Six Tricks MBA Admissions Consultants Use To Make the Sale And Get Your Money
Maria |
January 2, 2022

TL;DR: MBA Admissions Consultants know that you’re in an emotionally-fragile (or ego-driven) place, and sadly, many (not all! but many!) of them EXPLOIT that to make money.

Expensive admissions consultants — in particular, the ones from the larger firms — often have shady sales techniques to convince you to spend a ton of money on them. The most common technique is to either flatter the candidate with unrealistic promises (and then use future sessions to bring expectations down), or to tear the candidate down and make them feel so worthless that by the end of the call, the candidate is practically begging for the privilege of paying several thousand dollars for this guidance. There are other techniques I mention below, but these two are the one’s you’re most likely to encounter!

The saying “you get what you pay for” certainly applies in many cases.

However, it does NOT necessarily apply to hiring an admissions consultant. This is vitally important to know, in case you look at their high fees and are left wondering: “Is a traditional admissions consultant worth it?”

Each year, I hear from happy ApplicantLab users who share that they had also shelled out thousands of dollars to work with an admissions consultant — either during the same year, or during a previous, unsuccessful year (and that the Lab was just as good, if not better, than the consultant)!

I have a standard reply to those emails, and it starts with: “I’m sorry to hear this; I wish I could say that this is a rare experience, but in fact many people regret paying the high prices that many consultants charge.”

I think a big reason for these negative experiences is that some admissions consultants often have a “sales playbook” – schemes that, similar to car salesmen, will tell you just about anything if it will convince you to hire them.

After years of collecting horror stories from my own clients, below are the emotionally-exploitative techniques they use to get you to pay up.

Tricks Admissions Consultants Play To Make The Sale:

The “puffing you up” technique

Everyone, when they first start applying to schools, dreams of getting an acceptance letter from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, etc.

The honest truth is that most (80%, 90% or more) will not get accepted.

The even MORE honest truth is that many of them never had a shot in the first place.

However, this does not stop some admissions consultants from using obvious flattery to puff up you ego and thus close the sale.

They might tell you during the “consultation call” that you DEFINITELY have a chance of getting in to a top school! They might even use words like “interesting” or “compelling” to describe you.

You’re so excited after this call! Here is a consultant that “believes in you” and “gets” you! Sure, other people have expressed some doubts (though others rarely want to risk getting on our bad sides, so acquaintances usually keep their negative predictions to themselves), but THIS person CLEARLY sees how remarkable you are!

And, maybe you are remarkable! If you truly are that remarkable, you probably don’t need an admissions consultant since your profile will get you in on its own.

What is far, far more likely is that they are trying to close the sale with you.

Then, after your deposit is paid…they will start to steer you in another direction:

“Hey, I know that you’re excited about EliteSchool, and when we first spoke, based on the teeny amount of information I had about you, I thought you had a good shot. But now that I’ve gotten to know you a bit better, how about if we move EliteSchool to your list of ‘REACH’ schools, and add in some ‘BETTER FITS’?”

*Note that in this case, a “better fit” probably = “a school they think you have a strong chance of getting accepted to, and thus you won’t damage any of those “success metrics” they love to manipulate / publish.

They are counting on the fact that you’re going to spend several hours with them on the phone / e-mail over the next few weeks / months, and in that time, they can win your trust and start to talk you down a bit. 

They might also use phrases like “…this year is turning out to be way more competitive than usual” or “…a lot more people with your background are applying than what I predicted” or “…I just heard that EliteSchool has started putting a lot more emphasis on [something you don’t have], so while in the PAST you probably would have gotten in, it might not happen this year.”

All of these sorts of phrases above help them convince you that, when they implied that you were TOTALLY a strong candidate for that elite school at first (before you paid them)… well, things are “different” this year, so it’s NOT that they were fake during the consultation… it’s that the world has changed! And you can’t blame them for that, right?

