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The Africans at Microsoft diversity group recently assembled a panel of experts to talk about earning and making the best of an MBA degree. The panel is a candid discussion with business school admissions and career services people, current students and MBA graduates on a range of topics, including:

• What it really takes to get into business school
• How to best employ time as a student to position oneself for the right job
• How experienced business leaders view & value the direct impact of the MBA on their careers
• The real tradeoffs/considerations one should be ready to make in pursuit of an MBA
• The importance of professional networking

Speakers included representatives from some of the best schools in the country, including Harvard Business School; Sloan School of Management at MIT; UC Berkeley; University of Washington; Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern and Wharton, among others. The panel, hosted at Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, WA, had over 200 attendees from around the world including employees of Microsoft, Boeing, and Coastal Carolina University. Listen in as we bring the event to you.

Podcast Transcription:

Welcome to MBA Podcaster the only broadcast source for cutting-edge information and advice on the MBA application process. I'm Diana Jordan. The Africans’ at Microsoft Diversity Group recently assembled a panel of experts to talk about earning and making the best of an MBA degree. Speakers included Barry Rekley of MIT Sloan, Pauline Jennett and Katie Stewart from the Harvard Business School, Pa’lee Showalter and Bryan Tomlinson from the University of Washington, Molly Kihanya from the Haas School of Business, Kerry Olin, General Manager of Microsoft’s global recruiting team, and several current and former students from Harvard, Wharton, Darden and Cornell Business Schools, just to name a few. The panel, hosted at Microsoft’s Corporate Headquarters in Redmond, Washington had more than 200 attendees from around the world including employees of Microsoft, Boeing, and Coastal Carolina University.

Chika Ekeji, Vice-President of Africans’ at Microsoft moderated the discussion. We start at the beginning of the MBA Application Process. "How granular do the career, goals and visions have to be in applications for MBA admissions?"

[Molly Kihanya from the Haas School of Business]: "Well it can't hurt - I think we like a more specific than vague although what I say to our applicants is always, I promise I’ll never come back and see if you have - actually after your MBA, if you’ve accomplished those goals that you put in your application." So the more specific you are about why an MBA and how that’s going to help to achieve your short-term and long-term goals are really important. So it's really important that you think about it and you have some clarity. Will it change? Probably, based on all the information that you’ll get in your MBA program and the things that you’ll be exposed to. But the more specific you can be in a road map of how you’re going to get there, the better."

"So my next question is actually to Pa’lee and Barry, as far as the criteria that you consider when you’re evaluating applications for Business School; we see a lot of websites we say, "Oh, there’s no one particular item that’s most important." But, we’d like you to really sort of give us the truth about what two things, and in order of importance, are really, according to you with all your experience, the most important things the candidates can focus on as part of the application package. So Pa’lee first."

"Great. I think there are top two things. Some of the basic things are pretty general and I can talk specifically afterwards to people who are interested in kind of the nitty-gritty of it but I think the main thing that we look for is your leadership potential. Not only clarity (a key word that Molly had mentioned earlier) in your career ambitions for after, for post-MBA. The clarity of an individual is what we look for and their leadership potential is probably two of the most outstanding things that kind of popped out the essays for us. We read hundreds and hundreds of essays throughout the recruiting year and people who have the clarity of vision of who they are and why this particular program is good for them and what they can offer a particular program is probably the most evident that they’ve done the research and they know that this is a good program for their life, for their future, for their career and for their professional pursuits.

"Thank you very much. And Barry, what do you think?"

"First of all, thank you very much for inviting me. When I was really young, I flitted around this place a little bit, Microsoft, and this place is huge. " Not to sound redundant but so to step into another particular area, we really like the presentation, how well you present yourself to us. What you have to say. In many ways, the application is a self-evaluation tool, where you had been for X amount of time and where do you see yourself going post-MBA. And it also gives us an indication of your thinking process and the way you planned and structured the process of applying, and where you see yourself going beyond a particular point. A lot of it is in that aspect as far as the presentation, what you’ve done. Not so much the numerical perspective, as far as what you’ve done, but the quality aspect of it. And the quality aspect of it also goes in the same standpoint, above the other areas that you were involved in. So the presentation really, in essence, is one and two as far as we’re concerned."

