The MBA Admissions Journey To Round One
Maria |
July 26, 2022

The application round you choose for a business school can have a significant impact on your chances of admittance, so making the right choice is crucial. Especially if you are torn between whether to submit your MBA applications quickly in Round 1 or take extra time to polish and submit them in Round 2.

In this episode of Business Casual, our hosts will put context to why, first, round one is the best time to apply; second, why you have to be distinct in answering questions on your application form; and third, why writing your resume and essay is not a one-size-fits-all.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.330] – John

Well, hello everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co host, Caroline Diarte Edwards and Maria Wich-Vila. Would you believe we’re only six weeks away from Round One deadline for Harvard Business School and of course right after that, one school after another, like collapsing dominos, has their deadlines. So we want to talk a little bit about where should you be if you intend to apply in those early Round One deadlines. And if you’ve been listening to our podcast in the past, the recent past, you will know that we highly recommend that you apply in Round One, particularly this year, because applications are still kind of flat to declining, at least that’s the expectation. But there’s also an expectation that there will be a recession next year and we know that applications to business schools are counter cyclical and that you can expect applications to soar and that could possibly affect Round Two when it will get much more competitive. So let me ask our two experts, what should you be doing right now? Where should you be in the process? And we think, you know, I want to put a little context around this.

 

[00:01:27.460] – John

There are people who know from kindergarten that they want to go to Harvard, Stanford, Wharton INSEAD, London. There are people who overestimate their accomplishments and have in many cases unrealistic expectations about where they can go in. And then there are people who actually are so humble that they underestimate their chances and therefore select target schools that are below the level to which they could actually get enrolled. So we want to examine these different personas in the context of that Round One deadline that is approaching fast. Caroline, where should a candidate be if they’re going to apply to Harvard in six weeks?

 

[00:02:14.040] – Caroline

Well, hopefully they’ve made a lot of progress with various elements of the application. One thing that jumps to mind is recommendations because you can’t control the timeline of exactly when your recommenders are going to submit their letters. So that is something that should be well underway and hopefully you’ve had various conversations with your recommender by this stage and you’ve discussed what they’re going to say and the accomplishments that they will highlight and perhaps they’ve even written their recommendations and submitted them already. That would be wonderful, but it’s not essential at this stage. But that process should be well underway and you should be working with your recommendations closely. Otherwise a lot of candidates who are well prepared have already made progress with their essays. It’s something that you can’t cook up overnight and it takes a lot of reflection and properly several iterations. It’s something that sort of matures over time, the essay. So hopefully you’ve got that well underway and making progress with that part.

 

[00:03:23.280] – John

So you should have draft at this point, right?

 

[00:03:25.660] – Caroline

Yes, I think it’s a very good idea to have drafts in progress at this stage. And then something else I would mention that candidates often overlook and leave to the last minute is the application forms, which are less interesting, right, than getting your teeth into a meaty essay, because a lot of it is just filling out data and some short answer questions. So it’s not as fun to work through, but sometimes we will leave that to the last minute and make silly errors. Or a number of schools have almost many essays embedded in those application forms. Short answer questions, free text fields where you do have to think carefully about what you’re going to say and how you’re going to present things. And again, that’s something that you shouldn’t be throwing together at the last minute. So I would certainly encourage candidates to start drafting those application forms now or in the next few weeks.

 

[00:04:24.560] – John

Yes. Maria, your thoughts?

