[Text Transcript] YouTube Q&A with HBS Adcom - MBA Spotlight Oct 2020

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MBA Spotlight Oct 2020 - YouTube Q&A with HBS Adcom. (Text Transcript)

Hey Everyone, I am posting here a text transcript of the YouTube session conducted with HBS adcom in the recent MBA spotlight. I've put certain parts of the transcript in spoiler, which, if you are interested in, can open up and read, OR if you are interested only in important sections, then head directly to Admission criteria, Application components, and Audience Q&A. At the end of this post, you will also find a video of this session if you are interested in watching it.

*This is an auto-generated transcript so please bear us with any grammatical errors although we have reviewed the transcript and eliminated as many errors as possible.

Presenters:

Evan Sherwood - Coordinator, MBA Admissions Office, Harvard HBS
Katie Kelsall - Manager, MBA Financial Aid, Harvard HBS

Host: Maria Wich-Vila, HBS Alum, Founder - ApplicantLab.com

Brief History of HBS

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We at HBS have been around for over 100 years, and we're the first MBA program and many things have changed over those 100 years, but one thing has remained the same and that is our mission statement, and that is we educate the leaders who make a difference in the world. This mantra really underlies everything that we do, yes, from how we pick our curriculum to how we select our students, and to even how our alums are out in the world, choosing their jobs, and how they're making an impact. The world desperately needs more leaders to address its most urgent and challenging problems and virtually none of these problems can be addressed without business leaders playing a vital role. Our graduates are located all over the world using their HBS, MBA education to follow their passion and make an impact in the area that is most important to them.

Curriculum Overview

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Just to give you kind of an overview of how our curriculum is structured, it is a two year general management full time MBA, we find the general management perspective to be so important because we do realize that no business decision is ever made in a silo, and we really want you to have a broad understanding of all elements of an organisation when you come to HBS. So in that first year, we will your required curriculum year as it's called, it'll take 11 foundational courses in general management. In the second year, your elective curriculum year, you'll have your choice of choosing from over 100 elective courses. The great thing about the second year is that you get to choose whatever you want, whether that be a course at HBS, you can cross-register other Harvard Graduate Schools at MIT or TUFTS, and you can even choose for independent projects. So your second year is really, really yours to make, which is really nice thing that in the first year, you're taking all your required courses. Over the course of your two years, again, many type of learning styles and there's the case method, simulations and small group meetings. Majority of your cases and classes will be taught in the case method, which we pioneered at HBS. The case method is a great way for you to step into the role of the protagonist and in class and ask yourself the question, what would you do, given this limit set of limited set of information about a business problem. And so we really liked the case method is a very highly participatory and interactive, immersive learning environment for our students.

Class Overview & Case Method

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What really makes HBS so impactful for our students is really the broad diversity they are exposed to when they come to campus. In a typical year, we have about 938 students in the class that are ranging from 71 different countries and close to 300 different universities. And so we're we're truly picking and selecting students from all over the world to come sit in our classroom. And not only do we see the diversity in our class, we also see it in our curriculum as well. We HBS uses 15 different global research centres and offices to write and conduct new casework. And over half of the cases, new cases produced last year were global in nature and they're doing this again, like I said, we're from our alumni who are based in 173 different countries, which gives us a lot of different locales and industries to work with across the world. Something that we've seen grown out of HBS over the last few years is this call for being involved in entrepreneurial related activities. And a recent survey at a 15 year reunion found that over half of our loans are involved in the founding of our company, which is really important to see as HBS as an incubator for entrepreneurship. When students come to HBS, they're often looking to pivot careers. And so we see what the use of over 50 plus career coaches close to 65% of our students are using HBS to change a career path. And so those career coaches are well versed in showing our students how to navigate a career switch. And helping you do that.

Class Structure at HBS

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When you come to HBS, a critical part of that diverse experience you'll get to enjoy is that we break you up into 10 different sections in your first year. And they're lettered A through J and each section is composed as an overall microcosm of the overall composition of the class in terms of diversity. And so these sections are built with 18 different factors that are put into an algorithm and spread sees all my 138 students into 10 different sections and become just a great way to really situate and spread out.

