In this episode of Business Casual, the hosts kick off the New Year with bold predictions for 2025. They dive into how business schools are adapting to the increasing use of generative AI in applications, with a spotlight on the shift towards video essays to preserve the integrity of the application process. The discussion also covers the evolving landscape of MBA recruitment, highlighting an expected increase in AI-driven business roles and the impact of immigration policies on international students. 

The hosts discuss the strategic adjustments that educational institutions are making to accommodate these changes, emphasizing the ongoing importance of innovative and flexible education models in ensuring robust career opportunities for graduates.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:06.960] – John

Hi, I’m John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Happy New Year. It’s 2025, and we have a bunch of predictions for you. I’m here with my co-host, Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte-Edwards. As you well know, if you are listening to our podcast over the years that we’ve been doing it, Caroline is the former Managing Director of Admissions at and the co-founder of Fortuna Admissions, and Maria is the founder of Applicant Lab. We’re going to just go through and look into the future of this year and tell you folks what we see. Now, I’m thinking I’m going to have Maria go first. Maria, what do you think? What’s your top guess for the year?

[00:00:52.330] – Maria

I don’t know about top guess. There are lots of guesses to dig into today. But one thing was, it was interesting, I decided to look at last year’s prediction episode that we did and see how many of those things came true. Unfortunately, a lot of the sadder things came true. But so picking one of them that we touched upon last year, but that we definitely saw become a significant trend, and I do believe this is a trend that will expand in 2025, is schools’ reaction reaction to the use of generative AI in the essay writing process and issues to combat it. Combating it primarily through the usage of, say, video essays or giving people, say, an extra video that they have to create or an analysis they have to create after they’ve been invited to interview. Off the top of my head, one top school that comes to mind is Sloan, MIT Sloan has always had, or not always, but for several years, has had this 60-second pre-prepared video where you introduce yourself. But now this year, they also introduced an additional spontaneous video. I think not simply videos that can be pre-prepared and edited and edited ad nauseam, but these spontaneous, these CuraTalent type platform videos where you don’t know in advance exactly what you’re getting, I think there will be more and more use of those going forward.

[00:02:15.950] – Maria

I would not be surprised if we see more schools adopting it and the schools that already have it, perhaps making it a larger component of the application, say maybe three or five questions instead of just one.

[00:02:27.040] – John

Totally agree. I think Caroline does, too, based on her recent article, Looking Ahead, Poets and Quants. Caroline?

[00:02:35.950] – Caroline

Yeah, I think those video questions are really useful for the schools, and often they’re quite short, right? So they’re often just one or two minutes recording. And what I’ve heard from the admissions teams at the schools is that they can glean quite a lot from that short little recording. And so in terms of evaluating a candidate and how much time they have to spend wading through lots of material, skills is actually quite efficient for them in gathering input. And yes, it’s something that the candidates can’t game in the system. And that’s also becoming more common at the undergraduate level as well. More schools are introducing video questions at the undergraduate level, probably partly, again, they’re concerned about candidates using AI for their essays, but also as an alternative to interviews. Of course, face-to-face interviews are very, very time consuming, and it’s a lot of work to organize, even if you have alumni volunteers doing it. They are a limited capacity, limited resource as well. Those video questions that Maria mentioned can be a great alternative to face-to-face or Zoom videos as well, interviews. So I think that’s going to be an ongoing trend that we will continue to see this year.

[00:04:01.800] – Caroline

Something that we’ve talked about recently was the recruitment statistics for schools. So a job placement, the stats coming out of the… Even the very top schools this past season haven’t been fantastic for the class of 2024. But I think that that’s probably a low watermark in the cycle. And as we’ve discussed, it is always cyclical, right? And I think that the market will pick up for graduates coming out in 2025. So I think a number of firms had over-recruited for some years and had made some layoffs. And I think they’ve made those adjustments now, and they’ll be looking to bring in a new batch of talent. So I think that firms like the tech firms and finance, I think that they will be recruiting greater numbers in 2025 than in 2024.

