Harvard Business School

Harvard is known for acknowledging only the many professional pupils, most college students who are accepted for you to Harvard Business School have accomplished not just good grades, yet are actually sure to meet the special specifications of the school. Below are great tips which can help your current HBS application process.

A college degree is really a requirement for HBS entry, and achieving in which level coming from a higher education of business gives you an edge around students involving non-business educational institutions. Nonetheless, as long as you have a very 4 year college degree regardless of the sort you'll satisfy this primary prerequisite. The next suggestion so you can get straight into HBS is certainly one which will must be pursued within your school career. Getting involved with both college student govt or even a local community organization in certain form of management capability might be a helpful method to make an impression on the actual HBS acceptance officials.

A few other strategies for engaging in Harvard Business School will be based on on the environment with the school themselves. HBS is seeking pupils who have onward contemplating and curious minds. They're therefore in search of people who are willing to find out together with great passion, and also who will be in addition ready to issue along with debate different ways associated with studying. Harvard individuals are required to be able to positively participate in classroom talks where you can lot of interaction using equally their class mates along with their course instructors, therefore college students which display a desire for an advanced level associated with class room conversation can have HBS acceptance officers that they are perfect to the type of studying in which Harvard supporters.

17 Friend Updates

Many of you have asked for updates on my friends that I’ve spoken about and where they are going to school.  I can report on this information now because I believe there’s just one who is still deciding and I have no idea what the outcome of THAT decision would be! 

Here are the acceptances.  If you want to be in contact with any of my friends who are going to these schools because they’ll be your classmates, just shoot me an email.  The people in quotation marks are more of acquaintances.

Friend 1 - Accepted to UT Austin and Duke Fuqua - attending UT Austin

Friend 2 - Accepted to Columbia - attending Columbia

Friend 3 - Accepted to Indiana and Duke Fuqua - attending Duke

Friend 4 - Accepted to Cornell and Chicago Booth - attending Chicago

Friend 5 - Accepted to Darden and Tuck - attending Tuck

Friend 6 - Accepted to (not sure all of the schools) - attending Tuck

Friend 7 - Accepted to Columbia, Chicago, Tuck, Wharton - still deciding

“Friend” 8 - Accepted to Wharton, Stanford, HBS - attending Stanford

Friend 9 - Accepted to HBS - attending HBS (withdrew apps)

Friend 10 - Accepted to NYU, Chicago, Columbia, Emory, Georgetown - attending NYU

Friend 11 - Accepted to Cornell - attending Cornell

“Friend” 12 - Accepted to Cornell and UNC - attending UNC

Friend 13 - Accepted to Cornell, Darden, Tuck - attending Tuck

Friend 14 - Accepted to Cornell, Indiana, (and I think Kellogg) - attending Cornell

Friend 15 - Accepted to Cornell (not sure of all the schools) - attending Cornell

Friend 16 - Accepted to Duke & Cornell - attending Duke (i’m still bitter)

Friend 17 - Accepted to Duke & Cornell - also attending Duke

Those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.  I think we did pretty well if I may say so myself!  GO US!

I’m sure I forgot some folks in there too because I know there is another HBSer in there... some Kellogg folks... maybe 1 more Wharton.

To those people on the waitlists!  Just remember that while these people have decided that they are going to these schools, it does not mean that they have withdrawn their applications at other schools.  I’m not sure what makes someone withdraw  an app on say a Tuesday vs. a Thursday or something, but yeah... just keep holding out on that waitlist if you can!  I mentioned it before but at the end of this month there are going to be a lot of application withdraws so maybe your application will be one that they ultimately chose!  I have a friend who got off the waitlist at Cornell and another one who got off the waitlist at Wharton!  It’s possible!  

CHEERS!

"Oh I went to Harvard Business School"

My last post seemed to resonate with a lot of people... Who knew that so many people felt the same thing I did when about to hit "Submit" for an application, whether it be their final application or a diversity application?  I didn't have a chance to write a post yesterday because it was perhaps the busiest day of my life!  I didn't even have time to eat until 11:30PM!

Of course I was rushing to get my Cornell Diversity application submitted before 11:59.  For some reason my Resume PDF was still opening in the incorrect format, so I was freaking out.  I use a Mac, so I had to find a friend who has a pc, which was very difficult.  I had to start facebooking friends I haven't spoke with in a while to see if they could help me out and open the pdf to see if it worked.  Inevitably, I got it completed and submitted.  Definitely a huge relief to have no more essays to worry about until my actual essays are due.

