In this episode we sit down with Chase Lin (GSB '27), a joint MA/MBA candidate at Stanford studying education and business administration. Chase grew up in a first-generation household in Queens, went to NYU Stern, and built a career across consulting, JP Morgan and Iron Mountain before deciding an MBA was how he'd close the gap between his technology background and the thing he actually cares about, which is education access.
Chase walks through how he tied that background to a long-running passion for education, why he treated every optional section of the application as real estate worth using, and how he closed the gaps in his profile without chasing credentials for their own sake. He gets into retaking the GRE until he maxed out his verbal score, the Stanford ethos that shaped how he presented himself, and the banana shirt he wore to his interview.
I'm not wearing it here, unfortunately, but I love wearing fun fruit shirts and I love making puns. So I wore a banana shirt plus a suit to my interview, and my interviewer was very confused because no one else would do that. He asked me about my shirt and I said, well, I love fruits and I love making puns. And this shirt, per the Gwen Stefani song, this shirt is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. But I think it made me unique. It made me stand out.
This person might be a little strange and a little crazy, but he's being his authentic self. And I think that's what got me in, letting my true personality shine. Even though most people would say that's probably unprofessional, that it doesn't make any sense, why would you do that in a high stakes environment? The way I thought about it was, I'm having fun. This is not that serious. Worst comes to worst, I apply again next year.
But it would be such a shame if I didn't let my true, authentic story and passion show through. And that's how I approached the application.
Hello everyone and welcome back to How Did You Get In? Today we have a very special guest. I am so excited to introduce Chase Lin to the show. I first got to connect with Chase a little earlier than this time last year, as he was going through his MBA journey, and today he is joining us. If you're watching on video, you can see his GSB flag in the background. He's joining us from his first year at Stanford GSB.
Chase's background is going to be very interesting to many of you. He came from undergrad at NYU, then consulting, then JP Morgan, and most recently spent time at Iron Mountain. We are really excited to have you and to celebrate this moment for you. Chase, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited as well.
Why don't you share a little bit about where you're from and your background, maybe through undergrad, and then I'll dig into your work experience a little bit.
I am a native New Yorker. What that means is I grew up and was raised in New York City. I'm from Queens originally, so shout out to Queens. And in true New York City fashion, I love the city so much that I decided to stay for undergrad. I went to NYU Stern, where I pursued both a bachelor's and a master's at the same time.
I graduated with a BS in accounting and marketing, and then finished my accounting master's in one summer afterwards, because NYU has a very unique program where we're able to do that. And then, in a true existential crisis moment, I did not know what I wanted to do out of undergrad.
So I jumped into consulting, where I started off as a generalist, but realized that I had a passion in technology and wanted to learn more about the space, and was somehow able to pivot into the cybersecurity division at the consulting firm I worked at at the time.
And then as you got into the technology side, how has that evolved your thinking about what you wanted to do with your career?
One of the things that drew me to consulting in the first place was truly that intersection of solving problems using data, but also ideating very creative solutions. And I think it was actually that framework that made me interested in technology, or more specifically, how can we use technology to solve problems at scale? As I mentioned, I started off in cybersecurity, but that really defined the rest of my career trajectory as well.
I discovered a role at JP Morgan specifically because I was looking at how cybersecurity as a space could also be disrupted. When I was researching, I found out that blockchain was actually going to be a huge augmentation, and at the same time realized that JP Morgan had posted a product strategy role to build new products in the blockchain space.
When I was working at JP Morgan, diving deeper into emerging technology, that's when I realized I really care about how we apply technology to solve these problems, which ultimately inspired my last pivot into working at Iron Mountain, where I was able to work with AI and ML products in the healthcare space mostly.
But it was because of that framing and thinking through decisions that I realized this is what I want to do, and it ultimately inspired me to apply for an MBA, because I wanted very specific applications of technology to solve problems that I saw in society. And that's why I ultimately decided to come to Stanford.
One thing that is interesting to know is that here at Stanford, I'm pursuing both the MBA and a master's in education, because I feel deeply about solving problems in the education space and I wanted to learn both sides of the spectrum very well to ultimately enact some impact using education technology. But it really was because of that first job, where I saw truly how you can solve problems at scale using technology, that inspired where I am today.
What I like about the career journey and how you talked about it, and what I think about as we're talking to people thinking about their MBA, is that you can follow the thread. Yes, I moved and went to different roles, but I had a clear mission I was following. I had a curiosity. There was something I was interested in and I pursued it. You managed to pursue it while also adding some pretty good brand names.