[00:04:58.180] – John

Yeah, totally agree. And I think AI and all of its implications for business is going to result in a significant upturn in consulting business. And the consulting firms, which obviously routinely grab the most MBA applicants, at least the top MBA applicants, are going to be very hungry for new talent that is knowledgeable about AI and its usage. The current crop of MBAs is the beneficiary of a lot of reform in curricula in and around generative AI. So I think that that’s going to be a big change this coming recruitment season. I’ve already heard from different employment people saying they’re seeing the early signs of that in terms of internships, signups, visits back to campus for the wine and cheese events to introduce themselves to MBA students. The other thing I think this year, which is very top of mind, is what will the Trump administration do? And there’s increasing anxiety among international students and applicants over everything from the F1 student visa to H1B work visas to OPT, optional practical training, which, of course, allows an international student in a STEM job to have three years of full-time employment in the US, and therefore, three shots at the lottery for an H1B visa.

[00:06:41.170] – John

I’m going to predict that despite all the concerns and all the worries and whatever effect the uncertainty has on the ROI for international candidates, that this is going to be much ado about nothing. I think it’s very hard to change. You’ve got dissenting voices all over the place. You’ve got Elon Musk yelling and arguing about H-1B visas and that the administration shouldn’t change them. Of course, you have Steve Banon now at war with Elon Musk, so who knows what’s going to happen there. But I don’t think they’re going to disturb the H-1B visa program. I don’t think they’re going to disturb the F-1 student visa program. I really very much doubt that they could eliminate OPT. In part because these are highly skilled people. The United States needs these folks. And even Trump has been issuing contradictory statements. At one point, he actually said that anyone who comes to the country and gets a graduate degree should be given an automatic H-1B visa, never mind having to apply for it. So I think that all the concerns will basically evaporate. There may be some initial tricky things like bans from certain countries. He imposed a ban, mainly on Muslim countries last time, and that included Nigeria, which is a new hotspot for MBA recruitment.

[00:08:13.110] – John

So we may see that. But in general, if you’re from India or China or any other African country other than Nigeria, I don’t think you need to worry all that much about restrictions on either getting in here and being a student or getting employment if you graduate with a STEM-designated degree. Caroline, you agree? You’re an internationalist. What do you think?

[00:08:38.940] – Caroline

Well, I think that would be sensible, but I think the one thing about Trump is predictable is that it’s unpredictable. So, who knows? I suspect that they will probably make more of a fanfare of going after illegal immigrants and deporting some of those people rather than targeting visas for people who are coming in for study and who have great degrees and looking to stay in the country. Also not recognizing the fact that much of the economy relies on those illegal immigrants. So we will see how that plays out and what impact that has. But I would think that probably that will be a bigger focus for the Trump administration. But who knows?

[00:09:24.190] – John

The other related issue is that some students felt unwelcome last time because of only anti-immigration rhetoric. And I would say the support and encouragement of racist and misogynist attitudes in the last administration, which led to the feeling that many internationals were unwelcome in the United States. And I just want to… For people who don’t know the United States, I want to let you know that every university campus, by and large, is very welcoming, very accepting, very diverse, and very inclusive, and that even if in some parts of the country, Trump is able to whip up some anti-immigrant fervor, you’re unlikely to encounter it in a top business school in the United States. The business call is value diversity, whether it’s geographic or racial or gender. They’re struggling to achieve more of it. People who come here are very much welcomed and included as if they were born here. I want to dispel this myth of this unwelcoming attitude in America because you have Trump will be in office. You’re not going to see much of that in a great university campus. Maria, what’s your next big prediction for the year?

