In this week's MBA Admissions podcast we began by discussing the activity of MBA LiveWire; upcoming this week several top MBA programs will be releasing their Round 1 decisions including Stanford, Chicago / Booth, Yale SOM, Michigan / Ross, Cornell / Johnson, CMU / Tepper, Emory / Goizueta, Boston College / Carroll and Georgia / Terry. INSEAD is scheduled to release its Round 2 interview invites.

Graham highlighted the upcoming webinar series for Masters in Management programs, which will be held this week on December 3rd and 4th, and include Chicago / Booth, Georgetown / McDonough, Michigan / Ross, Duke / Fuqua, Emory / Goizueta and Notre Dame / Mendoza. Signups are still available: https://bit.ly/camim24

Graham then shared four admissions tips. The first two tips focus on those who applied in Round 1, helping candidates decide between different offers, and what to do if you are placed on a wait list at your target MBA program. The second two tips focus on those who are applying in Round 2, helping candidates identify target programs, and choosing their recommenders.

We then discussed two Real Humans stories, focused on MBA students at UCLA / Anderson and Washington / Foster.

Graham then presented the first career placement report of the Class of 2024 season, from UVA / Darden. Frankly, their placement statistics, which were very similar to last season, look quite impressive given the potential challenges in the hiring market we've been hearing about (with tech layoffs and a slowing of consulting hiring).

Finally, Graham previewed a podcast episode he recently conducted with Erin Nixon, the Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Stanford GSB. This will be published this week, so watch this space!

For this week, for the candidate profile review portion of the show, Alex selected three ApplyWire entries:

This week’s first MBA admissions candidate has significant work experience in the media and entertainment space and has now come to the realization that an MBA may well be a good next step. We think she will have interesting opportunities if her quant profile is strong.

This week’s second MBA candidate is targeting next season and has a GMAT score of 770. They also have very decent tech-focused work experience, and we think they should also have great options next season.

The final MBA candidate is from Ghana and is an older candidate at 32. We discussed some of the challenges that older MBA applicants might face in the admissions process, and how to overcome those challenges.

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!