Smart Advice For The Entering MBA Student
Maria |
August 21, 2024

In this episode of Business Casual, the hosts delve into essential advice for new MBA students. As campuses welcome new arrivals, the importance of early career planning and networking is emphasized, particularly for one-year programs like INSEAD’s. Students update resumes and scout potential employers ahead of the rapid recruitment cycles.

The hosts highlight the necessity of balancing academic and career efforts from the start, noting the quick shift from academic orientation to job searches that often surprises new students. Practical strategies for managing overwhelming opportunities, engaging with coursework, connecting with peers, and building relationships with professors are discussed, providing a roadmap to transform the MBA experience into a successful career path.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:04.370] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-host, Maria Wich Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. This is the time of the year when new MBA students begin arriving on campus to start their journey into mainly the two-year residential full-time MBA programs that we often talk about and are common place in the US, less so in Europe, although many of the European programs, which are shorter, also start around this time. We thought it’d be a good idea to dispense some advice for these newly arrived students on how to best take advantage of their MBA program. How do you get off to a quick start? How do you put your best foot forward? How do you get the most out of the experience? Let’s talk a little about that. Caroline, what’s your advice?

[00:01:02.470] – Caroline

Yeah, well, I think one thing is preparing your career search, your post-MBA job search. I know it seems a bit crazy to be thinking about this when you’re just starting an MBA, but it’s really helpful, I think, if you do prepare the ground before you start. So get your resume up to date, start looking at companies that you might be interested in targeting, and have some initial discussions. If you can start to network. If you’re on a two-year program, then recruitment will start fairly soon for internships. So it’s good to be well-prepared for that. Of course, I worked at INSEAD, which is a one-year program. So you really are thrown in at the deep end straight away as regards your career plans and job search, because the recruitment can start pretty quickly. So for example, if you’re starting the January intake, recruitment will start straight away for some internships. So for for investment banking, so you need to be prepared for that. For some candidates, it’s worth spending a bit of extra time clarifying your career goals. So for most MBA applications, of course, you have to state what are your career plans post MBA.

[00:02:16.090] – Caroline

Some of them, it’s just very high level. You might have had to discuss it a bit more in detail at the interview stage, but you might have some candidates come to business with quite a vague career plan. It’s really worth investing some time ahead of joining the program on clarifying your goals. What is it that you want to do immediately when you graduate, and how do you see your career evolving over time? And think about plan A and a plan B, because not everything works out the way you want it to, depending on many things, including the economic cycle. So it’s worth preparing that ground because you will get pulled in many different directions when you’re on the MBA program. And in some ways, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. It’s an incredibly intense experience. There are so many opportunities that you can take advantage of, which is wonderful, but you can’t do everything. And there are things that you can do to prepare the ground for your job search. And so if you can do some of that work beforehand, then you’ll be saving yourself some time. And so you’ll be well-prepared for the program that the school has planned for you.

[00:03:20.670] – Caroline

So they will have a program set up with workshops and counseling and coaching and so on to guide you on what you need to be doing and when. But if you have prepared the ground a bit yourself, then you’ll be well positioned to take advantage of those opportunities.

[00:03:38.040] – John

Now, Caroline, I’m thinking that some of our listeners may be shocked because you immediately went into job search mode. Here they’re just arriving on campus. But yet, broadly enough, they should be thinking about the end result, even though their journey is just beginning. That’s because soon enough, recruiters will be coming on campus and basically entertaining students at different events. And soon enough, they’ll be interviewing for internships. And it’s always a shock to newly arrived MBA students to see how quickly the focus shifts from academics to, Okay, what am I going to do? How am I going to get my internship? Do I want to convert that internship into a full-time job offer if in fact, I really like the company and I like the offer that they make to me? But it is shocking, isn’t it? Because you’re entering an academic program and instantly you have to think about the end result as opposed to the beginning.

