The New GMAT Focus Edition: Should You Take It? What does it mean for your application strategy?
Maria |
March 12, 2023

Note: this is an evolving story and this post will be updated as new information becomes available!

The Graduate Management Admissions Council (“GMAC”) dropped a bombshell on the MBA admissions community on March 8, 2023, when it announced the upcoming launch of the GMAT Focus Edition, a new, shorter, and frankly, probably easier version of the previous GMAT. While details right now are sparse, I’m sure we’re going to start learning more throughout the next several months.

While you can find detailed information about the specific changes to the test in many places, my goal here is to tell you what I think your test taking strategy should be if you’re applying in either Round 1 or Round 2 during the 2023 – 2024 MBA application cycle.

Table of contents:

“I’m planning to apply in Round 1 or Round 2 of the 2023 – 2024 application cycle (that is, to start my MBA in 2024) – what does this mean for me?”

The short answer: for now, continue as “business as usual”, that is to say, as if this new test option didn’t exist.

For now, I would NOT COUNT on this new test launching in time for this year’s application cycle (what if you wait for the test to launch, and then it gets delayed until next year? Then you’ll have to scramble to prep for another test at the last minute! Arrghhhhh!!!!)

I would NOT DELAY an application from Round 1 to Round 2, in the hopes that the “easier” GMAT will be available for Round 2 – the benefit from submitting an application in an earlier round will more than likely outweigh the potential benefit of taking the new GMAT, IMHO.

IF your standardized test prep isn’t going the way you’d like it to go, then consider:

  • Applying to a school that is offering a test waiver (that is, the ability to prove your academic horsepower via something other than a test score) or “test optional” admissions
    • Note that applying with a test waiver may make it harder to get accepted, and will probably really decrease your chances of getting a “merit scholarship!”
  • APPLYING WITH THE GRE INSTEAD!!!

“If I’m reading this a point where the new test date has been revealed, and I think I can prep / take in time, should I?”

To the extent that this test is essentially a watered-down version of the current GMAT (though I’m sure the nice folks at GMAC would disagree with me calling it that!), then SURE, go ahead and take it, BECAUSE:

  • It will have fewer sections to prep for, so if you’ve been prepping for the old GMAT anyway, there isn’t any NEW material you’d need to know (that is, you wouldn’t need to start over from scratch)
  • The scores for this test are going to be a complete wildcard. Just like we haven’t yet created a strong intuition around what makes for “a strong GRE score”, we’ll have ZERO intuition for what makes for a strong score here – that is to say, there might be some leniency shown this year for performance on this test, since it’s so new! (just like we saw at the beginning of COVID, when the roll-out of the online GMAT was a bit of a disaster, so admissions officers had no choice but to take those scores with more of a grain of salt)

“Is there any reason someone should take the original GMAT test, and not the GMAT Focus Edition, during the window when both tests are available at the same time?”

Yes, if you are aiming for a “merit scholarship” (for the programs that offer them). Ok, so thinking about this strategically – we’ve still got at least 1 year (possibly up to 5 years) in which the CURRENT test scores will be used in admissions (I say this because a test score is valid for up to 5 years… so theoretically, someone could take the test on the final day it’s offered, but still use it in an application for years into the future)… and this means that the current GMAT will SURELY still be something MBA-watchers pay close attention to. It will probably continue to be used in MBA rankings, and it will certainly be something that people in the ecosystem (applicants, perhaps even recruiters and alums) will be using as a yardstick to judge a program’s competitiveness.

As long as the current GMAT test score is used as an indicator of a school’s competitiveness, schools will still have an incentive to attract average scores that are as high as possible.

And, since we know that schools will often “pay” for strong GMAT scores via scholarships, my sense is that taking the CURRENT (original) GMAT is your best bet if you’re trying to get a “merit scholarship”.

“What are the key differences between the original GMAT test and the new “GMAT Focus Edition?”

