Admissions Straight Talk

Today’s guest is Patrick Curtis, CEO & Co-founder of Wall Street Oasis. Patrick graduated from Williams College in 2002 and worked as an Investment Banking Analyst for Rothschild & Co for two years. He then joined Tailwind Capital as a Private Equity Associate in 2005 around the same time that he founded Wall Street Oasis, which he has led as CEO ever since. He also earned his MBA with a concentration in entrepreneurial management from Wharton in 2010. Welcome, Patrick! What is Wall Street Oasis? [1:20] It’s an online community for finance professionals and students trying to break into finance careers – investment banking, private equity, etc. We have 500K registered members and 1.5 million visits per month. The community is similar to any forum-based site. And we offer paid services in addition: interview courses, resume review, etc. What’s the backstory? [2:55] I landed on my feet at Tailwind after being fired from my first PE job. I was talking to a friend who had technical skills, and we were thinking about starting a site. There was no good place online for people trying to break in, or for bankers to commiserate about their long hours. We tried to make the tone fun – the theme of the site was monkeys (it still is). It grew steadily – it took on a life of its own. I didn’t work on it full time until after my MBA. How did you choose the name and the monkey theme? [4:50] Have you heard of the book Monkey Business? It resonated with me at the time. How did you handle the layoff? [6:00] I was pretty devastated. I realized the transition from IB to PE was more difficult than I’d anticipated. I had all the technical skills, but the project management skills didn’t translate right away. In the end, I think it was more an issue of culture and fit – but it was a hit to my confidence and I had to work hard to get my next job. It can be tough to keep a long-term perspective. What’s your favorite resource on Wall Street Oasis? [10:10] It’s really the community itself. I still read a lot of the threads and participate. It’s really the lifeblood of the business. We have interview courses, resume review, etc. But the forums and the community itself is really great. You recently started a podcast! Can you tell us about that? [11:15] I partnered with Alex Grodnik, a UCLA MBA. The goal is to bring to life interesting stories. We’re featuring AMAs, people’s stories. We have three episodes so far, and we’re planning to do one a week. It’s called the Wall Street Oasis Podcast. What are the skills and qualities that investment banks look for? [12:40] There’s often a misperception that technical acumen is the most important thing. Banks tend to look for polished communication skills, especially for client-facing roles. Their ideal is someone who can work well with teams, has great communication skills, and also has great financial modeling skills. Finding and retaining those candidates is challenging for banks – they’re trying to improve work-life balance. But it’s still one of the most attractive careers for undergrads right out of college, because you learn so many transferable skills. Wall St. is famous for insane hours and the banks have seemed to be trying to change that. Do you think the banks’ attempts at encouraging a little more work/life balance are real, or are some of the “limits” banks have put in place over the last several years mere window dressing? [15:50] I was skeptical – but from what I’ve heard, I’ve been surprised. There has been improvement.

I would like to share with you the email that made me believe that today’s guest, Dr. Amy Faith Ho, a third year ER resident, will be simply outstanding: I love the mission of your site, and the Match was something that endlessly agonized me (see my article in Forbes). It is a great passion of mine to mentor junior residents, med students and premeds and I’ve also done a TEDx Talk on the topic for college students, but would love to talk about how I came into medicine (and how for me, scores weren’t the end-all-be-all). I was a policy hack who wanted to save the world and went to med school as a reconnaissance mission to understand healthcare as an industry better. I surprisingly ended up falling in love with the clinical practice of emergency medicine, so I did residency, but stayed highly involved in healthcare policy. I’ve now worked on US Congress as a healthcare fellow, been a leader in multiple national organizations and been a nationally featured writer and speaker (see examples at amyfaithho.com). I wish someone when I was in college would’ve told me that 0.1 point difference on your GPA wasn’t the end of the world (because at the time, it sure felt like it)! Would really love to share the message with your readers. Welcome, Amy! Can you tell us your backstory – how did you decide to go to into medicine? [2:14] I’m from suburban Texas – I was a high school debater and loved everything about policy. I got interested in health policy and the healthcare industry – I thought the whole system was insanity, and I wanted to fix it. I looked at law, policy, public administration – and I concluded that if you want to change health policy, you need to understand health care, so I went to medical school. And then I fell in love with clinical medicine and realized I can’t imagine not incorporating patient care into my career. Was there a specific moment when you realized you wanted to be a doctor? [5:15] It’s hard to have that moment until you actually work with patients during the clinical years of med school. The patients I remember are all ones that had non-medical things that connected me – I remember a patient who kept asking to speak to her son, and I looked him up to let him know his mother was in the hospital. I don’t remember a more grateful patient. Were you still planning the policy route? [8:08] Yes, until very late in med school. I decided on emergency med after shadowing in the ER late in med school and doing that rotation in fourth year – then I declared for emergency. I like the diagnostic challenge: making big decisions with little information in a small amount of time. For me as a health policy wonk, it’s also great and interesting to see care at this level: we see everyone. Looking back, what was the most challenging part of the med school application process for you? [11:02] The personal statement, no doubt! Most of the other parts of the application process are more objective: you have a sense of what scores you need, etc. But the personal statement is wide open. It plays on your own insecurities.