"Thank you very much. And as a matter of fact, I’ll have you hang on to that because my next question is for you. You focus on the diversity admission and so I’m curious as to what minority candidates can do so to improve their chances, and appeal when they’re applying. Is there any sort of common set of mistakes or common set of improvements that you would recommend specifically for minority applicants into Business School?"

"To basically make yourself up into something that you’re not; because you feel that the school or the institution that you’re looking at would like to hear X or like to have a presentation that’s more structured as Y. So therefore you become, I wouldn’t even call it your alter ego, but you become another individual as far, once again, your presentation and as far as a lot of other factors are concerned. Be yourself. I had one individual, a couple of years ago, at a conference such as this, basically said, “Well, I’m kind of a boring individual.” Everybody on the panel said, “Well, then talk about your boringness.” What have you done? In essence, be yourself. Don’t try to go into our heads saying that we, the Admissions Committee, would like to see X, Y, Z. We want to see you."

"Thank you very much for that. Along the same lines, the next question please. Go ahead."

"From a student actually going through the process, I would take it very seriously. Not to overstress about it but this is a competitive process. I know maybe the admission office don’t want to put it that way but you know you’re up against a lot of other students that want that spot. One thing I would say to take seriously is the GMAT, first and foremost. As you do your informationals and go out, that’s a pretty combative test within itself. Not to scare anybody but we’re all Microsoft employees so we know about competition. Just take it seriously, put the right amount of time and place to actually put the studying in place because I have actually been through a lot of minorities that actually apply and that’s one hurdle that they have a challenge with. They had to recognize that ties them to the rankings for schools and what not. This is one component of the application but it’s one hurdle toward completing the total package."

"Thank you very much. The next question, which is around diversity again, I’d like to hear Pa’lee, what you have about that. How do the MBA Admissions Offices actually assure the diversity in their class? Do they have a quota system and they say, “Okay, we’re going to have 10% or 20% of this race or that nationality or anything.” How exactly, what’s the methodology behind that?

"No quota is a methodology. Each year, we have 100 students in the full-time MBA class and so we are fairly selective about who gets admitted but every program has their own criteria. But there is no quota on how many students that we will admit of specific ethnicity. We review every application based on the individual. We would love to see more. Our diversity numbers are not as high as we would like them to be. Believe it or not, U. of Washington is a state school and there’s a lot of financial help especially in this area for those who are interested in U. of Washington. The quota is something that we have definitely stayed away from. It doesn’t insure that we will have the type of quality of class that we would like. But we do definitely, if you’re a URM, or an underrepresented minority or a minority, we’re definitely going to review your application just like everybody else is. Just know that there are scholarships available, we have an African-American Scholarship. We have a Hispanic Scholarship. So every time we’re reviewing applications, we are reviewing the possibility of you being able to fit into one of those scholarships as well. Yeah, we don’t have a quota based and so it’s kind of the answer to that question."

"The final question I have for the Admissions folks, actually I love to get Molly’s thoughts, also something from you Pa’lee, and this is in regards to schools that have evening and/or part-time programs and also have full-time MBA programs. Is there any sort of perceptible difference in the quality of education that the students get? Is there any resource that they don’t have access to if they’re evening and/or part-time versus being full-time?"

"Great question. The Haas School of Business has three Berkeley MBA options. One is the full-time, the traditional program, the two-year program; the Evening/Weekend MBA Program, and also the Berkeley Columbia Executive MBA Program. The Berkeley Columbia Executive MBA Program, there are flyers in the back, that's 19 months and so it’s a lock-set program. It’s not modelled after the full-time and the evening/weekend MBA programs. I would say for the Evening and Weekend MBA Program and Berkeley Columbia, they all have the same access to career services, student services, electives. They are going to look a little bit different based on the program structure but pretty much it’s the same Berkeley MBA. With the Berkeley Columbia Executive MBA Program you actually get the Berkeley MBA as well as the Columbia MBA when you graduate."