NYU is an excellent brand name, but you added a few more with JP Morgan on there, and even if it wasn't what you were intending to do, it added to your resume while you were continuing to build towards your ultimate goal. That's a really good example. But spend a minute and tell us, because of your point about working on the education side now while at Stanford, how your extracurriculars and what you did outside of work played into that.
I'll take a step back and add some context. I grew up proudly in a first generation household. Growing up, I personally have experienced so many pain points of accomplishing difficult goals. In true first generation fashion, how do you apply to college? How do you decide what major to take on? How do you apply for scholarships?
I remember that barrier being such a difficult journey for me that I have consistently, even in undergrad, wanted to uplift other students, and it became such an authentic passion.
For example, during my time at NYU, because I was encountering very esoteric industries for the first time, what does it mean to work in investment banking, what does it mean to work in consulting, by acquiring that knowledge from mentors, other students and faculty, I naturally developed this unique encyclopedia. And I told myself, other students probably have the same pain point. How can I address this?
So at Stern, I was already serving as a peer mentor to help guide other students. It's become a lifelong passion and something I really enjoyed. Once I graduated from college, I thought, how can I continue doing this at scale? So I decided to do a myriad of different extracurriculars, mostly in the volunteering space, with organizations like Minds Matter, which serves underserved communities and students looking to break into college.
But I also decided to serve on the scholarship side of things, because when I was volunteering with these students at Minds Matter, I realized I didn't know how to advise them on how to craft a strong scholarship application. The way I thought about bridging that gap was serving as a scholarship reader for these organizations.
And that became my bridge to understanding more on the education side, and then to developing more knowledge in the education space as a whole. It really related back to the fact that it came from an authentic passion. I want to stress, I didn't do any of this for an MBA journey. I didn't know I was going to apply for an MBA out of undergrad.
But because it came from a true source of passion in my life, it became very clear why I made these decisions to serve all these communities, nonprofit boards and scholarship boards. And when it came time to apply for my MBA, that became very natural and easy for me to tie in my background, why my background inspired my choice to serve in the education space and the decisions I made from there.
So my advice there is that I did these extracurriculars because I love doing it. It brings me so much joy. And even right now at Stanford, even though I'm so busy every single day, I'm still reading scholarship applications, which is just crazy to think about. But it just shows that it was truly an authentic and natural passion.
The other part of what you talk about though, and if I remember correctly in some of your applications, which we'll get into in a minute, was how do I apply this at scale?
To dig a little bit more granular, take when I was serving on these scholarship communities or serving students for Minds Matter. To give a little bit more context, in Minds Matter you literally are a mentor to one or two students. And that process was so granular. You had to get to know the student, their background, their story, very similar to the MBA application journey.
You're literally trying to figure out what are the weaker points of a student's journey, how can you close those gaps, or how can we authentically tell their passions or help them find those opportunities to connect to things that might translate to an application later on. And I realized that I was spending so much time doing this one-on-one with a student that I thought, how can I do this and touch more lives?
And because I had seen in my work how technology could scale that tremendously, I thought to myself, these are the same problems I see at work that are reflected in the education space.
So when did that lightning bolt of inspiration, I should apply for an MBA, when did that come to you, and why?
For me it was very easy. There was this natural pain point I saw in the education space, access to resources, access to information and asymmetry. And can we use technology to solve that? So it became a very easy decision of, this is a problem I care about, and this is where I want to take it next in my career. When I was applying for the MBA, I thought about what skills I need to close this gap of applying technology to the education space.
And this is why the MBA plus master's in education made a lot of sense for me. I knew that I knew a lot about technology, but I didn't know how to build companies from the ground up. And I was deeply interested in entrepreneurship. So the MBA part of that meant, how do I expand my network, especially coming from an undergraduate program where historically not a lot of people went into entrepreneurship? And secondly, how do I build those skills?
How do I learn how to raise a fund? How do I learn the different aspects of marketing, finance, other skills I didn't have in my day-to-day work? And then for the education space, even though I had seen it informally through my extracurriculars, I didn't know anything about education policy. I didn't know anything about how a school system runs or the way that educators think about solving problems. The MA in education lens really lent itself in that aspect.
That's why I thought about it as, there's this goal I want to solve, a career trajectory I want to accomplish, but a clear gap in skills that made it obvious that an MBA plus a master's in education would be the perfect combo for me to close those gaps.
