An Interview With Darden Admissions Chief Dawna Clarke
Maria |
November 7, 2024

Welcome to this week’s Business Casual, John Byrne is joined by co-host Maria Wich-Vila and a special guest, Dawna Clarke, the renowned admissions chief at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Recently honored with the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award, Dawna reflects on her distinguished nearly 40-year career in MBA admissions, during which she has been the final decision-maker on over 70,000 applications at leading institutions such as Dartmouth Tuck and UNC Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Today’s podcast delves into Dawna’s longstanding career, highlighting the personal touches and strategic decisions that have defined her tenure in MBA admissions. Through her stories, we gain a glimpse into how admissions strategies have evolved over decades and the personal commitment required to guide thousands of students through one of the most critical phases of their professional lives.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:04.360] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to business Casual, our weekly podcast. Today, my co-host, Maria Wich-Vila, is with me. She is here with a special guest. This past week, we’ve honored our very first Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, Dawna Clarke, who is the admissions chief at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. We’ve honored her for her near 40-year career in admissions. She has been the final decision-maker on more than 70,000 applicants, the overwhelming majority of them MBA-bound hopefuls at Dartmouth Tuck, UVA Darden, where she’s been twice, UNC Chapel Hill, Kenan Flagler Business School. Dawna, welcome.

[00:00:58.920] – Dawna

Thank you so much, John. It’s been such a special week with the award, and I’m so grateful. It’s just been so fun to hear from people that I’ve known through all these different schools. So thank you so much.

[00:01:12.900] – John

And congratulations on a well-deserved honor. Now, 40 years is a long time to be doing admissions. I don’t think there’s anyone around. In fact, I think your nearest colleague in time is Bruce DelMonico at Yale, and he has only 20 years, half of your time. What’s made you stay in this field for so long?

[00:01:36.920] – Dawna

It’s such a good question. I think something I’ve been reflecting on just because 40 years, that creeps up on you. How did that How did that happen? But I think I’m really fortunate in that I fell into admissions in part by happenstance. Over 40 years ago, I was a tour guide in my undergraduate school, and so I knew the dean of admissions there. And he asked one day what my plans were and asked if I would consider applying for a position in admissions. And I obviously took it at the undergraduate level. And I just love it. I love connecting with people and hearing people’s stories. I really like rooting for people and trying to make them feel comfortable. I’ve only worked for schools that I feel that I can authentically personify in my interactions with people. So you have to feel pretty strongly about the institution that you’re representing. I can do that with great, sincere enthusiasm for Darden. But ultimately, it is a connecting. It is a quintessential people position. I mean, not that there isn’t. There is a lot of a fair amount of analytics that go on to compiling a and some behind the scenes data gathering when you’re making decisions and you want them to be based on data.

[00:03:06.510] – Dawna

But I think it’s really the opportunity to connect with such interesting people and at a somewhat vulnerable time in their lives, applying to business school can be the top goal that is a top of mind for candidates at that time. I find it gratifying to try to make that process a little bit more welcoming, a little a little less daunting. I love it. Then I think the more you know an industry, the more value you can bring because I’ve been through so many cycles and seeing all kinds of things, the impact of elections on an African pool, the impacts of the economic downturn, the importance of scholarship. I think the more you do it, the more valuable you become because you gain experience and wisdom from each cycle is a little bit different. I like to lean into my experience in terms of how to navigate some challenging experiences, but I’m just really grateful for a career that I’ve loved enough to keep doing for this long.

[00:04:18.280] – John

Now, one of the things that comes through in the profile very strongly is the empathy you bring to a difficult job where, frankly, you reject that the vast majority of the people who apply. In other words, you have spent most of your life disappointing many, many people, and yet you’re able to do it with a degree and depth of empathy that is surprising and consistent. I wonder where that empathy comes from. You say that your mother was incredibly kind, generous, and loving, and that was the start of it. But where else does it? What’s your source of empathy over so many of these years when you are in a profession like this?

[00:05:08.690] – Dawna

I would say two things. I’m going to say two things, one more personal and one more professionally related to the field of admissions. One is that, and I’ve told you this before, John, but just a reminder, I was waitlisted. My top choice for undergraduate schools was Dartmouth. My dad went to Dartmouth, really wanted to go to Dartmouth. I was waitlisted at Dartmouth. Then I ended up not going to Dartmouth. I didn’t get off the waitlist, and I ended up going to a small liberal arts school that had a really good reputation for pre-med, and that is what I thought I wanted to do at the time. Then when I applied to UNC Chapel Hill for my master’s in higher Ed, I was waitlisted again. Have been a good performer, have had good grades in both undergraduate school and graduate school, but I would say pretty average a standardized test taker. I found the admissions process, even as a high school student, to be really intriguing. My parents took me on several visits and interviews, and I remember the kindness of some people through that process and also the frustration of having solid grades, having good extracurriculars and leadership, but not being a stellar test taker.

[00:06:28.550] – Dawna

I think that’s something that I can identify with personally and have encountered so many alumni over the years who would say, Oh, I would never get into Darden now or other schools because they, too, fit in that category. I think part of the empathy for the admissions process dates back to having navigated it myself and really knowing what it’s like to be waitlisted and knowing what it’s like when you feel like You can crush it, but your standardized test score may not say you’re going to crush it. It may say it’s in the middle range. I think I’ve always had a frustration with the disconnect between standardized testing and the reality of what I felt like I could perform. I think that empathy goes way back but was amplified with working as an admissions consultant for a long time and seeing… I think every admissions director should work as an admissions consultant for a certain amount of time and see the anxiety, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the hopes that go into this, and really try to understand the applicant experience. Because for me, I think it was the best educational experience within admissions that I had.

[00:07:57.680] – Dawna

I had the opportunity to work with Jeremy Shinewald at MBA Mission, and it really also cemented how many candidates I would encounter who I thought were just fabulous and stellar and who were not getting admitted to their schools of choice. I would feel their frustration for them that they had these hopes and aspirations, and in many cases, couldn’t crack a certain number on the GMAT. This This was a little bit before the GRE was more prevalent, and this is before most schools went test flexible. I felt that I lived that with some candidates that you’re trying to be a cheerleader for and advocating for and would add so much value, and schools were missing out on them. So that helped reinforce some of the policies we came up with at Darden. I also had a mentor at Tuck, Paul Danos, who It used to say repeatedly, and it became a mantra in our office, always do what’s in the best interest of the applicant, not your office. Sometimes there are things that create more work for the office or create less reading or less interviewing. But I think it was really great guidance to be very applicant-centric in making decisions because that is our most important audience when you’re in admissions.

