Why INSEAD Is Welcoming Lower GMAT Scores
Maria |
February 8, 2022

One of the benchmarks that most MBA applicants struggle to meet is the GMAT score. INSEAD, which is known for having one of the most elite business schools in the industry and is notoriously stringent when it comes to GMAT scores, has opened its doors to accept and admit students with GMAT scores lower than they have previously accepted. 

For MBA aspirants, this is definitely a big and head-turning opportunity that Caroline (whose alma mater is INSEAD), Maria, and John tackle in today’s podcast. Listen to hear why they think the decision to accept candidates with lower GMAT scores is a win-win situation for both the school and potential MBA students.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.570] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co host Maria Wich Villa and Caroline Diarte Edwards. You know them well by now. Caroline, of course, is former admissions head at INSEAD and the co founder of Fortuna Admissions. And Maria is the founder of Applicant Lab. And I just have to tell you that in the past day or two, Caroline broke a big story for us. We put it up on the site in less than 24 hours. It achieved over 30,000 page views, which is pretty darn good. And I will tell you why. It’s because Caroline found out that INSEAD is looking at GMAT scores a bit differently these days and in fact, is open the door to receive and admit students with GMAT scores that are lower than they have been in the past. Caroline, why don’t you tell us how you followed this and got onto it?

 

[00:01:16.090] – Caroline

Yeah, I know visionary Fuji very well. He’s head of admissions at INSEAD, so we worked together for many years. Visually, absolutely wonderful. And we keep in touch regularly. So I was chatting with her recently. A client had mentioned that she had said on a recent admissions webinar when they were discussing a particular case that someone with quite a low quantitative percentile on the GMAT actually didn’t need to reapply. So I was curious about that because traditionally, INSEAD has been incredibly strict on the GMAT. So for many years, the policy has been candidates need to get 70 or 75% on the quant and the verbal, and they really look at that breakdown much more than total score in order to be credible candidates. And that has been the case for many years. And it was sometimes frustrating for me when I was at in Seattle when we would turn away potentially fantastic students who hadn’t quite made that score. Now, sometimes in the past, for sure, there were exceptions to that rule, but it was very much the exception rather than the rule that people below that level would get in. So now, finally, the admissions committee has agreed that candidates who have not achieved that threshold if they have otherwise strong academic credentials.

 

[00:02:42.950] – Caroline

And it’s important to emphasize this, if they have strong undergrad and clear evidence that they have what it takes academically to succeed on the program, then the school will consider them much more seriously than they might have in the past. And now it’s important to emphasize that you still have to have those strong academic credentials and be able to demonstrate that you’ll do well on the program. And that’s partly because it’s a one year program. So the pace is fast. Right. And that’s why INSEAD has traditionally been much less flexible on the GMAT than some other schools. Even I’ve had clients get into schools like Harvard and Stanford who would not get into Insecure because of their GMAT. Right. And because it’s that one year format. The pace is fast. I sometimes joke, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. You have exams every eight weeks. There’s no time to sort of gradually get up to speed and brush up your core skills. When you start the program, you need to hit the ground running academically. So they do need that reassurance. And they’ll look at not just your undergrad, not just your GMAT, but they will also look at your work experience.

 

[00:03:57.510] – Caroline

Some people are using a lot of advanced quantitative and analytical skills in their work, and they will give credence to that as well as demonstration of quantitative ability.

 

[00:04:08.760] – John

Yeah. Now I often wondered if one of the reasons why INSEAD was a bit tougher on the GMAT was because professors are on the admissions committee and have a role in admitting students. And I wondered if professors may think that the GMAT is more important than it probably is. What do you think of that?

 

[00:04:31.390] – Maria

That’s for sure.

 

[00:04:32.190] – Caroline

So at INSEAD, the admissions committee is composed of half faculty and half alumni.

 

[00:04:38.280] – Maria

Right.

 

[00:04:38.600] – Caroline

And so I think it works very well because they bring different perspectives to the decision making process. So whilst all of these people understand the whole picture, the holistic process and the different criteria that INSEAD are looking at, the self interest of the alumni is that they want to recruit students who are going to be incredible professionals, super successful, wonderful ambassadors for the school, and great people to have in their future network. And so are more interested sometimes in the professional track record than the academic side, whereas the faculty wants to have the smarter students in their classroom. Right. So they may give a bit more weight to the academic profile. And overall, it works out very well. They balance each other out. It makes for some very good discussions. Right. Where people are challenging each other, and it’s not this sort of group think where they immediately jump to a conclusion about a candidate, but there is genuine discussion and debate, and it sometimes gets pretty heated. So I think that’s very healthy to have that balance. But it does mean that sometimes the faculty can be very persuasive and sometimes can really lobby against submitting candidate where they don’t feel confident about the academic credentials.