**I should also note that sometimes, the flattery folks have even less of a conscience. They will help someone apply to a school that they know is never going to happen.. and then, when the person doesn’t get in? They ghost them. Stop replying to emails. Will have an “assistant” reply to tell you that they are sorry that you are disappointed but that ConsultantName is not currently available and please refer to the terms & conditions about no refunds and how researching suitable schools is your responsibility. These folks just “take the money and run” and don’t feel bad about it for a second!

The “dragging you down” technique

Other firms have the exact opposite sale technique. They will try to convince you during the “consultation” call that your profile is very weak, or at best, marginal…

…and so the ONLY hope you possibly have would be if you are lucky enough to get to hire them (you see, they are quickly filling up and might not have availability if you wait!). Then, MAYBE, you have a shot of getting in, but you’ll need their golden, magical guidance to get even close.

I can’t decide which technique I hate most: this one (since it preys on an applicant’s insecurities) or the puffing-up one (since it preys on an applicant’s ego).

This sales pitch works better on more mature, self-aware candidates – people who are likely to have started doing their research and realize how tough this process can be. Also, anecdotally, I suspect that this technique is more often used with female clients, preying on the whole “impostor syndrome” thing. UGH.

Anyway, like that emotionally-abusive ex who tried to convince you that you couldn’t possibly live without them, these consultants will find and exaggerate flaws in your profile. They will make mountains out of molehills to scare you and convince you that THEY are the life-line you need.

Examples:

  • My favorite example was a candidate who was flat-out told that he would MAYBE get into a top 15 – 20 school, IF they were lucky and IF they paid this firm a LOT of money.
    • This person used ApplicantLab and ended up getting the Reliance Fellowship (a merit-based full ride) to Stanford GSB!
  • People who work in fields like the arts / media being told that their background is too non-traditional and thus they are in big trouble re: admissions.
    • The truth is, someone who has held a leadership role in an arts / media organization probably has amazing lessons to share with classmates!
  • A more recent example, a consultant from another firm told one of my clients to “not even bother” talking about their family business, since “any family business making less than $200 million / year in revenue will not be impressive enough to mention for the adcom at any M7 school”
    • LOL. Tell that to the many clients I’ve worked with from family businesses waaaay smaller than $200M/year who went to top schools. If this were true, then there would be virtually no one in any program from family businesses! And yet, several top schools have entire classes and conferences devoted to family businesses!

I said above that I’m not sure which one I hate more – while the flattery angle makes my stomach churn, at the end of the day, it’s someone’s inflated ego that makes them sign up. THIS technique, on the other hand, feasts on fear. It succeeds by destabilizing, sowing doubt, and deflating people. So I think this one is worse.

The “manipulated success rate” technique

The firms that publish too-good-to-be-true “success” metrics primarily do this in two ways:

  1. They convince the client that some “safe” schools are in fact “target” schools
    • That way, when the person applies and gets in, and the bold headline of “9X% of our clients get into at least one target school!” can be published
  2. In order for #1 to work, candidates need to be open to applying to some safer schools. If someone seems unwilling / inflexible, they simply won’t work with you!

For example, a firm might say “Look, we’d be happy to help you with your application to EliteSchool, but we’ll only do so if you also apply to SaferSchool as well”. I actually had a former client who was flat-out told that a firm would not bother to work with him for applications to top fifteen schools, but they’d be happy to help with schools ranked 16 – 30!

At this point, firms are saving time by having an “intake” or “interest” form prior to setting up the “consultation call.” This is to make sure that they are not going to waste their time on the sales call.

If the person’s “intake” form shows a blah college, blah employers, and blah impact within those employers… BUT the person writes that the ONLY school they are considering is Stanford? Guess what! That person will probably NOT EVEN GET a “consultation call” appointment!

