Imagine navigating the maze of MBA applications—filled with essays, test scores, and interviews—and suddenly realizing there’s a side door: the optional essay. In this engaging episode of “Business Casual,” hosts Pola Lem, Maria Wich-Vila, and Caroline Diarte Edwards discuss not just the intricacies of these lesser-known application opportunities, but also how massive philanthropic donations fuel scholarship funding in top business schools.

Kicking off the conversation, Caroline reveals the strategic use of optional essays in applications. These essays provide a space to clarify potential red flags or elaborate on unique circumstances, such as a less-than-stellar GPA or unconventional recommender choices. Maria emphasizes the importance of authenticity in this section, advising applicants to use it thoughtfully and avoid repeating information already covered elsewhere.

The discussion then shifts to philanthropy’s role in shaping business school dynamics. The hosts explore how sizable charitable gifts contribute to scholarship funds, potentially altering the financial landscape for MBA students. These scholarships can be a game-changer, providing access to top-tier education without the burden of overwhelming debt. It’s a reminder of the far-reaching impact benevolent acts can have on individuals and institutions alike, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between generous donors and ambitious learners. Tune in for insights that not only demystify application nuances but also reveal the power of philanthropy in business education.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor inaccuracies.

[00:00:02] – Pola

Hello everyone. I’m Pola Lemm with Poets and Quants, and welcome to our weekly podcast, Business Casual. So I’m joined by my co-hosts, Maria Wikvila, who is traveling around the world. It’s like, where’s Waldo? Where’s Maria? And Caroline Diarte Edwards, who I think is still in California, but we’ll hear about that. So Maria, as you know, is the founder of ApplicantLab. Caroline was head of admissions at INSEAD and and is now co-founder of Fortuna Admissions. So we’re kind of like a roving cast of characters. I’m in DC this week, uh, partly for a conference on AI, uh, London’s home base, by the way, for listeners who don’t know, and also visiting some schools around DC. So, uh, I have been at, I was at American University yesterday. I am at Georgetown today and tomorrow is GW. So all the kind of tour of DC and Georgetown has been nice enough to let me use their conference room to record the podcast today. So Maria, where in the world are you?

[00:01:16] – Maria

I am in Barcelona right now, having a very good time, eating a lot of jamón ibérico and yeah, having a great week.

[00:01:25] – Pola

Nice. Is it? So DC, I should say, is 95 degrees today, and I honestly thought I would melt into a puddle walking. They’ve— Georgetown is this huge campus, like 15,000 students, and they very kindly gave me a tour, but we’re walking next to the football stadium and there’s this black tarp on one side and then pavement and just no airflow. And I genuinely thought I might pass out in the middle of the, you know, in the walk to the other side of campus. So yeah, it is hot and humid here. How is Barcelona today?

[00:02:03] – Maria

Barcelona is actually lovely because it’s early in the summer, but I grew up in Baltimore, and so I know what the— how those humid Mid-Atlantic summers can get. So I don’t, I don’t envy you from a weather perspective, although the Georgetown campus is gorgeous. So that’s lovely.

[00:02:19] – Pola

Yeah. And Caroline, you’re Back at home.

[00:02:24] – Maria

How’s it going?

[00:02:25] – Caroline

I am in the Bay Area. Yeah, it’s actually pretty warm today. I think it’s about 90 degrees outside, but it doesn’t get humid here, so it makes a big difference. And it usually cools off a lot at night, which is nice.

[00:02:35] – Pola

Hmm. Oh yeah, the fog, the evening fog.

[00:02:39] – Caroline

Exactly.

[00:02:40] – Maria

Nice.

[00:02:40] – Caroline

The marine layer.

[00:02:42] – Pola

Ah, so today we will be talking about a few things, so I might be sort of going off script a little bit, uh, partly because I had a little bit less time to write detailed notes today, so we’ll see how this goes. Uh, but we have some— so, so we’ve got our main topic today, which is philanthropy, but before that, uh, I’ve got some odds and ends to ask you about, uh, off of our website. So one little thing that I noticed was, um, we recently had the story talking with, with some admissions advice actually from Fortuna Admissions again, uh, and specifically there was a little bit in there about Columbia University has this optional essay section, which I’m sure a lot of schools have, um, and, and that says, you know, if you wish to provide further information, a brief explanation of any areas of concern about your academic record or personal history, this doesn’t need to be a formal essay submit some bullet points here, basically. So we haven’t talked about that specifically, so I thought I’d just ask briefly. So first off, Caroline, how many schools do this, and when should you take advantage?