[00:04:35.010] – Caroline

Yeah, it is quite a surprise often. And so you really have to manage both in parallel. And one of the challenges of business school is juggling everything. And obviously, you need to be fully engaged academically, but you do need to be carving out time regularly for networking and attending employer presentations and all of those things. And if you have a bit of clarity ahead of time about which direction you want to go in, even if you’ve got a few different paths in mind. And many people change their goals, right, during the MBA program. It is, by its nature, a transformative experience. But what I’ve seen at business school, at least at INSEAD, is that the students who come in with some clarity about what they want to do and what they get out of it, even if that completely changes, right? They get exposed to things that they’ve never thought about, and they have a complete change of heart. And that’s very common, right? That people end up doing something that bears no relationship at all to what they said in their MBA application they’re going to do. But if they have clarity and they’ve thought about their goals and they have a plan, even if that completely changes and they throw that out of the window, those students are often able to recalibrate and reformulate a plan and get focused again much better, in my experience, than students who come in who are all over the place and have no clue what they want to do and are attracted by everything and running in lots of different directions, and their attention is very fragmented.

[00:06:07.460] – Caroline

And those people can really struggle to hone in and focus during the program. And of course, later on, when you are interviewing for your post-MBA job, then it’s a competitive process. So if you are pursuing 10 different avenues, you’re not going to be particularly well-prepared for any of them. Whereas the student who you’re competing with who is absolutely got the heart set on going into venture capital or going into investment banking and has really prepared the ground for that. They’re going to do better at the interview stage if they’ve been more focused. So I think it’s okay. You need to be open to transformation, but just try to focus yourself. And if you do have a change of heart, then think about how you can reformulate your plans.

[00:06:54.590] – John

Yeah. I mean, years ago, I remember writing a story about UVA Darden, which discovered that students who came in with a plan who had some direction in mind were the most satisfied students when they graduated. The least satisfied students were those who were the so-called explorers who came in thinking that they would not really know what they wanted to do. So they would sample this and it would sample that. And it made it more difficult for them to get an internship. And then it made it more difficult for them to land a lambda job and even take the right elective courses in the second year, and they tended to be the most dissatisfied people to graduate without question. Now, Maria, Caroline mentioned something that I think affects every incoming MBA student, FOMO. You enter a program, and my God, there are so many clubs and organizations, there’s so many new people to meet. Meantime, you’re in the core curriculum, which is the real grind of an MBA program where the professors are assigning so much work that it’s impossible to it all. The lesson there is you have to learn quickly how to prioritize what’s in front of you.

[00:08:06.450] – John

How do you deal with FOMO? How do you deal with that initial onslaught of case readings and classes and professors who want to overload you on purpose?

[00:08:17.330] – Maria

I think what Caroline was saying about careers also applies to anything outside of the job hunt. The clearer you are with what you want to get out of business school, the more you’ll be able to avoid FOMO Because when you see other people running in different directions, you’ll say, Well, that’s great for them, but that’s not the direction that I want to go in. In terms of clubs, totally building on what Caroline just said, your first priority should be to identify the professionally related club or clubs that are as closely related to your intended career as possible. You might even want to reach out to these clubs over the summer before you enroll. Now, admittedly, they will all be off doing their internship, so they may not be able to respond. Or if you’re enrolling with a career vision that may not be standard, you might to reach out to Career Services before you show up on campus and just give them a heads up. I actually know that more and more MBA programs have started doing summer programming for entering students to prepare them for the job hunt. Because as Caroline said, you don’t get a ton of time for navel-gazing.

[00:09:18.090] – Maria

You need to prioritize. Maybe what might be beneficial for you on that front is to somewhere on a Google Doc or a piece of paper somewhere that you can refer back to, make a little list for yourself of why am I doing this? What are the main things I want to get out of it? Is it a career switch? Is it I want to get really good at a specific area of business? Then you can refer back to that as your true north. In terms of how do you prioritize with the academic side of things and the social side of things. The professors are not going to be happy with me for this, but honestly, I would not prioritize the academic part at first, only because you can always, to the extent that it might a semester long course or a quarter long course, you can always try to make up the grade later. Obviously, if it’s in a topic, if you want to get an internship in investment banking and you don’t have a lot of finance experience, then obviously you’re going to prioritize paying attention in your finance class. But to the extent that the academics are important, but the academic part of it is not quite as important as the job hunting component, if you have that marginal hour available to spend and you’re trying to choose between the two, I would the job hunt.

[00:10:31.590] – Maria

Then also, don’t forget that you should, at some point, start to balance things out, too, with maybe joining a couple of fun or recreational clubs or clubs that are not necessarily professionally related, but where you’re more likely to find your social tribe other people who are interested in the same sorts of things you are. The professional clubs are the obvious and most clear way to do that, but there are all kinds of other clubs from, I don’t know, mountain biking to wine tasting to everything in between. Do that, too, because really the networking is what you take with you. The job hunt is what you get immediately after you graduate, but the network is what you take with you for decades afterwards. I would prioritize both of those things.