HBS Coworker

Today was an interesting day at work.  I had a seminar/meeting/workshop all day from 9am-6pm.  I was only at my desk for 15 minutes during our lunch break checking emails.  It was a dimensional personal skills workshop required by those who are on a track for only god knows what.  Not everyone goes, but certain people are invited.  Whatever the case may be I attended.  It basically dealt with the 4 quadrants and dealing with people who are Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4, where everyone strives to be a Q4 because they are collaborators and get things done.  

In any event, that's no the reason I wanted to tell you this story.  So during one session there was a comment made by a girl at my table and I said to myself "That was a response of an MBA graduate."  I wish I remembered the exact thing that she said, but I have only heard it recently as I go through this process.  So then later we were talking about what she did previously before Bloomingdale's and she said she was in I-banking and then went back to school.  I asked "Did you go to b-school?"  I mean granted that's the natural progression for someone in I-banking right?  She replied "Yes..." so of course my next question was "Where did you go?"  She said "Harvard."  I was taken back, but then put all the pieces together and could see how that was the case.  Then she pointed to another girl in the class and said that she went to Wharton.  

I told her that I thought she went to B-school because of what she said earlier and she laughed and said yeah... there's definitely a thought process one learns are HBS.  Then we started talking about my applications... .ehr experiences... $$$ that I-Bankers make... etc etc..  As I was on the bus coming home (I take the crosstown bus because then I don't have to walk 3 avenues from the subway), I was thinking of my next blog post for later tonight.  There's definitely this microcosm of MBA's and I feel as though I'm staring at the world through a bubble, anxiously waiting to pop it and become a part of that world.

For now though, I'm going to watch two episodes of House Hunters on hulu.com and then eat... and then study.  So until later folks!

Guest Blogger (Osirus) - His Story! Pt 2

Short and sweet... Here is Part 2 of Brandon's Guest Blog Post...Read Part One Here

Giving People Advice and Having them not take it...

Once I started MLT, I was basically my cohort’s go to GMAT tutor.  I have spent many hours at the Harold Washington library in Chicago helping members of my cohort with the GMAT.  The biggest thing I would try to impart to people that would take was to develop a systematic approach to each question type.  I think this is probably the most important thing that anyone could do to help improve their score, and I was just surprised by how people just didn’t get that.  The people I would help would put in a lot of time to study but would get frustrated that they weren’t seeing results.  The main thing that you have to do is be intentional with your study.  When you are studying math don’t just do a random set of problems.  If you struggle with divisibility problems, make sure every math day you are doing at least 2 divisibility problems.  You have to be intentional and you have to develop an approach.  On test day, anxiety will play a role in your test day experience, this is why having an approach will be very helpful because anxiety won’t be able to steal your moment.

Another thing that people don’t do that I tell them to do is to have complete faith in themselves. The only way that you can achieve a top score is to have an unwavering faith that you are capable.  Once you allow fear and doubt to take over your thoughts, your chances of a top score decrease dramatically.  Confidence is huge.  Even when I was only scoring 550s on my practice tests, I knew that I was going to get above a 700.  You have to truly believe in yourself.  Richard wrote a post about how introspective essays are, but in many ways, I think preparing for the GMAT is introspective as well.  Everyone hits a wall in which they stop making progress or even regress some.  It is at those times you have to make a choice not to doubt yourself and believe that you are capable of achieving your score.  You have to believe that you belong at HBS, or that you belong at Wharton, or that you belong at Tepper.    

Watching people deal with the pressure of the GMAT and application deadlines...

When I watch people struggle with the pressure of the GMAT and watch people freak out I think that they are playing things wrong.  I think the people that are doing essays and studying at the same are doing themselves a disservice.  I think the biggest thing that people don’t realize is that it is better to apply round 2 with your highest GMAT score, than to rush the GMAT to apply round 1 and leave 20-30 points on the table.  From what I have observed, the biggest reason most people are rushing and stressing out is a result of them having too many schools that they are applying to.  This is not undergrad.  You should not be targeting 7 plus schools.  There are probably not 7 schools that you would actually attend.  I think if people had a more manageable list of schools they would have a better perspective that they can get the GMAT done by mid-November, and still have more than enough time to do a great job on their essays for round 2.

In Closing...

I want to add something that most readers will never have heard before that I think would be useful.  Well here it is.  After setting your time table for studying and taking the test, add two weeks.  You want to add two weeks to focus on your STRENGTHS.  The one thing I learned about the CAT is that what’s difficult for you may not be difficult for others and vice versa.  What does this mean for you?  A CAT can make a topic that is normally a strength for you a weakness.  I remember on my second attempt, I got a a ratios problem.  I always considered ratios a strength, and as a result, I didn’t focus too much on them in the last few weeks of my prep.  I got a problem on the test that dealt with surface areas and areas and the ratios.  It was so awkward that I know I got it wrong.  