 

[00:04:26.900] – Maria

Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything Caroline said, as usual, but I think in particular for HBS, I really want to hit home that point about the admissions form itself, because in that form, you are given little text boxes to write about your accomplishments and your challenges. And I actually advise for HBS and only HBS, that you actually write what you’re going to put in that admissions form first and then work on the essay from there. Because the question says, as we review your application, what more do we need to know about you? And so if you write an essay where you repeat in the essay the same challenge that you talk about in your challenges box. Which is. By the way. Just a rephrasing of something that you copied and pasted from the resume. You’re missing the point of what Harvard is looking for in terms of communication style and in terms of. Okay. How do you know to be as efficient as possible with your wording? And can you put yourself in our shoes and really get to the core of what do we need to know? Because what I love about the open endedness of this question is that, and I think I’ve said this a couple of times before on this podcast, it really does give some people enough rope to hang themselves. Yeah, right. Some people really do think the thing you need to know about me is that I want a spelling beat when I was ten years old, and boy, oh boy, am I special. That just speaks volumes to someone’s lack of awareness. It speaks volumes in a not a positive way. One of my favorite things that I love to make fun of is when people like to start their essays with something about, I was such a curious child. That’s one in particular that is like nails on a chalkboard to me, because nature and evolution designed children to be curious.

 

[00:06:09.310] – Maria

If children weren’t curious, they would never learn and the species would have gone extinct. So when people are like, oh, the thing you need to know about me, Harvard, is that I was such a curious child. And I’m like, well, good for you. Most children are. That’s how they learn to walk. So that’s one that for me, is like nails on a chalkboard. And so I love that question because I think it really forces you to think, okay, strategically, this is a business school. I’m applying to business school. I’ve already given them this information. So what else do they need to know about me, anyway? For HBS in particular, fill out and think carefully about what you’re going to say in those little boxes first, and then from there, how that influence your essay. You can start drafting the essay first, of course, but then if there’s repetition with what you put in the boxes, then you please do consider removing any sort of very repetitive information.

 

[00:06:59.630] – John

How dramatic should an essay be? And I ask this because when you look at collections of these sample essays that are on the web here and there, including one that we even sell, some of these essays are very finely crafted, and they are dramatic or melodramatic. And one thinks that you’re really trying hard to write something as truly compelling, and it stands out from the clutter. And so I wonder, do you, in fact, have to write rather dramatically about something that happened in your life to have a compelling essay that puts you over the top?

 

[00:07:39.730] – Maria

I don’t know that I would use the word dramatic, but I would use the word authentic. And so I think sometimes when people are talking about moments in their lives that were really core moments that shaped them. Or core moments where they were put to the flame. So to speak. Like those moments where they really did have to step up and make a choice to be brave. Or make a choice to be courageous. Or make a choice to think about someone else above themselves or whatever it is they want to focus on in those moments. Those moments are rarely boring in one’s life because they are so formative. And so I would think that when you talk about some of these experiences, I do think that there is some emotion that should come through. At the very least, you should be excited about what you’re writing about, or at least excited to tell maybe if the experience itself was a negative one. At least you’re excited to share it with them so that they can really get to know you. So basically, I think authenticity is important, but I do not advocate being dramatic for drama’s sake.

 

[00:08:38.580] – Maria

I actually think that sometimes that backfires when somebody tries to make it sound like, oh, my gosh, I’ve overcome the hardest thing in the world. My parents got divorced and the whole world ended. And I’m like, I’m not trying to say that what you went through wasn’t authentic, but at the same time, like, 50% of American marriages end in divorce. And so just have a little bit of sometimes people try to write these sort of mountain out of I don’t mean to say that the divorce thing specifically, but sometimes people want to write these, like, mountain out of molehill drama stories about, oh, look at all the things I’ve had to overcome, and I sort of smack them down a little. I’m like, you don’t really know. Just careful in trying to make yourself sound like a martyr when you’ve actually had a pretty good life. And that’s one of my little personal pet peeves. I think it ticks me off more than it ticks off the admissions committee, frankly. But I think sometimes people think, oh, I have to be dramatic. And so let me write about I was crying in my bedroom when I lost that Pokémon Go competition.

 

[00:09:44.440] – Maria

And I’m like, I don’t know. It doesn’t really fly for me.

 

[00:09:49.170] – John

Caroline, I imagine that you read, as the admissions director at INSEAD, quite a few of those essays where people were up late at night crying in their pillow.

