Why This MBA Admission Season Is A Once-In-A-Generation Opportunity To Get A Yes From A Top B-School
Maria |
June 15, 2022

Predictions have been made – the expectation is that application volumes this admissions season are going to be significantly down in comparison to past years. We’re coming off of a pandemic-related surge in app volumes the last two years, the strong US-job market is keeping a lot of would-be applicants OUT of the MBA applicant pool, and there’s an increasing trend for Europeans to want to “stay home” and attend European Programs.  

Our hosts in this episode of Business Casual discuss this prediction and why that translates to a potential once-in-a-generation opportunity for many applicants to get a yes from a top b-school (and maybe a slightly better chance at getting off of the waitlist this summer for a few folks).

Additionally, what do applicants really WANT out of an MBA? Why do they pursue one in the first place? The team revisits the core reasons for pursuing an MBA and discusses why applicants should keep their long term goals in mind as they’re maybe reconsidering applying right now.  

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.750] – John

Hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co host, Caroline Diarte Edwards, and Maria Wich-Vila. Maria, of course, is the founder  of Applicant Lab. It’s sort of a do it yourself journey where she becomes your Sherpa through many videos and instructional, I guess. What would you say? Instructional? What? Tutorials.

[00:00:35.180] – Maria

I say interactive exercises.

[00:00:37.370] – John

Okay, how about interactive tutorials? I love that word. Tutorial, you know, so much the better. Sounds good. Caroline, of course, is the former head of admissions at INSEAD, as well as the co founder of Fortuna Admissions. And if you want a shorter to hold your hands for the entire process with a lot of coaching in between, that’s the place to go. So there are two things we want to talk about today. The first thing is the prediction that this coming admission season is a lifetime opportunity to get into a great school, and we’ll explain why. The second thing we want to talk about is what prospective students really want above all else in an MBA program. But first, we want to address the coming admissions market. There is a sense that with applications down, particularly from domestic US applicants to US schools and European applicants who are increasingly favoring staying home and near home and applying to European schools, that business schools are going to be hard pressed to find both US citizens and Europeans in the applicant pool this coming year. Part of this is the result of very strong job market in the United States, which is keeping many young people who otherwise would not be applying to graduate school back in their jobs.

[00:02:11.990] – John

They’re getting raises and promotions to keep them where they are because talent is in short supply and there are plenty of opportunities. Even if you don’t want to stay at your company, there are plenty of opportunities to move on your own without the need for a graduate degree right now. So that’s leading to a significant decrease in the number of domestic apps. And with a recession around the corner, I might add, you could expect that if, in fact, the recession materializes next year, as some predict it will, there will be the typical soaring rates of application flow to the business schools, which will make it harder to get in. Caroline, it was one of your colleagues, Matt Simons, who said, basically your chances of getting into a great school this year might be better than they’ve ever been. What do you think?

[00:03:08.810] – Caroline

I think that’s definitely the case. We saw such a tremendous surge in applications triggered by the pandemic, and so it’s a cyclical market. So if there’s a surge, that’s going to be followed by a drop at some point. And so I think application volume is dropping right now for the upcoming season. With such a strong job market in the US, so less incentive for people who are working in some countries where the job market is so strong to leave their positions and head off to business school. They may feel now is not the right time. Right. Because they’re getting promotions, they’re getting great job offers, they’re getting pay rises, and so they feel less motivated to pull out of that and head back to graduate school. And at the same time, it’s more difficult right now, I think, for the US schools to attract some international applications. So, for example, from China, much lower volumes from China than they may have seen in the past. And the currency fluctuations, the dollar is nearly at parity now with the Euro. Right. So it makes it incredibly expensive or more expensive than it may have been in previous years for candidates who are based in the Eurozone to buy into US tuition fees.

[00:04:32.870] – Caroline

And so they may be more incentivized to stay closer to home because of those currency dynamics. So I do think that there’s going to be a drop in application volume this fall, and therefore, meeting the competition will probably be less than usual. And therefore, if you are thinking about going to business school, then go ahead. This is a great time to do it. This may be an opportunity to get in to a school that you might.

[00:04:59.680] – John

Not otherwise got into, particularly because if a repression does materialize in the following year, as is often the case, applications are counter cyclical to the economy, and they go up really fast. The other aspect of this is for people who are currently on wait list, which basically have been sort of Neverland, right? I mean, pretty much people who get taken off a waitlist typically or very few. But this may be a very different time, right, Maria?