To be fair, it’s not just admissions consultants that do this – even in the under-rated movie Doctor Strange, he has a confrontational conversation with a guy who had wanted to be his patient… but whose case seemed so impossible that Dr. Strange didn’t even bother (boo! I can’t find a link to the clip, but if you’ve seen the movie you know what I mean!)

The “exploding offer during a so-called ‘consultation call’” technique

This one is quick and easy to explain: “Usually, we charge $4,800 for a one-school package, BUT I JUST got permission from my manager for a LIMITED TIME special that IF you sign up with us RIGHT NOW, I can give you a discount of $X! But I don’t know how much longer my manager will let me do this, so you’d better sign up now!”

Girl, please.

While it’s unrealistic to expect that an admissions consultant would care for you the way a family member would… it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that they want what is best (or at least, “OK”) for you.

I bet if you reached out a week later, saying that you had your bank account / credit card in hand, but would only sign up if that limited-time offer were still good… I’m pretty sure that they’d (perhaps after checking with a “manager” of course) still accept it. And if they wouldn’t, then you don’t want to work with such pushy people anyway.

(The “expiring discount” technique is a close cousin of the “we are filling up fast / our top consultants are almost all booked!” technique.)

The “bait and switch” consultation sales technique

First of all, many firms’  “FREE 30 / 15 minute consultation!” is a sales call in disguise.

The person will walk a fine line between throwing out some crumbs of information…just enough to try to hook you. But they will usually be pretty vague, or “of course I’d need to know a lot more about you – that’s what our 2 hour ‘discovery introduction call’ is for!”

But you already knew this, right?

What many people don’t know, however, is that the super-smart, friendly, and caring person you did your consultation with is often NOT the same person who will be your consultant.

I know this because a few years ago, a large consulting firm offered to buy ApplicantLab and they showed me “behind the curtain” of their operations and explained that many other firms work the same way.

ONE consultant (or sometimes not even a full consultant, just a well-trained salesperson) will do the intro call and make you fall in love with them. Starry-eyed, you pay the deposit. Then… you’re introduced to “Someone Else”, who’s the person who will be actually working with you.

This technique has different forms:

  • The deeply-experienced consultant does the sales call, then pawns you off to a far less experienced person.
  • A not-very-experienced consultant (but professional salesperson) does the call – their initial questions get to the heart of “which buttons are the best ones to push?”, and then they’ll push those buttons to get you to sign up.
  • A firm will say that you will “probably” get to work with the same person who did your call… but then, wouldn’t you know it, soon after you pay your deposit: darn! That consultant you liked *just* got fully booked! Too bad! However, we have this other person on our team…

The “exaggerated aura of expertise” technique

This is another technique that makes me want to vomit.

A consultant’s webpage will say something that sure SOUNDS good, like: “Former staff member, EliteSchool admissions!” or even just “Former staff, EliteSchool”.

What they don’t tell you is that they were simply a support-staff member (e.g. working in operations, or in “recruitment” [sales]), OR they were simply a 2nd-year student doing routine admissions interviews (but with limited impact on the admissions decisions themselves) or they were simply a career center volunteer, helping out the first-year students, etc.

They will often not point out that frequently, admissions offices will hire the spouses of foreign students, simply because they need a job, not because they have massive expertise / talent. Or sometimes (of course not always), the students who work in admissions right after graduation do so because they were unable to get another job (shhhh!)

Or a consultant will try to confer expertise via logos of publications they have been “featured” in – of course, not all of them will tell you that they are often paying for – er, “sponsoring” — those articles.

**For the record, I pay nothing to be a co-host of the Poets and Quants podcast! This is because John is SUPER nice!

One that makes me especially sick is when consulting firms make it seem that they are being “endorsed” by a certain organization, when really, all they did was make a large donation or pay a sponsorship fee.  

Why the larger MBA admissions consulting firms tend to be more guilty of this than the smaller firms / solo practitioners

Of course, not all firms do things like this! I have found, in particular, that the larger MBA admissions consulting firms tend to rely upon more “strong arm” / emotional tactics like this.

