2025 Predictions For Business Education
Maria |
January 18, 2025

In this episode of Business Casual, the hosts kick off the New Year with bold predictions for 2025. They dive into how business schools are adapting to the increasing use of generative AI in applications, with a spotlight on the shift towards video essays to preserve the integrity of the application process. The discussion also covers the evolving landscape of MBA recruitment, highlighting an expected increase in AI-driven business roles and the impact of immigration policies on international students. 

The hosts discuss the strategic adjustments that educational institutions are making to accommodate these changes, emphasizing the ongoing importance of innovative and flexible education models in ensuring robust career opportunities for graduates.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:06.960] – John

Hi, I’m John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Happy New Year. It’s 2025, and we have a bunch of predictions for you. I’m here with my co-host, Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte-Edwards. As you well know, if you are listening to our podcast over the years that we’ve been doing it, Caroline is the former Managing Director of Admissions at and the co-founder of Fortuna Admissions, and Maria is the founder of Applicant Lab. We’re going to just go through and look into the future of this year and tell you folks what we see. Now, I’m thinking I’m going to have Maria go first. Maria, what do you think? What’s your top guess for the year?

[00:00:52.330] – Maria

I don’t know about top guess. There are lots of guesses to dig into today. But one thing was, it was interesting, I decided to look at last year’s prediction episode that we did and see how many of those things came true. Unfortunately, a lot of the sadder things came true. But so picking one of them that we touched upon last year, but that we definitely saw become a significant trend, and I do believe this is a trend that will expand in 2025, is schools’ reaction reaction to the use of generative AI in the essay writing process and issues to combat it. Combating it primarily through the usage of, say, video essays or giving people, say, an extra video that they have to create or an analysis they have to create after they’ve been invited to interview. Off the top of my head, one top school that comes to mind is Sloan, MIT Sloan has always had, or not always, but for several years, has had this 60-second pre-prepared video where you introduce yourself. But now this year, they also introduced an additional spontaneous video. I think not simply videos that can be pre-prepared and edited and edited ad nauseam, but these spontaneous, these CuraTalent type platform videos where you don’t know in advance exactly what you’re getting, I think there will be more and more use of those going forward.

[00:02:15.950] – Maria

I would not be surprised if we see more schools adopting it and the schools that already have it, perhaps making it a larger component of the application, say maybe three or five questions instead of just one.

[00:02:27.040] – John

Totally agree. I think Caroline does, too, based on her recent article, Looking Ahead, Poets and Quants. Caroline?

[00:02:35.950] – Caroline

Yeah, I think those video questions are really useful for the schools, and often they’re quite short, right? So they’re often just one or two minutes recording. And what I’ve heard from the admissions teams at the schools is that they can glean quite a lot from that short little recording. And so in terms of evaluating a candidate and how much time they have to spend wading through lots of material, skills is actually quite efficient for them in gathering input. And yes, it’s something that the candidates can’t game in the system. And that’s also becoming more common at the undergraduate level as well. More schools are introducing video questions at the undergraduate level, probably partly, again, they’re concerned about candidates using AI for their essays, but also as an alternative to interviews. Of course, face-to-face interviews are very, very time consuming, and it’s a lot of work to organize, even if you have alumni volunteers doing it. They are a limited capacity, limited resource as well. Those video questions that Maria mentioned can be a great alternative to face-to-face or Zoom videos as well, interviews. So I think that’s going to be an ongoing trend that we will continue to see this year.

[00:04:01.800] – Caroline

Something that we’ve talked about recently was the recruitment statistics for schools. So a job placement, the stats coming out of the… Even the very top schools this past season haven’t been fantastic for the class of 2024. But I think that that’s probably a low watermark in the cycle. And as we’ve discussed, it is always cyclical, right? And I think that the market will pick up for graduates coming out in 2025. So I think a number of firms had over-recruited for some years and had made some layoffs. And I think they’ve made those adjustments now, and they’ll be looking to bring in a new batch of talent. So I think that firms like the tech firms and finance, I think that they will be recruiting greater numbers in 2025 than in 2024.

[00:04:58.180] – John

Yeah, totally agree. And I think AI and all of its implications for business is going to result in a significant upturn in consulting business. And the consulting firms, which obviously routinely grab the most MBA applicants, at least the top MBA applicants, are going to be very hungry for new talent that is knowledgeable about AI and its usage. The current crop of MBAs is the beneficiary of a lot of reform in curricula in and around generative AI. So I think that that’s going to be a big change this coming recruitment season. I’ve already heard from different employment people saying they’re seeing the early signs of that in terms of internships, signups, visits back to campus for the wine and cheese events to introduce themselves to MBA students. The other thing I think this year, which is very top of mind, is what will the Trump administration do? And there’s increasing anxiety among international students and applicants over everything from the F1 student visa to H1B work visas to OPT, optional practical training, which, of course, allows an international student in a STEM job to have three years of full-time employment in the US, and therefore, three shots at the lottery for an H1B visa.