Student Clubs and Leadership Opportunities

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When you come to campus as a student, there are a plethora of student clubs to get involved with over 95. There is a club for nearly everything here at HBS, which we are super proud of, and if there's a club that you want to be a part of, then you can make it and so really empower our students to take an active role outside the classroom as well. And there are also over 200 leadership positions for our students to choose from, which is something really great as we really value leadership on our campus and an evaluation process. This continues through the student experience as well as students can take on multiple leadership positions over the course of their two years.

Admission Evaluations Criteria - Habit of Leadership

The first thing we'll look at is the habit of leadership. Leadership can take many contexts, and that can happen in school or work, military diverse community efforts. And for us, it's not important where you demonstrated leadership, but how you did it. There's not one type of leader who fits here at HBS. We deliberately create a class and includes different kinds of leaders from that frontline commander to thought leader who works behind the scene.

The second thing we look for is analytical aptitude and appetite. There'll be plenty of numbers and data that will guide making reasoned and intelligent decisions. While at HBS. We want people who are able to do this type of work and like doing it. The classroom is demanding fast-paced in a highly verbal environment. And so we look for students who are intellectually engaged and have innate intellectual curiosity. We want people who thrive on challenging ideas that can actually contribute to group discussions in the classroom.

And finally, we're looking for engaged community citizens are looking for people who are engaged in the world around them and will be engaged as students at HBS. We want people with a pattern of engaging in their community, however they define it, whether a job at school or extracurricular activity is a very strong sense of community HBS. And we want more people who invest just as much in their own learning as much as they do others learning.

Application Components

GMAT vs GRE: I always get a lot of questions about whether we prefer the GRE or the GRP is completely up to you, wherever, whichever test you feel the most comfortable with. Please take that test and submit that score to us.
English Language Test: If your undergraduate degree was not timed English, you will need to take an English language test. And those options are listed there.
Essay: We have one essay question that we'll have you answer.
Recommendation Letters: We'll have you submit two letters of recommendation. letters of recommendation, we prefer one to be a supervisor that you have currently have or have had in the past, if you can help it, it's not a requirement. But we'd like to get that perspective if we can. And the second one is completely up to you on how you want to best strategize your application.
Interview: A 30 minute invitation-only interview conducted by our admissions board member. And these will be based on campus or in select cities around the world. One Note this year, all of our interviews are being conducted virtually and due to the ongoing pandemic. So this year will be a little different. But once we get back into our normal year, you will have the option of conducting your interview in person, on campus, or in a select city around the world or via zoom.
Post Interview Reflection: This is due 24 hours after your interview. And this is really just your way to get the last word to us. We know there's some things that come up in the interview that you're wondering just you were wanting to say but didn't have the opportunity to do so. And this is a chance for you to do that. This isn't meant to be another essay in the process. This is really just a space to capture your candidate thoughts. And so this is meant to be just top of mind right after the interview. What else would you like us to know?

Scholarships and Financial Aid

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Hello everyone. My name is Katie and I work in the admissions and financial aid office and I just want to give a broad overview of our financial aid program. I wanted to start by talking a little bit about our philosophy and financial aid, which is to ensure the learning environment includes diverse perspectives. We have a need based financial aid policy program, meaning other schools may have merit-based aid our financial aid is solely based on financial need. And this really allows us to let all of our students no matter what their financial background is come in and participate in the programme. I'll talk a little bit more about what that need-based aid looks like. But I did want to mention also that our financial aid is available to both international and domestic candidates, it's very important to understand there's no difference between eligibility so regardless of whether or not you're a US citizen, you would still be eligible for the same types of need-based aid.

