Navigating the path to a top-tier MBA program is no small feat, especially when it’s Stanford Graduate School of Business, ranked among the most selective globally. Nikhil Jain’s story, featured on the Poets & Quants “Business Casual” podcast with hosts John Byrne and Maria Wich-Vila, is a testament to persistence. Nikhil, who applied four times and faced multiple rejections before gaining acceptance, shares an insider’s view of his transformative journey. His story is not just about crossing a prestigious admissions barrier—it’s about embracing the profound change that the Stanford experience fosters.

Nikhil’s reflections highlight the unique culture at Stanford, where students emerge not only with a degree but with a reinvigorated perspective on innovation and future possibilities. He describes how Stanford’s resources, mentors, and the broader university environment ignite a pursuit of unconventional career paths, often leading graduates towards entrepreneurial ventures rather than traditional industries like banking or consulting. This institutional ethos, Nikhil argues, is what truly distinguishes Stanford’s impact on its students.

Further enriching his experience, Nikhil embraced the holistic Stanford environment, interacting not just within the business school but across various departments. The interconnectedness of the campus, known as the Farm, allowed him to engage with experts in fields from international policy to computer science, gaining diverse insights that complement a business education. For MBA applicants, Nikhil’s journey emphasizes the power of tenacity and the expansive opportunities that a Stanford MBA can unveil, urging prospective students to envision the fire beyond the afterglow of mere credentials.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor inaccuracies.

[00:00:07] – Nikhil

Well, hello everyone.

[00:00:08] – John

This is John Byrne with Poets Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-host Maria Wikvila, who is here today, and Caroline Diarte Edwards, who is not. But we have a special guest. I’m going to introduce him in just a little bit. Our podcast today is really about the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Those of you who are in the know know that it is the most selective MBA program in the world. Last year, there were 7,259 people who applied to get into Stanford’s MBA program. 434 actually took seats. Today, it’s widely regarded as, if not the best business school, the second best business school in the world, although there’s much debate about that. We’ll get into that. In fact, Uh, what’s fascinating about today’s guest, who is a second-year MBA at Stanford, is that he applied to the school 4 times, was interviewed 3 times, uh, was waitlisted twice, and then finally outright accepted. Let’s welcome Nikhil Jain, who incidentally has written about his experience at Stanford in a very eloquent way on Portes et Quants. The name of this story is A Stanford MBA’s Reflection. 10 minutes from where I sleep.

[00:01:33] – John

And Nikhil, I want to just read a piece of this before we get to talk to you, because I think it’s so thoughtful. Most people who look at Stanford from the outside see a credential. They see a brand, a network, an admissions barrier. Yes, indeed. That once crossed confers a lifetime of access. Ironically, this view undersells the place. It mistakes the afterglow for the fire itself. We want to talk to you about that fire. And we also want to talk to you about your journey. Man, you were one persistent dude. 4 times, 3 times rejected, even making the waitlist twice. What made you so persistent?

[00:02:19] – Nikhil

Well, John, thank you so much for having me. And great to see you as well, Maria. And yeah, you’re really making me blush as you read some of that. I think that what really had put the idea of just Stanford in my head was, I mean, it was a place that I had applied to as my early action, even when I was an undergraduate. And I’d seen how with so many of my friends that had gone through the university, I had just seen how when they came out of the school, there was a level of inspiration in their eyes, fluency with the entire technology landscape, and a lot of them, instead of running off to maybe some of the more conventional careers where they’re supposed to go out or post-MBA, or like post-MBA, like the typical kind of banking, consulting, et cetera, they were starting companies, they were working innovative companies, they were doing career paths that I hadn’t even heard of and thought about. And I’d realize I would chat with them that there’s something in the water here where people just come out very differently. They have a whole view, I think, on just where the future’s leading and inspiration to chase after that future.

[00:03:20] – Nikhil

And I think one thing I’ve realized in coming to this campus is that it offers you so many tools and resources and mentors and opportunities to, you know, pursue whatever you’re most passionate about. And so on the highest level, that was what got me so excited on the kind of broad level. And then I kind of speak in the article about how I’ve been able to see how some of that inspiration really manifests across the university.

