Stanford GSB Calling all applicants for Class of 2016!

I hadn't even been paying attention to the process and was completely oblivious when the interviews were going out until that latest email.

I'm gonna stick with that strategy. I don't want to be in a panic like a lot of people in this thread.

My advice as a slightly older candidate is for everyone to chill out. Constantly refreshing your emails and obsessing over this won't help anything.

While I appreciate your note, I think its easier said on the 'invited to interview' side of the fence! Its a bit tough to empathise with anything during this painful painful waiting period. I am quite envious of all those who can kick back and relax right now. I think I put SO much energy and time and effort into the applications (especially Stanford) and so I think it's understandable that nerves are a wreck!

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Here is my "two cents" - they go through industry by industry. It doesn't make sense that it would be random. Despite their comments that they don't have quotas on industries, the reality is there are reasonable limits for a class of 400. The best way to compare candidates is by reviewing people in similar jobs right next to each other, otherwise it just becomes too random and inconsistent. For example, on this chain it seemed on day 1 they dished out a number of consulting interviews, however I haven't heard of many consulting interviews since then. I know of a few other people in consulting who received interviews that first day.

I happen to be a consultant. Can someone please tell me I am wrong here?!? Would really appreciate it

Hey thanks for the input, is this your own analysis or from any reliable source?
but I went to the HBS outreach and heard similar comments from their AO, they said they don't have certain quota for certain nationality, but candidates in same industry compete in same pool internationally. I just have one question here: how about those career switchers: e.g. Engineer in the past but aiming to go IBD?
and how about people like myself who have mixture of industry in W/E: (lawyer then general management) ?

This is purely my own analysis. I don't want to throw people off, but I just don't see any other way they go through these stacks. We have proven on this thread that its not when you submit, it's not alphabetical, and geography (at least in the US) doesn't seem to be a common thread. For every school you pick your industry in a drop-down box. That is searchable, and based on a very tiny sample size, my guess is this is how they would do it.

BSchools segment by geographies. Some schools have admissions personnel that specialize in analyzing applicants from a specific region. Almost all of the top 10 bschools keep the the international pool to 35% of the class. They make sure not to over subscribe in any single region.

I highly doubt they segment by industry as well because the % of class coming from certain industries jumps +-5-10% year over year although you can see they do extend quite a few offers to VC's/PE's (20% of the class) and to humanities majors (average around 50% of the class over the past many years).

Overall, besides geographies, I am pretty sure its quite a holistic process.

Hope this ease your nerves a little bit.

I got my invite the first day, and I'm in banking, and a less glamorous type of banking... And honestly speaking, my profile is weak. Almost cried when I got the invite cz' I literally didn't expect to get one at all... Having said that, I was fairly confident that as far as the Adcoms are willing to carefully read my stories other than my profile stats and big name employers, I'll get one. I absolutely loved Stanford's strategy of giving a chance to those who have a unique story to tell. This is completely different from HBS, which focuses heavily on your standard profile strength and many of my consultants & iBank friends got invites right away while I got a ding.

Having bullshitted the above, I guess it might not be true that they release invites by industry. To me, it's all about whether your story makes you stand out from the crowd, and you have sth that makes you different from others.

Take a deep breath and relax. Life is more than getting an invite And I'm sure all of us will be the lucky ones.

I'm having my interview today, and I treat it nothing more than meeting a new friend and showing him who I am.

Good luck to you all.

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Not sure about Stanford but that's how Chicago Booth evaluates applications.

In early 2012, I took the Mini-MBA course offered by Booth. In one course, the topic was about job opportunity (or something like that) and a girl (a PhD student or post-doc scientist from Chicago's Chemistry Department) asked a question:"If I wanna do an MBA, does my academic science background jeopardize my chance?" The speaker, an adcom staff at Booth, said:"It doesn't. We don't compare chemical scientists with management consultants. We compare scientists with scientists." And she went on to make it very clear that the competition in the academic scientists cohort is less daunting because the pool is quite small. But she didn't address whether academic scientists would be a good fit (or ill fit) for B-school.

So, if you're an apple, don't worry about the orange.

I do hold the opinion that there are quotas. For example, international students account for roughly 30% every year. I believe this is also true for each industry. It's just that the quota for industry is much less stringent so you see violent fluctuations. But I would say it's outright impossible that consultants would account for 50% of the incoming class, no matter what. For career-changers (I'm also one), we can be broadly swept into the "career-switchers" or "others" category, which might mean your story will be carefully scrutinized.

Guys, is there anyone from Russia? Have you been invited?

Good luck boss.

I have this very strong feeling that you will ace that interview.

I believe you are wrong. That is what you wanted to hear, right

Trust me, the Admission guys will have a tough time categorizing people like us with an unusual career trajectory.

With that logic, not sure when they will get to my application. My background is in construction. Statistically less than 1% applications come from construction industry, I have been told.

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Construction here as well! I will be stalking your profile to see when you get your invite good luck.

Good luck to you as well my friend!

my friend who got an invite in the first day was in i-banking. And I know at HBS, they have adcom members who look after a particular region. I believe there are quotas for a particular geography and industry, and I guess they will try to balance the two to have a diversified class.

It also makes sense to evaluate consultant/i-banking candidates first, since B-schools receive many applications from these pools and are most familiar with them to pick out the diamonds. After all, they will move on to the more unusual applicants to add color to the painting. Just my speculation.

Congrats Blueser! I hope your interview went well, sounds like you have a great relaxed attitude about the process, I admire it very much.