From Good to Great: Ivey MBA Application Tips

[MUSIC] >> Actually, we are ready to go. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> We've got a good amount of people attending in, so this is- >> All right, they want to get to the app tips. So let's all hold back any longer. Well, thank you for joining us today. I'm Lindsay Littman, I'm the director of our full-time MBA Recruitment in the missions team. Join by my lovely colleague Amy Fraud. >> Hello, everyone. I'm the Associate Director for MBA Recruiting and Admissions. And happy to be here. >> Today, we really want to focus on some practical advice, kind of highlight some common pitfalls. Give you more behind the scenes what we look for strong applications. It's a hot topic, a hot question we're asked often is, how do I stand out, what sets me apart from others? So today's is really focused on application admissions. Some of you have submitted some advanced questions, and we really appreciate that. We'll cover those towards the end of the session. Some questions are really targeted to the program overview. And a qualification. So we would really encourage you to check out our website. Our website has a lot of information about qualifications for the program. You do have to have at least two years experience. We're not looking for those who are currently in the university to apply for MBA program. And the program overview details a lot of resources like podcasts and alumni and student testimonials. So to complement this, really do check out the website for some additional information on the program itself. So today we're really just going to focus on. Stand out as a strong applicant addresses some of those questions. We will have time at the end for any live questions. You can use the Q and A button on the Zoom chat here to put forward some questions towards the end. And we'll try to make sure we get time for that. A strong application, really at a headline. It's a cohesive story. We want to see a theme through there with the clarity of your goals, the evidence of your readiness for the academic rigorous. We're showing that quantitative capability. You've had some progression. Signs you'll thrive in the collaborative environment. I've used very unique with our one-year case format program. It's the only one in Canada. It's one of four in the world. Some may have taken some case classes. And that's great. You have a bit of a taste of it. But imagine doing that every single day. It's a unique personality that thrives in our program. And it can be difficult to showcase that personality in an application. And that's where things like references, your essays, your admissions interview, all of that can really help tell the story. What also helps is sending those to strong applicants. If you do have a chance to connect with Amy and myself, you can get a chance to storytell more. We may be candidly, casually, deeper into why the MBA. And that helps Amy and I as your representative at the admissions committee meetings really help. Again, help enhance your application, help enhance your candidacy for the program. So having a strong application is having some themes. Showing that you've got the soft skills, showing you've done the research, showing you're ready for this. And we can help you portray that through your application. It is not in the application that you have to have every single thing figured out. And we'll touch base this later in today's conversation about, you know, clear to your MBA goals in terms of career. It's not like you have to have one specific career only. But it has to be clear in your applications. How the MBA will benefit you. How you will grow from the MBA. Why now in your career, you're ready for this. So really at a headline that really is what we find a strong application. And again, we'll get more into the specifics of the application and get some specific advice as we continue further. Yeah, that's great. And yeah, just segueing into the next piece, which is really around the key highlights of the MBA application. So I guess the tactical piece, if you'd like to say. So really with our application, we do try to make it streamlined and a no-risk approach when applying. And so with the MBA application, we make it accessible for everyone. So that means no application fee. And so really, there's no risk starting an application. And so really, if you're curious about starting the application, you haven't done so yet. There's no risk in taking the step to begin. And then another piece about the application process is that if you apply and you're admitted to the program, the minimum scholarship you can expect to receive is $10,000. And so I will say that that is on the low end. And it can significantly increase, depending on a number of factors affecting your profile, such as your academic background, your work experience, leadership potential, et cetera. And we'll touch on that area a little bit more later. But you can be assured that the scholarship will be in place for you if you are admitted. And I would say once you've submitted everything, your application references and your interview, everything really rolls pretty efficiently. And so with that, you can expect to hear back from our team within about four to five weeks. And I will just say there's a caveat with this. If you're applying by the July 7 deadline, you can expect to hear back from us by August 8. So really, it's a month turnaround. We really try to expedite the decision on your behalf. So it's not a long drawn out process. And we do try to be respectful of your time. So those are just three key areas that I wanted to point out. And now I think I'll pass it over to Lindsay to walk through some resume tips. And really, this is key because the resume is important. Sometimes it's the first thing that we're looking at. So she's going to touch on really how to ramp it up and what to think about when you are putting it together. So over to Lindsay. Oh, well, thank you for the introduction to that, Amy. So with the resume itself, it is important. But I also want to say, I don't want you to reformat it completely and the gut it and try to make it perfect. And I say that because if you are admitted to the program, the crew manager team will work with you on putting it into this cohesive MBA format that our recruiters really appreciate. So it's important. I don't want you to spend too much time