[00:06:41.170] – John

I’m going to predict that despite all the concerns and all the worries and whatever effect the uncertainty has on the ROI for international candidates, that this is going to be much ado about nothing. I think it’s very hard to change. You’ve got dissenting voices all over the place. You’ve got Elon Musk yelling and arguing about H-1B visas and that the administration shouldn’t change them. Of course, you have Steve Banon now at war with Elon Musk, so who knows what’s going to happen there. But I don’t think they’re going to disturb the H-1B visa program. I don’t think they’re going to disturb the F-1 student visa program. I really very much doubt that they could eliminate OPT. In part because these are highly skilled people. The United States needs these folks. And even Trump has been issuing contradictory statements. At one point, he actually said that anyone who comes to the country and gets a graduate degree should be given an automatic H-1B visa, never mind having to apply for it. So I think that all the concerns will basically evaporate. There may be some initial tricky things like bans from certain countries. He imposed a ban, mainly on Muslim countries last time, and that included Nigeria, which is a new hotspot for MBA recruitment.

[00:08:13.110] – John

So we may see that. But in general, if you’re from India or China or any other African country other than Nigeria, I don’t think you need to worry all that much about restrictions on either getting in here and being a student or getting employment if you graduate with a STEM-designated degree. Caroline, you agree? You’re an internationalist. What do you think?

[00:08:38.940] – Caroline

Well, I think that would be sensible, but I think the one thing about Trump is predictable is that it’s unpredictable. So, who knows? I suspect that they will probably make more of a fanfare of going after illegal immigrants and deporting some of those people rather than targeting visas for people who are coming in for study and who have great degrees and looking to stay in the country. Also not recognizing the fact that much of the economy relies on those illegal immigrants. So we will see how that plays out and what impact that has. But I would think that probably that will be a bigger focus for the Trump administration. But who knows?

[00:09:24.190] – John

The other related issue is that some students felt unwelcome last time because of only anti-immigration rhetoric. And I would say the support and encouragement of racist and misogynist attitudes in the last administration, which led to the feeling that many internationals were unwelcome in the United States. And I just want to… For people who don’t know the United States, I want to let you know that every university campus, by and large, is very welcoming, very accepting, very diverse, and very inclusive, and that even if in some parts of the country, Trump is able to whip up some anti-immigrant fervor, you’re unlikely to encounter it in a top business school in the United States. The business call is value diversity, whether it’s geographic or racial or gender. They’re struggling to achieve more of it. People who come here are very much welcomed and included as if they were born here. I want to dispel this myth of this unwelcoming attitude in America because you have Trump will be in office. You’re not going to see much of that in a great university campus. Maria, what’s your next big prediction for the year?

[00:11:02.670] – Maria

I regret that this is one of my predictions, but one of my predictions is RIPESG. I’m a little concerned that we’ve seen even in the past few weeks since the election, major corporations are not simply scaling back, especially their DEI efforts. Maybe it should be RIPESG, DEI, Alphabetsoup, ABC, 1, 2, 3. But I do think that it’s one I don’t think if some of these companies started scaling back some of these efforts, but we’ve actually seen reports of companies eliminating these departments entirely when it comes to diversity and inclusion. I do believe that for sustainability as well, if a company’s heart has never truly been in the green/ecofriendly sustainability route, now I think there’s a feeling of, we don’t have to pretend anymore that we care about Mother Earth. Thank goodness. I do think that a lot of these initiatives initiatives are going to be scaled back. I do think that these initiatives are still important. We still need a planet to live on. There is still evidence that diverse groups do tend to outperform homogenous groups. It’s similar to portfolio management theory when you’ve got your retirement funds and you’re like, Oh, so how much should be in stocks and how much should be in bonds?

[00:12:23.410] – Maria

The usual advice is you want to be well diversified. Sometimes it’s more trendy to say that than at other times, but the reality is that the diversification is always a good thing, even when it’s not perhaps the most trendy thing that the pundits on the networks are talking about. I feel the same way about diversity and inclusion efforts in corporate America. I do think, though, I do think that it’s still important. It’s still part of a way to generate healthy ideas and strong returns. However, I do think that a lot of the efforts that the schools have been making to perhaps, for example, have a diversity and inclusion made or a lot of formal coursework around some of these topics. At least in the US, I do think this will start to not go away. It won’t go away, but I do think that it will be less of a focus, which, by the way, I do also think provides an excellent opportunity for the European programs to highlight that on their marketing as a point of diversification, I should say. Like, hey, these things, whether or not they’re trendy or not, they’re still actually truly important.

[00:13:30.290] – Maria

If you want to learn about how to incorporate these principles into your business going forward, come and get your MBA in Europe where we are going to be teaching you about these things because we are still taking them more seriously. I hope that I hope I’m wrong on this one, by the way. I hope that this position is wrong.

[00:13:48.560] – John

I think you are right. I buy into that, given this administration. But here’s what I would say to that. The companies that will likely abandon ESG efforts or diminish them are the companies you I probably didn’t want to go work for in the first place because truly progressive companies know that this is here to stay. It’s important. It’s important to the customers, it’s important to the environment, and it’s important to a new generation of people who are very much concerned about sustainability and equality. I think those companies are likely to preserve and understand that this is a temporary setback due to the election of an administration, and it’s only temporary, and that there will inevitably be a backlash against this administration and its policies. I think that really progressive companies will retain their interest and focus and attention on these issues. It’s the greenwashers, the greenwashers that are going to immediately abandon them and say goodbye. Of course, the brown nosers. We’ve a bunch of these folks out there. I’ll put up right out there, Metta, Mark Zuckerberg. He’s one of the biggest brown noses out there, along with Elon Musk and a bunch of these other tech pros, all of which will get their comeuppance, I guarantee you.

