How to Get In

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How to Get In: Harvard Business School
What can you do to set yourself apart in your application? Admissions
officials have the answers.
April 15, 2010 SHARE
We posed questions to admissions officials at Harvard Business School regarding the application
process, what they look for in applicants and what sets their school apart. These are their
responses:
1. What can applicants do to set themselves apart from their peers?
The mission of Harvard Business School is to educate leaders who will make a difference in the
world. Accordingly, we try to assemble a class of talented leaders with different backgrounds and
perspectives, but common qualities. Some of those qualities are intellectual curiosity, initiative,
sense of purpose, energy, personal maturity, the ability to work with others in a community, and a
moral compass that points true north.
2. What do you look for in the application essays? What do the essays tell you about a
candidate?
Through the essays and the rest of the application (including the letters of recommendation), we are
trying to get to know you as a person, so we want to hear your voice coming through loud and clear
in the essays. At the same time, a candidate shouldn't go "over the top" to stand out, writing what he
or she thinks we want to hear, or presenting a persona that has nothing to do with reality, or a list of
accomplishments that stretch the imagination. This is not an essay-writing context, but, again, a way
for us to get to know you.
3. How important is the applicant's GMAT score? How do you weight it against
undergraduate GPA and work experience? Which of these carry the most weight? The least?
ALL of these are part of the mosaic of credentials that we are assessing in our admissions process.
There is no rank order to them. There is no minimum score required on the GMAT or GRE. That
said, in trying to assess quantitative ability, we are looking for strong numeracy—an ability as well as
an eagerness to dig into the numbers to get them to tell a story. GMAT and GRE scores can be
useful in confirming quantitative/analytical competence when viewed in conjunction with work
experience and course work.
4. How much does prior work/internship experience weigh into your decision making? What's
the typical or expected amount of work experience from an applicant?
We teach by the case method. A case is a slice of real business life—a narrative about real people
in real organizations with real problems to address. We believe that this learning model relies on
participants who bring a real world perspective to the class discussions in a school that prides itself
on being close to practice rather than theory. Currently, the average age of our entering students is
26. But we're not looking for students who merely want to reminisce about how things were done
when they were at Company X. In our classes, there is no right answer, no one way of responding to
an issue. We want our students to think analytically and boldly about the ways a problem can be
addressed. I'd also like to call prospective candidates' attention to a program we launched a few
years ago called HBS 2+2. This innovative program is geared toward college students majoring in
fields such as science or government who might not have thought about the many career options
that a Harvard M.B.A. can lead to. These days, after all, business is just as likely to be conducted in
a biotech lab as in an office. With 2+2, students apply at the end of their junior year in college and
are offered a deferred admission in the fall of their senior year. After receiving their bachelor's
degree, they spend two years working at a job approved and perhaps even facilitated by the HBS
Admissions Office. After that, they are ready to begin their two-year HBS experience. Our goal at
present is for 10 percent of our some 900 entering students to enter the School via the 2+2 Program.
5. What sets you apart from other schools? What can students gain from your school that
they might not be able to find anywhere else?
We have extraordinary faculty members, with an enormous breadth and depth of expertise and a
commitment to the highest quality of teaching. Our facilities are something to write home about as
well—33 buildings (including one of the world's finest business libraries) on a 40-acre campus near
the rest of Harvard University and the hustle and bustle of Boston. We are all part of a residential
community80 percent of our students live on campuswhere everybody teaches, everybody learns
both inside and outside the classroom. Our alumni network of more than 70,000 graduates around
the globe is made up of men and women in positions of considerable responsibility in both the for-
profit and non-for-profit sectors. This really is a very special place.


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