Calling all Berkeley-Haas Fall 2009 Applicants

Hi Kryzak,

I visited Stanford and Berkeley earlier this year and completely fell in love with the Berkeley community (I'm a native Oregonian if that explains anything ). Suffice it to say Haas and Tuck are amongst my top picks for application this Fall and I was hoping you could critique my summarized app:

STATS

- 25/M/Hispanic/Software Engineering
- 3.7 GPA UG at strong state tech school (I received a scholarship from Intel at age 16 to stay in state and this was my top pick)
- 680 GMAT (82% Q / 81% V)
- 5+ years work experience (engineering) @ Intel upon matriculation

EXTRACURRICULAR / LEADERSHIP

- President of Intel's recent college graduate employee group to oversee the integration of over 1,000 RCGs at Intel worldwide. Grew the group from a few hundred in Oregon to running chapters at all major US sites, Europe, and Asia. Raised $30,000 to rebuild a school in Peru through Intel RCGs and various other notable accomplishments with the employee group, including a personal recommendation from our senior HR VP to further proliferate the integration efforts company-wide.

- Volunteer Big Brother with Big Brothers Big Sisters for 4+ years. Increased involvement by becoming a volunteer "Ambassador" to run fundraiser & recruitment events. Further increased leadership by becoming chairman of the Ambassador Board and managed a team to raise over $50,000 and recruit 50+ new volunteers for the organization over the course of a year.

- Club President and Area Governor for a local Toastmasters chapter. Led a club of ~20 members to receive distinguished honors (a first in in its 15 year history). Oversaw an area of 6 Toastmasters clubs and the speaking & leadership development of over 120 Toastmasters.

- Experience managing an indoor soccer team while I was out on injury


Well that's it in a nutshell. I would be very grateful if you could provide any tips on improvements and/or if you think my chances would be strong at Haas.

Also I would really like to contact some current students/alumni and further get connected with the community so I can better field the typical "Why Haas and what have you done to show interest" question. Any recommendations or pointers here would be great!

Thank you!

hi INTL!

I'm glad to hear that you're considering Haas and Tuck. Though the two have very different cultures, quite a few people have applied to both and gotten into both. You can also check with branson for Tuck insights.

You have a good profile and come from an applicant pool that's less impacted. Your ECs are very very strong, so spend a few essays talking about the various work you've done. Based on your profile here, I don't know how much good leadership work you've done at work, but make sure your Essay 2 has a lot of your work experience and work leadership in there. I would suggest you talk about work leadership in a couple short answers OR in the Long Essay 1. The rest you can devote to your extracurriculars. The optional essay would be somewhat useful IF you haven't touched upon an important leadership experience yet. Otherwise, skip it.

Your GMAT is the only obvious weakness, but I think your time is best spent on the essays and getting to know Haas better. If you have time and believe you can get above a 700, then by all means go for it. But if you think 680 is close to the best you can get, then you can just live with it.

Definitely attend the Minority Diversity workshop (see previous post in this thread) coming in the Fall. It may be after your applications are due, but it's still a great way to learn more about the school.

come for a day at Haas to do Infosessions, class visits, and lunch with students.

Other ways to contact people is to look at the student clubs list and email the presidents there. Here's the link:

https://www.haas.berkeley.edu/MBA/student/index.html

Let me know if you have a hard time finding people or if you're visiting again and want to meet up.

Thank you so much for the feedback, kryzak! I definitely plan on retaking the GMAT as I didn't really study for it the first time around

This may be useful, it's part of the "Best of Haas 2007" thing on their webpage. I haven't read through it yet, but it looked interesting just skimming through it.

https://www.haas.berkeley.edu/MBA/makingithappen08.pdf

This should give the Fall 2009 applicants a good insight on the big strides Haas has been making over the past year (and past few years), with more to come (we have a new dean now).

Things inside include:
- Haas@Work program with Sun and Cisco (hands on "consulting" during the school year)
- Peers@Haas - 360 degree leadership evaluation
- Innovation projects
- Non-Profit Entrepreneurship partnering with McKinsey
- 3-peat on "Elite Eight Brand Management Case Challenge", triumphs over Wharton and Kellogg, and other Brand competitions
- Digital Media Conference
- International Business Development Program in Ghana
- Responsible and Sustainable Businesses
- Conferences (Asian Business, Finance, LGBT, Women in Leadership, Asia business Center, etc...)
- Investment Banking Fellowships (first award ever)
- and more...

Great info kry, Thanks! Lot more reasons to love Haas..

This just in (well, last week, but I was on a trip, thus the late post here)

From SF Gate:


From Reuters UK:


From Financial Times:

I've heard a LOT of good things about this guy from the current students, so hopefully he'll continue to make Haas better and better each year! I'm VERY excited about the new building plans and the larger endowment. Maybe an increase in class size is in the works?

More links to the news:
https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... s.business
https://uk.reuters.com/article/marketsNe ... 5520080718
https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c5ec5994-56bb ... 07658.html

One of the Haas essays asks about what steps you have taken to learn about the program, etc.. Like others, possibly, I'm not quite sure exactly how to go about doing so (other than hounding kry here on the forums ).

Anyway, I decided to shoot out a couple of e-mails this morning to the chairs/officers of some of the Haas clubs I'm interested in. I was very surprised to get responses from 2 out of the 3 before noon!! I would strongly encourage (as would kry, I'm sure) to reach out to the Haas community in a similar fashion as their students seem to be very kind and willing to help out

Haas clubs:

https://mba.haas.berkeley.edu/community_01_01.html

Everything TL said.

But yeah, Haas students are super helpful, which is what impressed me the most about Haas when I was applying. Email the club officers, talk to them on the phone or in person if possible. Ask questions. Share with them your 5-minute elevator speech on your goals and why you like Haas, and they'll give you some good advice. Then talk about your efforts doing class visits, infosessions, lunch with students, conversations with club officers, website research, etc... in your short answer 4.

For the difference between Short Answer 4 and Long Essay 2, check out the Haas Ambassador thread, I have a pretty detailed hint there on how to approach each essay.

Does anyone know when the application is coming out?

The application should be out around this week or next. The essay questions have been out for a month now, so you can work on that first.

Already hard at work... thanks.

Just got back from an orientation for student bloggers. This is a blog that many students (up to 20-30 students, with varying frequencies) at Haas will be updating this year. It started 2 years ago and has been a pretty big hit (61% of applicants read the blogs before submitting their applications and 41% continued to read it after the applications have been submitted, last year).

Anyway, it's an uncensored look at the highs and lows of student life at Haas. If you're interested, check it out. You just may see some of my blogs on there.

https://berkeleymbastudents.blogspot.com/

Let me know if you have any feedback. The admissions office is very receptive to ideas and the blog is pretty much student run.

Wow, I didn't know about that blog. Might post there as well.

How is personality development story considered in essay 2. Do people/adcom prefer examples from professional or extracurricular circles? Any suggestions


thanks

please elaborate dagrobo. For Essay 2 (the Why MBA essay, right?), you need to talk about what in your past experiences led to your current desire to get an MBA, what you want to do with the MBA, and why Haas. You can definitely talk about personal development in the essay, but it will be VERY HARD to write Essay 2 without any mention of your past job experience and future goals, since that's what an MBA is about (your professional goals). If your personal development adds color to the essay, then by all means use it. But don't let that restrict the length you spend on answering the question.

Berkeley app is now live...good luck all!

https://ssl.haas.berkeley.edu/admissions/application/

Sorry for not making myself clear. I was talking about short essay 2 (personal accomplishment).

thanks