A Checklist For Round 1 MBA Applicants + What To Expect On Campus This Fall
Maria |
August 24, 2021

With Round 1 deadlines approaching and everyone’s racing to get applications completed, what are the things that you should make sure you’re doing before you hit the submit button? 

Listen in and find out what’s on Maria and Caroline’s checklist for this year’s round 1 application and what advice they give to applicants who are preparing their applications so they aren’t stressing at the last minute. 

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.630] – John

Well, hello, everyone. Welcome back to Business Casual, our weekly podcast. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants with my co host Maria Wich Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. Caroline of course is the former director of Admissions at INSEAD and a co founder of Fortuna Admissions, as well as a worldwide traveler just back from a very big and exciting trip in Turkey and Greece, and I don’t know where else. Maria, of course, is the founder of ApplicantLab and a homebody, taking care of her family in Los Angeles and wishing she could travel the world.

 

[00:00:50.030] – Maria

Yeah, absolutely. Super jealous.

 

[00:00:53.150] – John

And if you missed us last week, it’s my fault. I did an eight day cross-country trip with my wife, my dog, and her cat in our SUV from California to Virginia, where I am moving. So it was a terrific trip. Really enjoyed it. Highlight, definitely. Zion National Park, where we took a really wonderful hike with our dog one morning with smooth sailing all the way. Not much traffic across the country, which kind of surprised me given the fact that everyone’s been locked up and I thought they’d be many more people traveling on the highways. And it really wasn’t true. We have no traffic whatsoever, except, of course, to get out of the Bay Area and up to Tahoe. That was the only traffic we hit. Okay, so the big thing right now, I think, for anyone who’s interested in business education is number one, the return to class. Many MBA cohorts have begun the journey toward an MBA in this past week or two through orientation programs. And the story in general is, despite the worry over the Delta variant, most schools in the US at least are going to have face to face classes this fall, at least to start, they will require in most cases that you be fully vaccinated and prove it.

 

[00:02:21.100] – John

You will probably have to wear a mask every time you’re on campus and in class, and you probably will be tested for COVID every week. But for now, everyone’s getting back to if you want to call that normal, they’re getting back to that, which is actually a good sign. And of course, I would imagine that by the end of the year, many students might end up with boosters because that’s the way it looks to be going. And then, of course, the other big news is that in two weeks, around one, application deadlines for the class of 2023 begin to basically fall like dominoes. While there are some schools that have application deadlines before September 8, Oxford has around one deadline of September 1, and Duke has an early action deadline of September 2. Harvard and Wharton are the first big ones for Round 1 September 8. Cornell is in on that date with an early action deadline as well as the round one for the one year MBA. The next day is Stanford. The next day is London Business School. September 13, Cambridge the 14th, Yale the 15th, Northwestern Kellogg and NYU Stern, and then they just sort of blow up like that.

 

[00:03:41.490] – John

Michigan Ross on September 20, Chicago Booth on the 23rd, Berkeley on the 23rd as well, along with Emery and Dartmouth on the 20th, along with Georgetown and MIT right after that on the 28th. So with those deadlines that really start to come fast and furious in two weeks, I wanted to ask both my cohosts, what’s the checklist? What are the things that you should make sure you’re doing before you hit the submit button? Maria, what’s your checklist for your applicants?

 

[00:04:15.290] – Maria

Well, I think the number one first thing people need to do is to log into the application forms themselves and go through page by page and start filling them out. I think sometimes applicants might Google, okay, what are the application essays I need to write, and they spend so much time focus on the essays, and then when they go to login and hit submit, it’s kind of this shocking and dismissing experience of, oh, my gosh, there’s a hundred little forms in here that I need to fill out. And it’s not just like your name and your address. It’s all sorts of things, like a little blurb about post MBA goals or there’s even sometimes schools have many essays that they don’t formally publish on their essays page that are hidden inside the application form. So Berkeley Haas this year snuck one in a 250 word essay, I believe, on diversity and inclusion. It’s inside the application form. 250 words is like a mini essay, and yet it’s not on there. At least as of the other day, it was not on their main site. So if you don’t log into that application form early, you’re not even going to know until you log in.

