Would HBS & Stanford Dare Reject This Guy?

[Music] welcome to another edition of fridays with sandy sandy Kreisberg in Boston we have i everybody it's a different i got a different back john has all those books and as you can tell i'm a blank slate and we have Nick in Washington Nick is a really interesting candidate he's a US Army Reserve Officer who is a business analyst at McKinsey he graduated from Harvard now get a load of these facts 3.9 eight GPA and a seven seventy Jima I'm genuflecting right here Nick haha and to boot internships at Evercore Apollo and the Treasury Department can it can a resume and an application get any better than that sandy it's a very powerful yeah yeah he could be a yes he could he could he could not be a white male that's how I'm just assuming there but other than that it's very powerful the army stars to McKinsey stuff is very powerful interviewed was interviewed at Harvard Business School a week or so yeah well what do you think of the interview I thought it was it was like speed dating 30 questions in 30 minutes that's how I describe that pretty fast-paced and intense but uh it was great yeah they asked they asked a lot about like you said like you I've seen your videos about the transitions between jobs how I switch from finance to control thing why I chose to join the army in the first place um stuff like that yeah good so is a standard HBS interview sounds like well okay so I think you're after the Harvard interview you're you're let's just get to the odds at Harvard post interview odds are boy that's an interesting question John do you know that 56i people like yeah 6040 so but that's the index and there's a little bit of weight from your resume you know everyone everyone doesn't start the interview equal but the interview is a great equalizer so I think your chances at Harvard are you know pretty good given that you've been interviewed you seem like a well-spoken well presented guy and you've got these residual very high stats that you know anybody would be impressed with at Stanford the what story for white guys you need well Stanford is capable of swooning over high stats they particularly go for high G mats even though they'll deny it but so they may give me swoon a bit over the high stats but then it becomes a question for white guys up what's the X Factor what dick what do you think is driving you into Stanford yeah I'd say a few things number one I think the combination of being consulting and the military before joining is one factor another factor would be I started a special and Biggs tennis program when I was in high school that programs continued to this day at Mackenzie I've been involved in social sector work from helping veterans have better outcomes from mental health Alissa's to hoping solve the malaria better distribute malaria drugs to African countries so okay good I'm impressed by all that and it that's it that's the thing where you've got what bit one two three four and they add up to something is if any one of those things like super special like you didn't exist before you and now it's a big deal or you've got to presidential freedom metal or you know what I'm talking about yeah yeah I'd say the one thing about the Maryland Special Olympics tennis that I was involved in is they didn't have a winter tennis training program before and I actually founded that so it started and then they trained for their April games and it now has about 80 members and has expanded to include disabled veterans as well okay yeah that's that's a that is a little special and then you've got a lot of other things that are special so all those might add up to them the x-factor you need at Stanford bringing the x-factor ben'll at Stanford well yeah and then you've got these residual very high stats so I think your chances it well you haven't yet yeah they haven't notified you about an interview yet not yet I think the last date is March 10th so I've heard that a lot of being abused to come out in the last week or so much yeah that's true yeah I think your chance is again interviewed at Stanford or high you're just you got a lot going for your well rounded you know this is real solid what um what are what were the were there any oddball questions at Harvard I'm the interview who did you anymore campus yeah I interviewed on campus so there were two interviewers in the room I think the oddball questions came up when you started talking more in depth about your experience for example I worked at the Treasury and at that time there was a low interest rate environment so they asked me how that environment today I thought the environment today was similar to that environment and how it's impacting investment decisions um which was kind of stuff I guess who his stuff is um war work don't deeper on your resume and certain projects you had in your resume yeah I mean that's a good one I gave him a lot of credit they they know more about interest rates than I do good for them wanna be a the beginning yeah I thought I went into consulting primarily because I wanted to explore a lot of different options and now I'm really interested in the nonprofit space given my work in the social sector at McKinsey so I thought once I found what I wanted to do I should use the MBA two pivots management and to use the skills I gained at McKinsey in the nonprofit sector okay maybe you could help help out our military cohort here you you you you you said that your path in balancing the military and McKenzie was a little unusual could you tell us what you did and what what the usual path is yeah so there there are three separate ways to become an officer in the in the army or I think any branch the first way is through a service academy the Navy the Army West Point I'm the second way is through an ROTC program which they have on campus Harvard has that at MIT and the third way is where you go through basic combat training with the enlisted folks and then Officer Candidate School so you're in training for a year but what's the what's the timetable I think people understand going to a service academy and I think of a lot of people well a lot of us people understand ROTC the third way you're describing seems a little unusual is it it is yeah it's it's much more out of my company little unusual or well for I'd say for a guy from Harvard it's very unusual there was put in perspective and my basic training company out of 200 soldiers there are only six officer candidates so what's okay yeah good so so tell people the timetable there when do you do this and what do you do yeah so I started my training well do you want my training or what I do now for my reserve unit I guess those are two separate no I'm interested in the timetable of did you graduate and then join the military or had you joined the military passion at Harvard or yeah well in other words make it clear for someone who's maybe saying I'd like to do that yeah so I got my offer from McKinsey and then I wrote them