Oops. GMAT Now Has A Separate Writing Test
Maria |
July 15, 2024

In this episode of Business Casual, the hosts tackle how a significant change in the GMAT — the recent removal of a writing section — is occurring at just about the worst time possible, thanks to the rise of AI writing tools like ChatGPT, is prompting schools like Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan to potentially require a separate writing assessment. GMAC, under criticism, seems to be scrambling to introduce an additional writing test—not yet available for registration, but presumably a simple resurrection of the previous “A.W.A.” (Analytical Writing Assessment) —reacting to feedback from some MBA programs that the current GMAT doesn’t meet their needs.

Caroline points out the poor timing of the change, coinciding with the rise of AI, complicating the admissions process. Maria sympathizes with GMAC’s predicament, noting the increased complexity for test-takers who must now potentially pay extra for the new writing component, advocating for it to be included free with the GMAT (and perhaps added back to the GMAT in the future). The discussion highlights the evolving landscape of business school testing and the unexpected consequences of technology on how business school admissions officers assess an applicant’s written communication skills.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.440] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual with my co host, Caroline Diarte Edwards, who is a co founder of Fortuna Admissions, and Maria Wich-Vila, who’s the founder of Applicant Lab. Guess what, folks, there’s a big oops out there for all you test takers who have to deal with the GMAT. That is the new, shorter GMAT, which is the only GMAT that’s available. It turns out that some schools would, in fact, prefer to see a writing requirement on the test. After all, with the advent of ChatGPT, admissions officials want to see if you can write. And GMAT, in their great wisdom, actually reduced the test by nearly an hour, but eliminated the writing assessment GRE, and their shorter test retained a writing assessment sample, even though they shortened it. And, you know, when these tests came out, we made note of the fact that GRE may have made the better decision in retaining that writing element, and it turns out that is true. The big discovery is Harvard business school is requiring this additional 30 minutes writing assessment of people who submit a GMAT score. And this came out of the blue.

[00:01:34.770] – John

You can’t even register. Can you believe this? You can’t even register yet to take this writing assessment from the GMAT. Caroline, what do you make of this?

[00:01:45.220] – Caroline

Well, it does look like GMAC is now scrambling to address the issue of the lack of the writing assessment. And we discussed before that they really took that out at the wrong time. Right. Because in the past, I don’t think schools took much notice of the writing portion of the tests. We certainly didn’t when I was at INSEAD. And it was, you know, pretty much disregarded in the evaluation of the GMAT in the past. So I can understand why they were thinking, well, this isn’t a really useful part of the test. The schools aren’t using it very much. So we can take that out, and then we’ll have a shorter test, and everyone will like the test so much more. The problem is that they did it at precisely the wrong time. Right. So they did that just as AI was penetrating the market. And now schools actually do want people to have to take a writing test like that because they want to see if people can effectively express themselves in a spontaneous context where they don’t have tools to help them, like aih. So they really took it out at the wrong time.

[00:02:51.470] – Caroline

And the fact that schools are already saying that you’re going to have to take this test, but the test is not yet available suggests that it’s been a mad scramble for them to get this off the ground. And probably it’s a result of the schools providing feedback to GMAT that their new test wasn’t going to be sufficient for their needs. So we’ve seen, as you said, so HBS is saying that anyone who applies to the school with GMAT focus will have to take the writing test if they get invited to interview. So you don’t have to take it when you submit your application, but you will have to take it by the time before you will get admitted. If you get to interview stage, then they’re not going to admit you until you’ve taken that test. And then MIT has also announced that they will be asking people to take the writing assessment as well. Although MIT says that they may require. So it’s not obligatory, but they may require candidates to take that test. And again, it will be at interview stage.

[00:03:56.310] – John

Well, Maria, this suggests that people should just avoid the GMAT and just go with the GRE. I mean, really, right?

[00:04:03.780] – Maria

Oh, I feel so bad for the people at GMAC. I really, I really do, because I could see you can completely understand the logic. Right. As Caroline said, the, you know, the analytical writing assessment was the thing that people were like, don’t worry about it. No one pays attention to it anyway. And so they probably thought they were making their test more popular for candidates in their. In their sadly ever losing battle in market share against the GRE. And unfortunately, in the advent of AI, now the schools actually want to see timed writing assessments done in a controlled environment. And so, yeah, I just feel, feel I’ve already been recommending the GRE over the new GMAT for completely other reasons. And so now this is just one more. Just one more reason. I mean, the only small mercy here, I suppose, is that at least it’s something that you do after you do the rest of the test. So what little cognitive friction or mental energy you would have spent doing the writing part of the test before, at least now you do it later. So presumably you could be fresher instead of having to, you know, do this marathon use of your brain, having your brain do all kinds of different things within a two or three hour period.