"Okay. Pa’lee."

"Yes, we do have several part-time programs and we do have a special treat that Bryan Tomlinson over in Career Services is also an evening student. And so if you have any specific questions later for him after the panel, I’m sure he would be happy to answer your questions. But we have the evening program which is a three-year program and we have a Technology Management Program as well which a lot of Microsoft students have been very magnetized to. It’s here on the East Side. We have an East Side campus. That’s over 18 months. And we have executive programs, various types of executive programs as well."

"Of all these programs, there’s no real distinction between the quality they get? There’s nothing that people lose out on if they’re evening or part-time or anything?"

"The evening and the full-time we try to keep the caliber very similar with professors and everything else. It is a three-year program in the evening. We’ve stretched it out quite a bit. It’s a bit longer than other schools and that’s part of the reason to insure the same curriculum and the same type of teaching."

"Thank you very much. Let’s switch gears and talk to a couple of the current student. What do you think was some of the strongest part of your application when you applied? What would you say was what made them pick you, so to speak, to the program?"

"I think there are a couple of things. I applied to Kellogg in Chicago so I don’t believe they actually have a lot student coming from the West Coast. I’m actually currently a student on a Saturday Program in Northwestern Kellogg. I fly to Chicago almost every weekend. I think they don’t actually have a lot of the student coming from the West Coast. I think something with diversity type of things, that’s probably one of the things. I actually concurred to all their descriptions on when you apply, talking about your essay and so on, do you really talk about yourself. Don't make up stories, just keep on saying things that you want, you're passionate about and so on. And that probably would get you in better than if you make something that you think they want to hear. Well, that is an important part. For me, the strongest part is just be yourself.

Randolph and Chuka, what are your thoughts on that Randolph as far as how the strength of the application?

“HBS has a strong bent toward leadership. I felt it was definitely important to demonstrate history of leadership and as well as aptitude for leadership going forward and doing it accurate. Aspiration to lead in the future; that was one big thing that I demonstrated just based on my history and that I was able to convey in my essays. I think the second big thing was diversity of experience. Given that most of who are applying to business schools are two, three, four years out of school, a lot of people have had one job, or at most two jobs, and in my case, I’ve had three jobs. Two with Microsoft which was itself very unique background for someone coming from where I'm from. Kind of just being able to be that diverse, diverse spectrum of experiences was definitely a huge thing. But ultimately, it’s all about what you can contribute to the learning environment and HBS is a lot about having a pretty diverse spectrum of experiences so that you can share and educate your colleagues in case studies and so on. Those are probably the two big things for me."

"And Chuka, what would you say were yours?"

I would say for me, I have to realize that, I think Randy had mentioned, that there’s tons of people applying and the reason why; I find myself trying to go towards the cookie cutter routine. But, as soon as I remember that I’m not the only person doing this, I quickly realized that I need to differentiate myself in a certain way. I had about a year and a half of experience before coming into this firm so obviously my work experience wasn’t one of those things that I could brag about. I had to really stretch, show the things I’ve done that differentiated me from people who’ve worked much longer than I have. Of course, the essays were my chance to do that. It certainly wasn’t my GMAT. I would say my GMAT wasn’t anything to write at home about - but I think the essays gave me a chance to really show that even though I have only a year and a half of work experience, I know what kind of experience I can bring to the table."

"Thank you very much. Randolph, you’ve been at HBS for the best part of one year plus. Is there anything that you wished you’d done before you got in?"