[00:05:33.710] – Maria

Yes, absolutely. I think precisely for the reasons that Caroline and you have talked about, because the economy is doing so well and a lot of employers are desperate to hold on to talent. I’ve had some clients reach out to me and say, look, I was just offered the post MBA role I was hoping for now. So why would I go get the MBA? And I don’t have a good answer for it. I’m like, well, you could think about the long term skill development. But yeah, honestly, if I were in your shoes, I would also reconsider if this is why you’re going to business school in the first place. So I think the summer is going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity as well for people on the waitlist as well. I recently a couple of days ago, I heard from one of my clients who got off of the Harvard wait list, which is one of the tougher ones to get off of, only because their yield is so high. So many people who are offered a spot there take that spot and they’re committed to it. The minute they get that acceptance letter, they’re like, cool, I’m all in.

[00:06:32.150] – Maria

So therefore, getting off of the HBS wait list is usually pretty dire, a little bit tough to do. So I’m definitely seeing sort of anecdotally people already getting off of wait lists, and it’s just the beginning of June. So that to have that movement this early in the summer versus, say, July or August, it’s a pretty good indicator that I think a lot of people are opting to stay in the workforce. And I don’t know that they should, because I think what goes up must come down. And so right now your job might be awesome, and they just gave you that promotion. And then next year, if there’s a huge recession or some other wave of monkey pox, whatever takes over the world, you might be furloughed, right? You might be furloughed, or you might get laid off, as we have said, ad nauseam on this podcast, like the MBA is a long term something you do for your long term career. So I would urge anyone listening if you’ve got an offer in hand, even if your employer is trying to sweeten the pot for you to stay, I would just kind of think about that long term.

[00:07:39.240] – John

Yeah, that’s really good advice and advice we’ve given people over the time that we’ve been doing the podcast. I have heard that one top admissions official at a major school is predicting that this summer for the schools will be a bloodbaths, a blood bath in the sense that there will be a lot of people who will not attend, who were invited to attend. That’s called summer melt.. Summer melt is an actual term that admissions people use and typically results in. You have three offers. You can only accept one, or maybe for personal reasons, you decide not to go. And it’s usually a small percentage who don’t go for those kinds of reasons. But this year, because companies are actually fighting to hold on to their professional employees, the summer melt is going to be a lot larger than it typically is. So for those people on the waitlist, this is a good time. Not that it’s really a great time to go on anyway, let’s face it. But if you had to choose your time, this is the time to choose. The other evidence of how strong the job market is for young professionals occurred this past week.

[00:08:52.560] – John

Uva Darden became the first school to report some career stats for the class that just graduated two weeks ago. Median base salary for Garden MBAs up 21% to 175k. That is extraordinary. I think the last time we saw increases year over year of 20 plus percent. We’re probably thinking back to the 1980s in really the heyday of the MBA degree, when school is going to produce enough MBAs. Universities didn’t have enough business schools to produce them, and salaries were just galloping forward 21%. I don’t think anyone has seen a 21% year over year rise at median base salary in decades, and it’s not like a high percentage of the class wasn’t reporting in yet. In fact, 92% of the class received a full time job offer by graduation. That’s very high, particularly at graduation. Usually that’s a number you might see three months later. And 89% of the class accepted their full time offer by graduation at Darden. So that’s really good proof of how strong the market is for MBAs. And then you have to think if you’re an employer who has a young professional who is really hard working and brilliant, you don’t want to lose them.

[00:10:23.740] – John

So you’re going to offer them 20 plus percent increase in pay and greater responsibility and opportunity to do something that they really want to do. And that’s making for what we think will be a really great Commission season for those who want to apply to highly selected business schools. It still means you got to have the goods. I mean, isn’t that current, Caroline? Isn’t that right? And Maria, you can’t just go in there thinking, okay, now it’s my chance. I have that well below average GMAT score. My transcript from my undergraduate years is a mess. I haven’t been all that successful at work since I graduated from an undergraduate institution. Now is my chance to get in, let me tell you. No, because the applicant pools are very deep, and while your chances are significantly improved, we think in this admission season, you still got to prove that you can do the job and you’re still worthy of getting into a great school, right?

