MBA Wire Taps 394—720 GMAT, low GPA. High GPA, low GRE. 3.98 GPA, 331 GRE.

In this week's MBA Admissions podcast we began by discussing the U.S. election, and the potential impacts of a new Trump administration.

Graham highlighted the webinar series for deferred admissions candidates, which continues on Wednesday, November 13 with Berkeley / Haas, CMU / Tepper, UVA / Darden and Stanford. Signups are here: https://bit.ly/cadefermba Graham also noted the upcoming webinar series for Masters in Management programs, which begins on December 3, signups are here: https://bit.ly/camim24

Graham then shared a recently published report from Forte Foundation, which illustrates the continued efforts of the MBA industry to move to gender parity. Graham then noted three admissions tips, two focused on the MBA interview process (questions to ask your interviewer, and thank you notes), and the third focused on potential admissions mistakes to avoid.

We then discussed four Real Humans stories, focused on MBA students at Yale SOM, IESE, Northwestern / Kellogg and NYU / Stern, and two MBA Class of 2026 profiles, from Columbia and Northwestern / Kellogg.

We then discussed activity on MBA LiveWire; for this upcoming week, Michigan State / Broad, INSEAD, Minnesota / Carlson and Ohio State / Fisher are scheduled to release Round 1 decisions.

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

This week’s first MBA admissions candidate is from South Asia and has a GMAT score of 720. We are worried about the impact of their low GPA. They do appear to have interesting work experience and additional activities, so we are hoping adcom can look past their GPA.

This week’s second MBA candidate is a military candidate with a super GPA from a military academy. We are concerned that their lower GRE score is not truly reflective of their overall profile.

The final MBA candidate has a 331 GRE score and a 3.98 GPA! They also appear to have interesting work experience and several significant activities outside of work. They are aiming high with their target programs, but this makes sense.

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!