Making Extras Count In An MBA Application
Maria |
May 17, 2023

In today’s digital age, the MBA application process extends beyond academic achievements and test scores. Admissions committees now value a combination of academic excellence, leadership potential, and unique experiences. This shift emphasizes the importance of the “extras” – those intangible factors that set applicants apart. 

In this episode of Business Casual, we explore how aspiring MBA applicants can leverage their passions, extracurricular activities, and diverse backgrounds to craft compelling narratives that capture the attention of admissions committees. Our hosts, John, Maria, and Caroline, discuss the significance of leadership, community involvement, international exposure, entrepreneurship, and personal development in making an application stand out in the competitive MBA admissions process.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:06.970] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets of Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co host, Maria Wich Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. We’re going to talk about extras. What do I mean by extras? I mean the extracurricular activities that you’re involved in that can greatly enhance your application. A business school. One of the things that people really want to see in the admissions office is they want to see ambition beyond oneself. And depending on what kind of extras you get involved in and what kind of leadership muscles you’re able to stretch in, those extracurricular activities can mean a lot to your chances of getting in. Because, let’s face it, pretty much everyone has a 700 plus GMAT if you’re applying to Harvard, Stanford or Wharton or INSEAD. And pretty much everyone has had good grades at the undergraduate level. But a lot of times you can really distinguish yourself by doing something different and special. And I’m going to talk a little bit about what really adds value to your application when you think about extras and what adds less value. And if in fact, you’re planning well ahead, meaning a year in advance, how can you decide which extras to get involved in to help your chances at a highly selected business school?

[00:01:28.440] – John

Caroline, you have a colleague, Heidi, who just wrote a column on this for us. What’s your take on extras?

[00:01:35.490] – Caroline

Yeah, I think it can add a lot to an application. It can really enrich your story. It can often be the most interesting part of a candidate’s application. And quite frankly, when you’re scanning through tons of applications and reading through everyone’s professional achievements and academic achievements, it can often be the extracurriculars that jump out and can really add color to a story and can really grab the file reader’s attention. So I would definitely take advantage of those opportunities to bring your story to life. And it doesn’t have to be. This is something that candidates often ask about and they’re concerned about. Does it have to be volunteering? Do I have to have raised a lot of money for a charity? Do I have to have started a nonprofit? They feel like some extracurriculars are better than others, and schools aren’t looking for any particular extracurricular.

[00:02:36.030] – Caroline

Right. They’re not sort of waiting sports coaching versus running a marathon, right, or fundraising for a charity. There’s lots of different things you could do. It’s really about showing your passion and what you care about and also showing a track record of something they like to see that you have interests outside of your day job and outside of study, and that it’s something that you have committed to and that you’ve engaged in over a period of time, and that it’s not something that you’ve just picked up. Coincidentally, three months before the application deadline, you’ve started walking puppies at your local animal shelter. And you’ve never done anything like that before. It looks a little bit suspicious that perhaps this was something that you picked up because you realized that there was a bit of a gap in your extracurricular profile. So a track record and length of engagement is important, but it doesn’t have to be anything in particular. It’s more about showcasing who you are, what you’re passionate about, what you care about. And ideally, you can showcase some characteristics and qualities that can round out your application. So, for example, a candidate who perhaps hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to demonstrate management skills and leadership skills in their day job, but perhaps that’s something that they can have demonstrated in their extracurriculars, right?

[00:04:07.070] – Caroline

Perhaps they’ve led a project or they’ve coached a sports team and they can demonstrate those leadership qualities through their extracurricular profile and they might not have had formal leadership responsibilities in their day job. So it can be a really nice way of rounding out your application and showcasing some additional relevant characteristics.

[00:04:28.320] – John

Maria, do you have some favorite extras that you like to see candidates have?