[00:03:41] – John

Yeah, what’s interesting to me is that you truly embraced the entire experience. I mean, most people who go into an MBA program, stay in that MBA program, take all their courses, basically collide with only members of their class. You wanted the full Stanford experience, and you have sampled great parts of it. How come?

[00:04:06] – Nikhil

Well, I think one of the beautiful things that Stanford has is that, I mean, you have the business school and it is a pretty centralized experience where you have the school and then you have a lot of the residence halls right across from it. So, it can be very tempting to stay inside of that really beautiful compound with a lot of incredible resource and opportunities. But the way the Stanford campus is designed is that everything is so easily accessible because it’s on this just big campus. It’s called the Farm and everything at this large compound, essentially in the middle of the suburbs of Palo Alto. And because of that, it’s just so remarkably easy to just reach and access brilliance across the university campus. I think some things that I realized was, for example, in the International Policy School, a lot of authors that I used to read about when I did high school policy debate in areas of international relations theory, turns out they were Stanford professors. I was like, I have to meet these guys. Or inside of the computer science department, as all of the changes in AI have been happening, it’s like, obviously the business school has one perspective, but let’s hear what the technologists have to say about it.

[00:05:05] – Nikhil

Or since so much of my background and interest is in the healthcare sector, I mean, working in biotech post business school, I’d be amiss if I didn’t go over to the medical school and see what was going on over there, whether it’s through their biodesign programs or their medical shadowing opportunities. And that really just gets the beginning. I mean, I’ve been exploring areas in terms of like they have a whole department dedicated to digital music. They have an entire department dedicated to dance. And those are just areas of exploring new interests that I know I won’t get the chance to really check out after business school or just after being in an academic environment. And so I mean, a lot of it was some career related, but also just a lot of curiosity and just general excitement for the place.

[00:05:44] – John

I think many MBA students at top schools have intellectual curiosity, but I think yours goes very deep, right, Maria? I think, you know, of all the people we’ve met over the years, I don’t, I don’t think that curiosity is as expansive for most MBA candidates, right?

[00:06:05] – Speaker

Yeah, I do think that Nikhil has absolutely embraced all of those interests during his time in the MBA program in a way that is certainly unique, like the fact that he’s watching surgery happen, that, that was certainly something that is not something that a lot of people who are interested in the healthcare industry do. I think a lot of people at Stanford have that drive and have that energy and have that curiosity across a number of dimensions at any of the top business schools. There’s a certain sort of energetic lust for life and lust for learning that tends to unite students across all top business schools. And so I think Nikhil has absolutely capitalized upon all of the different opportunities that Stanford offers in a way that is Really extraordinary. I mean, taking 9 classes, that I have— I do tip my hat to you for that. I don’t know, I don’t know if you’re, uh, brave or insane, but, uh, either way, it’s one thing to get into one of these schools and it’s another thing to then, once you’re there, grab every opportunity it throws at you and run with it. And Nikhil has absolutely done that.

[00:07:00] – Nikhil

Yeah, I will say, even as far as the 9 classes were concerned, it’s funny because you do have a certain credit limit in class that you can take at the university, but I basically just told some of the professors like, hey, I technically can’t enroll in this class for credit, but can I still do everything else here and all the assignments? And they were, they were like, they found it very interesting, but they were happy to, you know, have you join for it. But I think the other thing that also made it, makes it so easy with Stanford to explore almost like so many of the, so many different aspects of, you know, whether it’s interest or even as I call it different pieces of almost like the surface area of the human experience is that everything comes to you here. Like, I think that this campus has such a massive center of gravity that it’s whether it’s like the executives that are coming to speak about, you know, the change they’re making in their investments, or the technologists that are telling you about the future of AI, or just brilliant, you know, musical artists that’ll come to campus even from like an entertainment standpoint.

