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Visiting Campuses - How Important? 07 Jun 2008, 10:58
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Does anyone know how HBS, Wharton or Duke feel about campus visits?

Thanks!
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Does the schools expect international applicants to visit their campuses? Also, for Round1 applicants, many might not make it to any of the outreach events before they apply?

Please advice.
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Visiting Campuses - How Important? 07 Jun 2008, 15:25
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cpgmba
Does anyone know how HBS, Wharton or Duke feel about campus visits?

Thanks!
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Hi cpg-

I can't comment on Duke, but I know neither HBS nor Wharton give a hoot about campus visits. If you can visit and it helps with your essays and interview, that's great. But neither school keeps track of visits, and they don't factor visits into their admission decisions. Last year HBS didn't even start official visits until after the R1 deadline.
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So I'm based in the SF Bay Area and have been to a class visitation at Haas already. However, most the schools I'm applying to are located on the East Coast/Midwest (NYU, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, Michigan). Naturally, visiting all, or even a few of them, would be a bit of a financial drain. My question is, how important is visiting the school in terms of enhancing the chances of getting in? Would not visiting the campus/sitting in on a class be viewed as a significant negative?
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In the grand scheme of things, I don't think it matters. I made travel from Germany all the way to Columbia in NYC and got dinged by them after being interviewed and then waitlisted. However, I got into another school that I didn't visit.

The bottom line is that every admissions committee has certain goals it wants to meet. Whether you visit or not is trivial. They have specific objectives they want to accomplish in shaping the class. However, all other things being equal, it may help you to visit, when other candidates decide not to. After all, you're just throwing your money towards a call option.
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Visiting Campuses - How Important? 07 Jun 2008, 19:27
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cpgmba
Does anyone know how HBS, Wharton or Duke feel about campus visits?

Thanks!
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Duke is a special case. They have applicant initiated interviews (like Tuck). Basically, they expect every applicant to interview with them. They state on their website that they will arrange for an alumni interview IF you reside on the west coast. In other words, they expect you to visit if you are in the mid-west or east coast area.

In general, I think you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't visit the campus. There are exceptions (as someone noted HBS and Wharton don't seem to car). However, I think exceptions are made for international students and student who would have to travel a long distance (say someone from LA applying to Yale).

NN
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Visiting Campuses - How Important? 11 Jun 2008, 06:39
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As with most parts of the application. It won't get you in, but it might keep you out.

Some are confusing the two.
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I wouldn't say that school visit don't matter. I think thats a little misleading especially when confirmed by anecdotal evidence. For example you may be a stronger applicant at a school that you don't visit and get accepted and a weaker applicant at school you do visit and get dinged.

I think the true question is how much will the school visit improve your chances. Some school require specific detail in the Why MBA, Why this school essay. NYU is one of them. I've visited a couple of times and speaking to the adcom members they want you to be specific. If you live in LA your not going to specifically tell them why NYU is a fit for you and why your a fit for NYU without a visit. You need to talk about how you feel about living in NY, how do you like the teaching style, how much you want to be involved with the students clubs and you need to do this all from experience.

This may be more important at NYU than HBS because they obviously want to increase their yield. Are you really going to be able to convince NYU that they are your top choice if you can't visit? You're going to spend over $100k for your dream school and you cant pony up a couple grand to visit. I think it's obvious that people are visiting at least one or two schools. So if you can't visit NYU then it's clear that they are pretty far down on your list.

As far as HBS they go all out when you go visit. When you show up the receptionist will have an itinerary ready for you. They love to talk about and show off their case study method. Theire website is dedicated to it. At the information sessiong the encourage you to go over everything on their website about it in great detail. It seems it would be hard to describe why this is such a great experience for you if you haven't seen it personally.

Plus without school visits how are you interacting with the current students? I guess you could just randomly email people but I don't think your going to get the same respones as you will when you meet them in person. MBA students really go out of their way to help prospective students, especially when they see your interested in the same field, clubs, etc. as they are. I've met students who've offered to read my essasy in their spare time, after only meeting once!

