Business school is unfortunately not a 2 year vacation at HBS. Classes are challenging - you always have to be on top of your game because of class participation and cold calls - and the learning curve in the first semester is very steep. Class attendance is mandatory (HBS has a very strict attendance policy) and there is class 5 days a week. What that does is force everyone to be very engaged, leading to better discussions, and a lot more learning than if it were just the professor speaking. That being said, the case method is a little more difficult to enact in classes like finance and accounting, and it can be hard for those with non-finance backgrounds to get up to speed quickly because the school just throws you in the deep end with financial modeling.
HBS completely met my needs because I wanted to come to business school to learn something (and not be paying $75k/year just to network). It was academically a lot harder than I expected, but everyone is very nice and helpful - a lot of pre-HBS finance people do section reviews out of their desire to help their sectionmates. However this also means that if you’re expecting to come to HBS to cruise or even work on a start up idea, the rigorous curriculum means you might not have the time to do that.
Overall BSchool experience (5.0)
Schools contribution (5.0)
Classmates rating (5.0)
Curriculum, Classes, Professors
Career opportunities provided by school
Brand/Ranking
Consulting
Finance
Investment Banking
Management
Student body, diversity