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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rpsingh

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19 May 2011, 10:08

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Hey Sandy,

How should a 2+2 applicant go about writing the setback essay? What kind of events could I write about? Also I read a post of yours and you said not to put entrepreneurship as the main reason you want an MBA? What could be the other motivation of an engineer in college to pursue an MBA? Gain Leadership skills- yes, but what do you do with those skills?

Thanks

icemanjs4

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Concentration: General Management, Entrepreneurship

Schools:HBS(R2 - IN!!!), Kellogg MMM (R2 - IN!!), Stanford GSB (R2-DING), MIT Sloan (R2-DING)

WE 1: 8.5 Yrs Microprocessor Design

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19 May 2011, 11:22

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rpsingh

Well I'm not Sandy, but I feel I can handle this one. I'm an electrical engineer who's been designing computer chips for 9 years. As an engineer, we're great at solving problems and thinking through problems until they are completely solved. What we don't understand is the business side of things, and how to make a fast decision based on limited information.

Engineering teaches you how to learn. How you apply that knowledge is up to you. An MBA will teach you how to apply your skills in a broad context.

rpsingh

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19 May 2011, 12:19

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thanks icemanjs4

btw where are you going this fall ? good luck !!!

icemanjs4

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Schools:HBS(R2 - IN!!!), Kellogg MMM (R2 - IN!!), Stanford GSB (R2-DING), MIT Sloan (R2-DING)

WE 1: 8.5 Yrs Microprocessor Design

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19 May 2011, 12:31

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rpsingh

thanks icemanjs4

btw where are you going this fall ? good luck !!!

Glad to help. I decided after a big struggle to go to HBS. It just seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up.

rpsingh

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19 May 2011, 12:38

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icemanjs4

rpsingh

thanks icemanjs4

btw where are you going this fall ? good luck !!!

Glad to help. I decided after a big struggle to go to HBS. It just seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Yes, HBS is awesome, its a dream for me to get in. one more question if you don't mind- since you got into HBS, you must have researched and done everything right to get in. please advise me on the three setback essays ! i am confused? what setbacks can a third year college student have?

icemanjs4

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WE 1: 8.5 Yrs Microprocessor Design

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19 May 2011, 12:59

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rpsingh

Thanks! I think I just sort of got lucky myself. For starters, that's a new question this year - I only had to describe one mistake that I made.

In general, I can't really answer that question for you. You need to reflect on what obstacles you have faced in life - perhaps getting into school, or relocating somewhere, or trying to join an activity, maybe a bad teammate on a project or a horrible professor. But you have to ask yourself - why is HBS asking me this? They're not interested in obstacles. They want to see that you have learned from these obstacles - and either overcome them yourself, or at least taken away some life lesson from them that will shape your future.

Most importantly - be yourself. Talk about what you know and are passionate about.
Best of Luck...

rpsingh

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19 May 2011, 13:13

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icemanjs4

rpsingh

thanks !!

hbsguru

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19 May 2011, 14:55

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HBS Study Endorses Nagging --Especially when do dont have power--my advice for WLers all along :-)

https://www.canadianbusiness.com/article ... ic-nagging

How to profit from strategic nagging
By Joe Castaldo | May 19, 2011

A team of researchers from the Harvard Business School and Northwestern University tracked a group of project managers in six different companies across three industries.
. . .the Harvard study found that redundant communication is an effective persuasion tactic. . . .Managers who had no direct power over employees (meaning they could not set salaries or promotions) anticipated that they’d have to convince employees of the urgency of the matter. So they typically started with a phone call or a face-to-face chat, then followed up quickly with an e-mail to restate what they had already said. One or two reminders was sufficient.

jl12

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20 May 2011, 08:51

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hey guys - any news? it's the end of the week

mbahubby

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20 May 2011, 09:13

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nothing her yet.... I feel like at any school there has been decisions or updates on Fridays usually.... hoping for some good news at some point today or we will wait yet another week

adventurecapital

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20 May 2011, 09:36

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Crickets here too. Then again, we're talking 15 ppl -- it need not be the case that any of these Chosen few are on this forum.

Not so sure about the Friday update thing, mbahubby. Admit decisions have been made, as far as I've seen, throughout the week.

tlbkcal

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Schools: Haas EWMBA '15 (M)

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20 May 2011, 10:59

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I have not heard anything either. However, 6 people appeared to have joined the HBS Class of 2013 FB group this week (Currently 663 people as opposed to 657 earlier in the week.) Then again 20 people joined between 5/8 and 5/16 so I don't know what that means. They could just be regular admits who are joining late.

mbahubby

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20 May 2011, 11:40

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well, nobody has heard any DINGs either so that is good.

mbahubby

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20 May 2011, 11:41

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adventurecapital

How do you know it is 15 people?? Do you mean there are 15 R3 waitlisters? Or 15 waitlisters in total left?

adventurecapital

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20 May 2011, 11:52

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mbahubby, see this post: calling-all-hbs-2011-applicants-including-96063-2720.html#p919471

Shoumik

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20 May 2011, 12:51

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Do you think its a wise decision for someone who is an engineering student to try and find a summer position at a BB or HF or is it better for him/her to work at a fortune 500 engineering company? I am a civil engineering student so Google/Microsoft are kind of out of my list but I was an intern for a fortune 500 engineering consulting company last year(Working as a quality assurance inspector on a 80 million dollar hwy rehabilitation project. was responsible for 15-20 construction workers day-to-day activity and payments of hundreds of thousands dollars, etc) and this year I am working with another multi billion dollar railroad company (biggest in canada, CN). Should I come back to CN next year (my leadership skills were more exercised at URS Corporation last year and I was the student employee of the year).

