Calling all Berkeley-Haas Fall 2009 Applicants

Copied over from the Haas ambassador thread:

I made my way across the bridge this morning to visit Haas. It was definitely a day well spent.

9-11AM: Class visit. I sat in on an Intro to Finance core course. I don't have a business background so it was great for me to see what's in store if/when I embark on my MBA. It was finance, so nothing too exciting, but the class was very diverse and the professor was very good about answering questions and facilitating discussion.

11AM-Noon: I met THE kryzak live and in the flesh! He was kind enough to chat with me about Haas and his experiences during his MBA application process.

Noon-1PM: Lunch with students. We split up into 5-6 person groups and had lunch with a current student. Lunch was a good opportunity to chat with a current student over a meal and to get to know some of the other visiting prospectives.

1-2PM: Information session. Two student ambassadors gave a presentation and overview on the Haas program. The talk was very conversational and they stayed late to answer questions. The dean of admissions even stopped by towards the end of the hour.

Even though all the activities that I participated in were very typical of your average school visit, I left very impressed with Haas. There's just something about the program (in a very good way) that I can't quite put my finger on. I think it has to do with the combination of many factors that shape the culture at Haas: small class size, location, quality of students, the program's strategic plan (leading through innovation), etc. One phrase I heard repeatedly was, "confidence and competence without arrogance", and I definitely got that vibe from all the students that I met.

If you are interested in a Haas MBA, I strongly suggest you make a visit. You won't regret it!

Submitted, and I ended up taking a stab at the Achievement Award. And good to hear about your compañeros that received the award kryzak, I didn't at all pretend to be out of a Horatio Alger story, just talked about stuff I've done in Peace Corps with the minimal budgets we have here.

Good Luck to everyone else cranking out their app this weekend.

Thanks for sharing, YihWei...kudos!

Some questions I have for any of the Haas representatives:

1. What electives/classes would you recommend for someone with entrepreneurship aspirations in the medical devices field?
2. Can you tell me about recruiters from the biotech / medical devices fields? How many students got internships? Full time offers? What about approaching companies who does not recruit on campus?
3. What is the added value of the MOT (management of technology) certificate in your opinion? It sounds interesting but I wasn’t able to contact anyone who is actually on that program.
4. Do you know of any medical devices startups initiated by Haas students?

I contacted numerous Haas students so far and I am amazed by the responsiveness and willingness to help of you guys.

Thanks!

Hi glettian,

I am currently applying R1, and so far I am working on 2 ideas for this--one personal, one more professional. The personal one is not really getting to know my grandfather before he died when I was in college. He was my only living grandparent but he was very shy and I didn't really take the opportunity to know him better. The professional one is that before the last summer of college, I received two amazing internship opportunities. One was an international fellowship in an area I was passionate about (poverty alleviation with the World Bank) but did not pay much beyond basic living expenses, and the second was an investment banking internship which would obviously cover my expenses and part of the following year's tuition. My parents were going through some tough challenges financially, so I chose the banking internship to help ease their strain. I see the decision kind of as a regret because although it was driven partly out of necessity, I should have explored other options for funding (loans, etc.) instead of taking the "easy way out". Right now I am kind of leaning toward the second one because I think it fits in better with my overall "story". I hope this helps and good luck!

Hey Kry,
I have a question regarding R1/R2 strategy. Haas has scheduled an MBA admission event in my city (Europe) for late November. Since I won't be able to travel to USA for an interview, I was wondering is it better for me to apply in R1 (and rush the application a little bit, because I've already done 4 of them) or to meet people from Haas, get some admission tips or something and apply in R2?

Thanks for sharing your story. Something I hear over and over is that you should write "why and how" besides "what." I don't think what incident you regret really matters so much because it's personal. Why you regret it and how you will change it are something they might be more interested in reading.

Good to see Haas thread being active again.
I am preparing for RD2. Stephanie Fujii said at the New York City infosession that RD1 and RD2 aren't much different, RD3 fluctuates year to year, and RD4 is definitely hard. But last year people at G-club had better results in RD1. What do you say, kry?

