Harvard Business School Application for the class of 2013 is online. This thread will also serve as a master thread for the 2+2 applicants for the class of 2016 (June 2011 Applicants!) APPLICANTS: Please fill out your stats in the Google Doc attached and keep updating your information whenever you see fit! We will keep this thread updated as well (GIANT Post - Be warned ) Current Students: Harvard Admits 2+2 APPLICANTS REQUIREMENTS: GENERAL APPLICATION INFORMATION: 1. Essay Questions : 2. Application Deadlines : To be announced for the Summer of 2011. For the Summer of 2010 class: 3. Letters of Recommendation : 4. Sandy's Advice for Students Applying to 2+2 : REGULAR APPLICANTS All quoted sections of this post are from the Harvard Business School Admissions Website GENERAL APPLICATION INFORMATION: 1. Essay Questions : 2. Application Deadlines : 3. Letters of Recommendation : APPLICANT LIST: HBS Applicant List Google Doc 0Avb_1Ns4jB92dHp0UTJQcWpEajJwdENjYW9PVEc1TEE OTHER RESOURCES: Useful Web Pages for Application * HBS Director's Blog for All Important Updates * Last year's thread for HBS (Regular Applicants) * Last year's thread for HBS 2+2 Applicants * Veritas Prep School Report for Harvard Business School (Please register your email id, and Veritas will send a link to the download and you can download multiple school reports at once if you want!) * Class Profile for 2+2 * FAQs * HBS Director's Blog for All Important Updates * Clear Admit's Essay Analysis for Harvard Fall 2011 * Veritas Prep Essay Analysis for Harvard 2011 Life at HBS - Blogs a) CS @ HBS - https://www.computersexy.com/blog/ b) Harvard Bound - https://myharvardmba2010.blogspot.com/ c) Inside HBS - https://www.insidehbs.com/ d) Sync - https://sync.bradleylautenbach.com/ e) Mark and Jie's Journey to B-School - https://markandjie.blogspot.com/ f) Will Hsu's HBS Bubble - https://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=wphsu99 g) AGirlsMBA at Harvard Business School: https://agirlsmba.blogspot.com/ h) Military to Business: https://militarytobusiness.blogspot.com/

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

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hbsguru

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09 Mar 2011, 09:25

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HBS DEAN NOHRIA SAYS HE WAS DINGED FROM HBS AND WENT TO SLOAN, AND THAT IF HE WERE GRADUATING FROM IIT TODAY, HE MIGHT NOT COME TO GRAD SCHOOL IN USA. HMMMMMMMMMMM, ALL YOU IIT GRADS BETTER BE READY FOR 'HOW COME YOU ARE LEAVING SUCH A WONDERFUL GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT TO FESTER IN BACKWATERS OF ALLSTON MASS FOR TWO YEARS.

AS WITH MOST NOHRIA SERMONETTES, ESP. ABOUT THE OATH AND GLOBALISM, WE GIGGLE.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/ ... eadership/

Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria Stresses Global Leadership
By Matthew M. Beck, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Published: Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Nohria, who was rejected from the Harvard Business School MBA program when he applied as an undergraduate from India and consequently enrolled at MIT Sloan School of Management, spoke about the evolution of business leadership in the 21st century.

. . . .

“If I were graduating today from IIT [the Indian Institute of Technology] Bombay, I’m not sure if I would still come to the United States for my graduate degree,” he continued.

hbsguru

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09 Mar 2011, 09:40

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fsaq

So guys, Round 3 is comming up. For all those who got an interview, which of the optional essays did you choose? I am stuggrling on choosing the last one. I think that the career vision and why harvard is meaningful is sort of a stretch and to be honest one may come as arrogant or too ambitious if one says too much. I chose the one were i present myself to the harvard class and I think I will end up choosing the one were I was frustrated or dissapointed with something.

What are your thoughts? to those who were interviewed, which optional essays did you choose? Thanks for your tips guys!

