Princeton Review’s 2023 MBA Ranking + What To Expect In A Harvard MBA Interview
Maria |
February 8, 2023

If you’ve been listening to Business Casual, you’re probably aware that our hosts are not fond of MBA rankings, but either way, who doesn’t like a little bit of drama to spice things up when things are getting serious?

There are three factors that John pointed out as to why MBA rankings have very little credibility: Either the approach is rather vague, the number of students from each institution that participated in the study is mysterious, or the findings are very bizarre.

In this episode, our hosts will talk about not only the newly released MBA ranking from Princeton Review but also the dos and don’ts when preparing for a Harvard MBA interview.

Episode Transcript

t[00:00:07.450] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. You are listening to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co host Maria Wich Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. Caroline, of course, is the former director of Admissions at INSEAD and a co founder of Fortuna Admissions. Maria is the founder of Applicant Lab. Would you believe there’s yet another MBA ranking out? Came out last week? It’s one that has come out a lot of times. We tend not to pay a whole lot of attention to it because, frankly, as MBA rankings go, we tend to think this has very little credibility. But we want to mention it anyway. It’s the annual ranking of the Princeton Review, which is largely based almost entirely, in fact, on student opinion and student surveys. Reason we don’t like this ranking is because the methodology is vague and it’s kind of mysterious because you don’t even know what the sample size is of student opinion from each school, and the results are incredibly quirky. So we’re going to get into that, and we’re going to get into something else. Last week, Harvard Business School released its round two interview invites and rejections.

[00:01:27.410] – John

And we want to talk specifically about what that Harvard MBA interview is like, the do’s and don’ts, what to expect, how it differs from other schools, and how best to prepare for it. But first, let’s talk about the Princeton Review ranking. One of the interesting things about this is that Princeton Review does not rank the schools overall by their on campus MBA programs. Instead, it has 18 different categories. Some of them are kind of silly, some of them aren’t. And essentially it only ranks the tin number in each of these categories. So they do things like best professors, best Classroom experience, best Campus environment, best career prospects. That all makes sense in a way. Some of the rankings don’t make sense. For example, the best campus environment, according to Princeton Review surveys, number one is Cornell. Now, I have nothing against Cornell. I kind of like the school, and it’s a fantastic MBA experience. But living in Ithaca, New York, in the frozen ground and the dreary winters and walking through that campus with all its barren trees, how can that be number one? When Stanford, where students can stroll in their sandals and shorts and under palm trees in January and February and have first class, world class facilities that are brand new?

[00:02:59.840] – John

How can the campus environment at Stanford not rank at all in the top ten in Cornell be one? So that’s one of the issues with this ranking, but there are plenty of others. Maria, you took issue with the ranking of the most competitive MBA programs. Tell me why.

[00:03:19.470] – Maria

That’s not the only one I took issue with. As you pointed out, any ranking that is dependent entirely upon student votes is fundamentally flawed for a variety of reasons. Quickly, to summarize, that not to get all conspiracy theory and tinfoil hat on you, but one can imagine that perhaps students would band together and say, okay, team, let’s all vote to get our school into the top ten. But also because I think students because by definition, students who are currently in business school have only attended one business school. And so, of course, how are they going to be able to compare, right? So if you if like, to your point about Ithaca, like, hey, Ithaca is beautiful, right? But that person who went to Cornell, they didn’t go to school in California, they didn’t go to school in Chicago, one world class city, for example. To your point, it was just a weird way to do things. And I think of all the ones that had the weirdest results, as you commented on, they have the most competitive students. And so I think those of us, all three of us who have worked with admissions and with schools for years, we might have our own opinions on which schools have the most competitive students.