[00:05:23.370] – Maria

So I guess that’s the one small mercy. I do think it’s interesting that on the, at least the preliminary site about this writing assessment, it does appear that GMAC would be charging something. I think it was like $30. That, to me, feels like a bit of. A bit of a misstep. I think they should offer it for free for anyone who took the GMAT focus edition, because it seems like the GMAT focus edition is a little too focused. And that’s not the candidate’s fault. That was something that GMAT should have either rapidly reintroduced the writing assessment back to the test, but since it sort of seems like they’re doing this at the behest of the schools, it feels like why should the candidate now have to pay an extra $30 for something that should have been included in the first place? So perhaps, hopefully, they will at least get rid of that fee.

[00:06:08.660] – John

So you pay the $275 to take the focus edition, and then you gotta pay another $30 to take the writing assessment. So now the test is over $300, essentially, for what had been a test that was, I think it was at 250, and it’s a shorter test, but not by a whole lot. Wow. The other interesting thing here is that GMAC did not develop this test in a vacuum. It came out of a lot of consultation with business schools. So it’s sort of surprising that Harvard, and possibly MIT, may now require it. It suggests to me that Harvard wasn’t consulted, that other schools were, and they found that essentially they didn’t really use the analytical writing assessment to begin with, so they just scrapped it. And it’s unfortunate that they scrapped it at a time when everyone is using ChatGPT, particularly people who would apply to a business school. And the scoring on this is, how does the scoring work?

[00:07:18.420] – Caroline

So it’s a scale from zero to six, I think, which is the same as the old Awa. And I think perhaps what happened, John, is probably GMAT did consult with the schools, but I imagine it was pre AI when they were going through that consultation process. I think that probably they were working on GMAT focus for quite a long time. It’s not something that they could have cooked up overnight, and they don’t introduce these changes very quickly. So I imagine it was probably a multi year process, and perhaps they did the consultation at a time when no one was thinking about AI. So it may be that it was just a long process and they didn’t continue to involve the schools throughout. And they sort of relied on feedback that they got from the schools perhaps three years ago when AI wasn’t on people’s radar screen.

[00:08:14.250] – John

So I’m thinking, okay, if you’re taking a TOEFL, because English is a second language, you may as well take the writing assessment, because, you know this is going to be an issue, particularly for people who are taking and submitting a TOEFL. Right, Maria?

[00:08:29.010] – Maria

Yeah. And I believe that that is something that does satisfy the writing requirement for HBS, if I’m not mistaken. So it’s not like this is the only way to do it. My understanding is that there are other ways to demonstrate that writing fluency. And so I believe that there may be. If you do a writing assessment with another, like an english language test, for example. If the language of your undergraduate education was not English, for example, you might have to take something like the TOEFL. So I believe that that could serve as a suitable substitute.

[00:09:02.220] – John

Now, do we know if the writing assessment can be done at home, or do you have to go to a testing center?

[00:09:07.790] – Maria

I would assume you can do it at home.

[00:09:09.470] – Caroline

Yeah, I believe that it says that there’s an online option.

[00:09:12.550] – John

Okay.

[00:09:13.560] – Caroline

And I would imagine what they will do in future is when people register for the GMAT focus, you’ll have the option to register at the same time for the writing test. And it would be wise if they just included on the registration page information about which schools are going to, you know, may ask candidates for the writing test so that people just get it done at the same time. Some candidates may prefer to just take both tests at once rather than taking the GMAT focus. And then a month or two later, signing up for the next test might be better to just get it all out the way at the same time.

[00:09:50.010] – John

Wow. Now, Maria, when you say you’ve been recommending to your clients that they take the GRE instead of the GMAT, but for other reasons, what are your other reasons? I’m curious.

[00:10:01.810] – Maria

I just think the GMAT focus, I’ve heard from friends who are test prep folks that the GMAT focus is a shorter test but a harder test. So they’ve packed more difficult types of things into that test. I also feel like the grading scale is not a well enough known entity yet. And I’ve often found, anecdotally over the years, that there’s been a lot more, not freedom, but there’s been more leeway if someone applies with a GRE score. Because I think for decades, you know, everyone, everyone could immediately tell you off the top of their heads, like, oh, yeah, the average GMATs at these top schools is 730. But if you were to say to them, what’s the average GRE score? They might not know. I mean, now that the GRE is taking more and more market share, it is becoming, you know, you’re starting to learn, like, oh, the averages at HBS are 163, but even then, that intuition is still not quite there. And so I think that, you know, and even when you would go, let’s say in the past to the us news and world report rankings. They would put right there on the page, here’s the name of the school, here’s its ranking, and here’s the average.