My own 2-cents based on reading more than 1000 apps over the past 15 years, and knowing the outcomes: work essays dont have the impact of non-work essays, and work essays tend to be generic, esp. if you are in IB, PE, MC etc. Some jive about being frustrated by team dynamics on deal b.c. one guy was loudmouth and one guy was thoughtful (and this already IS A GOOD IDEA) and what you did about it as moderator, or what you did not do, etc. Phew, who cares, it's just work. Same story set in leper colony where you were part of team, and same facts and dynamics, but of course, dif particulars, is WAY MORE IMPACTFUL, they pretty much know your work mojo, and some jive about team conflict aint adding much. Sure. always an exception.
As to just stats, most folks chose Career Vision, and toss up between Frust and Intro self (undergrad exp. is more rare, and in theory supposed to be for explaining bad grades, etc, altho you can turn into 4th accomplishment, by ignoring the academic part, which is OK). Intro self can be impactful if you got lots of misc. info not otherwise in app, or if you can spin stuff in app. in winning way. "I worked for Kreijkers, which is the WalMart of the Balkans, and I suppose you thought nothing is worse than WalMart . . .we had five grades of toilet paper, the most expensive of which was called Almost Austrian . . ." OK, you are probably not that funny, but you get the idea. By the time adcom gets to optional essays, they already know all the real stuff about you they need to know. OR SHOULD.

sl86

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09 Mar 2011, 10:39

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my interview sounds like it was very different from many of those described here. it was almost entirely generic questions (how would your best friend from high school describe you, how would your best friend from college describe you, how's X extracurricular going, etc) and he asked almost no follow up. many of the questions i had seen online as hbs example questions, so i guess my guy took the "use the sample questions" rather than the "ask about the app" route.

i tried to be concise based on what i had read about others' experiences, but in retrospect i wish i had volunteered more details, since i came out of it feeling it had been very superficial (him: how's X extracurricular going? me: very well! making a lot of progress! him: okay, next question...). when i did try to bring certain questions back to my app (as i wrote in X essay...) he specifically directed me to not use examples from my app.

i would describe it as neither a cakewalk nor a brutal experience. he didn't ask why hbs, although at the end i got the "is there anything i didn't ask that you thought i would" at which point i inserted the why hbs. he did take a lot of notes and was very punctual - that was consistent with what other interviewees have said.

all in all i guess they're just all different. maybe he had a large breakfast and so wasn't up for intense questioning - what do i know. i almost would have preferred intense, specific questions, since as i said it felt very superficial and like it didn't add a lot of additional color to my app. who knows.....

jl12

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09 Mar 2011, 10:58

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fsaq

i'll chime in with emont and hbsguru. this may be obvious, but i think it's best to pick the essay you're most passionate about. i had my mind set on which optional essays to write, but then realized towards the end that one of them was, as hbsguru calls it, vanilla. so go with the topics that excite you.

formerlyknownas

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09 Mar 2011, 12:09

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fsaq

pick essays that you can pull off.i stayed away from the introduction essay because i didn't think i could pull off. i don't think i am particularly interesting and i just felt that i would just present information that can be found in other parts of my apps.

mbanyc2011

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09 Mar 2011, 12:50

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in re to sl86 - yeah from that perspective, i suppose my interrogation style interview was in some ways better because I didn't have to come up with extra information on my own...i felt thoroughly probed and vulnerable by the time i was done.

icemanjs4

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09 Mar 2011, 23:25

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I don't know if this is an inappropriate question - so if it is, I will happily withdraw..
Is there a way to find out a list of HBS interviewer names so we can research a bit about their backgrounds? Sometimes it's good to know your audience, so you can better relate to them.

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10 Mar 2011, 07:36

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fsaq

I wrote about the career vision one - about my short term & long term goals. Personally, I think either one will be fine if you have the content to write them well. This is HBS, I don't think the phrase 'too ambitious' has meaning for them :-0. Most of the students (if not all) are very ambitious, so I don't really see that being a problem in essays. Again, it's just in the way you relate the story to them.

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10 Mar 2011, 07:41

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icemanjs4

The interview is about you not about them. Imho, that'll be a waste of time. You don't know who you'll get as your interviewer until you arrive at your interview location. So researching every possible interviewer is just not a good way to spend your time, instead focus on your story and how you want to come across.