I think that this is because some of the larger firms will staff up each year with a small army of MBA Admissions Consultants — many of which are simply recent graduates of MBA programs, but who are not necessarily admissions experts!!! — and so they are trying to get the maximum number of clients possible. Because: they know that they can keep expanding their work force as needed. And since each new client = roughly 50% (!!!) of the revenue going directly to the firm, the motivation to sign up a lot of clients is pretty intense!

Smaller MBA admissions consulting firms — e.g., the boutique firms, or expert solo practioners — do NOT usually use these sales techniques. Why? Because they each have a natural limit on the number of clients they can serve each year.

Therefore, it’s in their best interest to fill their available spaces thoughtfully. And because of THAT, the “free 30 minute consultation” is more likely to be a genuine exploration of whether or not you’d be a good fit for each other — that is, are your personalities a match? Can they support you in what you want to do? (Note that many of these elite solo practitioners will often refer potential clients to each other, if they feel that someone else in their network might be better able to help!)

Of course — the boutique firms / solo practioners do NOT have a “Sales Team” trying to close deals, so any free consultations that you do with them takes time out of their day. So please, if you’re going to request a conversation with a smaller / solo firm, PLEASE only reach out if you are serious about potentially hiring them. Please check their pricing in advance and make sure that you’re comfortable potentially paying it, should they be a good match for you, because they don’t have the revenues of the big firms, they don’t have a “sales team”, etc. and so being respectful of their time is, at a minimum, a great way to get some good karma! 🙂

Have YOU encountered any of the sales techniques I mention above? Are there any that I missed? You won’t find any of them with ApplicantLab — I don’t turn anyone away (which is honestly sometimes a bad thing, when someone with unrealistic / immature expectations signs up), but I also don’t filter people out based on whether or not I think they have the $$$ to pay me, or whether or not I think they’ll add to my “success stories” list! But the good news is: no sales pitch!

The Economist Dis on MBAs: Is the Degree Still Worth It?
Admissions Chances | General | MBA Admissions Advice
Six Tricks MBA Admissions Consultants Use To Make the Sale And Get Your Money
Maria |
January 2, 2022

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] John Byrne: Hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets& Quants. We have a really cool story to relate to you today. Me and my co host, Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards, are going to talk about the most disruptive MBA startups of the year. Every year, Poets& Quants invites the top schools all over the world.

To submit nominations for ventures with what we call the greatest potential for lasting beyond business school. So what we want to do is acknowledge MBAs who have launched really cool companies that are paving the way for the future. And this year, we have 41 student startups that we have honored in what is the sixth annual list of the most disruptive MBA startups.

And they come from all over. We got nominations from Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, MIT, INSEAD, London Business School and others. And, uh, I think what the basic list shows is that entrepreneurship is alive and well in business schools are a lot of great ideas. A lot of them are powered by AI. No surprise there.

They involve every imaginable industry. There’s a good number of these in the business of health as well as in beverages, consumer products and things like that. And I wonder, Caroline, if you have a favorite among this group, and I bet you it’s going to be an INSEAD startup.

[00:01:30] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah, I have a few favorites, and definitely INSEAD is on my list, although I’m going to start with a London Business School one.

Um, and there were a few international ones that I thought were really interesting. I like the story from kiro, which is a fintech startup, coming out of London Business School, founded by LBS student Alicia Chowdhury. she secured 200, 000 in funding, and it’s the first AI powered financial coach, which is designed to help,

Gen Zed, as I would say, or Gen Z, as you would say. and young adults, get personalized financial guidance. So that’s something that jumped out to me, given that I now have a young adult among my children and trying to teach her financial literacy is somewhat challenging, so I can definitely see the need for that. And she tells a really interesting story about how financial literacy was something that she had struggled with and realized that there was a gap in the market, right? There’s a lot of great financial information out there, but it’s not necessarily tailored and communicated well to young people. And she ended up working in finance before business school.

she doesn’t have a tech background, but she did. Teach herself the fundamentals of AI and machine learning, and she assembled a technical team to work with her. And I thought it was really interesting as well, how she leveraged the LBS resources. And I think a lot of the stories that you have in this article really tell a great deal about the power of business school experience in helping people launch a company. And of course, there’s often a lot of criticism about the value of going to business school. And if you want to be an entrepreneur, there’s no point going to business school. And I think that this article really debunks that. so for example, this is how she benefited from LBS.