a memo saying I wanted to you're fading out here you either connection is fading or you got to get closer to the mic yeah sorry it's about it's about how it works is I I signed you have to sign up about eight months in advance to make sure all your paperwork clears and then after that you do ten weeks of basic combat training and then twelve let me start with you went to a recruiter you mean one of these guys in a storefront or if you're a later Aransas you got it you go to a recruiter I get you see at an Army recruiting station early you're a walk-in yeah yeah okay so that's you you may made or not made his day but that's what you did and then what well so I think it's more paperwork that you might want yeah yeah and then after that you go through you take the physical to make sure and you take a mental aptitude test and then you sign up in the reserves if you're going in as a reserve officer I get to choose your specialty so I chose military intelligence and then you go for you get the next basic training gates and you go to basic training that last 10 weeks after that's finished you go to 12 weeks of Officer Candidate School those 22 weeks are in lieu of ROTC it sounds like yes that's correct yeah okay that's that's real interesting did your Harvard interview make you go through that song and dance or did they seem to know they were - I don't I don't think they really didn't know much about the military to be honest so that's what reinforces see these view well it reinforces my view that because they don't know much about the military you're not a pure military applicant for pure military applicants the admissions committee does not know that much about the military so the consequence of that is frequently your I hate to say it but your GPA and your GMAT get a little weighted more the best is a wash to them unless you're like a pilot or you know Special Forces that everybody understands that that's something I said and I'm glad to hear you confirm it Harvard used to have and they still mainly used to have one used to have a vet who did most of the military interview is it did you ever hear about that on the air mm-hmm I was in the room they have you sit up in a waiting area and I did not see I did not see anyone I mean there could have been a bet but I did not see anyone who would strike me I'm talking about the the admissions committee people mm-hmm I I didn't know yeah well um I'm sticking with the program if you're in the military Harvard doesn't fully uh they don't understand that as well as they understand McKenzie you're a little you're a hybrid case but mr. pure military guy applying out of the military mm-hmm yeah you'reyou're great your GPA and GMAT or waited a little heavy occurs to them all military experience is a except for if Nick gets invited to a Stanford intern for you how do you think that's gonna differ from the one that he had a normal well the number of ways one it won't count that much okay so is the case stanford interviews are usually done by alums and stanford does it just doesn't weigh them as much as to harvard ways the interview - at harvard the interview is a is a filter where they flunk you if they the interview Harvard is basically to see whether you can perform in a case method environment at Stanford the interview is some kind of gauzy proxy for whether you're that type of person and you my guess is you at Stanford you'd be interviewed by alum frequently like it's at the guy's house or at the guy's office so that changes everything yeah Starbucks over a coffee yeah and some of these guys are lonely solely you know the interview sometimes takes an hour you gotta get it so leave yourself a lot of time for the Stanford interview and then the Stanford interview is just more of a big there are three or four behavioral questions explain that to our audience John what are behavioral questions oh they give you a situation tell me about a time when yeah yeah they give you a situation and ask you to lead them through it yeah yeah here's one we'll do one for you Nick as a test year so tell me about a time you got feedback you disagreed with mm-hmm one time I got feedback I disagree with I was I was on a marketing strategy team at McKinsey the team was a partner a manager myself and another associate and we were doing a due diligence project and the other associate and I agreed that we could make all the claims we wanted to in a summarised more document of about two pages but the department was adamant that he wanted a 60s flag at a comprehensive duck um so we we talked with Engagement Manager and went through and explained our reasoning to the partner and then we ended up coming to some sort of compromise where we had a ten slide deck instead of the sixty slide you know that's not feedback you disagreed with that's sort of a negotiated outcome feedback that you disagreed with is you know a partner comes up to you for your review and says you know we like this about you but we've heard some things where you're not being innovative enough I'm getting aggressive enough and getting business is that kind of it it's if you get a stand for the interview yeah you'll probably you'll do okay if you're feeling particularly I'm not trying to tell my services here but I do often oh yeah it's good yeah you're a solid guy okay I think I think your chances are getting a Stanford interview are and 5060 percent and I think your chances are getting in a Harvard post interviewer you know like 60 70 80 percent you're a solid guy so I expect good things at here one should keep in touch you know you know I just make a point in this MBA admissions are incredibly random at times so it's never hard it's really hard for anyone to say you got a hundred percent chance you're gonna get in right in all the years I've been with sandy and it's five eaters those are the highest odds he's never given anybody a good thing yeah yeah but you got over the first hurdle the interview hurdle - yeah and it sounds like it went okay you're walking in I'm telling you we'll admit in the toughest decision you're gonna have to make is choosing between Harvard and Stanford yeah you will never you won't ask you to do that here because they may be listening yeah we don't want you to do that yeah anyway hey good luck to you was a pleasure to meet you yeah good talking to Nick and or the other in the fall of 2020 I expect I expect to be reading about your buddy okay all right good weekend Nick good luck and for all of you out there thanks for watching this is John Byrne the poet sack wants Friday with sandy adios thanks forever

Channel: Poets & Quants

Views: 9,100

Rating: 4.8596492 out of 5

Keywords: business school, mba, b-school, b-school admissions, poets&quants, John A. Byrne, online mba, best mba programs, mba ranking, online mba ranking, US MBA programs, European MBA, M7 School, International MBA

Id: gvOpK-qMD-Q

Length: 17min 2sec (1022 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020