This week's podcast kicks off with a discussion of the recently released class profiles for UCLA / Anderson and Cornell / Johnson. Both programs showcase impressive incoming students and stats overall, but there are some notable trends to observe around application volume and an uptick in the percentage of international students at these US-based programs. This potentially leads to a downward pressure on gender diversity, as the international pool traditionally has fewer women (as a percentage) than the domestic pool. Alex noted the fast-approaching R1 deadlines for this season, and Graham highlighted the Adcom Q&As that were recently published for Washington / Foster, Maryland / Smith, Ohio State / Fisher, SMU / Cox, Boston College / Carroll, Manchester / Alliance and IMD. Graham also highlighted our recent Real Humans Alumni event, which included alums working at Deloitte, Disney, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and BCG. Graham then pitched the upcoming essay workshop series, which includes three events on September 14, September 21 and September 28. And finally, Graham and Alex also chatted about the upcoming private webinar for Clear Admit+ members, slated for August 29th.  You can join CA+ and the webinar here: https://www.clearadmit.com/clearadmit-plus-members/

As always, this episode features in-depth breakdowns of three candidacies - all from ApplyWire this week:

First up, Alex chooses an Indian candidate who worked in investment banking before building an EdTech startup with $1m in revenue to date and some substantial impact. With a rather unorthodox 10 years of work experience, they are seeking a top FT MBA program in the U.S., but have not yet taken the GMAT. Although there are several challenges to consider, Alex and Graham suggest that targeting the first rounds would be helpful, if the candidate can (move up the GMAT), spreading their list of target programs will also help (MIT / Sloan has a deadline of September 29). This week's second candidate has a super GMAT, strong engineering academics, and what appears to be strong work experience in the Aerospace and Defense industry. This led to a discussion on their gender, and if and why that might matter; Alex thinks they should also target Stanford. This week's third candidate is an enlisted Army linguist working in the intelligence field. They also have a super GMAT. We think they might adjust their target programs a little, and perhaps fine-tune their goals, but potentially there is a lot to like.

This episode was recorded in Paris, France and Cornwall, England. It was produced and engineered by Dennis Crowley in Illadelphia, home of the potentially wild-card bound Phillies. Thanks for reading this far, and for joining us! Please tell like 100 people about how much you enjoy the show!