GMAT Score Inflation
Maria |
March 3, 2023

If you are an aspiring MBA applicant who has concerns about your chances of being accepted given the recent trend of “GMAT inflation”, this episode is tailor-made for you. In this episode of Business Casual, our host will delve into effective strategies that can help applicants improve their chances of securing a seat in top-tier MBA programs despite the ongoing trend of GMAT inflation. The episode will cover valuable insights and perspectives on the impact of GMAT inflation on the MBA admissions process, as well as practical advice for navigating this highly competitive landscape.

Our esteemed hosts, John, Maria, and Caroline, will share their expert opinions and perspectives, offering valuable insights on how to build a strong application package that highlights your unique skills and experiences, and stand out from the crowd.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.210] – John

Hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co host Maria Wich Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. I’ll remind you again, Maria is the founder of Applicant Lab, and Caroline is the cofounder of Fortuna Admissions and the former Head of Admissions at INSEAD. I want to talk today about GMAT scores. Obviously, there’s this great obsession about standardized tests when you apply to an elite MBA program that is highly selective, and standardized scores count for a lot. And that’s because it’s one way to compare candidates from all over the world with others, because sometimes GPAs aren’t as good a reflection as a current standardized test score, even though GPAs are earned over three to four years, as opposed to a test score which is earned over 3 hours or so of a test. But what’s really interesting here is how GMAT scores have been climbing. So in the US. Alone, people who apply to US. Programs now are applying with ever higher GMAT scores. The average score of GMAT exam for those who apply to a program in the US. Is now 658. That’s up 45 points from 613 only five years ago. And just as interestingly are those who score 700 and up. In the US. In testing year 2021, roughly 23% of the exams had scores of 700 and up. That’s compared to only 14% five years ago. That’s a big jump and in Australia and the Pacific Islands, 32% of the people taking the GMAT exam now have scores of 700 and up. Maria, what do you make of this?

[00:02:06.500] – Maria

Though I think there are probably a lot of factors at play here, and I’m sure Kennedy, you, and all three of us have a lot that we could talk about here. I think the first one that jumps to my mind is probably that more and more people are taking the GRE as an option, a viable option, to get into business school. When I first started looking at MBA admissions just over 20 years ago, the GRE was something that you pretty much only submitted if you were applying to a dual degree program, and so you didn’t want to have to take two standardized tests. But it has become increasingly a viable alternative to the GMAT, and in fact, not only viable, but I would go so far as to say an attractive alternative to the GMAT, especially for people for whom standardized testing may be a hurdle or something that they don’t excel at. One statistic that I pulled up is that roughly, sort of ten years ago or so, about 12% of the incoming class at a Harvard Business School applied with a GRE score. And this most recent year, 30% applied with a GRE score.

[00:03:05.840] – Maria

So it has gone from being a niche thing that a few candidates could explain away, oh, here’s why I didn’t take the GMAT, because I had already taken this other test, and so why I have to take two? But now it’s actually become a viable, if not more attractive, alternative because I do believe that, all things considered, the GRE as a quote unquote, easier test to take. And even if it’s not easier, I also believe that there is sort of a psychological forgiveness element that happens if somebody applies with a GRE score that is not stellar, because the GRE has not been consistently used within the MBA admissions committee community. If I look at a school and I say, wow, their average GMAT used to be 730, and this year it went down to 710, I can immediately and intuitively know that’s a huge difference. But if I look at a school’s average GRE scores and I say, oh, their average went from 164 to 162 in quantum verbal or what have you, that I have a less of a I’m like, well, it only sounds like a two point difference. That’s not a big deal, right.