[00:11:02.670] – Maria

I regret that this is one of my predictions, but one of my predictions is RIPESG. I’m a little concerned that we’ve seen even in the past few weeks since the election, major corporations are not simply scaling back, especially their DEI efforts. Maybe it should be RIPESG, DEI, Alphabetsoup, ABC, 1, 2, 3. But I do think that it’s one I don’t think if some of these companies started scaling back some of these efforts, but we’ve actually seen reports of companies eliminating these departments entirely when it comes to diversity and inclusion. I do believe that for sustainability as well, if a company’s heart has never truly been in the green/ecofriendly sustainability route, now I think there’s a feeling of, we don’t have to pretend anymore that we care about Mother Earth. Thank goodness. I do think that a lot of these initiatives initiatives are going to be scaled back. I do think that these initiatives are still important. We still need a planet to live on. There is still evidence that diverse groups do tend to outperform homogenous groups. It’s similar to portfolio management theory when you’ve got your retirement funds and you’re like, Oh, so how much should be in stocks and how much should be in bonds?

[00:12:23.410] – Maria

The usual advice is you want to be well diversified. Sometimes it’s more trendy to say that than at other times, but the reality is that the diversification is always a good thing, even when it’s not perhaps the most trendy thing that the pundits on the networks are talking about. I feel the same way about diversity and inclusion efforts in corporate America. I do think, though, I do think that it’s still important. It’s still part of a way to generate healthy ideas and strong returns. However, I do think that a lot of the efforts that the schools have been making to perhaps, for example, have a diversity and inclusion made or a lot of formal coursework around some of these topics. At least in the US, I do think this will start to not go away. It won’t go away, but I do think that it will be less of a focus, which, by the way, I do also think provides an excellent opportunity for the European programs to highlight that on their marketing as a point of diversification, I should say. Like, hey, these things, whether or not they’re trendy or not, they’re still actually truly important.

[00:13:30.290] – Maria

If you want to learn about how to incorporate these principles into your business going forward, come and get your MBA in Europe where we are going to be teaching you about these things because we are still taking them more seriously. I hope that I hope I’m wrong on this one, by the way. I hope that this position is wrong.

[00:13:48.560] – John

I think you are right. I buy into that, given this administration. But here’s what I would say to that. The companies that will likely abandon ESG efforts or diminish them are the companies you I probably didn’t want to go work for in the first place because truly progressive companies know that this is here to stay. It’s important. It’s important to the customers, it’s important to the environment, and it’s important to a new generation of people who are very much concerned about sustainability and equality. I think those companies are likely to preserve and understand that this is a temporary setback due to the election of an administration, and it’s only temporary, and that there will inevitably be a backlash against this administration and its policies. I think that really progressive companies will retain their interest and focus and attention on these issues. It’s the greenwashers, the greenwashers that are going to immediately abandon them and say goodbye. Of course, the brown nosers. We’ve a bunch of these folks out there. I’ll put up right out there, Metta, Mark Zuckerberg. He’s one of the biggest brown noses out there, along with Elon Musk and a bunch of these other tech pros, all of which will get their comeuppance, I guarantee you.

[00:15:15.130] – John

They will all get it. It’s just in due time. But that’s not a business education story. That’s a whole other story. But it’s going to happen. I guarantee it. Caroline?

[00:15:25.480] – Caroline

Yeah, I agree. I think there will be some differentiation in companies that where some of them will stick with their principles and their values, and some of them who are throwing them out the window because Maria said that it was always a bit half-hearted in any case. And so I think there’s going to be more of a divergence. And I think Apple came out and said that they are sticking with their DEI policies. So hopefully, some of the recruiters will take the longer term perspective. And also, it’s something that we see that candidates really care about. I don’t think that that is changing. I mean, the young people that we work with who are applying to business school, so many of them care very deeply about these values and want to have a positive impact on the world. And that’s a big driver for them in going to business school. So that also gives me hope that that is still a key value for the younger generation, for so many of the people that are heading off to these business schools. So I think that schools will have to try to find a line, but I think the student interest is still there.

[00:16:37.190] – John

Yeah. And what about the point that if you’re interested in sustainability, you’re better off at a European school because clearly the European schools are leaders in this area.