[00:09:27.870] – Dawna

I think some of comes from some of those experiences navigating the admissions process. But then I also would say, I have had a couple of life challenges. The adage is that people who have gone through challenges, like a very difficult divorce and custody dispute, I’ll use that as an example, can take a toll. I think what I have always been told read or received from professionals is that people who navigate life experiences or maybe some mental health issues, if you can navigate them with all the professionals and come out on the other side with what are the silver linings? I think some of those life experiences can build great character and care and compassion. And even if somebody isn’t facing the exact same set of challenges, maybe an identification with someone who I’m pretty optimistic and positive person. I think it’s been overwhelmingly positive, but sometimes we have curveballs that are thrown our way. I am really grateful that our team started asking a question in the application about four or five years ago, and it was basically the opportunity to talk about any context, any additional information, maybe any challenges that the person has faced in their life, and that would give us greater context.

[00:11:01.320] – Dawna

So maybe somebody’s had a tough semester or a tough year in college, or maybe there’s a gap in their employment, or maybe just knowing that they grew up in great poverty or didn’t have opportunities that maybe others have had, it puts into context some of these achievements and has really reinforced life’s complications, too. And I see that so frequently in the applicant pool. I just think navigating a few things in life and coming out on the other side with a lot of support and help has probably taken my empathy to a different level. I think it’s an important quality to have when you’re in admissions and people are navigating something that’s so important to them. Not everybody, but a lot of people have overcome a lot. I see it every day. I think asking that question was very illuminating in terms of people who have navigated a lot to get to this point, and that context is really important for us. So trying to make people feel comfortable. It’s an optional question. You don’t have to answer it. Sometimes people are more open and forthcoming about maybe personal circumstances or financial circumstances or even loss of a loved one.

[00:12:22.460] – Dawna

Or there was a year when I saw a lot of the opioid. We have been hearing so much about the problem with I had a year in admissions where there were so many candidates who wrote about a parent or a loved one that they lost because of the opioid crisis. You see things that are happening in society, filter into applications. This is a long-winded answer to your question, but I think it’s a really important quality to have in admissions when you’re trying to make people feel comfortable being their authentic selves and safe being their authentic selves in a different way. It’s okay to talk about challenges and what you’ve learned from it to the extent that you’re comfortable doing so. People are also entitled to be private as well.

[00:13:12.420] – John

That’s very true. Maria, I’m I remember having represented a good number of applicants over the years in helping them make their decisions and present themselves, you see the same thing, a lower standardized test score, and they’re incredible in every other way. One reason or another, they just can’t get past the screen, right?

[00:13:36.640] – Maria

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s heartbreaking. It’s one of the more heartbreaking aspects of what is a frequently heartbreaking process.

[00:13:42.860] – Dawna

I would imagine.

[00:13:44.390] – Maria

Yeah. But that’s what’s one of the many things that has been so great about what Darden has done with its test optional, not test optional, but test waiver policies. Also, I love the fact that you guys accept a breadth of standardized tests. It’s not just the GMAT or the GRE or even the executive assessment. Someone could submit their MCATs or the LSATs exams. In the test waiver application itself, I think you’re even allowed to talk about your high school, your SAT or ACT scores. You’re allowed to bring any data to show and prove, Look, I can be successful in this program. I’m not just this one particular three-hour test on a computer screen. I think that you guys actually walk the talk in terms of Having that empathy and realizing that people are more than just a test score. Obviously, you need to make sure that people can handle the academics. You don’t want to set anyone up to fail, but you give them so many opportunities to really show that they can handle it and to allay those fears. Like, okay, there might be other reasons that your candidacy isn’t accepted, but we are confident that you can handle the academic and intellectual rigor of the program.

[00:14:55.010] – Maria

I know that candidates really appreciate Darden in particular with just how gracious you are and how open-minded you are about allowing candidates to prove that.

[00:15:07.370] – Dawna

Great. Thank you so much, Maria. It’s probably the policy that I’m most proud of instituting. We did look at a lot of data before we implemented that because Scott and I, our dean, Scott Beardsley and I felt that there was a growing amplification on the emphasis on the GMAT in particular at the time. But we did want to make sure that our admissions committee was equipped to make good decisions because to your point, you want to set an applicant up for success and make sure that they can handle the academics. But it is now 2024. At the time we did this, it was more like 2020, 2021. What other elements of an application correlate with success? Scott formed a committee at Darden or an office called enterprise Analytics. We worked really closely with enterprise analytics to dig into what information do we have access to in an application that could serve as an alternative, what we call alternative compelling evidence. For example, from that research, we learned that the GPA has a higher correlation with academic success at Darden. We focused on academic success because it’s easier to quantify. Other kinds of success are very harder to quantify, and we want to make sure that they’re academically prepared.

[00:16:34.530] – Dawna

So the GPA had a higher correlation. The GMAT and the GRE do correlate really well. So we’re not saying that they’re not good indicators. They are, but not all stellar applicants are stellar test takers. So we wanted to open up other avenues for them to show that they are prepared. We also found that the interview score correlated with academic success. At first, we were a little by that, but then we thought, Okay, Darden uses this Socratic method. There’s a huge emphasis on class participation. It makes sense that somebody who has strong interpersonal skills and communication skills is going to do well in the Darden classroom. Good fit for people out there who pride themselves on their emotional intelligence and their people skills and ability to communicate well. But every year we iterate on this a little bit a little bit more and look at things like, what about if they have a CFA or a CPA, or what if they did HBS core or some Coursera classes? We’re constantly iterating. You have to have enough of a sample size in order to do the research. Are there enough people that we’ve admitted who are matriculated that have a CFA or CPA?

[00:17:49.220] – Dawna

But in the years when we have, we just keep getting additional data to say, yes, there actually are other indicators outside of the GMAT and the GRE, and Some people do really well in those tests and go for it. But if you’re a candidate who doesn’t shine on a standardized test, but you are strong otherwise, we do not want to miss out on you. I mean, ultimately, we’re looking for high impact leaders. These are exams that are three hours long. I think some of them obviously have been shortened recently, but there are other indicators and Coursera classes. Like I said, HBS core and all these certifications that exist. Also with some of those certifications, people are working full-time while they’re getting their CFA or CPA. They’re working full-time while they do HBS core. So not only are the classes in and of themselves helpful, but What a statement of somebody’s motivation. They’re willing to work full-time and take HBS core, which is like 150 hours. That says a lot about how serious a candidate is in demonstrating their preparation. So I mean, it’s 2024. I think it’s time to be inclusive of other indicators. But yes, we do want people to succeed.

[00:19:08.660] – John

I should point out the core reason why Dawna deserved the Lifetime Achievement Award is her position on this. Darden really led the way. Initially, you put forward a test optional policy. It’s become a test waiver. 19% of the latest cohort that you entered in this fall entered without the in need of a test. And more than just changing the policy, you actually went out there and advocated for why this made sense. And you also made the statement with Scott, your dean, that schools were over indexing standardized test scores and admission decisions, in part because of rankings. And I think that that was a bold and courageous move to make. Other innovations that you’ve pioneered over the years was an open interview policy at Tuck, which is also a really stressful decision. But when you interview everyone who applies, you get insights that many other people don’t have. You instigated an early action deadline at Darden, which has become a real key part in helping the school recover from the Charlottesville rally after it was put in. You have a level of transparency in what you do and how you do it and how you evaluate candidates.