[00:04:06.830] – Maria

So until I think the market overall, it’s interesting. I know I have some numbers, but I also have some non numbers and some more emotional psychological arguments. And I think that because the GMAT is scored, it goes up by increments of ten versus in GRE, which goes up and down in increments of one. And because I think that an increment of one difference in the GRE is a much larger swing and percentile difference versus a ten point swing in a GMAT score. You know, I mean, some of the top GMAT scores, you’re the 99th percentile if you have like a 767, 77 to 87, and they don’t report it within a different granularity of 99.2%, 99.8%. So, in other words, because of the way how the GMAT is scored, I just think that it’s a lot easier if you’re not a great test taker to say, well, I just, you know, I got a 161 and the average at the school is 163. But that’s pretty close, right? Even if you were to then translate that same exact score, that same exact percentile to a GMAT score, it might be like a 40 point, I don’t know exactly what, but it’ll be a huge swing where we would all step back and say, whoa, that’s a pretty big difference.

[00:05:13.760] – John

But for GRE, just yeah, Maria, that’s a really good point. I’m going to just say ten years ago, can you believe it? We ran a story. It’s called schools accepting lower GRE scores. And we proved that, in fact, if you use the conversion charts put out by Educational Testing Service, which is the administrator of the GRE, basically schools were widely accepting much lower GRE scores than GMAT scores. One example was Duke. Now, back then, the the equivalent GRE score well, rather rather, the equivalent GMAT score for the those who submitted Gres was 640 at Duke, when the average GMAT score back then was 690, a 50 point difference. The difference at Michigan ross was 33 points. At Washu Olin, the difference was nearly 100 GMAT points. So I think this trend remains true today. Schools are much more willing for whatever reason. Maybe part of it is the reason you just mentioned. You know, a one or two point difference doesn’t feel as big as a ten point difference on the GMAT. That’s part of it. Also, I think that many schools are under the mistaken impression that US news does not incorporate GRE scores in its waiting for its ranking.

[00:06:50.050] – John

They didn’t back ten years ago, but they do now. But how they wait it is sort of a bit of a mystery. It’s not really explained. So I think a lot of schools think they can take lower GRE scores and not suffer in the rankings. So that’s really interesting. We should run that analysis again and see what it’s going to look like.

[00:07:13.050] – Maria

Just really quickly. That stat that you just cited where if you take the ETS GRE to GMAT score converter, so the average GMAT score for HBS for the most recent class was 730. If you take their average GRE score and put it through the same score converter, I believe it’s a 690. And when you look at percentiles, a 730 GMAT score is 96 percentile and the 690 GMAT score is an 84th percentile. So about a 10% swing, which is a pretty big difference.

[00:07:49.380] – John

That’s fascinating. Now, it is true that more non traditional students take the GRE and more women take the GRE, and that could have some impact on these numbers as well, I would think. Caroline, what’s your take on these inflated GMAT numbers?

[00:08:08.410] – Caroline

Yeah, I do think there is an element of self collection going on here. So if you say people know that average GRE is are often lower than the average GMAs, and therefore if I’m not a good test taker, then I probably should go in the direction of the GRE. Although, having said that, you make a good point that a lot of the GRE test takers, there is a different profile in the pool, right? If the GRE pool versus the GMAT pool, and schools know that and they are often more flexible on their expectations of standardized tests from candidates who bring something to the classroom that the management consultants and the investment bankers may not bring to the classroom. Right. So additional perspective, additional more diverse experience, or more diverse profile. And I think therefore that if you are one of those more traditional candidates, you might not get as much leeway as you would otherwise expect if you take the GRE.

[00:09:13.390] – Maria

Right?

[00:09:13.720] – Caroline

Because the schools are maybe taking candidates with lower Gre’s, but it’s also because those candidates have those nontraditional profiles. And therefore, if you have that more traditional profile, then you may be disappointed. If you apply with a GRE that doesn’t match to it doesn’t map to such a strong GMAT, you might not it might actually diminish your chances versus a candidate with a similar profile who applies with the GMAT and with a strong GMAT. So I think need to keep in mind the difference in profile of the test takers. But I think there is increasingly self selection going on here with many schools not requiring the test or test optional. And this is also happening in the undergraduate market in the US. As well. There’s a lot of inflation of SAT scores because students are not going to take the SAT if they don’t have to, and they’re not going to be good test takers. So I’m not sure where we end up.