 

[00:06:01.180] – Caroline

So clearly this has been a policy that they have thought through very carefully, and they will have agreed this with the admissions committee. Right. It’s not just visiony who’s decided this and imposed this on the admissions committee. It would have been very much a sort of strategic decision that’s been taken after a great deal of thought and discussion by the committee.

 

[00:06:23.170] – John

Yeah. One consequence of this, which is a positive consequence, is that people who otherwise might have been discouraged from applying might more readily apply as a result of this policy change. This has been the difficulty for Stanford for years. The school with the highest average GMAT score for its incoming cohorts always worries that it’s losing a lot of fantastic candidates merely because that number is so high and it turns a lot of people off. You think you don’t even have a chance to get in? Marie, I’m sure you’ve seen this with some of your clients over the years where they look at those scores and they just say, hey, I can’t get that. I can’t get that score. So I don’t have a chance. Even though when a school publishes a median, obviously half of all the people who get admitted are under the median, and roughly the same is true for an average. But people do talk themselves out of the way, right?

 

[00:07:24.390] – Maria

Yeah, absolutely. And it really is a shame because, as Caroline said, it is a holistic process if one of the things that the school is looking for is ultimately to identify people who will in the future be very successful alumni who will be on the cover of whatever magazine and will make the school proud. Oftentimes those people may not necessarily be the best standardized test takers. And so I do think that sometimes I will say that I have worked with people who did not do very well as well on the GMAT, and I urged them to take the GRE, and then they were accepted with the GRE. So going back to last week’s discussion, I do think that there’s a little more forgiveness and wiggle room if somebody submits with the GRE score. But, yeah, what’s remarkable about what Caroline has uncovered is that every school or most other schools have always said, oh, it’s a range. Just submit. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re a strong candidate, but insane. It was rare in that it actually officially published. If you don’t have at least 70, 75%, whatever, you can apply.

 

[00:08:29.830] – John

That is really unusual.

 

[00:08:31.280] – Maria

Yeah, they were pretty overt about it. And so I wonder if maybe they started letting in a couple of people where if it is really half professors and half alumni, there may have been some people where the alumni were banging on the table and saying, no, we have to let this person in, and then maybe they got in and they did perfectly well in the classroom, and maybe that got the professors to loosen a little bit. I did have a candidate once from Africa who had a mid 600 GMAT who did get into INSEAD. But again, this was a case of someone whose international experience was out of this world. It was one of those things where I’m glad that they had a letter of recommendation because I would almost think it was embellished or exaggerated. But no, it wasn’t like this person had literally been their company moved them to Brazil and they had to teach themselves Portuguese and negotiate with a village. No, they had to learn Portuguese and negotiate with a village because it was a multinational Corporation that was going to do something in this village. And the villagers were rioting against this company, and they had sent other Brazilian people who weren’t able to quell the villagers.

 

[00:09:35.890] – Maria

And she was able to go learn Portuguese and negotiate with the villagers for a happy outcome. And I’m like, oh, my God, you are amazing. And so in that one of the amazing things she did. So I was like, okay, in this case, your story is just so good. Let’s just give it a shot with it, Zeyad, because, wow, talk about international diversity of experience. So anyway, maybe I suspect someone like this amazing young woman got into INSEAD with a lower score, probably kicked some pretty serious butt in the classroom. And maybe those little data points start showing the professors that, yeah, you don’t have to be so stringent on the standardized test.

 

[00:10:18.970] – Caroline

That’s a good point. I think, Maria, that it’s definitely going to be more the case for candidates who bring that sort of diverse perspective. So if you have that type of profile that’s somewhat unusual in the pool, then you’re going to have a higher chance of doing well. Then if you have a very common profile.

 

[00:10:43.350] – Maria

Right.

 

[00:10:43.660] – Caroline

And you’re up against very stiff competition from a lot of other candidates who have similar profile to you, but they’ve aced the GMAT. So that’s also something to keep in mind that the GMAT I don’t think the average GMAT is going to go down dramatically anytime soon. Right. So they’re still going to be admitting most of the students who have a very strong showing on the GMAT. So it’s going to be more the candidates who bring that additional dimension of diversity and just have those fascinating profiles like you described that are going to get more serious consideration with the lower G match.