[00:11:05.340] – Maria

GMAT was one of the main things, and then they would kind of bury the GRE score. So for all of those reasons, I felt that the GRE, unless, you know, you’re just gonna rock the GMAT, because it’s just, you love standardized tests. I recommended that if anyone is sort of feeling a little insecure about their test taking skills, I would always recommend the GRE instead, in general. And then the fact that my friends who are test prep providers, they’re like, this is great for us as test prep providers, but it’s not so great for folks who are test averse.

[00:11:39.020] – John

Caroline, are you going to have a similar recommendation to your clients?

[00:11:42.920] – Caroline

Well, it’s very interesting. I mean, a lot of my clients that have already taken the test are already some way down the road with their test prep by the time I start working with them or I speak with them. I think if you’ve already sort of started down the path of the GMAT, then you might lose time to then switch tests. But for clients where they’re really struggling with the GMAT and they’ve taken the test, and they’re clearly not where they need to be, given the scores that they’re targeting, then I do encourage them to try a practice GRE and just see if they do better. But I think if you’re at the start of the process, it can be great to take both tests. Right? Take a practice test for both and then see how you do and if you’re better suited to one than the other. But, yeah, it does seem like the GMAT focus. There’s just a lot of unknown factors at the moment. Given that there’s not much of a track record, fewer test prep materials, and then, you know, it’ll take us a year or two to see whether the percentiles are shifting as a result.

[00:12:48.440] – Caroline

If the test is harder, then. Then perhaps the percentiles that you need to get into the top scores will shift a bit. The schools will have to adjust, but we don’t know whether that’s going to be the case. And it could be risky for candidates to apply with lower scores when you match them across to the old GMAT.

[00:13:12.830] – John

Right. So it seems like this could even be a bigger surprise for applicants to HBS, then the change to the new three short essay questions, which Suzy Welch has that are ridiculously vague, nebulous, and what was the word she used? You’ll have to look it up in the article.

[00:13:39.950] – Caroline

I did enjoy listening to her rant, and I think she’s right that, well, she commented that it sounded like it was something that had been cooked up by a committee and perhaps too many cooks in the broth with those questions. Too many cooks in, you know, spoiling the broth with, with those questions. So.

[00:13:58.600] – John

Which we kind of thought of too, when we reviewed the questions, didn’t we? We suggested the same. I mean, it’s almost inevitable that a bunch of people got into a room and, you know, this one compromise after another. Everyone thinks they have a better idea, and what comes out is a really lousy idea.

[00:14:21.980] – Maria

I appreciated that she said that she wasn’t sure exactly where she would start as an applicant if she had to answer these questions. And I felt the same way. Like, at least with the open ended one, you could say, well, here’s what I want you to focus on about me instead of this very prescribed, like, well, I don’t know. And so then it just invites a lack of genuine authenticity. Because if now I have to pretend that my greatest accomplishment was actually the result of me being curious, as opposed to me having to just be like, hey, here’s something cool that I did, but now I have to twist it into this curiosity paradigm. It’s just annoying.

[00:14:55.410] – John

And Caroline, you mentioned that a number of your colleagues who are helping people apply to Harvard in round one are equally perplexed about, okay, what’s the right approach and what do you really say and how do you make an impact with these questions? Right.

[00:15:12.840] – Caroline

Yes, I think they are missing the old question, which just gave much more scope for creativity and to tell a personal story. These questions are quite narrow. They’re also multi part questions. So you’re trying to hit all of the different components of the question. And the word counts are extremely short. So it is a challenging exercise for sure, and I suspect will give rise to some responses that are just a less interesting read than the HBS essay in previous years.

[00:15:48.350] – John

So what’s the bigger surprise? The fact that they changed their essay and went to three short ones, or the fact that, lo and behold, in the fine print of the application, and I mean the fine print, you now have to do a writing assessment if you have the privilege of being invited to interview?

[00:16:06.190] – Caroline

Well, I think the essays are going to affect more candidates, right? That affects everybody, whereas the writing assessment, it will affect a subset of candidates. So I think that’s going to be a bigger headache for the majority.

[00:16:20.350] – John

Yeah. And I do think, however, that maybe some people are going to hedge their bets. Right. Because if MIT is now saying, you may, we may require it, who knows how many other schools, once the. The news gets out. And we’ll get the news out, of course, today. But this is a new requirement. We’ll follow suit. Maria, you think other schools might follow suit after this?

[00:16:45.290] – Maria

Yes, I do. And I don’t blame them. Right. If we want to make sure that we’re hearing someone’s authentic communication skills, then why wouldn’t you require this as well? But I guess the silver lining is now when people don’t get invited to the HBS interview, we can console them with, hey, the good news is you’d.

[00:17:07.120] – John

Have to spend $30 more for a half hour.

[00:17:10.110] – Maria

Yeah, let’s. Let’s try to put a positive spit on what is otherwise very disappointing news.