[00:20:40.120] – John

That’s rare in admissions. As you say in our interview, this is a world that has become so much more complicated over the years since you first entered it, in large part because of the recent Supreme Court decision that bans race-conscious admissions at colleges, which now denies you the opportunity at first glance to see even if a candidate is a female or a minority, which really complicates the ability of an admissions director at a public university to craft a class, a diverse class. It’s a wild and crazy world, isn’t it?

[00:21:29.170] – Dawna

It It really is. The things that’s really interesting for me, even though it’s the same career, some different schools, but also each year can be so different. Last year was really a game changer. I mean, my whole career, we had the opportunity to utilize affirmative action in our attempts to bring in diverse classes. So that was a major seismic change. But there are also years where I’ve never until recent years, had never seen a political election have an impact on applicant pools. But there was a former President who was elected, and it really impacted a decline in international applications, applicants who felt that maybe it wasn’t so safe to come to the United States or they weren’t as welcome. There are years everybody was navigating COVID and Darden. I’m really proud of Darden did to innovate and offer a January section. I think one of the innovations that I’m really proud of, and this goes back a good 20 years, is I wrote a proposal, I think it was around the year 2000 to 2003, was called Operation Top Talent. It was the first proposal to actively recruit students from with a military background. It made a lot of sense for Darden.

[00:23:03.820] – Dawna

Darden is a general management program, so it was such a great school for people, military candidates hoping to make a transition from the military into a business and wanting to learn a general management program, as well as our proximity to Norfolk and Washington, DC. But I’m trying to remember the year when there were a lot of military candidates coming out of Desert Storm and writing a proposal for some funding to start military recruiting and then showing that to people at Tuck when I went there about why this is an important population to recruit. Super excited to Because this past year and the year before, 14% of our students had a military background. It’s been nice over the years to see that population grow. They bring so much in terms of their leadership and their team and their discipline. We get such good feedback from recruiters and students who are in class with these former military candidates, primarily from the US, but there are also international students who served in their military, too. That was an innovation that I’m really proud of that dates way back, but I’m still really passionate about, and they just thrive.

[00:24:26.790] – Dawna

They just thrive at Darden.

[00:24:29.240] – John

Well, I’ll also add, Tuck, you were the very first major admissions director to invite and welcome admission consultants to a business school campus. At the time, there was a lot of skepticism. There were some, particularly at Stanford, that were vehemently opposed to admissions consulting, and you understood that they had a lot of influence over their clients, and you were determined to influence the influencers, which was a pretty smart move many, many, many years ago over at Tuck.

[00:25:05.730] – Dawna

No, absolutely. I mean, these are professionals that work and live around the country and around the world who can be an extension of your admissions office. And so admissions consultants are pouring their heart into working with candidates and helping find the right school for them. So of course, it made sense to me to invite them to know talk. There’s nothing. We always tell this to prospective students, there’s nothing that replicates coming to visit. We would bring them on an annual basis to talk and have them sit in on some classes and talk to students and show them the Upper Valley. We did that at Darden. Maria and I were just talking about that a few minutes ago before the podcast started and took them to the downtown mall, John, which now I know you know with living here, and Monticello, and UVA and things like that. I do think it’s important. They’re valuable resources to us. If they know our schools and like what they see, they’re more able to be equipped to be ambassadors who know new changes. We had Scott Beardsley talk to the AGAC group, but I think I’ve heard that AGAC was born from that conference.

[00:26:31.740] – Dawna

We used to have that, and then AGAC formed their own organization, which is wonderful, and I look forward to going to the AGAC conferences whenever I can. I have lots of friends with members of AGAC and think, Oh, it’s a wonderful profession to connect with students and help identify their strengths and be their biggest cheerleaders and advocates and help them make decisions about where to apply and how to best amplify their signature strengths. In fact, you may not know this, but you’re inviting the admission consultants to talk, help to form AGAC because AGAC was formed the year after that event. Yeah, that’s wonderful.

[00:27:20.420] – John

It was probably the first event where actually, admission directors got to know each other because they came to your campus. Now, Maria, being on the other side of this helping that it’s represent themselves, I wonder if you have any questions about the selection process and how people get filtered in and get filtered out.

[00:27:38.890] – Maria

I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall at any admissions committee meeting? But just real quickly, I did want to… Touching back on the point about Dawna inviting the admissions consultants, I just want to thank you. As an admissions consultant, I saw you. You hosted us at Tuck, and then you also hosted us at Darden. I just think, thank you for viewing us not as antagonists, but as evangelists, because that helps us, to your point. Your hypothesis was correct. There are so many times when I meet a brilliant military candidate and I’m like, Have you thought about Darden? You should check out Darden. Or I meet someone with a slightly less conventional academic path, let’s say. I’m like, You know what? You want to make a big career. You have an unconventional path, or you want to a big career change, a career change that’s going to benefit from a super well connected, supportive alumni community, check out Tuck. And they’re like, Tuck? I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of Tuck. I’m like, You should check out Tuck. I tell them the stories of when we went to Darden and we saw the students talk about how the community benefits them and how in the case of Darden, specifically, the case method has been such a beneficial way for them to learn.

[00:28:55.600] – Maria

When we, as admissions consultants, go to the different schools and we see it ourselves, we can then amplify that exponentially. Makes perfect sense.

[00:29:03.290] – Dawna

Yes. So you’re valuable. I think they’re valuable relationships for us and meaningful ones. Some people I’ve known for years and nice to connect with him at the AGAC conference and so on and so forth. Also, insert that I worked as an admissions consultant for a couple of months in between things and loved it. I found it was so wonderful to help Some people are not even aware of strengths that are obvious maybe to somebody who’s experienced. I remember working with a young woman who was really well-traveled, for example. She grew up traveling a lot, and not everybody has those opportunities, but she happened to have had those opportunities and studied abroad, I think twice in undergraduate school and had some international assignments. She had no idea that that is something that she should amplify in the application process. I said, I want to have a on your resume that says international expertise or international experience with all the study abroad and travel abroad and awareness of cultures. That’s a strength. It’s fun to work with people and help identify strengths that they may take for granted and don’t think about amplifying in the application process.

[00:30:22.260] – Dawna

I have a great deal of respect for admissions consultants. Thank you for sending those people our way, Maria. Of course.

[00:30:29.690] – Maria

Yeah, and And the international travel, that’s another thing that is unique to Darden is you guys have that Baton scholarship that I believe funds international, at least one international project for every student, which is really such a differentiator. I mean, every school has the international trips, but not every school necessarily financially supports all students. And I know that if some students are on significant financial aid, they might see the trip to Shanghai or the trip to wherever it might be, and they might think, Oh, I would love to go, but money’s tight. I love the fact that Darden allows students of all income levels to participate in those learning experiences.