I think you should spend at least 2 weeks seeking out overly difficult problems in areas that you consider to be an area of strength for you.  Getting you to miss problems that you are normally strong at is the strength of the GMAC and CATs in general.  That is the one thing I wish I had done before my last attempt, because I feel that it would have gotten me into the 99th percentile.  Seek out problems that will be difficult in areas that you think are strengths.  This will help to ensure that you bank all of the points that you should bank on the exam.

When most people think about getting really difficult 700-800 level problems, they envision really difficult probability or combinatorics problems.  The reality is that if those two areas are still weaknesses after you have studied for 3 months, odds are they will remain weaknesses.  During my prep, I thought I was strong at rate problems.  I could answer almost all of the rate problems I encountered.  I got thrown off though, when I encountered a rate problem that incorporated geometry.  It was a problem involving a circular track and that made the problem a lot more difficult than most other rate problems.  

With a CAT you can't choose your 700-800 level problems, and there is a good chance that you will encounter problems that you previously considered to be strengths packaged in such a way that you will miss them.  I truly believe that the reason for the 30 point standard deviation is that people miss problems that they thought were strengths because the GMAC gives them the problem in a package that they aren't used to seeing.

Inside Harvard Business School

Hello... this may be my shortest post ever but I just wanted to share this with you guys.  I've watched this CNBC Original about 10 times since it first aired on TV.  It's been on Hulu.com for a while now and I just wanted to share the link in case anyone has 45 minutes to watch.  It's pretty cool, insightful, and inspiring.

Inside Harvard Business School: http://bit.ly/InsideHBS

I'll post an update on my life tomorrow...  Enjoy!  ;-)

510 GMAT Admitted to HBS!

Hola!  So I was reading an article that came through my Google reader the other day.  What caught my eye was that the:

Preliminary Class of 2012 at HBS: GMAT range was 510-790!

Full Profile:  http://bit.ly/HBS2012Profile

Granted the mean GMAT was a 724 but I just thought it was great to see that yes GMAT isn't everything.  I'm sure this person had a very compelling application or has been to space! J/K I'm sure it's very very well deserved!

Anyway - I found that to be very interesting and I thought I would share with you folks!  Back to what's going on in my GMAT world...

So today I finally cracked open the Veritas CR book again.  I'll be honest in that I was apprehensive about tackling CR again.  When I took the class last month we were doing more advanced CR problems and they were throwing me for a loop.  I guess I got discouraged with it, but I know that with this test... if you have a weakness you cannot let it get the best of you otherwise the test will!

So tonight I went through the end of the Geometry guide.  I must admit that some of them stumped me.  There was one question asking about something shaped like a Toblerone box... you know... not quite a cylinder or a rectangular box... yeah they threw in a triangular shaped figure and wanted me to find out the area of the triangle or something like that... I didn't know the formula so I gave up on that one.  When I looked at the explanation it looked pretty standard!

Michigan Ross?

Let's see.. let's see.. what else is going on in my world?  Oh.. I signed up to attend a Michigan Ross information session at the Kaplan center here in NY on 7/19.  I'm kind of excited to go... but I get excited about going to any information session.  I'm interested in Ross for a couple reasons.  My two new friends 

(Remember back to when I started talking to the kids in the train station after our Yale SOM visit - Here's the link to that Blogpost: http://bit.ly/YaleSOMVisit) 

In any event... they're both going to Ross and they keep telling me that I would love it and that I should visit.  I did some research into the curriculum and what not and the main takeaway is that my favorite color is Blue, so I can see myself there for two years.  Of course you guys will get an update on how it goes...  

That's all she wrote tonight!

5000th Visitor!!! Special Guest!

I have surpassed the 5000 visitor mark! 

It's an exciting feat for me. You guys have kept me motivated and I love the little community that we have going on here!  I actually had no idea that my blog would become as popular as it is.  It initially started out as a venue for me to record my ideas in preparation for b-school essays.  It has evolved into an online diary and you guys have been great in keeping me focused!  I know I have been missing in action lately, but I have been incredibly busy...but that's ok right?

