Admissions Straight Talk

Saving money on your student loans, ranking grad programs based on salary-to-debt ratios, plus life as a Columbia Business School grad. All in today’s show.

Today’s guest, Amanda Wood, graduated from Vassar College in 2009 with a degree in social psychology and economics. After graduation, she worked at BNY Mellon and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. In 2014 she earned her MBA at Columbia Business School. Since 2013, she has worked in business development for SoFi. In March 2016, she became the Director of SoFi’s Entrepreneur Program, and in December, she became the Director, Business Operations & Strategy at SoFi. Welcome, Amanda!

How can students save money with SoFi? [1:20] 

Students can save money by refinancing their student loans with us.

When I went to b-school I graduated with five to six different loans. What SoFi does is consolidate all your loans into one, so you only make one monthly payment to one lender, which saves time. And we can lower your interest rate, which saves money.

Do you originate loans, or just refinance them? [2:00]

We don’t do new school loans, except to parents. We refinance loans. One of the ways we can offer such great savings is by offering great interest rates, and we do that by lending to “safe” borrowers who have graduated and are employed.

It’s for US citizens and permanent residents only, and we have no plans to expand at this point. [3:25]

What are your career resources? [3:40]

We have a career services team in house that helps place borrowers.

We do a bit of reactive help – say, if a borrower loses their job we can help them find a new job.

But we also work with people proactively who are gainfully employed and want to change their job (from law to tech, etc).

What is the Entrepreneur Program? [4:50]

We started when we were a very young company. We want to help people progress.

For participants in the Entrepreneur Program, we waive the income guidelines (since many entrepreneurs pay themselves only a token salary in the early stages of their company). And they can defer repayment for up to a year.

We have a kickoff day in San Francisco where participants can meet each other and discuss their ideas. We coach them through various stages of their business – pitching, marketing, etc. And we conclude with a demo day – we’ve seen a number of investments result from that.

Does interest accrue during the deferment? [7:10]

Yes, and some people opt to pay interest-only payments during that time.

You mentioned the income requirement. What are your other criteria for underwriting? [7:45]

We’re looking at ability to pay. So we look at their monthly income, expenses (based on where they live, etc), their total loan balance, and their other debts.

We’re also looking for a generally responsible financial history: no recent bankruptcy or significant late payment history.

What is Return on Education? [9:20]

We realized we have all this fantastic data on an interesting group of people – we know how much people are making, what they studied, how much debt they have. We wanted to use that to help people make decisions about what schools to go to.

Our guests today are both 2nd year MBA students at Darden who founded their start-up at the beginning of their MBA program. We’ll learn more in a minute, but a little background first. Maximilian Huc graduated from Princeton in 2013 with a BA in sociology. Outside of class, he started his first start-up called My Grade Zone Points, and has basically been a serial entrepreneur. Sam Boochever graduated from Cornell in 2011 with a bachelors in applied economics and management. He worked for Allscripts for several years and then started his own company in March 2015. In Oct. 2015, shortly after starting at Darden, Max and Sam co-founded 1Degree. Welcome, Max and Sam!

What is 1Degree App? [1:40]

It allows people to connect one-on-one with celebrities, athletes, etc – we call them “influencers” – that influence their lives. This doesn’t exist in the market today, where most celebrity-fan interaction is one-sided (such as Instagram, etc). We’re trying to take it a step further and allow people to connect with their favorite influencer.

The way it works is that people follow the influencer. The influencer offers the option of bidding on a two-minute, face-to-face video chat. People bid on the conversation. The celebrities can either keep the money or donate it to their favorite charity. Afterward, the celeb has the option to follow up with the auction winner after the chat.

What’s the backstory? [3:55]

We were paired as roommates when we got to Darden. We ran across the story about an individual who paid the rapper Meek Mill $2000 to take a selfie with him. We thought it was amazing how much people were willing to go out of their way to access the people who influence their lives, and the idea was born.