[00:04:38.010] – Maria

But this ranking had, number one, the Acton School of Business in Austin, Texas, which is a school that, honestly, I’m embarrassed to admit, act in school. I have never heard of you. It is a school with 30, 330 full time enrollment. And so when you get some of these look, the good news about this ranking is that it helps some otherwise less famous schools step into the spotlight, which I am all for, because I do think that people need to broaden their perspectives and their horizons when it comes to looking at schools. But at the same time, if you end up with these completely whackadoodle results, it completely destroys the credibility of your ranking. And so, yeah, the one of the most competitive students was a real head scratcher for me.

[00:05:29.130] – John

Was there any brand name school in the top ten for most competitive.

[00:05:36.570] – Maria

IMD in Switzerland? Which I don’t necessarily I guess competitive is perhaps an open ended term. I thought IMD was pretty collaborative. And actually the other sort of, quote unquote famous school or typical top school in that list is Darden at number nine, which again, I think of Darden University of Virginia Darden School of Being as being one of the most collaborative and supportive programs out there.

[00:06:01.910] – John

Yeah, absolutely fascinating. Caroline, your thoughts on this? I will also say, incidentally, that there is an absence in the top ten of many international programs. I think ie. In Spain makes the list somewhere obviously IMD in terms of maybe a negative sense in terms of having the most competitive students. What’s your sense of this?

[00:06:26.270] – Caroline

Yeah, I thought actually perhaps the international schools have been excluded entirely because I’ve just been looking through your article about it and in various categories, I didn’t see any of the international schools listed at all. So I’m not sure quite what’s going on here. So it is a very bizarre list, and as Maria says there’s selection bias here. So people always get reattached to well, it’s very unusual if they don’t get reattached to the school that they’ve chosen, right. And they think that that’s the best school out there because they’ve picked that particular school, and of course they’re going to say that that’s the best school. So it’s it’s a bizarre methodology, but hey, I mean, if it gives some additional visibility to some schools that are lesser known, then I think there’s some value there. And we often complain that candidates revert to, or sort of automatically drawn to, particularly the M seven schools without necessarily knowing the schools particularly well and really understanding where they have the best fit. And so in some ways, it’s refreshing to have a ranking that has some very different names at the top. And so perhaps some candidates will spend a bit more time looking at other programs that they might not otherwise have researched.

[00:07:50.790] – John

You can’t get into INSEAD, Wharton, Columbia, MIT, Kellogg, Chicago, all of whom fare poorly on this list, but you can get into some of these other schools. It’ll make you feel really good about yourself. Yeah.

[00:08:04.730] – Caroline

Well, there you go. Yeah, it’s a good day for those schools.

[00:08:10.270] – John

Now, one of the things we did as sort of a silly exercise, but I think on some level enlightening, despite the problems with this ranking, is we took the top ten of the 18 categories, the most positive and the most relevant to a student. And that would include the quality of the teaching and the classes, the classroom experience overall, the best campus environment and the best career prospect. Those actually four of the 18 categories because you could argue things like best family friendly, okay, that’s fine. Best for minority students, it’s fine. Best for women, okay. But it comes down to the quality of the teaching, what that classroom experience is like, what it’s like to be on that campus, and how helpful will the school be for your careers. And if you isolate those four categories and then you look at the ranks that are applied, here’s what you find. You find that in the top ten is UVA, Virginia Darden number one, which is kind of surprising, but at the same time, they are known for having fantastic teaching and have long been known for that. In fact, some of the research-oriented business schools have often dinged Darden for emphasizing teaching too much.

[00:09:39.370] – John

Number two is Duke. Three is Cornell. Four is Michigan. Five is UNC. Six is Stanford. Then it’s Vanderbilt, Darden, carnegie Mellon, UCLA, Rice, University of Washington, and Harvard. Not an all bad list of MBA programs, frankly. If you focus on those schools that rank in the top ten for best professors, best classroom experience, best campus environment, and best career prospects, you can you can look at this on our site just called, the 2023 Princeton Review MBA ranking. The top ten of the top ten and then we also have a more thorough article on this ranking called MBA Ranking Business School Careers, Culture, and Curriculum. So that’s enough on Princeton Review for sure. Let’s talk about Harvard Business School. Okay. In the typical year, Harvard Business School, it’s estimated interviews about 1900 candidates. That’s also out of roughly close to 10,000 applicants in any given year. So under 20% get interviewed, and then usually about half to 55 or 60% actually are invited to attend after they complete the interview. But each interview has a certain kind of format. It’s 30 minutes long. It’s done by an admissions officer who has already reviewed your application. There’s another admissions officer more often than not in the room or the zoom session who takes notes while one asks questions.