[00:31:10.290] – Dawna

Well, I’m going to give a shout out to our dean, Scott Beardsley, who really felt passionately When he came to Darden, he has a nontraditional background, worked as a strategy consultant for McKinsey, later became in charge. One of his responsibilities was leadership development for McKinsey and had the benefit of traveling extensively for McKinsey and felt like it’s an important skill set for our students to develop, and some have more experience than others. But even if somebody has traveled to Latin America, maybe they haven’t gone to Europe or maybe they’ve gone to Europe, but not Asia, and things. It really bothered him that some students could afford a Darden worldwide class. Those classes are a little bit more expensive than the average class because of the international nature of them. But he went and got a benefactor, Frank Baton, who was not even a Darden grad. He was a UVA undergraduate who started landmark communications and gave money for the Baton Institute, but also their family funded the DWC. Every Darden student gets a $4,000 scholarship to use. Our dean felt really strongly, I want them to continue to strengthen their international insight and the to learn about different cultures so they’re more prepared to immerse themselves in different cultures and really see…

[00:32:36.530] – Dawna

I mean, it’s a beautiful form of education, and they have some great trips. I mean, they study… Each one has a theme, so A mutual friend of John and mine, Carole and Miles, hosted one last year in Costa Rica, and the theme was sustainability and ecotourism. A member of our faculties hosted one in Iceland, and they studied Our former Senior Associate Dean, Jean Lidka, would host one in Barcelona and instead use design thinking and creativity to solve business issues. They’re all over the world, but they have all kinds of really unique themes. There was one the last couple of years in Finland and Estonia, and industries that are really popular there are ship building and saunas. They study those industries. They all have a We all have a cultural component, too, where you’re trying new foods and going to museums and really soaking up the culture. People were talking in a meeting, somebody who hosted it yesterday, that they were all in the sauna with the students together. In Finland. But they’re great opportunities.

[00:33:49.880] – Maria

And I think in the application, at least in the past, you would actually ask people, Where do you want to go if you could go anywhere with your Baton Foundation? So to bring it back to John’s earlier question about the application and how you assess it, not just that one particular question, but the the application in general, can you talk us through when an application comes in? What’s the process?

[00:34:14.360] – Dawna

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so an application comes in and what happens is it first goes out for one to two, usually two what we call pre-interview evaluations. We’re quickly trying to decide who to invite for an interview. Unfortunately, I’ve loved the years when we were able to do open interviews at Darden and Tuck. But as application volume has grown over the years, there just isn’t the capacity to be able to accommodate everyone. And so first a decision is made on if an applicant is going to get invited for an interview. Then the interview takes place and a student can choose to come to Darden. We have a lot of what we call day at Darden’s and interview days and opportunities to come visit a class, or you can participate one virtually. No right or wrong answer. There’s a choice to accommodate people’s preferences. The interview happens, and then the file goes out for what we call a post-interview one, a post-interview two. Then about maybe 60% of the files come me for people who are in the zone of admissibility, and I’ll make a final decision. I have another really senior person on my team who helps with reading maybe the students that maybe are not quite as competitive.

[00:35:49.220] – Dawna

But lots of TLC goes into reading them. Two evaluations before the interview, 2-3 evaluations. Usually three is the norm after the interview, so you have different opinions. I will say one of the phrases that I like the most in the evaluation process, as people are making recommendations and as I’m making final decisions, I love the phrase as simple as it sounds, strengths outweigh. So maybe somebody is a stellar applicant. They have really great work experience, wonderful recommendations. They had a strong interview, and they did choose to take a test score, but it’s a little under the average or whatever, but strengths that way. Maybe, likewise, somebody is just fantastic, but their GPA is a little under the 3.5 average strengths that way. We really are looking at this holistically and more at what are all the elements that this person can bring without the expectation that every applicant has to check every single box. I love I love that phrase, as simple as it is. I like that. I’m so grateful. I have such an experienced team that’s been there for a long time, and I really trust their judgment. I think that’s maybe a phrase that I would like applicants to know that at the end of the day, I see that phrase quite a bit, strengths that way.

[00:37:21.750] – Dawna

And not every applicant has to check every single box. I mean, they’re 27 or 28. Part of the reason they’re going to business school is enhance their skills and crystallize their leadership style and learn and evolve as we hopefully all do as human beings and become better versions of ourselves or more enhanced versions of ourselves. I really like that phrase, and we use it a lot.

[00:37:51.000] – Maria

And it’s great to hear that you use that, right? I mean, again, you guys really walk the talk, right? It’s fantastic to get that inside view that you are open to people who might have… Like, not everything is going to be perfect and that you are looking to have reasons to admit people.

[00:38:08.980] – Dawna

Okay. I’m going to really… I think perfection is boring. I mean, I don’t mean in applicants, but I just think In human beings, we’re complicated. Life is complicated, right? And some of the imperfections are also some of people’s opportunities. And I don’t strive to look for Perfectionism can be very unhealthy and things, too. So I absolutely do not ascribe to us looking for the perfect cookie cutter applicant who checks every single box, every Everybody has strengths. Everybody has opportunities to grow and evolve. And I think most applicants apply and have an awful lot to give, to contribute to a business school environment and to leaders. And I I don’t like denying people. I like to talk about it as a space issue. There are more applicants than there is space to accommodate them all. A lot of times, we give feedback to people who are waitlisted on what they can do to strengthen their application during the waitlist process. One of the things that I know we do is amplify that a lot of this comes down to space. It’s We took the word rejection out of all of our letters because it’s really not a rejection.

[00:39:36.800] – Dawna

It’s a space. It’s an ability to identify the people who maybe have the most compelling applications and fit with what the school has to offer. But I haven’t for years not used the word reject in letters because it’s so harsh and it’s unfortunate that… I I wish Jarden was three times as big as we are so that we could accommodate more people. But it really boils down to a space, the ability to accommodate people based on space.

[00:40:12.550] – John

True enough. Well, Dawna, it’s been a real pleasure. Congratulations again on your Lifetime Achievement Award. It is well deserved. I love the quote, Perfection is boring. That’s a headline. Well, Dawna, thank you again.

[00:40:29.590] – Dawna

Thank Thank you so much, John. And just in closing, too, I’m so grateful for the award, but I’m also so grateful for you. I mean, we go way back to when you were starting P&Q, and I was at talk, and I can remember the first interview I did with you and thinking, whoa, he’s the real deal. This is like a real journalist. And I’ve just so enjoyed our relationship over the years, knowing you at Tuck and now Darden and having you as close friends in Charlottesville and all the different things that we’ve gone to in California and things together. But really so appreciative for the relationship with you and P&Q, too.

[00:41:17.430] – John

Well, it’s been a blessing and a pleasure, and really thank you so much for it. We’ve been around. California, we’ve been to plays in London together.

[00:41:27.120] – Dawna

Yes, that’s right.