I'll give you guys some statistics about my blog, because some people have been curious:
Total Visits - 5,395
Most Visits in 1 Day = 250 - this was the day I posted my GMAT debrief!
Top Countries = United States -> India -> Canada
Top States = New York -> Canada
Top Referring Site = www.BeatTheGMAT.com

SPECIAL GUEST

On another note I would like to give something back to you guys for the continuous support.  Way back in one of my previous posts I received a comment from my now friend - Brett Nowak.  I think it was my Dartmouth post that caught his eye.  I don't remember the exact post and quite honestly don't feel like searching for it haha.  In any event, we bonded over the fact that he was admitted to Tuck! Yes... I'm jealous.  He and I have kept in touch since March because I think he's a great resource.

Brett Nowak - owner of www.IvyAppSuccess.com:

• Graduated Harvard in ’03 where he played varsity hockey and started the Harvard Fly Fishing club
• Drafted by the NHL then play professional hockey in the AHL for 2.5 years
• After hockey, I helped build Meteor Solutions, Inc., an angle funded startup, into a profitable company as the Business Development Manager 
• Was accepted into Tuck school of business in ‘09
• Caught a 17lbs Steelhead on a fly rod, a big accomplishment for an obsessed fly fisher like me
• Deferred a year from business school to start Ivy App Success and IAS Recruiting
• Attending Tuck this fall

Aside from having another person to meet when I get back up to visit Tuck in the fall, I think he can offer all of us some incredible advice over the next couple of months.  It's nice to be able to pick the brain of a student who just went through the application process.  Last month I told Brett about my upcoming 5,000th visitor as a thank you to you guys... and to him for the advice he's given me.

Disclaimer - "I'm asked to promote a lot of things via my blog, but I feel that I should be candid about anything that I post so it does not seem like it's not genuine.  I asked Brett to answer the questions below, because for me he's been a great resource since March and I wanted to share the wealth!"

Me:  Why did you choose to start IvyAppSuccess.com?

Brett:  There were many reasons why I started Ivy App Success but initially it was because I wanted to make it easier for people to apply to business school. 

The biggest reason why most people don’t get accepted is that they don’t apply or don’t apply well. I wanted to share my knowledge and abilities with others so that they too would get accepted into top business schools (regardless of their GMAT and GPA). 

I also spent time thinking about what type of business I wanted to start and what valuable skills I had. Since I had helped people get accepted into school even before I was accepted, I was very confident that I would be a strong admissions consultant and knew that I enjoyed the work. 

This year, I will provide more tools that facilitate the application process. I’ll be writing more tutorials and providing an online application management tool to help more people finish their own great applications.

Me:  As a student who has been through this process that many of us are looking forward to ending, can you tell me what you wish you knew when you were applying?  Why?

Brett:  I wish I had spent more time picking the right schools. There are a ton of great schools out there and although I picked a great one, I could have explored my options further.

I also wish that I had applied to some schools with the goal of getting accepted and receiving a scholarship. I would have applied to two top 40 schools, possibly in a later round, with the hope that I would get a decent scholarship offer. To me, a free MBA degree from a 35^th ranked school is comparable to a degree from a top 5 school that costs $180,000. I would have liked to have this option.

Me:  It seems as though there a lot of people who know they will be applying this upcoming season.  Even though applications have not come out yet, is there anything that one can do to prepare for application season?

Brett:  First, get the GMAT over and done with now. Take it twice and get a great score so that you don’t have to worry about it while you’re writing the essays and application.

Second, start to network the crap out of each school. The more people you know at or graduated from your target school the more likely you’ll get accepted. These contacts can give you valuable information on how to apply and sometimes even write in on your behalf. Reach out to them now so that you’ve built a relationship with them early. 

Me:  Let's say I'm an international applicant and did not get the best score on the Verbal portion of the GMAT nor did I score in the 50th percentile on the AWA section.  What, if anything, can I do to show competency in the English language?

Brett:  Write great essays and really practice for the interview. Take language classes or practice regularly to prepare for the interview because if you can’t communicate well in the interview, you’ll have a hard time getting accepted. Plus, this class will be a nice extracurricular activity on the application.

Then let your recommenders compensate for your poor Verbal score. Suggest to them to possibly mention things about your ability to communicate. And finally, include classes on your resume or extracurricular activities that demonstrate where you demonstrated English skills.

Me:  What's the highest GMAT score you've heard of being rejected from a top business school?  What's the lowest score you heard of that was accepted to a top business school?  

Brett:  Someone I know was waitlisted from Tuck with a 720 on his first GMAT attempt. I told him that he should take the GMAT again but he decided against it. When he talked to Adcom, they said he was waitlisted because of his GMAT score. As for the lowest, I believe there was a 580 person who got accepted into HBS last year. 

Me:  Piggybacking off of question 5 - Can you explain what a "Hollistic approach" is and how important is one's story in the application process?