If you're and exceptional student you can probably get buy with a school visit. But why give someone else a chance to prove they're a better fit than you?
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gixxer1000


As far as HBS they go all out when you go visit. When you show up the receptionist will have an itinerary ready for you. They love to talk about and show off their case study method. Theire website is dedicated to it. At the information sessiong the encourage you to go over everything on their website about it in great detail. It seems it would be hard to describe why this is such a great experience for you if you haven't seen it personally.
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None of their essay questions ask you to demonstrate your interest in the case method, or even your interest or fit with the school. I'm not sure how this is relevant. I am located in LA - I have visited Chicago and Kellogg but I will not be visiting Wharton, HBS, Yale, or Duke unless they invite me for an interview. It's a lot of time/money to spend on my end unless the school is interested enough to invite me for an interview. NYU invites several people from LA to come over for interviews even if they have not visited - they understand its quite an expense - the applicant and NYU are then able to judge whether or not the school is a fit during the interview.
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What schools do you think put extra emphasis on the school visit? From my research and interactions, I got the feeling that the campus visit was big with UNC, as it demonstrates the applicant's interest and UNC is a little sensitive to the perception that they are a "backup" school for some.
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What schools do you think put extra emphasis on the school visit? From my research and interactions, I got the feeling that the campus visit was big with UNC, as it demonstrates the applicant's interest and UNC is a little sensitive to the perception that they are a "backup" school for some.
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yield sensitive, remote location, etc.
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As far as HBS they go all out when you go visit. When you show up the receptionist will have an itinerary ready for you. They love to talk about and show off their case study method. Theire website is dedicated to it. At the information sessiong the encourage you to go over everything on their website about it in great detail. It seems it would be hard to describe why this is such a great experience for you if you haven't seen it personally.

None of their essay questions ask you to demonstrate your interest in the case method, or even your interest or fit with the school. I'm not sure how this is relevant. I am located in LA - I have visited Chicago and Kellogg but I will not be visiting Wharton, HBS, Yale, or Duke unless they invite me for an interview. It's a lot of time/money to spend on my end unless the school is interested enough to invite me for an interview. NYU invites several people from LA to come over for interviews even if they have not visited - they understand its quite an expense - the applicant and NYU are then able to judge whether or not the school is a fit during the interview.
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As far as the case study method at HBS I'm just repeating what the adcom told me during my vist. They even directed us to look at the portion of the website that was dedicated to it (https://www.hbs.edu/case/index.html).

As far as school visits I think you've made a decision and you're just trying to justify that decision as the right choice. All I'm saying is that yes some schools do care if you visit and NYU is definitely one of them. They stress school fit and they want specifics. So to tell someone that school visits don't matter is irresponsible. You yourself say you have visited Chicago and Kellogg. You either have some type of connection in Chicago or one of them is you top choice. Either way you saw some value in visiting.

If some guy in LA has great work experience, GPA, GMAT and strong essays detailing that he want to work on Wall St. could he get an invite without a visit? Yes, but there could also be that guy who's marginal but won the adcoms over through his indepth research of the school and interaction with the students which all came from his visits. If you tell that guy that he doesn't need to visit then he will probably not get accepted and therefore I feel that advice would be irresponsible.

Decide which school you want to apply to and weigh the options on where your school visits would be best served if you have limited funds. Simple.

I'm not going to go into to much detail but I have be afforded the opportunity to interact with many different adcom members from several top 20 schools. Many have openly stated that school visits matter.

Terp06 if you'd like I will be attending prospectives conference at Duke in July where adcom members will be present. I will ask them what is their specific opinion and let you know, including who I spoke with. Unless you're a shoe-in a $500 visit may not be a money wasted.
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As far as HBS they go all out when you go visit. When you show up the receptionist will have an itinerary ready for you. They love to talk about and show off their case study method. Theire website is dedicated to it. At the information sessiong the encourage you to go over everything on their website about it in great detail. It seems it would be hard to describe why this is such a great experience for you if you haven't seen it personally.