 

[00:10:01.830] – Caroline

Yeah, well, Maria said she’s not sure that it bothers the admissions committee as much as bothers her. I disagree.

 

[00:10:08.340] – Caroline

I think it bothers the admissions committee absolutely, because you see so many of these essays, and when people are sort of exaggerating the situation, it’s so transparent to a file reader who is experienced in getting a sense for how someone is portraying themselves and reading between the lines. And I think actually humility is extremely important. And so if you over dramatize or exaggerate things, that runs counter to being humble. And I think humidity actually goes a very long way, especially in the applications to the top schools, because it’s not always a quality that they see.

 

[00:11:00.010] – Caroline

Across. The board and it’s something specifically that they’re looking for and that they admire. So I think it would be dangerous to think that you had to sort of dramatize your story, but telling a story is still important, right. And using your essays to bring your story to life and bring your application to life, that is helpful. Not just using the essays to regurgitate some more facts or you don’t want it to be too dry. You want it to be engaging and to draw the reader in. And one of the purposes of the essays from the candidates perspective is that you want to pique their interest so that they want to learn more about you, and how are they going to learn more about you, what are they going to invite you to interview? So it’s sort of a teaser, the essay, right? And so you do want to sort of stimulate that interest so that they want to learn more. So I think the story element is important. But it’s a delicate balance to strike. Because if you come across as sort of over dramatizing things. Then there will certainly be plenty of eye rolling now.

 

[00:12:11.140] – John

I imagine that the advice you gave earlier about where one should be in the application journey for Round One probably applies to the more organized person who has probably already reached out and cultivated the recommenders. Has a draft or two of all the essay questions that they’ve worked with and is working on those questions in the application form. What about people who delay and delay and delay? Can you get this done one week before Round One deadline?

 

[00:12:46.430] – Caroline

Well, it’s quite unusual to do it well one week before the deadline. And for sure, there are great candidates who procrastinate. And one of the things that part of our role as coaches is to help people structure their work and give them some milestones and help them structure that time because there are a lot of things that you have to do, and often candidates underestimate how long it takes. And so that’s something we do with candidates up front. It’s sort of set up the project plan for the weeks or hopefully months ahead. And some people are very good at sticking to that and some people aren’t. I mean, part of it is understandable, right, because MBA candidates by their very nature are often incredibly busy people with very demanding day jobs that will get in the way of the efforts to spend an hour every evening working on their application. It’s not always feasible, so you have to be a bit flexible. But procrastination is dangerous because things can sort of build up. And admissions committees and Fire readers are very attuned to picking up on whether someone has thought about their application carefully and taken it very seriously, or whether there’s a few sloppy details here and there, which suggests that maybe they have thrown it together in a bit more of a last minute fashion and you don’t want them making that judgment about you.

 

[00:14:16.430] – Caroline

So it’s really a shame. Sometimes it’s frustrating. We work with clients sometimes who struggle to just get the work done, and some people are afraid of writing. Some people find the process of writing essays and so on and telling their story quite intimidating. So, yeah, we have strategies for trying to sort of break it down for them and help them make progress. But we can’t do it for them, right?

 

[00:14:41.750] – John

Exactly. That would be unethical, obviously. Do it for them. And then there are the people who have these unrealistic expectations. They really believe they can get into some of the more highly selective MBA programs. And then you have the people who are a little more humble about what they think they can accomplish. Maria, how do you sort this out? I think you gave a rough estimate that I found really interesting earlier on in our conversation before we actually started recording. And you estimated that for every person who underestimates him or herself, there are 15 others who overestimate their chances. Is it that bad?

 

[00:15:28.070] – Maria

I mean, to be clear, I came up with that number off the top of my head. There was no analysis or Monte Carlo simulation involved with the distribution. None of that was happening.

 

[00:15:39.030] – John

But that’s a very bright head on your shoulders, Maria.

