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.

Making Extras Count In An MBA Application
Maria |
May 17, 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 ‘23 and the class of ‘24. They looked up all these folks on LinkedIn to identify a little bit more about their backgrounds, including their former employers and their places of undergraduate education to come up with an incredible analysis. Heidi, welcome.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah,

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

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

So

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How many out of us military academies,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Definitely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And because you see in the data that works.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maria

New around here? I’m an HBS graduate and a proud member (and former Board Member) of AIGAC. I considered opening a high-end boutique admissions consulting firm, but I wanted to make high-quality admissions advice accessible to all, so I “scaled myself” by creating ApplicantLab. ApplicantLab provides the SAME advice as high-end consultants at a much more affordable price. Read our rave reviews on GMATClub, and check out our free trial (no credit card required) today!