[00:04:33.100] – Maria

I don’t know that I have a favorite extra per se. I think, as Caroline said, the ideal kind of extracurricular to have is anything that lets you demonstrate some of the leadership qualities that schools are looking for. This is especially important for people who might be in jobs in which their day jobs might not allow them to have those leadership roles. So I don’t care if it’s walking dogs or coaching a sports team or tutoring inner city children primarily. I would like to see that you have a mindset of someone who likes to make an impact and that you ask yourself in a situation instead of saying like, what’s the bare minimum? If the bare minimum is I show up for 2 hours a week and I teach these fifth graders how to read. Can I go beyond that? Right? What can I be doing to make it better? Maybe I can do a fundraiser to buy books for them. Maybe I can convince 20 of my other classmates to come and start reading to these children as well, right? How can you go above and beyond to demonstrate those abilities of yours, to influence others, to be creative, to be innovative?

[00:05:33.470] – Maria

All of those positive attributes that business schools are looking for are all things that you can probably demonstrate through continued dedicated involvement in an extracurricular. I was interested when Caroline said before you don’t want to just start something three months before the admissions season and suddenly and pretend that they’re not smart enough to notice that you didn’t do anything for five years. And now all of a sudden you have three different things that all happen to start in March, 6 months before your round one deadline. In fact, I’ve even told people there are some times where I try to gently because I do think that what people do is they start to look into the MBA admissions process and they suddenly realize, to their horror, if they are from, especially from other countries where there is not such a strong culture of the extracurriculars as part of who you are, they might realize, oh, no. I was supposed to be volunteering this whole time and I haven’t been. And so they just start volunteering. They suddenly just start throwing the kitchen sink at doing all of the things, hoping that something will stick, throwing spaghetti at a wall, as it were.

[00:06:30.860] – Maria

And I’ve actually told people sometimes one tries not to be cynical. It’s very hard to not be cynical, but one tries not to be cynical. And what I’ve said to people at times when they have started a brand new extracurricular out of nowhere, out of thin air, that has nothing to do with anything, it just kind of seems like a slap, dash, desperate attempt to put something on the resume. I’ve actually advised people to leave it off the resume and I’ve said to them, look, I’m sure that I know that this isn’t you. I’m sure that your heart is in the right place. I know that you probably have a genuine interest in teaching these puppies baseball. But the truth is it risks looking to an admissions officer. Like maybe you just started doing this only to bolster your application and your heart’s not really in it. So there have been times that I’ve actually told people to leave those things off of their application because there are times when it just really is so obvious that it actually kind of it’s a little gross and leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. So I would not advise anyone, if they are listening right now, to suddenly say oh no, quick, let me sign up for 20 different things and hope that something works.

[00:07:33.560] – John

Yeah, perception is reality for sure. The other thing though, I’m reading in your comments, Maria, is that simply volunteering for something isn’t as powerful as being proactive in leading an initiative or leading a club or an organization. Because when you lead something you are showing your potential for leadership, right?

[00:07:56.790] – Maria

I think it shows two things. You’re right, it demonstrates your ability to lead groups of people and to make things happen. But I think it also on a broader level can demonstrate a mindset sort of a habit of HBS has this phrase that they use sometimes called the habit of leadership. That’s what they’re looking for. And the way how I describe it in far less elegant terms is that they’re sometimes looking for people who almost can’t help themselves but get involved. If they join the baseball team, they kind of can’t help themselves and say what if we practice three times a week and what if we fundraise and what if we did this? And so showing them. So I think that the best extracurricular involvement that also involves a level of initiative isn’t just about like, yes, I can manage a budget. I can do a project management thing where we spend six months organizing the gala event. That’s great, those organizational skills and finance skills and teamwork. But I think the very best ones are ones where it’s almost like you couldn’t help yourself. And you have such a passion for this thing that you use that passion to go above and beyond.

[00:08:57.470] – Maria

Because that signals that if that’s the sort of person you are even in your extracurricular life, hopefully that’s the sort of person you are kind of just in your fabric of your being. And you will be that person as an alumnus and hopefully do positive things in the world with your degree.