redoing it. But I think it's a critical part of your candidacy assessment to make sure your accomplishments, your leadership, your impact, your influence really stand out. You'll notice when you start an application is a work experience section. And one of the questions we're often asked is the work experience section compared to the resume. The work experience section is more responsibilities like tactical information. You can bullet proof it. You can even take a drug from your job description. It's just to give us an idea sort of what you're responsible for. But your resume is where you can really stand out. And the resume is showing like, what have you achieved? How has the company changed since you've been there? Or how has the role changed since you've been there? Have you had such an influence that you've increased like achievements, you've targets, initiatives, projects? So you want to have achievements in there. We also want to see the style of leadership through your resume as well. Now it can be tricky where how many points do you put in? And this is where we like it to be around three points perhaps per role. You get too long and do it. We're going to go into page three and four of your resume. We really don't want to do that because you will be storytelling your piece in your interview. Your reference will help play a role as well. So when Amy said this is an important part of your assessment, she's right. It's like an important snapshot of your career so far. So picking the most important things you've achieved so far in your career per role. The other challenge can be that we've seen this with files when there has been a gap in employment. And that happens, whether it's a decision on your own end of travel or personal circumstances or, unfortunately, outside of your control. That is fine. You can either indicate it and put a headline for that or just be prepared to speak to it, though, when it does come down to your admissions interview or even your candid conversation with Amy and myself. We will ask about that because we do want to understand your full career journey. And sometimes those gaps need to be explained to make sure there's no, I guess, misunderstanding for that clarity. So I would just want to say that making sure that you are highlighting, again, the soft skill side of your resume, of your achievements versus the more tactical duties. We don't need to see internship information in there. So if you've had summer internships, please refrain from including that. We do like to see things like your outside of work interest, whether it's extracurricular, whether it's your volunteer. Now I say that and some people might be thinking, oh, what if I don't have time for volunteer? Is that going to hurt me if you don't see a resume with a lot of volunteer activities? It's not going to be the case. I mean, we're all humans. We understand that everyone has time or ability or opportunity to do extra outside of work or this other personal circumstances that are not able to. That's fine. But if you do have something and something significant, not something like a ran, a 5K run once a year for an honor, like a charity, that's great. Keep doing that, but that doesn't need to go in your resume. And you might think I'm being exaggerated at that point, but I'm not. I've seen that on a resume and we really don't need to. So I think keep it to what you think is important, but the resume should really take away some key soft skills, leadership, and achievements. You've demonstrated so far in your career. So I mean, I'm going to hand over to you now to talk about the essay size. - The essay, yes. - Yes. - You should know that that's great advice. And so yeah, with the written essay part, I'm talking about the two, required essays for the application. So there are two necessary pieces and so they each touch on different areas. One is the YIV, the second is really about overcoming challenges. I'll touch on the YIV first, but I think it's important just to point out when you're thinking about writing these essays. Keep in mind authenticity is really important when you're putting this together. We're not looking for perfection. We're looking for who you are really beneath the surface. So we want to hear in your own voice the reasoning for pursuing an IVA and an IV MBA. And so really just don't over think it too, too much in terms of what you think we want to hear. There's not a cookie cutter way of putting it together and I will tell you this. We don't want the cookie cutter. So I think that's important to just point out. So just touching on the first essay, the YIV piece, this is where, and I noted this before, it's about going beyond the surface. And so we're not looking for reasons that are noted on our website. We are the case study, or number one ranked in a certain area, or the top school, or we have a great reputation. We know that. So I would say what we're looking for here is really why you're inspired to do the program and really explore the program. So this is really about the fit for you. So think in about, you know, going a bit deeper into who you are as a candidate, what you're going to bring to the program, what you're going to add to the experience, take from the experience, really why you're excited, all around to do it. And why is this the right time for you to invest in your in in your advancement at the stage? Okay. So it's really kind of thinking a little bit deeper around the reason why. Okay. So again, being authentic around that. The second question that we're asking you is really about overcoming a challenge. And this is important because the program itself is quite rigorous. And so you will be challenged on a day-to-day basis in many different ways. And so this tells us a little bit more about you as a person, how you tackle the challenge when you're approached with a situation that might be difficult, you know, how you've learned and moved through it. And it really doesn't matter about the size of the challenge itself. It's really about the mindset that you took on to work through the problem. And so these problems could be personal or professional academic in nature, but really it's something that resonates with you. And then that you can, you know, really speak to passionately about. So again, that piece about being authentic really ties into that as well. So those are just a few tips on the essay portion. So