How’s it going? Are the influencers volunteering/participating? [5:00]

It’s going well! We’ve had influencers reach out to us even before the app was in the app store. We’re getting interest from various industries – entrepreneurship, fashion, sports. And it’s international.

Can you give an example of someone who’s participated? [6:40]

Robby Hayes, the runner up on the Bachelorette last year, offered a conversation. Our Darden classmates were bidding and were really excited – it was cool to see people who’d watched the show together every week having fun with it.

Are people doing it for fun, connections, star worship, advice… ? [7:45]

All the above! It cuts across demographics and industries.

What about the motivations of the influencers? Are they mainly looking to build their social media presence, raise money for charity, reach out to fans, or are there other reasons? [8:25]

Again, all of the above. It depends on their industry. Some people use it to humanize the fan relationship.

We’re hosting a pitch event at SXSW where people can use the platform to pitch, so it really depends on the influencer.

Did you know you wanted to start a business when you arrived at Darden? [10:30]

Sam: I applied to business school wanting to do healthcare consulting, but I realized I wanted to work for myself, and when I met Max and we developed the idea for this company, it took off.

In reviewing our stats for last year, I noticed that one of our most visited pages is an article on writing about diversity. That’s not shocking since Accepted’s consultants are frequently asked by stressed, panicked clients from well-represented groups in the applicant pool, “How can I answer this diversity question?!?!” Given the high interest in the topic, not to mention the anxiety associated with it and the confusion surrounding it, I decided to discuss it today and go into more depth than we can in a blog post.

So here are the questions I'll answer on today’s show:

1. Why is diversity important?

2. How can you approach diversity?

3. How can you write about diversity?

I’m covering a lot in the show. To help guide you, we’ve created a Dimensions of Diversity Checklist for you to download.

1. Why is diversity important?

Two primary reasons:

• The more diverse perspectives in a class room, the richer the discussions in class, in study groups, and the more creative the teams on projects. The more exposure all members of a class or team have to varied approaches and perspectives, the more prepared they will be for working in a multi-cultural society and world. Admissions offices believe that diversity in the classroom improves the educational experience of all students.

• American society, and indeed many societies, are increasingly heterogeneous. The world is more global and multi-cultural. Many professions and employers want a diverse work force. Medicine recognizes that a heterogeneous work force benefits people from cultures heretofore under-represented in medicine. Businesses realize that they will market more effectively if they can speak to different audiences and markets. Schools simply want to prepare graduates for the twenty first century job market.

2. How can you approach diversity?

I’m so glad you asked! There are so many ways! Really an infinite number of ways. But I’ve broken them down into three primary categories, and I’ll provide a bunch of examples for each one.

First the three-part framework:

1. Identity: who you are

2. Deeds: what you’ve done

3. Ideas:  how you think

As we go through these categories, you’ll quickly realize that there is overlap in the framework. The three topics are not mutually exclusive, and you may argue with how I classified some of my suggestions. That’s fine, and the framework isn’t the point. The purpose of the framework is just to get you thinking more broadly about diversity and how you can show it.

I. Your Identity.

This is the most common way that people think of diversity, and it certainly is a valid one in admissions. The under-represented minority applying to many top graduate schools almost by definition is showing diversity, but again let’s think more broadly about identity and showing diversity. Here are several ideas:

• Under-represented minority. In a U.S. context: African American, Hispanic American, and Native American.

• Ethnicity. This includes applicants coming from a country or culture not well represented. Not just under-represented minorities.

• Religious commitment. For example, the Buddhist monk at ISB.

• Non-traditional educational background. Here, think of the music major applying to medical school, or the bio major going for a masters in management, or the engineer deciding to go for a PsyD.

Before we introduce today’s guest, I want to invite you to our newest webinar, Get Accepted to INSEAD.  This is the latest addition to our “Get Accepted to” webinar series and the first time that we are focusing on a school outside the U.S.

