Posts by Alex Brown

About

Alex is a co host for Clear Admit's Wire Taps podcast. He has spent 30 years in the MBA admissions industry, and authored the book: Becoming a Clear Admit: The Definitive Guide to MBA Admissions Alex also teaches digital marketing through executive education programs for London Business School, Imperial College Business School and Columbia Business School.

Published: July 9, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 299—770 GMAT and 2.9, does that work? Targeting 680 – 700, is that enough? History major, strong work experience.

This week’s show begins with Alex quizzing Graham about his recent trip to San Diego for this year’s GMAC conference, followed by a mention of some limited waitlist movement seen on MBA LiveWire. Graham and Alex then pivoted to a discussion on the recent supreme court decision that has a large impact on how admissions can consider race in their admissions decisions. Your hosts believe that while this will necessitate some changes to the admissions process, there will still be processes that can be adopted to ensure diverse business school classes that represent all. Graham then highlighted the July Read more

Published: July 2, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 298—LIVE from the GMAC Conference with Yale, Berkeley, Georgetown, and CMU!

Welcome back to another edition of Clear Admit’s weekly MBA admissions podcast. This week’s episode can hardly be described as just ‘another edition’ of the show; that’s because it was recorded live in San Diego, California, at the annual GMAC conference and includes special guest appearances from admissions directors at Carnegie Mellon Tepper, Georgetown McDonough, Berkeley Haas, and Yale SOM! Before bringing on the string of special guests, host Graham Richmond (who did his best without co-host Alex Brown this week) ran down the latest news and notes. This began with some discussion of continued waitlist movement visible on LiveWire, Read more

Published: June 25, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 297—Test Scores. 2.3 GPA, any chance? 2 years of work experience, is it enough?

As summer heats up, Graham and Alex are back with another episode of WireTaps, and a slightly new format! After some quick discussion about lingering activity on LiveWire (which is now slowing down as the season gets closer to its end), Graham highlighted our July ‘Essay Insight’ virtual event series. This series, which begins on July 12th, brings MBA admissions officers from top programs to discuss their essays for the upcoming application cycle. This is a very popular series – signups are here: https://bit.ly/cambaessay Graham then mentioned an Adcom Q&A from Michigan Ross; these new Q&As for the Read more

Published: June 18, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 296—Environmental candidate, retaking the GMAT. MBB back office, wanting front office. Nigerian in London, at 32

We’re back this week with another episode of WireTaps, and Alex and Graham get the show started with their usual discussion of activity on LiveWire. While the LiveWire updates have slowed down as the 2022-23 admissions season comes to its end, there was a little movement on the Chicago Booth waitlist last week. Graham then shifted gears to highlight two events Clear Admit is hosting. The first is a Real Humans event which brings students and alums together to discuss their experiences with candidates. This event includes students and alumni from UPenn / Wharton, NYU / Stern, MIT / Sloan, Read more

Published: June 11, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 295—Asset manager, 760 GMAT. Data scientist, poor GPA. Marketer, Europe vs US

Another week, another Wiretaps! As usual, this episode begins with Alex and Graham discussing activity on LiveWire which is now slowing down as the 2022-23 admissions season gets closer to its end. Next week, Chicago / Booth will be releasing its decisions for its Booth Scholars program. Graham highlighted two events Clear Admit is hosting: The first is a ‘Real Humans’ event which brings students and alums together to discuss their experiences with candidates. It will be held on June 20 at 12 pm ET, and you can signup here: https://bit.ly/realhumansmba The second is a set of events focused Read more

Published: June 4, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 294—Two-time Olympian, part-time vs full-time. Pilot with a 690 GMAT. Marketing career, 321 GRE

Alex and Graham’s first WireTaps episode for June gets rolling with the usual review of activity on LiveWire, which includes waitlist decisions and final decisions from Rounds 3 and 4. This upcoming week should feature final decisions from UVA / Darden and MIT / Sloan (for their deferred admissions programs) and for Texas / McCombs and London Business School. Alex and Graham then had a brief discussion about the still-vacant admissions director seats at HBS and Stanford GSB admissions. It looks like both programs will head into next season with leaders in interim roles as their searches continue. Graham highlighted Read more

Published: May 28, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 293—Female lawyer, from Nigeria. Blackhawk pilot, 720 GMAT. International student, lower GRE