[00:41:28.550] – John

Goodness, you helped us pick up our house in Charlottesville. It was during the pandemic when you couldn’t even fly. Dawna and her husband, John, literally went to this house that was for sale and put us on a FaceTime tour. Within an hour of that tour, we made an offer on the house, and we live in that house now. So yes. Thank you for all that and for all that you do.

[00:41:57.430] – Dawna

Oh, thank you so much. Maria, so good to see you, too. I’ll see you at AGAC, I hope in May. I can’t wait. Great. Thanks for the opportunity. Everybody, thanks so much.

[00:42:08.050] – John

For all you out there, this is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. You’ve been listening to business casual on a weekly podcast. Thanks for tuning in..

The Economist Dis on MBAs: Is the Degree Still Worth It?
Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
An Interview With Darden Admissions Chief Dawna Clarke
Maria |
November 7, 2024

[00:00:00] John Byrne: Well hello everyone, this is John Byrne with Poets and Quants, welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-hosts Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. Today we have a special guest, Heidi Hillis from Fortuna Admissions. She is based in Australia, is a senior expert coach for Fortuna, and has three degrees, all from Stanford, a BA in English literature, that’s my degree, an MA in Russian studies, and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business. And we have Heidi here to discuss some really fascinating research. Here’s what Fortuna did. They dug into the last Two class profiles of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

That’s the class of ‘23 and the class of ‘24. They looked up all these folks on LinkedIn to identify a little bit more about their backgrounds, including their former employers and their places of undergraduate education to come up with an incredible analysis. Heidi, welcome.

[00:00:46] Heidi Hillis: Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

[00:00:48] John Byrne: Heidi, what is, what are the big takeaways from your deep dive discovery?

[00:00:54] Heidi Hillis: It’s hard to know even where to start. I think there’s a quite a few interesting kind of trends that we’ve seen that have taken place over the years. We were mentioning before the call that traditionally there hadn’t been, 10 years ago, if you’d looked, you wouldn’t have seen so many tech companies represented, but now there’s a big presence of tech companies who are feeding a lot of these MBA programs in Stanford in particular.

I think that the thing that was really interesting was, looking, not just at where the companies that were feeding the students, the applicants to Stanford. When they were working there, when they were applying, but actually the paths that they took prior to their current job.

So how many people were working, if you look at McKinsey, for example, or Bain and BCG, those are obviously companies that feed a lot of applicants to the program, but we found 20%, which seemed to be normal of, the class came from consulting, but if you actually look into the numbers in their background, You would see that actually 37 percent of these two classes had worked at McKinsey sometime prior, or actually in consulting, so it was, it’s The kind of the patterns that are behind, what you would normally see in terms of what Stanford tells us.

So you get a sense of the paths that people have taken. And so that’s something that was really interesting to see.

[00:02:16] John Byrne: Absolutely. And of course, this is this analysis goes so far beyond what any applicant would learn by simply looking at the class profile that the school up because, this level of detail is never available to people.

[00:02:33] Heidi Hillis: No, and yeah, for example, you could see that, Stanford will say that they have around, each year around 50 percent of applicants are international, which is a great statistic and gives you lots of hope if you are an international student. But when you dig into the numbers, you actually understand that.

75 percent of the people who get into Stanford actually went to a U. S. University. So even if you’re international, it does have does seem to have kind of an advantage of having been educated in the U. S. That seems to be something that they look for. However, I think. The concentration of universities in the U.

S. that are feeding to Stanford is something also that, if you’re looking at it, you might find a little bit dis, disconcerting. There’s a few programs that are really, obviously the top. Programs as you would expect places like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, the Ivies but if you look at the international universities very diverse from all over the world, really lots of people from different places, which is also really interesting.

[00:03:38] John Byrne: Yeah I tell you, one of the things that struck me in the data is how consistent it is. 10 years ago, we did the same exercise at Stanford and a bunch of other. Schools from Harvard and Dartmouth and Columbia and talk and a few others and back 10 years ago, we found that 25. 2 percent of the class of 2013 were from Ivy League colleges.

And the Ivy League 8 schools, not including Stanford. And if you included Stanford, it would have been 32. 6%. So now, let’s move forward to your data. And in 23, 30. 7 percent went to Ivy League schools, even above the 25. 2. And in 24, 27. 9 percent went to Ivy League schools. So it looks like Stanford has gotten even a little bit more elitist than it was.

Yeah,

[00:04:41] Heidi Hillis: It’s, it is it’s what the data says, right? Obviously, this is a sample. We have 80 percent of the two classes. So we don’t know where those other people went. And that might skew the data a little bit in another direction. But it is, if you look at there’s 15 schools, that include the Ivy’s and then you have UC Berkeley and obviously Stanford that really are contributing, 49 percent of the class of 23, 47. 3 percent of the class of 24. So that is a pretty heavy concentration and But, if you actually look into the data, you see a lot of people also, each of these is actually an individual story.

You see a lot of people who come from other schools as well. So it’s not like you have to give up hope if you come from a different school. I see a lot of individual stories that, from the whole range of U. S. schools that really are feeding into Stanford. So I think what the data doesn’t also tell you, unfortunately, is how many of these Of people from these backgrounds are actually applying.

So

[00:05:39] John Byrne: good point.

[00:05:40] Heidi Hillis: It’s it’s hard to know. And sometimes I think people this is. A path that a lot of people who go to these schools plan to take from the very beginning. So I would see, it would be interesting to know that I don’t know that we will ever find that out. But, um, that’s something to keep in mind as well.

[00:05:56] John Byrne: Yeah. And that’s a fair point. Because how reflective are these results of the applicant pool reflective of an elitist attitude probably a combination of if I had to guess, but, it is what it is, and these institutions obviously are great filters, so you come from McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and you go to Harvard or Stanford or Penn, and you pass through a fine filter, and it makes you less of a admissions risk than if you went to, frankly, the University of Kentucky and worked for a company that no one knows of.

That’s just the reality of elite MBA admissions, right?

[00:06:40] Heidi Hillis: Yeah. And so you will see that the people who are not going, you’ll see a lot of the people who you would, the profiles that you would expect, the Harvard undergrad that then goes to Goldman that then was working at a PE firm.

That’s a really typical profile that you’ll see. But you’ll also see some really, unique and interesting ones, which I think, Okay. Helps you understand that if you don’t have that path, you also have a real chance at these schools, and maybe even more of a chance, again, not knowing, how many of those Goldman P.

E. Harvard grads are applying. So I’m thinking of the guy that I saw who he went to UPenn undergrad, studied engineering, started out a kind of pretty typical path working in private equity, but then made a big pivot to work for go to Poland where he was working in a real estate investment firm and the head coach of the Polish lacrosse team.

So you have really interesting profiles like that, that you can see that. aren’t necessarily taking that typical path. And sometimes that really does help you stand out.

[00:07:42] John Byrne: True. Maria, what surprised you most about the data?