[00:07:54] – Nikhil

It’s the fact that Stanford has so much, um, just influence, I think, across the Bay Area, so much cultural recognition and knowledge, and that it’s such an honor for, I think, a lot of you know, whether speakers or artists or all sorts of people to come to the campus, that it makes it so remarkably easy to almost context switch between all these different environments because they’re all right here on the farm. And all it takes is a quick little bike ride to get to each of these different things.

[00:08:20] – John

You know, the other thing is, I think your background tells us that you are an explorer, right? You, you went to Duke, you went to Cambridge, you went to Tsinghua in China. You did a stint with BCG in New York as a consultant, and then you also worked for the Global Fund in Switzerland. So your background suggested that exactly how you experienced Stanford is what one would expect. I can’t even imagine sitting in on a surgical oncology operation. It gives me the heebie-jeebies.

[00:08:53] – Nikhil

It was, I would say, especially with that, it was definitely watching that operation. It’s a very, It’s very world-opening because I think that you, you can sit in an MBA classroom, which is obviously, you know, it’s— you have the circular rooms, you have the brilliant professor, and you can talk about the changes in like drug development, oncology, or like medical device manufacturing, etc. You can learn about general strategy. But then, I mean, you really see what happens when you’re in the operating room. Like, you know, you’re in the hospital, like a lot of windowless rooms when the operations are happening. You see all the surgical techs like pulling off their tools and like sanitizing them and having them ready for surgery. And you’re even seeing things like, you know, as, as the patient’s getting put under anesthesia, then you just see the 10 people in the room getting to work, moving in the different places, turning on the machine, and you’re seeing what’s going on inside the person’s body. And it’s incredible to think that this is— I mean, they maybe do, you know, 5 or 8 operations of that every single day to really take care of their patients.

[00:09:52] – Nikhil

And I think it was really, really powerful to see the people who are truly on the front lines of delivering medical care to people in a way that I think can be easy to lose sight of when you’re, you know, when you’re maybe in a nice office building or a nice classroom doing work inside of healthcare. So if I want a career in the healthcare space, I thought it was really, really important to see that.

[00:10:11] – John

Yeah. The other thing is that stepping back from your experience, what you take away from it is a love of learning. You really have an incredible love and passion for learning about everything. And I wonder, where does that come from? How did that develop in a person?

[00:10:29] – Nikhil

I think if I was to really come to at a young age, it really comes from my parents, as many of these things come from. I think my mom was an engineer by training. My dad is an oncologist himself. And I think one thing I constantly see them doing is that they’re reading all the time. Like, I have many memories of walking to my dad’s room, there’s some medical journal that he’s reading about the latest in medical care. And I remember before there was anything like ChatGPT, we’d always call my dad the Google of the family, where we could ask him any question. He would go down a, you know, 15-minute go down a rabbit hole and explaining, you know, like why the sky is blue or the latest innovation that Google has been coming up with, or like the, you know, chemistry that comes beyond like starting a fire. I guess I remember all sorts of little things as a kid that I’d be able to learn from these conversations with my parents. And I think that just made me more and more curious. And then even when it comes to like what I, like my time when I was living overseas, my parents take me traveling quite a bit.

[00:11:24] – Nikhil

I was very lucky as a young kid that my parents would, could take me to some different countries around the world. And as I grew older, I realized that You know, as I was going to the different country, as I started exploring, be able to be in more different geographies, like I studied abroad in Australia when I was an undergraduate, and then when I had kind of gone out in the world post-undergrad, that’s when I ended up moving between China, Switzerland, the UK. I just found it so fascinating how when you live in new places, you don’t have to reach that far to learn new things about the world, to see new cultures, and to get my mind challenged. I mean, the narratives of a place like China and the stories that are said from China to the rest of the world are very different from the narratives that the United States has. Same with a place like even Switzerland, which often pushes itself in a position of neutrality. And I think that you’re really missing out if you don’t get to hear the perspectives of, you know, other people, other countries, other cultures, and all of that stuff can really grow you quite a bit.

[00:12:16] – Nikhil

And so I think it’s really been self-reinforcing. The more I’ve explored, the more I’ve learned, and the more rewarding it’s been, which then just leads to more exploration.