None of their essay questions ask you to demonstrate your interest in the case method, or even your interest or fit with the school. I'm not sure how this is relevant. I am located in LA - I have visited Chicago and Kellogg but I will not be visiting Wharton, HBS, Yale, or Duke unless they invite me for an interview. It's a lot of time/money to spend on my end unless the school is interested enough to invite me for an interview. NYU invites several people from LA to come over for interviews even if they have not visited - they understand its quite an expense - the applicant and NYU are then able to judge whether or not the school is a fit during the interview.

As far as the case study method at HBS I'm just repeating what the adcom told me during my vist. They even directed us to look at the portion of the website that was dedicated to it (https://www.hbs.edu/case/index.html).

As far as school visits I think you've made a decision and you're just trying to justify that decision as the right choice. All I'm saying is that yes some schools do care if you visit and NYU is definitely one of them. They stress school fit and they want specifics. So to tell someone that school visits don't matter is irresponsible. You yourself say you have visited Chicago and Kellogg. You either have some type of connection in Chicago or one of them is you top choice. Either way you saw some value in visiting.

If some guy in LA has great work experience, GPA, GMAT and strong essays detailing that he want to work on Wall St. could he get an invite without a visit? Yes, but there could also be that guy who's marginal but won the adcoms over through his indepth research of the school and interaction with the students which all came from his visits. If you tell that guy that he doesn't need to visit then he will probably not get accepted and therefore I feel that advice would be irresponsible.

Decide which school you want to apply to and weigh the options on where your school visits would be best served if you have limited funds. Simple.

I'm not going to go into to much detail but I have be afforded the opportunity to interact with many different adcom members from several top 20 schools. Many have openly stated that school visits matter.

Terp06 if you'd like I will be attending prospectives conference at Duke in July where adcom members will be present. I will ask them what is their specific opinion and let you know, including who I spoke with. Unless you're a shoe-in a $500 visit may not be a money wasted.
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Of course it's best to visit if you have the time/money to do so. However, it won't impact your admissions decision at Harvard one bit - I don't think HBS even keeps track of the names of people who came to visit. Additionally, HBS doesn't even allow class visits until after the R1 deadline in many years - meaning you can't incorporate your visit experience into your essays. I don't believe Wharton and Stanford put much, if any, weight on campus visits either.

I agree that for almost any school in the Elite tier - it is best to visit if you can. They are used as backup schools for many applicants and they are very yield conscious. For me - Duke is nowhere near the top of my list and I may not even apply there. I am not going to fly across the country to visit a school that I am not even sure that I want to apply to. However, I'm going to make sure that I get up to San Francisco and visit Haas in September - because I am applying there in Round 1.
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terp06

Of course it's best to visit if you have the time/money to do so. However, it won't impact your admissions decision at Harvard one bit - I don't think HBS even keeps track of the names of people who came to visit. Additionally, HBS doesn't even allow class visits until after the R1 deadline in many years - meaning you can't incorporate your visit experience into your essays. I don't believe Wharton and Stanford put much, if any, weight on campus visits either.

I agree that for almost any school in the Elite tier - it is best to visit if you can. They are used as backup schools for many applicants and they are very yield conscious. For me - Duke is nowhere near the top of my list and I may not even apply there. I am not going to fly across the country to visit a school that I am not even sure that I want to apply to. However, I'm going to make sure that I get up to San Francisco and visit Haas in September - because I am applying there in Round 1.
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In agreement with you, terp. It'd be great to visit every school you can, I'm certainly not arguing with that... unfortunately, most of us don't have the time or money to do so. So you have to pick your spots, understanding where visits matter most. For example, the applications for MIT Sloan and Haas have specific portions where you're specifically asked about visits, information sessions, and even conversations with alumni. I know that visits are important at those two schools. I decided against applying to Haas because I missed the local information presentation and couldn't get to California to take a look at the school.

