Whether you have already applied to HBS in Round 1 and are hoping for an interview invitation, or are getting ready to apply in Round 2, we thought this would be a good time to share some more in-depth advice about what HBS looks for in its applicants. Obviously, Harvard is highly selective and can afford to look for “perfect” candidates. In addition to the common metrics such as GPA and GMAT score, the school specifies a handful of qualities and traits that it seeks in an applicant.
There are three things that HBS looks for its its applicants. These may seem obvious, but they’re all extremely important in successfully applying to HBS:
- A History of Leadership.As mentioned in the HBS Approach, the business school is highly focused on leadership. Professional leadership experience is the most common and transferable, but extracurricular, personal, and community leadership accomplishments and qualities are recognized as well.
- High Potential for Intellectual Growth. This is the portion of the HBS admissions process that puts a candidate’s undergraduate performance (reputation of institution, major, course work, GPA, trends, and so on) and GMAT scores under a microscope, to ensure that the candidate can thrive in the demanding case method-based courses. While HBS does not state a preferred major or career path, it demands a comfort with and aptitude for quantitative, analytical, and communication skills.
- A Record of Community Engagement. This element is as simple as it sounds: HBS is looking for people who have shown the ability to impact their communities and who will continue to do so both as a student and an alumnus. While this can be demonstrated in a host of settings and ways, paramount is a sincere commitment to helping others, viewed as an integral component of the responsibilities of leadership.
Showing all three of these attributes in your application won’t automatically earn you a spot at Harvard Business School, but NOT demonstrating these traits is a sure way not to gain admission. Think carefully about how persuasively you can demonstrate all of these attributes when you build your Harvard Business School candidacy.
If you want to learn more about Harvard, take a look at Veritas Prep’s HBS Annual Report, one of 15 completely free guides to the world’s top business schools. And, as always, be sure to follow us on Twitter!
Categories: HBS · Harvard
Have you just finished and submitted your Round 1 applications? Time to finally sit back, relax, and wait for the interview invitations to come streaming in, right? Not exactly! Believe it or not, the months and weeks after you submit your applications can still be very critical in shaping your chances of admissions success.
Why? Because whether you are invited to interview (an almost mandatory first step before being admitted to most top MBA programs), get waitlisted, or are rejected, you always want to keep building your resume. That means seeking out new opportunities on the job or continuing your community involvement. If you get invited to interview, imagine how good it will feel to have significant new accomplishments — that you haven’t already covered in your essays or resume — to talk about. If you get waitlisted, such new experiences can provide a great reason to contact the admissions office and provide an update on your candidacy. And, if you’re rejected, then continuing to pile on accomplishments will make you that much more appealing as an applicant next year. Although you may feel like you’ve been working forever, the fact is that you’re probably still a young professional, and a few months can still have a big impact on your career when you only have a few years of work experience.
Another thing you should do is start preparing for your interviews. By the time you’re invited (if you’re invited), you should already know your application inside and out. Some schools conduct their interviews “blind,” with the interviewer only knowing your resume, while other schools’ interviewers will know your entire application. In either case, anything that you put on your resume or in your application is fair game, and you should expect to be questioned about any of it. Also, it’s your job to know what the school’s interviewers tend to ask — you have enough time to prepare that nothing should catch you off guard. As soon as you’re done working on your applications, direct your energy toward this important next step in the process.
Taking these steps will help to maximize your success this year, or — if you’re not successful now — they will give you a head start for next year.
If you’re still researching schools and deciding to apply, or are getting ready for your own admissions interviews, download Veritas Prep’s 15 free Veritas Prep Annual Reports. And, as always, be sure to follow MBA Game Plan on Twitter!
Categories: mba admissions
In the MBA admissions process, letters of recommendation can be the toughest part. That’s because they’re the part of the application over which you have the least control. The GMAT is intimidating since it all comes down to how you perform in a few hours in one sitting, and your undergraduate transcripts are in the past, so there’s nothing you can do to change them, but all of these things are determined by you (and can be overcome or mitigated with some work). When it comes to letters of recommendation, however, you’re putting your future in someone else’s hands. Even if that person adores you and wants to see you get into a top business school, he may have no idea of what he’s doing when it comes to helping you get in!
While a lot of factors go into creating a terrific letter of recommendation for a business school application, here are three ways in which recommendations frequently go wrong:
- A lack of enthusiasm.While your recommendation writer shouldn’t sound like a raving lunatic, he should sound as if he really, really cares about whether or not you get into the target school. If this person is so invested in whether or not you get in, clearly he must care a great deal about you, and business schools want applicants who forge strong ties with those around them. If your recommendation writer seems “blah” about whether or not you get in, and doesn’t think you’ve earned the highest possible ratings (for recommendations that ask the person to rate the applicant on a scale), admissions officers will wonder if you’re the type of person who just leaves a trail of “blah” in your wake. No business school wants that. The more that your recommendation writer shows that he really cares about your success, the better that reflects on you as an applicant.
- Vague, general statements. Some question prompts will ask for specific examples of leadership, teamwork, problem-solving abilities, and so on. Many won’t ask for specifics, but that doesn’t mean your recommendation writer doesn’t need to provide them. Which do you think is more compelling? “This applicant is a great leader,” vs. “This applicant is a great leader, as demonstrated by the time last year when he stepped in for a departed manager and led a team of six analysts to complete a project on time and save a critical client relationship.” Just as they do in your own admissions essays, specific examples help to make these important traits more concrete and believable in admissions officers’ minds.
- Inconsistency with the rest of your application. While the above two failings catch many more amateurish applicants, this one is where even savvy applicants sometimes see their candidacies fall apart. If your essays stress how much you want to shift away from investment management and move into the non-profit sector, but your supervisor writes about how she knows how badly you want an MBA so that you can accelerate your career in finance, that will raise a red flag for admissions officers. Either you’re not being honest with the school, or you’re not telling your supervisor your true intentions. You can avoid these kinds of red flags by outlining your key application themes and walking your recommendation writers through them. While we firmly believe that your recommendation writers need to write their own letters, this advance preparation is smart and necessary.
For more help with your MBA letters of recommendation, call the admissions experts at Veritas Prep at 800-925-7737. And, as always, be sure to follow MBA Game Plan on Twitter!
Categories: Recommendations
