MBA Wire Taps 466: 309 GRE, from Colombia. DUI, can it be overcome? Booth vs Harvard

In this week's MBA Admissions podcast we began by discussing the current state of the MBA admissions season. Twenty-nine leading MBA programs have an application deadline during this upcoming week! In fact, the only top schools without deadlines this week are NYU / Stern, MIT / Sloan, Texas / McCombs, USC / Marshall and INSEAD - and these programs all have deadlines next week or the following week.

Graham highlighted MBA webinar events that are on the horizon that Clear Admit is hosting. The first webinar looks at the enduring value of the MBA. The second series of events is for deferred admissions candidates who are currently completing their first degrees. As always, signups are for our events are here: https://www.clearadmit.com/events

Graham noted a news story recently published on Clear Admit which takes stock of the past year and looks ahead to MBA predictions for 2026. These predictions, from the Clear Admit team, include a shift in the admissions process that focuses more on areas of the process that cannot be impacted by AI, the possibility that the GRE becomes the most popular MBA admissions test, and the notion that b-schools will continue to roll out specialized masters to help young professionals get the tools needed in today's workforce. Graham also noted four MBA admissions tips, focusing on scholarship negotiations, the data forms, optional essays, and how to show an MBA program that you’ve done the research on their offering.

Graham then noted a Real Humans piece spotlighting students from the University of St Gallen MBA in Switzerland. We then discussed two recently published Class of 2025 employment reports from Wharton and Columbia.

For this week, for the candidate profile review portion of the show, Alex selected two ApplyWire entries and one DecisionWire entry:

This week’s first MBA admissions candidate appears to have an interesting background, from Colombia. However, we fear that their 309 GRE score will harm their chances at the very top MBA programs.

This week’s second MBA applicant is an investment banker and has a very strong background. But they have a DUI from their university days. We discussed those implications.

This week’s final MBA candidate has several offers from leading MBA programs. They are seriously weighing the offers between Booth (with $130K scholarship and a dual degree offer) and Harvard.

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!