[00:12:24] – John

Here’s the other thing, you know, I mean, Stanford has an iconic essay. We talk about it a lot on our podcast, What Matters Most to You and Why. And I wondered how you answered that question and whether you answered it 4 different times in 4 different ways or the same time every time you applied.

[00:12:43] – Nikhil

Oh goodness. In terms of the way I answered it, so I’ll say that for me, for sure, I mean, the first time I applied was for the deferred admission program, which was, I think this is back in 2018. And I’ll be honest, I don’t have strong memories of even what I read back, I guess almost a decade ago and everything. Um, but I would say that in my last few years, what I talked about was, I think, quite consistent in terms of the areas of what mattered most to me and why. And a lot of it was around the idea of, you know, having agency and also having a deeper level of you know, self-acceptance and strength. And I think that that was something that was a core theme throughout the different essays that I’d written. But I think what had really changed for me was, you know, as I was getting to my last application, the one that I got in with, things had changed. I think a lot of what I’d written about, um, in previous essays were about my experiences in the States and from early parts of my life. But then I remember I actually, So I had hired an admissions counselor for the very last time that I’d applied.

[00:13:48] – Nikhil

His name’s Rajdeep, and he had told me that he was like, you’ve done so many incredible things now overseas. Like, your experience is not really just the United States. Like, you can talk about what’s happened in Switzerland and what’s been happening in China and the ways that that has reshaped and informed some of your own core values. I think that that was, that was, I think, really, really important as I was writing my final application iteration of the essays. And it also, I think, helped me in every time I did that essay writing, it was also a way of almost like processing, consolidating my own experiences and understanding it through like a lens of my own personal values. And so I think while some core themes of what matters most to me and why stayed the same, what we— maybe the specific examples and context or the specific examples and stories that changed over time with as I wrote the different iterations.

[00:14:37] – John

Yeah, it sounds like you followed the advice of Maria and Caroline all the time. That the MBA process, the journey of getting into a school, is really a journey of introspection and looking at your life and thinking about what, what do you really want? What really matters to you, right, Maria?

[00:14:54] – Speaker

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of times when people start the MBA admissions process, they view these essays as a chore, as a task that they have to get through, and they sort of roll their eyes and grit their teeth. But there’s actually a lot of value to the introspection that comes from the application process itself, such that I actually advise people to try to consider applying applying to business school if they’re early in their careers, regardless of whether they even end up applying, you know, getting in, or much less even submitting that application. Because I do think that there is a really tremendous value to taking stock in what does matter to me when the rubber hits the road, which value will win out, you know, if I have to make a trade-off, where will I make that trade-off. And so I, I think that there’s tremendous value in going through the process. And so it sounds like, uh, this was, it was a great process for you to go through as well.

[00:15:38] – Nikhil

Yes, absolutely. I’d say maybe it also helps that even from like an earlier age, like my dad always encouraged things like having a gratitude journal. And so I think that reflection and even diarying has been a big part of my life. Honestly, I think at least since 2016 is I think when I’ve started doing that habit. And so in many ways, even when I was writing the essays, I would look back at some of these like journals and diaries that I had and, you know, see some of the things that really resonate to me during those different experiences in my life. And in many ways I could pull some of those stories that I don’t since forgotten in some ways, and they end up finding their way into my final application.

[00:16:11] – John

So you arrive at Stanford. What’s your first impression of the business school and your classmates?

[00:16:19] – Nikhil

I think what was awesome was just, I mean, my classmates are just incredibly inspiring. I think that I saw brilliance across a whole bunch of different nationalities and across a whole bunch of different areas and sectors. I thought that was incredibly fun and incredibly fascinating to, you know, see with the classmates. And I think that people are just so open to learn from each other and to teach each other. I, I know that they kind of say this, that a lot of times, um, some of the learning is in the classroom, a lot of learning’s in the classroom, but also so much is just coming from your peers and from your colleagues. And I think that it’s through my classmates that I’ve learned so much about the latest in areas like climate policy, battery technology, You know, how semiconductors are designed, you know, the different ways that you can improve giving inside of the nonprofit sector. Like some of these are not areas that I’ve had the chance to take a formalized class in, but you know, a lot of times those conversations will happen at Coupa Cafe or a little campus cafe or Arbuckle, the campus dining hall.