[00:15:15.130] – John

They will all get it. It’s just in due time. But that’s not a business education story. That’s a whole other story. But it’s going to happen. I guarantee it. Caroline?

[00:15:25.480] – Caroline

Yeah, I agree. I think there will be some differentiation in companies that where some of them will stick with their principles and their values, and some of them who are throwing them out the window because Maria said that it was always a bit half-hearted in any case. And so I think there’s going to be more of a divergence. And I think Apple came out and said that they are sticking with their DEI policies. So hopefully, some of the recruiters will take the longer term perspective. And also, it’s something that we see that candidates really care about. I don’t think that that is changing. I mean, the young people that we work with who are applying to business school, so many of them care very deeply about these values and want to have a positive impact on the world. And that’s a big driver for them in going to business school. So that also gives me hope that that is still a key value for the younger generation, for so many of the people that are heading off to these business schools. So I think that schools will have to try to find a line, but I think the student interest is still there.

[00:16:37.190] – John

Yeah. And what about the point that if you’re interested in sustainability, you’re better off at a European school because clearly the European schools are leaders in this area.

[00:16:48.980] – Caroline

Yeah. I mean, so INSEAD has really completely overhauled their curriculum and embedded sustainability throughout. And it’s key to the approach to other business schools like Oxford as well. But you also do have some of the US schools. So we’ve talked in the past about Ross and how they have embedded sustainability, and that’s been a key area for them for many years. I think that in Europe, sustainability will just continue to be more mainstream, and I think it has been, in any case, more mainstream, even under the Biden administration. I think sustainability and environmental concerns have been more mainstream for many years in Europe than they have in the US. I think that will just continue. There’ll be a bit more of a divergence for the next four years.

[00:17:41.720] – John

What about application volume to full-time MBA programs? There was a bounce back this past year. Do we expect that to be sustained? Do we expect a leveling off? Do we expect a decline? Maria?

[00:17:56.760] – Maria

I think between the less than stellar There are jobs reports that came out or that are coming out for the class of 2024, combined with trepidation around immigration policy, combined with trepidation around, well, will things like tariffs ultimately provide a, perhaps temporary, but a diminishment in the overall US economy. It’s argumental. One could say long-term, should we love them or hate them? I think even people who support tariffs acknowledge, at least one pundit I was listening to on CNBC the other day, would acknowledge that he’s pro-tariff, but even he said, Yeah, it makes things really painful in the short term. I suspect if I had to choose, I would think maybe applications might go down, but you never know. I mean, some other… If Trump comes out and says, If you study in the US and get a graduate degree, you get an automatic H-1B, the floodgates are going to open because then the cost-benefit analysis becomes a It’s a go-brainer. Then I do think that you will see an enormous increase. It all depends on which way the wind is blowing and which policies actually get implemented versus not. But if we take anti-immigrants or anti international sentiment and some of the other factors I mentioned, I think they might be down.

[00:19:22.380] – Maria

I do think there’s an absolute concern. I was talking to someone who in round one got into Carnegie Mellon Tepper, which, as you know, is an amazing program in the Carnegie Mellon Umbrella University as one of the leaders in AI and computer science. I think really a rising star. But they also got into a M7 type of school, and they were debating with me. I was like, Look, normally, I would say, Pick the M7 school, go with the higher quality if that’s what you’re going for. But this time I was like, Honestly, if you look at the recruiting, and I actually to someone who had made a similar decision a few years ago, a client of mine who had made a similar decision a few years ago, and that client said, Look, in any other year prior to 2024, I would have said, Hands down, take out the extra debt, go to that top five school or whatever, and just take the debt and go with it. But he said, Look, the recruiting environment in tech and so many other places is just so uncertain right now that I think if I were Five years ago, I made the decision I made, and I stand by it, but if I were making that decision today, I think I would take the scholarship at the- At Carnegie Mellon.

[00:20:38.750] – Maria

At Carnegie Mellon, just because it is- Over an M7. Yeah.

[00:20:42.050] – John

Where you pay full freight.

[00:20:43.440] – Maria

Full freight, essentially full freight. I think that these more challenging, if I were to be more diplomatic about it, which is hard for me to do, but these more challenging recruitment numbers, it does start to bring the costs of the program into a much sharper focus than might have been in the past. If those things continue and if the ROI just isn’t an obvious slam dunk argument, then I think things will go down. However, H-1B is for everyone. Look out. It’s going to be an avalanche.

[00:21:17.520] – John

Caroline, putting your fingers into the wind. Which way is a wind blowing for you on this?

[00:21:23.150] – Caroline

Yeah, well, who knows? But maybe a little bit more optimistic than Maria. I feel like maybe applications will be steady this year. My best guess is we won’t see any big upswing or any big downturn. So my best guess is probably numbers not unsimilar to last year.