I'll turn it over to you now. Well, I think you need just a quick note. I do think someone you should we should talk about is chat GPT and essays because it is the way of the world now. And you know, as a school, we really are embracing chat GPT or actually more broadly, gendered of AI. We are not a school that is saying don't use it. We are actually adjusting a lot of our curriculum and not to say we move from case to like how we use curriculum, we're adjusting how to prepare for case to use AI. And with applications with essays in particular, you're going to use chat GPT or other formats. We use it. You use it. That's okay. But what we don't want you to do is don't just use it and not edit it. So to Amy's point of the authenticity, it should sound like you. It should speak to you. It should capture your passion, your interest. But does it help to use chat GPT and edit it? It does. And is that okay for us? It is okay. But please do check it, edit it, and make sure it does sound like your voice. Yeah. Okay. Great point. I mean, it is the world we're living in and everyone's utilizing GPT. So yeah, very good point, Lens. So yeah, now over to you. Now go to references, which is they matter more than you think. You know, in Amy, you and I listed admissions committee meetings every week. We've been doing this for several years. And we have had situations where unfortunately, applicants did not do well in their interview. And in that circumstance, you know, maybe we've engaged with them, which helps. We can speak to, okay, they're human. They had a bad day. But really, we have to rely on the references then. And when the references aren't, let's say robust, they're very light in description of the applicant's professional nature and capabilities, that makes it really hard for us to justify giving an offer. You know, we can think the world of the applicant, but if the references are light and the interview can go well, that could be tricky. And we do and I've both been in that more times we want to count. And sometimes the results positive. Sometimes it's not. So I want to spend a little time references is because for our listeners today, it really is important to choose the two right people. And this is something that I think is very specific to each school. So as you get in your looking at your schools, you're narrowing down. Don't take what we say today is to what every school is going to do. Every school is unique with it. And so I want to talk about the type of reference forms, the type of references you should use and advice for you to give those references when you do talk to them about it. So it number one is the reference title, it does not matter as much as you think. You know, we've had references come through, where as I say, a very senior person, and you could tell they did not know the applicant well. They put, you know, one word like sent in the one one line sentence is very generic description to say, say, for example, under interpersonal skills. Hailey has been a great member of the team. She works really well with others. That is a pretty standard vague statement that has probably made true, but most people on that team, it's not really specific to her. And we've seen that enough. And this is where you want to choose your reference that has seen you in your best. Maybe at times of challenge, when you've had to persevere, you've had to pivot, you've had to implement a new project. We want someone who's worked with you more in the day to day or been involved with projects that can actually test to your work. They can speak about your leadership, even if it's just your growing your leadership, if you're early on in your career, or if you've been doing this for several years, they can really show your progression, they can show that you're a trusted team member. There's a lot of great, um, soft skills and intel. Your references can share that we can't get from your resume. That might be awkward for you to say during your interview, the storytelling about your achievements. Having someone else tell us how great you are, how you are a dedicated team member, then you're someone that's reliable, you're trustworthy, you're empathetic, you're someone who goes above and beyond, you mentor people. That's the stuff we want to hear. Ultimately, to fit with Ivy, it almost comes down to the soft skills. Academics are important in yes, your career, but it's the soft skills around it that will help you thrive in the program. And so that's why the reference part can really help you shine if they can share more detail about it. So when I say this, you think, oh my gosh, do they have to work at 500 word essay? It's nothing that technical we're asking for. Both in the online form that you've actually emailed to them. And it's really to the point number two, it's not a letter they write. And I'm sorry if you already have letters, they do need to be in this resume, this reference format. It's within the application, you can see the PDF version yourself. So you can idea of the questions being asked as a rating scale on certain figures like humility and judgment, courage, those adaptions, different cultural environments, those types of areas, because that's also important. But the most important areas is free, free forum text boxes, leadership, interpersonal skills, strengths, and development. This is where we want to see a lot of great in telling you. We want to understand more about how you have been as a colleague, how are you as a team player? How do you respond things that go as planned? What is your leadership style? You know, so this is where you would suggest your referee. Can you just share a few sentences, not just one standard line? One sentence is never enough. And unfortunately, we've given this advice other times, and we still see it come through, which is disappointing. So I would really recommend, as you talk to your two referees that you do share, I'm going to say, listen, I really want to stand out with Ivy, I've talked to the recruiters, this is what they're telling me to do, telling me to share with you in terms of their expectation, or to help increase my chances of it, because even if you nail the interview really well, your reference is really light, that's not a slam dunk either. So this is where your references, again, they really mean more than you think. So take the time, choose the two references carefully. Title is