So we have financial aid kind of available to you throughout your MBA journey and that includes while you're in school, but also after graduation. So to start, I'll talk a little bit about our tuition assistance which is need based scholarships. This is what you would apply for after you've been admitted to the program but before you matriculate, and this is tuition assistance. So it's financial aid that goes directly towards your costs for school. In addition to our need-based scholarships, we do have other financial aid support. If you are a part of the military, you could qualify for VA benefits. We also have complimentary fellowships. So those are fellowships that you can receive on top of our need based scholarships. And they're for students who come from different types of backgrounds, for instance, we have the goldsmith fellowship for students coming from the nonprofit sector, we have the Kaplan, which is for students coming from life sciences, and then there's a few others that are not listed on this slide. But what I also wanted to highlight is the forward fellowship, and that is for students who are kind of the breadwinner of their family, so to speak, they might be providing financial support to parents or siblings. And we know that coming back to school, it can significantly impact that. So for students in that situation, they can apply for the foreign fellowship on top of our need based aid.

And then secondly, between your first and second year, you have the opportunity to do a summer fellowship, which is a paid internship, essentially. And it really allows students to kind of explore any type of field or position they might want to work in and make some money while doing so. So we have summer fellowships pretty much for anything you would like to do. But specifically, we have some from the rock Centre for Entrepreneurship. So if you're interested in starting working on a startup, over the summer, you can get funding to do so we have the social enterprise initiative, which gives summer fellowships to students who want to work in social enterprise or nonprofit. But if your job doesn't fit into one of those categories, there still opportunities for you to take advantage of the summer fellowship.

And then lastly, we have what we call career support and exploration funds. And these are funds I like to call them kind of postgraduate funds or funds that you can receive at the end of your MBA program. So these funds are designed for you to be able to explore a career after graduation that might not make the typical HBS MBA salary. We want to make sure our students have the opportunity to do whatever they want to do after graduation and not let that get in the way. So we have the leadership fellows programme, which provides salary support for you to work in a nonprofit. And then we have some loan assistance programmes which will help repay your loans that you borrowed for MBA if you're working in social enterprise. If you're part of the rock centre, so if you're doing entrepreneurship, or if you're in the private sector, so these are some funds to help you minimise your debt after graduation, and then explore any kind of career that you might want to pursue.

And lastly, just to highlight, again, our need-based scholarship amount, which I know most of you are probably interested in, the average amount our students receive per academic year is 42,000. So a total of 84,000 for the two years. That is the average that we see. But there is a large range between 30K and 70K is the typical range. And that being said, your scholarship amount really depends on your individual financial circumstances. So as I said, once you are admitted to the MBA programme, you would apply for financial aid. And at that time, we would determine what you are eligible for. Another thing I want to highlight is we don't offer full rides at HBS. We do expect all of our students to contribute financially in some way, so none of our scholarships cover the full amount. So often our students pay the difference between using student loans or savings or a combination of the two. But what I feel really strongly and proud about is that we have a really wonderful starting salary and median signing bonus for our graduate graduating students. The average salary starting is around $150,000, plus that bonus that you see on the screen. And given those salary figures and bonus numbers, our students are really able to pay down their MBA debt very quickly. So as I mentioned in the previous slide, we have support to help you pay down debt but in addition to that, what you end up earning after graduation is significant enough for that debt to not really be an issue and our alumni have shared that sentiment as well.

Audience Q&A

Q1: Given the current COVID situation and economic downtrend, how much increase in the number of applications are you expecting this year?

Evan: The way our admissions numbers typically run is that it's counter-cyclical to how the economy is doing. So when the economy sees a downturn, we typically see an uptick in applications and we've definitely seen an uptick in applications this year. And I know there's I saw a lot of questions in the chat as well, so let's take this time to preemptively talk about I know, there's some concern over how the deferrals that we gave out last year, affecting the number of people who can be admitted in this round. And right now we have petitioned the university to essentially allow us to take in more students than a typical year and we're still waiting for the answer for that. So we're hoping to take a larger class than usual, so it doesn't hurt anyone applying this year, and that essentially, the deferrals will just be added to next year's class. But that has not been approved yet. And so we're waiting to hear back. And once we do hear back about that, we will let that be known on our website. So just keep checking our website for more information about that as we learn more.