[00:16:48.980] – Caroline

Yeah. I mean, so INSEAD has really completely overhauled their curriculum and embedded sustainability throughout. And it’s key to the approach to other business schools like Oxford as well. But you also do have some of the US schools. So we’ve talked in the past about Ross and how they have embedded sustainability, and that’s been a key area for them for many years. I think that in Europe, sustainability will just continue to be more mainstream, and I think it has been, in any case, more mainstream, even under the Biden administration. I think sustainability and environmental concerns have been more mainstream for many years in Europe than they have in the US. I think that will just continue. There’ll be a bit more of a divergence for the next four years.

[00:17:41.720] – John

What about application volume to full-time MBA programs? There was a bounce back this past year. Do we expect that to be sustained? Do we expect a leveling off? Do we expect a decline? Maria?

[00:17:56.760] – Maria

I think between the less than stellar There are jobs reports that came out or that are coming out for the class of 2024, combined with trepidation around immigration policy, combined with trepidation around, well, will things like tariffs ultimately provide a, perhaps temporary, but a diminishment in the overall US economy. It’s argumental. One could say long-term, should we love them or hate them? I think even people who support tariffs acknowledge, at least one pundit I was listening to on CNBC the other day, would acknowledge that he’s pro-tariff, but even he said, Yeah, it makes things really painful in the short term. I suspect if I had to choose, I would think maybe applications might go down, but you never know. I mean, some other… If Trump comes out and says, If you study in the US and get a graduate degree, you get an automatic H-1B, the floodgates are going to open because then the cost-benefit analysis becomes a It’s a go-brainer. Then I do think that you will see an enormous increase. It all depends on which way the wind is blowing and which policies actually get implemented versus not. But if we take anti-immigrants or anti international sentiment and some of the other factors I mentioned, I think they might be down.

[00:19:22.380] – Maria

I do think there’s an absolute concern. I was talking to someone who in round one got into Carnegie Mellon Tepper, which, as you know, is an amazing program in the Carnegie Mellon Umbrella University as one of the leaders in AI and computer science. I think really a rising star. But they also got into a M7 type of school, and they were debating with me. I was like, Look, normally, I would say, Pick the M7 school, go with the higher quality if that’s what you’re going for. But this time I was like, Honestly, if you look at the recruiting, and I actually to someone who had made a similar decision a few years ago, a client of mine who had made a similar decision a few years ago, and that client said, Look, in any other year prior to 2024, I would have said, Hands down, take out the extra debt, go to that top five school or whatever, and just take the debt and go with it. But he said, Look, the recruiting environment in tech and so many other places is just so uncertain right now that I think if I were Five years ago, I made the decision I made, and I stand by it, but if I were making that decision today, I think I would take the scholarship at the- At Carnegie Mellon.

[00:20:38.750] – Maria

At Carnegie Mellon, just because it is- Over an M7. Yeah.

[00:20:42.050] – John

Where you pay full freight.

[00:20:43.440] – Maria

Full freight, essentially full freight. I think that these more challenging, if I were to be more diplomatic about it, which is hard for me to do, but these more challenging recruitment numbers, it does start to bring the costs of the program into a much sharper focus than might have been in the past. If those things continue and if the ROI just isn’t an obvious slam dunk argument, then I think things will go down. However, H-1B is for everyone. Look out. It’s going to be an avalanche.

[00:21:17.520] – John

Caroline, putting your fingers into the wind. Which way is a wind blowing for you on this?

[00:21:23.150] – Caroline

Yeah, well, who knows? But maybe a little bit more optimistic than Maria. I feel like maybe applications will be steady this year. My best guess is we won’t see any big upswing or any big downturn. So my best guess is probably numbers not unsimilar to last year.

[00:21:42.570] – John

Right. But flat, right?

[00:21:44.250] – Caroline

Yes. Yeah.

