Episode 274: Tips for the Wharton Team-Based Discussion (TBD)

[MUSIC] Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and I'm with Co-host Alex Brown today for a special edition of the podcast where we're going to focus exclusively on the Wharton Admissions interview. The Wharton interview, which is actually more commonly known as the Wharton team-based discussion, is unlike any other admissions interview. That's why we're going to devote a whole episode to it. So in this episode, we're going to try to give you everything you need to know so that you can be successful if you're fortunate enough to have a Wharton team-based discussion invitation. So we're going to tackle a little bit about the history of the TBD, talk a little bit about why Wharton uses it, how to prepare, how to perform. And just we'll get into even what the question is for this year, because the way the team-based discussion works, as you'll learn in a moment, is you're given some information in advance that you have to prepare. So we'll get into this year's prompt and how to get ready for it. But let's start with the background. So Alex, I want to bring you on here and just, can you give me a little bit of background about where this comes from, this team-based discussion idea? Because there's no other school, at least currently, that's doing it this way. Except for maybe IMD in Switzerland, that's the only one I can think of. And Ross has sort of moved away from this right, so they're doing something similar as an option for their candidate, so up to a couple of years ago, obviously the pandemic sort of got in the way of that. I don't think they've resumed it, so maybe wonder. Quite honestly, if this is the best approach, nobody has really followed Wharton sort of blazing the trail on the US side, like you mentioned IMD, I think they might have been the pioneers. But the idea here is to sort of simulate a Wharton sort of team learning team, right? So when you're at Wharton, you're placed in a learning team within your sort of cohort and so on and so forth of sort of five students or something like that, where you'll navigate your first year curriculum with that group of students, or at least that's a point. So this team-based discussion is an attempt to showcase that environment and then for Wharton to sort of assess how you would perform in such an environment. So that's a little bit about the history, and we could go historically in operations, faculty sort of set it up or whatever. But Graham, do you, in terms of simulating the team-based discussion at the learning team environment, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, one of the things I loved about Wharton was the fact that they had learning teams, and that I was on a team with a bunch of different people. They craft these teams so that it's not all men, and there's good gender balance, there's good industry balance, even international balance. So I love the learning team, because that is like super power team, we all have different skills, and we got to travel through, as you say, the first year together. And so I get the desire on the part of the admissions team to kind of showcase that and give candidates a bit of a flavor of it. Although, you know, I wasn't actually competing with my learning teammates to like, it wasn't like, you know, two of us would graduate, and the other four might not. Because we had six on my own learning team, which is the case here, on some levels, right? It's like, not everyone's going to get in, you know. But I mean, I understand it, and I love the learning team focus at Wharton, and I think Wharton is a really collaborative place because of the learning teams in a way. Because you're not competing with each other, you're helping each other to kind of get through classes and to deliver homework together and all that stuff. So I get it. I guess we should also mention that in addition to the team-based discussion, there is a one-on-one thing that happens after where you get like 10 minutes to talk with admissions rapper a second-year student actually. So yeah, but in any event, yeah, that's my take on kind of the history of it. I mean, it's some, I guess I just worry that it could bring out strange behavior. Like it's not because it's competitive, you know, like I was saying, on average, two out of six people in a team-based discussion are going to get in, and so, yeah, it's a little tricky. Yeah, it is tricky, but we should be clear. All six of the folks in the team-based discussion may get in, or may not get in. Yes. That's absolutely possible. So you're not competing directly with the other folks for two spots. Right. But as you correctly point out, the dynamic is very different when you're in a team-based discussion, where only 40% of you, or whatever the percentage number is ultimately gets admitted less than 40%. So yeah. So the dynamic is different, but when you approach the team-based discussion, you need to approach it as if you were on a learning team at war. Right. And be very cooperative and very open, and so on and so forth. That's really, really important. You don't want to be trying to showcase why you are better than everyone else, and therefore you need to be admitted. You've got to show how you're a great team player, and help your team come up with the best solution to the problem at hand, or the case study at hand, or whatever it might be. That's right. Yeah. And I actually, I'd come up with a list of just a handful of key general tips as you kind of prepare for this thing. And so we had, and I think this