Q2: Do different types of students tend to apply in different rounds? Do over-represented groups usually apply in R1?

Evan: We actually see the rounds end up, I know, there's that rumor definitely circulating around that likes to go from year to year, but we really do see across the board fairly even backgrounds across both rounds. So it truly doesn't matter which round you apply in whichever round you feel the most ready and comfortable with, we ask that you submit in that round. And it will be your background that want to have an impact on your likelihood of getting in and a particular round.

Q3: What percentage of the class is accepted in R1? Is it 50% in R1, 50% in R2 or how does that work?

Evan: Yeah, so we really strive for about 50-50 in each round, in a given year. So that's typically what we aim for, give or take that number, but yes like an even split if we can help it.

Katie: I would just in to just add to that. This is a question we get all the time about whether or not to apply in round one or round two, and I think Evan mentioned it, but I would just reiterate is you should apply when you feel most ready to apply. That's the most important part. So I'd worry less about the percentages. If you're not ready to apply, don't rush to apply for round one, wait for round two. Or if you're ready to apply right now, we know we said that round one has passed, you're more than welcome, we would encourage you to apply for round two.

Evan: Also something you may want to talk about how the financial aid works in each round?

Katie: Yeah, that's a great question, too. Yeah. So I mentioned in the presentation that you apply for financial aid after you've been admitted. So it does not matter if you apply for round one or round two, it doesn't really matter when you apply for financial aid as long as you meet the final deadline, which is not until June 1. So we don't run out of aid so to speak, if you're eligible for financial aid, you would receive financial aid.

Q4: For the joint Masters of Engineering / Masters Biotech - can we apply to both? Does it add more scrutiny?

Evan: Yeah, so for all of our joint degrees, you actually apply to both schools independently, and then each school reviews your application and gives you independent decisions when you apply. And so, for instance, I'll just take the law school as an example, you apply to HBS, and you applied about Harvard Law School, and each in each committee would act independently of each other. And then if you receive acceptance from both schools, then you're then entered into the joint review program and would work with our staff who work focuses on joint degrees to go through the necessary steps. So we will know, and you will indicate that you're applying to another degree program for a joint degree. But that does not invite a higher level of scrutiny, because we are essentially just evaluating you on the terms of as though you're applying to HBS. And so there's just a general knowledge that we will know, but does not increase the level of scrutiny placed upon you from the committee.

Katie: Yeah, and if you are admitted to one school, and not both, you can still choose to go and just get one degree, and it doesn't eliminate you from both schools.

Moderator: So the joint application doesn't have a separate essay of like, what do you hope to get from both programs?

Evan: Yeah, so there are so as the, in terms of the engineering ones, there's an additional essay question that, as you and also asked for additional letter of recommendation. So something so someone can talk to your technical background, that's in particular, for engineering. I don't get too in the weeds on this particular one. But I will just say if you go to their website and look at the joint degree programs, each degree will talk about the steps of applying and if there are additional because engineering programs do have an additional letter of recommendation if you're invited to interview and additional, an additional essay question as well. that's specific to those programs. But again, but those don't, those don't invite a higher level of scrutiny. It's just really there to make sure that you're meeting the background requirements needed for those programs.

Q5: What are the outliers of age and experience, especially for admission?

Katie: We don't have, you know, age criteria. Typically, our students have about five years of work experience. So we kind of think of it more as work experience. I think, again, similar to the rounds, I would recommend to apply when you feel ready for an MBA. And when that seems like the right next step for you. If you're so advanced in your career, maybe that's not the right next step. But in terms of just your age, that's not something that we consider or penalized for.

Evan: I'll add to that is just that, We do by the time you matriculate into HBS, require that every two years a full-time job experience, but beyond that, like Katie said, we see people all over the map, and the average amount of experience is five years. So we look at it that way, but I will say to that, older candidates always ask about should I get an MBA, or should I go into exec? So I think once you get into the 10, plus years of job experience, you become a better fit for our executive education programs. And there's a bunch of different tracks within executive education that you can pursue. None of those will grant an MBA degree, they will create different certificates. But that's generally kind of how we look at it.

