Hi
bschool51, Great questions and no offense taken - thanks for your thoughtful response!
The reason why we at Ivy Admissions Group suggest sending in waitlist letters is because that is what has worked for our clients in the past. We actually got our start by only offering waitlist services, the techniques for which we developed after getting ourselves into HBS, Wharton and GSB off the waitlist, and then helping our friends (and then friends of friends) to do the same. Of the more than a dozen clients that choose to work with us each year on mounting waitlist campaigns, we succeed in getting about two-thirds into their specific school of choice.
Having personally worked with dozens of waitlist clients in the past, by far the most common problem with a candidate's application is with
their narrative story. There has been a proliferation of research into which messages are most effective in public campaigns. What we find is that all good narratives follow a certain argumentation structure based around logos-ethos-pathos, and all bad ones deviate from that structure in one or more important ways. Ideally, you would want to fix that narrative by replacing your HBS essay, but since that is not possible, you need to communicate a new and improved narrative through other means - hence the waitlist letters and larger influence campaign.
I can't speak for the advice given by other consultants except to say that this appears to be the difference between my firm's experience and theirs.
bschool51 wrote:
I've also been in touch with a few current HBS students who have said that among their cohort, the people who were ultimately admitted from the WL were those who didn't submit updates, and those who did submit updates were not admitted (among the people they knew).
Having gone to HBS, almost everyone I know who was on the waitlist at one point or another sent something into the admissions committee. At the very least confirming your interest going into Round 2 would be a normal and expected thing to do, just as it would be if you were instead applying for a job or scholarship.
bschool51 wrote:
Given all of that, it just seems incredibly risky to do anything but wait (for HBS - other schools are obviously a different story).
While I was a student I volunteered with the HBS admissions committee and will tell you that they are not as cold and scary as you make them out to be. They are actually very friendly and warm. They believe that their jobs give them a platform to change the world by admitting students who are out to solve important challenges, and then equipping them with all the resources of HBS. What precisely is the risk here? Let's just play this out - If you send a short polite email to the adcom thanking them for their consideration, do you think it would be reasonable for as professional an operation as HBS Admissions to declare, "How dare this person contact me? Reject her immediately!". Of course not.
However, if you send in (1) way too many updates, (2) creepy updates, (3) desperate updates, or (4) updates that just reinforce a bad narrative, those would -- obviously -- likely hurt you. Waitlist letters aren't the solution.
Good waitlist letter are.
bschool51 wrote:
I suspect that there's someone who looks a lot like me from a more prestigious firm, with better scores, or with better work experience / awards who was admitted, and so they're waiting until they see their round 2 pool before deciding whether to admit me.
Were that the case they would have been much more likely to place you under "further consideration": A sort of pre-interview waitlist in Round 1 that lets them wait and see what the Round 2 applicant pool looks like before interviewing you. HBS does not waste their time interviewing candidates they would not admit.
Hope this helps!