not as important. If it can't be your current employer, that's okay. We get it that maybe you've not or not ready to broach that conversation yet with your employer. You're worried that my restructure you out ahead of time, and you want to work as long as you can, or awkward tension in the office. So that's okay. But then pick a recent employer. We are not looking for internship employers. We are not looking for someone who's solely a mentor, who's never worked with you. That's not a professional reference. We also only want professional references. So we don't want to see academic related references. I know sometimes there's been times, there's been projects during, say, your undergrad or your honors or master's degree. Again, if we want to help you stand out, we need you to help show us, prove to us. that you have enough professional experience to be ready for the program. And if you don't have two professional references, then maybe you don't have enough experience yet. Right? So it's kind of be careful on that. Now we can take three references, and if third reference couldn't be maybe a volunteer, maybe you're a soccer coach, or it could be someone that maybe you worked on a long-term project with at a different level. So it's fine. But we don't have the third reference being another exact same. We don't want to have two from the same, you know, position essentially, from the same employer. I mean, that's not really going to give new information to your candidacy. So choose carefully, talk to them about why you're doing the NBA, what our format is like for the form, and as a tactical administrative housekeeping piece, I guess, the references don't both need to be submitted when you apply. And this is always a bit of a wordy thing that we try to explain, but it's a bit convoluted. So essentially, you will, into the application, you will send the reference form to each referee. We do strongly recommend a personal email address. It is sent through our CRM, which can be, you know, firewall, certain corporate organizations. So that could happen. But there is a PDF, you can also send to them as well. As long as it's in the sent status, you can proceed to apply whenever you're ready. As a timeline when they should be received on our end, ideally within two weeks of when you've applied, because that means that's around time of admissions interview. And then what Amy or I would do is representing you, we take your interview notes, we take your reference notes, your application, and then usually with one to two weeks following, we will then present you to the committee. So that's why it's an approximate two week timeframe, timeframe for your reference is to be submitted. But Amy and I also, we keep track of your file, so if we see they're not submitted yet, we'll send you a little nudge or on that time for you then to follow up. But I think hopefully I'm not trying to like put too much emphasis on this, but in a good way emphasis. And this can really set you apart from others. So do choose carefully and give them some advice for completing our forms. Next up, I know we're going to talk about a little bit of the interview and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on this because we do have a separate preparation podcast for this. And Amy and I also during our calls that you're happy to give you more one-on-one information on it because it really is custom's your profile. The interview is for about 75% of applicants. You're notified within two to five business days of applying whether you're proceeding to this stage. Once you are notified of this, if you are proceeding forward, there's a private podcast where Amy, I need to listen to her voice another time. Break down the and one hour admissions interview for you. We give you the types of questions, the categories, why we're asking the questions. And that we find was important because if you know why we're asking the question, then you can find the best example to give us information we need about you. So that is something you definitely want to listen to. It's one of our career management and so this is important because this is a chance for you to shine for you to talk about, look at all professional experiences I've had, look at my accomplishments, look at my progression, hear how realistic I am with the NBA. Here's why I really feel I've used the fit for me. We know with the essays that Amy touched on earlier, there's a guide with the word count and it's a guide, right? You can go over it, it's okay, don't double it. But this is where you can, you can share much more about yourself during the interview. And so that's where you can stand out from the rest. It'd be a really good storyteller, you know, do the car format. Pick examples that really show you being able to be flexible that you're okay in ambiguity, that you are willing to help team members for struggling. So this interview focuses a lot on your soft skills. So go back to a theme of our application that stands out, the soft skill side, the adaptability, the coachability, the NBA coach might be your coach in the program. They want to make sure, do you have enough experience, but you have an attitude of resiliency, of taking initiative, of doing the hard work, be showing curiosity, right? These are all the things that are going to help you stand out to that coach and then hopefully do really well for all the interviews. So that's something that can help take your application next level. It's certainly doing really well on it, but the preparation is important. There is a balance of being robotic. So we want you to be prepared for the interview to show some personality because as I think you're probably getting this AM&I keep probably repeating this for the next while this webinar is culture is really a big component of the fitted ivy, small classroom, intimate nature, collaborative focus. So it means more for us to fit than maybe some more lecture programs of a larger scale when you're not doing as much team group interaction. So the interview is a chance for you to really showcase those abilities if you weren't able to capture them fully within the other parts of your application. So AM&I going to pass it back to you. I think we're going to wrap up some of these sort of headlines. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was fantastic. Lindsay, I think you know you had quite a bit of context and color to the references and the interview process. And as Lindsay mentioned, there's there's a great podcast on the interview as well. So and just to plug the podcast, we do have a repository of those on our admissions website. And so we touch on many areas from admissions to the student experience side. So really whatever you're looking to kind of research, there's plenty of information, valuable information there for you to tune into. So so what we've done is we've covered that the key pieces of what goes into the application itself. And so with that, I would say what's important in putting together your application is is the research piece of that. And so it's the time you take and and the time you invest to kind of do the extra thoughtful pieces. And so whether it's I mean, we would assume that you have read our entire website, at least the MBA website, you've tuned into the podcast. As mentioned, you have perhaps connected with some of the alum. We also have a student ambassador page on the website. They are wonderful, tremendous resources. They're there to help and to guide. They've been in your your shoes before. So please don't hesitate to reach out. You can you can search through regions through backgrounds. They're there, like I said, to to guide you through. So research is really quite important to put in to the the application process. So hopefully right now you're feeling like you're you're feeling boosted. You're you're feeling ready to get that application started. And just remember, there's no fee. So basically no risk in getting started. And also we do use rolling admission. So keep that in mind. So we will return your decision a little bit sooner. Sometimes if you're avoiding the deadlines, sometimes we do see a little bit of a bottleneck depending on the timeframe that you're applying at. So rolling admissions is something that we do implement. So we will process that for you pretty pretty quickly. And so the other piece is don't hesitate to reach out to us. We're here for you. And so we are your advisors. You've probably seen us on the website. We're we're really here to connect with you. And one way to to help us help you is to actually get in touch with us. And how you can do that is by submitting a resume if you haven't done so already. So I would definitely say that is your number one way to connect. You'll receive information from us targeted emails. But by putting your resume forward, that's going to flow through. So it will either land with Lindsay or myself. And and from there, a member either one of us or a member of the admissions team will follow up with you just to let you know preliminary result of your fit for the program. And then from there, you know, potentially we have a call. But we want to help you through the process. So please get started on that if you haven't yet already. So those are just kind of a few things to keep in mind when putting the application together. That's perfect Amy. And we mentioned earlier when we kicked this off that we appreciate some of the advanced questions that came through. So we do want to get to those. We also want to open them to those who are tuned in live today for some questions that maybe we said something that's brought a new question forward. Or we haven't said something that you'd like to advice on. So please feel free to use a Q&A option. We will certainly get to those before this time wraps up. So we'll start with some of the pre the advanced ones we had. And then we'll certainly address the live ones as well. One of the questions we received was about not being 100% clear on their goals with the MBA. And this is in respect to career. The person that asked more about what if I have a few career options in mind? Is that okay? Am I going to be judged on this? And it is okay. You know, I think Amy, you've mentioned earlier, we don't expect perfection and we don't. Individuals coming back to pursue an MBA means you're looking to improve yourself. You're looking to work on yourself. So we do expect that you know, you're maybe not be 100% sure. And in all fairness, there's only so much research you can do on LinkedIn through company websites. I built these careers. A lot of really understanding the career comes to networking, which trusts us a lot of that in the program. So that will come your way. But we do want your MBA reasoning to not be in a field, right? So we're not we don't want to see in your essay number one. Oh, I might want to be an investment banker or marketing manager or and they want to be a lawyer and do my JDMBA. Those are three very, very different careers. So it would be more aligned to say, I really like focus more on what you've enjoyed doing and say I might want to do more of this or I've realized like for an example, I'm an accountant. I do not want to be an accountant the rest of my life. I've appreciated this. I want to leverage what I understand, but I'd like to be more say on strategy. I'd like to be more into that area of it versus the number of crunching and just working on audit or taxes. So it's okay to say, here's what I would like to do more of, here's what I would like to explore and consider, but not to be completely in a field of three very different careers. So that's not going to be a negative if you explain it that way. And I think that's just a piece that sometimes can be hung up on that you think especially the one-year program that you have to do very specific for one year and you don't. There's exploration time, all of that is there, but it does move quickly. So you'll just want to make sure you carve out some time to get to those info sessions to meet the employers, meet the alumni, really get a better understanding of what those career opportunities are. So then you can work with your coach and help devise a career strategy to execute. Yeah, that's great. And so on to our next question that we received. So this is a pretty common question just around applications to other schools and so how to manage that process. So with that, we know that you're applying to other MBA schools, you know, we know that this is something that you've thought deeply about and you're exploring many different programs. So our word of advice is to be transparent with us. We appreciate you passing that information along to us so that we can work with you on your timelines. But I would also say this, think about those timelines before you apply. And