[00:17:16.250] – John

Yeah. I mean, you. You got to know that within six months to a year, the writing assessment will reoccur on the focus edition of the GMAT. It has to. Because GMAT is now no longer cleanly competitive with the GRE, they put themselves in a non competitive situation here, again, which is sad, I agree, you know, because I think there are a lot of people who still believe the GMAT is a better test because it is business school specific. And the scoring, because it’s business school specific is more uniform for that applicant pool, where you have people, you know, applying to master’s degrees in philosophy, geography, political science and whatnot with the GRE. So the scores across the applicant pool are somewhat altered, and that means the percentile scores are altered so you don’t get a full, complete read, as you would with a GMAT score if you’re an admissions official. So this is just like, wow, how could this even happen? It’s just, like, stunning to me. Really. You would think that. And, you know, the fact that Harvard’s not requiring it unless you’re interviewed, here’s what it tells me. Of course Harvard would have required it.

[00:18:41.060] – John

The only reason they’re not requiring it is because GMAC can’t get its act together to have people actually take it and register for the test in time to submit your score by round one deadline date, which is only around the corner in early September. I mean, you got to know that’s why Harvard, trying to be somewhat nice to GMAC, has probably just done this this way to allow GMAC the time to actually be able to put up the form to allow people to register for the darn test, which is even all the more aggravating. Wow.

[00:19:20.330] – Caroline

It’s also a surprise for candidates, right? I mean, it’s kind of late in the day in the season to bring on people that you’ll probably have another test to take, because most people, many people applying for the round one deadlines have already taken their tests, right. And they thought they were done and dusted, but then they have been.

[00:19:38.500] – John

Exactly.

[00:19:39.940] – Caroline

It pops up.

[00:19:41.440] – John

Okay, so here’s the thing. Harvard waits nearly a month later than it normally does to post its deadlines. Then Harvard waits another three weeks to tell you what questions they’re going to ask. And now Harvard is saying, okay, well, if you do get an interview invite, now you’re going to go back and you’re going to do another test and you’re going to pay for it. Nice. Now, you got to also think that if Harvard is serious about looking at this score among those who’ve been interviewed, that it’s going to have to invite more people than it traditionally does to be interviewed. Right. Because obviously they’re going to. In other words, they’re going to cancel out the portion of the applicant pool that has been interviewed because of this writing assessment. So therefore, they’re going to have to invite more people to get the same odds as they would have normally. Wouldn’t that be logical, a logical conclusion?

[00:20:40.930] – Caroline

Well, it could be. It depends how many people they think they’ll be weeding out as a result of the tests on the business writing assessment. I would imagine that most people who they invite to interview are probably strong enough that they can get a decent score in that exercise. So I would be surprised if many people get dinged post interview purely on the basis of that exercise.

[00:21:05.820] – John

That brings me to whole other question. Why even bother to require it? Right?

[00:21:10.660] – Caroline

Right. Yeah, I think that it’s, you know, they’re looking to cross check people’s skills and, yeah, they may need to leave some room for weeding some people out, but they have a pretty, pretty comfortable pool to draw from, I think. So I don’t think it’ll be too difficult.

[00:21:33.090] – John

Now, Maria, with your Harvard MBA, you know, the Harvard business School mindset, is there anything else that we haven’t covered as to why this would have occurred?

[00:21:43.900] – Maria

No, I think it’s just a matter of. Because of ChatGPT, it’s even less. There’s always been editors that might craft your essay and massage some of your voice out of it. But now the ChatGPT phenomenon just brings it to a completely new level. And so to the extent that trying to ascertain someone’s genuine, authentic communication strengths in a timed and controlled environment, it just becomes more important than it was before. And so I think that it ultimately comes down to just authenticity. And how strong of a communicator are you when you can’t necessarily rely on a tool? Or where you don’t have three whole months to work on some short essays right, where you have under time pressure. So that’s what I think it ultimately comes down to, is authenticity. But I agree with Caroline. I would be very surprised if, like a lot of people, if this suddenly unearths a ton of people who, you know, their essays were flawless, and then they can’t put two sentences together in the time writing assessment, that would be really shocking because, you know, the schools also have, you know, your transcripts, your undergraduate transcripts and what have you, so.

[00:22:56.310] – Maria

But it might weed out a few people so much. So much the better. But, yeah, what a mess.