While lots of folks are analyzing this in detail (see: BB’s great post / thread over at GMATClub, and/or a video we did a few days after the change was announced), here are what I think the KEY differences are, from a higher-level:

  • Reduction of the more useless concepts tested (as of right now, rumors are that this is geometry and sentence correction)
    • GOOD RIDDANCE! BASICALLY NOBODY ever uses geometry in business, and in a world of auto-correct, who needs Sentence Correction?
  • MORE emphasis on the practical analytical skills tested in what used to be known as “Integrated Reasoning”
    • They’re going to call it something different, but this is awesome news because I think before people sort of ignored the “IR” section, feeling that “it didn’t really count”… and yet, it was arguably the most useful assessment in the test?
  • It’s an hour shorter!
  • No more dumb essay! (as you know, I love essays, but not a forced one that is graded by machine?)
    • My take here is that they are abdicating the testing of writing skills to the TOEFL for non-native English speakers
  • You can go back and change up to 3 answers per section!
    • Personally, I think this does more harm than good, since to me, the desperation of “I can’t change this once I hit ‘enter'” really helps sharpen the mind in the throes of test-taking… I think knowing that you can “always go back” to 3 questions will create a false sense of confidence, and personally I’d advise you to pretend that you can’t do it
    • Plus… umm hi, if it’s a “computer adaptive” test, then what if I go back and change an earlier answer that would have dramatically altered the fate of my score? Like Everything Everywhere All at Once but for test-taking?!
    • NOTE: I *can* imagine a world where — if you get a few questions in, and the questions you’re getting are suspiciously easy, then maybe that’s a sign that you blew it on an earlier question… so maybe test prep ninjas and the like will start to teach the tell-tale signs of a test gone awry, and then teach you how to make up for it that way? Note: this is probably over-thinking it and anyway I will STAY IN MY LANE about this!
  • You can choose which schools to send your score to AFTER YOU SEE YOUR SCORE… no more embarrassing instances of sending a lousy score to a school you later wish they had never seen!
  • And finally, to ME from an ADMISSIONS / APPLICATION perspective, one of the best changes to the test (which is why I am writing this part all in bold) is that YOUR SCORE REPORT WILL APPARENTLY NO LONGER SHOW YOUR PREVIOUS TEST SCORES??!!!
    • Huge huge huge if true. The reason I say this is that in ye olde days, if you took the GMAT more than once, and then submitted your third test score report to the schools, they would see your other scores from the previous attempts (which, presumably, weren’t awesome?)… and even if you “cancelled” a score, while the score itself would not appear, the FACT that you took and then cancelled DID appear… thus signaling to admissions that you messed up.
    • While I expect that many schools will continue the current practice of asking “How many times did you take the test?” in the application form, at least now with this new score report, you don’t need to endure the shame of having your strongest score shown in a report alongside an embarrassing score from that time you were ill-prepared / over-confident / ill / hung-over / sad / tired / hungry / and every other excuse I’ve ever heard! (note: the best [worst] excuse I’ve ever heard for a terrible GMAT score was: “Wearing a mask in the test center made my glasses fog up and so I could not see the screen…” … are you kidding me? Yikes!)

When will the new GMAT test launch?

They have said that the GMAT Focus Edition will launch “later this year” (presumably this means late in calendar year 2023), and the current version of the GMAT will “be available until early next year” (2024).  This means that there will be some overlap in which people could opt to take either test (and so that people who have been studying for the GMAT for a really long time aren’t left high and dry!).

The only way that GMAC can possibly hope to make the GMAT Focus Edition a fair experience for BOTH Round 1 AND Round 2 applicants would be to launch it ASAP, preferably by April or by the start of summer 2023 at the latest!

Why? Because waiting any later in the year is a terrible idea to me. If “later this year” means the summer of 2023, then Round 1 MBA applicants, targeting deadlines in September and October, probably won’t have enough time to really practice?  And if the “later this year” launch of the GMAT Focus Edition means the late 3rd or 4th quarter of 2023 (that is, September, October, November, or December), now admissions officers are going to be trying to construct a class, using 3+ tests across 2 primary rounds… but how can they do so in a fair way?

If the GMAT Focus Edition launches in Q3 or Q4 of 2023, how can admissions officers POSSIBLY create a FAIR assessment process that treats Round 1 and Round 2 applicants CONSISTENTLY?

If the new test launches later this calendar year, that’s the same thing as launching smack-dab in the middle of the admissions year.

Think of what a stress-inducing nightmare this creates, for BOTH candidates AND for admissions officers!