so try to map that out and be thoughtful around when you're applying to school A, B, and C. That way, usually, if you are being transparent, the school knows they can work with you. So we do try to expedite that if necessary. If let's say one school is looking for, you know, response by this date. You let us know we will try to manage that within expectations. However, I would say, you know, the reality is we can't, you know, turn it around within a day. So be mindful of that as well. And also try to, you know, be, I would say in line and consistent in delivering that message along the line to all the schools. But generally speaking, our timeline is four weeks, four to five weeks with a decision. Sometimes later, just depending on the rounds that you're applying, but we can be flexible. And so that is what I'm really trying to say is that we can work with your timelines. But the piece here is that you want to think about the timing when you are applying to the different schools. And we'll manage it that way as best as we can to work with you. Now that's great. That's great advice there. Amy, it's a, people thinking of you awkward and it's not awkward. It's okay. We know. I need to get a live question here about LinkedIn, because I think it is an important one of how important is LinkedIn. It is important. If you apply to our program, you don't have a LinkedIn profile. That's rare. So you really should have a LinkedIn profile. Now does it have to have all the bells and whistles on all these? No, because I know you can do a lot of LinkedIn. Now all these things added to your profile. What's important is that your work experience matches your resume. We've had some of those before. Right Amy? Where LinkedIn doesn't match the resume. So it should match. So I really strongly recommend that you have a LinkedIn profile with, you know, just so that when you do apply, you will see that it's also beneficial for you as well. You'll get to, you know, you connect with us and you connect with alumni and students. You'll see other profiles. So you should have one. It should have enough information on there. You should have some key information about your work experience, your undergraduate degrees. Also, please include the year you complete education. We find on some LinkedIn profiles that's not included. So when you provide your resume for us to say assess, you can also do your LinkedIn as opposed to your resume. But it's always tricky when the graduation year isn't included. Because we do base our minimum two years of work experience up to around the 10 or 11 year mark based on when you've completed post secondary education. So that's not there right away. We have to follow up with you if there was, you know, just a nice housekeeping item. You don't mind to make sure that your graduation year is included at least on your resume or your LinkedIn profile. And then like Amy mentioned, the resume assessment tool, we happy to complete to assess. But I just thought that was a great live question. I wanted to jump in there. Yeah, no, we continued forward in that. Yeah, and just, yeah, one other thing, just to touch on with the LinkedIn, we often use those for introductions for student ambassadors and alumni. So having that linked in really does help you to connect and build your network as well. And so, you know, just having that in mind, maybe if you haven't already got one started at least or like just a template, I would start to think about that. Just because within the business world, it's it becomes a really important way to connect with one another and with us. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so we do have another question that came to us in advance. So this is about being self employed and choosing a reference. So that can be tricky. We understand it could be a little bit more difficult in finding a reference. And so in this case, what we would say is that what you can do is you could ask a long term client, you could maybe use maybe a co founder. Let's say you're in a startup could be another co founder who's working with you, business partner, or maybe a key collaborator who can really speak to your skill set. Specifically, like Lindsey touched on earlier, we're looking at areas around leadership. We're looking at your professionalism, the impact that you've had within work, but we're also looking at areas of development. So as long as, you know, this person is well rounded in terms of how they can speak to you and your skill sets. And like I said, the development factor, you could use any one of these people, but I know it is tricky sometimes for our entrepreneurs or our startup members out there. Really, those are the practical pieces that you could look at and you know, think about if you are in the situation, but yeah, that's I think. That's a good clear there. Yeah. No, no, that's that's great clarity. I mean, it's we are entrepreneurs coming through, right? So that's that clarity. Yeah. And I can't go ahead. No, I was just going to say we can either flip over to the application process or or take a few more live questions. Oh, I was just going to say me actually that there was a question that came in advance and also a similar one that came live. So I thought I would get to that one now, which is about scholarships and rounds of timing. And I know even though we it's on our website and you'll see it that it's really admissions equal chance of scholarship sometimes like, but is it really and it really is and it's one of the great benefits of our admissions cycle. And I think admissions gets considerations, we we want you to have time on your side as much as possible. We don't want to put you in a position where you're making this really significant investment decision under a lot of pressure. So it's important that you apply when you feel ready. Now ready is a big word. Ready doesn't just mean, okay, I can be what next steps ready means next steps by saying if Ivy gives me an offer, I know I can I can say yes or no to them within two to four weeks. I know what I would say to them that I've considered the financial component of the NBA. Now, no, this doesn't mean you have to go take a line of credit and get all that sorted. But what it means is I have an idea of how much I would need for this for a loan for third party support through family or personal savings that I consider this financial investment and I have