[00:11:22.250] – John

And this is obviously high stakes for the people who are invited to an interview and have made that cut and now have basically a 50 50 shot of actually going to Harvard. So you can think that there’s a fair amount of anxiety that people would walking into that parallel. What can they expect?

[00:11:47.810] – Caroline

Yes, it is a very interesting format. So, as you say, it’s quite different from the format at other schools. And it’s quite a high pressure format, I think, compared to, for example, alumni interview that you might have at some of the other schools, which is often a bit more relaxed and much longer. So with Harvard, they’ve scheduled 30 minutes. So in practice, you probably got about 28, 29 minutes of conversation, and they will get to the point very quickly. And often the interviewer is so they’re very focused. Often it’s quite a sort of poker face style interview in many cases. And the candidate needs to be very well prepared to have thought in advance about the points that they hope to get across.

[00:12:42.660] – Maria

Right.

[00:12:43.020] – Caroline

Because that time will go very quickly and be prepared to answer for some very specific questions, because unlike interviews with some other schools, they will have spent quite a bit of time pouring over your application beforehand. With other schools, it’s not necessarily the case that the interview will have spent much time reviewing your application. Often they will have just reviewed your resume. So the interviewer will have spent quite a bit of time delving through your recommendations, your essays, your resume, et cetera. So they will have some very specific questions about things that you’ve done, choices that you’ve made. And so you need to be prepared to explain things perhaps on and be challenged perhaps more than you might be in some other MBA interviews. So it’s definitely worth preparing. And I think that with interviewing for any school or any job, practice definitely helps, right. Interviewing is a skill, and practice can maybe not make perfect, but it definitely helps you to feel better prepared and more confident going into that session. So I would definitely encourage candidates, even if they’ve been through a number of job interviews, et cetera, it will be a different format.

[00:14:07.930] – Caroline

So do your research into the types of questions that can come up and sit down with someone or with a couple of different people and get them to put you through your paces, because it will definitely help you feel more confident and better prepared and therefore more likely to put your best foot forward in the actual interview.

[00:14:32.190] – John

Now, before starting the session, we just found out that Maria had just done a mock interview with the candidate at Harvard Business School who obviously has been invited to interview. So Maria, what kind of questions can someone assume would be asked?

[00:14:48.970] – Maria

Well, I think it’s helpful for anyone going into the Harvard interview to take a step back and realize that I think a lot of what drives the interview format is the fact that the Harvard Pedagogy is based on the case method, right? Virtually every class you take there is based on the case method. And when you think about what makes for a successful case method discussion, it’s one that is pretty lightning fast. You’re going to want to cover a lot of material in very little time. If you raise your hand in a case method class, you have to make your point quickly, yet clearly enough. If you go so quickly that you’re just touching the high level points and you don’t provide enough detail to back up what you’re saying, that’s not great. So you have to find a balance between being concise, yet also providing enough information that other people understand what your point is. Case discussions often will turn on a dime and go in completely different directions. You walk into class, okay, I think I know, I know what we’re going to do and what we’re going to cover. And then boom, five minutes in.