[00:03:58] – Caroline

Most schools offer a free text field where you can provide additional information, and it can be very useful because the applications are of course very structured and ask very specific questions, and sometimes there’s just something that is relevant to your candidacy, which doesn’t fit in elsewhere. And so that is the opportunity to provide that information. It’s often a space to address something that might be a concern. So for example, perhaps the candidate has not done particularly well on the GMAT or the GRE, and they want to offer an explanation about that, or perhaps their GPA wasn’t fantastic and they want to offer some context of what was going on during their undergraduate years. Or perhaps they have an unusual choice of recommender and they want to explain that, and perhaps they want to explain why they don’t have their current boss as their recommender. So, for example, I was just working with a candidate this morning who is using that optional essay to talk about why he hasn’t asked his current boss for recommendation, because he’s actually going through a process right now. He’s up for promotion, and he just doesn’t want that to come into the discussion, which is understandable.

[00:05:10] – Caroline

So those are quite common topics to address in that optional essay. What should be avoided is sometimes candidates use it to regurgitate or rehash something which is already addressed elsewhere in the application. So it’s not the space where you should say, “Oh, and by the way, I just wanted to explain again about my fantastic achievement last year in—” in this particular project, right? You probably have opportunities to address your achievements at other points in the application. So don’t use it as an overflow. You just— and it’s always challenging getting your points across in the application because you will have limited word count, and so the temptation can be to use that optional space as overflow because you haven’t been able to sort of cut things down in the other sections according to the required word count. So Just avoid that temptation because that can be quite irritating for file readers. You just need to show good judgment in how you use that space and edit yourself very, very carefully. And just use it to address something that needs to be said. Sometimes you can use it to bring in something else that is a positive aspect of your candidacy, right?

[00:06:26] – Caroline

So not just explaining some concern, you maybe do have something additional to highlight. So in some cases, for example, it may be that beyond your day job, you have a side business, and perhaps you haven’t been able to bring that into another part of your application. It hasn’t— doesn’t fit in other parts of the application. So that could be a space where you could bring that in, for example. And it’s also absolutely fine to leave that space blank if you do not have something additional to say. Just leave it blank. The file reader will thank you for that because sometimes candidates just feel like, oh well, there’s another 200 words and I should just say something because I have the opportunity to, and it’s quite apparent when it’s just sort of used as filler, and that’s extra work for your file reader. So they will thank you for not just using the space with extra material for the sake of it. So it’s perfectly acceptable and it’s good judgment to leave it blank if you do not have something extra to say.

[00:07:27] – Pola

Mm. Okay. So not just dire cases of, I had an extremely bad thing happen and, and that’s why you’re seeing this disaster on my whatever, on my GMAT score or whatever. Um, so Maria, any sense of what portion of candidates use this? I mean, we’ve heard, you know, it can be for something negative, also something positive. I don’t have an official—

[00:07:48] – Maria

I, off the top of my head, I’d estimate maybe a third of candidates probably use it, maybe even up to a half. It’s true that it doesn’t have to be for negative things. Some schools word the optional essay prompt so vaguely, uh, that it can in fact be a place where you do put something positive about yourself. But the spirit in which most of them are phrased, they are pretty overt about the fact that this is— look, this is the place where you explain the red flag, or the red flags, plural, that you think we might see in your candidacy. And here’s your chance to tell us why we shouldn’t panic about them. Uh, that’s normally the spirit in which it’s asked. And I think the most common reasons that they’re used is probably to explain a low GPA. And reasons why the file reader should not be concerned about that one bad semester or that one bad year that someone had in undergrad. Also the, the poor GMAT score, GRE score, you know, this is not a full representation of my academic abilities. And also periods of unemployment. So Caroline mentioned the, the recommender, your current boss not being a recommender, that’s another one.