[00:21:42.570] – John

Right. But flat, right?

[00:21:44.250] – Caroline

Yes. Yeah.

[00:21:45.850] – John

I think, yeah, I don’t see another increase. I think both of you are right. It’s going to be flat or slightly down, and it could be more than slightly down, depending on what the Trump administration does early on, which, of course, you’ve already heard, I’m predicting they’ll do nothing because they have so many other fights that they’re going to be imbroiled and embedded in in the way that’s going to drag them down. The truth is, the majorities in the House and the Senate are so slim and their party is so dysfunctional that I don’t think you’re going to be able to ram very much through. That doesn’t mean that Trump himself, through executive orders, won’t create a good deal of havoc. I’m sure that is a certainty. But hopefully the havoc won’t involve hurting what is one of the jewels of America, it’s higher education system for sure. I also think in this coming year, we’re going to see continued interest in climate change and sustainability. The fires in LA, as tragic as they have been, I think are going to reignite and major, major concern and change a lot of points of view on the dangers of climate change.

[00:23:08.680] – John

I think, if anything, you’re going to see US schools double down on sustainability and create more degrees in this area, probably joint degrees with their Environmental Studies departments and colleges at the universities. I think this is going to become an even bigger part of the business education landscape than it already has been in the past five years. The other thing is, sadly, there’s no shortage of these natural disasters that are popping up everywhere. Whether there are floods, hurricanes, tornado, wildfires, the world seems filled with disasters, and much of it can be traced to our inability to do anything about the climate and take the measures that are needed to diminish the effects of fossil fuels. You agree with that, Maria?

[00:24:13.700] – Maria

Like I said, I hope you’re right. I hope I’m wrong about the ESG stuff. Look, I’m sitting in one of the cities that’s on fire. I live in Los Angeles. Part of why many of us moved to California in in the first place is because we love the politics here of diversity inclusion, and we love that it is such a sustainable place, and that this is the leader for the nation of sometimes the most cutting-edge regulations around things like fuel economy for vehicles and pollution, curtailing pollution, et cetera. Those of us who live in California are already, many of us, are already on the side of sustainability, and then seeing firsthand I could see the smoke last week billowing from the windows of the We work where I work across town. I hope you’re right. I’ll be the first to bring up my pompoms and cheerleaders if it’s true.

[00:25:15.870] – John

Do we have any more predictions? Caroline, I think there are a couple more in your essay online.

[00:25:21.880] – Caroline

Well, so this year we saw some more programs shifting to shorter formats or hybrid formats, and I think that will be an ongoing growing trend, especially among the mid-tier programs. So I think for people who want to invest the time, effort, and finances in a full-time two-year program, if they’re going to do that, it’s going to be at one of the top schools, and otherwise they may be more tempted to take a hybrid program or an online program or a shorter program. So there are great options now out there for part-time MBA MBAs, wonderful formats for hybrid MBAs. Online MBAs have really grown and proven themselves. So I think that it will be harder for some of the mid-tier schools to sustain full-time two-year programs.

[00:26:17.180] – John

Yeah, there’s going to be a lot more creativity focused on delivery methods. I think Indiana Kelly this past year did their new Flex MBA, which basically allows a student enter their in-person MBA program full-time in the first year and then take all of the second-year courses online or decide, guess what, to just stay and do it all in-person. But that flexibility, I think we’re going to see a lot more of in part because of the cost. Obviously, if you can do the second piece online, you’d have the benefit of a full-time in-person program in the first year when it’s most intense and real strong bonds are formed. Then you don’t lose your opportunity cost in the second because you can become fully employed and earn your degree on the second year. Probably MBA employers would give you credit for that. I don’t think they would discount the fact that when they hire you, you don’t have an MBA, they know you’re in the program. I think they would reward you for it and they would pay you and give you a position that they would have done after the completion of an MBA program. I think we’re going to see more tinkering with delivery methods.

[00:27:31.820] – John

More schools are going to go for stackable degrees, which will allow you to earn credit through these certificates of three courses or even a single course, and then apply it to the degree if you decide to move on and do the degree. I want to see more of that because one of the big stories in business education in the past 10 years is a great flexibility schools have demonstrated in allowing people to many different options to take a degree, whether it be an MBA or a special team master’s degree in business. No doubt we will see more of that. A lot of innovation there in the executive MBA field, in fact, where the old standard, every other weekend, you show up on Friday, you stay Friday night, you stay Saturday, Sunday morning, you leave. That is almost a rare thing today because of the creativity involved in changing that format in many different ways including with online, including with week-long immersions and things like that. I think we’ll just see more and more and more of it. Which leads me to this question. We have said the full-time MBA program is a mature product. Many schools have discontinued it.

[00:28:49.570] – John

Enrollments at many other schools are down. Many schools see it as a lost leader. They’re not making money on it. They actually lose money on their full-time MBA programs, and they keep them open largely because of US news and the ranking that they think. They get a US news ranking, it cast a positive glow over all their programs, so they’re willing to actually subsidize the full-time MBA program and take in small cohorts to get that ranking. Do we see any turnaround in the full-time MBA market? Do we assume that it’s going to stay flat or that it will continue to decline? Caroline?