 

[00:05:16.440] – Maria

And let’s say you’ve got a few hours to go before the deadline, which I don’t recommend. You should try to submit a day or two before, but human nature and human nature. And so then you’re like, oh, my gosh, there’s so much extra stuff I have to fill in. So I would say if you’re looking for, like a mental break from your essay writing and editing, jump into those application forms, fill out all those little boxes first so that way you can focus. There are no negative surprises, and you can focus on other things.

 

[00:05:41.850] – John

That’s a great idea. And boy sneaky of Berkeley to stick that 250 word mini essay into the application. And I bet you there are a lot of little surprises like that in every little application that you can find. Caroline, what comes to mind on top of your checklist?

 

[00:06:02.070] – Caroline

Yeah, definitely work on the application form earlier rather than later. And I have to say that when I was reviewing applications at it yet you would often see too frequently where to get applications, where the candidates obviously spent a lot of time, as Maria said, fine tuning their essays and then sort of thrown together the application form the night before. And it’s very apparent to the file reader, and it just looks sloppy. And there are lots of things to check, and it may look fairly straightforward, but people do make mistakes. You need to, for example, cross check the data on your application form or the dates that you’ve got there that that cross checks with what you’ve got on your resume. And remember that it’s often the application form that the file reader will look at first. So that’s really important to sort of setting the stage for your application as a whole. And I often advise candidates to start working on the application form right at the start of the process, even alongside the essays or sometimes even before the essays, because it’s important to understand what is it that they’re going to see it first and then they’re going to turn to your essays.

 

[00:07:13.210] – Caroline

Right. So if you’ve worked on things the other way around, then you might be missing some important context that is going to be very present in their minds as they’ve looked at the application form first. So it’s really important to pay a lot of attention to that and then otherwise, at this stage, hopefully, you’ve got most of your materials together by now. So proofreading is really important and get a fresh set of eyes, because when you’ve been working on this for so long, as many applicants have, it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees. And you can miss some silly mistakes because you’ve looked at it so many times and not so obvious to you anymore. And someone else that will jump out to a fresh set of eyes and then otherwise recommenders. You should be checking in with your recommenders and making sure that they’re on track to submit on time. Hopefully you’ve already had several discussions with them. You’ve briefed them on the process, you’ve had some good discussions about what they’re going to say about you, and perhaps they will have drafted that and be ready to hit submit as well.

 

[00:08:22.030] – Caroline

But that’s also an area where applicants do come unstuck at the time of deadlines. You cannot control the candidate when your recommended is going to dedicate some time and actually get the work done and hit submit. So you need to be checking in with them constantly and sort of managing upwards to make sure that they are on track with their part of the picture.

 

[00:08:46.010] – John

Do schools generally give a little bit of a Grace period for recommendation letters if they don’t come in right on the deadline time, or how does it generally work?

 

[00:08:56.020] – Caroline

Yeah, in my experience, they will, but it creates a lot of stress for the candidate. Right. So it doesn’t necessarily create a good impression with the school. But the schools understand that it’s not entirely under your control. Most schools will give you a few days grace, but you don’t really want to be in that position if you can at all avoid it.

 

[00:09:16.860] – John

Exactly. And I want to come back to what Maria said. Don’t wait until this specific time or five minutes before this specific time for the actual deadline because you never know what can happen. There could be some sort of glitch, there’s a thunderstorm, you lost your Internet connection, there’s any number of calamities that could occur, and it could be totally unexpected and can blow your shot. So it is wise, isn’t it, to try to submit a day or two before the actual specific hour deadline that every school post on its website. Right.

 

[00:09:56.450] – Caroline

And that takes some of the stress, hopefully out of the process as well.

 

[00:10:00.210] – John

Yeah, exactly. I wonder how many people actually wait to that. Like how many people actually file their application within 1 hour of the actual deadline. I would bet a pretty big chunk of people do that more than it should be. Yeah, exactly.

 

[00:10:18.830] – Maria

I mean, in the past, sometimes there would be times where the application system would go down just from an overwhelming amount of traffic in that last minute. I think the school I mean, that was several years ago. So hopefully now with advances in cloud computing and whatever, that’s not such a problem. But still.

 

[00:10:35.090] 

Yikes.

 

[00:10:36.350] – John

Yeah. Even if our website, we would produce the ranking and our site would go down because too many people would come in and want to read it immediately. And I’m sure that was true at many business schools in the early days. Now that’s a rare occurrence, but still, you can never tell. You just don’t know. And with all the hacking and all the other kind of crazy things that go on in the Internet, I think the earlier the better, no matter what. Now, any other things on the checklist that may be even less obvious than what we’ve talked about?