On the other hand, H, S, and W don't factor visits into their decision-making. All three have stated this in various portions of their websites and I know firsthand that it's true: I'd never been to the Stanford GSB before Admit Weekend, and I met plenty of people at Wharton's Winter Welcome who hadn't been to Wharton before admission. I also met several people at Kellogg's DAK who hadn't been to Evanston prior to that weekend.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't visit. If you have the time and money, take advantage of the opportunity. Getting a feel for the people and classes is important. But if you're unable to go, don't despair. Attend the local information session, talk to any alumni you can via connections, and reach out to leaders of student clubs. You'll still be able to "personalize" your essays. One more thing... I know this sounds ridiculous, but _really_ searching through the website (course catalogs, major requirements, student clubs) can be really helpful.
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Visiting Campuses - How Important? 11 Jun 2008, 15:38
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+1 to trader1.
I have an identical experience.I traveled from Australia to attend Chicago and NYU interviews. Dinged from Chicago and dinged after waitlist from NYU. I don't think its a big factor.

trader1
jpong21
So I'm based in the SF Bay Area and have been to a class visitation at Haas already. However, most the schools I'm applying to are located on the East Coast/Midwest (NYU, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, Michigan). Naturally, visiting all, or even a few of them, would be a bit of a financial drain. My question is, how important is visiting the school in terms of enhancing the chances of getting in? Would not visiting the campus/sitting in on a class be viewed as a significant negative?

In the grand scheme of things, I don't think it matters. I made travel from Germany all the way to Columbia in NYC and got dinged by them after being interviewed and then waitlisted. However, I got into another school that I didn't visit.

The bottom line is that every admissions committee has certain goals it wants to meet. Whether you visit or not is trivial. They have specific objectives they want to accomplish in shaping the class. However, all other things being equal, it may help you to visit, when other candidates decide not to. After all, you're just throwing your money towards a call option.
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I have seen way too many cases like bsd's where an applicant spends an enormous amount of time researching a school, visiting it both before application and for an interview, and still gets dinged. This is just not worthwhile in my opinion. I have visited and will visit the schools that are convenient for me to visit prior to applications. Everyone else will need to show me some love in the form of an interview invite for me to come out :)
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I think some of you guys are missing my point a little bit. Terp you're saying the same thing just in a different way. You don't really care if you get accepted to Duke so you're not going to visit. As far as HBS and Wharton I still think a visit is waranted unless you already have plenty connection to alumns, students, etc. At both Wharton and HBS not only was I able to visit the campus, meet students and teachers, but I was able to interact with members of the Real estate club, military club, and their resepective minority clubs. At Wharton they pretty much tell you that the students will be reviewing you application first. I met several students who will be reviewing applications and introduced my self. Since then I have kept in contact with these people and had several offers to review my essays and offer advice in general. At HBS I got to meet the students who will be officers of the AASU next year. They were very helpful and after meeting willing to go out of there way to help you.

Building a relationship with current students and adcom members is very valuable. You can essentially go into the selection process with advocates already on your side. The acceptance rate at these schools are in the low teens. There are more qualified candidates than there are positions. If you think this is coming down to just skill your mistaken. All things being equal the guy with good contact and rapport with students and adcom members is going to get the nod over the other guy. Now of course all things aren't equal which is why one guy with a 750 and WE at McK gets accepted without a visit and the guy with a 720 and plain WE gets dinged with a visit.