Spinning your answers one way or the other to cater to their background may just end up hurting you especially if they see through it.

hbsguru

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10 Mar 2011, 08:11

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BAIN CAP THE 'JERK' THIS YEAR IN JUMPING THE IB TALENT HUNT UNOFFICIAL START DATE; RUMOR: SMALLER PE FIRMS ARE HIRING KIDS RIGHT OUT OF COLLEGE, A NEW TREND THAT WILL SPREAD?????

March 9, 2011, 6:16 pm

A Grab for Wall Street’s Rising Stars Before They’ve Risen
By KEVIN ROOSE
Minh Uong/The New York Times
https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/ ... f=business
This month starts the private equity recruiting season, an annual Wall Street ritual in which young analysts from leading investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are wined and dined...

....” This year, many of the largest firms scheduled events in April, approximately the same time as last year.

But in early March, word spread that Bain Capital, the $65 billion private equity firm, was holding interviews .. Bain’s competitors — some of which moved early in previous years — were forced to scramble. “

"....every year, some jerk kicks off the process a month early. . . .one of the last vestiges of completely rogue behavior” in the well-heeled world of private equity [SAID AN 'EXPERT']

In perhaps the clearest sign that the recruiting frenzy has hit a boiling point, several smaller private equity firms have hired star students or well-connected ones straight out of college. Industry experts say they don’t expect that trend to spread to mega-firms like K.K.R. and Blackstone. But even longtime private equity players, like the executive managing his firm’s hiring process, admit that the competition has made anything possible.

agnok

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The application states in the Undergraduate degree section:
"Please list grade point average if on a 4.00 scale. If your insititution does not use a 4.00 grading system, do not convert your grades to a 4.00 scale. Please list your overall score/average grade in the scoring system relevant to your degree."

What does overall score/average grade mean? Please explain what overall score and average mean?

jl12

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agnok

agnok - in some countries the scale is out of 100, so 95 overall / average grade would be an example

agnok

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10 Mar 2011, 12:14

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jl12

agnok

agnok - in some countries the scale is out of 100, so 95 overall / average grade would be an example

Is average grade the average of the class? Please show a numeric example

hopgot

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10 Mar 2011, 12:55

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agnok

Is average grade the average of the class? Please show a numeric example

Yes.
For example, say you had a total of 3 classes in your BA (an easy one, eh?):
Advanced Writing Skills - 3 credits - grade is 98/100
Whistling For Dummies - 6 credits - grade is 78/100
Procrastination 101 - 2 credits - grade is 89/100

So you have a total of 3+6+2=11 credits.
Now, calculate the average as follows:
AWS - 3 credits * 98 = 294
WfD - 6 credits * 78 = 468
P101 - 2 credits * 89 = 178

So the total points you have is 940. Divide that by the total credits (11) to get your average: 940/11 = 85.45

agnok

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10 Mar 2011, 13:54

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agnok

Is average grade the average of the class? Please show a numeric example

Thanks for the great example.

hbsguru

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11 Mar 2011, 09:29

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Monitor consulting and its HBS prof founders given a gentle slap on the side of the head in Harvard Business Reveiw blog

https://blogs.hbr.org/fox/2011/03/monito ... world.html

. . . .If PR firms Fleishman-Hillard or Burson-Marsteller had called a bunch of big-name academics and offered to fly them over to Libya as part of a campaign to burnish Khadafy's (no way am I spelling his name the same way twice) image, you have to think most would have demurred. It would be a tacky, and morally suspect, thing to do. But if the respected strategy firm Monitor calls up and asks you to meet with Libya's leader — who appears to be considering a late-in-life reinvention — to offer him advice, well, that's something different. Except that it wasn't, because Monitor had gone into the PR business without telling anybody (except its clients).

Justin Fox is editorial director of the Harvard Business Review Group and author of The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street.