I’d say for me it’s probably two things. One is the expectation that comes with the reputation of going to a top school. I guess a couple of people have mentioned how it’s a very competitive process. And based on the reputation of the school, it’s easy to develop - have some an overdeveloped sense of the kind of people to expect to be attending the school. Buying too much in the stereotypes so you might think one school is - if it’s a school that has this reputation, they’re all based in marketing you think that’s pretty much all they do or if it’s finance, think that’s all they do there or if its leadership, you think that’s all they do there. But the reality of it is that all of these programs are extremely well-rounded. They all have a strong focus, they’re all doing a pretty good job tackling all the different elements that you might want to experience at business school. It’s just the function of going there and trying to find the programs that match to that. That’s definitely one thing that I found both at my schools specifically and also just from talking to colleagues in other schools. When you say Kellogg it’s supposed to be the marketing school but you find out that it actually has a very strong finance program. It’s just people buy into these stereotypes that are not necessarily accurate. That’s one thing that would be very easy to dispel if you talk to enough current students to make sure that you’re not making a decision based on kind of misguided as you might have picked up from people who are not familiar with the actual programs."

"We'll switch gear again and talk a little bit to Career Services, Recruiting, and Microsoft Human Resources Department and view a couple of things there. Bryan, there are a lot of foreign MBAs in Seattle and schools like that are a pretty high quality as far as providing or producing candidates as well and of course a lot of local talent here too. Do you find that there is sort of a preference one way or the other in the industry for these schools? Are people better off going here for one year as far as the opportunities afterwards in general, as much as you can generalize so to speak? What do you think?"

"I wouldn’t say that there is a preference for a type of school, local, international, et cetera. I think actually the wonderful thing about recruiting from MBA programs is that it’s a period in time where there are literally thousands of highly qualified, ambitious people whose aspirations and qualifications are transparent and so companies like Microsoft, yes, we want to be at the top schools. Absolutely, and we want to be there not just to recruit students but to make sure that the Microsoft brand is being well represented in situations where there are lots of future leaders in a variety of companies not just the Microsoft. But there’s great talent all over whether that’s in INSEAD or whether that’s Texas A&M or whether that’s University of Washington or Kellogg. We’re pretty agnostic when it comes to the type of school although without a doubt there are going to be certain schools where there’s a high concentration of people who may be a good fit for our company and we’re going to make that investment there."

"I would say in what I see wins the day in the end is that diligence in recruiting can make up for a massive career change and that’s preparing for your opportunities, executing on site and following up diligently with those companies you’re interested in. It’s just easier going locally. So if your target list is Microsoft and Amazon and Starbucks, well, in four days a week after class you can go down and have informational interview. It’s quite easy. To be frank, where it’s difficult for us when we go out to New York for our Investment Banking road shows and we made a two live touch points with them a year whereas the local students in New York, well, they can just hop on a train and get down and do three, four informational interviews per week in that local area. I don’t know if I want to say it, I hear on the company’s side of preference for local students but it sure is a lot easier to get those local touch points if you are local."

"Thank you very much. The next question is actually directed to you and Kerry as well, and it’s around career switchers. I mean all of us here are in technology and of course we’re going to make a leap, I’m doing now. We have the option of course in during the MBA to intern and to go out and do some work for summers or Christmas breaks and things like that. What kind of advice would you give to career switchers specifically? I’d like to get your thoughts on that Bryan and then Kerry, get your point on that as well."

"The only thing I can say, it’s what you name it, we’ve seen it. This year, we had a first year student who was a professional kiteboarder on the World Kiteboarding Tour and he's doing sale and trading at Thomas Leghorn on Wall Street this summer so I mean, everything - I've seen every careers that you can think of. One thing I would say, yes it requires more work spent on recruiting, absolutely. I think there is - all things being equal, there’s a preference to the career deepener, someone who is going into finance coming from an accounting background, et cetera. But I still see that time spent in the recruiting kind of winning the day. And also I do think, in general, those sort of massive career changes where you're in technology where you want nothing to do in technology. You absolutely want to change out of it. It’s easier for the full-time students since they have more touch points with the companies. It’s easy for them to pick up projects and internships and get that practical experience. And so sometimes for those on the evening programs a massive career change can be a little bit more difficult if it spent a lot more time."