[00:10:15.800] – Maria

Right.

[00:10:17.670] – Caroline

It’s an incredible increase that you’ve highlighted in this article. It’s remarkable how much it’s gone up over the past five years. And is that going to carry on? Our candidates going to continue to self select, that they will only take the GMAT if they think they’re going to do well on it and therefore the average will creep up and up? I’m not sure that and at that point is it a very useful benchmark for admissions, right? Because if people are only taking it if they’re good at the test, then it’s not a common data point. The value of having something like the GMAT or the GRE, especially when you’ve got a very diverse pool, and this was very true when I was working at Inciet. You got a diverse pool of people who come from all different educational systems, a lot of different countries, a lot of different backgrounds, incredible diversity. The GMAT can be very useful as one common data point that people have or the GRE, because everything else is completely different in their profile. And it’s very difficult sometimes to compare candidates with very different backgrounds. And if you’re getting a lot of applications from candidates who haven’t got the test or have decided to take it only if they’re going to do well, then I’m not sure how useful that is as a data point to compare people.

[00:11:43.730] – John

True. All you have to do is look. At USC’s Marshall school, all right? Their latest enrolled MBA class had an average GMAT of 732. That’s up 25 points in two years alone. So looking at the overall inflation of GMAT scores gives some understanding of how is it possible that the USC Marshall could have a 25 point increase in the class average GMAT score to 732 against Harvard 730 median? How is that even remotely possible? Well, it’s because more and more people are scoring 700 and up on the test.

[00:12:28.670] – John

And it seems I mean, if you. Go to Australia and a third of the people are scoring 700 and up, and in the US alone, it’s 23%, it doesn’t feel as special as it once was. And of course, Maria, you’ll point out that MBA admissions is holistic. Standardized test is one of many elements that are considered. How important an element today, do you. Think standardized test is.

[00:12:56.420] – Maria

Well, to Caroline’s earlier point, I do continue to think that standardized tests play a valuable role, perhaps not as a benchmark across the entire applicant pool. I do think that standardized tests should be seen within the context of a specific candidate’s upbringing and their competitive bucket. So, for example, someone who grew up in a non English speaking country and was educated in a non English language, I think it’s perfectly acceptable for that person to have a lower verbal score. That is not, to me, an indicator of their intellectual capacity. So I do think, though, that there is absolutely a room for the standardized test because you have so many different candidates from so many different backgrounds, and so these different universities all have completely different grading systems, and it’s a huge nightmare to try to figure out some sort of a way to measure them. At a certain point, you do have to choose better versus worse candidates because otherwise you can’t accept 100% of them. And so in that context where people do have to be chosen and some people have to be not chosen, I think it’s a perfectly fine thing. And if the GMAT does end up going away, I would hope that there becomes, if not some other thing to replace it.

[00:14:15.720] – Maria

Perhaps it’s not a test. Then in that case, I would hope that there would be a way to determine with more transparency what does make for a strong competitive profile. So just to make something up. If it’s not about test scores, maybe it is about in order to be competitive for a school, you have to have had a management experience of at least two years. Or you have to have had some experience with dealing with your company’s senior management and impacting senior management or some some of those more qualitative yardsticks that I think as admissions professionals we use when we’re judging someone’s competitiveness. I think maybe then if that that would have to be the way, then that we start looking at it, which creates its own set of problems.

[00:14:58.260] – Caroline

Right?

[00:14:58.450] – Maria

What if somebody’s amazing, but they work at a very large company that’s very hierarchical and does not allow them to talk to the CEO and change the CEO’s mind? So, again, in a complicated world with a complicated admissions process, I hope that the standardized tests don’t go away completely, because I do think that they provide a lot of value.

[00:15:18.150] – John

Caroline, you obviously were making admission decisions at INSEAD on candidates. How important was the standardized test to you?