 

[00:15:44.850] – Maria

My gosh, it really is shocking to me. And I’ve got these little videos in the lab about like one is of my son several years ago, skiing down a mountain, and no one is near him. Like, nothing touches him and he just flops. He just falls for no reason. And then there’s another video I’m going to upload soon of him, like he’s taking a goal kick, a penalty kick, and it just glanced if it would have been literally like half a centimeter, a little bit more to the right, it would have gone in. But since it wasn’t, it bounced straight off and it wasn’t a goal. And I think the reason I like to put these little videos in there is because I do well personally, I try to deliver bad news with humor and tact and warmth. Not that I always succeed, but part of my point is, like, look, even if you’re super close to being a good candidate for some of these schools, you can end up with nothing if you’re too ambitious. And I call the one of, like, I only apply to the top five schools, it’s like you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

 

[00:16:48.450] – Maria

And one of the things that I try to teach people to do is because I don’t like being the bad guy who’s like, well, you’re not getting in. So I try to tell people to look for what I call resume twins, which are people who, before business school, had identical or similar background to the candidate. And if you find out that, oh, my gosh, every single year, someone who worked in my division, in my company, in my role, every other year someone gets into one of these top schools, that’s a much better indicator. I’m not saying you’re going to get in, but it’s a better indicator. I like to think that sometimes people will then look around and say, oh, actually, I am a quality assurance software tester. I never really let anything like, the one person I met who went into business school was actually leading a team of five people and managing a budget of a million dollars. I like to think that’s what just to sort of help people get a sense, but it happens every time, and I get it right. I think I’ve told this story before. Once I was working with a very nice young person, and I said, well, I was trying to tell them gently that I didn’t think HBS was on the cards for them.

 

[00:17:58.090] – Maria

And I sort of said, well, what happened in high school? Did you apply to Harvard when you were in high school? And they said, oh, God, no. Only the smart kids applied to Harvard. And because this was such a special person with a lot of maturity. I sort of was like, look, honey, where do you think those people went? They’re still there. They’re still out there, and they’re just applying to business. It’s just eight years later. And so I’m not saying like. Oh. To be clear. I’m not saying if you did not go to Harvard as an undergraduate. You’re not going to Harvard Business School. But it’s just more like this idea of for some reason. I think there’s this weird thing about business school where people more so than other graduate programs. Where candidates might sort of think that there’s a completely clean slate. And it doesn’t matter that I’ve never gotten promoted, and it doesn’t matter that I’ve never volunteered for anything in my life, and it doesn’t matter that I have never been given any responsibility. I have just as good of a shot as everyone else. And the candid, honest truth is that unfortunately, that’s not true.

 

[00:18:53.890] – John

Yeah. And it does go to things like, do you have a job at a company that’s highly selective? Did you go to an undergraduate graduate institution where the academic standards were high and is highly selective? So admissions folks do like to see people who have passed through find filters. There’s no doubt about it. And in fact, when you do study the undergraduate and business backgrounds of students at Harvard and Stanford and Wharton, you see just that. You see a lot of Ivy League near Ivy, public Ivy, people in the program, and you see very few people from public institutions unless they are a public Ivy, like a Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA, UT, Austin school, like that. So there is all that. Before we went on, Caroline actually mentioned something that is kind of interesting, and it applies to one of the questions that many schools ask in the application form. The question is this, and INSEAD just began asking this what other schools have you applied to? It’s kind of a tricky question, in a way, because you want every school to think they’re your first choice and you really want to attend there. So if you actually put all your cards on the table and turn them over and show someone who you’re playing with what cards you have, is that detrimental to your chances?

 

[00:20:34.240] – John

Caroline you think not?