If you’re interested in INSEAD, listen on! Today’s guest is Aly Madhavji, a recent INSEAD MBA grad. Aly graduated from University of Toronto in 2012 with a bachelors in commerce and became a consultant for PWC. He was extraordinarily active while in college, and although I’m not going to detail all his activities, you’ll have to trust me that it is an impressive list. After graduating he wrote a book titled Your Guide to Succeed in University, which provides a recent grad’s perspective on how to get the most out of your overall college experience. That was followed by a few other guides for various stripes of graduate students. He worked at PWC until December 2015 and rose to become a Senior Consultant. Next year, he will be a Schwartzman Scholar in Tsinghua University in Beijing. Welcome, Aly!

How did you decide on a career in business? [2:18]

Like many millennials, I went through a difficult decision process! I actually originally wanted to be a fighter pilot, and I joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. I ultimately decided it wasn’t for me, and I went to university, where I considered many fields.

What helped me most was having mentors. Conversations with mentors helped me realize that business would be the best springboard for change.

I joined PWC in the insurance practice, then worked there as a consultant. It was an extraordinary opportunity to travel and gain broad experience.

Some people have a more cynical view of business. How would you respond? [4:35]

I definitely see the tension, and I know business isn’t always a positive force! But in my view, business has the ability to help people create jobs for people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to provide for their families; it has the ability to challenge the status quo. I see it as a way to work for the betterment of society.

Can you tell me a little about your book? [6:50]

I’ve now written three books. The original was Your Guide to Succeed in University. I’ve now added Your Guide to Get Into Medical School and Your Guide to Succeed After Graduation. I worked with medical doctors and other experts.

It was a blessing to get lucky with this project. It grew out of conversations when I was a student board member at the University of Toronto. In addition to creating reports for uni stakeholders, I was asked to provide a guide for Toronto students. As I worked on that, I realized there was advice I wanted to share more widely. My mentors suggested publishing. I decided to self-publish. And early on, my book was the #1 college book on Amazon and won an international prize.

It’s something I wish I’d had when I was a student.

When I published each book, I made them completely free so students who are on a tight budget can read them.

What’s distinctive about your book? [10:55]

I think the real difference is the fact it comes from a young author providing insights from his own experiences, and that I was willing to share my failures to help people learn. It’s very open and down-to-earth. People can see themselves being able to navigate those situations in the future.

Medical schools across the board want to know that the people they admit know what they’re getting into and have an understanding of clinical practice based on personal experience. Clinical exposure is virtually a requirement for acceptance to ALL U.S. medical schools. A great way to get such exposure is by working as a scribe.

Today’s guest is Matthew Glowinsky, Strategy and Operational Planning Associate at ScribeAmerica, one of the largest scribe training and placement companies in the U.S. Matthew earned his B.S. in psychology from SUNY Brockport, and an MSW from the University of Denver in 2011. He also did postbac work at the University of Denver. He started working as a scribe in May 2013 and became a Scribe manager for Scribe America in May 2014. Welcome, Matthew!

How did you get involved with ScribeAmerica? [1:50]

I moved to Denver to complete my MSW, and was working for a cool nonprofit that did adventure programs for young adults with cancer. I wanted to do something more intellectual, and circled back to the ideal of going to med school, so I did some postbac courses. It seemed like being a medical scribe would get me closer to that medical school goal. So I started scribing 16 hours a week.

Scribing is a really cool job. I often say that it’s easy to do but difficult to learn. It took a while to go through the training, which covers everything from medical terminology, to the workflow, to labs and imaging tests. I learned that doctors rely on scribes.

No patient encounter is ever the same. No workup is ever the same.

I scribed for six months in a level-two emergency department in Denver. Later the opportunity arose to take on more of a management role with the scribing company, which I really enjoy – implementing scribing programs around the country.

What does a typical scribing shift look like? [6:05]

A lot depends on the client location. Some shifts are as short as four hours – maybe in surgical specialties where the doctor may only see patients in clinic for four hours and then do surgeries or procedures after that. Or there may be shifts up to 12 hours, more often in an ER setting.