an idea of how I could handle it. It is not a best practice to apply to the program and not have looked into the financial side of it. So why I like with our admissions is we want you to take all this time, figure out the program, figure out the financial side, making sure you're putting your career where, okay, I'm ready to capture my competitiveness, my competitive nature, capture all my qualities and then apply. And then if they give me an offer, I can move forward. Schools don't give you six months to say yes or no. You're going to have up to four weeks, maximum. And that depends on the time of year when you apply. So if you're applying in our say September round or round four, you and if you're given an offer, you'll have two weeks to let us know your decision. So knowing that again, work backwards to other schools, but then decide when am I ready to apply because I know I'm going to go through this. I can have about three to four weeks before you're back from Ivy, Ivy says gives me an offer. I'll have two weeks to let the know my decision. So it's important that you're considering all these factors before you apply, whether you apply in our first round in January or our final international round in September or our final Canadian domestic round at the following January, same likelihood of offering scholarship, the exact same. We can't tell you our secret sauce and how that works in our back end, but it truly is the same. And so that is why it's applied when you feel, yeah, I'm ready for this next step. Yeah, like really there's no negative in applying and in the later rounds. We don't dock you any marks for that, but it means it's you apply when you're ready. Um, and so there's another live question that came through, uh, Linus and it's a great standard question around the, the GRE. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so the, the GRE, so this is really about what would you consider a competitive GRE, uh, from an applicant in India, uh, with an undergrad GPA on the lower side, any recommended threshold that should be considered for such cases. So I mean, I would say our standard advice here would be you're going to want to write a stronger GRE in the matter of this, like in this situation. If you are on the lower end of the GPA, now keep in mind, we look at your final two years when we're averaging out your GPA. However, we do look at the entire transcript. So, uh, we will look at your one and your two. And in the case of Indian applicants, I know that they are three year degree. So, keep in mind, we do accept all three and four year degrees, uh, regardless, but we're, we're really honing in on the final two years. We want to see, you know, a strong gish, uh, GPA there. So we're looking at like a B, B plus, uh, and above. We will flag so we don't want to see F's or D necessarily. Uh, so yeah, keep that in mind. You're going to want to write a GRE that is beyond a three, probably a three 16 would be like a cut off and above that. Uh, we can pair that generally to a GMAT of about a 600. Yeah. Um, so yeah. And this goes across the board. It's not just, yeah, or India. Uh, this is where all candidates applying. Um, that's what we would recommend doing. Uh, now it is only one data point of many, uh, but it does speak to the aptitude and your quantitative ability. So we do want to ensure success for you. Uh, and this does, um, you know, provide some, some clarity, uh, around that. So yeah, I would definitely say that you're going to want to aim a little bit higher. So, um, yeah, hopefully that helps. And, uh, gives you the answer. You need a question that came up aiming the live Q&A as well as around Kira. And we didn't touch on this with our sort of major areas of how to stay down in the application because the Kira part is not really a weighted data point. Um, we can explain it a little bit about it. We do have a separate podcast on it. You know, we implemented Kira in particular for cold applicants who don't interact with us beforehand. Uh, it also gives us an idea of those who, an idea in general, of how you communicate on your feet. But there's no preparation other than logging into Kira, doing the practice questions and then recording to your profile, their behavioral questions. You will not be quizzed on the history of IV. You'll not be asking skill testing questions. It's very, it's things that you really should know the answer to, right? Things like what's advice you'd give yourself five years ago or what's something in your application you've not yet captured that you think the admissions committee should know or what is something you think that your teammates will want to know working with you in the IV program. So, I don't want to spend too much time on that because it's not really a weighted point with our application. It's there. You do have to do it. But it's not a make or break with the Kira. Yeah. And it's funny because that is probably one of the most, I don't know, asked questions that we have and the one that concerns candidates the most. Yes. Believe us when we say that, you know, there's really not a lot of weight put on it. We just, you know, we want, and I'll say this, in many cases, we haven't connected with you. And so this is our first introduction to you. So we want to kind of get a grasp of who you are and, you know, how you think, like Lindsay said, on your on your feet. But yeah, don't put too much weight on it. Yeah. Another live question that came through is about the career support for those who are, you know, of 150 in the program, the how they make sure that every student gets career support. So again, I, this is really focused on admissions tips today. So I don't want to spend too, too much time. So happy to connect one on one more with this person afterwards. Or again, we do some great online podcasts, talk about career management. Actually episode number three of our program review series talks about career management and as of some of the podcast episodes. But I will say our MBA career team is dedicated to MBAs. This is often why I would applicant. So if we, right now these students who are set to join us next March and they're asking us, well, can I, when can I start seeing career management? You don't have access to them. So you start the program because they are dedicated to the MBAs in the program. So they make sure they have capacity in their team to do one on one coaching