Q6: A question related to 2+2, How will place of employment before applying would affect my admission chances? (Government vs Consulting)

Evan: It doesn't affect. You are evaluated against people coming from the same industry as you. And so obviously, government and consulting are different industries. And so you'll be by weighted in different pools. And so your most direct competition is always the people applying from the same industry as you. So they're gonna be different backgrounds coming from each of those pools and industries and whenever now how strong that pool is going to be in a given year. But you would do would expect to see different results in for example, and government versus consulting just because they're such different backgrounds.

Q7: How are you viewing unemployment, given COVID layoffs?

Evan: I think we are an office that has empathy and is sympathetic, we understand what's going on right now in the world. And so we will not penalize you, if you've been laid off furloughed, or whatever the circumstances may be. we will judge you and evaluate your application based on what you've submitted to us with your previous work experience and will not hold any type of unemployment against you. And so I wouldn't be fearful of that holding you back in our application process. And I would just say to that, people reach out to us about ways that they're trying to take on and learn new skills and while they're unemployed, or something like that, so maybe they can speak to them that you're working on shows a great initiative on your part, that that's also never a bad thing as well. But just know that you won't be penalised for anything that happens as a result of unemployment or, or a furlough.

Katie: I'll just add to that, from a financial aid perspective, we are, very sensitive to the needs of our students in general, but also currently, and we're always working with students and staff and faculty to kind of introduce more and more financial aid programs to help assess students and even temporary financial aid programs for specific times, for example, during COVID, we're trying to offer, more financial assistance. So, that being said, we don't want finance financing to get in the way, either of you pursuing your MBA. So, we're working really hard in financial aid to increase funding opportunities for students who are less lower, less employed, or have lost their jobs, etc.

Maria (Moderator): Yeah, and one of the things I like to tell people is, remember, HBS looks for a habit of leadership. And you don't need to be employed to show leadership, right. So as long as you're demonstrating some level of initiative and leadership, wherever you are, and not just sitting around watching Netflix and eating Ben and Jerry's, there's nothing wrong with that. We all need it at times. But as long as you've been being productive with your time, I think that helps a lot. And I will also say, I'm sure I'm gonna get this question a lot today. But there was actually an admissions officer from another top school who said that she had been laid off in the 2001 downturn, so don't worry about it. Like some of the admissions officers evaluating you, they themselves may have been laid off at some point in their life. So there really is a lot of empathy there for their side.

Q8: If you have always run your own venture and never had bosses, and do not regularly deal with suppliers or customers (staff does), what sort of LOR would work?

Evan: So this is a great kind of exception to the rule that we've come across. And something that we always say here is again, that's okay. It's ultimately we don't have any type of like, specifications on who we need to have your recommenders be. So it's really up to you who you fit think fits the best, and your strategy to best present your story to the admissions board. And so this could be someone as you worked alongside with, previously. it's really anyone in your life who you feel could really speak to at this point since you don't have those traditional working relationships that we would tell others to turn to. And so whoever you think best can speak to you. All the questions that we ask the recommenders are on the website as well. So you can see that whoever you think best can answer those questions is who we would recommend. A question I always get to is can I go far back as professors for my undergraduate university? And we say, absolutely, if that's something that you wish to do, and you feel they can write really strong and compelling case value, and really give specific detail feedback on you, then great, never settle for someone who has a good name or a good title. But we want people who can give that really nuanced input on you has a good relationship with you.

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Maria (Moderator): I think that, you mentioned what those questions are. So for people who may not be familiar with it, it's basically two mini mini essays that the recommendation writer has to has to write. And so one of them is how does this person I'm paraphrasing here, but how does this person compare against their peers? What sort of impact they had on their organisation? And then the second one is talk about a time you gave the candidate feedback, presumably negative feedback and how they replied how they responded to that feedback. And so one thing i would i would say is that one of the issues that I think is an issue for professors is that they haven't seen you, they might say, like, Oh, she's really good at research, boy, oh, boy, this algorithm that she developed for my class was excellent. But that doesn't necessarily give me a huge insight into who you are as a person. So keep when you're thinking about who's going to be recommender, keep in mind what questions are being asked, and then see if you can use that to reverse engineer like, who has a good story about a time they gave me feedback, right? And you might be surprised at how many people actually can write a recommendation for you.