[00:15:48.190] – Maria

Let’s figure off on some tangent on, you know, footnote three at the bottom of page eight and that ends up being the most of the discussion, right? So, because if you think about what makes for a good, successful case discussion, that then helps us back into, well, if part of the interview is trying to get a sense of who is this candidate going to be in my classroom? That’s why, for example, the Harvard, the Harvard interview is often famous for being a bit contentious or a bit aggressive, or you getting pushback on something. Like you’ve said that you want to help these people in the Middle East, but you’ve never been to the Middle East. That’s weird, those sorts of questions. It’s not because Harvard is mean or because the interviewer is a cruel person, but because in a case discussion, it’s not a very interesting case discussion if everyone agrees from the get go, I mean, in that case class could be over in five minutes. It’s a good discussion when people debate, but that debate has to be handled in a certain way. And so part of why they will try to perhaps criticize something you’ve said or something you’ve written.

[00:16:53.900] – Maria

It’s not because they care, but it’s because they want to see. How do you respond to criticism? How do you respond to the unexpected question? How do you respond to me if you’re talking too long? And I’m like, yeah, I get it. You know what? I need to move on. Does that shake you? Do you get defensive if I’m like, yeah, your career vision doesn’t make any sense. That’s stupid. Like talking pets, whatever it is. Even if I think the talking pet business idea is a wonderful idea, it’s not about whether or not I care. It’s I want to see how you respond to someone criticizing something that you’ve said. So I think the reason I went into this is I think that this helps us think about, okay, what should I expect? I should expect lots of rapid fire questions. I should expect those questions to not necessarily follow a standard format or order. I should expect questions that try to push back on something I said, whether it’s my career goal or my explanation for something I did. And I should also expect to get because another thing that they’re looking for is leadership ability.

[00:17:55.970] – Maria

I should expect to get some questions about how did I achieve a certain thing? What specific steps did I take? You say here that you convinced the CEO to do something. How exactly? Why would the CEO listen to you? Those sorts of really delving into the nitty gritty of how you accomplish something in terms of questions that might throw you off kilter. I might be like, yeah, so you took a Women in Cinema elective your sophomore year of college. Why did you do that? Something like that to get at your motivation and how you make decisions, but also that rapid fire element of it. Anything in your written, in your application is fair game. They could even say, like, oh, you know what? Your recommender said that one of your areas for development is X. What do you think about that? Do you agree with that feedback or something? It could be literally anything or anything.

[00:18:50.570] – Caroline

You’Ve left out of your application as well, because sometimes candidates leave a little gap in their resume and hope that the school won’t notice. And you can be sure that if you do that, that’s what they will hone in on.

[00:19:03.650] – Maria

Exactly.

[00:19:07.710] – John

When you started your mock interview earlier today, what was the first question you asked a candidate?

[00:19:14.070] – Maria

I asked a motivation question around why did you choose your major? Especially because it was a major where they went to a college that had a couple of different variations of a similar major. And so I said, well, why did you choose this specific major and not this other major that also offers similar, some might argue perhaps even more relevant coursework than in your field than what you studied, right? Trying to get it, trying to get it. Like, how do you make decisions and how do you trade offs always have to be made. So how do you make trade offs when you have to make big ones?

[00:19:49.870] – John

And each interview at Harvard is different, right? According to Harvard, each interview is tailored to the individual in the room. So there’s no set standard list of questions that every single candidate gets, right?

[00:20:06.610] – Maria

Correct. But I do think that there are different buckets of questions that you can expect. And so what I do in my in my box is I say, look, here are, like, the most common buckets that you might get, and I’ll tell you in a second what those are. And we don’t know. Some interviews will touch upon one question in each bucket. Some interviews will be 20 minutes on just one bucket. So in my mocks, I try to cover something from every bucket. But, you know, I’ve had so I had someone once who was from a European country who was, like, in the venture capital field in that in that country, and their career was like, yeah, I want to I want to go to HBS, and I want to go back into venture in my country and help grow the ecosystem. It was literally 20 of the 30 minutes was like, how big is the venture ecosystem in your country? Who are the major players? What’s the best investment you’ve made? It was all about the venture eco. It was 20 minutes in just the career bucket. Wow. But interestingly enough, they were so sad.