[00:09:11.450] – John

Yeah, totally true. Now, I just came back from Paris, and I had the pleasure of going to Attache Paris, which has annually an MBA Olympics. It’s called MBAT for MBA tournament. And there’s a leadership team there of 31 people, and every one of them has worked their butt off for at least six months. Now. They’re already in an MBA program. Yes. So in this case, this is a great addition on your resume for a future employer. Because thinking about it this way, this is an event that occurs over three full days, requires the booking of six hotels, over 150 bus trips for transportation for 1300 plus people in over 60 different competitive events, many of which require referee and just tracking that making sure 1300 plus people are fed, are kept safe and don’t get into trouble. Boy, that is the ideal extracurricular activity. But we are focused on the pre MBA extra. Caroline, I wonder, among the applicants that you’ve worked with, give me a couple of examples of extracurriculars that really made a powerful difference for the people that you worked on.

[00:10:36.240] – Caroline

I mean, one comes to mind where we worked with a client who actually wasn’t going to include something in her application. And she was a ballet dancer as a teen and had danced for the Bolshoy Ballet. And she thought because it was when she was a teen, it wasn’t relevant. It was no longer relevant to her business school applications. Like, no, really, you should include it.

[00:10:59.650] – John

The world renowned.

[00:11:01.730] – Caroline

Yes. Right. And you know, Maria mentioned that other countries often don’t have the same culture of extracurriculars because often in other countries, you don’t have to have extracurriculars to apply to an undergraduate program or even postgraduate program.

[00:11:17.680] – Caroline

Right.

[00:11:17.930] – Caroline

So often outside the US. And outside the world of business schools, educational institutions are just looking at academics. And so there is not a culture of necessarily investing as much time and effort in extracurriculars. And so candidates outside the US. Are not necessarily aware of the fact that extracurriculars can carry such weight in their applications. And so, as Maria mentioned, sometimes those things can get overlooked, and sometimes those candidates might not have as fantastic extracurriculars as some of the candidates have been through the US. System who have been brought up with this ethos from the time that they could walk. But then also some of the international candidates do have great extracurriculars, like this ballet dancer, and what incredible qualities it shows to have been able to juggle intensive dance training and that discipline, as well as her academics to get into a top undergraduate program. It demonstrates wonderful qualities that are a great addition to her profile.

[00:12:32.350] – John

The discipline to dance in a world class company is just mind boggling. And any admissions director who sees it on a resume knows this person can pretty much do anything. If you’ve been able to compete at that level.

[00:12:50.790] – Caroline

Yeah, I mean, if you can cope with that kind of pain, you can survive MBB, right?

[00:12:56.630] – John

Indeed. Okay, here’s a fun question for you. Give me an extracurricular activity that would be the equivalent of a 750 GMAP, and then give me one that would be a 700 and then one that’s 650. It’s a tricky question, isn’t it?

[00:13:14.590] – Maria

It’s a good question. It’s such a good question. I wish I would have known that it was coming so that I could let’s see. Okay, all right, I can do this. All right, what’s a 750 extracurricular? For me, sort of a top, top notch extracurricular is something where someone has started, let’s say a nonprofit, but not just like, started it, because anyone can really file the paperwork and get a 501 C three and call it Maria’s nonprofit. DuJour. The starting of the nonprofit doesn’t do a whole lot. It’s then being able to demonstrate that that nonprofit has done stuff, not just that it has raised money. Because that’s the other thing is, sometimes people have, like, the wealthy uncle who writes the check for $10,000, and then it’s like, oh, I raised $10,000. And I’m like, how did you do that? And they’re like, well, really, it was my uncle. And I’m like, oh, that’s not good. But so something that has shown not just the ability to raise money from outside sources, but then actually has made an impact, right? Being able to point to the number of children who have now been able to go to college, being able to point to the number of families fed, the number of vaccines distributed, whatever that is.