[00:11:24.590] – Caroline

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the people that it will really make a difference for are those high achievers who might struggle to get in because they have quite a common profile.

[00:11:34.380] – Maria

Right.

[00:11:34.750] – Caroline

So the management consultants or the investment bankers or the engineers who are applying in vast numbers to business schools and are incredibly well qualified. Right. Often have fantastic undergraduate track records, great GMATs, very impressive professional achievements, etc.

[00:11:52.670] – Maria

Etc.

[00:11:52.940] – Caroline

Etc. But struggle, unfortunately, to get into the very top schools just because there’s so many of them applying. And so I think it’s those profiles that will really benefit from this downturn, because, as you say, you still have to be very well qualified, and they are incredibly well qualified, but they just may not face quite as much extreme competition from vast numbers of people with similar profiles applying.

[00:12:19.170] – John

Right now, the other thing I’m thinking about is the psychological impact here when admissions offices go through a period where the yield decline significantly. And I think we’re going to see that with the summer mill and with companies fighting so hard to keep their people, they may be a little nervous and actually may be more willing to commit to people earlier in the cycle, particularly round one. Maria, do you think that holds any water, or is that just me speculating?

[00:12:51.590] – Maria

Yeah. I think when things are uncertain, you go for the candidate in the hand versus the candidate in the Bush. I do think that that will happen. Of course. Then in that case, I think the downside to sort of shifting more of your focus on around one as an admissions officer is that then there’s a whole extra several months in which that person might decide that they don’t want to come, that you’re giving them three extra months to go to their employer and say, give me a counter offer. What are you going to give me so that I don’t leave? So I’m not sure. I think if I were an admissions officer, I might try to front load my round one acceptance, but I think I would just lean very heavily on my waitlist because nobody knows. I mean, we don’t know if the again, if the monkey pox recession, something hits in October. Now our round two is suddenly going to get crazy. And boy, oh, boy, we gave away all of our spots in round one, and I wish we wouldn’t have. So I don’t know if hopefully they won’t jump the gun too much.

[00:14:02.570] – Maria

But, yeah, I mean, get that application in sooner because since right now things are hot, take advantage of that and don’t hold on to don’t hold off on applying, understanding that who knows what might happen in a few months.

[00:14:19.790] – John

That’s true. Caroline, you would agree that round one is the round you got to go for if you want to take advantage of this decline in applications, because if the recession starts to kick in in the fourth quarter of the year, you’re going to see a rush of people to try to get in second round.

[00:14:37.970] – Caroline

Absolutely. And if the schools, as you say, face a lot of summer melt and struggle with their yield for the class starting this fall, they will be under a lot of pressure to deliver better numbers for the following season. And so the temptation will be to make the most of round one in a context of uncertainty. But I do think, as Maria said, in that context of uncertainty and volatility, they will no doubt wait list quite a few people because they just don’t know how things are going to evolve. Round two, who knows if we’re actually going to go into recession?

[00:15:16.910] – Maria

Right.

[00:15:17.080] – Caroline

There’s a lot of talk of recession, but it may not transpire. So round 2 may not deliver the volume that they expect. So in which case they will start clearing people pretty quickly from the waitlist. But I would certainly encourage candidates who are ready to submit earlier rather than later this season.

[00:15:39.770] – John

Right must be predicting a recession. He says he’s going to lay off people in advance of the recession, even though his electric cars are as high as they’ve ever been. Jamie diamond is worried about a financial meltdown next year. He said it could happen. Let’s hope it doesn’t. But if it does, you know what’s going to happen. Application is going to explode again. They always have that is certain. So if you want to take advantage of this window, move through it, move through it quickly and make it happen. So this goes to the second issue that we want to discuss today, which is what do prospective students want above all else in an MBA program and published a survey by an organization called Niche Grad Searcher. And there was a sort of predictable response to this question among the MBA students who filled it out. The other prospective MBA students, not surprisingly, people were going to MBA programs to advance their careers. 37% reported being motivated by a planned career change, which actually on some level is low compared to what we know because the vast majority of people who go into full time MBA programs at the schools that we talked about and we cover are wanting to do a career switch.

[00:17:13.730] – John

Caroline, what’s your sense of that? Would you say that most people either want to advance their current career or simply want to change careers, and that is those are the two primary reasons people seek an MBA?