goes back always, we have worked on it together, but we had these tips that's kind of, you know, make sure you've read the prompt and thought about it, because you've got to spend some time thinking and preparing for the exercise. But then the next tip we had was don't spend 20 hours researching and writing up your notes, you know, your preparation is kind of the appetizer for this event, it's not the main course. The main course is actually your participation and the discussion, you know, that happens in the team base. Yeah. I did see this because obviously you sent me your notes before. We recorded this, so I'm going to take a little bit of an issue with that. I'm not saying spend 20 hours, but certainly the better you're prepared for an interview like this, or any kind of interview, but a team based interview. I think the more dynamic you can be within the team based environment, right? So if you've really done the digging and understand why you're recommending whatever it is you're recommending and so on and so forth, I think you can be more agile in the conversations because if someone else does actually come up with a better or more creative idea, you can recognize that because you did do. Do the due diligence on your own proposal and so on and so forth. So yeah, yeah, not. I'm not saying go 20 hours, but I do think preparation is vital to success. Yeah, and I think the point that I was trying to make and it's probably not well made is just that. I don't want people to get to spend so many hours on their little idea that they're bringing to the group, which as we know everyone, the way these discussions work is everyone's given a bit of time to present their idea. Or their response to the prompt that warden has given you and so one of the things I worry about is people get so attached to their idea that they spend the entire team based discussion fighting for that idea when they can't read the writing on the wall and realize that maybe someone else had a better idea and they need to move on and and get the discussion going in other directions. So that that's always kind of trying to get out there, but yeah, you make a very good point like, you know, you got to be prepared and so that will take hours of time to get to get ready. Other tips we had were just arrive early and be ready. Don't piss off your fellow team based discussion participants by like showing up, you know, late. Yeah, and a tip for that. I read a couple of a few of our interview archive reports from the season, the Zoom based team based discussions, which adds a different dynamic and prior to the interviews beginning, there was like a 10 minute period when candidates were arriving, there was chit chat and getting to know each other. The type activity even in the Zoom based environment. So if that's the case for your team based discussion, arrive and make full use of that 10 minutes so that you can feel much more comfortable in what is quite an odd environment to do a team based, have a team based conversation with people you've never met before. So that is a good point. And I think we've stated it, but it's like, you know, everything's virtual. They've kept these things virtual because of COVID and, you know, just it's sort of a vestige of the pivot that they had to make. And so they're keeping them virtual, which I mean, I think does help in some ways because it allows them to better mix the people, you know, they used to do these things in key cities across the globe, or on campus, and that meant that, you know, when they went to Mumbai to do a team based discussion, you know, most of the candidates would be Indian. So now they're able to kind of better mix and match people. People a little bit, but in any event show up on time, get there 10 minutes early, it sounds like, because you can actually meet your fellow TBD participants. The other thing is, you know, as we said, be ready for your one minute pitch, which is you usually get a minute at the outset to kind of pitch your idea, this year, the prompt, we should just tell everyone we'll get into it, but the prompt is really about coming up with an idea for a global immersion program at Wharton, which is a, they have these global immersion programs at Wharton, they've had them for many, many years. and so you got to be ready to make your pitch, but you also, you know, whenever. you're talking in these TBDs, you want to be succinct and you don't want to kind of hog air time. So everything you say needs to be additive. But that's an important point because, these are short. I mean, they will fly by everyone who talks about how wow, we were kind of over and done before I knew it. So that was another tip we had. And we had just a couple more way. Keep an eye on the clock for the reasons I've just kind of outlined. You want to make sure everyone gets a chance to, you know, participate in that the group comes to some sort of conclusion because I think the idea is that everyone makes their pitch. The group discusses those pitches and moves towards picking one that they can then flesh out and really, you know, kind of conclude with. So that's important to keep an eye on the clock. Another thing, Alex, we talk about don't shy away from conflict but be polite. So, you know, constructive disagreement is not a bad thing. And I want to, I don't know if you saw this one, but there was that report in the archive from some time ago where the person was like, they questioned the authenticity of their fellow participants because everyone was being too nice. They said it was like, you