[00:21:01.610] – Maria

They’re like, oh, I didn’t get to talk about my leadership. And I said, look, I think the silver lining here is that if they were worried about your leadership skills, they would have asked you about that. And the fact that they didn’t probably means that the rest of your application gave them a good enough sense, and, in fact, this person was ultimately accepted. So the different buckets will be what motivates you. How do you make big decisions? The career plan that you mentioned, right, Harvard harvard does not care a ton about your career plans. In the written application, they only give you 500 characters to talk about it, and you’re not supposed to go into it in the essay, but in those 500 characters, you can really give them a lot of rope. You can really hang yourself with it. So getting questions on, like, is this a reasonable idea? Why would you do it this way? Why did you go work for this consulting firm? Because they don’t have any offices in Egypt, but this other consulting firm does. So those sorts of just kind of poking holes at things, I think is a good way to think about it.

[00:21:58.980] – John

What’s more important, the answers or the clarity with which you answer them and your professional presence?

[00:22:06.410] – Maria

I think the substance matters a little bit more, because if somebody gives a perfectly polished answer, but that answer is one in which it is revealed that maybe they really didn’t have that impact that was implied in their essay. Maybe they kind of exaggerated. And when I pressed a little more, like, how did you do that? Like, well, okay, so really it was my boss who went to the CEO and didn’t but the point, you know, I put together the email that might get sent to the boss. Like, that substance to me matters more. And the reason I say this is because HBS rightfully thinks that once you go through the case, if you come in not being super polished, we will polish you. So that’s part of what the training is about. But somebody who is super polished, but who there’s empty fluff underneath that polish. I think that person is less likely to get in.

[00:23:02.410] – John

What do you think is the advantage of being interviewed in person versus by Zoom? Is there an advantage?

[00:23:12.030] – Caroline

I think that I personally greatly prefer in person, but that’s a personal preference. And the younger generation are very used to interacting virtually, and so maybe equally comfortable having the session on Zoom. So I think that’s a personal choice. And the interviewers have to be very careful not to be biased towards candidates that they meet in person. Right. They’re very aware of that. But I don’t think that you’re at a disadvantage in how the interview will conduct the session and will perceive you. I think it’s more a case of how you feel and what environment you feel comfortable in. Perhaps you feel more comfortable sitting, be able to sit in your office or at home and do the session virtually. And some people just find it very weird talking to people on a screen and would much rather sit down with somebody in person. So I think that’s very personal. But often logistics will just decide which option you have. Right. So I wouldn’t worry about that dimension and whether that affects your chances or not. Because the interviewers are very experienced in both formats, and they will be very careful to make sure that your chances are equal, whether they’re meeting with you in person or whether they’re meeting you on Zoom.

[00:24:43.460] – John

And what should you wear? You still shouldn’t show up in a T shirt or let’s say the opposite of that suspenders. Is that right, Maria?

[00:24:54.430] – Maria

Yeah, I mean, it’s a business school interview, so you would probably wear I don’t think you have to go out and buy a three piece suit if you don’t already own one. However, I do think that you would to wear, at a minimum, what you would normally wear to a work meeting. So, yes, try to, when in doubt, go more formal. It’s always better to be more formally dressed in any situation than not formally dressed enough.

[00:25:20.950] – John

Yeah, exactly.

[00:25:21.940] – Caroline

But also be comfortable. I once had a candidate who admitted afterwards that he had put on a bit of weight during the pandemic and he couldn’t breathe in his suit and so poor guy was really struggling to breathe during his interview. So try on your outfit beforehand and make sure that you’re comfortable, because there’s nothing worse than sitting there and sort of trying to fidget with your outfit, but try not to look like you’re fidgeting with your outfit. You’ve got enough going on without worrying about what you’re wearing.