Brett:  A better way to think about the “Holistic approach” is that the application process is a zero-sum competition, which means that you must beat other applicants for a set number of spots. For example, if you get a 720 on the GMAT and 500 other applicants get a 720, you are now tied with 500 other applicants for a class of 200. Therefore, to get accepted into a top school you must find areas – the holistic parts - of the application to BEAT THE COMPETITION. These are the areas that get you accepted into top business schools. 

Brett can be reached via www.IvyAppSuccess.com... You can also sign up for the newsletter which is very informative.  

An MBA Degree makes me a what?

So guys this will be my last post forever!  Lies...  actually no...  I'm approaching a milestone so my next post... won't really be MY post!  But more to come on that later...

So the title of this post is in response to a conversation I was having with a coworker today.  She was talking about how her brother just graduated from Law School last week and he can't find a job.  While we were in the elevator going back up to the office somehow the topic of debt that people accrue from business school and how one pays it back.

She said - "yeah when you go to Law school.. you're on your way to become a Lawyer.... when you go to Medical school you're on your way to becoming a Doctor... what do become when you graduate from business school?"

I said - "you become broke from the $100k+ debt you've just accrued?"

Of course this is something that I've thought about quite frequently.  I mean for us on this business school journey, of course we need to know WHY we would like to obtain an MBA so any of us could answer that question.

Then I simplified it even further for her.  I said "We are essentially paying $100k+ to add three letters to our resume!"  I mean think about it... once we graduate from B-school, we can't call ourselves doctors or take another exam and then call ourselves lawyers...  All we can do is put our recent Alma Mater on a piece of paper (at the bottom no less), with a date and MBA.

I guess one benefit to having an MBA degree is being able to come into a new company and decide ones fate.  So this is happening to me right now at work.  So let me take you back just a little bit... long story short... I've been having discussions with the VP of my division about a promotion/title change.  In all honestly this isn't because I'm looking to go to business school and think I need it for my resume.  My resume is strong already.  This promotion/title change is long overdue.

So the VP (who knows about my MBA plans) basically told me to create my ideal position and write a job description for it and then we'll take it from there.  So I did just that... I created a Sr. position for myself, unfortunately it's not a managerial role/title because at my company they're very stingy with those.  In any event, I gave her the document two Friday's ago.  Just yesterday I went into her office at the end of the day and asked her if she had a chance to review it.  She said that she did and that she was getting thoughts on it from my new director.

Now this is where the MBA degree comes in I guess.  So my new director started in the end of April.  She has her MBA from Kellogg.  Very smart woman.  But in essence she has only known me for a short period of time so how can she really know if I'm fit for this position?  I'm not sure how this is all going to pan out, but I am hopeful.

Also, the VP doesn't know... or maybe she does know now... but before speaking to her about creating this new position, I spoke with my director and asked her if she thought it was a good idea and she did.  Keep your fingers crossed for me guys!

Friend from HBS:  On another note... do you guys remember when I visited HBS in April for the LGBT open house?  Well an interesting story about that... at the reception at the end of the Day I spoke briefly with this current 2nd year who was also in Retail as I am.  Granted he was on the buying/merchandising side, whereas I'm in digital marketing.  In any event, shortly after I got home from the event, I found him on LinkedIn and we became contacts.

So last week, a girl who left my job and went to a competitor to be e-commerce manager, updated her LinkedIn profile with her company, and I guess this HBS student saw it in his feed.  He emailed me and told me that he was now in NYC and was looking to make a contact at that company.  I was glad to make an introduction to her for him.  So I wrote the introductory email... sent it over to her and cc'ed him on it.

Then we made plans to meet for coffee since he's in Union Square.  So this past Tuesday after work I hopped on the 6 train downtown and met him at Starbucks.  It was phenomenal to get the chance to talk to him.  He was telling me how the HBS degree opens pretty much any door that you want it to but once you're in you have to be able to back it up.  So that's where he is right now...

We also talked about the schools that I want to apply too.. he said he got into HBS, Wharton, and Columbia.  The main thing that he said to me that resonates is that I should not underestimate the LGBT community at each school.  I guess I was minimizing this in my head, but the more I think about it, the more he has a point.  I mean why shouldn't he?  He just went through the whole process.  So for instance the total LGBT community (1st and 2nd years) at HBS is about 40 strong, whereas at Tuck it's about 12.  So the network one could build from HBS is incredibly stronger than that at Tuck.  In any event, I won't go more into this now, because this blog post has been all over the place.

Later Peeps...  GO LAKERS!

Sidenote - I LOVE STUDYING... finally got back into the swing of things!