Another, week, another episode of WireTaps!  Alex and Graham began the show with the usual discussion around activity on LiveWire, which now includes decision deadlines for the shorter Round 3 application cycle and some deferred enrollment interview invites.  Graham then highlighted three Real Humans Alumni stories, an INSEAD grad at Accenture, a CMU / Tepper grad at Amazon and a UPenn / Wharton grad at Pfizer. Graham also mentioned a recently published admissions tip that covers scholarship negotiation. He then reminded listeners about the MBA admissions event series that Clear Admit is hosting in May, which began last Wednesday, and continues this Wednesday with Duke / Fuqua, UNC / Kenan Flagler, Emory / Goizueta, and Texas / Austin. This series offers admissions overviews from each of the programs. Event signup is here: https://bit.ly/cambaevents

For this week's candidate profiles and dilemmas, Alex and Graham tackled two ApplyWire entries and one DecisionWire entry:

The first featured candidate has super numbers (770, 3.68) and spent two years in a leadership development program before moving to a family business (a winery). Alex and Graham like their experience and think that they should be targeting the top programs. The one concern is their post MBA goals; Alex and Graham want to ensure the goals are relevant and plausible while also being impactful. Your hosts also discussed issues related to sourcing recommendations, and around the candidate's desire to be in Salt Lake City, post-MBA. This week's second candidate appears to have interesting work experience across four countries, including Germany. We do worry about their combination of numbers (322, 2.9); they have taken additional coursework to bolster their GPA. They have also already taken the GRE four times. There are strengths in this profile, but there are weaknesses that need mitigating. The third and final candidate this week is weighing offers from Berkeley / Haas with no scholarship and Duke / Fuqua with a large scholarship. They do want to be in the Bay Area, or Seattle, post MBA, which favors Haas, but they are not seeking tech employment. We encourage them to look closely at the Fuqua networks in those regions, and see if they think that Fuqua might work. They also love Fuqua’s culture, which is an important consideration.

This episode was recorded in Paris, France and Cornwall, England. It was produced and engineered by the fabulous Dennis Crowley in Philadelphia, USA. Thanks to all of you who’ve been joining us and please remember to rate and review this show wherever you listen!