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can you share your background, gmat etc with us?
2 years of banking at a bulge bracket + 2 years of PE at a megafund. 770 GMAT
Sounds like you'll get a serious look based purely on work experience. What were your 'hooks' or extracurriculars?
Very solid. You have at least a 50-60% chance of getting in. Best of luck!
With this background would be very surprised if you didn't get an interview.
What do you want to do after B school?
submitted last night too. agreed - not as much of a relief as i was hoping. got 4 more to complete in R1. this whole process is a crap shoot
It's really not much of a crap shoot. If you have a prestigious/selective job which indicates you have the potential to make a lot of money down the road, give some of it back to the school, and help place new graduates in said prestigious/selective job, then the top tier schools will want you.
MBA admissions is all about what you can do for them.
This is correct. It's much less of a crapshoot than elite undergrad admissions.
hope youre right, i just know too many people exactly like me that have been dinged while a ton of others that look just like me get in (aka crap shoot)
non-target w high gpa / 740 gmat. ibd --> 3 years in mm PE at time of matriculation
me too, good luck, hopefully it goes well
sent in mine. Background is on here somewhere and both my recommendations are HBS alum who are investors in my firm.
Do you think that these recommendations will make a huge difference?
Not going to hurt
Mind sharing your GMAT?
680
Also sent in mine for R1. Feels good to have one off my plate!
Tossed in my application, too. Good luck to everyone applying!
Couple questions to the group:
Most of the PE and hedge fund guys i know applied round 1. This is just conjecture, but I think the round 1 applicant pool is a bit stronger than round 2.
i am far from PE/HF but all the corp fin people i know are applying R1 as well this year
I am tossing a late hail Mary at Stanford
Same - painful two weeks ahead.
Of the friends and co-workers I know who are applying to business school, all except one are applying in R1.
I'm tossing in R1 applications for HBS and Stanford. If I get bad news from both schools, I'm still figuring out whether I'll apply elsewhere in R2... currently leaning no.
I applied.
Top BB -> founder of tech startup. Will be interesting to see how they view my profile.
Plan on applying to Stanford R1 as well.
720, 3.4, research. I founded a "pour one out for Brady" pledge drive during orientation that raised money for "good times" awareness. I hope that the 4 cases of room temperature Keystone Light were enough to put me into an admittance type situation. Someone's life is about to change forever.
Lol, I hope plenty of bunny rabbit like behavior was involved, so that personal transformations could be had by the less fortunate.
All my friends at MBB are applying R1 as well.
How many of you guys have used admissions consultants to prepare your application?
From my experience, 80% of what you get from them is available for free on their blogs, sites, or forums like these. They advertise their services so heavily that they give away too much info on what they provide. As long as you're a) a coherent writer and b) have dedicated some serious mental energy to reflecting on your experiences and goals, combining the two in written form is a stimulating exercise -- challenging but doable.
Personally, I don't see the allure of paying thousands of dollars for a service like that when so many admissions committees are really streamlining the process. With HBS in particular, it's clear that the essays, recommendations, and interview are the critical components you really need to execute on.
Your grades, GMAT, and work experience are history at this point. Given their single optional essay, I really think they are now using the written application as a means of winnowing the candidates down to a number manageable enough to interview.
If you wanted to pay for a consultant, that would be the point. Don't do it before getting an interview. Once you have one scheduled, then use a consultant (like Sandy) who will help you understand all that you don't understand about what the adcom wants to find out in those 30 precious minutes.
Then again, that's just me. Your mileage may vary.
While I agree with most of what you said, I think that having someone look at you at your experience etc and maybe point out weaknesses that they see based on their experience working with 100s of applicants beforehand, may be useful. Personally, I could probably point out one or two weak points in my profile that would handicap my application, but I am sure that I would not be able to do as good of a jobs as Sandy for example.
On that note, I went with a consultant. I consider myself as knowledgeable as anyone about the application process, having basically read everything there is to read that's out there. I took the GMAT a year and a half ago, and since have been very deeply involved in trying to become the most well-read applicant possible. I also did a ton of free consultations to try to find the best consultant, and completley agree that of the ~10 I talked to, maybe two gave me anything of value, and only one really impressed me. I was quite close to going into it alone because of how unimpressed I was by so many of the consultants. Where I really disagree with your sentiments are that the good ones can draw things out of you that you didn't even realize were part of your story, while also coaching you on how to improve your situation.
I have not gotten in yet. However, I think it's insane to discount the essays. MAYBE at HBS this year, the essay means less. To me, that's a huge maybe. As you said, it's a weed out process to figure out who gets an interview. Well holy shit, that's just about the most important part of your application then, assuming you meet the general academic/work experience criteria. And that's just HBS. When you get down to the next few schools (Wharton/CBS/Sloan/Whoever else), there is no question that essays are enormously important.
If you're not a 10/10 applicant, and have some sort of weakness in your profile, you damn well better be interesting. AdCom's have to sell the applications they read to the greater committee. Moreover, with so many people on this site that have gone IBD-->PE, a population that has been hit pretty hard at HBS the last few years, you'd think that you guys want to differentiate yourselves even more from the pool of equally qualified finance, white, males applying.
I know so many Target, 3.8, 740+, BB-->PE guys that have gone 0fer at HBS/GSB, many of whom didn't get into Wharton either. Those guys should get in if they execute right, but way too many don't.
I didn't really touch on my experience, and will share more if anyone is interested.
I agree more or less with this although there are a few consultants who are actually solid. By and large, I think the value add of consultants is dubious at best, and lot of their "statistics" such as "80% of our clients get into one of their top 3 choices!" is bogus.
I think there are 2 groups that can generally benefit from a consultant. First group is those who are non-native English speakers and need serious help with essays. Second group is those who have impeccable credentials and just need a form of "insurance," to ensure that they don't screw up in the essays.