"A full-time MBA approach is a sound strategy if you had, in your mind’s eye, a significant career change interest. I think there are situations there where you can avail yourself to internships in that area. You can move to relevant course work that doesn’t necessarily provide skill development but shows companies or employers in that area of interest that you’ve got a passion and a commitment to it. Companies like Microsoft care a lot about that element of it. We want to able to look people in the eye and say to somebody that’s going to get excited coming to work in a technology company everyday and having the passion for the industry. I think that opportunity is to spend those two years being creative and thoughtful about what the transferable skills and experiences are. I started my career in brand marketing but I can give a reasonably good explanation of how that helps me be a good college recruiter. I don’t have a simple example but any kind of a career switch; there got to be things, there are things in somebody’s background that say these are foundational transferable skills and experiences. It's good to start thinking about those things sooner rather than later."

"I definitely agree with what both gentlemen have said. From the Evening and Weekend MBA perspective, it does take a lot of work but because our Evening and Weekend students have full access to Career Services and Summer Internships, if they quit their jobs. Then we had 24 students who decided to do that last summer which is pretty risky but that’s sort of our student population so the career switchers who want to quit their jobs and got these internships, that are Evening and Weekend students, are going to be really hard workers who make those switches and make those changes. It is hard, as Bryan said, and as Kerry said, it’s mostly full-time but with the career services and access to on-campus recruiting, full-time job recruiting as well as internships at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, it’s possible."

"Two questions actually that I’d like Barry to take a shot at. One is, and this is a difficult question, for people who want to leave their companies and go, and pursue an MBA is it advisable to consider returning to the company that they are leaving from and would they get as much value from the degree, from that point of view? And secondly, what are the key influences of starting salaries for MBAs from different schools? What’s the story to that?"

"On the first point, we’re morally against people leaving the company. I would simply say this, “If you are in an organization, Microsoft or elsewhere, where it’s a good culture fit, where you are achieving and performing well, should you wish to make a career change or a functional change within that company, you’d want to be very thoughtful about the idea that maybe the best thing to do is just leave and get an MBA and come back.” I’d start your MBA education right there and do a Return On Investment analysis on that proposition. I’m giving up two years of compensation, perhaps giving up two years of career progression, a number of things. Not all organizations are the same, some it is relatively easier to make an internal functional transition, some it can be really difficult in which case that could be a good strategy. You have to look at your network inside that company and just weigh the various options. I don’t think there’s a right answer, my encouragement would be to be really thoughtful. There are a lot of great ways to get an MBA that don’t necessarily require leaving an organization. It’s a pretty hard work but it may be a much better approach. Compensation was with the other, by school?"

"Yes."

"You know what, it’s a talent market. Irrespective of the relative capability, quality, et cetera of students at various schools, there may be market dynamics. There are market dynamics. It can dictate different pay realities. A company like Microsoft has to understand it’s playing in a competitive environment. My story is I went to work and sought of undergraduate school next to some MBAs. I wasn’t paid what they were right away. If I asked why I was told, “Well, go get an MBA and that will change.” I think that’s true with schools. I don’t think that our company necessarily, it doesn’t necessarily - it values talent potential and contribution. But it also deals with the market place where we have to compete. Yes, there are going to be some differences in starting pay. By the way, that’s typically for a company like Microsoft, our approach may be to do that in the form of signing bonus rather than base salary. We’re meritocracy. We’re going to attempt to understand what level somebody should come in at. We’re going to compensate him in that way."

"All right. I’d like to use the last few minutes to talk a little bit to the alumni and the graduates in the far end. Randy, tell us a little bit about the role the MBA has played in your career the success and progression today."