Happy Memorial Day! On this episode of WireTaps, Alex and Graham officially open BBQ season with a look at what’s been cooking on LiveWire, including waitlist decisions and final decisions from Rounds 3 and 4. Alex reminds listeners that we also should see final decisions coming out for Georgetown / McDonough, Cornell / Johnson and CMU / Tepper (for its Future Leaders program) in the coming week. Alex also pointed out that new deadlines and essay topics are starting to be unveiled by the top MBA programs for next season; this led to a discussion regarding Clear Read more

Published: May 21, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 292—Social impact goal. Switching west for east coast. South African, poor GPA

Spring is in full bloom in Cornwall, England and Paris, France, as Alex and Graham check in for the latest episode of WireTaps! This week’s show begins with a discussion of activity on LiveWire, which includes waitlist decisions (all rounds) and final decisions (from Round 3). This upcoming week, Alex anticipates R3 decisions coming out for UNC / Kenan Flagler, Stanford, Chicago / Booth and Michigan / Ross. Graham highlighted the announcement of a new dean at Cornell / Johnson, Vishal Gaur, who comes in with an illustrious academic pedigree. Graham also commented on a “Friday’s from the Frontline” Read more

Published: May 14, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 291—Law school or MBA? Naval pilot, great numbers. GRE jumps from 302 to 337

Alex and Graham are back with another episode of WireTaps, kicking things off with a rundown of the latest activity on LiveWire – which includes wait list decisions and final decisions from Round 3. Alex mentioned that this upcoming week should feature final decisions coming out for USC / Marshall, IESE, UCLA / Anderson, Oxford / Said, MIT / Sloan, Yale SOM and Washington / Foster. Graham highlighted four Real Humans Alumni stories: an Indiana / Kelley grad at Apple, a Cornell / Johnson grad at Bain, a Foster grad at Accenture and a Stanford grad Read more

Published: May 7, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 290—Wine Guy, 770 GMAT. 322 x4, one more try? Fuqua vs Haas.

Another, week, another episode of WireTaps! Alex and Graham began the show with the usual discussion around activity on LiveWire, which now includes decision deadlines for the shorter Round 3 application cycle and some deferred enrollment interview invites. Graham then highlighted three Real Humans Alumni stories, an INSEAD grad at Accenture, a CMU / Tepper grad at Amazon and a UPenn / Wharton grad at Pfizer. Graham also mentioned a recently published admissions tip that covers scholarship negotiation. He then reminded listeners about the MBA admissions event series that Clear Admit is hosting in May, which Read more

Published: April 30, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 289—323 GRE, from Colombia. Health care, no test score. Tuck vs Kellogg

This episode begins with an in-depth review of the 2024 U.S. News full-time MBA rankings, which were released last week after a delay. U.S. News has changed its ranking methodology which caused some shifts in their ranking, but Chicago / Booth did retain the top spot! Alex and Graham share thoughts on the rankings changes, and continue to assert the reality that a tiered ranking system is always better than an ordinal one. Graham noted that 5 of the top MBA programs now have a median GMAT score of 740, which is pretty crazy. Your hosts then speculate that Read more

Published: April 23, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 288—Strong profile, weak GRE. Yale vs Ross for consulting. Haas vs Kellogg for tech.

This episode kicks off with some discussion of a few big news stories in the MBA Admissions world. This included the news of the delay in the release of the U.S. News MBA rankings (and the speculations surrounding the cause of the delay); the acquisition of Poets and Quants by Times Higher Education (THE), and the decisions from McKinsey and Bain to delay the start dates of their new hires. Graham then highlighted three Real Humans Alumni pieces, including a London Business School graduate running Nona Women, a Duke / Fuqua graduate working at Microsoft, and a Read more

Published: April 16, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 287—Chemical Engineer at Big 4. Johnson vs Darden. One year vs Wait

Our latest episode of WireTaps begins with Graham and Alex taking stock of all the latest MBA LiveWire activity and mentioning upcoming deadlines for UNC / Kenan Flagler, Cambridge / Judge, MIT / Sloan and Berkeley / Haas. Graham then highlighted recently published content on Clear Admit, including a piece that compares the GMAT to the GRE; we then discussed whether to take the current GMAT or the newly formatted GMAT. Graham then highlighted seven Real Human’s alumni pieces, offering a variety of perspectives from MBA alumni working in Consulting, Banking, Tech, and Entertainment, from a host Read more