Today’s guest, Mary-Patton Davis, earned her BA in Government and French from Georgetown in 2010. She worked in marketing in the U.S. and in Rwanda, started a yoga business in Rwanda among other things, and earned her MBA from Wharton in 2016. While there she co-founded and led LeadUp, a mindful leadership program emphasizing health and wellness for ambitious young business leaders Since August she has worked in San Francisco for NerdWallet, a personal finance start-up. Welcome, Mary-Patton! Can you tell us more about your background and your path to Wharton? [1:40] It’s a non-traditional background. I majored in international relations and French at Georgetown – at the time, I was very interested in political communications. I stayed in DC right after graduation for about a year and a half. Then my sister was launching a women’s college in east Africa, and she asked me to help with communications, so I moved to Rwanda and worked with the Akila Institute. I loved living in the country and the work I was doing. Through that experience, I met leaders of family conglomerates, including one who asked me to create a digital marketing department in his advertising firm. Why did you decide to pursue an MBA? [5:20] As you can imagine, I never really had an MBA in my sights. After working in the nonprofit realm with my sister, I was working in the advertising agency and realized I really liked it. It drew on different skillsets. But I also realized I needed more training. The head of the family conglomerate I worked for had his MBA, and he was a big mentor for me – he really coached me and helped me identify the MBA as the next step. Why did you choose Wharton? [7:18] I targeted quantitative, finance-oriented schools because I knew I needed to build those skills. It was definitely a steep learning curve my first year! But it was the right choice. What do you miss from Wharton? [9:45] There’s a lot of nostalgia for business school when I get together with my classmates in San Francisco. I really miss the crazy international trips and the social life! From a more academic perspective, I miss the organized opportunities for intellectual stimulation – talks, clubs, etc. What could be improved at Wharton? [12:45] One thing that’s a function of the wealth of opportunities is FOMO – fear of missing out. You feel pressure to do everything. You have to remember to dole out your time according to what’s most important to you and spend your time appropriately. Did you find the MBA valuable? Is it valuable in the tech world? [14:50] For me, it was absolutely the right decision – I was transitioning from a non-traditional background and from working abroad. But the MBA isn’t for everyone. If you just feel like you’re stagnating or don’t know what you want to do next, it may not be the best option. It’s a big investment and a big decision – don’t decide to do it by default. What is LeadUp and how did you found it? [18:10] It was a fun project I started with a friend at Wharton. The idea was to provide immersive experiences for young leaders to help them develop their skills and reflect. It was for grad students across Penn – not just MBA students. We came to this after realizing how intense the MBA experience is – we started from wanting to create a space for mindfulness, and it became a great holistic experience. We applied for incubator funding in second year, but we decided not to pursue developing it formally.

Many of you are planning ahead for your first application this summer and fall. Others are concerned that you may need to reapply because the news you’ve received so far isn’t what you wanted. In either case, if your grades are a concern, this podcast is for you. This week, join us for a rebroadcast of one of our most popular shows – our discussion of how to address a low GPA. Click here for the complete show notes. Download the 5 A’s for a Low GPA Cheat Sheet: hbspt.forms.create({ css: '', portalId: '58291', formId: 'faaec268-0541-40d2-a025-6fc777df4155' }); Related Shows: • Different Dimensions of Diversity • Focus on Fit • Linda Abraham’s Admissions Assortment Related Resources: • Get Accepted to B-School with Low Stats, live webinar • Get Accepted to Medical School with Low Stats, on demand webinar • The A-Z of Applying to Postbac Programs, a free guide • 3 Steps for Applying to Business School with a Low Undergraduate GPA • Boost Your GPA for Medical School Acceptance Subscribe:              Tags: Admissions Straight Talk, College Admissions, Grad School Admissions, Law School Admissions, MBA Admissions, Medical School Admissions