[00:14:17.960] – Maria

That, to me, would be the ideal. And it would be to Caroline’s earlier point about showing a long term commitment to a cause. It would be something that carries over. Let’s say this is someone who works in the healthcare industry, and in college, they did public health volunteering and they volunteered at a public health clinic. And then after college, they started a nonprofit that helped bring public health services to impoverished areas. It would sort of show this track record. But the number one thing would be to show that impact, right? Because somebody who starts I mean, look, everything that anyone does to volunteer and to help others is wonderful, right? But there’s a difference between if you help ten people versus if you help 1000 people in a significant way. So I think that would be like the 750, the 700 equivalents would be something along the lines of I am on the local young board for the Ronald McDonald House charity and which is a real charity, by the way. I know I often say things that are a little sarcastic, but that’s actually a real charity. It does really great work. And I helped organize a fundraiser and the fundraiser usually brings in $100,000 and I said, let’s add a 5K fun run to it.

[00:15:24.630] – Maria

And then now it raised $300,000. Hooray. So that would be more taking something that’s existing and moving it to the highest level. And then the very sort of basic thing would just be like I’ll tell you the worst extracurricular. I think at least the one that sticks out in my head is one of, like, the lamest ones ever was someone who started volunteering, like, two months, and they only did this for like, two months and they were volunteering at a local Red Cross blood bank. And it was their job to bring the people, after they had donated blood, to bring them, like, a cookie and some lemonade. And I’m like, really? And they’re like, yeah, because somebody told me that I need to volunteer and I’m like, literally a robot with a little tray of cookies and lemonade could have done that.

[00:16:11.910] – John

That’s not even worth a 650, thats.

[00:16:15.990] – Maria

A negative 700.

[00:16:18.470] – Caroline

Maria the room.

[00:16:19.820] – Maria

The thing is, I like this person. I don’t think this person did it with a smile. I think they were probably they were not doing it because they cared at all about the people giving blood, I can assure you that. So anyway, that was one where I was like, leave that off because it’s so lame that it actually works against you. It’s better just to have nothing. So, okay, those are my off the top of my head answers.

[00:16:43.620] – John

Now, what about someone who doesn’t have anything? Okay, there are people who, regardless of where they come from, it could be in the US. Let’s say they’re an analyst at investment banking. We know how hard those jobs are and we also know how time consuming they are. You really have no time left for anything, not even going out socially or even paying attention to your parents in those jobs. What about that investment banker type? How do they get involved in an extra of some kind? Because a work related extra isn’t as valuable as an outside work related extra. Here’s my thinking on that. Because it’s really for your career if you’re involved in a company extra, right? I mean, you’re really bolstering your own career as opposed to really being ambitious for someone else. So what does the investment banker do?   Caroline?

[00:17:36.200] – Caroline

Well, yeah, it is challenging and schools do understand that. To a certain extent. And it’s not just people who have demanding day jobs, right, who are working very long hours. It could be people who are traveling a lot for their jobs. It could be people who have families, right? If you’ve got spouse and kids, you have less time for extracurriculars than if you’re young, free and single. So it can be worth explaining that in your application. But ideally, you still find a way of doing something. And I guess the earlier you start planning for that, the better. Ideally, I would suggest pick up on one thing rather than trying to do a lot of different things that holds true for anyone, it’s better to focus on a small number of extracurriculars rather than spreading yourself too thinly. But if you have very limited free time, then focus on one thing. And I would suggest focusing on one thing where you have a track record already, so something that has been a genuine interest for you and you’ve been involved in the past, so that you have a story that you can build on. And it’s not something where you just plucked it out thin air, but perhaps it’s something where you’ve got a story to tell how you’ve been engaged during your undergraduate career and then now you’ve got involved again.

[00:18:59.050] – Caroline

So that can help to bolster the story that you’re telling now about what you’re doing if you already have been involved in the past. And perhaps you can build on that experience. So hopefully candidates can still find a way, because especially if they’re applying for the very top programs. Unfortunately, in an intensely competitive environment, even if you do have a very limited free time, you may be up against candidates who also have very limited free time, but yet have managed to do something quite impressive in their extracurriculars. So that’s just something, unfortunately, that you have to have to try to figure out if you’re applying to the very top school.