[00:08:49] – Maria

But another, a very common one is also be, can also be, you know, I was laid off, I didn’t have a job for 6 months, but during those 6 months, here’s what I did and here’s how I spent my time productively. So I think a lot of candidates, you know, especially with, um, you know, in recent years we’ve had people applying to business school who had COVID during their academic years, you know, during their undergraduate years. And so maybe sometimes coming back from COVID they might have had a bumpy readjustment back to real-world learning, or maybe they lost their jobs in the past couple of years because there have been you know, there’s been so much instability in the economy. So I suspect that the percentage of candidates who are utilizing this space has probably increased ever so slightly, but probably in a material way over the past, you know, 5 or 10 years.

[00:09:37] – Pola

Yeah, so in our next kind of bit of everything but the kitchen sink, we— so Poets&Quants also has this sort of handy one-stop shop for admissions deadlines, and we’ve talked a bit, a couple of episodes episodes ago we talked about admissions deadlines, so I’m not going to labor the point. But, um, one thing we didn’t talk about is next to those application dates there’s a column with some— where it says, uh, test waiver, uh, and, and then whether the school does that or not. So Caroline, what’s that about?

[00:10:13] – Caroline

Yeah, so that became more common with the pandemic. So testing became much more difficult during the pandemic, and so a lot of schools offered waivers and some schools have kept that. So it’s just more common to see a waiver option now than it was pre-pandemic. So yes, you can, you can request a waiver if that is an option. But something to keep in mind is that if you don’t present a standardized test, then they are still looking at your academic ability. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to put less weight on your academic profile because you’re applying to an academic institution, this program is very rigorous. The MBA requires strong academic skills. The pace is typically fast. You need to have strong quantitative and analytical skills and the ability to digest vast amounts of material, for example, if you’re preparing for case studies and so on. And so those tests are usually a pretty good predictor of how people do academically on an MBA program. And so if you choose to not take the test or not submit a test score, then the school will put more weight on evidence of your academic ability from other parts of your profile, especially your undergraduate track record.

[00:11:33] – Caroline

So if you have the option to take a waiver and you have a really outstanding academic track record from your undergraduate days, And overall your profile shows that you have strong analytical and quantitative skills, perhaps that’s reinforced through your professional experience, then that could be a good choice to make and perfectly fine, perfectly valid. But if you don’t, then you could be weakening your case by not taking the test and not presenting a score. So for most candidates, I would still encourage them to take the test. If you are able to take the test, if you’re able to get a score that is around at least the average for the program or even above, then that will often strengthen your case because it is a common data point that schools see across applications. And when they’re evaluating a diverse pool, of course, people are coming from all different educational institutions, all different academic backgrounds, as well as of course, different professional backgrounds. So the standardized test can be quite a useful data point in that it is one thing that people have in common. So you should make a strategic choice about whether you decide to go that route or not.

[00:12:47] – Pola

I guess if you’re motivated enough to go to a top business school, you’re probably going to be motivated enough to take this test and, you know, bang your head against a wall and spend hours and hours studying for it. So might as well go the full mile. Yeah, Maria, obviously many of the schools don’t offer waivers, we should say. But if, if you’re kind of being a clever applicant, would you maybe choose schools that do? Are you with Caroline on this, kind of do it if you can, sort of, as in to submit the, the test if you can?

[00:13:21] – Maria

Oh, absolutely. Having a stronger test— if you have a strong test score, you should absolutely, uh, submit it. I think The people who make the most use of the waivers are folks who are quote unquote bad test takers. And so for whatever reason, they, you know, that, that multiple choice appears in front of them and they freeze. And so their test score really does not show their true academic capability. Um, for years since the school started these during the pandemic, Caroline has heard me make this quip multiple times. But so now, Pola, now you get to be uh, inducted into one of my— one of the Maria Quips, and that is that test optional does not mean brain optional. So if you are going to go with a test waiver, you just have to realize that the burden of proof is now that much heavier on your undergraduate record, as Caroline mentioned. And I do think it makes it harder to get accepted, and I— and if you do get accepted with one, it makes it harder to get a scholarship, I believe, uh, because you’re not really bringing that higher test score to the— to the school and helping boost up their average.