[00:17:28.610] – Caroline

Yeah. I think, as you say, actually, most of the people applying to the very top schools are looking to make some sort of career change, and that’s why they’re willing to make such a big investment in their career, because they want to open doors that might otherwise remain closed if they didn’t head off to business school. So while there’s always a core group of students who are heading off to business school to advance in the current sector and current field, there are far more students who are looking to make some sort of career change. And the vast majority of people will actually there’s always students who go to business school thinking, I’m going to carry on being a management consultant, and I’m going to go back to that afterwards. And then they have a change of heart when they’re at business school because it is a very transformational experience. And a lot of people have a change of heart while they’re there because they’re exposed to all these amazing opportunities and possibilities that might never have crossed their mind. And you learn a lot about yourself and you gain a lot of skills and discover possibilities that might not have crossed your mind.

[00:18:37.390] – Caroline

So that’s one of the wonderful things about business school. Right. Is that people go through this wonderful transformation and are able to go on to do things that they would never have dreamed of doing beforehand. So definitely a huge amount of change going on in people’s careers post MBA.

[00:18:59.270] – John

Another reason why people get graduate degrees is to get into fields that are otherwise close to them. And that’s certainly true with the MBA. Obviously, if you want to get into strategic management consulting, while Ibanking may be more open, it’s only open to undergraduates generally. So if you want to go into a banking and you’re not in a banking or a venture capital and private equity, although those fields are much harder to get into. Anyway, an MBA is a route to those jobs because without an MBA, it’s very difficult to get into those industries. Isn’t that true, Maria?

[00:19:38.150] – Maria

Yes, absolutely. The MBA, especially if you want to get into investment banking. I mean, if you’re in the military or whatever it is that you’re doing, if you were to just reach out to the banks, it might be. Now, some of the banks actually have started programs for veterans specifically targeting veterans. But it will be a lot easier for you to go to business school first and get that skill set because I don’t work for a bank. But I would guess if I were, I would think to myself, well, they’re about to spend two years learning all of these skills that I then don’t have to train them on. Right. I think it definitely helps some people get into some of the more standard post MBA routes, management consulting and banking being the two biggest ones. I will say that there are a lot of post MBA roles, to your point, that are, in fact, very difficult to get into without prior experience. Not just private equity and hedge funds, but even consumer packaged goods is one that they really do want to see some sort of marketing background especially well for their brand manager types of roles.

[00:20:46.850] – Maria

Yeah. I think this is why it’s also important for people to do a lot of research. Right. It’s one thing to say, well, 80% of people change their minds, but some of them are in a better position to change their minds than others in terms of what career they want after business school. And so just this is why I think it’s important if you are a veteran or if you are currently in the nonprofit space, reach out to the current veterans clubs, nonprofit clubs, etc. Find other people at the business schools who have your Premba background and ask them essentially point blank. Right. Here’s what I want to go work for a hedge fund after business school after being in the Peace Corps for two years. What do you think? Because don’t take it from me. Right. Do your research. You never know if there’s that one diamond in the rough who’s able to make that switch. But if so, you’re going to want to find out who they are and what exactly they did.

[00:21:35.930] – John

Yeah, that’s really good advice. The other piece of this is many people are often referred to employment reports at business schools to get an idea of the possibilities that a given school may provide. And I wonder if the two of you have any suggestions on how to read an employment report, because there’s a lot of kind of apples, bananas, oranges here. In other words, one employment report can be very different from another and very hard to compare against. There are some schools there are other schools that don’t reveal that at all. There are some schools that reveal average pay and not median pay. There’s some schools that report the opposite. So sometimes it’s difficult to compare apples and oranges and employment reports. But in general, what kinds of things should people be looking for and thinking about? Because here’s a good example. Kellogg puts a lot of people into consulting jobs and has done so for quite a few years, and it surprisingly has a small representation in the world of finance. Now, does that mean that if I want to go into finance, Kellogg is a less desirable school, or is it a more desirable school?

[00:23:01.270] – John

Because frankly, I have fewer people in my class who want those positions. How do you read that?