[00:25:55.830] – Maria

Wow, that’s great advice. Yeah. Try it on first. Just make sure it still fits. Yeah. I think I had someone a year or two ago say that they went to an in person interview as things were opening up again, post pandemic, and their shoes, like, something like the shoe was broken, they had meant to get the shoes repaired, they’re nice dress shoes, but they had forgotten. And then they’re on the door, on the way out the door, and like, oh, my, nice dress shoes. Like the sole need to be resold or something. So, yeah, do prepare. Try on your outfit in advance, especially if it’s been in a closet for the past several years of the pandemic.

[00:26:35.240] – John

I’ve heard of candidates who go to Boston and they make sure they have two white shirts instead of one, in case they spill coffee in the morning on one, and a brand new suit, frankly, and shoes just to make a really good impression. But if you go in there, like some of these investment bankers suspenders and cufflinks, I think that’s bad news too, don’t you think?

[00:26:59.030] – Maria

You don’t want to come across like a Gordon Gecko jerk.

[00:27:02.590] – John

Exactly.

[00:27:03.670] – Maria

Yeah. I don’t think you’re going to impress anyone. Like, oh, well, wow, this person, we were sort of on the fence about them, but then they came in with these really expensive shoes or this brand new suit. So up. That’s the thing that changes it. It’s not really going to have the impact if you’re going to spend an hour shopping for a new suit, I’d rather have you spend that hour reflecting on the choices you’ve made and how you’ve accomplished the things you’ve accomplished. Yeah.

[00:27:29.570] – John

And I would imagine, in terms of dress, the goal is not to stand out.

[00:27:34.110] – Maria

I don’t think there’s a goal one way or the other. I don’t think it’s about standing out or fitting. I think it’s just about wearing something that I’m taking this seriously, you guys. But you also want to Caroline’s point, you want to be comfortable. I don’t think the dress matters as much as perhaps people think it does. Yeah.

[00:27:47.450] – Caroline

You don’t want them to notice your dress particularly. That’s right. It should just blend in. And what you want them to notice is you and what you have to say. So it’s perhaps better not to wear something that’s too eye catching. Right. Like something that is particularly unusual or particularly loud, because you want them to remember you and not what you’re wearing.

[00:28:12.110] – John

Right. Yes. Are there trick questions?

[00:28:16.030] – Maria

I think one of the goals is to try to find a trick question at the end of a mock interview. Someone will often say like, wow, that you really got me out of left field on that one. And I’m like, good. I consider that to be a successful mock then, because if somebody comes in and they’re too polished and they’re too prepared look, if the case method involved memorizing your answers to what the conversation was going to be the next day, then memorized answers in an interview wouldn’t be a problem. But if I get the sense that someone has really scripted their answers like, oh, I know she’s asking me the weakness question, I’m ready for that. And it’s a scripted, perfect answer, I’m going to try it. The more they are like that, the more I’m going to aim for more left field trick types of questions because I want to see how do they react in a more real world discussion environment.

[00:29:05.150] – John

Yes, totally makes sense.

[00:29:06.910] – Caroline

And that’s something I think that particularly nonnative English speakers need to be careful of, because I’ve seen candidates where the temptation is to memorize answers because they’re nervous about their grammar and their language and being speaking English perfectly. And so they spend so much time practicing and rehearsing that when you do a mock interview or an interview with them, then you can tell that they’re regurgitating the response that they have memorized word for word. And it’s never a good idea, as Maria said. And so it’s better to know your points, but don’t memorize like blocks of text. And don’t worry if you’re a non native English speaker and you make a grammatical mistake here or there, that’s absolutely fine, right? That’s okay. They’re really focusing on the content of your message, but they will be thrown a bit if it sounds like you’re just regurgitating content that you have memorized. Worse the word and that will make you sound very wooden, unfortunately.