I noticed on the Haas application that there was a check box for if you were a Berkeley undergrad. I don't think any of the other apps that I have filled out have had that. Do you know if Haas gives any preference (even a small one ) for Berkeley undergrads.

On a completely unrelated note...do the current Haas students know if Prof. Robinson teaches any classes at the graduate level regularly? I took Undergraduate Business 10 (Principles of Business) with Prof. Robinson at Berkeley when I was considering becoming a Haas undergrad major. He was awesome!

WOW, lots of questions while I'm away at a conference. Anyway, I'll try my best to answer and will have to defer some to the official Haas Student Ambassadors (hsa@haas.berkeley.edu).

I don't remember the Berkeley undergrad checkbox, but from what I know, Berkeley UG definitely has the most people represented in the class, though Stanford, Penn, and UCLA are not far behind. I wouldn't read too much into that check box.

Not sure about Prof. Robinson, that's something braindancer or naturallight might be able to answer?



R1 and R2 should be the same, but for GMATClub last year, 6 of us got in R1 and only 1 got in R2, so take that however you like to.

I would urge R1 if you can make it, but DON'T sacrifice the quality of your application just to push it in R1.



The personal one will showcase who YOU are, while the professional one will strengthen your experience story. The only caution I have with the personal one is that you truly talk about WHY you regret not knowing your grandfather well. It should be a substantial reason and not just because "I just kinda wanna get to know him...". If you have a good story and a strong reason (that you can relate to the core of who you are as a person), I would go with the personal one, because those differentiate you more and leave more of an impact. Of course, that's the high risk-high reward route, so I'll leave the final decision to you.



Those are some tough questions . I would have to recommend you email the hsa@haas.berkeley.edu. Matt Holman, who's an MBA/MPH candidate should be able to help you out with that.

A few more days left, GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

Can someone start a list with who's submitting, a la the old Berkeley thread:

103-t48803

Robinson does teach MBA courses at Haas, not sure if he is teaching in 2009 though.

Hi everyone. I just discovered these boards...looks pretty good. Anyway, I'm applying to Haas Round 1 as well. There are two things that may prevent that though:

1) A rec who is on vacation and forgot despite the 20 or so reminder e-mails...
2) I haven't started on the long essay and am typing this post instead of working on it.

Anyway, good luck to everyone!

Sounds good. I really liked Prof. Robinson and Dean Campbell is fantastic (he needs to run for Governor after Arnold is done). Its tough because I really like the faculty and curriculum at Haas but sort of had set my mind on going to a different graduate school from my undergrad. Hmmm...

I think I will have to apply R2 though. I've already applied to five R1s (with NYU and Columbia in the pipeline to make it seven). I just don't think I can get a quality app into Haas before the R1 deadline.

Maybe you can speak to a few friends of mine who did both Haas undergrad and now an MBA?

@sng, @kryzak
Thank you for the answers, but my question wasn't just "should I apply in R1 or R2", but rather should I talk to Haas people on the admission event first and than apply, or should I apply first and than speak with them. Admission event is on 20th November.

You don't need to talk to the admissions people to submit. You should have done some research with either current students or done some class visit things if you're in the US already? If you're international, then don't worry about visits, just make sure you've spoken with local alumni or students and learn about Haas (short answer 4).

You can also mention that you'll be going to the admissions event November 20th. Never hurts.

Ha ha ha, thank you Kry, but with "local alumni or students" you've almost made me cry... or laugh... I don't know. I'm coming from Eastern European nightmare and we don't have neither local alumni nor current students. You cannot even imagine what kind of event for local MBA tribe is comming of Haas people overhere. Of course, there are four of us who even know what does MBA stands for So I guess two or three of us will attend that event with GMATs over 700, TOEFLs over 100 and some medium quality resumes. The rest of people will come with some questions like "I want to study abroad to escape from here, what do I need for that? GMAT? What in a heck is that?!". Of course, that makes the situation a lot easier for me.
Thanks.