In this week's MBA Admissions podcast we began by discussing the upcoming MBA application deadlines and interview releases for this new season; for this week UPenn / Wharton and Duke / Fuqua are scheduled to release interview decisions. We are also seeing Round 1 interview invites on MBA LiveWire for Columbia, Michigan / Ross, as well as Berkeley / Haas, Stanford, Dartmouth / Tuck and Cornell / Johnson.

Graham highlighted a $25 million gift that was received by Northwestern / Kellogg to add further support to its Entrepreneurial Programs, via its Zell Fellows Program.

Graham then highlighted two class profiles recently published on Clear Admit, for Michigan / Ross and for Georgetown / McDonough. Both classes look to be holding steady, but it was interesting to see an uptick in international enrollment at McDonough. We then discussed a Real Humans piece for Georgia / Terry. The statistics on class size for these three programs highlights the fact that generally, the higher the tier of a top MBA program, the greater the class size, which makes perfect sense. (Exceptions to this rule include Stanford GSB).

Graham also reported on our first employment report for the Class of 2023, this from Michigan / Ross. Their numbers look very decent, with an average starting salary of $175,000. Consulting is the largest sector of employment, led by McKinsey, Bain and BCG (MBB) as the schools top employers. This led to a discussion about hiring freezes in strategy consulting and how delayed start dates we are hearing about may not be captured in the statistics.

Finally, Graham highlighted two additional podcast he’s recently hosted; the first with Indiana / Kelley with a focus on career services, and the second with NYU / Stern, discussing career pivots (coming soon).

As usual, for the candidate profile review portion of the show, Alex selected three ApplyWire entries:

This week’s first MBA admissions candidate has had a strong nine-year career in the Army and is looking for the MBA to allow them to transition to the private sector. Their goals of consulting, followed by a leadership role in an aerospace or defence company, make perfect sense. Their stats are decent, with a 326 GRE and a 3.51 GPA.  Can they overcome being an older candidate, and are they targeting the right schools?

This week’s second MBA candidate has super numbers, and is an investment banker, based in Hong Kong. We worry that they are applying with only two years of work experience completed. Because they have strong numbers, they may still be successful, but we wonder if their opportunities might not be better in 1-2 more years.  There are also some concerns around their ECs...

The final MBA candidate is from Ghana and has an aerospace undergraduate degree. Their work experience has been with their family business in textiles, with a focus on business development and supply chain management. Their goals appear to be around entrepreneurship, and they are now looking to see which MBA programs they should target.