Q9: From an industry standpoint, what is the culture around tech? Is it mostly centered around VC, or is there an emphasis on product and entrepreneurship as well?

Katie: Well, I was actually the kind of mentioned that I love while you're asking that question, because that's a, for those who don't know, we have the Harvard Innovation Lab right on campus at HBS. And it's a Harvard-wide initiative. So people from students, faculty, and staff actually from all across the university can use the Innovation Lab. And it's a really great resource for entrepreneurs, but also a way to tap into, the expertise of people from across the university, including from CS, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, you know, there's a wide array of people involved, that you can really focus on, if you want to focus on tech, that's definitely an opportunity.

Q10: What is the value of international experience in the application? Is it sort of expected that most people have some or not really? How is that evaluated?

Evan: It's definitely not expected for every applicant to have international experience. I think that it's great if you have it, and definitely a plus, but by no means necessary. I also get question whether our international students are viewed as the same as domestic students. And the answer to that question is, yes. Everything's, it's all valued the same, but for someone who has international work experience, again, it's just something else about them. Again, we use a very holistic review process when looking over applications. And so that's just one more fact and data point about you that you're bringing to the table, and how you chose to talk about that is completely up to you. But it's never, it's not going to hurt or overly help you in any one particular situation.

Katie: Yeah, I would just add to that, once you're enrolled in the MBA program, we do think of the global experience as being very important. So there's plenty of opportunities to get international experience and some of those are required opportunities while you're here.

Q11: How can I overcome a low GPA in the admissions process?

Evan: Yeah, so great question. And something that I mentioned too. So this is a way into just a holistic review process that I just mentioned, and knowing that no one data point in your application will ever eliminate you there are no there's no minimum GPA, there are no minimum test scores, and our process. We know that there are all kinds of academic backgrounds and your academic trajectory at a college or university can definitely have bumps and bruises and tumultuous, for years. And that's okay, that doesn't define who you are and knowing that you can turn to your work experience or your letters of recommendation to help fill in those gaps or explain certain things. I mean, I think we look much more at your essay, your application, and how are you trending as a whole when we look in regards to your application, and not just this one particular data point. And I think to that, I always said that you can really help. This is where your letters of recommendation can really come in, because your letters of recommendation are the only voices in the application that's not yours. And so it's the one chance to hear from outside sources about who you are. And if someone can speak to how you overcame that or how you want to rectify that, I think that's a great opportunity, just as an example. But I really think that if you do have a low GPA, then we're definitely looking more at the other parts of your application to see kind of you an overall aggregate as a candidate.

Q12: I already have a PGP from India but now want more skills - will this help or hurt my admission chances at HBS?

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Maria (Moderator): I think it's common in india for some people to get something called like a postgraduate diploma or something in business. It tends to be like a one-year program and i think they get it sort of maybe a year or two after graduating. My impression is that it's a sort of the equivalence of masters in management so if somebody already has one of these PGPs or let's say a one-year master's in management and then several years later they want to apply to HBS, is that a good thing, or bad thing, or how does that play into the admissions decision?

Evan: I think what we're looking for in all of our candidates is a clear articulate story of why HBS and why now and how HBS fits into whatever path that you're on. And, I think if you can paint a clear picture of that, then no matter what you have credential-wise or background-wise, work experience-wise, that will make your case stronger to our admissions committee. And so I encourage applicants to think about that, as they look to apply. Really articulating why HBS, why now, why in this particular situation. I think, a common question that you would expect to receive from our admissions committee if you would make it to the interview process is, you already have this, basically equivalent of a master's in business, then why are you seeking out another, two-year business degree, essentially, you already have one? So, I think, if you can answer that, and if you have a really good answer for that, that really helps. But just thinking through that way, for all of our candidates really, in particular, would really help be beneficial.