[00:11:10.610] – John

To underline the notion that you should seek out a professional club first, if you know exactly what industry you’re going to enter, is a really good one because, okay, if you want to be a consultant, for example, you need to be coached on how to do a case interview. That’s a unique Week interview experience. Usually, it’s the folks in the consulting club who’ve been through it on an internship level and who have contact with alums. The second year is often drill the first year in consulting clubs on case interviews to help you prepare for them, and that’s essential. Likewise, you want to be a program manager at a tech company, join the tech club because you’re going to meet people who not only interned at these institutions and can come back and give you very recent on what it’s like to work at a Google or a Microsoft, or God help you, Elon Musk, Tesla. It will be really helpful for you to know who to contact, how to act when you’re with them, what alumni are already working there that you could also reach out to. The club thing as related to your intended employer is a really good and important issue.

[00:12:28.960] – Maria

Even if you’re You’ve narrowed it down to two or three things, then join those two or three clubs because even just talking to people who have done this for a living might very quickly be a way for you to get a sense. If you’re like, I’m not really sure if I want to do tech or consulting, do both, join both clubs, and then just talk to people who have done that for a job. Then that might also help give you a sense of like, Oh, actually, maybe tech isn’t quite what I thought it was. Maybe consulting isn’t quite what I thought it was. Maybe consulting is better than I thought it was. Because so many people have done these things prior business school. So talking to those folks, you’ll be able to get that firsthand information that might help you narrow down your priorities even more.

[00:13:06.820] – John

Now, when I think about mentorship, I’m very caught up on creating relationships with professors who can motivate you, who can inspire you, who can make connections for you. I wonder if either of you have advice on selecting certain faculty members who might be really instrumental to you, not not only through your MBA journey, but even well beyond it. And how do you create a relationship like that when you hit the campus? Caroline, what do you think?

[00:13:39.890] – Caroline

Well, I would focus more on picking the classes that are the right fit for you rather than selecting your classes based on who is teaching them. But certainly you’re right that there are opportunities to build relationships with professors, and in some cases, that can be very useful. And a lot of students do stay in touch with professors that they build a relationship with. So if you have that opportunity, then get involved in the class. To build that relationship, see what you can do to be helpful to the professor. They may have some research that you can help out with. See what you can do to support them. And take advantage of office hours, meet them for lunch. Some faculty are very social as well and appreciate being invited along to some of the student events. And that can be a great way of building a social bond with them and taking it beyond just a formal classroom context. So definitely don’t be intimidated by the faculty. They love having building the relationships with students. That’s why they’re there. They thrive on having these young, bright, diverse students coming in who have different perspectives from them and who can challenge them.

[00:14:59.870] – Caroline

And and discuss and bring their experience that is completely fresh to the classroom. And that’s a big part of why the faculty are there in the first place. So do be open to that. And I think sometimes students are a little intimidated by the professors. And I think also some students initially, at least, suffer a bit from imposter syndrome and think, well, I got in here by the skin of my teeth and everyone else is absolutely brilliant and way ahead of me and everything. And probably everyone is thinking the same thing, or there are a lot of students who are. So don’t let that hold you back, both in your interactions with faculty, but also in your interaction with the broader school community. Because if you’re there, then the admissions team have selected you for a reason. And they saw your potential of adding to the classroom and adding to the community experience. So don’t shy away from taking advantage of those opportunities to interact, to build relationships with faculty.

[00:16:03.130] – John

Maria, any advice there? I mean, if I go to Harvard, do I want to immediately go over and see Michael Porter? If I go to Wharton, do I want to go and see Adam Grant? Or at Stanford, do I want to go and see Jeff Pfeffer immediately?

