MBA Wire Taps 390—12 MBA Programs, Planning ahead, Aiming for Investment Banking

In this week's MBA Admissions podcast we began by discussing the activity on MBA LiveWire; UVA / Darden released its Early Action round decisions, last week, Michigan / Ross also released its interview invites, and several other top MBA programs continue to roll out interview invite decisions. Round 1 application deadlines for this upcoming week include Johns Hopkins / Carey. They are also scheduled to release their Early Action round decisions. UPenn / Wharton is scheduled to release its Round 1 interview invites.

Graham highlighted this week’s Real Humans webinar on Wednesday, which will include students from Dartmouth / Tuck, Columbia, UVA / Darden and Duke / Fuqua, signups are here: https://bit.ly/rhlive1024 In November and December Clear Admit will be hosting webinars for deferred enrolment candidates, as well as events for candidates applying to Masters in Management programs.

Graham then highlighted two recently published admissions tips focused on the seven hardest MBA interview questions, and group interviews. The latter tip focuses on Wharton’s team-based interview, which is an unusual format, relative to other top MBA programs.  Graham then noted three Real Humans stories, focused on MBA students at Georgetown / McDonough, Chicago / Booth and Florida / Warrington.

We then discussed Texas / McComb’s recently published Class of 2026 profile. They managed to increase their class size from 241 students to 255. The actual profile of the class is quite similar to the prior year’s class profile, which included an average GMAT score of 704, and GRE score of 321.

For this week, for the candidate profile review portion of the show, Alex selected three ApplyWire entries:

This week’s first MBA admissions candidate has applied to 12 MBA programs in Round 1, which is an extraordinary effort. They appear to have very decent work experience and outside of work activities. They also have a strong GPA. We do wonder if their GMAT score of 655 is their weak point.

This week’s second MBA candidate has recently graduated from their undergraduate degree. They are now a software engineer. They are looking to apply for their MBA in several years’ time, so they are planning ahead. We offered general advice in terms of what to do over the next several years.

The final MBA candidate is targeting Round 2 and has still to complete the GMAT or GRE. They appear to have good work experience, but we worry that their undergraduate record is going to be a real weakness. They want to transition into Investment Banking and are targeting the very top programs. They may need to adjust some of their target programs.

This episode was recorded in Paris, France and Cornwall, England. It was produced and engineered by the fabulous Dennis Crowley in Philadelphia, USA. Thanks to all of you who’ve been joining us and please remember to rate and review this show wherever you listen!