"When I went to Harvard, I was in the military so I was one of those people who wanted to change function, industry, and location. What you’ll find if anyone who talks from Harvard always talks in frameworks and threes and fours, okay. Those are my three points of degrees of freedom as you evaluate which type of MBA you want to go to. And I think the full-time programs, if you’re looking for that type of flexibility, is something to really think about picking up at Garry’s point. If you’re happy in your industry, you’re happy in your location, there are other options. I’m thinking about your question when you go - when you sent me the note, do I use my MBA? I use it everyday. Here’s my $100,000 MBA in one minute. You’ll learn four things in the case method. You’ll learn that there’s always too much information. Data, you never have the data that you want. You’re going to have to establish assumptions and in a case method type of program, you’re going to have to make a decision. And I think if you can talk to people who go through a Case Method Program, they’re always put on the spot and they always have a point of view that often turns into them being dogmatic in how they express it into sort of modified that over time. But when I think about what I do at Microsoft and what I’ve done for the last four years here, what do you deal with? You’re always dealing with data, you’re dealing with ambiguity, you’re having to cut through stuff to figure out what are the right assumptions to layer on top of the data, and then you have to make a decision. The difference in the work environment is you have been usually had to execute against that decision. You’re not a consultant, right? You are paying for what you thought should happen. The other difference I would say coming out of the MBA is you think that after you’ve done 100 cases or however many it was in your first year, that you have the right answer. And I think that what you learned over the course of time after you’ve been out of your MBA is the wisdom around the assumptions. Right? You’re applying business judgment that you’ve developed through the case studies, so you start seeing trends and themes. As you go in to your next company, you start to fill it up, “Hey, I’ve seen this situation before. What does it look like? I’m rooting my assumptions in some real experience.” And so that's for me where the - I don’t remember the accounting rules, but I’m not afraid of a PNL statement, right? That’s the other thing, it’s just the familiarity with how to think in financial terms, run Excel models, being comfortable with ideas around compliance and regulatory environment and all these things, you just kind of learn the language of business. Especially for someone coming from the military where I went around and flew airplanes, right? Thinking about ROI analysis was completely foreign. So I benefited probably more than anybody else at business school ‘cause I knew the leaps going in and it’s helped me every single day.

"Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Chala, if you are going to give me as a potential MBA candidate or perhaps even Randolph or Chuka just two pieces of advice how to make the real best of this thing long-term, what would you say they should focus on?"

"Why should you focus on business school? I think for me, it’s about mental models. Most people that are at Microsoft, you’re already smart. That’s not a question. The question is, has a new set of ways of looking at the wall and what are you going to take out of that? And so whether you want to be a Finance President, you want to be an Operations person, it doesn’t matter what classes you take, what matters is what’s going to change your thinking about the experience? I think people know - they're just saying, “You can go to the school and then after that the school go to you.” The transformational experience in business school for me could be networking, how do you talk to people? How do you leave an impression? Or could be something like how do you do financial statements? You might never see financial statements again after school but you have a mental model of what you can do. That’s perhaps your little experience from that respect."

"Kyle, from Pierce, what is it that you think you gained from going to business school that you could have not gained in any other way? Is there anything that was just so unique about the experience that made it even more worthwhile for you?"

"For me, business school put me into a very challenging environment. I mean being an international student, I worked in Nigeria before that and I was easy to - I was at home in Nigeria, right? So coming to business school in the US and having to interact with the people from different cultures and see how these things and learn to adapt to different people, different personalities and learn to work with them, collaborate and partner, work in pairs with them, I think that was the most defining thing for me. And then the whole business school experience also helped me to learn about myself, learn about my weaknesses, what I need to improve on. Again, getting an MBA is nothing but a vehicle to get you to where you want to go. You need to get in that car and drive that baby to where you want to take it to. Don’t think that an MBA is going to cover whatever flaws you have in your personality or your attitude or your skill set, right? It only opens the door for you to go in a direction where you want to go. But you have to transform yourself, you have to become better at work - better at working with people, be smarter in the way you think. Again, as Chala said, what model do you have in your head that you can pull out at the top of a pin to help you analyze the situation, go into the situation and read it as precisely as you can, adapt to it and then solve whatever problem or reach the decision within that situation, is what I think was defining for me. I’m a better person because I got an MBA, because my mind is, my perspective is bigger now. And I can basically work with anybody because I’ve been doing to that environment where I just have to adapt and I think that’s a benefit for me."