We work in 60 different specialties, including inpatient (hospitalist) and outpatient settings. We try to adapt to what the clients’ needs are. An orthopedic surgeon’s scribal needs are different than an ER doc or a family medicine provider.

Do you remember any especially meaningful experiences from your own scribing? [7:50]

The provider can better focus their care with a scribe – the scribe can look up history, etc. So the provider doesn’t need to fumble around in the electronic medical record. It’s a game changer for the provider and the patient – improving care. That’s part of why I wanted to go into medicine in the first place.

Do you still plan to go into medicine? [9:20]

No, I don’t. I was always interested in business and tech, and I found a way to do that with this work.

What type of feedback do you get from scribes? [10:10]

It varies among specialties.

But there’s really not another experience where you, as a college student, can go in and work alongside a medical provider (and get paid for it!) and get direct experience/understanding of how patient interactions work, how a medical practice works, etc.

Before we turn to our regularly scheduled content, I want to respond to a question asked of me on Twitter by @agarwalgaurav04: He asked me if we can do a show on U.S. one-year MBA programs. We might in the future, and while today’s show is not devoted to that topic, you can get a lot of information from the podcast with Columbia Business School’s Emily French (episode #171). Similarly, while INSEAD is NOT a US school, the interview with Virginie Fougea, INSEAD’s admissions director, also provides a lot of insight into what that top international one-year program is looking for.

One of the key differences between a 1Y and a 2Y program is lack of internship. So most one-year programs want to admit students who A) don’t need an internship, and B) have crystal clear goals so that they can hit the job search trail running -- without hesitation or delay. Applicants who are returning to a previous employer are particularly appealing, but you don’t need to have a job offer in hand to apply or to get accepted. If you want to change function and industry after you earn your MBA, maybe attempt to do one shift with your first post-MBA job and the other in a second post-MBA position. In a nutshell, if you prefer a one-year program, keep your goals realistic and achievable.

Also, make sure you meet the school’s criteria for the one-year program. Kellogg for example, admits applicants to its 1Y program who have at least a strong academic foundation in business if not an undergrad business degree. Cornell Johnson in contrast, wants applicants with advanced degrees or certifications for its Accelerated program and lists programs that satisfy its requirements, but they don’t have to be in business. Know what the programs require before you apply and make sure you can give them what they seek.

In a nutshell, here’s what you need to remember if you are interested in a one-year program:

1. Keep your goals realistic and achievable. There’s no time for soul-searching or an internship.

2. Know what the programs require before you apply and make sure you meet the requirements.

Thanks Gaurav for the question.

Today’s interview focuses on a different type of non-traditional MBA program: the Executive MBA. I thought it would be great to learn about one of the newer EMBA programs, specifically Yale School of Management’s EMBA. Yale SOM’s Executive MBA program will graduate its 10th class this year. However, for the most of its existence, it was exclusively a healthcare-focused EMBA program. That focus was expanded a couple of years ago, and today Yale EMBA provides a general management education with three areas of concentration for its students. We’ll learn more about those later.

For now it gives me great pleasure to introduce today’s guest, Vani Nadarajah, Director of Admissions, Executive MBA and Global Programs at Yale School of Management.

Can you give us an overview of Yale’s EMBA program? [4:30]

It’s a full MBA: we have one degree that we deliver to our students in two formats – the fulltime MBA and the Executive MBA. It’s very rigorous. It’s 75% general management, and then in the second year, students divide between asset management, healthcare, and sustainability.

Like most premeds and med students, our guest today, David Eisenberg, is a very busy person. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a BS in neuroscience, took a gap year, which we’ll learn more about, and then began medical school at The Commonwealth Medical College where he is now an M3. Along the way, which is why I said he is so busy, he did research on Parkinson’s Disease, became an EMT, volunteered in Ghana, and has written for various pre-med and med sites. Welcome, David!