She was a finalist in the LBS Launchpad. She completed the LBS Entrepreneurship Summer School. She joined the LBS Incubator. She led the LBS Entrepreneurship Club. And then, of course, she benefited greatly from a lot of the courses that she took at LBS. I got a lot of great advice from LBS faculty, as well as the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital.

I think a wonderful story about how a student had a vision of something that she wanted to do and saw a gap in the market and really went after it, leveraging that wonderful ecosystem that you get at business school and she’s got a VC group backing her. So that’s one of her investors and Aviva Group is a huge financial company.

I think it sounds very promising. So congratulations to Alicia.

[00:04:11] John Byrne: Yeah, you’re right. One of the things that comes through here is the support that students get from the schools. And their classmates and their professors, it’s a real terrific thing.

As you said before, a lot of people say, hey, if you want to start a company, instead of paying a school tuition, just use that as your seed capital and you’re going to be better off, but the truth is that a business school you’re surrounded by really smart colleagues and people who’ve been through this before and mentorship from professors and seed money from the many venture challenges that occur at different schools can make a very big difference and shift the odds in your favor of success. Maria, do you have a favorite?

[00:04:53] Maria Wich-Vila: Yeah, my favorite.

startup was Cell Mind, which is out of the Johns Hopkins business school. This one really hit home for me personally. What they are trying to do is they are trying to maximize access to a type of cancer therapy called “Car T”. And I have indirectly lived this. We have a good friend from business school who has been battling cancer for several years, and last year there was a complete rollercoaster around  this car T therapy. And I apologize to any doctors if I’m butchering this. But basically, my understanding is that if it works for you, it essentially can cure your cancer or cause it to go into remission. But, if for whatever reason, if your body is too weak at the time that you receive it, it can actually kill you. Unfortunately, it can cause something called a cytokine storm, I think.

And so, the decision of whether to go or no go is obviously one that is very fraught with a lot of, emotion and risk. And so, we actually had a friend who last year was approved for CAR T. But then in the weeks right before they were going to give it to her, they then disapproved her because she had gotten weaker … it was this whole roller coaster.

And so any sort of startup that is doing something to figure out, which patients actually are likely to do well with this therapy? Can we expand our doctors being perhaps understandably a little too cautious because they’re concerned about the negative side effects, perhaps being worse than the.than the cancer itself.

Anything that can help expand access to this is why they were number one in my book. And as you guys were just talking about. Because Johns Hopkins is one of the best, if not the best medical school in the world, this is a great example of a business school student or group of business school students leveraging the resources and the expertise at that overarching institution, trying to find ways to commercialize it, and just make the most of those resources.

I really loved that story.

[00:06:40] John Byrne: Yeah, and that’s what you increasingly find. it’s not a bunch of MBA students doing their thing. It’s reaching out and having these really entrepreneurial collisions with students from other departments, other schools where they have deep expertise in computer science or engineering or medicine or law or public policy or environmental sciences teaming up with MBAs to launch things. which really give them extra power.