[00:23:05.170] – John

Yeah. So here’s how they describe it. This is GMAT. Within a 30 minutes timeframe, you will be tasked with analyzing a brief argument rather than sharing your personal perspective. The objective is to critique the argument’s reasoning and evidence objectively and cohesively. A well structured, persuasive response will demonstrate to schools that you have the logical reasoning and communication skills necessary to succeed in the classroom and beyond. The results would be sent to you within three to five days. They’re claiming the prep time for this is two to 6 hours for the assessment. You can send your result to as many schools as you want at no additional charge. Big deal. They’re charging you $30 for a test that once was included in the GMAT. They’re saying it’s being going to be delivered online and available year round to take it home at any time, which almost suggests that they aren’t going to give this test in a test center. So there you have it. If you want to look this up and you can’t register for it, which is also frustrating because GMAC hasn’t put the registration page on its site. It’s called the GMAC business writing assessment.

[00:24:28.460] – John

All right, well, I mean, I guess if you’re invited to an interview at Harvard, maybe, you know, you don’t. You might not like it, but you’re not going to mind it because you’re going to be so happy getting that invite that you’ll say, yeah, $30 more, another 30 minutes, what the heck? You know, if it’s just one more hurdle I have to overcome and jump before I can get to Harvard. Hmm. You know, I think I can deal. What do you think? Right?

[00:25:02.450] – Maria

I would hope so.

[00:25:03.390] – John

Yeah, I would hope so, too. All right. There you have it. We think more schools are going to, going to ask for this. We think it probably will be included in the new focus edition soon. Incidentally, you know, GMAT intends to eliminate that brain branding on the test, which is what they told people at the GMAC annual conference in New Orleans. Don’t know when they’re going to do that. Probably when they add back the writing assessment. And, or you may want to follow Maria’s advice, take the GRE and avoid all this. And until GMAT cleans it up. Anyway, thanks for listening. Good luck to you. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants.

Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Oops. GMAT Now Has A Separate Writing Test
Maria |
July 15, 2024

Full Episode Transcript:

John Byrne: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast. We want to talk about international students. Schools are now reporting that a good number of their international recruits who were admitted to programs this fall haven’t been able to show up or have changed their mind.

At the University of Illinois, the school, the Gies College of Businesses, lost about 200 international students in its Master of Finance and Master of Business Analytics programs causing a $7 million hit. To their budget at UC Davis Graduate School of Management, 40 students didn’t show up who were admitted, and that’s resulting in two and a half to $3 million hit on their budget this year.

Both of these things have occurred before the announcement of a hundred thousand dollars tax on H one B Visa. Which will make it more difficult for many employers [00:01:00] to hire international students and keep them in the US for an extended period of time. And we’re getting the new class reports of the, of the new cohorts of students who’ve arrived on campus in the fall of this year.

And Carnegie Mellon is. Down 30% for their international cohort over the past two years. UCLA Anderson School is down 25% over the past two years, and schools are preparing for the worst because of the H one B Visa decision which could affect future employment. Caroline and Maria, my cohosts are in the market helping people get into the best schools in the world.

And Caroline, what do you think?

Caroline Diarte-Edwards: Yeah, definitely seeing concern among international candidates and people holding off on applying for the US schools. So it’s really a shame. I think the international schools, particularly the schools like Inea and London Business School and the other top.[00:02:00]

International European programs will benefit, they’ll get talent that might otherwise have come to the us, which is great for those schools. And I’m very fond of those schools, but it is sad as from the US perspective for sure. On the other hand, you could also take the perspective that.

If you do have options for your career post MBA that don’t require that you absolutely have to stay in the US as an international candidate, then now could be a very good time to apply, right? Because definitely application volume will be down and schools will be perhaps. More open to candidates that might otherwise have been waitlisted or rejected in the past.

For some candidates, this is actually a fantastic opportunity to get into a top school, but from, for, at least from the school’s perspective, it is a shame because, I’ve experienced firsthand the value of a very internationally diverse classroom and the value that brings with a [00:03:00] diversity of perspectives that enriches the learning experience so much for everybody.

Enriches the debate and bring so much to the academic experience as well as the the network and the social experience. So it’s everybody’s loss, right?

John Byrne: Very true.

Caroline Diarte-Edwards: And I think it’s a very myopic perspective that the US government takes that. There needs to be a more of a refocus at US educational institutions on the domestic market because those international applicants bring a lot to the domestic students in enriching their learning and enriching their network.

Of course bring a huge value to the US economy when they stay. So there are very impressive statistics on the value of immigrants to the US economy. So Indian immigrants, for example, are only about one and a half percent of the US population, but they have founded to date about 8% of all the tech startups in the us.[00:04:00]

And for sure some of that top talent from India will now not come to the us. They will go to perhaps they will stay at the great schools that we’ve talked about in India, or they will go to other international schools. So for sure it will be a loss to the us learning experience and to the US economy.

John Byrne: Maria, you run applicant lab which is a platform that helps applicants get into highly selective schools. And many of the people who use your product are international students. What are you seeing?

Maria Wich-Vila: Everything Caroline is saying concern is think a delicate way to put it.

