think otherwise, you know, you look at this list of schools they're probably too many on here because you don't want to apply to nine schools. Your recommenders might, you know, kill you if you ask them to do that. But I think there's, you know, a range and I think narrowing this down to six or so or, you know, and having and maintaining that range would be smart. The scholarship dollars is interesting because, you know, when you look at the list, you know, sometimes it's the very top schools that have the most dollars to sort of dole out, with the exception of Harvard and Stanford, where it's needs based. So, you know, they'll look at your financial profile and decide how much you actually need.
But, you know, you think about a Kellogg or which he has on his list, or a Wharton, which he does not. And some of these schools are giving out large, you know, financial aid packages. And, you know, presumably this is going to be a very attractive candidate to these schools.
You know, I, Yeah, so I think, I don't know, there was a little part of me that was like, wow, if you really want a scholarship and that's your main goal to like, get a full ride, you know, I wondered about, like, should he just retake this test and try to get a whopping score to sort of, you know, go above and beyond? But I think, you know, either way, this candidate will get offers. It's just, I mean, I, the reason I brought it up though is I was kind of curious what you thought about the concept of, like, I would like to avoid going into debt for the mba. So I think that's something that I don't think people were saying 20 years ago when they were applying to business school. There may be a few candidates saying that, but it feels like that drum is beating louder. And I think it's interesting because if you look at the numbers, BusinessWeek just ran a big piece about ROI on the MBA. I mean, it still shows that, you know, over the first 10 years post MBA, the degree is worth, I think it was like $600,000 to the, to the person who gets the degree. So I, you know, I kind of find it interesting that there seems to be this groundswell of like, people just not wanting to go into debt. And I don't know if it's that they haven't done the math or there's just a lot of reticence. I don't know.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I know we, yeah, we talk about this and I'm always on the bit of the doomier side of this because again, those Business Week data and any data that we've got from current career reports etc is old world data.
We're transitioning into a new world.
And to me that's absolutely the framing and the point of view that a lot of these candidates now have.
So to get the MBA and potentially navigate, create a whole new sort of employment environment, etc. Etc. Yes, it would be nice to be able to do it in a more risk free environment. I.
Not any debt. I'm not entirely sure that retaking the GMAT would even up their scholarship. I think, I mean again, I could be wrong, Graham, but I mean this is a. I think they're a German national, is that right?
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: So they're European, which is underrepresented in top tier business schools in the United States.
They have this ridiculous sort of life experience, event, extraordinary event, rowing across the Atlantic. They were a college athlete whilst maintaining a 388GPA and if you marry on top of that some really strong work experience which we don't actually absolutely know. But I'm making that assumption. I already think this is an outstanding candidate.
So, you know, yeah, 675.
It's on the edge just a little bit, but I don't think it'll make a lot of difference. I think schools are going to look at this and say, all right, how do we get this person to come to us?
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah, so, I mean, yeah, so I think they could, obviously the next thing they could do would just make sure their application is really outstanding and compelling.
Yeah, again, I think they're going to get offers and some dollars too. So I want to wish them the best of luck. But yeah, really interesting. Prof.
Yeah, we'll see where, where things land for them.
But yeah, thank them for submitting their profile. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two.
So our second candidate comes to us as someone who's applied already to Georgia Tech as well as to University of Tennessee, the Haslam School in Knoxville. They also indicate Ross and University of Minnesota Carlson as potential targets. This person has been working in food production and agriculture technology and post mba they're thinking about consulting but rather than the usual kind of MBB stuff. It looks like they've got Deloitte Ernst and young PwC Strategyan on their list. So that's kind of the consulting focus. They have taken the GRE and have a really terrific 334. That's the kind of score that's more in line with, you know, the average GMAT scores at schools. They have a GPA in undergrad of 2.5, which is low, but they did point out that they've done a master's in logistics and supply chain management where they earned a 4.0 GPA.
They've got eight years of work experience, they're located in Ghana. And the reason they wrote to us and posted the profile is because, as I said, they've already applied to some of these schools, but they indicated that they got waitlisted in round one by Georgia Tech and by University of Tennessee and they're wondering, like, what are they doing wrong? And my guess is that maybe they've also applied to Michigan and Carlson already, but they just haven't heard back yet. So they're kind of worried because they have these two wait list results right out of the gate and they're just. Just kind of, yeah, concerned. And I think you had some dialogue with them as well, so I'll let you take it from here. But what, yeah. What do you think is going on and what advice do you have for them?