[00:07:48] Maria Wich-Vila: Wow. I think we already covered, the, one of the biggest ones was the number, the percentage of people who would had some sort of either their undergraduate or graduate education within the United States.

Intuitively, I had felt that was true. And sometimes when I try to, give some honest, tough love to applicants from certain countries, and they’ll say, oh, but Maria, I think you’re being a little too pessimistic. After all, X percent of the applicants at these schools are international, and Y percent are from a certain geography internationally.

I’ll say yes, but that doesn’t mean that they’re all Solely from that area. A lot of them are, do have significant international educational experiences. I think another, speaking of the international piece the percentage of people who had significant international work experience as well was something else that really jumped out at me.

Because it would signal to me that Stanford really does value this global perspective both within probably its domestic applicants and also its international applicants. So I thought that was also a really interesting piece of data that jumped out at me.

[00:08:52] John Byrne: Now remind me what percentage was that?

[00:08:56] Heidi Hillis: People who are international

[00:08:58] John Byrne: who have had international work experience.

[00:09:01] Heidi Hillis: I think it was 30%.

[00:09:02] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty

[00:09:04] John Byrne: impressive.

[00:09:04] Caroline Diarte Edwards: 30%, which I was thrilled to see. As well as coming from in Seattle and Europe. Obviously the international schools put a heavy emphasis on international experience and I hadn’t fully appreciated that. A school like Stanford would also.

really value that to the same extent. And it’s great to see that candidates are making the effort to get outside of the U. S. and get international experience because I think you gain so much from that exposure. And you bring more to the classroom if you’ve got that experience. I know that both Maria and Heidi.

I’ve worked outside of the home countries as well. Pre MBA and I think that you just have so much more to contribute to the whole experience. And it was great to see that 30%.

[00:09:50] John Byrne: What else struck you, Caroline?

[00:09:53] Caroline Diarte Edwards: We talked about the concentration of academic institutions, and I was also surprised about the concentration in employers.

So while there is a very long list of employers where the students have worked pre MBA when you dig into the career paths that they’ve taken there is some interesting concentration. Heidi had noted that the reports that There are 26 companies that account for nearly one third of the class in terms of where they were working right before Stanford.

But when you look at their whole career history, those same 26 companies represent over 60 percent of the class. So that is, yeah, that’s quite extraordinary that so many of the class have experience of working at quite a short list of companies.

[00:10:46] Heidi Hillis: I think that’s reflective of, if you really think about it, you have a lot of these companies.

You’re talking about the Goldmans and the Morgan Stanley and McKinsey that have really large programs that recruit out of undergrad that are really training grounds for. A lot of people that then on to do, work in industry or go on to work for in finance in particular, a lot of people starting out at some of these bulge bracket banks and then going into.

Private equity or smaller firms. So the diversity within finance in terms of where they were working prior to MBA is quite large compared to consulting because there just aren’t as many consulting firms, but a lot of people in financing, a lot of different firms, but they, a lot of them really do start out in these training programs, these analyst programs that are so big and popular.

[00:11:34] John Byrne: Yeah, true. And looking back, I did this exercise as well. The feeder companies to Stanford 10 years ago in the class of 2023, 22. 8 percent from McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and your data, 22. 5 percent work there. Incredible consistency over a 10 year period. When you look at the top six employers 10 years ago, they were McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and JP.

Morgan Chase. They accounted alone for 34 percent of all the students in the class of 20, 2013 at Stanford. In your data for 23 and 24 they account for 29. 8%, just a few percentage points less. So remarkable consistency. And I think you’re right, Heidi, this is a function of the fact that these firms bring in a lot of people who are analysts and actually expect them after 3 to 5 years to go to a top MBA school.

So there’s a good number of them in the applicant pool to choose from and let’s face it, they’re terrific candidates.

[00:12:46] Heidi Hillis: Yeah. I think another pool of really terrific candidates that you see, and I don’t know what the 2013 data was saying, but is the US military, which is really, I think, again, something that I felt having worked with lots of military candidates myself, understand that, Yeah, intuitively, I would have expected, but to see it in the data is actually really interesting.

You just see Stanford in particular, I think, is really looking for leadership potential, and it’s so hard to show that as an analyst, as a consultant, but as in the military, these people have such incredible leadership experience that it really helps them to stand out.

[00:13:23] John Byrne: Yeah. And let’s tell people what the data shows.

How many out of us military academies,

[00:13:28] Heidi Hillis: In all in total, we had, 20 over the two years. So that’s in the two classes that we found. So that’s, a pretty large number. And they come from all the different academies, right? So you’ll find them from different, not academies, in the army, navy and the marines.

So you’ll see that. And you also see quite a few, in the data we’ll, we see a lot from the Israeli military as well, but that’s actually a little bit difficult to because every Israeli does go into the military. So it’s they have that in their background. Any Israeli candidate would have Israeli military background as well, but again, that’s.

Place that people can really highlight their leadership. So you had eight people from who had been, who were Israeli and obviously had military experience where they were able to demonstrate significant impact and leadership prior to MBA.

[00:14:18] John Byrne: Yeah. In fact, 10 years ago, roughly 2%. of the class went to either West Point or the U.

S. Naval Academy. Good number of people actually from the military. Maria, any other observations?

[00:14:34] Maria Wich-Vila: Yeah, I was also surprised at the fact that within those top employers And when we look at the tech companies, it was Google and Facebook and Meta with a pretty large showing. Google was actually the fourth largest employer after the MBBs and, but then, I was expecting there to be an equal distribution amongst those famous large cap technology companies.

So I, I would have expected even representation amongst Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, et cetera. And yet. Apple and Amazon only had one or two people each versus Google at 25. So I thought that was really fascinating and it makes me wonder if perhaps it’s a function of maybe Google and Meta might give their younger talent more opportunities to lead impactful projects, perhaps.

I’m just guessing here, but maybe Apple and Amazon perhaps are more hierarchical. And maybe don’t give their younger talent so many opportunities, but I was really surprised by that. I would have expected a much more even distribution amongst the those famous those famous tech companies.

[00:15:40] John Byrne: Yeah. You’re right. And I crunched the numbers on the percentages and Google took three and a half percent of the two classes and that’s better than Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase. Facebook had 2. 7 percent and Microsoft at 1. 5, and I was shocked at Amazon because, Amazon is widely known as the largest single recruiter of MBAs in the past five years.

At one point, they were recruiting a thousand MBAs a year, but in, in one sense, maybe Amazon quite doesn’t really have the prestige. For Stanford MBAs who might rather work elsewhere, I think that might be is, you look at the employment reports at a lot of the other schools and Amazon is number one at a number of schools and very low percentage of people from Amazon going to Stanford.

We don’t know, of course, how many. Leaving Stanford and going back to Amazon, but it can’t be that many.

[00:16:41] Heidi Hillis: I wonder if there’s something about just a proximity effect here. You have the plate, like the meta and Google just being so close to Stanford, maybe it just, attracts more people applying because they.