And I think it’s because as the more affordable provider in the market, I tend to get the applicants who maybe they don’t have the family business to fall back on. Maybe they don’t have, large sources of income elsewhere in their lives. And so I think the concern is very real and very merited, right?

I can’t. In good faith, tell someone, if they [00:05:00] really start, sit down and do the math and start to do, run the numbers, if they just assume that things are going to stay as is. And this is the big caveat that I’m, I want to get to in a second, but if we assume that things stay as is and if someone really is from a lower income tier from Nepal or India or some of the other countries that I work with, yeah, maybe sit down and do that math and think about, okay, if I do have to come back to Nepal afterwards, how will I pay back that loan? There, there is though some good news. Even if we assume that things stay status quo, which I hope, and I’m pretty, I’m I think it’s, I’m cautiously optimistic that they won’t.

But there are other markets as well. So I’ve had a lot of candidates, or former clients, I should say, graduate from business school, not be able to get jobs in certain in countries and then. Being able to move to Dubai. Dubai for some reason, has started attracting a ton of candidates, primarily from South Asia but from other parts of the world who might be having trouble getting some of those work permits.

You could do worse than live in, Dubai’s not perfect, but [00:06:00] you could also do worse than live in Dubai, right? The salaries are pretty high. The standard of living, if you have a white collar job there is, it’s not the worst outcome. So it’s not I can’t stay in the us. That’s it.

There’s no other it’s not a binary of, it’s either the US or it’s nothing. And then I think the second point is I, we’ve just seen. So many things, let’s take something from a different facet of policy. The tariffs, right? The tariffs were announced and the markets went crazy, and in the months that have followed, oh, actually, here’s the tariff, but this one company, their products aren’t gonna be subject to the tariff.

And then there’s this other company that maybe they’re not gonna have to pay the same tariff. And I can’t help but wonder if some of these. Some of these very large companies that are getting tariff exemptions, their ability to lobby for. The H one B, maybe lowering of the H one B fee. If they’ve been able to successfully lobby tariffs, they might be success, able to successfully lobby against these, true, these [00:07:00] visa fees.

And a lot of these big companies, these big tech companies are in fact some of the largest employers of post MBA talent in the us. So I am cautiously optimistic that. This could be, hopefully right now it’s the big, the flash and storm and the, the making, the big splash, right?

Everything’s about showmanship and making the big splash. And maybe in the aftermath of the storm, that initial PR media storm, maybe the reality will start to calm down a little bit. Yeah, the other good news is that if you’re applying now, that means you would enroll in 2026. You would, if it, if you’re talking about the US two year program, you would graduate in 2028.

At that point, who knows what might happen. I like to think that what we have seen so far in terms of the Visa policies, hopefully. Roughly the floor about as bad as it can get. I think if they start implementing a similar thing to OPT, that could be the same thing. But if we just assume that okay, right now what’s been announced is that these foreign students all have to do, you can’t stay here, you have to [00:08:00] go someplace else.

It, we assume that’s like the initial negotiating position. It’s just gonna chip, it’s just gonna get, it’s got nowhere else to go. It’s even worse. So we’ve, we now have two and a half years roughly until. People applying now would have to really implement, or be really affected by this in a.

In a pragmatic and tangible way. And so that’s why I’m hoping that the little chipping away and the chipping away things will start to get a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better like we’ve seen with other facets of policy. Didn’t like a bunch of the CDC employees that were all fired under Doge didn’t more than half of them I think were recently rehired.

Yes. Back again true. Whatever you think of the policy, it seems like some of the policies are. Being slowly walked back. And so I think if you. If you’ve got an adventurous spirit, I, and by the way, if you apply now, sorry. I know I keep going, but I like, if you apply now, let’s say you get accepted, you don’t have to show up until August of 2026.

So that will give you [00:09:00] time, like definitely. Apply now and see what happens between now and August of 2026 to make the decision to not apply now, because you’re rightfully scared. I’m not blaming anyone, but to not apply now, maybe by maybe six months from now he’ll be like, ha, just kidding. I’m doubling the number of H one Bs.

Yeah, we have no idea what’s gonna happen. So things are So give yourself that optionality.

John Byrne: Yeah. And things are so uncertain that could very well happen because, one day at tariffs are on one country the next day they’re not one day they’re pausing the ab the interviews for student visas, the.

Say they’re not there’s litigation all over the place, challenging many of the presidential actions that have been taken that have put them in limbo despite all the headlines. So it’s, it, there’s more uncertainty than there is certainty about any of these things. And as you point out, you, if you [00:10:00] did apply this year, the odds are gonna be in your favor if you’re an international student, frankly, because there is no question.