[00:29:29.960] – Caroline

Well, I think that it will continue to be strong for the top schools. I don’t see any upcoming decline in interest to go to one of the top 2025 programs. But I think at that mid-tier level, that’s going to be more challenging. I think either they will have to make that commitment, as you said, John, to take it as a loss leader or reconsider the format.

[00:29:56.440] – John

If you’re eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, the premium ice cream, you’re But if you go for the generic Safeway ice cream, you might be in trouble if you’re a business educator. Upscale always, not always, but oftentimes is more resistant to downward pressure because obviously there are a lot of benefits to being upscale, prestige, a status item that opens doors that may be other schools because of their brands cannot. Maria, what are you I agree with Caroline.

[00:30:31.790] – Maria

I think the term would be price in elasticity. It means that- You did learn something at Harvard, didn’t you? I actually learned that in undergrad. Crops to Econ, whatever. Whatever it was. But yeah, this idea, the luxury product is always able to command a premium in the market. I think that we can anticipate that that will not change. However, I do think that at the lower levels, if a school is unable to show that value for money, that ROI, that, yes, it totally is worth it for you to come to our two-year in-person program because here’s what’s waiting for you on the other side. If they can’t show that, then I do think that there’s going to be perhaps some more schools in those lower tiers having to close. If I were those schools, I think one thing that maybe they could do, I’m sure they’re doing this already, but really lean on their alumni community to hire the graduates into compelling and interesting and well-paid positions and say to the graduates, Look, even though you graduated 15, 20, 30 years ago, we all suffer. If our school closes down, you worked so hard to get this degree and to be part of this community.

[00:31:47.840] – Maria

But if the school closes down, that cachet that you have had will now also disappear. It’s actually in every one of the community’s best interests for the recent graduates to do well. This isn’t just a, Well, It’s the young kids problem, and I already got my… I’m on my career, so no worries. If I were an MBA program that is, especially one that is struggling, I would really rally the troops in the alumni community and point out to them that, what is it? If the opposite of a rising tide lifts all boats, a sinking tide sinks all boats, a lower tide sinks all boats. Anyway, I would point that out to them and maybe try to motivate them to open up their companies and their pocketbooks and their networks so that that ROI does continue as strong as it has been for decades.

[00:32:34.910] – John

To spend more money on alumni relations and making sure you know where your alumni are, you’re tracking them, they feel embraced by you, they feel welcome, they want to contribute They want to help your current students and graduates. I think you’re right there. That becomes an increasingly important priority for a business school dean to invest more money in alumni relations. I am shocked at some fairly good schools that do a poor job tracking where their alumni are and reaching out to them and enlisting them in helping the school one way or the another. Well, there you have it. That’s 2025 in a nutshell by my two experts who know all and maybe a few for me. Hey, for all of you out there, I hope 2025 is a good, safe, healthy, and prosperous year for you. One One thing that should come through loud and clear is that we are all unabashed supporters of business education. We believe in it. We believe in the ROI attached to it. Whether it’s an MBA, an executive MBA, especially Master’s in business analytics or AI today or sustainability, we think these things have great value and will serve you well.

[00:33:54.360] – John

I hope you get that message through all of our predictions for this year. Hey, thanks for listening. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants.

Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
2025 Predictions For Business Education
Maria |
January 18, 2025

Full Episode Transcript:

John Byrne: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast. We want to talk about international students. Schools are now reporting that a good number of their international recruits who were admitted to programs this fall haven’t been able to show up or have changed their mind.

At the University of Illinois, the school, the Gies College of Businesses, lost about 200 international students in its Master of Finance and Master of Business Analytics programs causing a $7 million hit. To their budget at UC Davis Graduate School of Management, 40 students didn’t show up who were admitted, and that’s resulting in two and a half to $3 million hit on their budget this year.

Both of these things have occurred before the announcement of a hundred thousand dollars tax on H one B Visa. Which will make it more difficult for many employers [00:01:00] to hire international students and keep them in the US for an extended period of time. And we’re getting the new class reports of the, of the new cohorts of students who’ve arrived on campus in the fall of this year.

And Carnegie Mellon is. Down 30% for their international cohort over the past two years. UCLA Anderson School is down 25% over the past two years, and schools are preparing for the worst because of the H one B Visa decision which could affect future employment. Caroline and Maria, my cohosts are in the market helping people get into the best schools in the world.

And Caroline, what do you think?

Caroline Diarte-Edwards: Yeah, definitely seeing concern among international candidates and people holding off on applying for the US schools. So it’s really a shame. I think the international schools, particularly the schools like Inea and London Business School and the other top.[00:02:00]

International European programs will benefit, they’ll get talent that might otherwise have come to the us, which is great for those schools. And I’m very fond of those schools, but it is sad as from the US perspective for sure. On the other hand, you could also take the perspective that.

If you do have options for your career post MBA that don’t require that you absolutely have to stay in the US as an international candidate, then now could be a very good time to apply, right? Because definitely application volume will be down and schools will be perhaps. More open to candidates that might otherwise have been waitlisted or rejected in the past.