[00:15:28.060] – Caroline

Well, as you say, there’s a holistic admissions process at business school, and so it is one data point of many. But it is an important data point, and it is a valuable data point, and it’s not more important than someone’s undergraduate track record, and it’s certainly not more important than their professional track record. So all of those things are important, right? The schools are looking at a lot of different dimensions, but nevertheless, it makes it harder to get in if you have a very weak standardized test score. But I think one other issue with this inflation is our candidates going to be scared off by those numbers.

[00:16:16.510] – Maria

Right?

[00:16:16.810] – Caroline

And that’s been a concern top business schools for a long time. As the average GMAT have crept up, does it deter some candidates from even considering the school?

[00:16:28.750] – Maria

Right.

[00:16:29.330] – Caroline

And I think that there is a problem there. When you look at, as you show in your article, there’s a great diversity of average scores from different countries in different regions. And if you broke that down or into different profiles, then you would see greater disparities as well. And will some candidates who actually have a huge amount to bring to business school, a lot to add to the classroom, will they be deterred remotely because of those headline numbers without necessarily understanding the context? So I am concerned about that. And Maria made a very good point about the fact that you would expect native English speakers to do better on the GMAT.

[00:17:17.120] – Maria

Right?

[00:17:17.370] – Caroline

I mean, it’s very difficult for a non native English speaker to do, especially the verbal part of the test. I mean, I speak pretty good French, but I would be very challenged to try and do a version of the GMAT in French. And business schools do factor that in.

[00:17:35.920] – Maria

Right.

[00:17:36.260] – Caroline

They they understand that if you’re a native English speaker, then it’s easier to do well, especially on the verbal, than it is for non native English speaker. And so I’m concerned that with those very scary headline numbers and that increased inflation, that seems to be continuing. Right? I don’t see where this stopping anytime soon that this could be a deterrent for some really fantastic candidates.

[00:18:02.290] – John

Yes, and you’re right. I mean, when you look at the numbers, and they’re in this article that we just did in Germany and Italy, for example, only 11% of the test takers scored 700 and up. That’s half the level of 700 and up scores in the US. Alone. Right. So clearly you look at some of the language difficulties, and it really comes through by country. Interestingly enough, in Nigeria, we know that Africa is becoming a more important part of the MBA applicant pool. Five years ago, fewer than 5.5%, less than half a percent of the test acres in Nigeria scored as 700 enough. Now 7% of them score 700 and up. That’s a big change. I’m also thinking that it’s probably true that GMAT prep has become increasingly sophisticated, and those who have the opportunity to have a tutor or to be in a class, or to even avail themselves of online support platforms, that’s probably contributed to some degree to higher scores as well. What hasn’t contributed is the test has not gotten easier. No one would agree with that. But I think the test optional policies, the fact that you can take a GRE score lower and still get into a really good school and better prep materials that are out there and more accessible, more widely accessible, because many of the online platforms that allow you to study for the GMAT cost only a fraction of what GMAT prep had cost in the past.

[00:19:50.000] – John

I think that’s an element of this somehow. Now, I also wonder, if you’re an admissions official and you’re reading about this GMAT inflation, and it’s pretty significant, how does that change the way you look at the score? What do you think?

[00:20:04.710] – Maria

Maria I mean, my take if I were an admissions official, which I have not been and Caroline has been, so I’m really looking forward to her answer to this. How I would look at it is almost not so much that a high score gets you in, but a very low score would be a cause for concern. And I think a low score would keep someone out, potentially. And again, I would look at it in context. So someone who perhaps is from Egypt, who was raised speaking Arabic and attended an Arabic, maybe they went to the American University of Cairo, but otherwise their entire context has not been in English. I would personally be more forgiving of a lower verbal score. I think I would be on the lookout for some sort of a floor on the quant number, not in terms of percentile, because, as we can expect, the percentiles of 48 on the quant used to be a pretty strong score. And now it feels like a lot of people, from a percentile basis, more and more and more people are getting a 48 on the quantity. For me, something like, okay, I would want someone to do at least a 47 48 on the quant in terms of that being their score that they get, even if that means a lot of people are doing it.