know, someone said, like, oh, you know, let's maybe take some notes and remove the caps from our pens, you know, and someone said, wow, what an amazing idea that is to take the caps off. Take the caps off of our pens. Gosh, you know, thank you so much for that. You know, it just kind of can be a bit much, right? So I was going to say be careful about tools and whiteboards, but they don't, they used to have like a whiteboard in the room that you were in. And now it's virtual. And so I presume people are using the chat feature to kind of keep some notes and things, but you don't want these things to distract from, you know, your interaction with others and the discussion and stuff. And then, yeah, we have this kind of authenticity point, be authentic, but don't be fake. So anyway, those were kind of the main, kind of main sort of general tips that we wanted to suggest. But I wanted to ask you, Alex, tell me about, you know, people are going to prepare an idea, right? And they're going to bring that idea and tell me a little bit about like what should the attitude be, you know, like if, what if your idea is not the one that people gravitate towards? Yeah, I mean, this gets back to my idea at the beginning is just make sure you do prep really well. You know why you're proposing your idea and you've really thought it through and the activities and various other things that folks are going to do during this immersion based on where the idea that you're proposing and so on and so forth. But yeah, if you're in a team-based discussion with four other folks, then your ideas got a 20% chance of being selected. So the likelihood is it won't get selected. Right. But that's not that shouldn't be an issue. I mean, obviously, if it does get selected, you would think well, that's quite good. But if it doesn't be humble, come out and support other ideas and also recognise that that final idea, well, the destination is one person's idea. The actual activity is might have, some of it might have stemmed from other folks, you know, from folks with other ideas as well as your own ideas. So it could have helped evolve that particular global immersion programme and so forth. So if your idea is not chosen, maybe that moves you more into a facilitator's role within the team-based discussion. There are several other roles, Graham, I think that folks can navigate to make a really good positive impact on the overall discussion, even things like time keeping, keeping everyone sort of aligned to select the appropriate idea and fine tune that idea. And also, you know, recognising who's contributing, who's perhaps not contributed so much and try to engage those folks a little bit more because not forgetting. Everyone in that team-based discussion is likely got really good ideas because they've all prepared well and they're all high-quality people. Right, I mean, they've made the cut to get an interview. So it's not just the random kind of word and application pool, which may include some duds, right? There are going to be some people quite awarding who are not qualified, but the people who make the interview are presumably all pretty darn good, you know. Yeah, yeah. So I did want to, I mean, one of the things we wanted to talk about as well is just the different personality types that you might encounter in these in this team-based discussion. So I'm just going to throw some personality types at you and I don't know if you're willing to kind of comment on what one should do. So like, let's say there's someone in my group who's very shy and they're not really engaging. Do I care about that? Do I let them just go under and say, "Hey, that's one person who maybe is not going to get in?" Or what do I do? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, one, these are quite unusual for us, a type, MBA candidates, right? So the majority of folks in the group won't be shy, but that then puts a little bit more pressure on the introvert that might be a little bit shy because of the more A type nature of other folks. But yeah, again, encouraging everyone to sort of contribute in that sort of general conversation once you've all each had your pictures. So what this also means is when each person puts in their pitch, take notes, identify one or two really strong points from each person's pitch so that if you're needing to draw someone out, then when as you draw them out, you can highlight the really sort of interesting insight that they contributed and asked them to expand it further or so on and so forth. So if you are trying to draw someone out, my point is make sure you do it with a good understanding of what they've already prepared and so on and so forth. Right, yeah, good point because obviously you don't want to just say, "Hey, Adam hasn't said much, let's add him anything you want to add." That's sort of like too blatant, but I think you could say, "Hey, Adam, when you gave your pitch, you mentioned this one thing that you thought would be really interesting to do as part of a GIP, and I know we're now moving on to a different idea in terms of overall where we might go, but this idea is interesting and maybe it could work with the thing we're trying to build here." So, yeah, so I think that's a better approach. Another personality type is someone who, I will just call them the jerk, or that someone is like domineering or trying to sort of take over the conversation, maybe they're doing some mansplaining, or whatever it is, what do you do with that person? Yeah, this is harder because you do not want to get into a situation where one