[00:21:45.850] – John

I think, yeah, I don’t see another increase. I think both of you are right. It’s going to be flat or slightly down, and it could be more than slightly down, depending on what the Trump administration does early on, which, of course, you’ve already heard, I’m predicting they’ll do nothing because they have so many other fights that they’re going to be imbroiled and embedded in in the way that’s going to drag them down. The truth is, the majorities in the House and the Senate are so slim and their party is so dysfunctional that I don’t think you’re going to be able to ram very much through. That doesn’t mean that Trump himself, through executive orders, won’t create a good deal of havoc. I’m sure that is a certainty. But hopefully the havoc won’t involve hurting what is one of the jewels of America, it’s higher education system for sure. I also think in this coming year, we’re going to see continued interest in climate change and sustainability. The fires in LA, as tragic as they have been, I think are going to reignite and major, major concern and change a lot of points of view on the dangers of climate change.

[00:23:08.680] – John

I think, if anything, you’re going to see US schools double down on sustainability and create more degrees in this area, probably joint degrees with their Environmental Studies departments and colleges at the universities. I think this is going to become an even bigger part of the business education landscape than it already has been in the past five years. The other thing is, sadly, there’s no shortage of these natural disasters that are popping up everywhere. Whether there are floods, hurricanes, tornado, wildfires, the world seems filled with disasters, and much of it can be traced to our inability to do anything about the climate and take the measures that are needed to diminish the effects of fossil fuels. You agree with that, Maria?

[00:24:13.700] – Maria

Like I said, I hope you’re right. I hope I’m wrong about the ESG stuff. Look, I’m sitting in one of the cities that’s on fire. I live in Los Angeles. Part of why many of us moved to California in in the first place is because we love the politics here of diversity inclusion, and we love that it is such a sustainable place, and that this is the leader for the nation of sometimes the most cutting-edge regulations around things like fuel economy for vehicles and pollution, curtailing pollution, et cetera. Those of us who live in California are already, many of us, are already on the side of sustainability, and then seeing firsthand I could see the smoke last week billowing from the windows of the We work where I work across town. I hope you’re right. I’ll be the first to bring up my pompoms and cheerleaders if it’s true.

[00:25:15.870] – John

Do we have any more predictions? Caroline, I think there are a couple more in your essay online.

[00:25:21.880] – Caroline

Well, so this year we saw some more programs shifting to shorter formats or hybrid formats, and I think that will be an ongoing growing trend, especially among the mid-tier programs. So I think for people who want to invest the time, effort, and finances in a full-time two-year program, if they’re going to do that, it’s going to be at one of the top schools, and otherwise they may be more tempted to take a hybrid program or an online program or a shorter program. So there are great options now out there for part-time MBA MBAs, wonderful formats for hybrid MBAs. Online MBAs have really grown and proven themselves. So I think that it will be harder for some of the mid-tier schools to sustain full-time two-year programs.

[00:26:17.180] – John

Yeah, there’s going to be a lot more creativity focused on delivery methods. I think Indiana Kelly this past year did their new Flex MBA, which basically allows a student enter their in-person MBA program full-time in the first year and then take all of the second-year courses online or decide, guess what, to just stay and do it all in-person. But that flexibility, I think we’re going to see a lot more of in part because of the cost. Obviously, if you can do the second piece online, you’d have the benefit of a full-time in-person program in the first year when it’s most intense and real strong bonds are formed. Then you don’t lose your opportunity cost in the second because you can become fully employed and earn your degree on the second year. Probably MBA employers would give you credit for that. I don’t think they would discount the fact that when they hire you, you don’t have an MBA, they know you’re in the program. I think they would reward you for it and they would pay you and give you a position that they would have done after the completion of an MBA program. I think we’re going to see more tinkering with delivery methods.

[00:27:31.820] – John

More schools are going to go for stackable degrees, which will allow you to earn credit through these certificates of three courses or even a single course, and then apply it to the degree if you decide to move on and do the degree. I want to see more of that because one of the big stories in business education in the past 10 years is a great flexibility schools have demonstrated in allowing people to many different options to take a degree, whether it be an MBA or a special team master’s degree in business. No doubt we will see more of that. A lot of innovation there in the executive MBA field, in fact, where the old standard, every other weekend, you show up on Friday, you stay Friday night, you stay Saturday, Sunday morning, you leave. That is almost a rare thing today because of the creativity involved in changing that format in many different ways including with online, including with week-long immersions and things like that. I think we’ll just see more and more and more of it. Which leads me to this question. We have said the full-time MBA program is a mature product. Many schools have discontinued it.