[00:17:19] – Nikhil

And sometimes a conversation that, you know, you expected were only going to be like a 30-minute, you know, maybe catch up on a few little things, it’ll turn into a 2-hour session that comes across all different, you know, all different intellectual topics and then personal talks about each other’s life. And so I think I’ve really felt so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful peers. And I think something I feel very lucky about, maybe just because I’m also quite social, is because the class size is, you know, relatively smaller, about 450 people. I would say at this point I’ve probably met somewhere around, I mean, 98%, I’d say, of my own class, maybe just give or take a few percent. And then even in the class below, because I’m kind of this position called peer mentor, which is the equivalent of a residential advisor, an RA essentially for the first years, I’ve met more than half of the first year class as well. And I think it’s been incredible how it doesn’t matter whether they’re a first year or second year or like an MSX student, which is kind of the one-year kind of almost semi-executive MBA program in some ways.

[00:18:18] – Nikhil

Everyone has something to teach you. Everybody is your teacher if you Give them the opportunity to teach you. And so I think, I think that’s something I really, really loved while being here.

[00:18:27] – John

Now, before going to Stanford, you went to 3 universities that are really world-class. Tsinghua, Cambridge, and Duke. I mean, these are, you know, really special places, as is Stanford. How, how does Stanford stand up against those 3 other institutions of learning?

[00:18:49] – Nikhil

Well, every, every university, I think, has been really, really great and has taught me, you know, different things in different ways. I would say that, I mean, with Duke, it was the place that I grew up in. It was where my undergraduate was. I loved the student environment. I loved especially the basketball culture, I think, which is very, very fun. I think it taught me a lot about NCAA March Madness, and I loved how integrated medicine was. I’d say, like, at Tsinghua, so much of it is I mean, living in China and getting my perspective challenged in so many different ways and growing up by seeing the differences between the way China operates versus the United States operates. But I also have to recognize that, I mean, since I don’t speak Mandarin, a lot of that university, I think there’s so much brilliance happening in that school where there wasn’t as easy of a chance to be able to explore different things just because I don’t speak the language, I don’t read the language. And so there’s a lot I always think about. I wonder what else was going on that I don’t fully know.

[00:19:44] – Nikhil

But my understanding is it’s incredible when you can see what else is happening at that university. And then in Cambridge, I think one of the most beautiful things that it does is that it crosses the graduate students in a way that is honestly unparalleled because they have the college system where everyone is living in some about 30 residential colleges. And so you’d be meeting people who would be doing areas, whether it’s chemical engineering to, I remember like a Celtic herbal medicine history PhD, which I was like, wow, that is the most Cambridge thing I’ve ever heard, honestly. Um, and so I found that fascinating. And so each of the different universities offer different things, but even I was saying earlier, I think the biggest thing with Stanford is that it is the most innovative, the most forward-looking, uh, place that I’ve seen amongst the different universities. I find it, uh, as I kind of say in the essay, Stanford is a very flat university in terms of it is so easy. Like you have a catalog of the I think I counted like 20,000 classes that are on their course catalog in a single year.

[00:20:43] – Nikhil

And you can go to most of these classes pretty freely. And I think that is incredible. And so it’s just created such an enabling and low-friction environment to be able to explore all across the university. Uh, and I think that has been what’s been so incredible. And I mean, the fact that while in business school, like, I know that a lot of times to me there’s like kind of the stereotype of like MBAs having, uh, mostly MBA friends. And still I’d say most of my close friends at the university are other business school students. I’ve had the chance to make friends with medical students, with engineers, with CS people, with undergraduates as well. As I was saying, everyone has something new to teach you. And the people who have such disparate differences in experiences have even that much more. And so, so yeah, each of the universities really gave me, I think, something very unique and something very different. But definitely Stanford has been very, very magical place and very unique for a lot of ways.