 

[00:11:28.340] – John

I wonder if some of this is related to the school’s goals to increase gender equality, to increase diversity overall in its program. INSEAD had 33% women in its MBA program in 2018, was 37% in 2021. It has a goal of reaching 40% in the 24 25 academic year. This is according to the Dean. We also happened to have an interview with them online. He stopped by the office in San Francisco, and our managing editor interviewed him. And they’re getting a lot of applications from Africa now. In fact, in the last cycle, he said applications from Africa doubled. And what we know and this is another thing on the test as far as I’m concerned, women tend to score less than men, even though their GPAs tend to be higher and they do better in the classroom than men. Africans score less. In fact, when you look at GMAT scores by country, the African countries have among some of the lower GMAT scores. So when you get applicants from Africa and you want greater representation from Africa, the standout candidates don’t have as high GMAT’s as they might in India, China, or some parts of Europe.

 

[00:12:54.920] – John

And then the problem is that in Europe there are very few female applicants, according to the Dean Dentiate. So if you want to reach these diversity goals, you’re going to have to be a little more flexible on a standardized test. That is, after all, only one element of many in the assessment of a person’s ability to come and do well in an MBA program. Do you think there’s some of this in the background?

 

[00:13:20.890] – Caroline

Yes, absolutely. And that’s what they’re targeting. As Visually said, they’re concerned that candidates who would be fabulous students at INSEAD might be self selecting out of the pool and not applying because they haven’t got that 70 75th percentile. And they see that and they’re put off and they go to other great schools. And so this is specifically designed to broaden the pool and make it easier for some candidates to apply who might otherwise have gone elsewhere. And it doesn’t mean also I mean, as she said, it doesn’t mean necessarily going to get in straight away, right?

 

[00:14:01.650] – John

Definitely not.

 

[00:14:02.540] – Caroline

So they’ll take them forward to interview. If they like the profile, it may be that they will ask the candidates to retake the test. If there are still doubts about the academic ability of the candidate, then they may go back to them. And they regularly do this. They regularly ask candidates to retake the test if they love their profile, but they’re just concerned that they haven’t yet demonstrated that ability to cope with a very, very intensive and demanding program. They may ask them to retake the test.

 

[00:14:34.580] – John

And last week we pretty thoroughly covered the decline in GMAT test taking volume, which is now at historic lows. And we talked about how many programs are now test optional or are more generously waiving the need for a standardized test. I wonder if some other schools, in addition to INSEAD, are doing this without making any sort of announcement or it’s just a little more quietly being done. Maria, do you think that’s true?

 

[00:15:06.320] – Maria

I think it would sort of have to be. Again, the proof is in the pudding, right? If they have been slowly but surely letting in more and more candidates with perhaps less than stellar test scores and those candidates are kicking lots of butt when they get to campus, then that also speaks to the limitations of the test. And so why should I take the test as seriously if it may be an indicator, but clearly it’s not the only indicator of someone’s academic potential. I did want to very quickly point out one quick thing about the score discrepancies between, say, Africa versus China and India, because sometimes people get upset about it and they’re like, I’m from India and it’s BS that I get discriminated against. And people from Africa get this sort of affirmative action treatment. I’m pretty sure that GMAC themselves. I don’t want to put, like, words in their mouth, but I remember once watching a presentation where someone somewhere had done research into they asked people, how much time did you spend studying for this test? And people in countries like India and Africa, which have very heavy testing, those are test taking cultures, right.

 

[00:16:10.980] – Maria

Your entire life is determined by one or two exams that you take as a teenager. And so those are very test heavy. People will reach out to me. I quit my job last year to study for the GMAT, and I’m like, oh, my God, what are you thinking? Right. It’s like, oh, that’s a terrible idea. Oh, well, in India, we do it all the time for the civil service exam. And I’m like, what’s not like that in other places. But I think the average is like the average person in India or China studied something like 200 hours. These numbers are not accurate, but it was something like hundreds of hours. And the average person in Africa studied like 5 hours. Right. So it’s also a culture. It’s not just like, oh, well, these people are less qualified than I am, and yet they’re getting in. It’s also like, hold up. Maybe if you had only studied for 5 hours too, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten that 760 just because it’s just not, of course, thanks to the Internet, etc. And word is getting out like, hey, you should probably study for like several weeks or months.