 

[00:11:09.690] – Caroline

Well, I would say, as Maria had mentioned, it’s good to go back to the school website and go through the form and also double check all the requirements because as Maria said, it may have maybe a few months since you actually went through and looked at double checking the deadlines, all of the documentation you need to provide. And it does vary a bit by school. So just go back to those school websites and just double check that you’ve got everything ready and you’ve got all your Ducks in a row and you haven’t accidentally mistaken one deadline for another or made any errors that could affect you at the last minute.

 

[00:11:51.140] – John

It’s always good to double check that one digit off on the standardized test score code for the school could throw your application into a chaotic place, right?

 

[00:12:04.320] – Caroline

Yes. It’s good to double check everything given the States here. And then I would say once you’ve got most of your materials ready, then I would start thinking about interviews. Right. And preparing yourself for that hoping that you will get to the interview stage and start thinking about the questions that you could get and sort of mentally preparing yourself for that process.

 

[00:12:32.810] – John

Right. Exactly. Now, many applicants sort of have a two tier strategy. You typically might apply to the schools you really want to get into in round one, and then you might apply to your second set of schools in round two. And I wonder from both of you, what do you think about that strategy? Number one and number two, when you actually begin your round two applications, should you be incredibly optimistic that you’re going to get into Harvard, Stanford, London or INSEAD in round one and wait, essentially to get rejected before you start your round two applications, or should there be some overlap? What do both of you suggest?

 

[00:13:19.310] – Caroline

Go ahead.

 

[00:13:20.690] – Maria

Thanks. I think we should apply to your top choices first, because I think sometimes people think, well, I’m going to apply to some slightly schools that I’m not quite as excited about just to try to get that admission in hand for round one. And then if I do, well, then I’ll shoot for the stars in round two. But the problem is that the deposit deadlines for round one are normally around February, and you’re not even going to know if you’ve got an interview invites at some of the other schools until just that point or perhaps even after. And so every year I hear people say things like, well, can I just ask them to delay the deposit deadline until after I hear back from my first call? I’m like, no, I don’t know. Perhaps I’m being a little cynical, but I feel like there’s a reason why the deposit deadline is before the notification deadlines for the other schools. They want to know for sure, like, okay, put your money where your mouth is. You said in your essay that we are your first choice because that’s what everyone does, even if it’s not your first choice.

 

[00:14:21.010] – Maria

And so great. Now pony up the money. For some candidates, if you’re an investment banker, the deposits say $2,000. No big deal. But for other candidates, especially those in developing economies, it’s a really agonizing moment of do I take the boat in the hand and pay 1000, $2,000 6000 if it’s Columbia early decision? I’ve heard some of the European programs perhaps even have higher deposits? Or do I roll the dice and wait to see if I get that interview invite or if the interview goes well? So I would say apply to your top choices first, maybe work. Hopefully you started enough in advance. You can start working on a lot of applications simultaneously because the more applications you work on, the easier it gets. Once you get that first one out of the way, you start to get into a bit more of a rhythm. And then in terms of getting ready for round two, I like to tell people, look, maybe take a week or two off for round one. Veg out, right? Watch Netflix, eat ice cream, just sort of clear it from day. But then it’s just start because on your round two list, because honestly, even if you get invited to interview, you’re actually in worse shape in a sense, because you’re not going to find out if you got rejected until, say, February, I’m sorry, December 12 or December 15.

 

[00:15:41.640] – Maria

And then if you wait until then, you only have two weeks left to get your recommenders, to quickly file the recommendations with these other schools, and you have to quickly throw together a bunch of essays. It’s just not worth it. So just give yourself a little break, but then just get ready for that plan B, plan C, and you’ll thank yourself later.

 

[00:16:03.230] – John

Good advice, Caroline.

 

[00:16:05.070] – Caroline

Yeah, I agree. And I think in some cases, even more important to be clear about your motivations to the school for the school and to communicate that clearly in your application for round two to round one. Because, of course, the schools know that a lot of people are applying in round two because they’ve been dinged from their top school top choices in round in round one. So they know that they are likely to be not your top choice and nobody wants to be the second choice.