person is sort of really dictating everything and really ultimately becomes their project and so on and so forth. So it is important to sort of interject and sort of push back a little, but you also then need to come across as someone that's reasonable polite and making sure that you're only doing it to draw in others to make sure you come to a solution that's a result of everybody's contribution. So this is the tougher challenge, quite frankly, Graham, because there are four others in the team-based discussion that should be all prepared to tackle that particular issue, but yeah, you don't want to throw anyone under the boss either. Right, so I think you can try to interject or even interrupt in some instances, but you've got to be polite and it's got to be clear that you're just trying to make space for others in the group too. But yeah, it's interesting. And remember, you don't have to, it's not your job to make the jerk nice in this, like you're saying. In the same way that you don't have to make the extrovert talk the entire time or the introvert talk the entire time. So it's not your job, but just keeping an eye on these things and being aware that these personality types may exist in your group is important. I did want to move on to just, well, I guess one thing I wanted to do is let's talk just for a minute about the one-on-one. So you have your team-based discussion where you make your pitch, the group discusses, they have to arrive at some kind of a conclusion, and then after that, if I understand it correctly, everyone kind of is back in sort of a waiting room, and then one by one on Zoom, you're taken to speak with the second year MBA student who had observed the discussion. So do you want to just tell us a little bit what you spend about 10 minutes with that person at most? And what happens in that? So yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of how it's done, either that or they're putting breakout rooms in order to conduct those one-on-ones, and that seems to be the case with the interview reports that I read from the season. Basically, they're asking why MBA, why war, and you've got 10 minutes, and you also want to be able to articulate on those two issues that are obviously very related, and also have one or two questions that you would like to ask. So I think that's quite important too, because that shows that you've thought long and hard about this, you've got the opportunity, you're with the second year student, so you should be ready to ask questions, not questions that in any way could sort of undermine your passion for wanting to attend war, or whatever it might be. Those questions can wait till after you're admitted, but certainly questions related to, I think the best type of question in this circumstance is asking the second year student about their experience, and some way related to what you're seeking out of an MBA. So the other, you may get asked in the these one-to-one interviews to comment on your experience with the team-based discussion. That was often a line of questioning in years past, but I did not see that in the recent interview reports. Yeah. So, sometimes they will, I mean, yeah, we'll see, but you're right, historically, sometimes they will say, "How did you think that went or any thoughts on the discussion?" And, you know, you've got to be, again, like, don't throw anybody under the bus, like, even if there was someone who was, you know, kind of making it, it wasn't as nice or whatever, just be very diplomatic. But yeah, I guess one thing I wanted to ask you though, Alex. Be diplomatic, but also be authentic. Right. So if someone was truly a jerk, you can say, "Well, John was challenging." Yes. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's fine. The other thing, what do I do? So, you know, usually when you have to ask questions about, you know, they say, "Oh, do you have any questions for me?" They say, "Great to come in prepared, and I think it's so easy when it's a second year student," because they're in the program, and they love to talk about their experience. And so to the extent that you can ask them a question like you say, that maybe relates to something they've done and how it maybe, you know, would be of interest to you, the candidate, that's great. But I do understand that every once in a while, there's an admissions officer that's facilitating the TBD. So what would I ask the admissions officer if I have to ask a question? Is there any, like, "Should I have a backup plan in case the person I'm talking to is not a current student?" Yeah. I mean, in terms of the actual TBD, there will be an admissions officer in a second year student observing, or mostly that's going to be the case. And yeah, so maybe the admissions officer also conducts some of these one-to-one interviews, and if that's the case, yeah, you could ask them, you know, questions related to, you know, whatever major that you're pursuing, one club you're interested in, maybe get connected with members from those clubs to see if they can help connect you and so on and so forth. Yeah. So questions along those lines, obviously, you can't ask about their experience in the MBA because their admissions officers, so yeah, exactly. But I would query a little bit more along the lines of what you're seeking to get out of the MBA. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So that's good. And that 10-minute one-on-one is, it whizzes by as well. I mean, this whole thing is really fast. So. Yeah. But let's spend the last couple of minutes here, last five minutes or so on this year's prompt. So what I wanted to do is I'll just read the prompt because I don't, you know, it's possible that when this episode airs that they haven't yet issued the interview invitations, so not everyone might have it yet. So I'll just go. And I will provide a caveat here, Graham. This is the TBD for those folks that are interviewed in Round One, which in years past has been the same TBD for all candidates for that season. Right. We don't know that they're going to follow that same path, so anything that we say from now on is predicated on the fact that they're using the same TBD response. If they don't, no fear, all the same guidance applies would just be a different prompt. And that's why we purposely kind of set this up this way. So all the advice given to this point is really, you know, general advice on how to approach a TBD at Wharton. But yeah, let's talk about this year's prompt. I mean, it may change, but let's hope that they stick to their usual policy. But anyway, here we go. So this is what Wharton says. They say Wharton's commitment to global engagement prepares MBA students for any challenge in the international business environment. As of the 2022 school year, all global travel at Wharton is back to normal operations. Wharton MBAs will once again have the opportunity to participate in a global immersion program, also known as a GIP, which is a credit-bearing elective course designed to provide high level, a high level survey of the economic, cultural, and geopolitical drivers behind regions integral to the global economy. The GIP courses consist of three components on campus study sessions, international travel, and a final deliverable by attending faculty lectures and traveling abroad to meet with local business leaders, government officials, and Wharton alumni. Students have the opportunity to learn from a tremendous group of professionals while also immersing themselves in another culture and building strong relationships with their GIP cohort. For the purposes of this TBD discussion, you've been invited to be part of a team of students tasked with designing a new global immersion program. As a team, determine the following course requirements while clearly articulating your course's desired outcomes. So here we go. A region of study is the first thing you've got to come up with, a region of study for your GIP. A recommendation for a company and/or government meetings, or I guess for company and/or multiple companies and possibly multiple government meetings, a recommendation for a cultural event or immersion to participate in while traveling, and finally a recommendation for the final deliverable or assignment that students will complete after the GIP. So that's the homework, basically, Alex, like you need to come up with an idea for a GIP that, you know, you've got to come up with a region of study who you'd want to meet with in country and/or in countries, plural, and then, yeah, recommendation for something cultural you could do and then what's the final assignment related to it. So that's what people need to spend time thinking about before they come into this. But do you have any advice on how they should start? Sure. So I'm going to re-quote what a little bit of what you just said. You've been invited to be part of a team of students tasked with designing a new GIP. And what that says to me is you're not selecting one of the students' GIP programs as articulated by that student in that one-minute pitch. You're certainly going to select one region amongst the five regions selected across the team's pitches. You've got to select one region for obvious reasons, or maybe you adapt it to a slightly different region for whatever reasons. But the recommendations for companies, government meetings, the cultural events, and other aspects of that GIP, could be drawn from other members of the, obviously, of that team as you go into those ongoing discussions on how to actually sort of develop the GIP for that particular region. Also it says you're designing a new GIP, so the first thing you need to do is figure out where one currently goes with this globally-immersion program. Don't recommend something where it goes, because one, your idea is not going to get selected, and secondly, the assessors are going to say, well, you spent no time on this, et cetera, so that's not going to be a good look for you. Bear all that in mind, and then look to your own personal, where are you from? These are a region that could be a strong possibility, where you have experience, and so on and so forth. So draw from your own personal experiences to potentially come up with a GIP selection, but you're also going to need to look at the other side of it and look at the potential appeal of a particular region or an area that you're selecting, so making sure, just because you're from a very sort of unique, not unique, but a remote area of the world, you think it'd be really good that you have all this insight about this area and so on and so forth. You've got to think on the consumer side, will that GIP proposal generate enough interest from the students, that it'll be a viable GIP, I guess, is my point? So there's that side of it, too, Graham. Yeah, there's lots of things to look at. I do think this is a real marketing play on the power of Wharton, by the way. Yes, yeah, we didn't talk about that earlier, but that's true. These questions often, I mean, it's almost like they're giving you an exercise that sort of forces you to learn a lot about something that they think is a real asset at Wharton, which