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think this is quite tricky because, yeah, there is an obvious sort of blemish, as it were, in terms of their profile. This 2.5 GPA, presumably. I mean, we don't know how that sort of translates, etc, but presumably that's a relatively low gpa, even if in their academic system.
That said, though, they do have a 4.0 on the Masters, so I'd like to understand a bit more about the context of the undergrad, what the issues might have been that led to the 2.5 or was it just lack of maturity or whatever it might be. And then they have a really strong GRE score, right.334. So I think they've got plenty of evidence that they're smart enough to do well in these MBA programs and, you know, they've got eight years of experience, hopefully some of that, you know, that that experience is very good and so forth. They're planning to pivot to supply chain consulting. So it looks like they've got a good plan and they thought that through and the schools that have wait listed them and so forth, you, you'd think they'd see a 3:34 GRE score and, and, you know, some other reasonably strong aspects of the profile and this would be a strong candidate in their pools.
So it is a little bit of a dilemma, I think, and I don't know, and we talked about this a little bit before we came on air, if schools are making decisions a little bit more on the reality of is this person going to be able to get a visa? Are they going to be able to come.
They're going to be able to accept our offer if we make an offer and maybe put him on the wait list for now is a bit of a hedge.
And, you know, I don't know that putting someone on a waitlist for that situation makes a lot of sense because they don't really have an ability to respond to that. But from the candidate's perspective, they've got to really be able to provide those assurances. Right. And make sure that the schools know. And I sure they can do this through the waitlist process.
Their real conviction in coming and their connection in terms of why their goals make sense and why it makes strong sense for them to come to that program specifically. So the whys behind their goals are going to be really, really important for the schools to better understand and the reality of them being able to execute on those goals. Other than that, I really don't understand why they've got this pretty big roadblock. Graham?
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think there's another thing too, which is that, you know, like you said, schools may be hedging and putting on the wait list to see, you know, if I mean, to sort of see what the candidate pool looks like. Right. Because this, you know, I think last year there are some schools who maybe got a little burned by not having enough people on the wait list or not. You know, they just, they need to keep that. You know, if you think about declining application volume, you got to make sure that you're not casting aside someone who you wish you could have admitted later. Although I would argue that would lead to more admissions in the first round, too. But in any event, the other thing I was thinking about is the career offices have increasingly asserted themselves with admissions in terms of encouraging admissions to take people where the school can fulfill the goals that the candidate is expressing. And this candidate seems to be expressing a goal to work in consulting at one of the big four type companies.
And so then the question is, is it to work in the US in which case is that giving the admissions committee some pause when they hear, you know, all the latest news and rumblings from the US government about the ability for internationals to stay and work?
Yeah. So there could be some other factors here. But yeah, I, like you, was a little puzzled. Like, I would think that they would make the cut or at least be interviewed. You know, if there are concerns they could, you know, that's a great way to address them. But, yeah, for now, this candidate's on the on the shelf waiting. I would encourage them to potentially apply to some additional schools. It sounds like they've applied to Carlson, but Ross, they still are working on. But I would encourage them to fly to some additional schools in. In round two because you just don't know. But. Yeah, I mean, otherwise, yeah, this. It makes like everything makes sense. I mean, they've got good work experience, clear goals.
Normally this would be, you know. Yeah, they have a low gpa, but they have a great masters and a high gre. So they've done what you sort of would do.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: You know, so it is a little befuddling.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:50] Speaker A: But we'll see. I do want to wish them the best of luck and hope that things, you know, know, work out for them. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully they'll keep us posted.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Yeah, very good.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: So, Alex, that's going to do it. We will get back together next week and do this all again. In the meantime, everyone tuning in. Yeah. Best of luck as you await interviews or have your interviews or work on round two apps. Yeah, hopefully this podcast is a nice, helpful break from that. I mean, it's not always a. It's not really a break, but it's a, you know, it's a way to take a. Take a step away from your computer and just listen and, you know, hopefully we're at least somewhat entertaining each week. Alex.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: Very good. Good, Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.
Of.