Can you tell us a bit about yourself? [1:20]

I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia. I was always into science, the earth, rockets. I also loved sports. I went to U Pittsburgh for college, where I was involved with water polo and became an EMT. That’s where I started to feel out my interest in medicine.

How did you become interested in medicine? Was it something you’d wanted to do since you were a kid, or did you decide based on your experiences in college? [2:15 ]

It developed over time. I was always interested in science, but I wasn’t sure of what I might do. I thought I might be a researcher. My EMT certification really drew me to the clinical side of medicine – that was one of the turning points. But science had always been on my mind.

Any other formative experiences? [3:10]

I worked in a research lab in college, studying mutations linked to Parkinson’s. It was exciting, but I was much more drawn to the patient interactions during my EMT experience.

How did you choose Commonwealth Medical College? [4:05]

It’s really focused on community medical education, and that appealed to me, along with the opportunity to get to know doctors one-on-one.

What do you like about it now that you’re there? [4:55]

The fact that they really listen to the students. To give one example, it was recently bought out by a large health center in the area, and they sent out a student survey to get our recommendation on the name for the medical center.

Anything you would change? [6:03 ]

More related to the medical education side, I would like to see schools adopt more new technologies/modalities for teaching, and see it more standardized school to school.

You’re in your third year – how have you found your rotations so far? [7:45]

Great and difficult at the same time. You’re constantly adapting to different personalities and situations, getting into the crux of medicine: we’re not working with machines, we’re working with people.

I’ve really enjoyed getting to work with patients – it’s really exciting, and it’s rewarding to see people improve.

I’ve also realized how much I still have left to learn.

Which rotations have you done so far? [14:18]

Because of the way my school structures rotations (with a shortened block rotation in the first semester and partial days in the second), I’ve already done almost all my rotations. I think the only one I haven’t completed is pediatrics.

I’ve done internal medicine, cardiology, OB/GYN, psychiatry, surgery, and anesthesia.

Which rotation did you like best? [15:15]

My favorite is psychiatry. It felt very down-to-earth and real to me.

I enjoyed the others – learning the problem. But the excitement for me wasn’t as much figuring out the disease process as helping the healing. So I gravitated towards psychiatry – you never know what is coming each day.

Today’s guest, J. Kenton Kivestu, graduated from UVA with a BA in economics and history in 2006. Upon graduating he joined Google in product development and worked there for 3 years until he moved to Hanover New Hampshire to attend the Tuck School of Business and earn his MBA. He interned at BCG, but returned to mobile product development as a manager at Zynga when he graduated from Tuck in 2011. After several promotions, he joined Flurry. Immediately upon graduating from Tuck, he began work on RocketBlocks, where he is now full time.  We’re going to learn much more about RocketBlocks and Kenton’s journey to date. Welcome!

What is RocketBlocks? [1:28]

It’s an interactive, skills-based platform that helps students prepare for consulting case interviews. We started it in 2011, and I recently started working on it full time.

What are the interactive elements? [2:05]

If you think about what a case interview is, there are variations among the consulting firms, but ultimately they’re all looking for certain skillsets: the ability to do mental math easily and comfortably; the ability to interpret charts and data; the ability to structure a nebulous problem.

When we say it’s interactive, it means we take the skillsets needed for a case interview and build interactive drills to help you build your skills.

Can you give an example? [4:05]

Take case structuring, for example. Our drills will allow you to go through a series of case style prompts and answer how you would address the problem. Then the system will give you a suggested answer (from a former consultant), so you can compare your answer with theirs. You can also compare your answer with anonymous answers from other students.

Are those student answers rated? [5:40]

Right now they’re curated. We’re thinking of a rating system.

How did you create RocketBlocks? [5:50]

During b-school, I did an internship at BCG. Ultimately, I didn’t pursue consulting, but on my return to Tuck I helped students prepare for the case interview. My friend and I saw that a lot of students used books to prepare, and memorized frameworks. It was very different from how I’d prepared. My friend at McKinsey saw this as a problem, too, since people sometimes tried to fit things to the framework and sounded stilted. So our approach is to focus on skills.