For some candidates, this is actually a fantastic opportunity to get into a top school, but from, for, at least from the school’s perspective, it is a shame because, I’ve experienced firsthand the value of a very internationally diverse classroom and the value that brings with a [00:03:00] diversity of perspectives that enriches the learning experience so much for everybody.

Enriches the debate and bring so much to the academic experience as well as the the network and the social experience. So it’s everybody’s loss, right?

John Byrne: Very true.

Caroline Diarte-Edwards: And I think it’s a very myopic perspective that the US government takes that. There needs to be a more of a refocus at US educational institutions on the domestic market because those international applicants bring a lot to the domestic students in enriching their learning and enriching their network.

Of course bring a huge value to the US economy when they stay. So there are very impressive statistics on the value of immigrants to the US economy. So Indian immigrants, for example, are only about one and a half percent of the US population, but they have founded to date about 8% of all the tech startups in the us.[00:04:00]

And for sure some of that top talent from India will now not come to the us. They will go to perhaps they will stay at the great schools that we’ve talked about in India, or they will go to other international schools. So for sure it will be a loss to the us learning experience and to the US economy.

John Byrne: Maria, you run applicant lab which is a platform that helps applicants get into highly selective schools. And many of the people who use your product are international students. What are you seeing?

Maria Wich-Vila: Everything Caroline is saying concern is think a delicate way to put it.

And I think it’s because as the more affordable provider in the market, I tend to get the applicants who maybe they don’t have the family business to fall back on. Maybe they don’t have, large sources of income elsewhere in their lives. And so I think the concern is very real and very merited, right?

I can’t. In good faith, tell someone, if they [00:05:00] really start, sit down and do the math and start to do, run the numbers, if they just assume that things are going to stay as is. And this is the big caveat that I’m, I want to get to in a second, but if we assume that things stay as is and if someone really is from a lower income tier from Nepal or India or some of the other countries that I work with, yeah, maybe sit down and do that math and think about, okay, if I do have to come back to Nepal afterwards, how will I pay back that loan? There, there is though some good news. Even if we assume that things stay status quo, which I hope, and I’m pretty, I’m I think it’s, I’m cautiously optimistic that they won’t.

But there are other markets as well. So I’ve had a lot of candidates, or former clients, I should say, graduate from business school, not be able to get jobs in certain in countries and then. Being able to move to Dubai. Dubai for some reason, has started attracting a ton of candidates, primarily from South Asia but from other parts of the world who might be having trouble getting some of those work permits.

You could do worse than live in, Dubai’s not perfect, but [00:06:00] you could also do worse than live in Dubai, right? The salaries are pretty high. The standard of living, if you have a white collar job there is, it’s not the worst outcome. So it’s not I can’t stay in the us. That’s it.

There’s no other it’s not a binary of, it’s either the US or it’s nothing. And then I think the second point is I, we’ve just seen. So many things, let’s take something from a different facet of policy. The tariffs, right? The tariffs were announced and the markets went crazy, and in the months that have followed, oh, actually, here’s the tariff, but this one company, their products aren’t gonna be subject to the tariff.

And then there’s this other company that maybe they’re not gonna have to pay the same tariff. And I can’t help but wonder if some of these. Some of these very large companies that are getting tariff exemptions, their ability to lobby for. The H one B, maybe lowering of the H one B fee. If they’ve been able to successfully lobby tariffs, they might be success, able to successfully lobby against these, true, these [00:07:00] visa fees.

And a lot of these big companies, these big tech companies are in fact some of the largest employers of post MBA talent in the us. So I am cautiously optimistic that. This could be, hopefully right now it’s the big, the flash and storm and the, the making, the big splash, right?

Everything’s about showmanship and making the big splash. And maybe in the aftermath of the storm, that initial PR media storm, maybe the reality will start to calm down a little bit. Yeah, the other good news is that if you’re applying now, that means you would enroll in 2026. You would, if it, if you’re talking about the US two year program, you would graduate in 2028.

At that point, who knows what might happen. I like to think that what we have seen so far in terms of the Visa policies, hopefully. Roughly the floor about as bad as it can get. I think if they start implementing a similar thing to OPT, that could be the same thing. But if we just assume that okay, right now what’s been announced is that these foreign students all have to do, you can’t stay here, you have to [00:08:00] go someplace else.

It, we assume that’s like the initial negotiating position. It’s just gonna chip, it’s just gonna get, it’s got nowhere else to go. It’s even worse. So we’ve, we now have two and a half years roughly until. People applying now would have to really implement, or be really affected by this in a.

In a pragmatic and tangible way. And so that’s why I’m hoping that the little chipping away and the chipping away things will start to get a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better like we’ve seen with other facets of policy. Didn’t like a bunch of the CDC employees that were all fired under Doge didn’t more than half of them I think were recently rehired.

Yes. Back again true. Whatever you think of the policy, it seems like some of the policies are. Being slowly walked back. And so I think if you. If you’ve got an adventurous spirit, I, and by the way, if you apply now, sorry. I know I keep going, but I like, if you apply now, let’s say you get accepted, you don’t have to show up until August of 2026.