 

[00:20:36.670] – Caroline

No. It’s something that candidates often sweat about, and some schools ask it in the written application, and some schools may ask it at the interview stage. My experience INSEAD, because we used to ask at the interview stage, and from what I’ve heard, from speaking to colleagues who have worked at other top schools, is that they’re really collecting this data for marketing purposes, to understand their peer group, where else candidates are applying, with which schools they have the most overlap in the application pool. And so they’re pulling that data then on an aggregate basis and looking at the trends over time, and they’re not using it as part of the admissions evaluation unless there’s something really odd that popped out. Possibly. I would tell candidates not to sweat about it. You might want to put 20 schools on the list, right? You want to look like you are thoughtful in where you’re applying, but don’t sweat about it. Don’t worry about it. If you’re putting a school on the list that you worry, okay, I’m applying to INSEAD, but should I mention that I’m also applying to Stanford GSB? Is that going to make it look like I’m not focused on international programs?

 

[00:21:54.220] – Caroline

That maybe I’m torn between the US and applying to a very different school? Like in Seattle on a business school? Don’t overthink it. Just be honest. Put down a few schools if you’re applying to them, and don’t worry too much if you don’t have other schools to talk about either. Sometimes INSEAD actually has quite a few people who only apply to INSEAD because it’s a bit of a different school, right? It’s the one year program. It’s very international. So sometimes candidates are just applying to it because that’s the program. It has the specific characteristics that they want. And there is another school that offers exactly that does have quite a few candidates who only apply to INSEAD. And sometimes candidates worry, oh, do I look stupid to say that I’m only applying to INSEAD and I’m putting all my eggs in one basket, and does this reflect badly on me? Don’t worry about it. Actually, the school is very happy to have candidates who only apply to INSEAD because if they make you an offer, then there’s a pretty good chance that you would accept. Right. So it’s very good for yield. And as I said, in any case, they’re generally looking at that data in aggregates across the pool, rather than pouring over your personal decisions and making judgments about that.

 

[00:23:19.380] – Caroline

So I would encourage candidates not to stress about it, just answer it honestly and move on to more important questions.

 

[00:23:26.390] – John

Now, earlier in our conversation, Maria said she almost always agrees with you, Caroline. I think on this point, she may not.

 

[00:23:36.050] – Maria

Oh, shoot. I shouldn’t have said that on this episode.

 

[00:23:38.780] – Caroline

That’s okay.

 

[00:23:41.790] – John

So, Maria, you have a slightly different interpretation of what an applicant should do with this question.

 

[00:23:49.110] – Maria

I do. Look, I am a huge believer of honesty being the best policy, but the only time I get when I think a question is being asked that is perhaps disingenuous, then I’m okay with a slightly disingenuous answer. And by that I mean no, and maybe not maybe disingenuous. That’s too harsh of a word. But for example, let’s take a completely different question, right? The career vision, the very specific career vision. If somebody were to say, I don’t know what I want to do, that’s why I’m going to go to business school, that would be the honest answer. But if they said that they might not fare as well in the applicant pool as if they had some sort of a plan. So that’s what I mean by, like, what I see honesty blatant over the top, honesty being punished. I do tend to get a little bit like, I don’t know about this. And the thing is that with the marketing aspect of it, I just feel that there are a lot of other ways that the data could be collected. For example, a third party could collect that data. There could be sort of a link that goes to a third party that is collecting that data.

 

[00:24:55.260] – Maria

Or it could be something where we won’t look at your answer until the admissions decision has been sent out. So if the school said, please fill this out in your application form, tell us what other schools you’re applying to, and we promise we’re not even going to open it until we’ve already decided, that way we can promise you that it won’t affect our decision, then I would feel much more comfortable with saying, like, yeah, sure. Tell them that you’re applying to Harvard, Stanford, Booth, MIT, and then put the other 20 schools that you’re applying to. If you are applying to 20 schools, it makes you look nuts. I agree. I would think if I saw someone applying to 20 schools, I would think they’re nuts. But are there people out there who apply to 20 schools? Yes.