Today’s episode is an extra special show. This is AST’s 200th episode! It’s fitting that we welcome back Elissa Sangster, who was the very first guest on AST almost five years ago. Today she is the first guest to come back for a third time. This show should be valuable to you because of Elissa’s critical role as head of the Forté Foundation in increasing women’s representation in business school and business, and because of her profound insider’s knowledge of the business school and professional worlds. Elissa earned her MBA at Texas A&M’s Mays Business School in 1994 and immediately became the Assistant Director of its MBA program. She moved on to UT Austin in 1997 where she served in different roles including the Assistant Dean and Director of McCombs’ MBA program. In 2004, she became the first director of Forté Foundation, a consortium of business schools and companies working to increase the number of women in business leadership positions. Welcome back, Elissa! Can you review Forté’s backstory for us? [3:00] The origins go back to 2000-1, due to a Catalyst research study on women in MBA programs, called “The Gateway to Opportunity.” That research was looking at why there weren’t more women enrolled in b-schools, and that was the motivation for creating Forté. It started with five events back in 2002. I came on board in 2004, and we’ve continued creating programs aimed at preparing women early in the process. We’ve understood that we need to reach out earlier in the decision-making process, too, so we’ve created programs at the college/university level that help women see what careers in business can look like. And we do professional development programs. There’s a lot of lack of awareness, lack of role models – a lot of young women have no one in their influence set telling them that b-school would be a great fit. So we’re taking that role. What is the Forté Fellows program? [6:40] It started in 2005. We asked our partner schools to give significant scholarships (averaging half of tuition) to two students each year. In 2005, we had about 35 students. For 2018, 1100 students received fellowships. There are now about 5000 alums. It’s a great group. The benefits are beyond financial – it’s about being part of a broader community. The fellows are involved in programming on their campus, programming for undergrads, etc. It’s a community we know we can depend on. How do you become a Forté Fellow? [9:48] Each school makes their own selection. We’ve given them general guidelines. We start communicating and bring them into the Forté community as soon as they receive the award. Another significant Forté program is MBALaunch (and Virtual Launch). Can you tell us about that? [10:35] MBALaunch creates a very active community – they tend to bond and are very supportive and engaged. It’s a ten-month program that starts with a live kickoff event (with sessions on different topics). Then they’re grouped, and they spend the next ten months working with their peers and a coach preparing for the MBA application. They address all parts of the application (essays, interviews). There are 570 participants this year. We want them to be competitive. We want them to apply to schools they might not have thought about if they did the process in isolation. Virtual launch includes access to all webinars. You don’t attend the live launch, and there’s no live coach, but you do get a peer support group. Are there any successes Forté can point to?

I recently saw an article about a highly innovative approach to medical education launching with this year’s entering class at the University of Connecticut called M Delta. When I reached out to UConn the head of the curriculum reform asked me for a call and provided more information about the new curriculum. It was just fascinating. Fortunately, she and her colleagues agreed to join me for this episode of Admissions Straight Talk, and you can judge for yourself. Today’s guests are: Dr. Suzanne Rose, UConn’s Sr. Associate Dean for Education and Professor of Medicine; Dr. Christine Thatcher Associate Dean for Medical Education and Assessment; and Dr. Thomas Regan, Asst Dean of Admissions and Student Affairs. Welcome! Dr. Rose, can you provide an overview of the three phases of M Delta? [1:45] M Delta is making a difference in education, learning, and teaching across the curriculum. It’s an innovative curriculum reform effort that started about four years ago – really thinking about cutting edge education for the doctors of the future. Our curriculum reform effort has been implemented in August with the class of 2020. Stage I is 18 months long – a time of study when the class is together. Students co-learn with dental students. We’ve eliminated lectures in favor of active learning modalities. Stage II will begin in March of the second year – a 12-week introduction to clinical medicine, flexible time for electives, board study, and rotations. We’re also coupling some of our rotations so we can have longitudinal didactics where our rotations can work together and students can think together across disciplines. Stage II goes through June of the third year. Stage III includes some required advanced clinical rotations, but students will also be involved in the scholarly process – working on a project, or a community initiative (such as public health and education). All our students will be receiving a public health certificate, so they’ll be immersed in public health across the curriculum. Can you dive into Stage I? [4:40] Stage I is the Exploration stage. The centerpiece is a team-based curriculum. It’s patient centered and case based. At the beginning of each unit, students take both individual and team readiness assessments. That’s followed by an application exercise. The PBL (problem-based learning) curriculum spans 50 units – 50 cases, in ten week blocks. There are other courses, too: integrated human anatomy (with virtual anatomy lab, including radiology); Intro to Doctoring; CLIC – students spend half a day in a physician’s office, generally a primary care provider; Medical Home – another innovative course, where students and teams go to an affiliated hospital to learn about the clinical environment; and the VITALS course (Vertically Integrated Teams Aligned in Learning and Scholarship), where they learn about population health, biostatistics, etc. The VITALS course is in teams across the med school continuum and with our interprofessional partners (such as dental), and it’s a flexible curriculum, covering emerging topics and trends while exploring public health objectives. Dr. Thatcher, can you talk about assessment? [11:10] In each ten-week block, students will take an IRAT (individual readiness assessment test) and TRAT (team readiness assessment test). Then each ten week block is followed by a two week intersession that starts with an integrated assessment – like a final exam for the ten week module. Then they have a day off for wellness, and then a day for scholarship; coaching; and career exploration. They find out how they’ve done in the previous unit...

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