"Thank you very much. Gavin, so in retrospect, what would you have done differently as a student to make the experience even more valuable for you now?"

"Maybe a few things starting with the relationships aspect, I went to Wharton, big school, 800 people per class. I probably would have made more of an effort to make really close friends rather I would have gone for more depths than breadth. Especially in business school you’re somewhat pressured to meet as many people as you can and to participate to the maximum amount possible. Do every club, do every activity, go to every social event, I probably would have cut that down a little bit and focused a little bit more and tried to make closer friends out of it. I made plenty of friends but just in retrospect a lot of times students can spend themselves to them."

What about content that is not in the official application? One student asks if MBA programs Google perspective students?

All right, somebody.

"That is a very good question. We interview everybody that we won’t be admitting. So often, before I interview a candidate, every once in a while I do Google you. I’ll go on there and just to get an idea if there’s something unique that you may have not mentioned in your essays on in your background that we don’t know about. I like to pull something out from that field every once in a while. But there’s little time that we have had a bad experience with Googling somebody or finding out more information about them. Usually, when people are applying to business school they take the application process pretty seriously and I think 99% of the time the information in their application is true. And so a lot of times we’re just kind of eye-balling it and just trying to see if there’s any other unique aspects that were missing. I am sure there are a few cases where that is not going to be in the candidates favor. If you are serious about applying to business school, there’s information out there about you that could be negative in anyway I would certainly reconsider having that information online."

"We also interview every candidate for admissions after they are being process and our research portion was as extensive that we do checks as far as much background information as we possibly can. We also take the ones that further off, the individuals that we’re also going to ask to come into the school. We do a background check from the standpoint as far as their letters - their recommenders are concerned to just make sure that the information is [indiscernible] [00:35:40]. To a certain degree it is not on the level of the FBI or anything like that but to a certain degree we do check."

"One quick thing is if you’re an entrepreneur and you’ve started a company, that’s when we often check for specific details. If you’ve said you’ve started at home or you’ve started at specific company, we might look that up just to make sure that this actually exits."

One student rises and says, “The financial aspect just doesn’t add for him in the moment. What loans, scholarships, and other creative options are available to finance the MBA?"

When you say - suppose before and after you get into school, there are a bunch of options that you can look at. Personally, I’m a Morgan and Stanley seller. Certain companies, investment banks, consulting companies, certain organizations, non-profit organizations and the like, then there’s also private foundations starting on ultra wealthy families that has their - they aren’t stick to their scholarships that they provide. Just a fraction of doing the homework, I’m talking to people, looking through all these MBA websites, either for specific schools or through the multitude of MBA preparation sites that are available out there. That's one source of - I don’t have any particularly creative ones but I can tell you about the ones I’m familiar with. And then secondly, a lot of schools have some type of fellowship that they provide. But that’s typically dependent on your income. Just for example you are working in an organization that was, for example a non-profit organization where your income wasn’t particularly substantial they might help you out with your tuition and so on. If however you’ve had a high income sort of thing, grossing out a career to date, then they’re less likely want to sell out. Hopefully, the expectation is that you’ve thought about this enough and put aside funds - get yourself to - and also at the end of the day this is one investment that, if you decide to make the investment, you should almost certainly not make finances a restrictive aspect of it because ultimately you will come out and you will find a job that will provide you the income to pay back the loan over time. To the extent that you don’t - there’s a lot of schools that has a Loan Forgiveness Program. You’re alternate goal is to be engaged in some business that doesn’t necessarily provide a lot of income but it’s pretty significant. If you’re going into some kind of entrepreneurship venture or you’re going into non-profit and some part of the [indiscernible] [00:38:45] you’re not expecting to make a lot of money coming out. A lot of schools have programs where they will reduce the loans you are required to pay back. Of all the issues that you should consider when you’re applying to school, in reality, finances definitely shouldn’t be number one on the list. There’s definitely multiple ways to get around taking care of that."

Thank you very much Nate.

A Microsoft employee asked, “Do I really need an MBA?” And he gets his answer from two experts both of Microsoft. Kerry answers, that is totally an individual assessment. You must weigh whether the skill development and your new perspective would enhance your advancement. He adds that Microsoft is a meritocracy and that your career trajectory won’t be changed because of the MBA but because your new skills, experience, perspective would cause a different performance.

Randy adds that the sweet spot for age is 25 to 27. Your career trajectory should be vertical in terms of advancement but also horizontal in which you round out your skill base with exposure and experience. Whether you advance is then determined by how you show up and impact your team and the business. Getting an MBA, doesn’t hurt.

Another key question is that of how to differentiate yourself from others in your field? The experts say match your personality with that of the school. Explore your personal passions and broaden your interests. Business schools are about being a business leader so show how you’re a leader, how you participate in the community, and how you make a difference. Another interesting question came up from a member of African’s at Microsoft who wanted to know if the MBA experience provides opportunities to impact Africa? Gavin kicked off the responses, "I’m not African but I was very involved with Africa throughout my business school experience. I was in Peace Corps before business school in Togo, West Africa. I really like my experience and I wanted to learn more about Togo, the region, African business in general. I do a bunch of things in business school. I joined the Africa Club; I helped organize the annual Africa Business Conference at Wharton each year. I did [indiscernible] [00:41:08] degree in MBA and then Masters in International Studies. For the Masters I focused on Africa and African technology, so I wrote about that. Basically just, that was one of the things that I wanted to pursue at business school and I just set it out. At the beginning, I said I want to get involved in all the activity like having research of trying to find out more about it. I did that along with finding a job at Microsoft and taking the work class, learning finance and now Africa is something as well. It’s just a question of prioritizing how you want to stuff of your interest."

"It is a great question. I used to direct Off The Patient Programs at the University of Chicago and actually I come from a Humanitarian Law background and sky is the limit. As an MBA student, you can do a lot. At Chicago, I hope to start Chicago Google Citizen which is now a non-profit. That's the students start visiting Asian countries and various countries and they’re studying at the different continents. But seriously, sky is the limit. You can do so much and you can just tackle a lot. It tells you where your interests and passions are, you can make your great impact. Whatever school you go to, whatever programs you end up in, there will be people with really similar interests. MBA students are very unique and that they have so much to offer. Lots of non-profits around the world, in Africa, in Asia, in different parts of the world can use your skills and they would love your skills. I encourage you wherever you end up doing an MBA or wherever that you seriously seek that passion."

"Thank you."

"I think one of the good things about the MBA program is that you get to meet people from different parts of the world. You got to see things from the US, you will live and work in the US and understand the system and the infrastructure here. You get to make people respond, emerging nations like China and India who are beginning to do new and different things in their areas as well and so you’re able to compare what practices are in Africa and what practices the people who are now those established and who are upcoming as well, what practices they are involving or doing that is helping them advance in terms of technology or any other area within the economy. When you learn those practices, the[indiscernible] [0:43:23] would give you very more [indiscernible] [00:43:28] which is just to take the best practices that they’ve done and kind of think about how would it fit into the environment there. And then again, you can think about Africa and think about it have too many challenges, this wouldn’t work, that wouldn’t work. But when you go do it, the only thing you come out with is there are many answers and there are many solutions. It’s just how you want to tailor it, one, two, you have - one of the things I’ve learned from the MBA program is even if the environment is challenging, there is the opportunity for you to influence the environment and make it change to accommodate what you’re trying to do. You can be on the cutting edge of the beginning of something in the country. You can make it different. But that’s one of the good things about having an MBA. Just to have different perspectives, you understand the structures from other nations, you have to come up with language to apply to the continent you’re coming from and also it gives you the confidence after you go back and tried to make a difference."

"Thanks so much."