They’re almost on campus and maybe, just being Amazon all over the world and different places could be not attracting as many. I don’t know.

[00:17:03] John Byrne: Yeah, true. The other thing, the analysis shows, and this is what you also gather from the more public class profile is really the remarkable diversity of talent that a school like Stanford can attract year after year.

It is, it blows you away, really. The quality and the diversity of people despite the concentration of undergraduate degree holders or company employers, it’s it’s really mind boggling, isn’t it?

[00:17:33] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, they come from everywhere and really interesting paths and even the people I think that, have those kind of typical paths, you see a lot of diversity within them as well.

So I think, even if you’re coming from a Goldman or a McKinsey having lived in another country or gone to done a fellowship abroad or running a non profit on the side. These things are actually what helped them to stand out. But you do see some really interesting, I think, profiles, too, of people who’ve just done, you get a sense of what it would be like to be in the Stanford classroom.

People from really unique and different backgrounds. People who come from all different countries and lawyers, doctors people who have run, nonprofits in developing countries people running large programs for places like Heineken or Amazon too. But, it’s a real diversity of backgrounds.

[00:18:27] John Byrne: Now, Heidi, I wonder if one is an applicant. Is this discouraging to read and here’s why if I’m not from Harvard, Stanford, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, and if I didn’t work for McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Goldman, Google am I at a disadvantage and should I even try? Some people look at the data and come away with that conclusion.

[00:18:52] Heidi Hillis: I think it’s a reality check for a lot of people. I think it’s just, it’s really, it just helps people understand, what it, the difficulty of this, why it’s so competitive, but I think that there is, again, behind the kind of the percentages, you do look at these individual profiles and I would get, I would actually take a lot of hope from it if I were looking, as an applicant, because especially if you are.

Maybe a little bit more of a big fish or small fish in a bigger pond or big fish in a smaller pond you go to Rice or you go to Purdue or, and you do really well, those are the people who, they’re definitely looking for that diversity of background as well as the international.

I think that’s really neat. think that, instead of looking at the data and saying, why not, why I shouldn’t even apply, it’s why not me look at these other profiles of people who have taken really unique paths that that do get in. So I think it is actually a Kind of a mix of both, it is a reality check for a lot of people, but it’s actually, there is so much diversity in the data as well.

I think also one thing that we haven’t really covered is about is just the prevalence of social impact in, that’s really taken hold of the class. I don’t, again, going back to your 2013 analysis, I’m not sure how easy it was to tell that, but a lot of you can see reflected in the both the types of organizations people are working for, but also their titles and the kinds of work that they’re doing that that there’s a huge 40 percent of the class of the two classes had some kind of social impact in their background.

Whether that’s, running their own nonprofit on the side or volunteering or. Running trans transformational kind of programs within companies that are, either in finance or consulting or in industry. That’s a big trend. I think that people can take heart from as well.

So if you’re working if you feel like you’re in an organization where you’re not getting the leadership that you. can use to highlight your potential for Stanford, that’s definitely a place you can go is working for in volunteer capacity for a non profit or on the board of a of some kind of foundation.

Those are the kinds of places that you can highlight your potential

[00:21:00] John Byrne: true. And I know we have a overrepresented part of every applicant pool at an elite business school are software engineers from India. And I wonder in your analysis, how many of them did you find from like the IITs?

[00:21:18] Heidi Hillis: That’s a good question. The IITs, it was again, it was one of these you have about 50 percent of classes internet, so 25 percent of the class. was educated outside of the US. The IITs are going to be up there. Let’s see from India, 2. 1 percent of the class came from India. So probably, I don’t know offhand exactly how many of those were IITs, but

[00:21:43] John Byrne: I’ve had a lot of them.

[00:21:45] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, probably a lot of them. Although I think, that’s the other thing is that people who come, to work with me from India, they feel like if they haven’t gone to IIT, then that’s going to be a disadvantage. But I think, you’ll find that there are, there’s representation of other universities as well.

Definitely.

[00:22:00] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah, I was just looking at the list of undergrad institutions. And for example, you’ve got Osmania University from Hyderabad. So it is not, it’s not all IIT. Okay.

[00:22:12] John Byrne: Yeah, exactly. And Caroline, 1 of the things about the institutions that are really represented here and that I don’t really see unless I missed it.

I didn’t see a Cambridge or an Oxford. Two of the best five universities in the world. And I wonder if that’s just a function of fewer people in the applicant pool or what? What do you think that could be about?

[00:22:36] Caroline Diarte Edwards: I had a look through the uk Institutions and you have got cambridge in there.

I think I also noticed. Bristol university there are a few different universities. So i’m aston university, which is not it’s not on a par with Oxford or Cambridge. So I think that speaks to the point that Heidi made that you don’t have to have been to an elite school to get into Stanford.

Aston is a good solid university, nothing wrong with Aston, but it’s not it’s not one of the top UK universities. So there’s definitely some interesting variety in the educational backgrounds of the students going to Stanford. And

[00:23:16] John Byrne: then, yeah, it is if you’re a big fish in a small pond, like Afton, you’ll you could still stand out in the pool.

[00:23:26] Heidi Hillis: Absolutely. There’s a lot of really interesting background, you have look hard on blue and you have Miami University and some really smaller universities abroad. I think. Again, it’s really, if you look at that, it does give you hope because it’s really what you do afterwards and if you, obviously, if you come from one of these schools, you probably want to be in the top, 5 percent of the graduating class, you want to show that you have the GPA that can support an academic background that they feel comfortable that you’ll be able to compete academically, but, and maybe that’s what you’re Offset by the, the GMA or the scores, you don’t know, we don’t have those on here.

But, um, the path post university really becomes much more important in those cases. What you’ve done since then where you’ve, how you’ve risen from starting at a entry level position to, running a division or heading a country group or something like that.

[00:24:21] John Byrne: And as far as Cordon Bleu goes, every good business program needs a Cordon Bleu, for God’s sake, right?

You want to eat well at those NBA parties, don’t you?

[00:24:32] Heidi Hillis: Absolutely.

[00:24:35] John Byrne: Maria, I’m sure that was true at Harvard.

[00:24:38] Maria Wich-Vila: I wasn’t the one doing the cooking but I certainly, I was certainly a member of the wine and cuisine society where I happily participated in the eating and consuming a part of that.

But to, to the point that we were just recently talking about. regarding being a big fish in a small pond. Not only have I seen it personally with applicants that I’ve worked with who did not attend these elite universities, but even many years ago, I attended a, an admissions conference where Kirsten Moss, who was the former head of admissions at Stanford, she actually told stories about how they’ve accepted people who even attended community college.

But within the context of that community college, they had really moved mountains. And she said that one of the things that they look for is, Within the context and the opportunities that you’ve been given, how much impact have you had? So maybe you don’t have an opportunity to go to Yale or MIT or IIT for your undergraduate, but whatever opportunity you have been given, have you grabbed that opportunity and really made the most of it and really driven change?