[00:28:49.570] – John

Enrollments at many other schools are down. Many schools see it as a lost leader. They’re not making money on it. They actually lose money on their full-time MBA programs, and they keep them open largely because of US news and the ranking that they think. They get a US news ranking, it cast a positive glow over all their programs, so they’re willing to actually subsidize the full-time MBA program and take in small cohorts to get that ranking. Do we see any turnaround in the full-time MBA market? Do we assume that it’s going to stay flat or that it will continue to decline? Caroline?

[00:29:29.960] – Caroline

Well, I think that it will continue to be strong for the top schools. I don’t see any upcoming decline in interest to go to one of the top 2025 programs. But I think at that mid-tier level, that’s going to be more challenging. I think either they will have to make that commitment, as you said, John, to take it as a loss leader or reconsider the format.

[00:29:56.440] – John

If you’re eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, the premium ice cream, you’re But if you go for the generic Safeway ice cream, you might be in trouble if you’re a business educator. Upscale always, not always, but oftentimes is more resistant to downward pressure because obviously there are a lot of benefits to being upscale, prestige, a status item that opens doors that may be other schools because of their brands cannot. Maria, what are you I agree with Caroline.

[00:30:31.790] – Maria

I think the term would be price in elasticity. It means that- You did learn something at Harvard, didn’t you? I actually learned that in undergrad. Crops to Econ, whatever. Whatever it was. But yeah, this idea, the luxury product is always able to command a premium in the market. I think that we can anticipate that that will not change. However, I do think that at the lower levels, if a school is unable to show that value for money, that ROI, that, yes, it totally is worth it for you to come to our two-year in-person program because here’s what’s waiting for you on the other side. If they can’t show that, then I do think that there’s going to be perhaps some more schools in those lower tiers having to close. If I were those schools, I think one thing that maybe they could do, I’m sure they’re doing this already, but really lean on their alumni community to hire the graduates into compelling and interesting and well-paid positions and say to the graduates, Look, even though you graduated 15, 20, 30 years ago, we all suffer. If our school closes down, you worked so hard to get this degree and to be part of this community.

[00:31:47.840] – Maria

But if the school closes down, that cachet that you have had will now also disappear. It’s actually in every one of the community’s best interests for the recent graduates to do well. This isn’t just a, Well, It’s the young kids problem, and I already got my… I’m on my career, so no worries. If I were an MBA program that is, especially one that is struggling, I would really rally the troops in the alumni community and point out to them that, what is it? If the opposite of a rising tide lifts all boats, a sinking tide sinks all boats, a lower tide sinks all boats. Anyway, I would point that out to them and maybe try to motivate them to open up their companies and their pocketbooks and their networks so that that ROI does continue as strong as it has been for decades.

[00:32:34.910] – John

To spend more money on alumni relations and making sure you know where your alumni are, you’re tracking them, they feel embraced by you, they feel welcome, they want to contribute They want to help your current students and graduates. I think you’re right there. That becomes an increasingly important priority for a business school dean to invest more money in alumni relations. I am shocked at some fairly good schools that do a poor job tracking where their alumni are and reaching out to them and enlisting them in helping the school one way or the another. Well, there you have it. That’s 2025 in a nutshell by my two experts who know all and maybe a few for me. Hey, for all of you out there, I hope 2025 is a good, safe, healthy, and prosperous year for you. One One thing that should come through loud and clear is that we are all unabashed supporters of business education. We believe in it. We believe in the ROI attached to it. Whether it’s an MBA, an executive MBA, especially Master’s in business analytics or AI today or sustainability, we think these things have great value and will serve you well.

[00:33:54.360] – John

I hope you get that message through all of our predictions for this year. Hey, thanks for listening. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants.