Calling all HBS 2011 Applicants!! (Including 2+2)

Haha...for me, definitely clicking to see the admit status. For the same reason as yours I think I've missed your response in the chat room (I accidentally closed the chat window.) Would you mind sharing again where else you might decide to go, if not HBS?

Let me put it this way, the megafunds have had 95-100% (some have been at 100%) acceptance for the last decade or so.

In for R2. Probably a little belated, but I've already written all of HBS's essays for other applications and adapting them won't be hard, so I figured why not.

There's a general consensus that HBS is "unfriendly" to re-applicants (within 1-2 years since last application). Thought it would be good to have a thread on this topic to help re-applicants.

1. What would be potential reasons for HBS to be relunctant to re-applicants?

Maybe HBS does not believe better leadership can be developed within 1 year?

2. What are strategies to help re-applicants succeed?

A new job with much greater responsibilities?
Better crafted essays?
Stronger recommendations (or recommenders)?

Please chime in to help! Particularly if there're successful HBS re-applicants out there, please tell us your strategies!

i am taking 1 academic rec from my adviser in grad studies. What could be examples of leadership in academic/research settings (papers?)?

Sandy, could it be that we have a lot more people with PE background nowadays, compared with like 2-3 years ago, so naturally you see more applicants from PE (in nominal terms) that didn't get accepted? My personal impression is that plenty of this year's admitted profiles have finance background. In fact, I'd venture to say that at least 30% of those finance profiles I've seen have PE elements in them. Of course, it'd be interesting to see the actual stats after all rounds are finished.

660 on the accomplishment essay? Maybe I am stressing to much about cutting from 650 (where my essay is now) and to 600.

do we have to use a hbs template? i did not think so...

Thats helpful BWon.. Mine have been a while, not sure what to input, maybe atleast an email...

I used reduced File size, it reduces size by up to 10KB for a file of 100K (one page/semester of my trascript). Resolution that I am scanning at is quite low 72dpi. Are you doing color or bw? Will optimized scanned reduce size dratically?

Not sure if this is the correct convention but i worte "Still employed. Planning to enroll in MBA program in Fall 2011."

I forget that I am in the company of investment bankers and affluent consultants
I am just a software engineer in India. But yeah wine and gift baskets seem appropriate ...

bb, isn't there a thread on this already?

1/23/11

To Newly Admitted Harvard Business School Students:

Congratulations on your admission to Harvard Business School. We are thrilled that you chose to apply here and hope to welcome you to campus in the fall as part of the MBA Class of 2013. With that in mind, we wanted you to be among the first to know about a very exciting development that we believe will significantly enhance your educational experience at the School.

Following discussions among the faculty and after receiving input from alumni, recruiters, and current students, among others, we are pleased to inform you that last week, the faculty of Harvard Business School voted to approve two important enhancements to the MBA Program. The first will create a new course in the Required Curriculum that we're calling FIELD (Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development). It will focus on developing substantively meaningful small-group learning experiences throughout the first year that are experiential, immersive, and field-based, with the overall goal of advancing the School's mission to develop leaders who make a difference in the world. Like other new courses, it will be designed and delivered by a faculty teaching group, and it will consist of three modules: the first will center on leadership, the second on globalization (including a required global immersion experience during the RC Januarty term), and the final will integrate learning across the year.

The second enables new flexibility in the Elective Curriculum by modularizing the calendar, allowing faculty and students greater flexibility and creativity in molding their courses and building their schedules, respectively.

We believe both of these enhancements have the potential to become a platform for significant innovation in experiential learning in management education. We also believe these changes to the MBA curriculum will give our students an array of exciting field-based opportunities that will serve as a powerful complement to the case method.

We plan to tell you more about these developments at Admitted Students Weekend on Friday February 25th, so please join us then. Should you not be able to attend, we will be posting additional information on the prematriculation site shortly thereafter.

We look forward to seeing you next month.


Nitin Nohria (Dean of the Faculty)
Youngme Moon (Senior Associate Dean and Chair of the MBA Program)