That international applicant volume will be down at all the top schools in the us, which means that to maintain some semblance of a global class. Admission directors are going to have to dig a little bit deeper into their international applicant pools to select candidates. In a way, if you play the long term and in the BA, in, in many graduate degrees or long term bet, I think you’re gonna be.

Oddly better off. And it may even be that the schools will really even go out of their way to help international students in ways that they haven’t in the past because of these actions in Washington. And what do I mean by that? Just a more welcoming reception than the already welcoming reception you would get hiring immigration lawyers and people that can help you.

If in fact there is a [00:11:00] challenge of one kind or another. I think the takeaway is not to be discouraged and throw up your hands to say, ah, I always dreamed of coming to the United States and getting an MBA or a graduate degree in business. Use this as an opportunity to actually increase your odds of getting into a better school with the understanding that when you get out there, probably most likely be an administration change and a change in these policies if they even get completely adopted as Maria points out.

Wouldn’t you think that’s the best strategy, Caroline?

Caroline Diarte-Edwards: Yes, I agree. I think that it’s good to take a longer term perspective because it is such a long timeline, right? If you’re applying to a top two year program as you say, you’re gonna be coming out of the program at the end of the Trump presidency and things may look very different.

And Maria rightly points out that. Everything is very volatile, right? So one thing gets announced and the next week it [00:12:00] gets rolled back, right? They’ve done so many things where they’ve realized, oh, actually that was a really bad idea after all. So

They’ve changed things. So things may not it might, may not turn out to be as bad as we fear.

And then I would also encourage candidates. To apply to the US schools, but why not hedge your bets and apply to an international program as well? Agreed in a time of uncertainty. As Maria said, create options for yourself. And so I would encourage candidates to apply to the top US programs, but also apply to top international programs as well and see what offers you get.

And then you can make a decision. As Maria said, it will be closer to the time when you would be starting the program and there may be more clarity about the situation in the US and what your options are in international markets as well. So I think that given the current circumstances, a good strategy is to hedge your bets and apply more widely than you might [00:13:00] have otherwise done.

John Byrne: Plan Bs are good. Let me just say business schools in the US have for years advised international students that those should have a plan B in the event that they can’t get with a US company. The other thing to, to keep in mind incidentally, in terms of MBA employment is that most of the companies.

That basically employ the lion’s share of MBAs are all global concerns. So you can be hired here and if there’s any challenge in getting you employed here in the us you can simply start in an office outside the United States with a hope of coming back when things clear up. So that is also another important thing to keep in mind.

And I’ll just say this. Despite whatever messaging you’re reading in your local newspapers or on your streaming platforms or television stations about how immigrants may not be welcome in the us that’s not true at all. Universities are diverse places. Welcoming. [00:14:00] Embracing loving the diversity of their students and particularly those from different cultures and backgrounds that enrich the educational experience.

There is no Dean that I’ve ever encountered who said they want fewer international students. It’s the exact opposite. They’re putting out message after message, telling people that they’re still welcome and wanted. Needed in the classroom. Now, Maria, in the past we’ve seen applicants who try to say, okay, can I time my application and my enrollment in a program to what I think might be the next recession?

And we know that in recessions applications go way. In part because some people lose the opportunity to gain advancement in a recession. Some people get unemployed. Some people just realize, hey, a recession is a good time to take a time out and get a new educational credential, which may allow me to do things I otherwise can’t do.[00:15:00]

But it’s almost impossible to time a recession and I’m imagining it’s impossible to time what’s going on here now.

Maria Wich-Vila: Yeah. I mean if we could all time, when everyone’s been talking about a stock market crash that to, not to bring another disparate topic in, but like everyone’s been talking about, it’s a bubble.

It’s a bubble. I’ve been hearing ’cause a bubble for a year and a half. True. Yeah, you can’t time or ask, for example, ask the people who enrolled in business school, like who got into business school in 2020. Like there’s always gonna be these external shocks. We can try to predict a recession, but who knows if it’s going to happen?

Who knows if there’s going to be some sort of virus or the opposite of a virus. Maybe there’ll be a virus that helps us all live healthily forever. Who knows? There’s so much uncertainty out there that who knows what to do. So I think. I think yeah, have that optionality. I think go ahead and apply.

Now if there is a recession though, which everyone seems to think is coming at some point, at that point, it’s going to be harder to get accepted. And as Caroline has pointed out, so rightfully, if other international, high quality international students are [00:16:00] spooked by the current H one B talk, now is your chance.

International candidate. Jump in there, shoot your shot like you might be able to get into a school, assuming of course that you’re qualified, but. You might have a lot less competition now than you normally will, so this could be a golden opportunity for you. And one final as one thing that I wanted to point out was that I was thinking, okay, Maria, let’s say that, you just said that maybe there’s gonna be walk back of some of these and there’s gonna be, maybe he’s gonna change.