[00:14:23] – Maria

We have seen, I think, fewer and fewer schools offer test waivers in, in the wake of the pandemic now, hopefully in our, in our rearview mirror, hopefully forever. Because now, you know, back then it was like, oh, the test center is closed and what am I supposed to do? And that excuse is now less and less relevant. So, and also I think, you know, we’re definitely seeing it at least in the undergraduate space as well. Many, many undergraduate colleges that were test optional are quickly reverting soon, soon to to revert back. I think Yale recently announced that they’re, they’re going— they’re requiring tests, and I think Duke hinted at it for undergrad. So we’re seeing it in the MBA space as well. So I think, uh, you know, if you’re thinking of applying in a couple of years and you’re, you’re holding out hope that test optional will still be in play, I would, uh, I would not make that a foundation of my application strategy. I don’t think you can count on that sticking around for too much longer.

[00:15:17] – Pola

Okay, one, one more question on this in case there is a waiver. So say I’m an undergraduate student, I graduated with honors, but, you know, maybe my GPA was a 3.8 or 3.9, um, some struggles early in freshman year, but then, uh, things got a lot better going along, um, and, uh, and, and so, you know, overall good, really bad freshman year sociology class, how is that profile going to play? And then let me add one more into the theoretical, which is I hate mathematics, will get a terrible test score, don’t want to take the test.

[00:15:57] – Caroline

So should I go for the waiver? Well, I— so if you hate math and you don’t have a lot of quant in your undergraduate track record, or you have quant courses where your scores aren’t fantastic, then I think it’s going to be a problem if you then also present your candidacy without a GMAT or a GRE. Because just the quantitative part is really critical for business school. You’re going to have core courses where that’s absolutely a requirement, and those students are going to struggle in the classroom. So perhaps the MBA isn’t the best option for that candidate. Well, good. You’re reinforcing my theoretical—

[00:16:38] – Pola

I’ve got to say, it was totally based on me. So you’re reinforcing the idea that maybe business school wasn’t the way to go. Glad to hear that, Maria.

[00:16:47] – Maria

No, I agree with Caroline, and I’d even add that the candidate like that would not be granted the waiver. And I’ll— like, I would be shocked if they’re granted the waiver, because the idea behind the waiver is you’re saying, look at this amazing, you know, grade that I got in, you know, multivariable calculus, Diffie cues, advanced statistics, econometrics in college, right? You’re presenting data to offset the lack of the test score. And the test score isn’t just for general academic prowess, but it is very much focused on the quantitative aspect. In fact, I believe that some of the schools in their waiver application, they actually say like, please list out every class you’ve taken calculus or above, for example, um, or please list out very explicitly your quantitative background. So, you know, just applying for the waiver doesn’t mean that you are granted the waiver. Um, you can sometimes— in many cases, you apply for the waiver prior to submitting your application, and you need to be prepared if you don’t have a strong quantitative background for the school to come back and say no, We’re not granting you the waiver. You must submit a score with your application or we’re not going to consider you.

[00:17:50] – Maria

So yeah, but if anything, like, Pola, the good news is that because these standardized tests are in fact standardized, the standardized test is an opportunity for someone with a background like the one you described, the one that is coincidentally very hypothetical. Yeah, that is very hypothetical. That’s it. That’s your chance. Like, I feel that for folks like this, The standardized test is a gift because this is your chance to show that, look, maybe I didn’t take calculus or econometrics in college, but I can hold my own quantitatively with the people who were engineers and finance majors. And that’s the gift that the test score gives you. You do have to study for that test score, unfortunately. But it does show you like, look, if you get a high percentile score on the quantitative version, you know, sociology, smosiology, who cares? I’ll be able to come into your classroom and I’m going to totally rock it. And so, in fact, if anything, it’s your chance to prove to them that you are absolutely going to do a great job in their program.

[00:18:47] – Pola

Hmm. Great. All right. Well, that covers the waiver really thoroughly. I have This Week in Numbers, $130 million, and I’ve done something sneaky, which is I didn’t share the news story that we’ll be talking about in the hopes that maybe I could surprise you both. With this number. Any ideas?

[00:19:10] – Caroline

130 million? Um, well, you did— this is something to do with a donation?

[00:19:15] – Maria

Yes, you did tease the topic in an email.