So that will give you [00:09:00] time, like definitely. Apply now and see what happens between now and August of 2026 to make the decision to not apply now, because you’re rightfully scared. I’m not blaming anyone, but to not apply now, maybe by maybe six months from now he’ll be like, ha, just kidding. I’m doubling the number of H one Bs.

Yeah, we have no idea what’s gonna happen. So things are So give yourself that optionality.

John Byrne: Yeah. And things are so uncertain that could very well happen because, one day at tariffs are on one country the next day they’re not one day they’re pausing the ab the interviews for student visas, the.

Say they’re not there’s litigation all over the place, challenging many of the presidential actions that have been taken that have put them in limbo despite all the headlines. So it’s, it, there’s more uncertainty than there is certainty about any of these things. And as you point out, you, if you [00:10:00] did apply this year, the odds are gonna be in your favor if you’re an international student, frankly, because there is no question.

That international applicant volume will be down at all the top schools in the us, which means that to maintain some semblance of a global class. Admission directors are going to have to dig a little bit deeper into their international applicant pools to select candidates. In a way, if you play the long term and in the BA, in, in many graduate degrees or long term bet, I think you’re gonna be.

Oddly better off. And it may even be that the schools will really even go out of their way to help international students in ways that they haven’t in the past because of these actions in Washington. And what do I mean by that? Just a more welcoming reception than the already welcoming reception you would get hiring immigration lawyers and people that can help you.

If in fact there is a [00:11:00] challenge of one kind or another. I think the takeaway is not to be discouraged and throw up your hands to say, ah, I always dreamed of coming to the United States and getting an MBA or a graduate degree in business. Use this as an opportunity to actually increase your odds of getting into a better school with the understanding that when you get out there, probably most likely be an administration change and a change in these policies if they even get completely adopted as Maria points out.

Wouldn’t you think that’s the best strategy, Caroline?

Caroline Diarte-Edwards: Yes, I agree. I think that it’s good to take a longer term perspective because it is such a long timeline, right? If you’re applying to a top two year program as you say, you’re gonna be coming out of the program at the end of the Trump presidency and things may look very different.

And Maria rightly points out that. Everything is very volatile, right? So one thing gets announced and the next week it [00:12:00] gets rolled back, right? They’ve done so many things where they’ve realized, oh, actually that was a really bad idea after all. So

They’ve changed things. So things may not it might, may not turn out to be as bad as we fear.

And then I would also encourage candidates. To apply to the US schools, but why not hedge your bets and apply to an international program as well? Agreed in a time of uncertainty. As Maria said, create options for yourself. And so I would encourage candidates to apply to the top US programs, but also apply to top international programs as well and see what offers you get.

And then you can make a decision. As Maria said, it will be closer to the time when you would be starting the program and there may be more clarity about the situation in the US and what your options are in international markets as well. So I think that given the current circumstances, a good strategy is to hedge your bets and apply more widely than you might [00:13:00] have otherwise done.

John Byrne: Plan Bs are good. Let me just say business schools in the US have for years advised international students that those should have a plan B in the event that they can’t get with a US company. The other thing to, to keep in mind incidentally, in terms of MBA employment is that most of the companies.

That basically employ the lion’s share of MBAs are all global concerns. So you can be hired here and if there’s any challenge in getting you employed here in the us you can simply start in an office outside the United States with a hope of coming back when things clear up. So that is also another important thing to keep in mind.

And I’ll just say this. Despite whatever messaging you’re reading in your local newspapers or on your streaming platforms or television stations about how immigrants may not be welcome in the us that’s not true at all. Universities are diverse places. Welcoming. [00:14:00] Embracing loving the diversity of their students and particularly those from different cultures and backgrounds that enrich the educational experience.

There is no Dean that I’ve ever encountered who said they want fewer international students. It’s the exact opposite. They’re putting out message after message, telling people that they’re still welcome and wanted. Needed in the classroom. Now, Maria, in the past we’ve seen applicants who try to say, okay, can I time my application and my enrollment in a program to what I think might be the next recession?

And we know that in recessions applications go way. In part because some people lose the opportunity to gain advancement in a recession. Some people get unemployed. Some people just realize, hey, a recession is a good time to take a time out and get a new educational credential, which may allow me to do things I otherwise can’t do.[00:15:00]

But it’s almost impossible to time a recession and I’m imagining it’s impossible to time what’s going on here now.

Maria Wich-Vila: Yeah. I mean if we could all time, when everyone’s been talking about a stock market crash that to, not to bring another disparate topic in, but like everyone’s been talking about, it’s a bubble.

It’s a bubble. I’ve been hearing ’cause a bubble for a year and a half. True. Yeah, you can’t time or ask, for example, ask the people who enrolled in business school, like who got into business school in 2020. Like there’s always gonna be these external shocks. We can try to predict a recession, but who knows if it’s going to happen?

Who knows if there’s going to be some sort of virus or the opposite of a virus. Maybe there’ll be a virus that helps us all live healthily forever. Who knows? There’s so much uncertainty out there that who knows what to do. So I think. I think yeah, have that optionality. I think go ahead and apply.

Now if there is a recession though, which everyone seems to think is coming at some point, at that point, it’s going to be harder to get accepted. And as Caroline has pointed out, so rightfully, if other international, high quality international students are [00:16:00] spooked by the current H one B talk, now is your chance.