  • Admissions officers need to even learn what the new test covers, the new scoring system, etc.
    • Frankly, GMAC should create a “Focus Edition to the Original Edition Score Converter” chart, to try to make this easier for everyone
  • If applicants submit a Focus Edition score that doesn’t seem to be very impressive, what are the reasons?
    • Was there not enough time to prepare?Were not enough materials available to prepare?Did the new ability to go back and change up to 3 answers somehow mess up the applicant’s psychology?
    • Or… is the applicant just not very bright?
  • What if the opposite happens, and the score seems to be very impressive? Could the reasons be:
    • The new test is shorter, so the test-taker had more mental energy vs. the endurance marathon of the earlier GMAT? That is, even with all else being equal, anyone would do better on any task if they have to focus on it for one hour less, right? The new test removed some of the “hardest” sections – so won’t most people do better?
  • Test-takers can now go back and re-attempt three questions… is this an unfair advantage over previous test-takers who received no such second chance?
    • Or… is the applicant just  not very bright, but they got lucky since this test is easier?
    • Or… is the applicant just  not very bright, but they got lucky since this test is easier?

THE GMAT is the gold standard test everyone in the business school ecosystem has known for decades. The GRE less so, but it’s certainly been growing, and at LEAST has a zillion years of historical data around performance percentiles across millions of test-takers, and also proof that students who took it and enroll in school still do well. But now we’ve got a third exam, and the only thing we know about it for sure is that it’s easier on some level.

So, if I put myself in the shoes of the admissions officer (a core skill I teach when doing MBA application consulting via my ApplicantLab admissions platform), this becomes a bit of a mess!

Why is GMAC even launching the GMAT Focus Edition?

While I’m sure that their PR people will instruct their executives to say something about how the test needs to evolve to meet the changing needs of applicants blah blah blah (Edit! The wording in the Official Release referred to the “rapidly-changing business landscape” –ooh, I was kind of close!), but LOL let’s be honest, that has nothing to do with it, and everything to do with this fact:

GMAT test-taking numbers are plummeting

Not merely “gracefully dropping”, or “falling”, but plummeting…  .  When pressed in the future, my prediction is that they will probably blame “the COVID pandemic” and the shift to “test optional” admissions at many business schools, but this is not the full reason, because frankly, given the benefit that a strong standardized test score can make in admissions, I still urged MBA applicants to take a standardized test anyway.

But it goes beyond that: the fact is, the GRE started being touted as a legitimate alternative to the GMAT, and they were winning market share. In fact, I would often actively tell my MBA admissions consulting clients that they should opt for the GRE over the GMAT. In the meantime, the folks at the GRE were putting a lot of effort into assuring admissions officers that their test was just as valid (they also sent business development reps to the professional admissions’ consultants conference I attend each year, and they were so friendly! Which didn’t hurt!)(and meanwhile, the GMAC reps acted like they were there to hold court – this is an organization that smugly rested on its laurels, and even though I think the GMAT’s a better test, I’m sort of glad to see them in such trouble?)

Yeah, I said it: frankly, I think the GMAT test is INDEED the far superior test to figure out someone’s potential business / business school preparedness. If I were to hire someone for a business role, I would personally be more impressed with a strong GMAT score (given its difficulty and relevance) vs. an equivalent GRE score.


But I’m not hiring people. I’m helping them get into business school. And the GRE is almost a sort of “hack” for people who are otherwise very strong candidates (in terms of professional accomplishments)(professional accomplishments are always needed!) but who struggle a little with testing (or who frankly just don’t have time to do a lot of studying!)

But the GMAT’s own rigor and robustness as a test has been its downfall.

It was a turn-off. It was viewed as overkill. And if someone cared primarily about getting accepted, the GRE was objectively shorter, subjectively easier, and definitely more “forgiving”. What’s not to love?  GRE for you, for me! Wheee!

Did you predict something like this happening a year ago? (Yes, I did!)

The “Honey, I Shrunk the Number of GMAT Test Takers!” narrative has been making news for a couple of years now. In fact, in February of 2022, I was on a podcast where my co-host and I came to the conclusion that the “friendlier” (easier) GMAC “Executive Assessment” (EA) (read: the GMAT for seasoned professionals applying to Executive MBA programs who are busier, older, and bluntly less willing to put up with jumping through ridiculous testing hoops for the EMBA).  I pointed out that a variation on the EA – something shorter, friendlier, less hellish to prep for – that something like that could serve as the “GRE Slayer” to try to stop the GRE’s aggressive march of dominance.

Application Tips | General | GMAT | Test Prep Advice
The New GMAT Focus Edition: Should You Take It? What does it mean for your application strategy?
Maria |
March 12, 2023

Full Episode Transcript:

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

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

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

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

And Caroline, what do you think?

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

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

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

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

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

John Byrne: Very true.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maria

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