[00:19:20] – Pola

So that’s great. So that 130 million, that’s, uh, the University of Tennessee Knoxville has actually landed a $130 million commitment from $100 million, uh, to alumni, and that is the largest donation in its history with $100 million of it going directly into the, uh, College of Business. So that business school gift is going into distinguished faculty recruitment, graduate student scholarships, and also into expanding its undergraduate honors program. So I should say the University of Tennessee isn’t alone here. I think if you look at the number of business schools who’ve received these sorts of big gifts in recent years, there’s definitely a trend of this sort of like large gift giving. So I’ll talk a little bit about that, and then I want to ask you both about philanthropy in the context of admissions. So this gift brings Tennessee into that group of B-schools that have attracted 9-figure commitments in recent years. We have Other examples, so a $300 million gift to Chicago Booth in 2008, that’s the largest ever gift made to a business school, but you’ve got other big ones. So you’ve got Stephen Ross’s $250 million, that’s Michigan’s Ross School of Business. And then very recently, September 2025, Wharton got its largest ever gift.

[00:20:49] – Pola

So that was $60 million, smaller, but still, you know, you wouldn’t say no to a gift of $60 million, probably. So Caroline, how much of an impact do these sorts of announcements have on prospective students? Are you seeing that trend in admissions where students are going, wow, these guys got a lot of money, that’s kind of exciting, but also maybe, uh, has, uh, impacts on, you know, the teaching, scholarships, etc.?

[00:21:14] – Caroline

Yeah, I don’t think it factors a lot into candidate decisions, and I guess it— those, those donations really have a longer-term impact. So for somebody for example, who’s applying now, who sees that a school that they’re considering has just got a massive donation, it may not impact their experience on the program, right? So it means that there’s going to be more scholarship financing available in the future, but it might not actually be trickling through in the next cycle because it takes time to mobilize all that money and start figuring out how you’re going to allocate it to scholarships. And then some of it will probably be going to other things like faculty research, faculty chairs, and so on, which is great for the school, but it might not actually impact that student’s experience immediately. Now, what it does mean is that people really believe, or at least some of the alumni really believe in the school and the future of the school, and that the school is probably on a positive path, right? And so it’s a, it’s a fantastic signal of the underlying quality of the program, of the community, and that it’s headed— heading in, in a great direction.

[00:22:29] – Caroline

But it’s not something that I see candidates taking into account. Of course, candidates are looking at scholarship financing, so ultimately those gifts can feed through to scholarship financing, and that is a metric that candidates are more likely to be looking at. So they may be looking at How much does the school spend on scholarships? What is the average value of a scholarship? What percentage of the class will be getting scholarships? To understand what is their chance of getting financial support from the school. So I think those are more sort of immediately relevant metrics for candidates.

[00:23:05] – Pola

Yeah, Maria, if you’re being savvy trying to predict where you might get a scholarship, I mean, Caroline’s already said, you know, this sort of, it takes time for these big gifts to get portioned into different places and trickle down into things like, you know, courses, scholarships, et cetera. But how much as an applicant can you expect for that money to actually start affecting those scholarships if it’s going there?

[00:23:31] – Maria

I mean, I think it would be a little bit challenging to figure that out as an applicant. I think if they, during the announcement, if when they announce this, if they specifically say a certain percentage will go towards scholarships, then presumably that might actually impact as soon as the next cycle. Usually the big philanthropic gifts, if they do go to, say, start a building or start a new entrepreneurship center or fund a new travel abroad program— so for example, University of Virginia has a— had a scholarship several years ago donated that allows every single student to take at least one international trip. Without having to pay for it, right? Normally that comes out of the student’s pocket. So, you know, there’s so many different types of scholarships that schools have for so many different things. But as Caroline mentioned, it can often take years and years, especially if we’re talking about a building. Uh, you’re not going to see— if you’re applying now, you’re not going to see that building probably for 5 or 10 years. Uh, but scholarships can be the fastest way, right? If that— if some of that money is earmarked for scholarships, then you can hope that it will trickle down in the next sort of cycle.

[00:24:36] – Maria

But I don’t know that I would necessarily— if a new donation is announced, that may not necessarily mean anything, unfortunately. I would assume that it— if I were a candidate, I would assume that it’s not going to help me out and then be pleasantly surprised if it does, as opposed to basing my application strategy upon which school just had which gift announced.

