Why The MBA Is An Ideal Way For A Military Veteran To Transition To Civilian Life and a Business Leadership Role
Maria |
November 10, 2022
As we celebrate Veterans Day, our hosts John, Maria, and Caroline will discuss more about vets in this episode of Business Casual, the podcast that covers all things related to MBA / business school admissions.
 
Keep reading to see which topics we covered in our discussion, check out 2 organizations helping veterans pursue higher education, or jump straight to the podcast directly (just want to skim what we talked about? You can jump to the transcript)!

  • Why is pursuing an Masters in Business Administration (MBA) one of the best paths for military veterans transitioning back into civilian life? What career opportunities in business leadership roles are available for veterans?
    • (Here’s a hint: Graduate business school can be a clean slate / fresh start on a business career! Many employers, in particular, management consulting companies and investment banks, are more than happy to hire veterans who have gotten MBAs! They see you as a potentially perfect combination of real-world leadership experience, combined with a formal management education. It’s a given that you have discipline, strong work-ethic, and often, have deep experience leading groups of your peers in performing difficult tasks!)

  • What are the advantages or relevance of being a veteran when applying for an MBA in terms of experience, reputation, and knowledge?
  • How can a veteran best describe or explain their experiences in their MBA admissions essays, resume, and interview to maximize their chances of acceptance?
  • What should former members of the armed forces consider NOT doing as part of their graduate school applications? That is, what are the most common mistakes?
  • Is one type of experience more valuable than others?
    • (e.g. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines? Training others? Leading them in to battle? Running operations on a base? Becoming an instructor at a service academy? Working on designing new technologies, such as defense or aerospace?)

  • Speaking of the military service academies such as West Point, Annapolis, etc., do graduates of those programs have preference or an advantage when compared to veterans who might have done ROTC at another college?
    • (Hint! Not necessarily — it’s what you did in the military, how much leadership you demonstrated, that matters more than where you did your undergraduate degree!)

  • As a veteran who has been shaped and molded by experience throughout his or her time in the military, what are the transferable skills or topics of discussion that you can bring to the class if you get admitted?

If you’re a veteran interested in getting an MBA to transition into a business or management career after the military, here are some resources you might want to check out!

  • Service2School: a non-profit that provides free resources (such as individual mentors who are current students or alumni of various colleges and universities!) to apply to a number of opportunities in higher education: college / undergraduate, masters of business MBA, and law school JD. The link to their MBA-specific application resources is here: https://service2school.org/mba-resources/
  • VeteransGuide.org: helping veterans get the maximum VA benefits they are rightfully entitled to. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is their assistance with getting GI Bill benefits to help fund your pursuit of higher education: https://veteransguide.org/va-benefits/gi-bill/
  • ELFI.com: an organization designed to assist borrowers with student loan refinancing as well as undergraduate, graduate, and parent private student loans. Many current service members and veterans are unaware of loan forgiveness options available to them. To help students, they’ve created a guide to Military and Veteran Loan Forgiveness Programs: http://www.elfi.com/military-veteran-student-loan-forgiveness-programs
  • And of course, ApplicantLab.com to give you expert, detailed advice on how to craft your best application! As someone with the self-discipline of a veteran, the Lab might be perfect for you, since presumably you are a strong self-starter… and I am honored to have helped many veterans in the past get into amazing MBA programs! 🙂

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.810] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast. Today we’re going to talk about Veterans Day. We’re actually recording this on Veterans Veterans Day, although you won’t hear it for a few days. And we want to talk a little bit about how veterans often use MBA programs as a transition to civilian life. Who’s best qualified to get into a great MBA program from the military? Who, if you can’t get into Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Chicago, Kellogg, Columbia, you name your M7 or top 15 school. Will a second tier school help you as well? And if you are in the military and you’re thinking about wanting an MBA and you want to start right away, should you go online? And will that ultimately help ease the transition into civilian life when you leave the military? So we’re here with, as always, Caroline Diarte Edwards, the former admissions director of INSEAD, who is the co founder of Fortuna Admissions. And Maria Wich Villa, who is the founder of Applicant Lab. Maria, you’ve worked with some people who are from the military and help them transition into MBA programs and ultimately into civilian life.
 

