March 28, 2022

Wire Taps 225—Great candidate, but is the GMAT high enough? Deferred admissions candidate, heading to Big Tech. Darden versus Ross, with waitlists to navigate

36 minutes

In this week's edition of WireTaps, Alex and Graham discuss the wave of recent MBA admissions decisions from the likes of UPenn / Wharton and Northwestern / Kellogg, as well as the upcoming releases from Harvard and Stanford. As usual, there has been lots of activity on Live Wire. Graham then highlights several Real Humans Alumni pieces, which included MBA alums who have made the move from Cambridge / Judge to Citibank, from HBS to Google and from Emory to Deloitte. Graham highlighted each of the tips these alums provided for incoming MBA students. Your hosts then discuss the latest piece in Clear Admit’s Top Career Placement Outcomes series, which is focused on Tech placement. Graham also noted the recent podcast, focused on the use of Case Studies for MBA learning.

As to this week's candidates, Alex chose two ApplyWire entries and a DecisionWire entry:

First up, is a candidate who worked during his undergraduate, while maintaining a 3.6 GPA at a state school. This candidate also went on to serve a religious mission in France, and has subsequently enjoyed a really strong marketing career. Alex and Graham really like the overall profile, but can't help but wonder if a slightly stronger GMAT result would allow the candidate to really focus on the very best programs. This week's second candidate is an undergraduate student, looking at deferred enrolment programs. His numbers are outstanding, internship experience looks very good, and he appears to have solid leadership on campus. With a Product Manager role in hand at “Big Tech”, post undergrad, Alex and Graham really like his chances at top programs. Finally, from DecisionWire, Alex chose a candidate who is weighing Ross versus Darden with a post-MBA focus on the east coast/DC-area, in consulting. The added wrinkle is that this candidate is also on the waitlist at several programs in a tier above, so Alex and Graham discuss why that might be so, and what to do about it (they have terrific numbers). This episode was recorded in Cornwall, England and Paris, France. It was produced in West Philadelphia by the incredible Dennis Crowley. Please spread the word about the show to anyone you know who might enjoy! Thanks for listening.

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