I mean, I think these GIPs are fantastic, but it is, you're right, it's a marketing, there's a piece where they're kind of wanting you to start drinking the kind of Wharton Kool-Aid and be like, wow, I'm planning this thing, I would love to do one of these things, I should go to Wharton, you know? So there is a part of it that's like that. I do think that, you know, it is interesting, yeah, to just, one of the things I was kind of grappling with is, let's say you're just sort of, you know, Joe Schmo, American, who hasn't really traveled much, at least not for work, you know, maybe been on some vacations places. And so you're, you're from, I don't know, middle of America or even New York or something, like there's no GIP that's going to focus on, you know, the US, at least to my knowledge. And I think they're typically, you know, going further, further afield. But you know, I guess one of the things I was thinking about is, what if if you were working in a field that is, I guess I'm trying to look for the right way to say this, but let's say you're working in a field, maybe you're really fascinated by clean tack or, and it turns out that in Scandinavia, there's like a lot of interesting things happening in that, you know, in that industry, I'm just making this up here, right? So then, so you could, you could come up with an idea of a place to go and, you know, maybe you would, you know, visit several countries in that region and come up with cultural things and government meetings and, et cetera, right? That would not necessarily be related to your personal background, but would be related to your future aspirations and goals or, or maybe to some of the experiences that you've had in the work you're doing today, perhaps you've had a client that's in that region and so you would say, oh, I'd love to go to this area because I'm really passionate about clean tech and over the last few years I've actually been working with a customer that's based in Helsinki or whatever it is, right? So you can find ways to integrate bits of your background even if you're kind of a pretty plain vanilla person who's in the US and hasn't been abroad a ton, right? So whereas on the other side, like you were saying, you might live, you might be an international student, maybe you live in Nigeria or India or somewhere where, you know, Canada's often, you know, that's more the kind of terrain where these GIPs might happen where there's lots of kind of interesting things to learn and so then you could tap into your own kind of personal background and cultural background to make for a good visit for your classmates. But then again, it's got to be something that aligns with your interests and what you want to do. And, you know, I mean, ideally, right? Like if your career plan is to like leave India and go work in the Silicon Valley, then you might not want to be pitching a GIP that's all about coming to India, right? I mean, I don't know if you agree with that. - Yeah, I mean, you could take that approach. I mean, I get exactly what you're saying, but you could still be really proud of where you're from and encouraging other folks to want to participate and be where you're from with your own goals actually going somewhere else, even if it's for a period of time and then to return back to your home countries in the longer term. I do understand that. And I think your example with the more vanilla US type candidate who hasn't left the US is really well stated. You know, look to your passions and interests and goals to seek out potential opportunities for GIP, because obviously, if they are your passions and interests and goals, you've already got a good sense of that sort of environment and so forth. So yeah, it should be, hopefully it's a good experience. You've basically, you've got to do the legwork to come up with that one minute pitch. But again, it's not all about winning. It's all about making a very viable pitch that's interesting and engaging and then it's that conversation afterwards that really will be talent. - Yeah, yeah, so I think, you know, again, this is some, you know, it should be fun. And I actually think that, you know, looking at the Wharton website, reading about past GIPs will inspire people. You know, you'll learn a little bit about what they typically do and so yeah, so again, this is, it's a very unusual way to interview and assess candidates. Some people like it, some don't. But it's actually, I mean, you know, like you say, do your homework, get ready, come in with a compelling pitch and then be prepared to work with your teammates. And I think you just need to assume that these are people that are all going to get in, that these are your future Wharton classmates and it's a learning team setting. That's probably the best mindset to have going in rather than thinking about the, which one of us is not going to get in. - Right. (laughing) But in any event, yeah, I appreciate your making time Alex to talk about this 'cause I know it's on a lot of people's minds as they get ready for this, you know, it's a really non-traditional way to interview. So hopefully this episode helps people to find their way as they prepare and hopefully everyone will leave, you know, reports in the interview archive so that we can continue to build that out and make this process as easy and kind of demystified as possible for people going through it. But Alex, thanks again for making time and best select everyone listening that's going to be interviewing at Wharton. - Yeah, best of luck, everyone. Take care. (upbeat music)