[00:21:32] – John

Now I’m imagining though that, you know, an MBA education at a place like Stanford is very interactive, right? The, the conversations in class, the case discussions are fast moving. A lot of people are contributing and it’s, it’s almost like the professor is sort of a conductor of an orchestra. And then I would think that at Cambridge and Tsinghua in particular, it’s much more formal and rigid. And then at Duke, it’s more of an undergraduate experience where you have a professor talking to students, maybe less formally than at Cambridge and Tsinghua. Are those, are those stereotypical observations real, or are they just imagined in my head?

[00:22:14] – Nikhil

I, what I would say is it, it’s, it wouldn’t be the fairest thing for me to make an exact comparison because the nature of what I was studying was different across these different places, right? At Cambridge, it was computational biology and biotechnology. At Duke, it was mechanical engineering. That was my main degree. And I would see across different departments, especially at Duke, because I did some different departmental things just because you got 4 years there for undergrad. I would sometimes see like in engineering classes, it is like, hey, here’s what— here’s thermodynamics, here’s the laws of— here’s the laws of physics. There’s not really much up for discussion or debate here, right? Um, and so I would say it was very lecturing, professors teach you a lot. But still, I mean, there’d be a lot of, um, I mean, the research would be fascinating. There’d be a lot of guidance across all the different office hours and teaching for these very tough concepts. And so So I thought it was really great, but I don’t think like the MBA circular classroom discussion is really— again, it’s like physics. There’s not much up for discussion, I’d say, with a lot of it.

[00:23:09] – Nikhil

Um, when it comes to Tsinghua, I would say that, um, it’s tough for me to say again what the broader university structure is because so much of that’s taught in Mandarin, so I didn’t get to engage that as much. Within Schwarzman Scholars though, what I will say is that, I mean, it was started by Steve Schwarzman, the head of Blackstone, and he modeled actually a lot of the Schwarzman Scholars curricular experience after his time when he was at HBS or Harvard Business School. And so I would say you have a similar circular classroom. You’re having conversation discussion across things like Chinese state-owned enterprises or, you know, like leadership, leading with values and all of these different areas. And I’d say that that actually is, you know, a very discussion-based thing. That is actually— it actually does remind me quite a bit of what I see at the GSB. What I’ll say with those two different programs, and there’s often a number of people that have done both the programs, is that the experiences are not the same for sure. But those experiences, I’d say, rhyme. Quite a bit, the way that people are living together in like kind of a big residential compound, the way the classes are in such close proximity, the nature of the classroom and kind of the Socratic method of having the professors going back and forth and challenging students.

[00:24:12] – Nikhil

And so I guess it helped me also in many ways because I felt pretty prepared and well-adjusted for when I came to Stanford as well. Thanks a lot.

[00:24:19] – John

Right. Now, did you have a favorite course so far at the business school?

[00:24:24] – Nikhil

A singular favorite course? I think it would be hard for me to come to a single course, but I will say Let me list off a few, at least that off the top of my mind that have really had quite a bit of resonance to me. One of them is Managing Growing Enterprises, by which was— I had Graham Weaver, which I think was excellent because it taught me just about some of the major, you know, challenge you have, like when it comes to firing employee, when an employee has grown beyond their position, when it comes to managing like a PR crisis and how you get ready for that, like all of these things which, as per the name, you have to deal with as you’re managing an enterprise that’s growing. And I think they’re the interpersonal challenges that are tough to, to navigate. And I think it was fascinating to go through some of these role plays and see what they’re like. Another one was Formation New Ventures, which is taught by, in my experience, Scott Brady, Jim Ellis, Yossi Feinberg, which would go through all these different companies. And I think the key lesson I would learn was that there’s so many models for building a successful company that are not the Silicon Valley venture fundraising.