[00:19:46.360] – John

True. On Poets and Quants website, we have a section called MBA Watch where candidates actually enter basic details about themselves and we essentially have a look at their chances at their target schools. And some of the people say things like this for extras. Oh, I’ve traveled to 48 of the 50 states and my goal is to hit two more. Or I’ve learned three languages and I’m now studying a fourth. These are not the kinds of extras that are going to get you any brownie points at Harvard or Stanford, are they?

[00:20:25.080] – Maria

I think we need to differentiate between an extracurricular activity versus a hobby.

[00:20:30.590] – John

A hobby, yeah.

[00:20:32.570] – Maria

I do think that hobbies can be hobbies can be interesting. Right. It can certainly be sort of a little bit of spice on top of what is already a well made meal. Right. It can be that little kick of chipotle that you sort of say, like, OOH, that’s interesting. I will say that I do think that there are, especially within the MBA, cohorts the applicants. Everyone loves to travel, right? And so for me, when somebody says, well, I love to travel and I love to eat good food, I’m like, oh, you’re human. That’s like saying I love to breathe. I’m a really big fan of oxygen. And so some of those I don’t think have as much impact. I think it’s more like, oh, if I’m interviewing you and I’ve got a few minutes left at the end, I’ll be like, oh, so tell me about tell me about the fourth language you’re learning. Why did you choose to study Arabic? But that’s more of like a sort of interesting, that’s kind of cool, but it’s not the reason I would necessarily take someone. So I definitely think and if you do have one of these hobbies, that is one of the very common travel yoga exercise types of hobbies, I advise that people don’t just say, I like to travel exercise and do yoga.

[00:21:42.520] – Maria

But to actually put a little bit of again, going back to the spice analogy, don’t just say, I like to travel to 36 countries, but say something more like, I love to travel parenthetical. I was once trapped in a train in Thailand overnight. Or try to throw some specific details into it instead of just listing out 27 countries in four languages. If you are going to mention it, try to put something that’s a little bit more eye catching, perhaps a specific detail or alluding to an anecdote or a good story that you might have that might be interesting to talk about.

[00:22:17.760] – John

Maria, that’s always good advice because you want to essentially create a vivid memory of what you’re writing, right? So if you’re stuck on a train in Bangkok overnight and had to sleep on a park bench or something, that’s a vivid memory and that’s something that people are going to visualize when they think about you, which is what you want to have happen. Okay, so hobbies are different than real extras and an extra for two months serving at a soup kitchen once a week ain’t going to help you a whole lot just before you apply to business school. We know what the 750 is now. It’s a high hurdle, but I think a lot of people are in the more of a middle range that have shown an interest and a passion and topic that has helped others and has shown that that person has leadership potential. I think that’s a key as well. Well, Caroline, Maria, thank you so much for all your help. Really appreciate it. And for all of you out there, I hope you pile on the extras that are meaningful that will help you in your journey to business school. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. You’ve been listening to Business Casual.

The Economist Dis on MBAs: Is the Degree Still Worth It?
Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Making Extras Count In An MBA Application
Maria |
May 17, 2023

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] John Byrne: Hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets& Quants. We have a really cool story to relate to you today. Me and my co host, Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards, are going to talk about the most disruptive MBA startups of the year. Every year, Poets& Quants invites the top schools all over the world.

To submit nominations for ventures with what we call the greatest potential for lasting beyond business school. So what we want to do is acknowledge MBAs who have launched really cool companies that are paving the way for the future. And this year, we have 41 student startups that we have honored in what is the sixth annual list of the most disruptive MBA startups.

And they come from all over. We got nominations from Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, MIT, INSEAD, London Business School and others. And, uh, I think what the basic list shows is that entrepreneurship is alive and well in business schools are a lot of great ideas. A lot of them are powered by AI. No surprise there.

They involve every imaginable industry. There’s a good number of these in the business of health as well as in beverages, consumer products and things like that. And I wonder, Caroline, if you have a favorite among this group, and I bet you it’s going to be an INSEAD startup.

[00:01:30] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah, I have a few favorites, and definitely INSEAD is on my list, although I’m going to start with a London Business School one.