When you had decided that the MBA was the right thing, where did you start with the application process?
The first thing I did was candidly look up as many resources as I could to learn more about the MBA application journey, but also whether or not this was a good decision, because everybody talks about the ROI of an MBA. It is quite expensive. A lot of it typically is self-funded unless you're sponsored, which my company did not do or did not offer at all. And when I thought about it, I looked to see, one, does this make sense from my school's perspective?
Would the schools even give me the right skills or the right type of access to networks that I was craving? So I read a lot of different articles. I listened to a ton of podcasts. I actually think I was one of the first listeners to the M7A podcast. My TikTok algorithm really knew me, and I remember seeing it pop up on my feed and I thought to myself, this is such an interesting concept and I want to learn more. So there was that much aggregation of initial research.
And it also informed my school choice. Because I knew I wanted a school that not only would give me access to entrepreneurship skills, or even more in-depth career skills in the event I decided not to pursue the entrepreneurship path, but could it get me there? And I also wanted schools that had either a strong ed tech community or access to a dual degree. And that helped me narrow down my focus to four schools.
Those four schools either had strong access to technology, again, at the community level, or that dual degree access. Another thing I did to prepare, and I highly recommend this for students, is open the application and look to see what each of these schools is looking for. Because I realized, one, I needed to take a test, and I didn't know whether to take the GRE versus the GMAT. I'm happy to talk more about how I came to that decision.
But more importantly, when I looked at the application itself, I realized there were components of the application that were listed as optional. But from my nonprofit work, I had learned that when you're applying for undergrad, every single part of the application is not necessarily optional. It is available real estate for you to show a different dimension of yourself, a different facet.
So it's optional in the sense that if there is something there, you should put it, but if there isn't something there that is meaningful, then of course you can ignore it and move on. But the way I interpreted it was, this is another part of the application where I can show another data point or another side of myself. And for example, I realized for Stanford's application that they really care about your impact.
Part of the way you could see this was that after every single section, they asked, did you have an award or something to show that you had a credential in this space? In the education section, did you have any scholarships or awards at the undergrad level? Similarly, in your work experience, do you have any work awards? And in your extracurricular section, do you have any awards in this space?
So I did a back-to-back mapping of what I already had and where I needed to either gain a new experience or potentially bolster my application there. So I worked backwards. And at the time, this is one part of the application that you cannot change, your undergrad experience, I knew that I had awards in this space already. I knew I had some awards in my work experience, but I was missing some awards in my extracurriculars.
But at the same time, I knew that Minds Matter had a volunteering best mentor award. And I knew that I was a darn good mentor. But the reason why I had not been selected for the mentor award beforehand was the fact that I had not asked for nominations. And I thought it was because of two things. One, my work was not being seen outside my group. It was not being seen by Minds Matter leadership.
But two, I wasn't talking about all the backend work I was doing with my mentee. And if I'm being honest, I actually think I did way more than an average mentor. I didn't just meet with my mentee on the weekends, which is when we had scheduled meetings with our mentees.
I was literally talking to her almost every single day, doing research to figure out what scholarships she should apply for, what other extracurricular summer opportunities she would be interested in to help develop her natural passions.
And even when I was researching and preparing her from sophomore year to senior year, I was reading up on the college application process, because at that point, being a mentor, it had been six or seven years since I applied for undergrad. So a lot of things had changed. Policies like test optional policies, are they truly test optional? What are schools looking for? Are there new ways? I was doing such crazy back end research.
For example, there was this Dean of Admissions from UVA. Her name is Dean Lalonde. And she hosted TikTok Lives. And whenever I had a question about the admissions world, I would hop onto her TikTok and ask her, to the point where she started recognizing my handle and got to know me on a day-to-day basis. So that's what I mean. I was doing a lot of granular work that I was not articulating or telling people about.
My mentee knew about it, but no one else in my group or even in Minds Matter leadership knew. So I said, I need to advocate for myself. And guess what? If I am doing this work, this could probably help other mentors too, and their mentees, and that scale factor as well. So I decided to create a pitch book, send it to all my team members, and it actually became a resource that Minds Matter has still used to this day.
But that's how I became the best mentor at Minds Matter, twice in a row. So my advice is again, it's not necessarily doing things for the MBA application, but if you realize there is a gap in your application that you could close out, and it's still authentic and not something you're doing simply for the sake of the application, you should go for it. Because again, I was doing these things naturally. It just happened that I wasn't advocating for myself.