[00:16:15.280] – Maria

My hope would be that you have the self-awareness to realize that the very famous professors are in very high demand, and they are probably going to prioritize meeting with students who are in their class. But as As Caroline mentioned, if you have something really compelling to share with a Michael Porter or an Adam Grant, let’s say you did an undergraduate research paper on how to thrive in the workforce, or you have your own, your sixth force that Porter should add to his five forces. But I wouldn’t just show up to office hours and be like, Hi, I’m here. Help me. That would be pretty cringey. I do think that it’s easiest if it is a professor that you have a class with. If that is a famous professor and they normally teach in the second year elective curriculum, you might need to wait a bit. Don’t let that necessarily stop you. Like I said, if you have something of value or that might be of interest to share with them, you might be able to go to them and say, Hey, look, I noticed that you do a lot of your research on the media industry.

[00:17:16.830] – Maria

I used to work in media. Let me tell you what the nuances are between the Taiwanese pay TV market and the Indian pay TV market. Something like that, where at least there’s a level of… It won’t be a pure reciprocity, but at least you’re offering something of interest to them. But yeah, aside from that, check out their office hours or sometimes just email them directly, or if they have an assistant, email the assistant to try to set up a quick meeting. But I would advise, if you’re not in the class, then don’t just show up empty-handed to the meeting.

[00:17:48.130] – John

I’m thinking, if I’m going to Wharton, I’m going to read every book Adam Grant has written, and I’m going to walk in there, and under my arms will be all of those books, and I’ll be prepared to discuss that with him in a provocative way so he’ll remember me.

[00:18:06.580] – Maria

Am I crazy? I would hope at least you’ve read his books. That would be even worse. You just show up here like, Who are you? But I think reading the books is a good start. But yeah, at least maybe have something, I don’t know, like you would with any networking or business relationship. I’m not saying if you got nothing to offer, then don’t even try, but just realize that you might get deprioritized. Understandably, put yourself in their shoes. Imagine that someone wants to come work at your company and they want a job in your division, but you also have someone working for you who needs guidance. You’re going to prioritize the person who’s working for you more than the random stranger saying, What’s it like to work at Mattel? I think just use your judgment in that way or see if they’re speaking at a conference or something, you can try to go up to them at the cocktail hour and start chatting with them that way. It It’s certainly doable, but it’s a lot easier if you do end up either taking their class or having something related to their field of interest that would be compelling for them to warrant meeting you.

[00:19:12.380] – John

Now, Caroline, you earlier used a phrase I’ve heard a lot from MBA students. The first year is like drinking from a fire hose. How do you deal with being overwhelmed? If you go to Harvard, you’re going to read over 500 case studies all the time you’re there, and many of them will be in the first year core curriculum. At INSEAD, as you pointed out, it’s a 10-month program. It’s so accelerated. It’s so intense. The stress levels are high. What advice do you have to deal with how overwhelmed people may feel?

[00:19:45.210] – Caroline

Well, first of all, get plenty of sleep before you start. And then look, you will probably want to invest yourself more in certain classes than others. I think that prioritization and focus that we’ve talked about and out what it is that you really want to get out of the program and which of the classes are going to be most valuable to you, that helps. Sometimes you might need to skim read a case, and maybe it’s not your top priority class, but other classes where you really want to… You know it’s going to be valuable to you in the future and you want to get a lot out of that particular class, then you’re going to spend a bit more time preparing. So I think you have to be realistic about what you can do and and just adjust your efforts a little bit according to what your priorities are and just be realistic about what you can do. I think it’s very common for students coming in to sign up for every club and want to attend every social event, and you quickly realize that it’s not realistic. So the faster you figure that out, the better.

[00:20:52.460] – John

Yeah. You don’t want to burn yourself out, which is easy to do.

[00:20:55.530] – Maria

Yeah.

[00:20:56.270] – Caroline

And then I would also say, sometimes students get overwhelmed by the academics, and so they focus on… So they really dedicate themselves to the academics, and they carve out time for their career such, but then they neglect the social activities. And that’s a shame, right? Because that’s a big part of how you build relationships with people. The networking is not just about getting to know people in the classroom and in the professional clubs. It’s also the parties and the trips and those those long lunches that you might take and the conversations that you have along the way. So do give yourself the grace of having some time for that because that will probably pay as many dividends, quite frankly, as the time you spend in the classroom and the time that you spend preparing for all those classroom discussions.

[00:21:52.040] – John

Maria, your advice on dealing with how overwhelming it may feel in the beginning?