My onw views are a bit more focused:

[highlight]SOMEONE LET ME KNOW WHEN MONITOR CONSULTANTS AND OTHER PROFS RETURN THE MONEY--AT LEAST BEYONCE ACTUALLY EARNED IT.[/highlight]
'Naive' and 'embarrassed': Beyonce, Carey shamed by Libya links
March 4, 2011 - 12:19PM
Stars regret private Gaddafi family shows
Stars including Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Nelly Furtado express regrets over private concerts linked to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's family.

They joined Canadian artist Nelly Furtado, who used her Twitter account on Monday to declare she would give away the $1 million she received to perform a 45-minute set in Italy for Gaddafi's family in 2007.

mbanyc2011

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11 Mar 2011, 12:08

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for someone who makes thier money from hbs applicants and consultants I find your distaste for both quite amusing...we get it, please could you stop with the finger pointing already, thanks.

icemanjs4

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14 Mar 2011, 13:26

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Hey all, I just had my interview with HBS today on campus. I'm actually sitting in my hotel room in Boston and though I'd share with the class. The interview was very relaxed - the guy actually had his feet up on the table for part of the interview. There was absolutely no grilling, and surprisingly, I actually felt pretty relaxed during the whole thing. It was also really cool getting to meet people before and after the interview who were also there for the same thing. I met people from Nigeria, Amsterdam, Chile, and as far as Tennessee and LA too!

Anyway for those of you in R2 who haven't interviewed yet, or anyone else in the future who interviews with HBS - just be prepared and have fun. I'll post a clearAdmit twiki update later with more details.

Cheers and here's to hoping everybody!!!!

mmbbaaa11

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14 Mar 2011, 13:28

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Thanks iceman

Always good to hear these things - I have my interview on Friday!! Best of luck to you!

hbsguru

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14 Mar 2011, 14:12

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mbanyc2011

for someone who makes thier money from hbs applicants and consultants I find your distaste for both quite amusing...we get it, please could you stop with the finger pointing already, thanks.

dunno man, when the editor of the Harvard Business Review writes a blog tweaking HBS' most famous professor, I'd consider that something you might want to know about, and why, and you might further ask yourself, what your opinion might be on the same issue, since 1. those are issues any informed person should know about; 2. variants of those issues sometimes come up in HBS interviews. Beyond that, and prob. most imptly, thinking thru such issues, whatever the personal views of the messenger, is a good way to develop your own critical thinking.
As to making money fr. hbs applicants etc, as I noted in an interview I did w. Harbus, The HBS newspaper, a while back, one value of admissions consultants is to keep the schools honest . . .both about their double talk about the admissions process, and their alleged high-mindedness. See below:

Quote:

HARBUS: OK, . . . what are the best arguments in favor of consultants?

SANDY: Consultants can level the information grid, both in the obvious example that applicants from banks and consulting shops have a lot of contextual information about applying, about what questions really mean--if not the secret handshake--then just the data base of previous successful applicants from their firms, and access to mentors, successful peers now at school X, Y, and Z etc.

HARBUS: And?

SANDY: And in the not so obvious example of being a group of dedicated school watchers, who stay around year after year, (consultants) can be an added voice to that of the official information provided by the school. Consultants are like stock analysts, who are not perfect either obviously, but who do interpret what the official company line is, have industry expertise, and in cases, force a company to own up to mistakes, or just operate with the healthy knowledge that someone is watching them.

HARBUS: Huh? Consultants do that?

SANDY: You bet, consultants are outgrowths of the blog and internet culture of the past 10 years, and most consultants, including me, define their 'brand' on blogs and internet forums like Business Week's, which has about 10 leading consultants all giving advice, chewing over any event like grade disclosure, hacking, interview scheduling, 3rd-round applications, age limits at various schools, dean changes, EMBA vs. MBA in public forums. The more history, data, insight I bring to those discussions, the more I get a following, the more I define a personal brand, the more clients I get, etc.

https://hbsguru.com/media_harbus.html

So this is kinda case of me providing service, building my own brand, and readers gaining fr. being on this website which builds its own brand and gets more views for it ads, etc. I think there is a name for that process: free enterprise.
And this seems to me an excellent example of it. And how someone [me] can turn his passion for explaining things, tweaking institutions, and understading their processes into a business while helping others.