 

[00:16:37.230] – Maria

Right.

 

[00:16:37.530] – Caroline

The sort of backup option. And schools are very sensitive to this, and they don’t want to be you’re coming there because you didn’t get in anywhere else rather than actually you’re genuinely motivated for that particular school. So in round two, even more than in round one, it’s critical to convey that commitment and engagement with that school. And that’s not something that you can Cook up overnight. And the schools see plenty of applications from people who have sort of thrown it together over the Christmas New Year break because they’ve had a nasty surprise in round one, and they’re now sort of throwing together some applications at the last minute for round two, and they will get short shrift in the process. So you can’t fake that kind of knowledge of the program and sense of affinity with the school. And that’s something that you have to build up over time through your research, through your networking. So you should really be starting that now rather than waiting until you’ve been dinged by around one school.

 

[00:17:45.530] – John

And let me bring up one of the sensitive issues about applying to business school for many applicants, not all, but let’s say your recommender is not your direct supervisor at work and your employer does not know that you are applying to business schools. And really you want to get out of there. And now that you’re ready to apply and you’re hitting the submit button, it becomes very obvious at least if you get accepted. When do you prepare your employer for the possibility that you may be making a departure soon and going back to school because some employers actually have feelings and they may feel somewhat rejected by your personal ambition to leave and go to school. How do you handle that at this point, or just keep quiet until you get accepted? Maria.

 

[00:18:43.430] – Maria

Yeah. So I think absolutely keep quiet until you get accepted. Because if you don’t get in anywhere and your boss knows that your heart is not really in it just like no, school wants to be anyone’s second choice. An employer doesn’t want to be your last choice. They want you to be committed and dedicated. So definitely don’t let if you are in a situation where your boss is not supportive or your company is not supportive of you pursuing the NBA, keep quiet. And then in terms of letting them know, I think it depends a little bit on your honestly, like what you want to do, your risk tolerance and your financial situation. I personally quit a few months before business school, and I just traveled. I just backpacked through Southeast Asia and Central Europe because I love to travel and I also travel cheap. So I was able to do that because that matters a lot to me. And other people are now doing pre MBA internships to bolster their job prospects once they get to campus. One funny story about letting your employer know. So my boss was very supportive of my quest for business school, and I was working in Hong Kong at the time, and I had no idea.

 

[00:19:51.000] – Maria

I thought it was like the US system where two weeks notice, you don’t even need to technically give two weeks notice is just sort of considered to be a courtesy. So I submitted my two weeks notice to HR and they’re like, well, that’s great. But your contract, you have a two months. It’s different in Asia. It’s actually three months. You should have let us know, like three months ago. Thank goodness. My boss, who was wonderful, she sort of told a little fib. And she’s like, well, Maria told me three months ago that she was leaving, which is sort of true because I needed her recommendations. She had to sort of cover for me and be like, oh, she actually did say it. So please let her go.

 

[00:20:29.210] – John

Love that story. Caroline, I wonder if you have a similar story.

 

[00:20:32.940] – Caroline

Yeah, that’s great advice. Check your job contract.

 

[00:20:38.330] – John

Yeah. Really?

 

[00:20:40.850] – Caroline

Well, when I was applying to business school, I was working at Arthur Anderson. It was the year when the Enron crisis had hit.

 

[00:20:47.140] – John

Oh, my.

 

[00:20:47.960] – Caroline

So it was a very interesting year. It was like the Chinese curse. May you live an interesting time. So the whole firm was imploding around me while I was applying to business school.

 

[00:20:59.580] – John

Wow.

 

[00:21:00.490] – Caroline

And before I left, I was actually on second from the London office of Anderson to the Paris office and found myself in the bizarre situation of having a contract with London office which had joined Deloitte. And I was actually working for Ernst and Young in Paris. All rather strange. So I don’t think anyone was very worried about notice periods at that point, but my bosses and my colleagues knew that I was applying and so they were all fully supportive of me heading off, and I had secured sponsorship from the firm and of course, all that unwound as well with the implosion of Anderson. But yeah, I think it’s great if you can take some time off, as Maria did before going to business school, because it’s pretty intense and you’ve probably been working incredibly hard, right. If you’re a successful young professional heading off to a top business school, I’m sure you have a pretty busy hectic lifestyle. And how often do you get the opportunity to take more than a week or two off and do something different? And it’s not going to have any impact on any negative impacts on your resume or your options.