You need to get good at assessing a unique situation and pull out tools from your toolset.

How did you choose the name RocketBlocks? [10:25]

The working version was called Blocks – because our approach was geared to teaching students the building blocks to succeed. When we wanted to register the domain, we wanted to keep that theme. We chose “rocket” because of the sense of launching a career.

There are other resources to help students prepare for case interviews – books, career services, etc. What makes RocketBlocks unique? [12:03]

Career centers are great resources to help students navigate the process, but they tend to be narrow teams. They don’t tend to get too deep into specialized interviewing, and they often have too many students to do really specialized mock interviews. They’re focused on education about career paths, companies, recruiting, etc.

And case books tend to be focused on frameworks and systems, and teach students to memorize those systems.

We’re focused on skills.

Today’s guest is Ben Williams, founder and CEO of Firecracker. Firecracker is, according to its website, “an adaptive learning platform that uses amazing content coupled with spaced repetition to help medical students crush their exams.”

Ben graduated from Harvard College in 2005 with a BA in Biology and Health Policy. From 2006-09 he co-founded and managed Firefly Health, a health-focused social network. And in 2009 he co-founded Firecracker, where he is currently the CEO. Welcome!

What is Firecracker? [1:25]

The easiest way to think about it that for students, it’s an interactive/adaptive question bank. We have a wide variety of questions with a range of difficulty, and we have an intelligent algorithm that figures out what works best for students like you (a kind of smart tutor bot). There’s also content to help you remediate.

For schools, we customize recommendations around the testing schedule and curriculum. So we work with the school to support the curriculum.

We built the platform to be content-agnostic, so we’re now partnering with other programs in the health space, such as Stanford’s anesthesiology program.

If I’m a premed student, what can Firecracker do for me? [6:30]

It’s designed to kill two birds with one stone: to help you master material for classes and learn material you need to prepare for standardized tests.

Say you’re taking organic chem. You can go to the system and identify concepts that are important, and you can prioritize them by how important they are to you (the urgency at that point in the semester). The system will start asking you easy questions, and then more difficult questions over time. The most difficult questions approach board-exam level difficulty (three order questions), so they can get pretty difficult.

Is the system mainly for self-prep and/or a supplement to an MCAT course? [10:55]

We believe it’s for any stage of the process. Most people can use us alongside courses, just like having a tutor.

We just launched a dedicated “test prep” mode, for people who are leading up to a standardized test. That focuses on test style questions and more intensive test prep.

Say a second-year college student signs up and wants help with orgo, and they plan to take the MCAT next year. How would it work? [13:00]

Our algorithm/tutor will recommend the right questions at the right time, so we recommend they follow the recommendations, which are based in memory science – repeatedly doing questions spaced out over time.

The way people use it effectively is consistently, and in short bursts throughout the day. (This is different from the way a lot of people study by cramming!)

We focused a lot on our mobile apps – people use them to study five minutes here and there.

In “test mode” we recommend a progress test every week, to build test taking stamina. It’s important, because many of these tests are very long. This practice and exposure can help you reduce test taking anxiety. Tackling your fear of doing questions is very effective, neurobiologically.

With med schools and residency programs, you have integrations with the schools? [19:40]

Yes, that’s where we have most integration with the curriculum.

What distinguishes Firecracker from other supplemental study aids or learning platforms (

As most of you slow down for the holiday season, and some of you speed up to make the upcoming admissions deadlines, we thought it would be a great opportunity to do an encore of Linda's excellent interview with Jamie Wright, the Senior Recruitment and Admissions Manager at London Business School - Early Career Programs.

For the full show notes, click here.

Related Links:

• London Business School Masters in Management

• London Business School Global Masters in Management

• London Business School Masters in Financial Analysis

• London Business School 2016-17 MBA Essay Tips

• London Business School Zone Page

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• The Scoop on the London Business School Masters in Management Program

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