The 2 or 3 most important parts of the application: work experience, GMAT, and GPA, are set in stone, and there is nothing that consultants can do to mitigate that. Although essays, in particular the career goals/why school X essay, are important, if one has done enough research and has trusted friends who can provide feedback, I don't think consultants are worth it.
Of course, many will disagree.
Yeah pointing out those weaknesses is the key point, but you can get that from just taking the free 30 minute consultations all of them offer. Amazing how much they'll "give away" when you hint that you're cross-shopping them with someone else
Really? i never tried any of them, so I wouldn't know. However, isn't Sandy for example charging $1500 for everything? That shouldn't be too much for some looking to got for an MBA, no?
All good points, and agree with most of what you said. Definitely think that the vast majority of consultants are pretty cookie cutter (could get the same thing from friends that go to bschool). And yes, their stats are insanely unreliable.
I'll add what I think is a major caveat though: work experience can also be VERY much how you frame it for the AdCom. If you went from GS --> KKR, then it's probably pretty obvious to them. However, if you're a slightly non-standard career applicant (and I don't mean completely "non-traditional"), your framing of your career story can be huge for explaining everything. On top of that, if you want to somehow differentiate your finance background from the others, they can absolutely help you with this.
Additionally, for me, I have found the most helpful part has been explaining my EC's. The strongest part of my app is probably my community involvement/college EC's, and I found it a lot more difficult to intertwine those into my essays than career stories. My consultant has been huge for this.
Last, and this will sound ridiculous for a few thousand dollars, is tracking to deadlines. I'm about to finish my fifth round one application. I would not have reached this goal if it weren't for having weekly calls to work towards. I'm married and my wife is a 2nd year MBA student, so it's pretty important for me to know our future by December for location purposes. I had to get my shit done round 1, while managing a ~70 hour a week workload and a wedding last month.
On top of everything else, you're about to spend $120k on school. $4k just really didn't bother that much when I looked at it as part of the greater investment.
good stuff + thanks for sharing your exp. you've been very helpful as a new poster! what's your background / stats / target schools?
I wrote a blog post a while ago that kind of serves as a roll call...
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/class-of-2016-mba-applicants
You're right, I didn't use one. As I said, your mileage may vary, and it really sounds like you got out of it what you wanted. I hope it works out for you.
How many usually apply? How many people are actually accepted?
gonna be a battle this year i think.
In for HBS R1, doing Stanford R1 as well. My background is on the other thread but in short - 1 year BB banking + 2 years at an HF today (will be 3 when entering), GMAT 770 and GPA >3.95 from a target. A bit weak on ECs post-college but have a nice narrative in the essays (especially Stanford - I actually like Essay 1)
Update for the R1 guys/gals: interview invites will go out on October 9 and October 16. Early release will also be on October 16.
thanks for posting
Is letting people know they're rejected before the interviews a new thing? I thought in the past HBS used to keep everyone not interviewed in the queue so to speak in case they wanted to reevaluate the class after the interviews
Not new. I believe HBS has been doing early release for a few years now. Any candidates whom HBS might want to re-evaluate will go on the waitlist and get looked at in R2.
Did anyone who applied NOT visit the school or NOT talk with members of the adcom, such as at an MBA tour? Reasoning? And for those that did, what was the feedback like? Neutral?
I applied there and did not make a visit to campus. I went to an event with Dee and I got the feeling that she is more interested in very unique students or students at firms that seem to be major feeders (e.g., select consulting and megafund groups). They have so many people apply and have the ability to be so selective that just because I have IB and PE on my resume, I am nothing special. If you think about the lower ranked programs, they seem to do anything to talk to someone with MBB, BB IB, PE, target background, etc. but they probably can't be as selective and do not as many applicants from those backgrounds. I tried to do my diligence on the school with former students should I get an interview to show that I have a plan on what I am going to do when I get into the school. I have been extremely impressed by some of the students that I have talked to and not so much by others (I met a guy with 2 years of consulting that got in because his group sends kids there every year and he was going straight back to the group. It's great he is at a good firm, but it wasn't a particularly compelling story).
Sounds like the usual mixed bag of many ultra qualified students with others who are strong MBA candidates in general, yet by comparison don't necessarily put stars in the adcom's eyes.
i did not do either of them, not by choice but with timing was unable to. hopefully i will get an interview and get a chance to visit then
Did anyone actually have the guts not to submit the 'optional' essay, or know of anyone who didnt??
I'm sure some people didn't write an essay, but all the applicants I know submitted one.
same here
I know of one that didn't.
How long were your essays?
Everyone pumped for the first batch of interview invites tomorrow? I'm bracing myself for an empty inbox...
I got an interview invite today! Anybody else hear good news?
Congratulations, excellent news.
Edit: Waitlisted to R2.
Thats better than 90% of the people! Means they're somewhat interested in ya :)
Out of curiosity - does it seem like a lot of people were deferred this year? (I was deferred also) Just feels that way anecdotally, and I wonder what that means for our odds down the line.
I was deferred as well, and I don't think it really says much about our specific chances. Sure statistically speaking, Rd2 will have more competitive applicants (when you include round 1 hold overs), but it will as usual come down to what they think of each candidate and why they chose to defer them. Its possible you were deferred strictly because of a time issue (In which case you're a strong candidate with solid chances)...its also equally possible it was because they had some lingering doubts. Either way, Jan/Feb is too far away to fray your nerves about it now.
Anyone else hear back from Round 1?
I got the "yes" letter from HBS yesterday, but I'm still waiting for the onset of #madswagger
One of my friends heard back - in at both HBS and Stanford. His cup runneth over...
Winning
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