Calling all Berkeley-Haas Fall 2011 Applicants

Thanks for the reply, Avernusaur.

I will be applying for R1. Are there plans for a Google Docs roll-call spreadsheet?

I am in for Rd1.

I am a little concerned by this about the recommendations required by HAAS (on the admissions requirements page) :

Letters of recommendation from co-workers, someone you have supervised, relatives, or personal and family friends are inappropriate and can be detrimental to the review of your application. (mba.haas.berkeley.edu/admissions/requirements.html)

I was planning on asking one of the co-workers in my team for a recomendation. He is quite senior to me (although newer than me to the team) and we have worked together quite a bit, but he is not my team lead or supervisor. I guess Haas would not like this? any ideas people?

Shooting for rd1, FT.
Pls add me to the roll call.

Good luck to all of us!

In for R2. Best of luck to everyone.

back from vacation and starting work.

Anyways, need to sleep now, but a few quick answers:

- Recs: Most schools ask for 2 recs from supervisor level people. A few schools ask for a 3rd that can be a co-worker (Stanford comes to mind), but otherwise, this is pretty consistent with most top schools out there.

- What is Berkeley-Haas known for? It ranks in the top 10 for many things (if you believe in rankings), but it's probably best known for entrepreneurship (especially the social kind), technology (especially clean-tech), non-profit, and corporate social responsibility.

- essays: these are up, but generally the long essays are the same, and generally Short Answer #4 is the same.

Cheers and good luck!
Kryzak

What if you don't have two bosses to choose from? I'm assistant to the CEO, so there's no other supervisors, could I have one supervisor and one co-worker (or two co-workers for the three recs)?

Also, should I offer to have someone check the rec's since nearly all of my co-workers aren't english proficient (or check it myself?).

If you're only supervisor is the CEO (which you're in a pretty good position =P), then I would give the admissions office a call and see if they can offer any suggestions. Having them "approve" another recommender is better than you doing it yourself without running it by them.

I would offer a 3rd party grammar checker, as that's what I did.

Good luck!

Will this be an issue with the Adcom ? I don't expect my recos to have GMAT perfect English. Considering the busy schedule of recommend-ers I expect a few errors to turn up here and there..

BTW .. is the recommendation through an online link ? Any idea on what kind of questions will be asked in the link ?

count me in for R1 this year! Re-applicant...i think the essays are different for re-applicants, not as many essays although we do have to explain what has changed since last year. Anyone familiar with the reapplication process at Haas?

Anybody else have trouble filling a thousand words for goals? I started with a different school's goals essay and shrunk it down to 600 words. No matter how much I stretch the essay now, it doesn't go past 850 words. Either I have very few goals (!) or efficiency has slowly been creeping in. Hmm ... interesting dilemma.

I hear ya!
Even I find the 1000 word essay hard, especially after writing other essays in fewer words. The relatively shorter length of other schools' essays really made me efficient. One way to increase the word length is by getting into lot of specifics of everything you convey but I guess you are already doing that.

There is a flip side to it.
After a lot of struggle, I stretched my career goals essay to around 1000 words but I am not sure if it is gripping. I need to make it tighter and sustain the readers' interest. Still working on it...


Good luck to you too!

Updating - The website mentions that recommendation can be done via mail or online. It seems like quite a hassle to do via email - printing on letterhead etc.. Does anybody know how the online letter of recommendation works ? Is it via a link similar to some other universities ?

interesting re: 1000 word essays. I had a VERY hard time condensing my goals essay down to 1000 words when I wrote it, and it was definitely my shortest goals essay that year. Most schools were 1000 words or more (or broke up the question into two 1000 word essays).

The goals part for me was only one paragraph, while the process of getting to my goals (and talking about some of my accomplishments) took up most of the rest. You can also talk more about "why Berkeley?" and "why now?" if you need to fill space.

hi...planning to apply in R1...written my GMAT already..scored 750 and 5 in AWA...my work ex is a bit on the lower side..2 years in the oil and gas sector.. anybody got any idea if Haas requires a longer ex?...

good luck to all applying!!

cheers!!

I've decided to apply in Round 2. Please update the roll.

gunning for Round 2

Hey yall. Have any of you guys been able to access the online application? I want to notify my recommendation writers but I can't seem to access it. Anyone else with this trouble?