Published: April 2, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 285—Haas, Part-time versus Full-time. Older candidate, to start an MBA or not. Ross versus Anderson for big tech

This episode of WireTaps begins with some discussion around the flurry of MBA LiveWire posts (Harvard and Stanford were among the top MBA programs releasing decisions last week). For those of you keeping score at home, MIT / Sloan and Cornell / Johnson are scheduled to release their admissions decisions this week, and, there are a number of Round 3 application deadlines in the coming days. Following all the chatter about deadlines, Graham highlighted two stories we published, one covering how to select your target MBA programs, and the other discussing the importance of scholarship when determining where Read more

Published: March 26, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 283—Brazilian, 710 GMAT. Kenan Flagler ($) versus Darden. Kellogg versus Stern ($)

MBA Admissions ‘March Madness’ continues as this episode kicks off with Alex and Graham discussing the R2 decisions activity on MBA LiveWire: UPenn / Wharton, Berkeley / Haas and several other leading MBA programs released Round 2 decisions last week. This upcoming week will include Northwestern / Kellogg, Harvard and Stanford. Graham highlighted a new “by the numbers” article focusing on GMAT scores at top programs. Stanford leads the way with a median score of 737! Alex and Graham then discussed UVA / Darden’s career report. The school reports a very high median starting salary of $175,000. This Read more

Published: March 19, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 282—Fighter pilot, low GPA. Carlson versus Bocconi. Tepper versus Ross, online MBA.

This week’s episode tackles ‘March Madness’ – of the MBA admissions variety – as more and more top MBA programs are releasing their final decisions for Round 2. UPenn / Wharton is one of the many programs scheduled to release their decisions this upcoming week. Graham highlighted a recently published admissions tip that focuses on navigating the wait list. He then highlighted two alumni Real Humans pieces, for HBS and Deloitte, and NYU / Stern and Carlyle. The latter alumna discussed the importance of patience and persistence when recruiting outside of the traditional career paths of consulting Read more

Published: March 12, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 281—Army ranger, modest GRE. Fire service, now undergrad. Aerospace engineer.

This episode begins with Alex and Graham’s usual discussion of all the activity on MBA LiveWire, where candidates are sharing news from the leading MBA programs that are starting to release decisions for Round 2. Last week this included Duke / Fuqua and CMU / Tepper, and this upcoming week should see decision releases from UVA / Darden, Dartmouth / Tuck, Michigan / Ross and others. Round 3 application deadlines are also beginning. Graham highlighted the big news out of GMAC; they are launching a new format for the GMAT in late 2023, called ‘GMAT Focus Edition’. While there isn’t Read more

Published: March 5, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 280—Difficult personal story. 770 GMAT, off to MBB. Product manager at fintech unicorn.

Welcome back to another jam-packed episode of the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast! This week’s show kicks off with some discussion the activity on MBA LiveWire, where a few interview invites continue to trickle out, but that part of the season is slowing to make way for news of admissions decisions. Speaking of decisions, this week, Duke / Fuqua, CMU / Tepper and Oxford / Said will be releasing admissions results – with other schools following suit over the course of several ‘decision weeks’ this month. Beyond school updates, Graham highlighted an admissions tip that Clear Admit published on the Read more

Published: February 26, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 279—Pakistani failed entrepreneur. Architect with sustainability focus. Military with nuclear experience.

This episode kicks off with a discussion of all of the interview invites popping up on MBA LiveWire (and a focus on MIT / Sloan). While all of the big ‘single release interview invitation’ schools have now passed, programs that follow more of a rolling invite process will still be releasing a few invites in the week or two ahead. In other news, Graham highlighted a recently released podcast episode which focused on GMAC’s new Business Fundamentals program. This program helps candidates prepare for their MBA experience, much like MBA Math and HBS CORe. Graham also highlighted Clear Admit’s Read more

Published: February 19, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 278—Media and Entertainment, from HYP. Sustainability guy seeks asset mgmt. M&A lawyer from India

This episode of the Clear Admit podcast kicks off with a discussion about the flurry of activity on MBA LiveWire, which includes a good volume of interview invites (UPenn / Wharton added to the numbers this week), as well as a few waitlist admits. Alex and Graham then had a decent discussion regarding the Financial Times’s 2023 MBA Global rankings. Three basic themes were discussed: Columbia’s first #1 place, Wharton’s absence, and your hosts’ overall dislike of ordinal rankings (and the additional issues of trying to merge global programs into a single ranking). Graham highlighted two pieces from the Read more

Published: February 12, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 277—Colombian in real estate. Deferred enrollment candidate. Government experience, next season.