[00:30:13.090] – Maria

And even worse is if somebody memorizes an answer and the variation of the question asked is slightly different because then you’ve gone off. I have in the past sometimes had to be like, look, I’m sorry, that’s not the question I asked. The question I asked was blah blah, blah, blah. It’s a little bit irritating, honestly.

[00:30:35.130] – Caroline

I have a colleague who used to interview for Harvard and she said that once they had a candidate who actually said in the interview, well, actually the question that you should have asked is.

[00:30:44.110] – Maria

This.

[00:30:47.070] – Caroline

Don’T do that either.

[00:30:48.510] – Maria

Don’t patronize your interview words, golden words of wisdom. Do you know if that person they didn’t get in.

[00:31:04.950] – John

You raised an interesting issue here because do you notice the difference between the people who actually pass what is ultimately a test, an interview test, and those who don’t? What’s the difference? Or can you not make observation on that?

[00:31:22.760] – Maria

So after I do my mocks, I. Keep a little secret thing where I sort of write down, like, what did I think they did? Well, what did I think they didn’t do, and what do I think their chances are? Or if they don’t get in, what’s going to be the reason? And I think for me, again, it goes more to substance as opposed to style. So, for example, some people really do exaggerate on their resumes. Some people flat out lie on their resumes. And those things, as Caroline said, if you think they’re not going to notice that you’re telling, you’re making a pretty bold claim on your resume for a 24 year old, they’re going to notice and they’re going to hone in on it. And there have been times when I’ve asked some pretty probing and direct questions, and it’s become clear that, oh, well, when I said that, it was 1000% profit. And then you’re like, okay, so you were lying, right? You were lying. And so that is an immediate way of knowing that they’re not going to get in. So for me, it is more about the substance and getting to the story of, okay, you had this accomplishment, but did you accomplish it because you were simply a good little worker bee who was following instructions?

[00:32:27.610] – Maria

Or did you accomplish it by taking a risk, by winning someone over, by coming up with an innovative idea that no one had had before, right? So two people can have the exact same bullet point on the resume, right? Increased profits by $5 million. But one person did it by simply showing up and doing the bare minimum because the project had been laid out in such a way where the $5 million is inevitable. Or someone else might have done it by literally moving mountains, convincing CEOs, convincing investors, like doing incredible things, interpersonally motivating a team that was about to quit, whatever it is. So it’s the devil’s in the details of how you made it happen. And so for me, that’s what ultimately, ultimately tells the difference coming into the interview. Two people might have the same resume or the same rough accomplishments, but then at the end, I tend to judge them based on, okay, was it really at the end of the day, wasn’t it your boss? Oh, your company has this is a template that your company uses for all of its clients. So cool, but also not as impressive as someone who invented a new template.

[00:33:32.210] – John

Yes, very good. So don’t come off as arrogant. Don’t claim things that really you weren’t entirely responsible for. Don’t appear scripted. Don’t go on and belabor an answer and take up so much time. Answer the question and shut up. Those are all good things to do, right?

[00:33:57.130] – Caroline

Absolutely.

[00:34:00.570] – John

All right, so if you’re one of the lucky ones and you’ve been invited to interview at Harvard, now you have a basic idea of what you can and should do. And I think practicing even though you don’t want to be scripted, but you want to just go through it with someone. It could be a friend, it could be Caroline, or it could be Maria, or it could be someone else. I think that’s a helpful exercise, as long as you make sure you’re not essentially rehearsing or scripting, but just getting good advice as to when to stop talking, what not to say, and how to put your best foot forward overall. So good luck to you if in fact, you are going to go for a Harvard Business School interview over the next few weeks. Meantime, if you want to be entertained, take a look at that Princeton Review ranking. It’s plenty entertaining. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. You’ve been listening to Business Casual. Thank you.

The Economist Dis on MBAs: Is the Degree Still Worth It?
Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Princeton Review’s 2023 MBA Ranking + What To Expect In A Harvard MBA Interview
Maria |
February 8, 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

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