[00:25:00] – Pola

I’m sensing a common thread here. I feel like expect the minimum and then be glad when you get anything more. That’s the, uh, that’s the takeaway from Maria. But I mean, Caroline, you, you said it before, but I guess maybe it’s, it’s not a direct, um, way that this impacts you, but overall this is kind of, you know, a vote of confidence in the school by alums. And ultimately, like, a lot of the, the experience that you’re buying is that alum alumni network, right? So, so if they’re being active and, and giving large gifts, or even, you know, a few million here or there, like, that’s, that’s pretty good. They’re involved with the school, right?

[00:25:44] – Caroline

Yeah, that’s right. And it’s— that fundraising is really important to schools, and they put a huge amount of effort into development, as they call it, which is essentially fundraising. Um, but it’s, it’s absolutely critical for the schools. Because so much of their budget depends on, on, um, on endowments, on donations. And, um, it’s a long-term effort. And that’s something that I really saw when I was working at INSEAD, that it’s really about building long-term relationships with, with, um, with students, with alumni, um, because you can’t go to someone who graduated 20 years ago and the school hasn’t been in touch with them, hasn’t done anything for them over the last 20 years and suddenly sees, oh wow, you know, they just, oh, they, they work at Anthropic or SpaceX and they’ve just cashed out and wow, these guys are going to be a great prospect for us and they can, you know, donate $20, $50 million and go knocking on their door. It, it, it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just go in cold. So the school’s put a huge amount of effort, which students and actually alumni don’t see the day-to-day work that goes on, but there is a huge amount of effort behind the scenes in cultivating the alumni network, building those relationships, keeping tabs on who could be the good prospects in the alumni pool, who could be, you know, potential major donors.

[00:27:20] – Caroline

And all of that work is absolutely critical to the schools and what they’re able to achieve. And so while these donations may not mean much to applicants in the short term, it does have a big impact on schools. I mean, you mentioned some of the transformational gifts that have been made to schools, and it does change dramatically what they’re able to offer in the longer term and the people that they’re able to hire and the programs that they’re able to offer. And, you know, so much that goes into part of the business school experience. So those donations are absolutely critical to the life of the school. It’s just, it’s really a long-term effort and it’s not a short-term effort and it’s not a short-term benefit either. It’s really a long-term gain.

[00:28:09] – Pola

This is very much taking me back to a conversation I had just yesterday about this very thing. So, um, thank you very much. We are nearly at 30 minutes, so I will cut things off here. But before we go, what are you both looking forward to at the end of your day? I’m— I should say I barely slept yesterday, and I’m really looking forward to like an ice-cold beer and then sleeping. Maria, what are you up to later?

[00:28:41] – Maria

I think Caroline and I are both big fans of sleeping, so we’re with you. I think you’re never gonna hear me be like, sleep, ew, gross, who needs that? Um, no, I still have another week in Spain, so I, uh, who, who knows what curtain will be behind me next week, guys.

[00:28:57] – Pola

It depends on the hotel. Maria’s gonna show up with a fan and the like tangles, some castanets, glass of sangria.

[00:29:07] – Maria

And so we should do like a drunk— instead of Drunk History, we should do drunk podcast one week. No, actually, we shouldn’t do that. That’s a terrible idea. Don’t listen to me at all. I’m a bad influence.

[00:29:19] – Caroline

Caroline, feel free, Maria. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, it’s late in the day for you. Yeah, so, well, today’s actually my youngest daughter’s birthday. She turned 50. So, um, and so she’s actually out right now for summer counselor training, but she’ll be back later. And my eldest daughter is on the way home from college this afternoon. So we’re going to have, um, a nice dinner together to celebrate her birthday later on. Very nice.

[00:29:52] – Pola

Well, that sounds great. And I’m going to try and navigate the heat and survive the heat before I can reach my lovely beer. My lovely—

[00:30:01] – Maria

Oh, all right. Well-deserved beer.

[00:30:05] – Pola

Well-deserved. Thank you. We are done for today, but please come back next week if you liked. And if you liked our discussion today, check out poetsandquants.com and listen to the latest episodes of Business Casual. Thanks very much, Caroline and Maria, and thanks everyone for listening.