[00:21:15.930] – Maria

And I think I would just look at it within context. But I would certainly be alarmed if somebody had if I were comparing two candidates side by side, who had very similar sort of work experiences, and one of them had a dramatically lower score than the other, especially if they had not been retaken the test. I also look at retakes, right? I think sometimes people submit and this is a problem, I think, for people from cultures, from countries where the culture is very test driven. Sometimes I meet people who will say, well, I took the GMAT seven times, and I finally broke. I would have applied to business school four years ago, but it took me years and years to get that 700. And I think, oh, no, you should have probably applied seven years or four years ago, or whenever it was. And also, I tell people, you realize that they can see. They ask how many times you’ve taken the test? And so if somebody has taken the test once and got a 700 and someone else took the test six times or whatever that limit is and got a 700, you realize that it’s a little bit less impressive if it took you that many tries to get to that level.

[00:22:25.550] – John

Although doesn’t it demonstrate how bad you want it? And it’s kind of like the fire in the belly metric, because people who have that fire in the belly are more likely to be successful than those who don’t.

[00:22:37.150] – Maria

I mean, there’s fire in the belly, and then there’s setting yourself on fire accidentally. How bad do you want it? Doesn’t necessarily mean anything if you’re not that bright, right? How badly I want it. I want to become the starting center for the Chicago Bulls, and I want that really badly. But the fact is, I’m a five middle aged woman. It’s not going to happen. So no matter how badly I want it, I can appreciate the tenacity involved, right. If somebody gets a low score and then they don’t retake, that to me, is a bit of a red flag, like, well, did you not look at what the requirements are? Did you think that we wouldn’t notice? So at least at a minimum, I think a retake does show some level of commitment. But I think there’s also a level where it just gets to be a little like, you know what, maybe you should just apply for a school that is not the school that you initially were hoping to get into.

[00:23:33.670] – John

It’s interesting for this story, we interviewed the person at Kaplan Test Prep, and that person mentioned that there’s no longer a stigma about taking the GMAT multiple times. And in the past, there had been a bit of a stigma. And as we do know, there are business schools who tell people, hey, take the GMAT again, get another 20 points, and we’ll admit you. That does happen, and I’m sure you might have seen that in some of your clients. Now let’s go back to that other question. The central question is, how does an admission official interpret these higher numbers? And let’s go to Caroline on that since she actually had to make these decisions at one point.

[00:24:20.050] – Caroline

Well, it very much depends on the context of the candidate, right? So the schools know that certain candidates typically do better than others on the GMAT, and they will have that in mind when they’re evaluating a candidate. So as we’ve said, if you’ve got an otherwise strong profile and you’re from a background where candidates typically do well on the GMAT, but you don’t do well on the GMAT, right, you’re going to be compared to other candidates who have done well on the GMAT. So it’s just it’s not going to look good. So it really depends on who you are. So they’ll definitely be looking at the profile, and they will have certain expectations of how a candidate should do. But at a certain point, you know that it doesn’t make a lot of difference. Right. If a candidate gets a 740 versus a 750 versus a 760 versus a 770. Right. Once you’ve met a certain benchmark, and I agree with Maria that quant score can be very important, especially for profiles where the candidates may not have a lot of quant experience in their work and may not have a strong quant academic background from the undergrad, that quant becomes very important. So the schools will be looking to see if someone has met a certain threshold. I’ve spent more time looking at the breakdown of the scores than the total scores.

[00:25:44.840] – John

Right.