 

[00:25:36.700] – Maria

Should they put in that form that they’re applying to 20 schools? No, because it makes them look crazy. And so I think from that perspective, if there was some way to truly it’s almost like, okay, if you’re really only using it for marketing purposes, why are you asking me to fill it out in my application that is tied to my identity and my name and address and my candidacy? I understand why the schools might want to know, in terms of how they position themselves, if they’re up against a competitor school. And they tend to lose a lot of people in the yield games. They tend to lose people to another school. I can see why that is valuable information to have. I just wish it weren’t done in a way that is so personally identifiable, regardless of even if the I mean, I got to say, like, even if I’m not the one, I’m not the one. I’m like, oh, the marketing team. I don’t care about this part of the form. It’s the marketing teams part of the form. But if somebody were to put 20 schools, I’d be like, yikes, what a weirdo.

 

[00:26:39.970] – Maria

Seriously. And so I just like so I do actually advise people to be thoughtful about what they put here. I don’t say spend hours and hours agonizing over it, but I wish it were truly anonymous or could be proven to be truly anonymous, in which case I would say, let your freak flag fly. Just let them know the full truth. But I don’t know. It’s in my form with my name on it, so I’m a little skittish.

 

[00:27:09.210] – John

I love it when you two disagree.

 

[00:27:11.420] – Caroline

Yeah, it doesn’t happen very often.

 

[00:27:14.890] – John

Hey, let me put a different spin on this. Let’s say you’re a really good candidate, and you let admissions know that you’re applying to two or three other schools. And certainly anything six and below is perfectly kosher, I would think. And they really want you. They may be more inclined to throw money at you to discount your tuition fee if they know you’re going to apply to the other schools and they think you have a good chance of getting in there as well. Am I wrong on that? In other words, can you actually play this to your advantage?

 

[00:27:49.550] – Caroline

Well, I don’t think it does you any harm for the school to see you as a candidate where they may be competing with other schools. Right. So in theory, the scholarship decisions should be separate, but in practice, possibly not. The other thing is, sometimes candidates have scholarship offers and so on from other schools, and they can use that for leverage with another school to try and increase their financial aid offer. And that can work as well sometimes. So it’s possible that it may play in your favor.

 

[00:28:26.930] – John

So, bottom line here, decide whether you should fill it out or not. It’s your own comfort level and what you should actually say when you fill it out. And if you’re applying to a lot of schools, you probably don’t want to fill it out at least as completely as to indicate all the different schools you’re applying to. I would say anything above six, I would be cautious about. Otherwise, you should be cultivating your recommenders and getting ready to make sure that they file their forms in for the round one deadline. You should have a draft at hand that’s fairly complete so that you can work on that draft, show it to other people that you like and trust and get their feedback on it. And you should be paying attention to those questions on the application form, where you can really distinguish yourself and add a lot of value that you might not be able to add in the essay itself or the essays. In the case of schools that require multiple essays, this is a great time, really. And just focus on it, stay with it. Get ready. Don’t apply. Don’t push the button on the day or the hour of the actual deadline.

 

[00:29:40.190] – John

Try to get in a day early if you can, to avoid any kind of glitch. And good luck to you. Rooting for all of you out there. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. You’ve been listening to Business Casual with my co host, Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards.

 

The Economist Dis on MBAs: Is the Degree Still Worth It?
The MBA Admissions Journey To Round One
Maria |
July 26, 2022

[00:00:00] John Byrne: Well hello everyone, this is John Byrne with Poets and Quants, welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-hosts Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. Today we have a special guest, Heidi Hillis from Fortuna Admissions. She is based in Australia, is a senior expert coach for Fortuna, and has three degrees, all from Stanford, a BA in English literature, that’s my degree, an MA in Russian studies, and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business. And we have Heidi here to discuss some really fascinating research. Here’s what Fortuna did. They dug into the last Two class profiles of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

That’s the class of ‘23 and the class of ‘24. They looked up all these folks on LinkedIn to identify a little bit more about their backgrounds, including their former employers and their places of undergraduate education to come up with an incredible analysis. Heidi, welcome.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah,

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

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

So

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How many out of us military academies,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Definitely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And because you see in the data that works.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maria

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