 

[00:17:08.190] – Maria

But for a while, people were just like, well, it’s a test. And so I’ll study a little bit and I’ll just take it and see what happens. Anyway, I just wanted to point that out. I don’t remember the exact figures, but it was a pretty dramatic delivery.

 

[00:17:21.970] – John

I think we recall that research as well. Yeah. I mean, look, in South Africa, the mean GMAT score of a test taker is 505, and that tends to be on the high side for most African Nations. And so the other question here is, when an admissions official looks at a GMAT score, do they actually look at what the overall score is in a given country so that they actually are seeing? Okay, well, this person has performed well beyond the typical candidate from their country. Is that even taken into account?

 

[00:17:58.520] – Caroline

It is to a certain extent, not necessarily such a granular level of country by country and what is the average? And so on. But certainly admissions staff are aware of the regional differences that you mentioned.

 

[00:18:14.510] – John

Egypt is the average score. Ethiopia 447, Cameroon 427. Botswana 409. These are the average scores in these countries. Clearly, if you want to recruit and basically place a bet over the next quarter century, what’s going to be the most important economies emerging in the world? You’re going to place big bets on Africa, and you’re not going to be able to get massive big GMAT scores. Kenya 463 is the average. Some of these countries, it’s just like all in the 400s. It’s remarkable. So if you score a 600 from a country where the average is 450. Man, you’re really doing well.

 

[00:19:03.350] – Caroline

Yeah, right.

 

[00:19:08.070] – Maria

I was just going to say the country of China clearly thinks that Africa is going to be the next hotbed of growth. They’re investing so much money into that region that I know in the US, we may not be quite as it may not be quite on our radar, but other countries are taking note, other superpowers are taking note. And so, yeah, I mean, if you want talent, they need to start grooming that talent now to be ready for the opportunities later.

 

[00:19:31.430] – Caroline

Yeah.

 

[00:19:31.700] – John

And this goes back to how standardized test scores kind of are discouraged diversity, because we know based on the fact that if you’re an underrepresented minority and you grew up without the benefit of College educated parents speaking about professional things in public policy in the economy around the dinner table, you’re not going to score as well as someone who had those advantages. And so if you want to increase the diversity by recruiting more under represented minorities, you’re going to have to look at other aspects of their application to more fully evaluate them than a standardized test score because it’s just not going to work. And we’ve said this before about the test is in English, and students who are taking this test who didn’t grow up with English are also at a natural disadvantage. So you have all of these other factors that have long plagued standardized testing in general and are increasingly being acknowledged by University admission officials, whether at the graduate level or the undergraduate level, because they contradict goals for diversity. And I think that on some level, this move by INSEAD needs to be looked at in the context of these newer trends where schools want and have put great emphasis on diversity and inclusion and equity and gender balance and greater representation from countries around the world that are more diverse in the typical industrialized economies.

 

[00:21:20.070] – John

And if that’s going to happen, there’s going to have to be more flexibility in interpreting a standardized test score.

 

[00:21:26.740] – Caroline

John, I’m glad that you raised your children talking about public policy and the economy at the dinner table. I’m afraid that conversation at my dinner table is more about please don’t throw food at each other and stop arguing. Maybe my kids are going to be at a disadvantage when it comes to taking the GMA, but just to be able to the advocate and argue in favor of the team in terms of diversity, it’s very difficult. Right. For schools evaluating candidates from all across the world. And so it’s actually in some ways a benefit for candidates coming from different backgrounds to have a data point that enables them to be compared to the Wall Street investment banker and the McKinsey, London management consultant. Right. Because although they may not do, they may not get a 730 like those other candidates. It enables them to demonstrate academic ability and potential for the program in a way that may not be quite so obvious from their background, which may largely be because the school just is not familiar with where they went for their undergrad and they don’t know the company that the candidate is working out. And so that unfamiliarity with their background can also be a barrier.

 

[00:22:47.030] – Caroline

And so there’s also a benefit in taking the GMAT from the GRE in that it’s a common data point across the pool and it means that it gives you credibility and it reassures the school of your ability, which is especially valuable for candidates where they’re concerned. The school may not know that my undergraduate program was incredibly demanding and I did brilliantly and they may not know my company. They wouldn’t have heard of this, and they don’t know how difficult it was to get this job and how well I’m doing right. So there is a benefit in having that common data points.