[00:25:45.010] – Caroline

I think the breakdown is more interesting and tells you more about a candidate’s academic ability, and you’re looking to understand different things from different parts of the test, and you’re looking at that also in context of their undergraduate experience. Candidate who has in my case, when I was applying to business school, I had studied languages at undergrad, and I didn’t have a strong quantitative background. And so I knew that I needed to do pretty well on the GMAT to demonstrate that ability because that is an important part of the academic experience of business school. So the context remains very important. But at a certain point, if the candidates just keep the scores keep creeping higher and higher, I’m not sure that it’s really benefiting them that much.

[00:26:40.960] – Maria

Right.

[00:26:41.170] – Caroline

You need to show that you could reach a certain academic level. And beyond that, the schools are going to be looking at other things. They’re going to be looking at what else do you bring to the program, going to look at your professional experience. They’re going to be looking at what you would bring to the community. I’m not sure that having a super high GMAT score is going to impress them more than someone who’s got fantastic leadership experience or has done something very impressive in an extracurricular dimension. So I do think that candidates often overindex the value of having a super high GMAT and think that that can make them look like a really strong candidate, when in fact, okay, it makes them look like a really good test taker, but doesn’t necessarily make them look better than another candidate who is stronger in other dimensions.

[00:27:35.650] – John

Yeah, that’s really true. The other thing is there is to some degree in arms race and GMAT scores, and some of the reasoning behind that happens to be US. News and the fact that they wait this number, and it does discourage people. One of my pet peeves is, look, you don’t need a 700 to give an admissions official confidence that you can complete the core without difficulty. I don’t know what that number is. Maybe it’s 650, maybe it’s 600, maybe it’s even less, but it isn’t 730. And yet everyone wants to report a class average above 700 if you’re in a school that’s highly ranked. Now, the Stanford number, incidentally, for the latest class, 737, that’s going to turn off a lot of people. A lot of people are going to say, hey, I don’t have a shop at Stanford if I’m not way up there with a GMAT score and people are not going to apply. And that’s a sin because obviously we do know that admissions are holistic and an average means that there are a lot of people who score below the average and still get in. But you look at 737 and you say, wow, if I’m sitting at 680, I don’t have a chance. Why should I even bother and apply? What do you say to people who use that rationale and basically talk themselves out of applying?

[00:29:04.180] – Maria

Maria well, I think, first of all, if you’re going to use that rationale and talk yourself out of applying, you’re probably not the sort of person that Stanford wants anyway. I’m being really serious. Like, Stanford is looking for people who are going to change lives, change organizations, and change the world. If you see a single barrier, potential barrier to your acceptance and you give up, you’re probably not the sort of person who’s going to change the world in general. And so, yeah, I mean, of course it’s a 737 because they accept people who are, you know, truly exceptional. And people who are truly exceptional in one dimension of life are often truly exceptional in lots of dimensions. And so, of course, they’re going to be the sorts of people who do very well on the test. What I would tell that person on a Pragmatic level to their face, as opposed to what I would just say to myself in my head, which is the one I just said out loud, is this is a perfect candidate where if let’s assume that everything else is perfect. Like they had launched a new division of their A company and expanded their company into a new market and turned around a failing division and all that stuff that I know Stanford loves to see, amongst other things.

[00:30:07.330] – Maria

Let’s say that they had that, but they have a 680 GMAT. I would just say take the GRE. This is the perfect person, in my opinion, to take the GRE. It is for all the reasons we’ve been discussing, it is a less judgy test. I think it’s easier to get a higher percentile. And even if it weren’t, I think that the levels of judgment on a slightly lower GRE score are not as high as the levels of judgment on a slightly lower GMAT score.

[00:30:35.210] – John

Yes, true. Okay, for those of you out there who want to look at our story, it’s called GMAT Score Inflation. Now, nearly 20% of test takers are scoring 700 or higher. We have the numbers by country and region of the world for the latest year as well as five years earlier. So you can see how inflated scores have actually become. Well, Maria and Caroline, thanks once again for your insights. Really. Appreciate them. And for all of you out there, thanks for listening. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants.

GMAT Score Inflation
Maria |
March 3, 2023

[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 โ€˜23 and the class of โ€˜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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