Um, and there were a few international ones that I thought were really interesting. I like the story from kiro, which is a fintech startup, coming out of London Business School, founded by LBS student Alicia Chowdhury. she secured 200, 000 in funding, and it’s the first AI powered financial coach, which is designed to help,

Gen Zed, as I would say, or Gen Z, as you would say. and young adults, get personalized financial guidance. So that’s something that jumped out to me, given that I now have a young adult among my children and trying to teach her financial literacy is somewhat challenging, so I can definitely see the need for that. And she tells a really interesting story about how financial literacy was something that she had struggled with and realized that there was a gap in the market, right? There’s a lot of great financial information out there, but it’s not necessarily tailored and communicated well to young people. And she ended up working in finance before business school.

she doesn’t have a tech background, but she did. Teach herself the fundamentals of AI and machine learning, and she assembled a technical team to work with her. And I thought it was really interesting as well, how she leveraged the LBS resources. And I think a lot of the stories that you have in this article really tell a great deal about the power of business school experience in helping people launch a company. And of course, there’s often a lot of criticism about the value of going to business school. And if you want to be an entrepreneur, there’s no point going to business school. And I think that this article really debunks that. so for example, this is how she benefited from LBS.

She was a finalist in the LBS Launchpad. She completed the LBS Entrepreneurship Summer School. She joined the LBS Incubator. She led the LBS Entrepreneurship Club. And then, of course, she benefited greatly from a lot of the courses that she took at LBS. I got a lot of great advice from LBS faculty, as well as the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital.

I think a wonderful story about how a student had a vision of something that she wanted to do and saw a gap in the market and really went after it, leveraging that wonderful ecosystem that you get at business school and she’s got a VC group backing her. So that’s one of her investors and Aviva Group is a huge financial company.

I think it sounds very promising. So congratulations to Alicia.

[00:04:11] John Byrne: Yeah, you’re right. One of the things that comes through here is the support that students get from the schools. And their classmates and their professors, it’s a real terrific thing.

As you said before, a lot of people say, hey, if you want to start a company, instead of paying a school tuition, just use that as your seed capital and you’re going to be better off, but the truth is that a business school you’re surrounded by really smart colleagues and people who’ve been through this before and mentorship from professors and seed money from the many venture challenges that occur at different schools can make a very big difference and shift the odds in your favor of success. Maria, do you have a favorite?

[00:04:53] Maria Wich-Vila: Yeah, my favorite.

startup was Cell Mind, which is out of the Johns Hopkins business school. This one really hit home for me personally. What they are trying to do is they are trying to maximize access to a type of cancer therapy called “Car T”. And I have indirectly lived this. We have a good friend from business school who has been battling cancer for several years, and last year there was a complete rollercoaster around  this car T therapy. And I apologize to any doctors if I’m butchering this. But basically, my understanding is that if it works for you, it essentially can cure your cancer or cause it to go into remission. But, if for whatever reason, if your body is too weak at the time that you receive it, it can actually kill you. Unfortunately, it can cause something called a cytokine storm, I think.

And so, the decision of whether to go or no go is obviously one that is very fraught with a lot of, emotion and risk. And so, we actually had a friend who last year was approved for CAR T. But then in the weeks right before they were going to give it to her, they then disapproved her because she had gotten weaker … it was this whole roller coaster.

And so any sort of startup that is doing something to figure out, which patients actually are likely to do well with this therapy? Can we expand our doctors being perhaps understandably a little too cautious because they’re concerned about the negative side effects, perhaps being worse than the.than the cancer itself.

Anything that can help expand access to this is why they were number one in my book. And as you guys were just talking about. Because Johns Hopkins is one of the best, if not the best medical school in the world, this is a great example of a business school student or group of business school students leveraging the resources and the expertise at that overarching institution, trying to find ways to commercialize it, and just make the most of those resources.

I really loved that story.