[00:23:08.870] – Caroline

Yeah, it’s a tricky one. First of all, I would say it’s important to look at the list of recruiters and if you’ve thought through your career goals and figured out which employers you’re targeting, just make sure that they’re actually coming to recruit people from the school that you’re targeting. Right. And look at how many people they’re recruiting. So generally, I would say if you’re looking to go into finance, it’s a positive sign. If there are several financial institutions coming to the campus and they’re recruiting in larger volumes, it suggests that when they come to your school, they probably have several positions that they’re looking to fill. They’re probably coming to campus to give presentations. They’re going to be interviewing on campus. It may make it easier to secure an interview. But it’s also true that you want to be at a business school where you can stand out. Right. So you want to be at a school where you can distinguish yourself among the student body if you’re looking to get into a field that is incredibly competitive. And so do look at the profile of candidates that they are recruiting and whether you have the right profile.

[00:24:28.140] – Caroline

Right. Because the most competitive field, private equity, as Maria said, and so on, they are not recruiting just any MBA student from top business school. They are scrutinizing profiles and hand picking certain students to invite to interview. And so you need to understand whether you have even if you go to that school, whether you have the right profile to secure an interview with your target recruiter.

[00:25:04.430] – John

Maria, do you have thoughts on that?

[00:25:07.250] – Maria

Yeah, I think it’s a fine line. I think it depends which post MBA route you want to take. I think. Yes. For example, let’s take finance at Kellogg. Yes. The good news is that you’ll have less competition. But I also think that employers are looking at it less from a school by school quota. And I think they’re just looking for the talent that will fill their needs. And so I would guess if I’m an investment bank based in Chicago and I interview people at Booth and I interview people at Kellogg, I might be selling more of my pool with people from Booth only because it is more quantitatively. It is more famous. It is more well known for being quantitatively rigorous. And I’m not trying to imply that Kellogg is not quantitatively rigorous, but it is certainly known for that. And so I wonder if part of it is, yeah, I might stand out more if I’m at Kellogg, but also I would worry a little bit about am I going to have the resources around me if I want to switch into something like finance? Are there going to be enough students around me that will help guide me in making that switch?

[00:26:07.430] – Maria

Because if everyone from the sort of Midwest area who’s a finance whiz goes to Booth, yeah, there’ll be more competition there, quote unquote, but also there will be more people who can help me and who can show me the ropes and things like that. But I would say for the more niche, not necessarily niche, but for the less overwhelmingly popular routes. I do think that’s also looking at the higher percentages makes a huge difference, things like entertainment and media, real estate or health care. That’s where you can see tremendous variability from school to school. And that is definitely an indicator. If you want to go into real estate and one school sends twice as many people on a percentage wise basis as another school, that’s probably a pretty good indicator that’s a more developed path or entryway into that field. Now, I would also say, don’t trust it blindly. As Caroline said, you’ve got to reach out to people, because the other thing that might happen is at a certain school, it becomes sort of like it’s like the circle of life from The Lion King, like if a school is known for sending people to real estate, they might attract more people from real estate.

[00:27:13.580] – Maria

And so that’s something that I think one thing I want folks to be a little bit cautious of is if you’re talking about, let’s say, working at McKinsey, a school might say, yes, we sent 50 people to McKinsey last year, but what you don’t know is that 30 of them were from McKinsey anyway. And we’re sponsored. And so getting to the core of which school is really going to actually help me make a switch. And I wish there were an easy magic one solution to this, but it really does come down to just reaching out to the consulting club at different schools and saying, hey, here’s what I do right now. How many people in the consulting club looked like me two years ago? And where are they going now? Because that’ll at least it’ll strengthen your application because you’ll be able to point to that as evidence that it is a feasible switch. But you’ll also when that first tuition bill comes due, you’ll feel a lot more comfortable about taking out that loan or whatever it is and making that investment that you might have to make which is a substantial one indeed.

[00:28:17.150] – John

In fact, the survey we just mentioned has affordability very high up is a concern that many prospective students have about graduate education in general. Again, we urge you to look at the long term, not the short term. And if you are looking at the long term, you might think this is a great time for you to apply. We think it is we think you should apply in round one. That’s what we think. So there you have it. Maria and Caroline, thank you so much for all your help here. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants you’re listening to Business Casual our weekly podcast.

Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Why This MBA Admission Season Is A Once-In-A-Generation Opportunity To Get A Yes From A Top B-School
Maria |
June 15, 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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