[00:25:21] – Nikhil

Like we’d see companies that were completely bootstrapped, ones that were invisible, ones that did do the traditional Silicon Valley way, ones that were pure tech companies. Ones that went through all the ups and downs and ultimately sold for a very, very modest amount, which kind of showed you the kind of tough side of entrepreneurship that usually there’s often a survivorship bias. You don’t get to hear those people as much, and they would bring even those kind of speakers in. And then classes that were in different areas that I didn’t think were necessarily conventional business school classes, like for example, there was one called Strategic Communications by Bert Alpert and Alison Kluger that taught me, honestly made me a much better public speaker. Or Winning Writing by Glenn Crayman from the New York Times. And I’d say that actually that class I’d probably have to give a special credit for. He really helped me find my voice in writing again, gave me the confidence to write. Um, and him and also a lot of courage from Alison Kluger about being willing to put my voice out there is honestly probably the reason why that article, uh, exists in Upvotes and Quants on the internet right now.

[00:26:16] – Nikhil

Wow. I think if you asked me 6 months ago to put anything out there, I think I’d go, no, no, no. And then I think that they really encouraged me quite a bit. And so I could say that really changed me a lot. But that’s honestly just like the tipping point of like all the wonderful classes and very GSB-focused and what my classes I really liked at Stanford. I mean, there’s been a lot that I’ve learned out of the university and a lot that I’m super grateful for.

[00:26:37] – John

Was there any kind of prep that you did before you actually stepped foot on campus to make sure that you would get, number one, a quick start, and number two, that you would be able to take full advantage of not only the business school, but the university as a whole?

[00:26:52] – Nikhil

I would say from a prep standpoint, I spoke to a lot of my friends, either undergraduate at Stanford and a couple of GSB folks, and I think I would often ask them certain questions of, I would say, you know, what was the most valuable use of your time and what was the least valuable use of your time at the university? So I kind of know what to pursue, what not to pursue. I’d say that that was probably the biggest thing that I’d really used for just like learning about like how to take advantage of. And then I’d also go on a couple of the websites and whenever there were listservs, I would just subscribe to their listservs. So my email’s a mess. Like I have so many print pub lists, there’s all these things. I hear about all these different events that are happening. I most, I can’t go to 90% of them, but it’s part of how I learn what’s going on around campus. But then I think the other thing is that there’s a lot of, I think socially, um, I did a lot of just, I met a lot of people before Stanford started.

[00:27:38] – Nikhil

Like I was living in the UK. I met most of the people I’d say living across the European continent who had flown into London or the UK for different events and programs, which I think was really, really nice. And then there’s always a few of these like kind of international travel trips that the MBAs do before school starts. So I went to those, which was really, really nice. And then I think, I guess I got so excited when it came to meeting so many of these, so many of my different like classmates and friends that I started trying to find ways to kind of get the class more connected. Like I started spinning up a series of these different WhatsApp groups before school started so that people could more easily meet and chat with each other and kind of feel like a unified class. And I even had people fill out this Google form, which I think 95% of the class or so filled out, where they basically put their contact information and like things like their past workplaces, their nationalities, like their language they spoke. And I ran like a script that would export it so that everybody’s phone would have everybody’s contact in it.

[00:28:33] – Nikhil

Because I’ve always thought that if you have a digital town square that is more inclusive and more easy for people to reach out to each other, interact with each other, then it kind of makes the physical town square more inclusive as well. And so I think these are ways that I sought to kind of get myself ready for the university, but also, as I thought, to hopefully create like a more inclusive space and more inclusive community for, you know, again, a student body where you can conceivably meet pretty much your entire class. And that’s a very magical thing at Stanford that I really want to help contribute to.

[00:29:01] – John

Now, in an MBA program, there’s a lot of emphasis on getting the job and, and the internship that might set you up for a full-time job offer. My sense is because you took so much advantage of the university and what it has to offer, that wasn’t your focus at all. And I wondered how you were able to balance, you know, the need for ultimately a job and an internship with the wanderlust learning experience you had.