[00:06:40] John Byrne: Yeah, and that’s what you increasingly find. it’s not a bunch of MBA students doing their thing. It’s reaching out and having these really entrepreneurial collisions with students from other departments, other schools where they have deep expertise in computer science or engineering or medicine or law or public policy or environmental sciences teaming up with MBAs to launch things. which really give them extra power.

One of my favorites comes out of, uh, Chicago Booth. And, it’s sort

a really interesting idea where, first off, it’s called Encore, and it’s a marketplace for high end collectibles. Now, you think, how could that really be a cool thing? What they’ve done is they’ve combined TikTok style videos. With the traditional eBay auction format, to create a really engaging experience for people who want to shop for these collectibles. But what’scool is the MBA who’s behind this. His name is Will Enema, at first thought he shouldn’t apply to Chicago Booth, new venture challenge, because he had already raised a pre seed round and thought that Encore might not be good for that traditional, giving money out kind of program. But, he entered it after he was urged to by a number of professors at Booth. The idea placed second in the competition. He won $350, 000 to help launch his company, but here’s the real kicker:

Within two weeks of that competition, a venture capitalist who participated in the judging agreed to lead their seed round. So it just shows you how, incredible things can happen, in the environment of a business school.

Now, Caroline, I’m sure you have others that you really thought were really cool. Name another one.

[00:08:29] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah. So my second one is of course, an INSEAD startup and it’s called faceflow. ai. And I really liked this one because it’s an AI powered skincare platform. So again, relating it to my personal experience of having four daughters who are constantly clamoring for the. latest ridiculous beauty product that they’ve seen on Instagram.

I think this is a fantastic idea.

What it does is it actually gives you scientifically based product recommendations, right? So they have for the two founders, Daniel Patel and Simon Zhang, Patel had previously founded a marketplace for international skincare brands. So he knew the skin, the beauty industry, skincare products.

And then his partner, Simon, is an experienced AI engineer, and so they’ve combined their expertise to bring AI to skincare recommendations. And it’s underway. I checked out their website. I have signed up already. The product is not yet available, but I’m looking forward to when it comes through.

And they won the INSEAD French competition and, talk about how they’ve benefited from the very entrepreneurial environment at INSEAD,

I really enjoyed reading about their experience and I’m excited to learn more about their products.

[00:09:49] John Byrne: Yeah, absolutely. And now

Maria, I know there are 2 Harvard startups on the list from your alma mater. did you pick 1 of them as your 2nd choice?

[00:10:00] Maria Wich-Vila: It was not necessarily my 2nd choice, but there was 1 called Vulcan Investments. This is a little bit out of my, Wheelhouse. So I think we all tend to gravitate towards something we know or something we have experience with, but it’s trying to figure out how to solve the rare earth magnet problem. Right now. A lot of these rare earth materials that are powering modern technologies are coming from China, which poses several challenges, especially should relations with that country not go well in the future. So this is trying to solve for that issue. I think that was a really interesting one.

But actually, my second choice was one that again, I have indirect personal experience with, albeit in a different way. It was called Yogger. What they’re trying to do is, I believe it’s taking your phone to watch you as you perform exercise then give you feedback on, your gait, your form, et cetera.

And this was really interesting to me, not so much because of exercise, although I wish it were (ha ha) (though: side note, my dad was a track and cross country coach for decades and I totally forgot about that in the moment, but I should have mentioned that!!! D’oh!!!), but who knows, maybe this will motivate me to jog more (har har har).

In the interview with the entrepreneur. he talked about how you can do things like a gait analysis right now, in other words, tracking how your legs move when you are running or jogging, and then providing an analysis, but these sorts of things are very difficult to get to. It’s expensive. You need to be set up with, they put a whole bunch of sensors on all of your joints. and I have a friend who has a child with cerebral palsy and they’ve had to do these, go to actually Hopkins (this is not a Hopkins based startup, it’s from Tuck, Dartmouth Tuck), but they’ve (my friends, I mean) had to go to Hopkins and actually have these, it’s a day long thing to set up your child with the different sensors. And so the thought of using something as simple as an iPhone app, perhaps, machine learning, et cetera. all that good stuff to analyze your gait and make this accessible. It’s not only I think useful for casual exercise enthusiasts, but I think it could also have ramifications and uses even in other areas. For example, kids with special needs. So I was really excited about this one.