OR since I will be writing my GMAT by the end of this summer, if i do well, i was thinking about interning in USA or in Canada for BB or HF, is that a wise decision for a HBS 2+2 applicant?

ron8sym

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20 May 2011, 14:23

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Are you saying that you know someone was admitted from waitlist this week?

adventurecapital

hbsguru

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20 May 2011, 14:32

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Mahtab

HMMMM, COULD DEPEND ON YOUR GOALS AND WHAT TYPE OF EXPERIENCE YOU WILL GET AT ENGING. JOB VS. FINANCE JOB. ANYWAY, THAT IS GENERAL ADVICE, YOUR POST IS A BIT CLOUDY AS TO WHAT JOBS YOU HAVE HAD, WHEN, AND WHEN YOU WLD BE APPLYING FOR 2+2 --AND WHAT EXACTLY THE CHOICE YOU FACE IS. MAKE ALL THAT SUPER CLEAR. IF YOU POST AGAIN.

Shoumik

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20 May 2011, 15:09

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Alright so here it goes:

URS Corporation is an engineering design firm and a U.S. federal government contractor. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, URS is a full-service, global organization with offices located in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific...As of Sept. 2010, the firm had approximately 46,500 employees worldwide, in more than 40 countries.

URS Rankings: https://www.urscorp.com/About_URS/index.php?s=3
From Late May 1st to September 1st of 2010, I was actually hired as a "checker" (someone who collects tickets from asphalt truck drivers). The team including myself had 9 people. We had to administer the 3-year 80 million dollar contract. Within the first few weeks when there wasn't as much asphalt being placed and such, I went out and inspected the site (trained by a senior inspector) and eventually I was in control of all of the retaining walls rehabilitation work (around 2-3 million dollars). In a nut shell, I pushed the contractor to finish the retaining wall work right before the G20 seminar because that highway connects the airport to other highways and I had successfully achieved that goal and also saved thousands of $ for the Government/Tax payers of Canada (trying to be a bit funny, sorry). Then, the last month of my job, I worked with a different senior inspector, after a few weeks of training, I finished weest bound of the highway but didnt get a chance to do east bound because I had to go back to university (although I was asked to work for another month!). The last 3 weeks of my work, I literally worked 60 hours / week starting at 8 to 10 pm to 10 am to 12 pm. In the last three weeks, once again I saved even more money than I ever had because I closely monitored the depth of the asphalt dropped which reduced the volume of total asphalt dropped and we ended up paying less than the contract listed amount.

CN:
I just started working with them (just finished my third week) but clearly my leadership skills are not being challenged. I am currently involved in a project to draw train tracks owned by CN (18,000 miles) but I am responsible for the ones in Ontario (Province in Canada). However, I have heard from my colleagues to stay with CN because they are in managerial positions at the moment (after 2-3 year from graduation). But I don't see myself in a leadership role with this company any time soon. Although their job does not involve extra stress (8am - 4 pm), I am a bit disappointed with what I am doing at the moment because I dont think it will be a catalyst toward my top b school admissions.

Another note: Both companies pays great (Over 15 grand) although URS earnings were a bit more because of long hours toward the end but I dont think earnings play a big role in mba admissions (does it?)

OR:
Should I try joining HF/BB next summer? since I will be writing the gmat and expecting to receive a high score. I think i would be a competitive candidate because of the way I put myself out there to other companies (through my websites and other tactics). I also don't mind working in the USA.

My overall goal:
At the moment, I am into consulting but I wouldn't say inspection is my cup of tea because of the level of professionalism involved but I don't mind working long hours and crunching numbers. I started a charity couple of weeks ago and have raised a few hundred dollars so far. I also tutor calculus, economics and physics and starting my own YouTube channel and putting up videos like Khan Academy but instead my videos will cover techniques and strategies instead of concepts. (All money raised from my videos' donations and sponsors go toward my charity).

Basically I am trying to reduce as much poverty there as I can without getting myself kidnapped/killed. My goal is to lend mothers (I say mothers because a lot of the fathers end up gambling their money away) some $ so they can buy cows and generate revenue for their family and pay me back the $ on a monthly basis (WITHOUT INTEREST). I am following the idea of Muhammed Yunus (nobel peace prize winner for conducting the same operation)

adventurecapital

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20 May 2011, 15:43

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@ron8sym, nope, I don't. What I meant by "during the week" is that for previous rounds and WL decisions, HBS has submitted decision notifications on non-Friday days. It was merely in response to mbahubby's hypothesis that HBS would make decisions available today.