Calling ALL Admitted HBS Folks - Class of 2018

Congratulations to all new Admits!! We are delighted to inform you that we are holding a chat session with representative of Prodigy Finance on forum for the applicants who are considering Prodigy to fund their MBA education. This is the best opportunity for you to get to know about various education loan options provided by ProdigyFinance. You are also welcome to discuss your questions regarding eligibility criteria, funding limits, terms and conditions, interest rate, repayment tenure, country specific rules, etc.

Date: January 21, 2016
Time: 8 AM Pacific Time
Place: GMAT Club Chat Room https://gmatclub.com/gchat/
Presenter: Zack Hirschfeld - Student Relations Manager, Prodigy Finance.
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About Prodigy Finance and Zack Hirschfeld

Since 2007, Prodigy Finance has been revolutionising student finance. Our innovative model allows us to offer loans to international postgraduate students at leading universities and business schools. Through out community platform, alumni and other investors earn market-rate returns, while students gain access to higher education they otherwise may not have been able to finance.

Zack Hirschfeld is Prodigy Finance's Student Relations Manager. He was born in San Francisco, explored 35 countries across 5 continents, and now lives in New York. He has a degree in International Relations from Bucknell University. Zack loves his job, and believes it's a great privilege to speak with students from around the world, helping them to reach their goals.

Has anybody completed the diagnostic tests for HBX CORe? Are they timed? Are they challenging? I'd like to do a quick prep on those topics, and only enroll in the courses (which may be a very good idea) voluntarily. Any suggestions?

Thanks and CONGRATSto all the admits!!!

I've completed the tests. They're not timed, and not very challenging if you've studied/worked in Economics/Finance, which is my case. I think I won't be enrolling in the courses.

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My employment verification was marked complete yesterday.

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Re Vera. Mine was done in maybe three weeks - have only worked for once company. They didn't call my recommenders.

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Some quick answers to your questions.

1) They did call HR at my current job (but I work at relatively 'young' company/startup) saying they are calling to verify employment on behalf of HBS. Key details verified were starting/ending designations, start date, salary etc. Re-Vera ONLY does this after you sign your release form, allowing them to call your current employer. Atleast for R1 admits, we also had the option to basically stall this process for the current employer but have Re-Vera complete it for previous employers. None of my previous HR managers (bigger corporations) got calls, but I do gather that they vet key details through some central HR contact (for e.g. if you're from a big name consultancy, they will likely not call your local office but get the required details from a global HR contact point who has access to the key employee info on file)

2) To the best of my knowledge they only verify job related information. As you've rightly highlighted, I don't see how they can possibly go into details from schools/associations without any contact points. In the event that you have some 'super-uber' achievement outside of work, I would suppose that they may directly reach out to you for some proof of achievement (doubt this is common practice)

3) Once the release form was signed, they do everything fairly silently in the background. I did receive an email a few weeks into the process stating that one of my previous employers was unable to verify my salary information and requested me to provided some documentation (such as joining letter/tax return) to confirm the salary number that I had written in the app.

Long story short.. based on my own experience I can say that Re-Vera does verify basic details regarding the jobs (designations, employment dates, salaries) but they do it in as un-intrusive a manner as possible. Nothing to worry about. I found the process to be fairly professionally handled. Hope this helps!

The admissions survey mentions a 'Financial Aid Estimator Tool' on the prematriculation website. Does anyone know where to find this? I can't see it on the site.

As a R1 candidate, I got a link in my email about a week after decision day. The mail comes in from the Financial Aid team.
As the link is personalised (linked to your email) it cannot be shared on a public forum.

Hope this helps!

P.S - You could try to ask the prematric chat representative if they are happy to share the link with you in advance of the formal email.

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You will need to specifically ReVera. Basically, you get an email when you sign the release form, asking you to reach out to a particular email address and/or phone number should you wish to stall the process for the current employer.