[00:01:27.620] – John

What’s your take on this?
 

[00:01:29.240] – Maria

I think the MBA is an excellent transition into civilian life. It’s probably one of the best routes in I do think that veterans definitely have some advantages in the application process, but also some disadvantages. So the advantages are that nobody can question your loyalty, your work ethic, your ability to get things done, even in difficult circumstances. The biggest challenge that military candidates have is that the admissions officers may or may not understand what is elite and what isn’t. So it’s the same with anyone who has a very specialized job. You can read a resume and say, oh, I know exactly what that means. I know that this position is a very difficult one to get. I know that getting that sort of commendation or that transfer means that you’re the best of the best. But sometimes you can’t assume that the admissions office will know that. So it’s up to you as a candidate to really explain in the resume and or the essays or even your recommendations to really point out what about your previous background has been extraordinary.
 

[00:02:30.850] – John

And you mentioned something about being highly selective. And we all know that candidates who go to highly selective undergraduate schools and have highly selective jobs often are favored in elite MBA admissions, in part because they’ve already passed through very fine screens. And I’m just going to say it here. Admission directors are often risk adverse. And if someone has gone to Yale and Princeton and ended up at McKinsey or Goldman, they’re a sure bet. I mean, you don’t have to worry about making an admission mistake. So I wonder if, in fact, some of these jobs that the military might have may or may not be highly selective. But that’s why it’s important to describe exactly how hard it was to get that job, right?
 

[00:03:20.400] – Maria

Yes, exactly. And for example, if you have there are apparently something like occupational codes or military occupational specialties. And so those are literally almost like number codes that say, okay, this is exactly what my job is in the military. So, for example, if you have a position, if your military occupational specialty code is like, say, a level above where it should be in terms of your age or the number of years of your service, or if you’re performing the duties of someone who is at a higher level, you have to sort of explain that and make sure that it’s clear as one example. But the good news is about the military is that almost everything is quantified. So at the end of every type of volunteering or not volunteering, but every type of work that you’re doing, you will be given a rank. So I was ranked number two out of 200. I was ranked number one out of 40, whatever that is. So that’s another thing that you should use to your advantage, right.
 

[00:04:18.040] – John

Caroline, your thoughts?
 

[00:04:19.650] 

Yeah.
 

[00:04:19.920] – Caroline

I mean, it’s a great path. As Maria said, the MBA is a wonderful springboard for a career transition, and it can open so many different doors that would otherwise be closed. And that’s the fantastic thing about going to business school, people coming from a vast array of backgrounds. Right. It just gives you a fresh start and gives you credibility with employers that you wouldn’t otherwise have. So it’s a great education to get. The important thing is to think about what are the transferable skills that you have built, because sometimes candidates are concerned that my experience isn’t relevant to business school.
 

[00:04:59.610] 

Right.
 

[00:04:59.800] – Caroline

What am I going to have to contribute to the classroom compared to someone who’s an investment banker or someone who’s a management consultant? My experience is very, very different. I haven’t worked in business before. But what you need to think about is breaking down the elements of your experience and the skills that you’ve developed into those transferable skills that will be relevant to business school, but also very importantly relevant to future employers and recruiters. So leadership skills are obviously a key area that people are able to build in the military, often to a much more advanced level than someone coming from civilian life. And breaking down the elements of that and communication teamwork, the ability to work under pressure and stress, you’ve probably developed that to a much more advanced degree than someone who’s come from a different background. It’s important to think carefully about your profile and think about it, not so much in the military terms, but in terms of those specific skills and abilities that you’ve developed. And breaking it down, thinking about how you can convey a clear story about how you’ve developed as an individual and a professional during your time in the military and the part of that has put you on and who you are today as a result of that experience.
 