 

[00:23:27.340] – John

True. I’m going to go back to what Maria said last week, her strategic advice to the Graduate Management Admission Council. Promote the executive assessment. It’s a shorter test. It’s an easier test. People could still get confidence. That is, the admissions officials can still get confidence in the person’s ability to do the meager quantity in the core curriculum in an MBA program. And everyone will be happy because they don’t have to study for three months to get a 700 plus score. Maria, I still think that’s the best advice ever for them.

 

[00:24:07.000] – Maria

I know they should call me.

 

[00:24:13.330] – John

Totally true. The other thing that’s happened this week and this is something that we’ve talked about in the past as well, is Harvard announced its round two decisions, meaning that the school released thousands of applicants in round two, released as their euphemism or rejected, and invited several hundreds of people to interview. And so this week there are a lot of very disappointed people out there who were turned down by Harvard Business School. And I know in the past, in fact, you could look this up because I thought we had great advice for you. If you were feeling down and disappointed after being rejected by Harvard Business School, you are not a loser. You are in very good company. The types of people who get rejected are really superb, and in many cases, there’s very little that separates them from the people who were chosen to be interviewed. But I wonder if you two might console many of the people who were turned down this week. Maria, what do you say to them?

 

[00:25:27.670] – Maria

And this is going to sound flippant, but I don’t really mean it that way. It’s Harvard. It’s not Hogwarts. I say that frequently. It’s not like, oh my gosh, I either get into Harvard Business School or my life is over and I’m going to be a troll that lives under a bridge. No, there aren’t these sort of binary outcomes in life. So not only is it like, look, I think we’ve spoken in the past about where people reach out and they’re like, what went wrong? And it’s like sometimes something went really wrong. Sometimes if you write a terrible essay or if you’re completely unqualified, sure. But most of the time it’s not that anything went wrong. It’s just that there was somebody else who maybe edged you out on ways that you will never know and you could have done nothing about it. And it’s not a reflection on you, but it’s also not a reflection on your future potential and where you’re going to go in life. I don’t say this to be sort of consoling in an artificial way. There are so many amazing MBA programs out there. As long as you go to a school that has a decent core curriculum, you’re going to get 80% of the education that is important from business school anyway.

 

[00:26:37.150] – Maria

And what you end up doing with that education is up to you. If you look at the Fortune 500 CEOs, yes, some of them have MBAs from fancy school, but a lot of them don’t. So it’s not like, oh, you have to get this MBA that has to be from Harvard otherwise. So sad, sad, trauma. And I also think, by the way, there are people who graduate from Harvard Business School who don’t necessarily achieve career success, who struggle professionally. They might have been the admissions mistakes a little. I know they like to say that they don’t make admissions mistakes, but I think sometimes they do. And so it’s also not like, oh, well, if I get in that’s it my life is rainbows and Sunshine for the rest of my life. So, I mean, you tried. God bless you. You wouldn’t have gotten in if you wouldn’t have tried. But please don’t hype yourself into thinking, thinking that like, oh, it’s over. And now, I don’t know, I should just cry for the rest of my life.

 

[00:27:44.250] – John

There was one comment on Reddit from someone who was rejected. He said he had to just go into a business meeting and he was doing everything he could to hold himself together.

 

[00:27:57.550] – Maria

It is tough for some people.

 

[00:28:00.650] – Caroline

It’s like the first time they’ve ever been rejected from it. They really want it right.

 

[00:28:05.270] – Maria

It’s a good point. That’s a good point, Caroline, especially the people who went to Yale undergrad Goldman Sachs or McKinsey gotten everything they’ve ever applied for. And this might be right. That’s a great point. It might be the first time someone told them no.

 

[00:28:19.990] – John

So let me remind all of you out there who were disappointed this week that there are plenty of other great schools and fantastic MBA programs that will very much invite you in and welcome you and will help you achieve your dreams. You don’t have to go to a Harvard or a Stanford or an INSEAD London Business School to get a great MBA education, to have a great career and a meaningful and influential one. So I think it’s always important to keep that into perspective. Meantime, I hope you enjoyed our podcast this week. Thank you, Caroline. Thank you, Maria. And good sleuthing, Caroline on that big breakthrough story on INSEAD accepting and welcoming lower GMAT scores. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants you’ve been listening to Business Casual.

 

Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Why INSEAD Is Welcoming Lower GMAT Scores
Maria |
February 8, 2022

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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