This episode once again kicks off with a look at the latest interview invites popping up on MBA LiveWire. Alex and Graham then talk about how they anticipate seeing UPenn / Wharton invites this upcoming week, as well as those for MIT / Sloan. Graham also highlighted a recently published interview tip that discusses the differences between a resume-based interview and an application-based interview. Graham and Alex then discussed the recently published article on finance careers, with a “hat tip” to Wharton for leading the way in venture capital recruits. Your hosts also discussed a Real Humans Read more

Published: February 5, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 276—Over-represented presents challenges. Interesting background, in sales. Kellogg versus Haas and Ross

This week’s episode kicks off with a quick rundown of the recent interview invite activity on MBA LiveWire. Many programs are starting to release their Round 2 invites; last week included releases from Harvard, Michigan / Ross and Duke / Fuqua, while programs like Stanford continue to “trickle” out their decisions. Interview prep for Round 2 candidates is now critical, and we recently released a new podcast that focuses on the UPenn / Wharton TBD interview. Beyond interview-related news, Graham highlighted the recently published 2023 online MBA rankings from U.S. News. The results were mostly consistent with last Read more

Published: January 29, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 273—Strong profile, GMAT worry. Targeting Johnson and Stern. Wharton versus Yale and money

In this episode of WireTaps, Alex and Graham discuss the flurry of interview invites popping up on MBA LiveWire. Many programs are starting to release their Round 2 invites – and some appear to be earlier than last season. Graham highlighted the renewal of Dartmouth Tuck’s Dean’s tenure, as well as the s school’s decision to waive the GMAT for recently laid-off tech workers; your hosts discussed the implications of that latter decision, which is a tactic that several programs are adopting. Graham also commented on a recently published piece that looks at trends in tech recruiting Read more

Published: January 22, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 272—Cybersecurity candidate, needs to ace GMAT. Online gaming interest, 760 GMAT. Wharton vs Columbia, for tech in NYC

WireTaps kicks off this week with a timely discussion about the importance of interview preparation for those candidates entering that phase of the MBA admissions cycle (this included a conversation about Clear Admit’s free Interview Archive: https://www.clearadmit.com/category/interview-reports/). Graham then highlighted the employment reports recently published for Stanford and Cornell / Johnson. Both programs are offering impressive numbers from last season. The challenge to business schools this season will be how to replicate these strong numbers in the less favorable economy that we are now experiencing. Graham also highlighted a recent Clear Admit article that focuses on the Read more

Published: January 15, 2023

MBA Wire Taps 271—Private Equity to Asset Management. Entrepreneurial ambitions with a Search fund. Fuqua versus Haas and Kenan Flagler, for Investment Banking.

This week’s episode kicks off with a quick discussion around the last of the Round 2 application deadlines for top programs (MIT / Sloan have a deadline this Wednesday). Graham and Alex also touched upon the fact LiveWire is starting to see one or two programs release early interview invites for Round 2, CMU / Tepper is leading the way in this domain. It is also worth noting that Duke / Fuqua has added an extra deadline for this season, while UVA Darden have made their final round ‘rolling’; is this a sign of deflated application volumes? Alex Read more

MBA Livewire

December 23, 2024 10:00am ET

Accepted to Northwestern / Kellogg

Round: Round 1

Received via email

GMAT: 695

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Consulting

Application Location: Taiwan

December 22, 2024 9:40pm ET

Applied to Berkeley / Haas

Round: Round 2

Received via portal

GPA: 3.85

GRE: 339

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Finance

Application Location: Brooklyn, New York

December 22, 2024 1:36pm ET

Accepted to UT Austin / McCombs

Round: Round 1

Received via email on December 16, 2024

GRE: 319

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Consulting

Application Location: United Kingdom

Note:

$20k merit scholarship offer.

December 22, 2024 12:04pm ET

Accepted to Stanford GSB

Round: Round 1

Received via phone

GPA: 3.7

GMAT: 750

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Technology

Application Location: Asia

December 22, 2024 4:59am ET

Accepted to UPenn / Wharton

Round: Round 1

Received via portal

GMAT: 730

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Finance

Application Location: Southeast Asia

Note:

Elated and did not expect it!

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