International candidate. Jump in there, shoot your shot like you might be able to get into a school, assuming of course that you’re qualified, but. You might have a lot less competition now than you normally will, so this could be a golden opportunity for you. And one final as one thing that I wanted to point out was that I was thinking, okay, Maria, let’s say that, you just said that maybe there’s gonna be walk back of some of these and there’s gonna be, maybe he’s gonna change.

But even if there isn’t a change, right? Let’s think about this. The companies themselves are gonna have, and you started to alluded to this John, when you mentioned that a lot of them are global concerns. They’re gonna have now a two year window in which to say. Okay. We know that we’re not gonna keep these people in the states, so let’s open a huge office in Vancouver.

Let’s open a brand, an enormous new office in Toronto. Whatever that is. Because I was thinking back to over the summer when it looked like maybe a bunch of international students wouldn’t be able to get any student visa at all. And I know that some of the business schools we’re looking [00:17:00] at, do we rent out some space in Toronto and do Zoom classes?

We do a hybrid. What we did during COVID. I’ve heard that. I think Rice, I was actually having dinner last night with a dear friend who was, say he’s from Texas and he was saying that Rice has some sort of a campus in Paris and that they are leaning really heavily on their global campuses around the world to still be able to service these students who had gotten accepted.

So things like that, like if. Even if our sort of my very cautious and perhaps irrational optimism turns out to not be true, let’s say the things get, the OPT is banished and all, everyone is banished and it’s the worst case scenario. Again, there’s gonna be two and a half years for these companies. To quickly find, okay, fine, we’re gonna open up an office in Mexico City and we’re gonna pay people really well and we’re gonna what?

Whatever that is. ’cause they’re, the companies are still gonna want the talent, right? Just because the political administration doesn’t want the global talent in the country. That doesn’t mean that the country’s employers don’t want that talent. They [00:18:00] want that talent, they want that intellect, they want that energy and that drive to make their companies better and to make more money.

So they have a very strong incentive to not only be lobbying for these. Visa changes to go away, but if they don’t go away, they have a very strong incentive to come up with some way to provide, to provide those incomes and to provide those perks and some sort of a compromise type of situation.

So again I think if you’re applying now, if you’re going in with eyes wide open, shoot your shot. That’s my, I would absolutely tell people to to try that.

John Byrne: Yeah, I totally agree. And, generally this is my rule of thumb and Maria and Caroline, you may or may not agree with this, at the top MBA programs, they’re so selective that the people who apply to them generally are very self-selecting group.

So I always say that roughly 80% of the school’s applicant pool. Is qualified to actually get accepted, get in, do [00:19:00] well, and land a good job. And yet we know that at Stanford, the acceptance rate is 6%, that Harvard is 12 Wharton and Columbia is, a little under 20 or so. So there are a lot of really good candidates who aren’t getting in.

Which leads me to this, if you’re an international student who thinks okay, so these US schools just might dip a little more into the domestic pool to make up for the offset of international candidates. As it turns out, there is a little notice. Clause in the big beautiful tax bill that was passed here under Trump that places severe limits on federal loans for graduate students.

Now, the current grad plus loan program allows students to borrow up to the cost of their graduate programs. That comes to an end in July of next year. After that, grad students borrowing will literally be capped at [00:20:00] 20,500 bucks a year with a lifetime graduate school loan limit of a hundred thousand. That’s a big deal because, at the top MBA programs it’s not on typical.

For a student to borrow over a hundred thousand dollars easily. And so these caps are also going to affect domestic enrollment. So again, that, that contributes to your ability as an international candidate to get in both. The likely decline in competition not only from internationals but also from domestic students here, interestingly enough, that Bill, which passed has different limits for a professional graduate degree, but the bill basically says that only med school and law school qualify as professional degrees and not business school.

That’s another wacky thing that’s happened that will affect. Domestic enrollment as well. So I, I side with Maria and [00:21:00] Caroline to me the advice is, look long term. Don’t be affected overly affected by the change in policies in the US or the climate here. Understand that if you apply now and you matriculate next year and you graduate in two years after that you’re gonna be facing probably a very different environment.

Also understand the odds are in your in your favor, in getting into a highly selective, really good program in this coming year. And know that, while people too often calculate the value of an MBA based on short term variables, like what’s my starting salary gonna be? What is my sign-on bonus?

The truth is the MBA has enduring value over your lifetime. So it rewards you over your entire career and not just for the first or second years. And you can’t go wrong by graduating into a network of helpful and supportive people from a great school and [00:22:00] receiving a great education. So I think bottom line, we’re telling you apply.

Don’t get convinced by your colleagues or anyone else that this is a bad time to come to the us. Opportunity. Some of the best opportunity come comes when people perceive there to be significant challenges. And I think this is really true with business school. We hope we convinced you to come and try and hedge your batts too, as Caroline noted.

I think that’s really super important to have a plan B when you apply and toss a bunch of apps to the European schools which have excellent superb world class MBA programs and real international cohorts. 90% of the students not from the countries where the schools reside. Toss a bunch of them in your mix for your target schools to give you these different options at the end of the day.

This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Thanks for listening.

Maria

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