John Byrne:

MIT Sloan has three startups on our list this year.

That’s more than any other school. And one of the really cool ones is called Vertical Horizons. This is an incredibly ambitious startup. It’s all about commercializing high density, high efficiency power supplies for AI computing. Essentially, it’s a semiconductor company. and you might not think that an MBA would be involved in actually creating a semiconductor company.

But it’s founded by Cynthia Allen, an MBA in the class of 2024 at Sloan and one of her professors. So it’s a good example of where university develop some sort of new technology or new insights. And then needs to commercialize it. And in this case, you have an MBA coming along, who has a great interest in this, and is helping to commercialize it. The actual idea of it has 4 million in research grant funding to develop the technology. So there’s a good amount of money behind this very ambitious idea.

I think, stepping away from the individual startups, what I think this says about, the ability of people who want to go to business school and use that experience as an incubator to launch a startup, it’s alive and well, it’s a great way to launch a company because it does take a lot of risk off the table and these startups, these 41 startups that these different business schools really give you a great insight into what different people are doing.

Caroline, I’m sure, and Maria as well, you probably meet a number of people in your practices, that want to use an MBA to do a startup. Do you think they’re ready to take full advantage of these experiences?

Caroline Diarte Edwards:

Yeah, I certainly hear from a lot of candidates who are hoping to launch a venture. Some of them want to do it as soon as they graduate and for some of them it’s more of a longer term ambition because of course financing can be a challenge.

Especially if you’ve invested a lot in taking on a lot of debt with your MBA and a lot of the themes that I hear, candidates are interested in come through in your article as well. So it’s noticeable that there are quite a few startups in your list that address, healthcare issues as Maria highlighted, also education, environmental challenges. And I think those are three areas that I hear a lot about from candidates in terms of where they would really like to have an impact.

And I think, something else that is noticeable is that a lot of them are really trying to have a positive impact on the world as well. They’re really trying to address,  fundamental societal challenges, many of them, which I think is wonderful from health care, mental health issues, pollution. et cetera. There’s a lot of really interesting, and important issues that are being addressed by some of these startups. and, I think it’s wonderful that we have this young generation, going through business school who are ready tackle these challenges that that they have inherited from our generation.

John Byrne:

Yeah. And these ideas are going way beyond, some of the earlier ideas of five, 10 years ago, hookup apps and match.com, uh, wannabes and things like that. some of these ideas are remarkably sophisticated and elegant as well.

Maria, last words.

Maria Wich-Vila:

I think that this article not only is very optimistic in terms of these amazing ideas that are out there, but I also like that it shows that there are so many different paths to entrepreneurship through the MBA that first of all, number one, the NBA is valuable for entrepreneurship, which, as you noted a second ago, is often a stereotype that that exists that, oh, I don’t need this. but also there are so many different MBA programs out there. Look at the range of schools that are creating these amazing startups. Look at the fact, one of the, Stanford ones, the student was not an MBA student. They were an MSx student.

Sometimes I’ll meet people who are a little bit on the older side who are applying and they’re like, I have to do the two year program and I’m like, no, you can… you just need to get your foot in the door and even if it’s that MSxs program, it’s one year versus two years. For example, you can, you just need to get to a university that’s going to teach you the things you need and give you the resources and then you can take it from there.

So I, the other thing I really appreciate about this article is showing the breadth of programs and the breadth of students and the breadth of backgrounds of these students who are creating incredible new companies.

[00:16:37] John Byrne: Yeah, check it out. It’s called most disruptive MBA startups of 2025, and it’s on the Poets& Quants website.

If you are interested in doing a startup, I think you’ll learn a lot about how business school can help you make it a reality. This is John Byrne with Poets& Quants. You’ve been listening to Business Casual, our weekly podcast.

Maria

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