appointments weekly for the entire duration of program. They do industry tracks with corporate partners. You get to really understand all the different industries out there and meet the applicable employers, meet alumni. That team is above and beyond with resources to help you understand what do you think you want to do afterwards? How best do you sell yourself to pursue that career? What are some of the maybe alumni who are the alumni you should meet or some of the activities you should be doing? They offer a lot of programming and workshops, some are mandatory and some are optional. So our advice is always do as much as you can. This is a really unique period in your life where you're not working. You're literally investing yourself for this whole year. So invest with this career team who they are dedicated to you to help you take yourself to the next level and show well, which these are tools you're going to learn and draw upon as you continue to advance your career. So they are we again can't always give way or secrets to how they manage and make time for everyone, but they do. And they always they want they are really invested in each student's success. And so we have another question that's come through live and this is a frequently asked question I would say that affects our international students. So this is around the PGWP. So the post graduate program. So specifically this this attendee is looking to know whether we have a three year and we do. We have a three year work permit. So this is somewhat of a recent change with the the government. So as a blast year, they they approved a post degree work permit for all programs that are I believe it's eight months and over a full time. And we happen to fit that model. So yeah, so there's no no concern there. For you or no risk, I should say, you would have the ability to apply for the post graduate work permit after the program. Great. Awesome. Good for that. And another question that came through was advice for someone who is looking for considerable financial assistance. And this again, it is a financial investment. We do we you're guaranteed to receive a scholarship. It does start at $10,000, but generally speaking, you're looking, you know, a minimum much higher than for normally. Now again, there's always exceptions and 10,000 is again, depending on the quality of your profile, you might be awarded 10,000. You might be awarded 40. You might be awarded $70,000. We don't offer full tuition, but we do offer, you know, up to your own around $70,000 for for applicants. So it is important that you do consider other areas that knowing we don't provide a full ride, the gap that you would have and how you would then finance that gap. So the advice would be explore, understand what's out there and if it's financially possible for you. What else do we have here? So there are some more specific questions, I would say, to profiles that have come through. And as I touched on, we touched on a resume assessment would be really helpful. In this case, there's just some questions really customized to a background. And so I would say, hop on our website, submit your CV and put that through and hopefully we will connect and you'll have a preliminary assessment there. And we would recommend, you know, really everyone who's tuning in today, if you haven't yet done that. Right. You so. Good thing to come up. And again, we want to focus more on application today, but some career questions. So our employment reports on the website. So if people are asking what's the employment rate, go right to our main website, you'll scroll down your CID. So in also asked, they heard there was a drop in employment. Yeah, there was this recession last year. So there was a drop in employment, unfortunately. And it, you know, but it was still 88% I believe, within six months of graduation, we're working. So though it was a drop, usually we were at least 92 and 96%. Last year did have a drop. And understandably, the career team did what they could do. And the students networked as much as they could. And we're so quite, quite satisfied with those results that they were able to find full-time work that they were happy with within, you know, just handful of months from graduating. But yeah, I mean, the crystal bothers, no, there's no guarantee. But we've over the last decade have always consistently had considerable success with careers after the MBA. And so that's, someone as an MBA buyer is looking to see what is the consistency of a program. And that will help with you understanding what is the right school investment for you. Anything else Amy wanted to address today on this? I'm just looking to see if there are any more questions that we can answer, but I think we've answered the majority there. Yeah, I mean, I think what Lindsay and I are trying to do here is really provide a holistic overview of the application process. We are here to guide and provide advice, but I think, you know, those key pieces, you know, just being thoughtful around how you're preparing how you're tackling the application is really key here. It's not about rushing through. It's about taking the time to submit the application when you're ready. And so there's no right or wrong time. It's really, you know, when you're feeling confident to do so and you feel researched and only you know it's subjective, right? So we do hope that the information that we have provided to today has been helpful and, you know, just provided you those key pieces that you were looking for clarification about. But, you know, what we're here and we hope to hear from you and receive your application. I did touch on this initially. So July 7th, if you apply by that date, which is our third deadline, you will receive a decision no later than August 8th. And so keeping in mind that we would have to have your references in order to move through. So, you know, keeping on top of things, we would ask that you're doing that from your end and we'll do our best from our end. Also, if there are other MBA schools in mind with other offer timelines, please be transparent around that as we mentioned and we will do our best to adhere to those timelines for you as well. But yeah, we just, we're looking forward to connecting with you and to receiving your application. Thanks for the questions and thanks for tuning in and looking forward to connecting further. Thanks everyone. [Music]