[00:29:34] – Nikhil

Well, Certainly that’s the stuff that’s not on the article, all the preparation for a job interview. There are many afternoons that we’re not watching Olympic athletes or, you know, doing clinical shadowing. I mean, I think it’s a mix of things. I had a lot of guidance from Tom Sable and Bill Thompson, especially my first year. Those are two guys in the CMC who I think really focus on the investing side. And I think they were guiding me a lot as I was exploring, you know, internships, for example, in the venture capital space and especially in the biotech side, which is where I was more interested in. And so it was, I think, through a lot of their guidance that I was able to, you know, do, you know, just some networking and some reaching out to some people that I knew, which ultimately helped me get into my venture capital internship for last summer where I was working at a place called Vita Ventures, which was a biotech venture fund down in Los Angeles, which also was great to see Southern California, very different from Northern California.

[00:30:27] – John

Very true.

[00:30:28] – Nikhil

But I think it was like a lot. I think that there still is, I think whether it’s with your classmates, whether it’s through formal things through the Career Management Center. There’s a lot of ways I think that Stanford helps facilitate finding the different job opportunities. But given that my search wasn’t necessarily, you know, for some of these, I guess, like kind of structured cycle things like the banking that comes in, you know, like September, the consulting comes a little bit later. It is a little bit more of an informal process and everything. But I’m really excited to be working in biotech post-Stanford as well. I’ll be going up to the, I guess, going up to San Francisco. So still staying around in the Bay Area. And so, so really excited for all that. So, well, everything was able to work itself out, which I was really, really happy about.

[00:31:07] – John

Now, will you be with a biotech startup or a, a fund or what?

[00:31:11] – Nikhil

So it’ll be a biotech startup at the end of the day. I have a few different opportunities across, I’m still deciding which one, but will be a biotech startup and most likely in the oncology space.

[00:31:20] – John

Mm-hmm. That’s great. So what advice do you have? There are a lot of people who are gonna be listening to this with the dream that you had to be able to go to Stanford and experience everything that it is, what’s your advice to them right now?

[00:31:37] – Nikhil

So I think one of the biggest things is, I mean, first, if you’re even half considering it, you should definitely go and apply and put yourself out there. Don’t— I think that one thing that actually when Professor Graham Weaver talks about is self-limiting beliefs. And I think that even no matter what your kind of background is, et cetera, like you shouldn’t be limiting yourself and thinking that to reach low, I think you should, you might as well aim for the top, might as well try to see, because the business school looks for all sorts of different kinds of backgrounds. And I think unless you put yourself, if you don’t put yourself out there, the odds of you getting in are zero. So you might as well try. Um, and then also it’s, I mean, don’t give up. Like I wouldn’t necessarily say you should be applying to say 4 times or such. I know that’s, maybe a little bit much. But I mean, so many of my friends were reapplicants to Stanford who are here right now. I had applied twice when I was applying to Schwarzman Scholars, got rejected the first time and then got in the second time.

[00:32:35] – Nikhil

When I was at— when I worked at BCG, but I didn’t get an interview for my internship at BCG. Almost nothing in my life came on the first try, if I’m going to be honest with you. And so that’s why I would say that it is really valuable to be persistent and to push forward. And if something doesn’t work out one year, I mean, give it another try, honestly. Like, there’s so many variables that go into an admission decision that happens. And so, um, so I think it’s worth it. I think don’t just put yourself out there once, put yourself out there a couple of times and just see what happens.

[00:33:06] – John

Absolutely good advice. Nikhil, thank you so much for being with us today. And for all of you out there, you really need to read his terrific essay. Again, it’s called A Stanford MBA’s Reflection: 10 Minutes from Where I Sleep. And it really goes into how he took full advantage of being on the Stanford campus and venturing out from the business school, which was his center, to experience all this learning and all, and maybe to satisfy a bit of your curiosity as well, I bet. But there are very few people, I think, who have fully embraced a university and an MBA program as you have, which is what really made me gravitate to your essay and enjoy it so much. So thank you so much.

[00:33:53] – Nikhil

Thank you so much for having me, John. It was really fun chatting with you and even a very fun experience just reflecting on so much of the Stanford experience with you as well. So hope this is helpful for some of y’all listening. And I hope to meet some of you as well in the future.

[00:34:05] – John

Indeed. All right. For all of you out there, thanks for listening. This is John Byrne with Poetic Minds.