But even if there isn’t a change, right? Let’s think about this. The companies themselves are gonna have, and you started to alluded to this John, when you mentioned that a lot of them are global concerns. They’re gonna have now a two year window in which to say. Okay. We know that we’re not gonna keep these people in the states, so let’s open a huge office in Vancouver.

Let’s open a brand, an enormous new office in Toronto. Whatever that is. Because I was thinking back to over the summer when it looked like maybe a bunch of international students wouldn’t be able to get any student visa at all. And I know that some of the business schools we’re looking [00:17:00] at, do we rent out some space in Toronto and do Zoom classes?

We do a hybrid. What we did during COVID. I’ve heard that. I think Rice, I was actually having dinner last night with a dear friend who was, say he’s from Texas and he was saying that Rice has some sort of a campus in Paris and that they are leaning really heavily on their global campuses around the world to still be able to service these students who had gotten accepted.

So things like that, like if. Even if our sort of my very cautious and perhaps irrational optimism turns out to not be true, let’s say the things get, the OPT is banished and all, everyone is banished and it’s the worst case scenario. Again, there’s gonna be two and a half years for these companies. To quickly find, okay, fine, we’re gonna open up an office in Mexico City and we’re gonna pay people really well and we’re gonna what?

Whatever that is. ’cause they’re, the companies are still gonna want the talent, right? Just because the political administration doesn’t want the global talent in the country. That doesn’t mean that the country’s employers don’t want that talent. They [00:18:00] want that talent, they want that intellect, they want that energy and that drive to make their companies better and to make more money.

So they have a very strong incentive to not only be lobbying for these. Visa changes to go away, but if they don’t go away, they have a very strong incentive to come up with some way to provide, to provide those incomes and to provide those perks and some sort of a compromise type of situation.

So again I think if you’re applying now, if you’re going in with eyes wide open, shoot your shot. That’s my, I would absolutely tell people to to try that.

John Byrne: Yeah, I totally agree. And, generally this is my rule of thumb and Maria and Caroline, you may or may not agree with this, at the top MBA programs, they’re so selective that the people who apply to them generally are very self-selecting group.

So I always say that roughly 80% of the school’s applicant pool. Is qualified to actually get accepted, get in, do [00:19:00] well, and land a good job. And yet we know that at Stanford, the acceptance rate is 6%, that Harvard is 12 Wharton and Columbia is, a little under 20 or so. So there are a lot of really good candidates who aren’t getting in.

Which leads me to this, if you’re an international student who thinks okay, so these US schools just might dip a little more into the domestic pool to make up for the offset of international candidates. As it turns out, there is a little notice. Clause in the big beautiful tax bill that was passed here under Trump that places severe limits on federal loans for graduate students.

Now, the current grad plus loan program allows students to borrow up to the cost of their graduate programs. That comes to an end in July of next year. After that, grad students borrowing will literally be capped at [00:20:00] 20,500 bucks a year with a lifetime graduate school loan limit of a hundred thousand. That’s a big deal because, at the top MBA programs it’s not on typical.

For a student to borrow over a hundred thousand dollars easily. And so these caps are also going to affect domestic enrollment. So again, that, that contributes to your ability as an international candidate to get in both. The likely decline in competition not only from internationals but also from domestic students here, interestingly enough, that Bill, which passed has different limits for a professional graduate degree, but the bill basically says that only med school and law school qualify as professional degrees and not business school.

That’s another wacky thing that’s happened that will affect. Domestic enrollment as well. So I, I side with Maria and [00:21:00] Caroline to me the advice is, look long term. Don’t be affected overly affected by the change in policies in the US or the climate here. Understand that if you apply now and you matriculate next year and you graduate in two years after that you’re gonna be facing probably a very different environment.

Also understand the odds are in your in your favor, in getting into a highly selective, really good program in this coming year. And know that, while people too often calculate the value of an MBA based on short term variables, like what’s my starting salary gonna be? What is my sign-on bonus?

The truth is the MBA has enduring value over your lifetime. So it rewards you over your entire career and not just for the first or second years. And you can’t go wrong by graduating into a network of helpful and supportive people from a great school and [00:22:00] receiving a great education. So I think bottom line, we’re telling you apply.

Don’t get convinced by your colleagues or anyone else that this is a bad time to come to the us. Opportunity. Some of the best opportunity come comes when people perceive there to be significant challenges. And I think this is really true with business school. We hope we convinced you to come and try and hedge your batts too, as Caroline noted.

I think that’s really super important to have a plan B when you apply and toss a bunch of apps to the European schools which have excellent superb world class MBA programs and real international cohorts. 90% of the students not from the countries where the schools reside. Toss a bunch of them in your mix for your target schools to give you these different options at the end of the day.

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

Maria

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