And the moment I did, Minds Matter recognized my impact, and I wasn't doing anything different. I wasn't fundraising for Minds Matter, because that's not something I specialize in. What I specialize in is getting to know students, telling their authentic stories, and helping them with their applications. And that was something I drew on, which was my strength.
And you again showed this incredible ability to be really reflective and say, where are my gaps?
I am not somebody who thrives in testing, if I'm being honest.
Me too, I feel you.
The moment I wanted to start thinking about applying for an MBA, I wanted to give myself one year to study for the test, especially because, and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this position, everybody's working long hours, and you have that outside of your MBA process. So I knew I wanted to give myself as much time as possible to lock in and take the exam at my own discretionary time.
A good way of expressing why I felt this way is that I had actually taken the GRE one time during my senior year of undergrad. At that time it was partially due to a bet that I was making with my friends of, can we even do standardized testing? But I was also thinking about pursuing a master's in archaeology or something else, just for the plot, for the fun of it. I had done terribly. I had done so terribly on the GRE. I think my first score was a 318 out of 340.
So I knew it was okay for some schools, but since I was looking at the M7, probably not up to par. So I created a one-year roadmap plan. The reason I decided to stick to the GRE versus the GMAT is that I did a test with the GMAT and thought to myself, this testing format just stresses me out. I don't like the adaptive nature.
I know that people have historically said the GRE does resemble the SAT format, and I had done very well on the SAT after some extensive studying. So I thought to myself, if I applied that same logic, I work hard, I lock in, I probably could achieve a better score on the GRE. The adaptive format of the GMAT just was not something that I could handle. And people kept telling me, no one really cares about the GRE versus the GMAT, they are treated as equivalent.
As long as you look at the comprehensive nature of your application, does this score supplement, for example, a lower GPA, or if you have a higher GPA you could probably get away with a lower test score. So that was my thought process at the time. So three months into my study plan, I decided to take another test just to gauge where I would be and to see how the test format would be after five years.
I remember taking it for the first time in December of, I believe, 2024. And I had improved my score from a 318 to a 326. Breaking that down, I think it was 160 in verbal and a 166, I believe, in quant. Then I decided to take it again, this time in March of 2025. And I had improved my score not a lot, but a little bit. My verbal score stayed the same, it was a 160, and 168 quant.
And everybody told me, you're fine, the quant score is what MBA schools actually care about. But I was really harsh on myself, and I don't know if I made the right decision at the time. But I thought to myself, I definitely can improve my verbal score. I literally think I focused mostly on the quant score because I was told that MBA schools care more about your quant score versus your verbal score.
So I thought, let me take the test one more time and focus more studying on the verbal section instead of quant. I still did some practice in quant, but I wanted to see if I locked in for verbal whether I could improve there.
But when I was consulting with different mentors, everybody said you could probably apply with 328, which at that time was higher than the average for both Stanford and, I think, Harvard, which were my top two schools, just the average median score for both sections. I was above the range for quant, below the range for verbal, which is why I wanted to get my average for verbal up as well. Now, my cumulative score was above the median.
So that's why a lot of mentors told me, just apply. But after studying for, I think it was another four or five months, I actually remember taking the test before my birthday. That's how crazy I was about this application process. I had improved my score to a 335. So that meant I had tremendously increased my verbal score to a 170, which was a full score. Unfortunately, my quant score did drop from a 168 to 165, but the overall score was that much better.
And that was the score I ultimately decided to apply with, that 335. Again, a caveat though, and the reason why I mentioned that additional information section, I actually put in that section, hey, I have two scores I'm very proud about. One is the 168 with the higher quant score, but much lower verbal score. But if you look at after I studied specifically for the verbal section, I maxed it out.
And even though my quant score dropped a little bit, I have the potential to score higher on quant as a whole. If you super score, which most schools didn't do, my total score would have been 338. But it was additional context I wanted to make sure admissions was thinking about, top of mind, which is why I put it in that additional information section.
Smart. And I'll tell you, typically I tell people if you're going to choose the test, I lean GMAT. However, your rationale is one where I go, okay, I agree. Your undergrad background, you had good quant. You had robust quant experience in some of your work experiences. And then you absolutely crushed the GRE. I do think the idea of taking it three times, I took the GMAT three times, I was stuck at 690, 690, and then broke through to 730.
So taking it the third time made more sense. But what I love is, you said, I want to do this. I know I want to get into a top school. I'm going to throw everything I have at it. And if you felt like you had a little bit left in the tank, you were going to use every little bit of it.