[00:21:56.400] – Maria

I mean, aside from trying to keep reminding yourself what your priorities are, I just think, realize that everyone’s gone through this. It’s like those first early days of having a newborn child in your house where you’re like, Wow, everything is… This is really a lot. Just tell yourself, Okay, they’re literally not In the case of MBAs, it’s not billions of people, but there are billions of humans who have been through this process before. There are several hundreds of thousands of MBA graduates who have been through this process before. Everyone’s going to feel overwhelmed. It’s perfectly natural. I just need to grit my teeth and get through this first month, these first couple of months, and then things should even out by then. Just hang in there and don’t get discouraged.

[00:22:41.520] – John

Most people are sorted into teams, and you lean on your team members. If you’re overwhelmed with the amount of reading you have to do, people in the teams are assigned different readings so that everyone on the team doesn’t have to do everything. If you are a poet, you lean on your quants in the team, and if you’re a quant, you lean on your poets. I think depending on your classmates is a big part of getting through this. I also will say the positive part of feeling overwhelmed is that you will feel like you are in a boot camp, and there’s nothing better than a boot camp to bond people to each other and to form enduring lasting bonds that will last a lifetime because you’ll both, when you get through this, you’ll remember that experience and the fact that you survived it all together. That’s a really special thing. Now, let me ask each of you, what one thing do you wish you had known before you entered your MBA program that you soon discovered. Now, you’re going to reach back into the memory bank because I know we’re not all recent grads here. But, Caroline, is there one thing that you wish you had known before you went through the INSEAD MBA program?

[00:24:01.190] – Caroline

 I think many students, when they start, you feel like you’re in an environment where everyone has different experience, but there are a lot of people who are quite brilliant in that area. You’re in a finance class, you’re in a finance class or an accounting class, and it could be quite intimidating to be there with people who are superstars in that area. And so I think at the beginning, perhaps I was a bit intimidated by some of those other students, and it took me a while to feel confident about speaking up in class and sharing my experience. And so I think I would encourage people to just get stuck in straight away and not feel concerned that they don’t have enough to bring to a specific class, right? Those classes are designed to be able to bring everyone up to a certain level regardless of your background. And of course, at INSEAD, it’s an incredibly diverse group of people, not just professional, diverse diversity, but people from all over the world. Actually, a lot of the learning, in fact, probably more of the learning occurs peer to peer rather than from the faculty to the student.

[00:25:11.050] – Caroline

I would encourage students, from my experience, to get stuck in and not to feel that they have less to share than other students in the classroom.

[00:25:24.920] – John

So jump right in. Don’t be intimidated. Give it all you got right from the All right. Absolutely. Maria?

[00:25:32.490] – Maria

I think in addition to the advice to meet more with professors, I did not make enough use of that resource. And 20 years later, I’m still kicking myself for it. I should have done more on that front. I think, yeah, the idea that when you get there, there are going to be people who are very good at a few of these core curriculum subjects, but everyone’s going to have their strengths and everyone’s going to have their weaknesses. This idea that as Caroline was saying, if you’re like, Oh, I’m not really sure, what am I going to contribute? No, trust me, you’ll see. It might not be immediately visible in that first one or two weeks where you’re learning what is a balanced sheet and how do I record debits and credits in accounting or whatever, that very technical introduction work might be in the core. But trust me, soon enough, especially as the conversations start to go more into things like management and leadership, you’ll realize that you do bring a lot to the table. So similar with the from the fire hose effect, just to hang in there. If at first you’re not immediately feeling comfortable, just have faith that it will come and that some of the other people who are maybe the finance geniuses, maybe they break a cold sweat in marketing class and they’re just not showing it.

[00:26:45.620] – Maria

Just hang in there.

[00:26:47.950] – John

Yeah, that’s all good advice. I’ll just say, look, many people enter MBA programs from narrow specialty areas. It could be accounting, it could be finance. If you’re a consultant, big deal. If you’re What you’re doing is crank out numbers in the back room as an analyst. Believe me, there’s no one who’s in your room who doesn’t need to learn a lot. They may know more than you about some tiny little subject matter big deal. They don’t know a whole lot more. Feel free to get in there, get in the Scrum, and make it happen. For all of you out there who are about to start on this incredible journey, good luck to you. We hope we offered some good advice for you to get a really good, fast start and to make the most of the experience. You’ve been listening to business casual. This is John Byrne with Poets of Quants.

Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Smart Advice For The Entering MBA Student
Maria |
August 21, 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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