So she specifically called out, I believe, I believe there were two students that year at the GSB who had both started their educations, their higher educations at community college. Anything is possible. It really is about finding the people who, wherever they go, they jump in and make an impact.

[00:25:55] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, I think that to that point, I think it can almost be a more difficult if you’ve gone to Harvard and then worked at one of these, gone on one of these paths because we know that there’s, that’s an overrepresented pool in the applicant pool to stand out among those to have had that, that pedigree sometimes can be a disadvantage, right?

If you haven’t done as much as you should have with that, or if you started at that high level to show that level of progress over the course of your career is actually a little bit more difficult. Okay. And coming from a community college and rising to, a country level manager in some places is actually puts you at a significant advantage, I would say.

[00:26:31] Maria Wich-Vila: Because it’s hard for those people, it’s hard for those people to stand out, but also I think some of them go on autopilot, right? I think some people are on this kind of achievement, elite achievement treadmill, where they’re not even really thinking about what do I want to do with my life?

They’re always reaching for whatever that next, what’s the best college to go to? It’s Harvard Princeton. Yeah. Okay. Now that I’m here, what’s the best employer to work for? It’s McKinsey, Bain, BCG and without actually perhaps stopping to think about what is my passion? What impact do I want to make in the world?

And so I feel sometimes those autopilot candidates, I feel a little bit bad for them because they’re doing everything quote unquote and yet sometimes when you speak with them, that passion just isn’t there. And I do think that may ultimately harm them in the very, very elite business school.

Admissions because business schools want people who are passionate because at the end of the day, in order to do hard things, you’re going to need passion at some point to get you through those low periods. And so I think that’s something business schools look for. And I do think that sometimes these.

These kind of autopilot candidates might sometimes be at a disadvantage.

[00:27:29] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, I think that, to that point look in the data, when you look at it, you see so many people who’ve gone to McKinsey, Bain, Weasley, or Goldman, but then there’s a, you see a lot of success for people who’ve actually pivoted.

So those pivots that are post The second or third job really do show you that, if you’re if you get a candidate who’s coming from, still at McKinsey, okay, that’s fine. They have to be the top 5 percent of McKinsey, like they have to be going to get so many McKinsey applicants that the only the, you can look at the data in a couple ways.

One is, oh, my God, they took 12 people from McKinsey and the others. Oh, my God, they only took 12 people from McKinsey, right? That’s So if you want to be one of those 12, you have to be the top 12 in the world, right? Whereas if you’ve gone to McKinsey and then done an externship at a health care startup and then moved on to be a product manager at for health at Google, that kind of a path is definitely showing a little bit more, maybe risk taking, maybe ability to follow your passions.

So I think that. When I see candidates who come to me, for example, and they’re like, not thinking about applying now, but maybe in a year or two, I say, look for an externship, maybe think about pivoting out of one of these places and looking for some operational experience.

And because you see in the data that works.

[00:28:42] Maria Wich-Vila: And they’re doing themselves a service not only in terms of enhancing their admissions chances, but even just in terms of determining, what do I want to do with my career? If I do eventually want to go into industry, what functional role do I want to have?

What industry do I want to work in? So it’s, it actually benefits them in the long term to do that as well, even if they don’t go to business school. I think those secondments and externships and second job, post consulting jobs are extremely valuable. Totally agree with you.

[00:29:06] Caroline Diarte Edwards: And I’m sure they also bring more to the classroom as well.

I would think that’s also why Stanford is selecting some of those candidates, because not only have they worked at McKinsey, but they’ve also led a non profit in Africa or worked in private equity or whatever it is. So they have much more breadth that they can bring to the classroom. And I think that It’s seen as a very valuable contribution

[00:29:29] John Byrne: in Heidi.

Did you see that? The majority of the candidates to examined actually did work in more than one place, right?

[00:29:37] Heidi Hillis: Yes, most of them did. There were very few that, you see working at one place. And I would say that those are people that would have really risen through the ranks.

Someone who’s worked at Walmart and become, started in, I don’t know, in one state, but then to become a regional manager and things like that really are going to onto a global role. The people who have stayed at one place really have shown significant career progression within that.

And then the other people I think you do see a lot of movement. The big. The most typical would be from investment banking to private equity and then you do find in finance, there’s a little bit less kind of movement into other industries. You see a lot of people staying within finance, but within finance.

Yeah. Yeah. The other industries, especially consulting or other, tech, people are really moving into other places and it’s becoming, it is a little bit difficult. We have these categories that we’ve talked about, for example, healthcare, but it’s hard to categorize some of these companies.

Are they healthcare? Are they tech? There’s a lot of overlap. And so everything’s a little bit of tech in something nowadays. So whether it’s finance and fintech or education and ed tech or health care and health tech, these are all merging and combining. It’s hard to categorize them.

[00:30:53] John Byrne: So looking at the data here I wonder if you’ve seen your old classmates in the sense that these new people are very much like the people you went to school with at Stanford. I

[00:31:05] Heidi Hillis: put this out and it’s really interesting to a lot of my classmates downloaded the report and read it. And a lot of them came back and said, oh, boy, I would never get in now.

It’s these people are super impressive. I think that you see a lot of. It’s just become more and more competitive. And I think that with more information and more people every year applying, it is becoming really difficult. I think that you do see a lot of, I am encouraged by the diversity part of it that you see still Stanford.

I feel like they do take risks on some really interesting profiles and candidates that maybe some other schools are less likely to do. And so that’s what does give me. A lot of hope when I get some kind of really nontraditional candidate who wants to, their dream school is Stanford. I feel like, I say all the time, there’s a 6 percent chance.

You’re going to get in, but there’s 100 percent chance. You won’t get in if you don’t apply. So you’ve got to, you got to give it a go. And that’s, the attitude that we take to it.

[00:32:04] John Byrne: Indeed. So for all of you out there read Heidi’s article on our site, it’s called who gets in and why exclusive research.

Into Stanford GSB and I’ll tell you one conclusion I have about this is that, man, if you really want to get into Stanford, you need a Sherpa, and and Heidi would be a great Sherpa for you because the, just the profiles of these folks, where they’ve been, what they’ve done, what they’ve accomplished in their early lives is so remarkable that To compete against, in this pool for a spot in the class you need every possible advantage you can get.

And and having an expert guide you through this trip probably would be a really big advantage. So Heidi, thank you for sharing your insights with us and the research, the very cool research.

[00:33:01] Heidi Hillis: Thank you

[00:33:03] John Byrne: and for all of you out there. Good luck. And if you want to go to Stanford, you got to check out this report.

Okay. It will inspire you to up your game, even if you are from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, or wherever McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Goldman, Google, you want to look at this report and you want to really think about. What it will really take to get in. I think it will inspire you, motivate you to really put your best foot forward.

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

Maria

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