So while I don't necessarily think everyone needs to take it until they absolutely max out, yours is an example of where if you're going to take the time after to seriously work and be targeted and bring the score up, go shoot for the moon. It's only going to help you. And I also think including in your additional information that you took the test multiple times, not only do they see your super score all together, but it shows determination. You didn't give up.
You didn't say that's good enough. You said, I know I can do better, which I think gives you a point in those schools' books.
And just to expand on that really quickly. The reason why I felt so strongly about taking the test one more time, and was nervous even applying with 328, is because of doing that mapping again to my undergrad days. I was below the average for a lot of these schools GPA wise. I graduated with, I think, a 3.5, which is not a bad GPA by most standards, but I was slightly below the average for both Stanford and Harvard, which again were my top two schools at the time.
I knew that I wanted to show the academic community, but also the admissions community, that I could handle the rigor of the work. And so I went crazy. I took the test. I also did MBA math just to help supplement that score. And it was really because I wanted to hone it and erase any sort of doubt or hesitation they had of, could Chase handle the academic rigor of the schools here.
Maybe we can spend a minute now talking about what it's been like as a student, what your experience has been like, what have some of the highlights been, and what have some of the surprises been?
One of the surprises has been how much each school truly does reflect its culture, in the application but more importantly in the student body. At the time of applying, I did not think I was Stanford material. I don't think anybody applies thinking that they are Stanford material, just because it's such a crapshoot and it is a really difficult school to get into. When I looked at the student body, I realized that there is a recurring pattern.
The best way I can describe it is, there's a professor here who is a New York Times editor, his name is Glenn Kramon, and he has this quote, make yourself one in a million, not one of a million. And I think everybody at the Stanford GSB truly reflects that ethos. For example, if I were to describe myself as being one in a million, it would be in the education space.
I care deeply about ed tech, I care about education policies, and I am truly the most informed person on this campus in that space. I can talk to you about every single aspect of the undergrad application process, every single part of the scholarship process. And that was reflected in my impact. I helped my students achieve a 100 % success rate into the Ivy League, and I mentored over 20 students.
Or the fact that I helped my students achieve $170,000 in external scholarships. That's my story. Chase is an ed tech or education leader. And similarly, when I look at my classmates, the amount of passions that they have that authentically come through in their research or day-to-day work is truly how they breathe that one in a million ethos. I have a friend who has a really niche interest in oat milk.
And I didn't know this before meeting her, but the current iteration of oat milk is actually very bad for your gut health, and she wants to improve that process by developing a new type of milk, I think also from oats, to help improve the gut health of folks who are interested in alternative milks. Something super niche that you wouldn't think about, but that is her one in a million that no one else could replicate.
And I can tell you that exact same story even with folks who come from a more quote unquote traditional background. Those who come in from private equity or consulting have authentic passions that are one in a million. And it doesn't even need to be a problem you want to solve. I have friends who are one in a million in playing competitive Pokemon. I have friends who are one in a million in water polo. The list just goes on and on and on.
So I think that was a surprise to me, how much Stanford truly values its culture, and that's reflected in how they dissect and pull out the information from you in the application process. What else was surprising to me was the amount of work that actually goes into an MBA program. The myth you hear is that academics don't matter as much, that what matters more is the connections you build, the amount of fun that you have, the social events, the connections you make.
And while that is all true, academics is important. You have to lock in. The amount of study and work you will be doing on a daily basis was way more than I expected. And after first quarter, I thought to myself, I have actually forgotten how to study. But it's because I'm trying to juggle the amount of opportunities here. You have not just classes, but extracurricular programs that are unique to the GSB.
For example, I'm part of a fund here called Impact Fund, which is Stanford's student run VC fund. We focus on different impact areas. Unsurprisingly, I'm serving on the education team, and we are looking into innovators and startups in the education space.
It's these different opportunities that are keeping me very occupied at Stanford, to the point where you truly have to come in with a focus and not let yourself get distracted by all the different opportunities coming up, because you simply don't have time to do all of them. And a lot of times they actually conflict in your schedule. And it leads to a lot of, oh gosh, I wish I could go to that event, but I don't have time.
I have to go to this other event, which matches my passions a little bit more.
So what are you thinking about doing after school?