One of my favorites comes out of, uh, Chicago Booth. And, it’s sort

a really interesting idea where, first off, it’s called Encore, and it’s a marketplace for high end collectibles. Now, you think, how could that really be a cool thing? What they’ve done is they’ve combined TikTok style videos. With the traditional eBay auction format, to create a really engaging experience for people who want to shop for these collectibles. But what’scool is the MBA who’s behind this. His name is Will Enema, at first thought he shouldn’t apply to Chicago Booth, new venture challenge, because he had already raised a pre seed round and thought that Encore might not be good for that traditional, giving money out kind of program. But, he entered it after he was urged to by a number of professors at Booth. The idea placed second in the competition. He won $350, 000 to help launch his company, but here’s the real kicker:

Within two weeks of that competition, a venture capitalist who participated in the judging agreed to lead their seed round. So it just shows you how, incredible things can happen, in the environment of a business school.

Now, Caroline, I’m sure you have others that you really thought were really cool. Name another one.

[00:08:29] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah. So my second one is of course, an INSEAD startup and it’s called faceflow. ai. And I really liked this one because it’s an AI powered skincare platform. So again, relating it to my personal experience of having four daughters who are constantly clamoring for the. latest ridiculous beauty product that they’ve seen on Instagram.

I think this is a fantastic idea.

What it does is it actually gives you scientifically based product recommendations, right? So they have for the two founders, Daniel Patel and Simon Zhang, Patel had previously founded a marketplace for international skincare brands. So he knew the skin, the beauty industry, skincare products.

And then his partner, Simon, is an experienced AI engineer, and so they’ve combined their expertise to bring AI to skincare recommendations. And it’s underway. I checked out their website. I have signed up already. The product is not yet available, but I’m looking forward to when it comes through.

And they won the INSEAD French competition and, talk about how they’ve benefited from the very entrepreneurial environment at INSEAD,

I really enjoyed reading about their experience and I’m excited to learn more about their products.

[00:09:49] John Byrne: Yeah, absolutely. And now

Maria, I know there are 2 Harvard startups on the list from your alma mater. did you pick 1 of them as your 2nd choice?

[00:10:00] Maria Wich-Vila: It was not necessarily my 2nd choice, but there was 1 called Vulcan Investments. This is a little bit out of my, Wheelhouse. So I think we all tend to gravitate towards something we know or something we have experience with, but it’s trying to figure out how to solve the rare earth magnet problem. Right now. A lot of these rare earth materials that are powering modern technologies are coming from China, which poses several challenges, especially should relations with that country not go well in the future. So this is trying to solve for that issue. I think that was a really interesting one.

But actually, my second choice was one that again, I have indirect personal experience with, albeit in a different way. It was called Yogger. What they’re trying to do is, I believe it’s taking your phone to watch you as you perform exercise then give you feedback on, your gait, your form, et cetera.

And this was really interesting to me, not so much because of exercise, although I wish it were (ha ha) (though: side note, my dad was a track and cross country coach for decades and I totally forgot about that in the moment, but I should have mentioned that!!! D’oh!!!), but who knows, maybe this will motivate me to jog more (har har har).

In the interview with the entrepreneur. he talked about how you can do things like a gait analysis right now, in other words, tracking how your legs move when you are running or jogging, and then providing an analysis, but these sorts of things are very difficult to get to. It’s expensive. You need to be set up with, they put a whole bunch of sensors on all of your joints. and I have a friend who has a child with cerebral palsy and they’ve had to do these, go to actually Hopkins (this is not a Hopkins based startup, it’s from Tuck, Dartmouth Tuck), but they’ve (my friends, I mean) had to go to Hopkins and actually have these, it’s a day long thing to set up your child with the different sensors. And so the thought of using something as simple as an iPhone app, perhaps, machine learning, et cetera. all that good stuff to analyze your gait and make this accessible. It’s not only I think useful for casual exercise enthusiasts, but I think it could also have ramifications and uses even in other areas. For example, kids with special needs. So I was really excited about this one.

John Byrne:

MIT Sloan has three startups on our list this year.

That’s more than any other school. And one of the really cool ones is called Vertical Horizons. This is an incredibly ambitious startup. It’s all about commercializing high density, high efficiency power supplies for AI computing. Essentially, it’s a semiconductor company. and you might not think that an MBA would be involved in actually creating a semiconductor company.