[00:06:23.330] – John

Right. I wonder if you really want to go to an elite school, is it necessary to have gone to a military Academy like West Point or the Naval Academy, or is it possible to get into Harvard in the United States with a degree from a non military Academy school if you’re a veteran? Any thoughts on that?
 

[00:06:47.300] – Maria

Yeah, I can take that one. Absolutely. So there are a couple of different paths into the military. The main one is going to a service Academy. The other one is you can do ROTC at another undergraduate institution. And then the third option is officer candidacy School, which is for people who are essentially my understanding of civilians. And then you basically go through this very intense training program. And if you survive it and get out the other side, you are, in fact, given a leadership position essentially equivalent, I think, if you had gone to one of the academies. But don’t quote me on that. But the point is there are those three different entrance points, and each one of them is actually, I think, a viable path in it’s more about what you do once you’re in the military. So, for example, I had a former client who had gone to an elite College undergrad, had done a couple of years in some sort of standard post College, pre MBA type of role. I don’t remember if it was banking or consulting, but then decided to enlist in the Marines, went to officer candidate School, and did end up going to HBS.
 

[00:07:47.570] – Maria

And when I spoke with him, he said one of the things that at least HBS in particular seemed to really value more so than where you went for your undergraduate experience was infantry or frontline combat type of experience. So because Caroline just mentioned the advanced leadership skills, I don’t care how good of a banker you are, how amazing your spreadsheet work is if you’ve never actually led people in battle or I worked with someone once who literally jumped out of a helicopter with ten other Navy people to rescue someone. When you have those sorts of stories and you think about a transferable skills, maybe you’re not helping out of a helicopter, but if you’re meeting a big deadline at work, you’re going to be able to keep your cool and you’re going to be able to motivate people. So he said that it was more about within the military who has had either the bigger leadership roles, as in leading people in a combat situation, or also in my experience, there are certain groups within the military that are, for example, creating innovations or are trying to develop the next generation of you name it.
 

[00:08:55.890] – Maria

Right. Warplanes or missiles on Marine submarines, whatever that is. And I’ve had good luck with people who are working for those innovation divisions, even though they are not on the front lines, but they do have really interesting stories. They are often managing budgets. They are often managing dozens of people. And so those experiences in particular really stand out. And one final one that stands out is I worked with someone once who was actually a graduate of one of the service academies and had been asked back as an instructor. And when I ran out of my other former client, he said, wow, that’s a really big deal if the Academy asks you back to be a teacher after a couple of years. So it’s not enough to simply be in the military to get into, as you said at the beginning, John, the schools are looking for any indicator of elite performance that they can use in a proxy. And so even within the military, there are definitely some assignments that are more plum or more elite than others, as it were. And so the schools may not immediately know that, but they are starting to get a better sense as more and more veterans apply.
 

[00:10:02.710] – Maria

And again, it’s up to you as a candidate to let them know.
 

[00:10:05.880] – John

Caroline, are the schools that are known to be super friendly to veterans?
 

[00:10:11.370] – Caroline

Well, there are some schools that have special programs and clubs and so on. So MIT Sloan, they have a Veteran’s Visit day where you can go as a group and understand how you would fit into the program and what you can get out of the program specifically for your profile. Some of the schools have clubs for veterans, so I think Tark and Wharton have veterans clubs. It’s good to connect with people with a similar profile at the schools so that you can understand what resources you’ll have, what support you’ll get, what sort of community you’ll be part of. So definitely do that research ahead of time and try to reach out to current students who have come from a military background or alumni to understand to what extent they found a like minded community at the school supportive community and how they felt that veterans were welcomed into the program.
 

[00:11:15.750] – John

Yeah, I would think that the alumni club, or rather the veterans club on campus would be the ideal place to go and just talk to different people about the experience that they’re having at the school and what they did to get in would be very valuable, I would imagine.
 

[00:11:37.290] – Maria

I also want to give a shout out to an organization called Servicetoschool.org that’s Servicetoschool.org all one word. It is a nonprofit that does help people from the military make the transition to civilian life. And one of the things they do offer is advice for MBA, as well as College and other types of educational pathways. So reach out to them for sure.
 

[00:12:00.100] – John

Yeah, I know one of the heads of that organization in San Francisco, and it’s a terrific organization. You’re going to get help for free, and you’re going to get help from people who really have done this before and have done it well. The person I knew went to Stanford and got his MBA. He was a terrific guy. Service to school. Look him up. Really helpful. Now here’s another thing about veterans. When they apply, typically they’re older than mainstream NBA candidates and elite programs. And I wonder if admissions officials automatically know that. Look, if you were in the military, you had to sign up for X number of years, and so you might very well be in your early 30s instead of 28. Does that need any explaining or do enough admission officials understand that?
 

[00:12:55.890] – Caroline

I think that’s fine. It’s often the case that candidates from nontraditional backgrounds will be a bit older than the average candidate. So I don’t think that you need to explain that. Certainly if you’re not far off, not many years off the average, if you’re early 30s, they will understand that you’ve had a certain commitment, and it’s taken a number of years to get to the point where you are and to be ready to make that transition out of the military. So I wouldn’t feel that it’s a disadvantage. And I don’t think that you need to be concerned about explaining that away.
 

[00:13:34.360] – John

Good. And what about the European schools? Do you think that they are as friendly as the US schools for veterans?
 

[00:13:41.730] – Caroline

Well, I’m not sure that there are many sort of specific programs that you have in the US. So in the US, you have domestic clubs and paths and support organizations, as we’ve said, geared up to helping people from the US military get into US based schools. So it’s a little bit different with the international schools because there’s people coming from all over the world and a lot of different backgrounds. And so you may not have those sort of specific channels for a specific military going into a domestic school. But having said that, the schools have incredibly diverse student bodies, and that will always include some people with military backgrounds. So certainly in ICS, for example, a lot of people coming from Israel have very strong military backgrounds. That’s a common track to see and worked with candidates from the British armed forces going into international business schools. So it’s a common path. Candidates from military organizations all over the world would look to apply to business school to make that career switch and make a transition.
 

[00:15:03.410] – John

Yeah. And just as a mainstream MBA candidate going to a European school will be in a more globally diverse cohort, the military candidate also would be in a more diverse, globally oriented veteran cohort because they’re going to have veterans from all kinds of different countries, which kind of makes for an interesting experience in and of itself.
 

[00:15:27.040] – Caroline

Yes, it is. And these calls are specifically looking to recruit very diverse profiles. And the military often has great experience as well by the nature of their assignments. And the international schools are specifically looking for that international experience. So certainly it can be a great background to have a very relevant background for those international programs.
 

[00:15:51.830] – John

So let’s say you don’t exactly have the staff background to get into a top 25 school. Is the second tier school going to do going to be just as good to help you make a transition into civilian life, something like an Arizona State University of Georgia, one of these kind of schools. What do you think?
 

[00:16:17.210] – Maria

Yeah, I absolutely think look, John. Well, it’s better than nothing. It’s much, much better than nothing because people seem to forget that business school is still school. Surprisingly enough, you actually go to class and you learn things. Imagine that. I think the skills that you will learn at a business school. One of the reasons I think all three of us are so in favor of the business school education is that it does cover so many different topics that can be applied in so many different situations. So even if you should go back to the military or something related to public service, you’re still going to know how to build a budget. You’re going to have an idea how to manage a team. You’re going to have an idea of how to position things, to market them or to convince other people of them. So I think that the skills that you get in terms of the two years that you spend in business school or even the one year if it’s an accelerator program, the amount of information that you’re going to get that will help you make some sort of a career Pivot, it doesn’t have to be from a fancy school.
 

[00:17:17.620] – John

Yeah. And you’re going to make connections as well, and you’re going to get a lot of help, typically if you go to a really good second tier school. So those are the schools I would look at the second group in the 50 after the top 25, are all great schools that are going to help someone make a really good transition to civilian life. The other issue, which I find a lot of military people do, is they take online courses. And obviously, there’s a large portfolio of online and BA programs today, including at very good schools like the University of Michigan, Carnegie millenn, Indiana University, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Southern California, Rice and others. And I wonder what you two think of someone in the military who is stationed abroad but might want to get started on an MBA program in anticipation of leaving the military two years, three years out. Should they be going to an online MBA program, and would that help them? Maria?
 

[00:18:30.130] – Maria

Yeah, for the same reasons that we just mentioned. Right. I think the education is still there. Obviously, the networking opportunities are not going to be there quite as much. But to the extent that it will help you make that transition perhaps a little bit more quickly because you can probably get part or all of much of the degree while you are still serving in the military, perhaps then it could help accelerate that. And really, you just need that first job out of business school. Once you get a job anywhere in the private sector or in a, quote, unquote business role, as long as you do well in that job, that’s what’s going to matter. It’s your track record professionally that then begins to speak for itself. And that’s where you build your post military career. So even though the opportunities may not be quite as elite or as shiny, you can still make a really good life for yourself. You just need to get that first job and do well in it. And if you’ve already been in the military, you will probably do well because you have that work ethic and that spirit of commitment.
 

[00:19:30.190] – Maria

So I still think it’s worth it.
 

[00:19:32.550] – John

Yes, Caroline, you agree?
 

[00:19:34.290] – Caroline

Yes, I do. I think it depends on your goals. Maria said and Maria said it’s an academic experience. Right. A big part of why people go to business school is to build a foundation of knowledge, and you can get a lot of that through these online programs. So in terms of knowledge building, giving you that strong foundation, that will give you the ability and the confidence to land job post MBA and do well, be professionally successful. With a lot of those online programs, you can achieve that you don’t have necessarily the same opportunity to build close knit relationships. You need to think about what are your goals from the program and whether the program that you’re looking at. If that’s online, that’s going to give you the ability to move forward in the right direction. But in terms of facilitating a career switch and building the knowledge that you need to make a switch and have that springboard to open doors, then a lot of those programs would be a great opportunity as well.
 

[00:20:46.130] – John

Yeah. I would offer this advice. If you’re looking at online and via programs don’t necessarily go for the cheapest ones. And the reason is because there’s far less career support and coaching in a bargain based on online MBA than there would be in one that’s priced a bit higher, where they can afford to basically set aside resources that are for career development that would help with the transition from the military to the civilian life. Indiana Kelly would be a really good option here because they’re not a six figure online MBA program as some are. I think there are about seven or eight of those now, and those are all great programs, and you’re going to get a lot of support. But that’s really expensive. Indiana Kelly, I think, is priced in the right range, and they have terrific coaching. In fact, they offer a career coach for life in their online MBA program. And all other coaches are trained to be executive coaches, and they have really an amazing career machine at that school. So that would be one option. And if you’re shopping for an online MBA, you should ask to talk to alum who have been in the military and who used it for the purpose that you’re using it for and ask them directly, what kind of help did you get from the school to get to land your first job and even after that and did you have comrades in the program that you felt a meaningful relationship with even though you were taking your degree long distance?
 

[00:22:33.070] – John

I think those are important questions to ask to sort of kick the tires before you actually commit to an online MBA experience. Well, this is our salute to veterans. We honor you, we thank you for your service and we really do think an MBA is a superb experience, a one or two year program in between these two important chapters of your life that I think would be really an incredible experience for you and really smooth that transition and set you off on a really great trajectory. So, Caroline and Maria, thank you for offering all that great advice and for me. John Byrne at Poets and Quants thanks for listening.
 

Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Why The MBA Is An Ideal Way For A Military Veteran To Transition To Civilian Life and a Business Leadership Role
Maria |
November 10, 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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