Q13: One of the questions that are asked as part of that holistic admissions process is your salary, your salary history, what your current salary is, what your starting salary was? Why is this asked for? How do you guys look at that number?

Evan: Yeah, definitely. So that the salary question is just gathering data on those that are applying. It's not that number is not used in the evaluation process at all background data that we use to gauge where people coming in from the workforce. So do not worry about your salary. If you think it's too low, it's not used for evaluation purposes whatsoever.

Katie: Yeah, it's also not used for financial aid. So I know that this question does come up. And it's rightly so confusing, as Evan said, it is for data purposes, but I want to reiterate that the financial aid process and admissions is completely separate. So it really is a need-blind admissions process, and then you're not you don't even apply for aid until after you've been admitted. So it really truly is a completely separate evaluation.

Moderator: So I'm going to add my own twist on this question. Do people like for example, if you've got 20 people applying from Apple or from Netflix does that salary used as a relative gauge to say, like, Oh, this is how much this organization values this employee versus another? Or can it be used perhaps as a proxy to demonstrate, seeing you rising through the ranks? Or no, it really just is for data data collection purposes?

Evan: I can see how someone could view it. This is like my progression to the company and so we do want to see that, but I think we'd look more at the title and job responsibilities than we do the salary as an indicator. So it really is just centred on us collecting data for our information.

Q14: How do the candidates from the military compete?

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Moderator: And I know, this is a very specific question, but the military is its own beast, in terms of what is seniority in the military? And what roles are given out because for those of us who are civilians, it's a bit of a mystery. So how do you guys evaluate military candidates? Is there anything that you look at, in particular, for a military candidate versus not? Like, if you're looking at five different people from the army or from the Navy? Like, what what sorts of how do you differentiate between them?

Evan: I think for us the biggest thing is really looking at those transferable skills, because we do believe that, a life in the military is different than civilian life, no doubt about that. But there are a lot of transferable skills that are applicable and can make a lasting impact, and your contribution to the classroom and just the general work, the larger working force, wherever you go back to once you leave HBS. And so I think having the ability to translate those skills for the military and be able to apply them into the real world, business working life is what we look for. We've seen military applicants for years now so we really know what we can really look to and lean on for some skills that are really valuable in the classroom. And so I also tell military applicants that sometimes they struggle with the best way to articulate their skills. And I think sometimes they open it, they overthink it. And I think being able to find a seamless way to translate your experience into an experience that we can relate to and just bringing out those skills, I think is the most important thing a military applicant can do.

Q15: Can you talk about the advantages of the case method for learning about business?

Katie: It's an extremely interactive format of learning. You're completely engaged, and you're communicating with people who have different opinions than you. So not only are you learning from your peers, but you're also learning how to communicate and work with people who have different opinions. And I think that's really important. I'll say, luckily for our staff, we get to sit in and do some classes sometimes. And I'll also add that it's really fun way to learn. As somebody who's most of my education was kind of lecture-based, it's a real, obviously a twist on that. And it's it's very fun.

Moderator: Yeah, I agree. And I'll just I'll quickly add, because I've thought about this, why is it that I love the HBS so much, and I hated my engineering undergrad so much. And I think part of it is because when you're raising your hand and you're debating against others, you have an emotional commitment to your opinion, right? You're like you've thought about this opinion, you're really, you know, you wouldn't raise your hand and offer if you didn't think there was merit to it. And so when somebody either agrees with you or disagrees with you, I think there's a much deeper emotional connection, and that's why I think you remember things. That's why 15 years later, I remember the cranberry case. 15 years later, I remember all of these different cases because of that. So I'm a huge fan of the case method. And I'm also a huge fan of HBS. And so I would like to really thank Katie and Evan for being here today. This ends this session but thanks guys!

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[Text Transcript] YouTube Q&A with HBS Adcom - MBA Spotlight Oct 2020

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