 

[00:22:14.930] – Caroline

So I think if you can at all take advantage of that time to do something different and perhaps go backpacking around the world, as Maria did.

 

[00:22:24.340] – John

And Caroline, you would agree with Maria, who basically said, hey, don’t tell your employer, unless of course, they’re a recommender, which is the case many times about your departure unless you’re certain you’re actually going to go to business school.

 

[00:22:41.550] – Caroline

Yeah. So if you haven’t told them and they haven’t been part of the process, I don’t think there’s any need to, especially if you’re applying at this early stage because it’s quite far down the line that you would actually be leaving and heading off to business school. So good idea to check your contractual obligations. And as Maria said, it can vary quite a bit around the world.

 

[00:23:06.050] – John

It’s not unlike dating, is it? If you’re dating someone and then suddenly you go on Match.com? I wouldn’t think that you should tell people you’re going to match.com. Now, first off, you shouldn’t be going on match.com if you’re dating someone. But in a way, isn’t applying to business school while you’re fully employed? Isn’t it kind of like going on Match.com because you’re literally vying for the attention of different schools to have a journey with them, and meantime, you may be in a relationship as you would be with your employer. So I think Maria’s advice is very good here. Don’t let them know even if you’re looking for your job.

 

[00:23:54.760] – Maria

Even if you’re not applying to business school, if you start interviewing for another job, you don’t go to your boss and be like, hey, I’ve got a cool job interview tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be.

 

[00:24:04.090] – John

Yeah, it’s really true. Okay, one last thing for all those folks who are starting their MBA programs this fall who may already be enroute to campus or are in an orientation program right now, if each of you could do it over again, what’s the one thing you wish you knew before you started your MBA program that would be helpful to new students this fall.

 

[00:24:31.590] – Maria

Maria, I was pretty naive about the role that socializing and partying played in the MBA experience. I’m a nerd, so I was like, boom, I’m just staying home and reading all my cases every night. And so I wish I would have prioritized socializing a little bit more. So I would tell people, like, whatever, your grades in business school don’t really it’s not like you’re going to apply to business school again. Very few employers even care about your grades. Many schools even have grade non disclosure. So even if you have good grades, you don’t have to tell them. Or if you have bad grades, you don’t have to tell them. So I would have lightened up a little on the academics prioritize that networking from day one. Exactly. There’s like no Dean in the world that wants me to figure just don’t study so hard. But really, I think if I could do it again, that’s something I would have done.

 

[00:25:21.750] – John

Yeah. Instead of calling it socialized and we’ll call it networking, there we go. That euphemism helps.

 

[00:25:29.390] – Maria

Very informal network.

 

[00:25:32.510] – John

Caroline, what’s the one thing you would suggest?

 

[00:25:35.210] – Caroline

Well, looking back, I think that especially with a program like intel, it goes so fast and I hadn’t anticipated quite how quickly that year would flash before me. So I think that I could probably have done a bit more before joining the program to do things like preparing my job search. And I know that the school does mobilize students and admits more now to sort of get things started early on in the process. But I think that when you applying to business school and you’re heading off a whole year or even two years seems like a very long time. But it’s such an intensive experience and there are so many different opportunities to choose from. You can’t do everything. As Maria said, you have to make some trade offs. And I think it’s useful to really think carefully before you go to business school about how you want to focus your time, what your priorities are, and anything you can do beforehand that’s going to sort of help you front load things, especially if you’re doing a one year program, that’s going to be very helpful.

 

[00:26:41.330] – John

Great advice. So for all of you who are about to embark on your second year of an MBA program, if you’re in a two year MBA program or for all of you who are starting, good luck. Have a wonderful journey. Embrace it fully. Take advantage of it. Make sure you are getting to know as many of your classmates and hearing all their wonderful and interesting stories and learning from them as you can. And then for all of you who are racing to get everything completed for the round one deadline, good luck as well. We hope you’re able to put your best foot forward, and we hope we gave you a little bit of good advice for your own checklist before you hit the submit button. This is John Byrne you’ve been listening to Business Casual our weekly podcast.

 

Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
A Checklist For Round 1 MBA Applicants + What To Expect On Campus This Fall
Maria |
August 24, 2021

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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