In true GSB fashion, I have been doing a lot of introspection as well. As I mentioned, I came in with the goal of building in the edtech space. Definitely something I'm still interested in. But given the combination of different political factors plus what I've seen from VCs and private equity firms I've talked to, it's hard to build in the edtech space right now. So I am not saying no to that goal, but I am pushing it. It's slightly delayed.
In the meanwhile, I'm exploring how else I can make impact in education. So I might not be building in this space directly, but I'm interested in working for a startup in the education space. I'm also interested in impact investing, and that interest came completely out of left field, to be honest, because I joined Impact Fund and I really have enjoyed that experience so far. I also have thought about, can I go back to tech traditionally?
Because there are a lot of ed tech arms at really established companies. For example, Google has a Google for Education team that is so deeply interesting. So I'm still really interested in education. The pathway I originally envisioned has gotten slightly reshaped, but it's not something I'm saying no to completely. And I'm still thinking about different hypotheses I want to explore.
It's just figuring out how can I enact it and what's the timing of it, because that's a lesson you learn day one at Stanford. Timing is everything.
What advice would you give them, and what would you tell them?
I think it's three things. The first thing is, do not self-select out. The only way it's a hundred percent no is if you do not apply. And that was something I actually heard from the M7A podcast a while ago. And the reason I fully believe that sentiment is not just because of the MBA process, and not that I thought I would get into Stanford, but the answer is I wouldn't have gotten into Stanford if I didn't apply.
But more importantly, I've been bringing that entire ethos my entire life. I've been taking big bets, big moon shots. Even when I think back to my high school days, there were scholarships that quote unquote I don't think I was competitive for, but I applied simply because I thought to myself, let's take a shot and see what happens. And I ended up being the recipient of that. The second thing I would say is you have to be authentic.
I cannot stress how great that piece of advice is, and I know how cliche it is. When I was applying, everybody was telling me be authentic. And I don't know what that means. What does that mean? But it was when I was doing that introspection and thinking about what I actually care about, my passions, that the authenticity piece really made more sense to me.
I was able to weave a thread through my application, tie my background with my decisions, my choices, my extracurriculars, because these were all things that I authentically knew about and authentically could talk about. And it showed. Even when I had my interview, I lit up when I was talking about my education experience and why I decided to do so much work in this space. And I think that truly is a value differentiation. Again, be one in a million.
What is your unique passion or authentic story? And it could be as simple as the fact that you love playing Pokemon. And I have talked about that all the time. My last piece of advice is let your personality shine. I didn't show it as much on this podcast, but my reputation at the GSB is that I am a little unhinged and a little chaotic. That is a reflection of my true personality though. And I made a ton of funny jokes in my application.
And one of the things people know me for at Stanford is that I'm not afraid of asking bold questions. A perfect example of that is in both my application to Stanford and my interview. At Stanford, one of the spots that you have is three impact essays. And I literally remember writing in my impact essay, why don't you have a student named Chase Lin yet in your student body population? I went through the student directory and I didn't see that.
I think you can make an impact by admitting him. And that's just a reflection of my personality. And I asked that same question to my interviewer, and he laughed. And again, tying into that authentic personality piece, I wanted that to shine in my interview, and I love wearing fun fruit shirts and I love making puns. So I wore a banana shirt plus a suit to my interview, and my interviewer was very confused because no one else would do that.
So he asked me about my shirt and I said, well, I love fruits and I love making puns. And this shirt, per the Gwen Stefani song, this shirt is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. But I think it made me unique. And it made me stand out. This person might be a little strange and a little crazy, but he's being his authentic self. And I think that's what got me in, letting my true personality shine.
Even though most people would say that's probably unprofessional, that it doesn't make any sense, why would you do that in a high stakes environment? And the way I thought about it was, I'm having fun. This is not that serious. Worst comes to worst, I apply again next year. But it would be such a shame if I didn't let my true, authentic story and passion show through. And that's how I approached the application.
Oh my gosh, what a way to end it. I love your story, I love your approach, and I love your final message, which is, if you're doing it right, you should be having fun with it. Of course it's stressful, but you should be having fun. I know you didn't crack out too many puns or a banana shirt, but I had fun talking to you today, and I'm sure the listeners had fun listening to you. Chase, you are amazing. I am so excited to see you go do great things.
When my one-year-old is getting ready to go to college, I'm going to call you and see what the newest EdTech is and what you've been listening to, because I know from your passion, you're going to stay deep in this space. But we're incredibly appreciative. And like I said, I'm really proud to know you and that you've gone and done this, and excited to see where you go. So thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.