At NYU the Director of admission is also an improv comedian, I've taken subway rides with him and discussed the pro and cons of NYU and I'm not from NY. He's told me what they are looking for. Why do I think NYU is a good fit for me? Because I've been there and interact with the people and know first hand. That's a little better than saying I read you website and I think I might fit in. You don't think this won't be valueable in your essays or interview. There are two main adcoms. Ones from Boston and we talked about a possible match-up between Boston and my local team. The other one is really cool gal. She will basically tell you to be a borderline stalker. She wants to know what's going on with your status. When they review my app they will be able to put a face to the name. "Oh yeah, he's the military guy, who went into blah blah blah." They are looking for people who can show that they are dedicated to their program.

So if you already have WE at a top firm a 700+ Gmat and a 3.7 from a top undergrad then yes you can probably skip out on few visits. But for the rest of us we really have to develop our ground game.

My trip to Wharton and HBS.
$250 ticket to Philly and flying home from Boston
$140 train ticket to Boston
$300 for hotel
$690 and two days of vacation

That's a grand total of $345 per school.

My trip to NYU and Columbia
$240 ticket to NY (Jet Blue)
$300 for hotel (Stay at the Carter. It's a dump but my room was clean and it in Times Square)
$100 for cab rides to and from airport (I rode the subway the rest of the time)
$640 and two days vacation

Only $320 per school. But to be honest I spent a lot more money on food than I would have if I didn't go so I should probably add another $50 to that.

I will definitely fit in a trip to USC and probably UCLA while I'm there and then do another trip for Stanford and Hass. Maybe UT Austin but it's low on my list. To offset the cost and the use of vacation time I haven't taken any real vacations this year. I've never been to Philly or Boston so I guess I could actaully consider it a vacation. Me and another friend who is applying wen't together and reduced the hotel cost. Then later had a blast at the Boston bars. Man do the Irish take their dancing serious :lol: I've tried to plan the two Cali trips(due to work I can't make it just one) and they're looking like they're going to cost me a little more because the cheapest airfare I can find is $300. But all in all I plan to complete all of them for just under $3000. I also have to attend conferences with the program I'm in so I've had to pay for just airfare to get to those but it's allowed me to visit Emory, Duke and UNC and Carlson. And while I'm not really looking at those schools adcom members from all top 20 schools have been present so it's been very beneficail. So my grand total bschool extravaganza will be about $4000. A good investment I think if it helped me to get into just one of the schools I'm looking at. And even if I didn't I had a blast doing it!
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Visiting Campuses - How Important? 12 Jun 2008, 06:56
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I think that a good network of students and alums from your target school is a good substitute for campus visit if you live very far away from the campus. For example, contact the students of various clubs, and they'll all be very willing to get you in contact with more students or alums. Phone interviews with them (takes 30-60 minutes) will help you understand the target school greatly and make your essays that much better.

with that said, I personally have to visit a campus before I apply to it. I knew that visiting Kellogg (and GSB) wasn't necessary since I already had many students I keep in constant email and have spoken with on the phone, but I need to "feel" the campus before I put in the time to apply for the school and give them my hard earned $200. :) That's just me, and I definitely don't think it applies to everyone.

The key point of this great discussion is that you need to KNOW about the school, and know how it fits with your career and MBA goals. How you get that information is not that important. :)
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kryzak

The key point of this great discussion is that you need to KNOW about the school, and know how it fits with your career and MBA goals. How you get that information is not that important. :)
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Agreed.
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The most important thing visits did for me is to show me where I would not want to spend 2 years of my life. This goes back to "fit" but I can't imagine anything worse than wasting 2 years of your time and $$$ at a place that you don't "click" at.
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Location: Southern California
Concentration: Investment Banking
Schools:Chicago (dinged), Tuck (November), Columbia (RD)
Posts: 1,578
Kudos: 300
Visiting Campuses - How Important? 12 Jun 2008, 09:47
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wallspotter
The most important thing visits did for me is to show me where I would not want to spend 2 years of my life. This goes back to "fit" but I can't imagine anything worse than wasting 2 years of your time and $$$ at a place that you don't "click" at.
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These judgement calls can be made after you have received either interview invitations or admits.
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