But it’s founded by Cynthia Allen, an MBA in the class of 2024 at Sloan and one of her professors. So it’s a good example of where university develop some sort of new technology or new insights. And then needs to commercialize it. And in this case, you have an MBA coming along, who has a great interest in this, and is helping to commercialize it. The actual idea of it has 4 million in research grant funding to develop the technology. So there’s a good amount of money behind this very ambitious idea.

I think, stepping away from the individual startups, what I think this says about, the ability of people who want to go to business school and use that experience as an incubator to launch a startup, it’s alive and well, it’s a great way to launch a company because it does take a lot of risk off the table and these startups, these 41 startups that these different business schools really give you a great insight into what different people are doing.

Caroline, I’m sure, and Maria as well, you probably meet a number of people in your practices, that want to use an MBA to do a startup. Do you think they’re ready to take full advantage of these experiences?

Caroline Diarte Edwards:

Yeah, I certainly hear from a lot of candidates who are hoping to launch a venture. Some of them want to do it as soon as they graduate and for some of them it’s more of a longer term ambition because of course financing can be a challenge.

Especially if you’ve invested a lot in taking on a lot of debt with your MBA and a lot of the themes that I hear, candidates are interested in come through in your article as well. So it’s noticeable that there are quite a few startups in your list that address, healthcare issues as Maria highlighted, also education, environmental challenges. And I think those are three areas that I hear a lot about from candidates in terms of where they would really like to have an impact.

And I think, something else that is noticeable is that a lot of them are really trying to have a positive impact on the world as well. They’re really trying to address,  fundamental societal challenges, many of them, which I think is wonderful from health care, mental health issues, pollution. et cetera. There’s a lot of really interesting, and important issues that are being addressed by some of these startups. and, I think it’s wonderful that we have this young generation, going through business school who are ready tackle these challenges that that they have inherited from our generation.

John Byrne:

Yeah. And these ideas are going way beyond, some of the earlier ideas of five, 10 years ago, hookup apps and match.com, uh, wannabes and things like that. some of these ideas are remarkably sophisticated and elegant as well.

Maria, last words.

Maria Wich-Vila:

I think that this article not only is very optimistic in terms of these amazing ideas that are out there, but I also like that it shows that there are so many different paths to entrepreneurship through the MBA that first of all, number one, the NBA is valuable for entrepreneurship, which, as you noted a second ago, is often a stereotype that that exists that, oh, I don’t need this. but also there are so many different MBA programs out there. Look at the range of schools that are creating these amazing startups. Look at the fact, one of the, Stanford ones, the student was not an MBA student. They were an MSx student.

Sometimes I’ll meet people who are a little bit on the older side who are applying and they’re like, I have to do the two year program and I’m like, no, you can… you just need to get your foot in the door and even if it’s that MSxs program, it’s one year versus two years. For example, you can, you just need to get to a university that’s going to teach you the things you need and give you the resources and then you can take it from there.

So I, the other thing I really appreciate about this article is showing the breadth of programs and the breadth of students and the breadth of backgrounds of these students who are creating incredible new companies.

[00:16:37] John Byrne: Yeah, check it out. It’s called most disruptive MBA startups of 2025, and it’s on the Poets& Quants website.

If you are interested in doing a startup, I think you’ll learn a lot about how business school can help you make it a reality. This is John Byrne with Poets& Quants. You’ve been listening to Business Casual, our weekly podcast.

Maria

New around here? I’m an HBS graduate and a proud member (and former Board Member) of AIGAC. I considered opening a high-end boutique admissions consulting firm, but I wanted to make high-quality admissions advice accessible to all, so I “scaled myself” by creating ApplicantLab. ApplicantLab provides the SAME advice as high-end consultants at a much more affordable price. Read our rave reviews on GMATClub, and check out our free trial (no credit card required) today!