The mbaMission Podcast

Ep 53 | Underdog MBA Applicants Accepted at Top Programs

• mbaMission • Season 2 • Episode 53

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The MBA admissions process is, in many ways, subjective. Broadly speaking the top MBA programs want to see a high GMAT or GRE score, a strong undergraduate GPA, and solid work experience. But, there is no magic formula for getting admitted. In our latest episode of the mbaMission podcast, Harold Simansky and Jeremy Shinewald discuss the clients who have surprised us over the years -- the long-shot applicants who were successfully admitted to top business schools -- and how they overcame weaknesses in their profiles and impressed the MBA admissions committees.

00:00 Long-shot MBA applicants who were admitted to business school
03:48 Overcoming a low test score
10:37 The importance of engaging with MBA programs
15:13 Are you too old (or too young) for an MBA?
22:29 Expanding your target school list
27:51 Taking risks in your MBA applications
34:01 Overrepresented MBA applicants

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some of the very top schools that you would think would be the most quant intensive actually show tremendous flexibility i'm not saying that you're going to get in being an older applicant with a lower GMAT what I am saying is if they're going to make an exception they're going to make it for someone like you right i'm someone who went back to business school when I was 31 what happens if you're 30 31 32 33 years old i think about a consulting applicant I had with a lower GMAT but she just won the admissions committee over with competence if you are too young chronologically you have to prove to them that you're an old soul that you're deep in your career that you sort of know what the future looks like for

you the MBA admissions process is in many ways subjective there are some stats you'll need in order to have a chance a high GMAT or GRE score a great GPA proof of your quant abilities a history of solid work experience but at the end of the day there's no formula for getting in that's why despite having had a history of helping MBA applicants over the last 20 years we here at MBA Mission sometimes are surprised today NBA mission founder and my co-host Jeremy Shinwald and I are talking about the applicants who really surprised us and in the best possible way those applicants who were long shots or didn't seem to have a chance at some of the top schools actually got accepted and that for us was very exciting and we're here today to discuss some of those success stories so when I think about who surprised us sometimes I'm the first person to say they were surprised but not really and and right so let's let's talk about those types of candidates i guess in in I think what we're saying is a lot of the risks to us seem manageable that from the outside from like optics from the outside someone might say that looks fatal you know that that low GPA that looks fatal it's not always fatal i think that's right yeah and I think when most people are surprised they will look at GPA or GMAT of peoples who are accepted and say "Wow how could somebody with a insert very low number and if I remember correctly you once had a someone with a GPA of what was it 2.67?" So let's identify some categories so we've got those applicants with low scores that that that I think might surprise an outsider maybe doesn't always won't always surprise us that's right other types of candidates are low GPA certainly yeah the fact that you may not have actually demonstrated quant

and then we start getting into things like too old too young I would say a checkered work history okay so we got we got low GPA in GMAT or low low score too old or too young that's interesting lots of applicants come to us and they ask us just that like oh am I too old um we have applicants who have inconsistent work histories right and they assume hey it's business school i got to be on a rocket ship exactly and very frequently we'll hear from someone from a over represented demographic and say hey they're gonna they're going to be looking at a thousand people who look just like me what do I do in these situations so overrepresented demographic is certainly something that we are frequently surprised about and then applicants who take risks right those are just in general applicants who themselves are will take a risk to stand out or just to be true to themselves um and I think those that's another type of type of applicant that can surprise us where there's risks there's sometimes reward absolutely not right for everybody but I think Jeremy you and I certainly have folks who took risks in terms of their applications and how they approached it really are we done with categories i think so yeah I think so so let's let's let's go through some let's go through the categories we identified and let's talk about some of the examples that we had yeah so the first one was So the first one was low GMAT score and both of us I think certainly have some uh examples of that right and what's like what's the lowest GMAT score you've seen to get into an M7 620 620 okay my first year in business so I think there's been some GMAT inflation yeah there might be two applicants who had I think 550s and 560s both uh both were internationals and both were women um I think at a time when there weren't that many female internationals so this may not be applicable to today but both had 550s both got 550 or 560 both got into got into Harvard Business School right i'll I'll be very honest with you my 620 was your over quote over representative uh Indian engineer right and at the end of the day I want everyone to sort of remember this across two dimensions first of all it is true someone with a 620 from an over represented demographic can certainly get into a top school the thing I the second thing I want everyone to remember is that person was exceptional and really the job here was truly to communicate why they were exceptional how they were without offering too much about this candidate what were the what were the aspects that were were really exceptional like how How did this applicant overcome that low GMAT i got to assume right at the bat grades were off the chart because if the grades were low and the GMAT the GMAT was low there's only so much we can do like we can't we're not miracle workers that's right um you you you can't there are there is such thing as a fatal flaw or a series of fatal flaws but you know you you can over you can overcome one problem so this applicant probably had good grades not that grades are everything but good grades in this case have to be there he also had a job that required incredible quant abilities and he had a recommener who not only said hey this is a great person but they really took their time to explain here's just how difficult his job is here's how quant intensive his job is so on the one hand business schools you're looking at this 620 but the flip side is let me tell you about somebody who's really smart and he shows that every single day working on on problems that are really hard and I think the ability in this case for a recommener to communicate that was really probably the most telling thing but was was this applicant's work experience from a from a an overrepresented field or I got to assume that there was something interesting about the work experience interesting with the community experience the whole package but the GMAT I would assume yes it was in the energy sector it was particularly trading energy futures okay and this is a very niche industry but I think what also made sense was this was a kid who grew up only having electricity like six hours a day and this notion here of energy and the role it played throughout his life in a very real way i mean in order to just have electricity 6 hours a day it's you can only certainly shower cook really do homework and his ability to communicate that and then sort of have this theme going all the way through it's like energy has been really important to me it remains important to me i spend every day working on energy problems and at that point my future is in energy it was this wonderful narrative so at that point you know admissions committee members said the 620 is in some ways not even relevant right so I I think that's a super important point i think that that what you're basically saying is this is with with with someone who has low test scores getting into an elite program you're basically setting a message saying this is the aberration you have to set this aside everything else is so compelling about my candidacy i I have yes I have strong a strong GPA to help you balance this out from a stats perspective but it's not that the stats get you in like your GPA is not getting into business school but it just in this case it has to be there because of the low GMAT but then it's like look at this extraordinary professional story and this extraordinary life story and no doubt some very strong community uh work as well and um real purpose and go to business school and you got to set this aside you got you got to you got to you can't uh you know you can't bite your nose off despite your face as they say you're not going to not accept this person yep because of this GMAT you have some GMAT flexibility as an admissions committee that's right you're going to use your low GMAT for some exceptional people this is your kind of exceptional person do you want to learn more about your target business schools check out on track by MBA mission where we have in-depth modules on all the top business schools covering everything from what makes them unique to how to tackle the application essays and short answers and so much more you can also practice for interview and video questions all done on your schedule on demand we appreciate your dedication to our podcast and we want to offer you 30% off any on-track subscription use the code MBAM pod to get 30% off any on-track subscription check it out at ontrack.mmbbammission.com what I also tell people is it's sort of amazing to me some of the very top schools that you would think would be the most quant intensive actually really show tremendous flexibility i have had regularly in fact I sort of canvas some of our of our other consultants MIT shows incredible flexibility on the G GMAT score if you look at the spread of GMAT scores it's really sort of amazing to me and I I say that in the context of schools that could fill their classrooms with folks with a 770 780 so it's in many ways it's those schools who want to sort of turn things around and say "Hey I we need something else in our class we're not looking to you to have that great quant score we're going to get it from somewhere else." You know it's one thing I say I still do some free consultations myself um I remember our colleague Harsh actually uh just had a huge success with an applicant i believe he got into Harvard and Stanford and likely Wharton as well amazing individual um you know underrepresented country underrepresented industry but older uh some not a terrible GMAT if I recall but an average GMAT and I remember saying to this individual um you know I'm not saying that you're going to get in um with you know being an older applicant with a lower GMAT what I am saying is if they're going to make an exception they're going to make it for someone like you right and and so I remember being at pain saying like this is you have an unusual candidacy and like I don't I don't want to push you to apply because that's not who I am that's not who we are as a company but I believe that this is worth taking the risk i gave this guy like 50 caveats and he thanked me afterwards for weighing all the weighing all the risks for him um but I remember saying to him and this is something I've said to lots of applicants who maybe have you know are are really borderline but I think someone if they see it in the right light will get it i say "Hey I think you are the type of applicant i'm not saying you're going to get in i'm saying that if they're going to accept an applicant with that 610 it's got to be someone like you if they're going to accept that applicant who's got some volatility in their career path it's got to be someone like you." Right um so I had an applicant I want to share an applicant who kind of doesn't fit the the typical model or the the the real standout in everything that he does but he had a he had I believe a 2.6 2.7 GPA right very very high GMAT score i'm going to say 760 plus in the old GMAT right um but that's not like there are other 760s out there right uh he he had strong different work experience actually came from a bit of a sales background with tech companies it wasn't it wasn't like mind-blowing work experience he wasn't discovering the cure to a disease but he he was a little different and I believe that he got in and I think this is something that that we were talking about the pre-show uh but I believe that he got in just by showing really consistent and thoughtful interest in this program he applied the school had an early application he applied early he didn't just

event he didn't he wasn't there and shaking hands and kissing babies he was just there and he was engaged and he slowly made himself known to the admissions office and made his interest known to the admissions office and um he ended up working with with our colleague Johnny actually okay and uh and they worked very closely together he interviewed very well he just there was a lot of focus on the school and it was expressed in a way that wasn't just like I want to go to your school it's great right right right i think I had a similar experience again with somebody who had a 620 and honestly he made it very clear this was the school for him and these were the exact reasons why so there was none of that sort of fuzzy handwaving language i want to be with smart people in an entrepreneurial place he was very very specific he really went I tell people go beyond the website really understand what's happening at the school talk to people if you can drop a few names in like my client did he knew people dropping dropping those names in doesn't mean just dropping those names it means contextualizing them and explaining that you have had meaningful conversations just saying like I spoke to Harold and MIT sounds awesome I spoke to Harold and he described his exp his experience as part of the you you know private equity lab and he noted that this would be you know this would be uh you know particularly impactful to my desire to learn dot dot dot like you're contextualizing your examples and then I think you're backing it up with like MIT for example asks you who you've spoken to in the community it actually asks you in the application yeah so if you're saying like hey I really want to go to MIT and I haven't spoken to anyone in the community you're not really saying you want to go to MIT right and then you have a tool that you use or at least a technique that you use which is you go into the essays or you go into the other piece of the application and you have someone change the name of the school and if it still sounds legitimate then at that point it's like you have not done what you need to do to indicate this is the school for you right too generic if you can just copy and paste another school and it works with your essays for sure absolutely one thing I will add and we do this all the time is someone with a low GPA what they really need to do is prove their academic abilities this notion here of they can take a class they can actually succeed in it so at that point we frequently recommend do some sort of online class yeah yeah for sure you've got you're not going to get in like it's not like the school is saying we have to wait for the 610 and we're going to let this person in what they're saying is we need a 610 to be just not perfect but like to be extraordinary in all other ways and if you're not if your 610 you know GMAT is is not showing quantum abilities you got to you got to lead a horse to water you got you got to you got to give them something exactly right and you have to be self-reflective in some ways you have to be able to say "Hey listen i know my academic uh G or I know my GPA is lower than maybe you wanted but you know what i can do classwork i am smart let me prove that to you." And that's always this question here of you may say something but it's always prove it to me show that to me you tell me you want to go to this school prove it to me right and that's the same thing with your academic abilities right i mean that's part So I mean I think what we're really saying is execution becomes absolutely critical it's critical for everyone but it becomes like if you if you've got a stats problem everything else has to be strong and especially your your execution let's so let's talk about others we're talking okay I think we put we can put we can go through examples cows come home on stats but but I think we're people are generally getting a sense of of where we're going with this let's talk about applicants who may be too old too young uh you know those types of applicants right right right and both of us always have them so I'm going to give you some examples of too old and too young i tell folks if you are too young chronologically you have to prove to them that you're an old soul that you're deep in your career that you sort of know what the future looks like for you even though you're only 23 years old if you are two years into your career and you are an entrepreneur and you sold your company and now you can take a take a break and you like now's the time for me well you're you're at an advanced stage in your career and I mean that entrepreneur example is obviously an extreme example but you know if you have this like incredible history of leadership uh you you know you ran student government uh when you were on campus and now you're you know you're two years into a marketing career and you got a promotion ahead of schedule or something like that maybe maybe now is the time for you right and also maybe not but may but maybe right and also you know where you're going with this notion here it's not just okay I know in the world that I am right now I need an MBA to check my box right right or to get my ticket bunch that's really not what they're looking with with young candidates what they're looking with for are folks who like you say are mature in their career have really shown some leadership but also they they're ready for business school they don't have to spend another two or three years doing what they're doing they're really ready and they are ready to say after business school I will do A I will do B and they're able to say it in a very credible way and again like I don't I don't I'm not trying to always be playing glasses half empty here because we we get letters every year from like dozens of people saying thank you for for giving the extra nudge to apply but like I think with applicants like that who are younger we're also cautious to say look like we think there's something here but you just have to be prepared you have to know that you might be a relicant and like that might be fine like the schools are not they're not hostile to reapplicants they like reapplicants so if you're early in your career and you're showing a lot of promise yep you know you like go for it um I mean there are deferred programs where you can apply really early and that's that's risk-free but if you're a year if you're two years into your career that's that's it's rare to have someone who's two years into their career uh you know getting into getting into business school you have to be extraordinary right and you know it may happen it it it may not we'll do our best for you of course right right right listen I think one of the issues if you're only two or three years into your career is business schools are worried when you get into that classroom what sort of value you going to add at the end of the day you just you just have not had that life experience right and that's why you can't be a one a one-year banker applying because there's others with with with more experience in that field you have to be that kind of standout right and the flip side is what happens if you're 30 31 32 33 years old and are you quote too old and I'm someone who went back to business school when I was 31 right and the and the reason it worked for me and the reason that it works for folks who are quote older is because they've had careers they've had careers that in many ways there's been momentum to them it didn't make sense for them to go to business school things were just going too well yeah and at that point though once you hit a certain age and things have plateaued go to business school a perfect example is I had an applicant who was solidly into his 30s and in many ways he was told many many times go for that executive MBA right but he really wanted a two-year MBA and what we had to communicate was this notion of the reason he has not yet gone to business school is because he was still learning in his job he was really having great success he was really you know growing with his career there were great reasons for him to keep on doing what he was doing but we also had to communicate the fact that he was plateauing that if he was really going to advance his career if he was really going to get the skills he wanted then he really needed to go to business school and where do where did he end up uh he ended up at I cannot say specifically but let me just say it was one of the one of the one of the top that that everyone applies to i remember talking to the old the the former director of admissions at at Harvard Business School um or maybe two admissions directors ago and I remember her saying to me like I would I would run across the street to meet someone who was sing who was senior in manufacturing she's like there are certain like certain industries where you just gain so much from being deep into your career and I I think another thing to keep in mind with with older applicants by the way I think I was the we're perfect bookings cuz you're you were an older applicant i was a younger applicant i applied with it with with with two years of experience and I was a speech writer there weren't other speech writers in the class i was able to show some unusual experience but um a lot of people look at the look at the class profile and the demographic breakdown and they say "Well there's no one like me i'm like I'm 32 I'm 33 I'm 34." Some of that self- selection like some of that is just a lot of people at that point in their career they're deep enough in their career they don't have the time to go back they don't want to the opportunity cost is high maybe they have family and and they can't move people across the country uh you know so they're they're kind of there aren't there aren't a lot of applicants in their 30s now I do think it becomes prohibitive you know as you get deeper into your 30s they are starting to say maybe an executive program is better for you you have to you have you have to sell them on that right um I had an awesome applicant who I think straddles a lot of what we're talking about here she was an older applicant she had a very unusual uh career profile u she worked I can't give too many details about her but she came from a very traditional family that basically a very religious family that basically said work is not for women there only certain kinds of work that are for women and she worked in that field for a period of time and she kind of became her own human being and and just forged her own identity and became a business person and and risk severing dies with her family over that and ultimately actually started quite a remarkable company and she was able to say look like I'm deep into my career because my career didn't start and like I represent so much She almost said "Treat me like I am a I like my career started yesterday i'm three years into my career instead of this unusual career that isn't wasn't really traditional for business school beforehand." And she was mid30s unusual career trajectory but was able to say like "Look there's a high potential person here." That's right and she got into a top 15 program uh she got into two top 15 programs i I think it's important to say the people we're talking about here they didn't all just like completely run the board on this one and get into every school like a lot of them are you know a lot of these applicants are getting into a school here a school there um that's all it takes but but like you know sometimes I I say about these applicants they're binary right like I I say look the admissions officer they're going to read your file they're going to get it or they're not that I think that's absolutely right we have that a lot actually it's not like it's a cohort there's no cohort of women who come from very religious uh homes where their parents didn't want them working in certain fields and then they decide they start a business there aren't you know there aren't cohorts of uh you know you get you get my point but like so so I think it's like each one is binary and and so they don't all get into every program that's right which actually indicates maybe the need and I want to be very gentle here as I say this where you have to throw the Hail Mary in your application you basically have to take the risk in your application yeah because otherwise there's sort of on paper there's almost no reason to accept you you really have to push admissions committee to say I'm going to take a chance on this person because I love this person is so interesting so exciting yeah i mean I I think back to to again a couple years ago twins were applying both had had low GMATs um one was one was in range internationals one had very strong real estate background ended up at at at Wharton the other one I remember saying to him like "We don't we generally speaking do not say apply broadly we want you to apply in a targeted way we don't say add schools." This guy we just said "Look you're an absolutely phenomenal applicant someone is going to get it right but we don't know who." And so if you really want to be in business school you're going to have to apply more broadly and he did he appi he applied to to a a large number of programs and ultimately I believe two schools let him in out of like nine yeah um and this is years ago but I believe he went to Berkeley Hos um I should look him up quite quite a nice guy uh you know so I think I think you have to think strategically like it's it's not like hey there's there's a home for anyone who has you know one big quirk in their profile you got to think strategically right and and also one way that you mitigate risk and I hate to say it even though this is somewhat self- serving but I'm not sure that it is you have to apply a lot of schools yeah i mean it depends who you are or you just have to accept the fact you might not be in school right cuz like if you're saying like look I've got a I've got a 620 and I'm amazing and everyone knows I'm amazing i would still say to that person if you're only apply to Harvard and Stanford like you know you can't go in expecting you're going to be in school next year we can do our best i think you're the type of applicant who's going to get in with it who who I think the type of applicant who if they're going to let in that 620 it's going to be someone like you or the 610 or that 630 whatever it is but we can't say you're going to be in school next year right and and listen I think also many of these applicants you have to be very realistic in the sense of are you looking to go to a particular school or are you looking to change your career and sometimes even change your life and what I mean by that is I had one applicant she was a woman she was solidly into her 30s her GMAT was not great at the same point so we we have that as background at the same point she said to me Harold I'm living in Northern California my life is not great now meaning that she just lost her job her sadly she had a member of her family die um and at this point it's the only time I've ever had somebody from Northern California telling me "I have to get out of here as opposed to everyone wanting to go to Northern California." And I said to her quite honestly there are many schools that where you will end up as a success story and even though you may not have quote even heard of some I mean I've heard of all of them you may not have heard of some the reality is is you can still be a success story so she ended up applying to a school she wanted to go into healthcare she ended up applying to a school with a fourletter name i'm not going to say which school that is though there's a couple that fit that bill uh that was a top 20 school and it's either Owen or Olan by the way uh and the reality is she wanted to go into healthcare and it was an incredible an absolute incredible result she's now working in Chicago a great city she's working at the field that exactly she wants to go into right and the reality is is and I keep up with her five years down the line yes there were many reasons we did not expect her to get into a school but she got into the school that did change her life so this is a little bit of a commercial but but at the end of the day people have to understand there is a place for everyone not just in terms of you getting to quote the best school but also you having the best outcome yeah if you one thing people have to keep in mind is there there is a program for you as long as you want to go to business school and after that a lot of it just has to do with like effective planning going into school you know so if you're not at your target school and you really want to get somewhere you have to really be working building that network before you get to school and identifying who the recruiters are on campus and identifying who's not there's a lot more leg work to get you where you want to go you can still get there yeah I mean listen mckenzie Bane and BCG right now are recruiting at practically every top 50 business goal i mean they're recruiting and that's something interesting like that's going to change a lot with AI because I I know one firm has started to dabble with AI interviews you can do a lot of AI interviews for a lot of people at a lot of different schools that's right if if it's just giving you some inputs you know based on based on on what they're picking up for the interview uh you can do a lot of those interviews and you can start drawing from anywhere so I think that's going to be an interesting aspect of AI if you want to be one of our success stories sign up for a free consultation with a member of our full-time MBA admissions team since we've worked with tens of thousands of applicants over the past two decades we can give you our honest opinion on your chances and help you put together your very best application that is not a sales call but rather your first session with one of us for free we can give you a profile evaluation answer specific questions about the process review your resume talk about your school choices and so much more sign up at mbmission.com/cconult we look forward to working with you so far we've been sort of talking about longshot applicants but there are other kinds of applicants who surprised us i think one of them is the applicant who takes a risk like a a solid applicant but who really takes a thoughtful risk not just a risk to take a risk not just a wild risk to stand out but who takes a thoughtful risk in presenting themselves to the admissions committee i I I think you have one that that uh that you mentioned in the past yeah it so this was a person who really had to take a risk in the sense of he was quote in an overrepresented demographic though the first thing I tell my clients who quote think they're an overrepresented demographic I say there is no overrepresented demographic you are you are a demographic of one that's true that is fair it's not just like Sesame Street language taught like that there every applicant has the ability in in really mining their experiences to stand to to to do their best to stand out like you can no one has your walk your personal walk through life exactly right it's a human process it's a personal process you have to make that connection in any case I had a client of mine who over represented demographic he had the stats sort of and what I mean by that is for his demographic his stats were not going to get him in it just wasn't for some for some folks a 750 GMAT or the old 750 GMAT is sort of table stakes it's like you need that for even them to read to read your application um and I think the reality though is this person he took a theme and he really pushed what it meant to him for him communication was very important and what he did in a great essay one of our best I would say one of our essays that really did I think believe God a man is he said "Communication for me comes in many different forms one is art." So in his essay itself he had a small picture of a painting that was very meaningful for him he said he worked in in a quantitative field he said "Numbers communicate to me." He then wrote a piece of his essay about an actual mathematical formula that we put in the essay itself and again you don't do these things because they're gimmicks you do these things because it really helps explain who you are and why you should right like as I'm listening this I'm thinking about two things i'm thinking one you're going to have anyone who's listening this is going to say I'm going to put start put pictures in it's like don't don't do that don't do that we never see pictures two is I'm like as you say it I'm like oh no you put a picture in and it shows you again that this was a thoughtful risk for this person contextualized appropriately for this person and that's like a that might be a focus group of one like I it would take a lot for me to say to someone yes put in put in a picture into your into your application it worked in this precise oh my god how did you do that also for this particular school at the end of the day certain schools will react to these things much differently and you also have to be cognizant of that as you think about your essays what it means to take a risk at different schools certainly right i I had a I had an applicant who uh his his essay is actually in our book of of GSB HBS successful essays it's a great book by all means folks should download it it's free now two lessons from it and in some ways they're in conflict the first lesson is that these are great essays they're really enjoyable to read they're captivating you really get to understand who the person is the other point that I want to make here is there is no formula do not read these essays and see hey I have to do exactly like what was done on page 30 right and that's not true of you right because we're trying to find the things that are interesting so if you look up the the the uh the essay by Lucas I think it's L U K A S It's a disguised name and some of the details are disguised uh in the in the essay but that essay is so forceful this individual is so clear on who he is and he writes about it's one of my favorite essays ever and he and he writes about how truth is the most important thing for in in applying to Stanford and how it was so important to him as someone who was not a believer in God even though he was in a religious country to that he he had to he had to have his name removed from the baptismal book he didn't want to be a part of the the state religion yeah and then he talked about how truth just that is a risk that is a risk like you might be reading that saying this is an individual who is going to be constantly railroading people with his values he if he feels he has to express this or you might say this is a really empowered person who's got a very strong point of view on the world and he talks about in this essay about how this quest for truth was deeply empowering and allowed him to actually call out several frauds in companies that he was covering he was like this the math doesn't make sense this this company cannot be operating in this kind of way and so that kind of fierce personal belief in truth also manifest in in in an empowered career we talked about this a lot and he again he was such a true such he was so it's ironic or interestingly he was such a deep truth was so important and he said I'm going with this this is who I am I have to live this and if they don't like it they don't get me as an applicant and and uh he ended up getting into two of three two of three schools that you would you would suspect you would suspect um and just an amazing guy but you know it was risky and and and and we we agreed that it was risky but But where there was risk he had very very clearly defined who he was and and I've read that essay obviously and what I found interesting it is he did bring some of those struggles up to the present that he really made it clear why he wasn't going to divinity school you made a clear white business school and I think that's always an important point with this notion here of again very human process and the realities is yes take risks in your essays or somewhere else in your application but you do have to bring it to this notion of I'm going to business school here's what I want to do here is what my narrative is and in many ways that also what's makes a uh successful candidate is this notion of everything makes sense when all said and done right and then I think it's important to note that there are some surprises among over represented groups Yeah look they're going to let in a couple of a couple hundred uh you know private equity applicants across the top seven schools like they're going to they're going to bring in some they're going to bring in a couple hundred consultants and so among those groups there are going to be some who who surprise who you're like whoa okay this is this is the type of applicant who you know maybe didn't do anything totally extraordinary but just again like like as a as a group as like a as an in aggregate is like I I think that they're going to see something here needless to say there are many private equity applicants there simply are it's the nature of the industry clearly the acceptance rate for P applicants is not 100% so there is a need for even those folks to really make themselves stand out so I guess so in terms of applicants who surprised you from that group right because it's a high achieving group so can anyone truly be surprising aside from like low GPA low GMAT no no i think that's right one of my private equity clients who was fine he was a super nice guy and I think that probably shown through in some ways his GPA was a little low his GMA was a little bit low everything about him was sort of uh a B and relative to other people yeah exactly relative to other people and again wonderful person but he he played in a very small piece of a very large industry and he was really able to explain why that very small piece of very large industry was really interesting to him and it was really able to show how he had become an expert in it and his recommenders said he had become an expert in this we go to him as being the thought leader in the firm we go to him to really look at deals in a very serious way and from that perspective business school said "Okay this guy is he has what he needs we like private equity folks." But the reality is he's bringing some very unique knowledge into the classroom and and again he was sort of playing big if you will right in this notion here of he was he was speaking to the investment committee he was going to talk to clients he was going to talk about poss possible acquisitions and that is great great great experience right I think about like I think about a consulting applicant I had with um again like a lower GMAT but she I I think just it's it's it sounds it's impossible to describe but I think just just won the admissions committee over with competence just it just oozed confidence just like everything she she did was just done exceptionally well and validated through recommendations so she just seemed to have some very strong project experience but then also had like really strong um internal leadership of of internal initiatives that were run by the COO like so it it was it was like it wasn't that she was a wild surprise it's within a cohort of individuals

and then as you start to dig you're like "Okay this is an applicant who among this pool may not be there statistically like may not have those what I always call like turns the dial statistically but like wasn't far enough away that it was dreadful right?" And then just really outperformed professionally and ultimately like that outperformance was meaningful yeah and so she's surprised in a positive way in that like maybe less competitive relative to a peer group in the superficial ways that you expect mean something to the admissions committee when they don't always mean something to the admissions committee when competence ultimately means everything and I I use confidence in quotes because you know competence just means like this like oozing throughout her application of like I just do things better you can see it yeah and listen I think competence has to get to the application itself if you're applying to some of the top schools you have to do a really good application and it just doesn't mean that maybe there's no typos though actually we've seen typos people still get it yeah not the end of the world it really means there's alignment in terms of all the different pieces of the application it's showing one person it's showing one person who does many things very very well in this case I'm assuming with the applicant here is they show competence but also they do many things very well and things fit together in their life yeah i guess when I say confidence it's like it's this umbrella term for like wow this is a really capable person yes i think we covered a ton here we covered a bunch of different applicants lower GPA and GMATs people of unusual careers um applicants are taking taking risks older applicants younger applicants right right right i think we and also the reality is is that never right off a school or never write off business school more generally admittedly you have to tell a great story you do have there are certain minimums you certainly have to hit but the reality is is come on apply to that school if you want to go somewhere apply to it just do a really good job yeah i I think I think uh you know the old the old uh corny uh quote attributed to Wayne Gretzky you know you miss 100% of the shots you take right and so we will definitely tell you if there's a big risk out there there's no question and we will tell you if like I I've said to someone before I'm I'm not saying I I'm not saying you're not going to get in i I would bet against you like I've got to be honest with you i would bet against you that said there are other people I would say "Hey I I think I see something great here." And I think that an admissions committee could see it too and I think that they're going to accept someone who has this you know whatever blemish you perceive you have this this kind of discombobulated career narrative or they're going to accept someone who has this lower GPA whatever it is if they're going to do that it's going to be someone like you and we will tell you that absolutely and if that is you we will encourage you we'll give you all the all under explain all the risks and we will encourage you and let may the chips fall where they may and and and then maybe they can be a disguised anecdote on our podcast one day exactly one day jeremy thank you very much