For the record, I have no intention/ability to do this. I'm just curious if it's even possible to buy your way into Harvard (or any elite business school) the same way you can buy your way into their undergraduate programs.
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If you have to ask, you can't afford it
First of all your answer isn't helpful. Second of all, I literally said I have no ability to pay whatever the price would be. Not many 20 year olds have an extra mill lying around
Never heard of a Z-J eh?
If you can buy your way into HBS, you probably won't need it.
Didn't Jared Kushner buy his way into Harvard UG, but still only managed Stern for his MBA?
pretty sure he wanted stern, did jd/mba wanted to start out in real estate in NYC- either that or columbia is prob best
Yep -- and he did their JD/MBA program. But why'd you say "only"? NYU Law School is #6 in the country (attending a top 14 law school is key), Stern is #12 MBA program. Buying your way into a top 6 law school with a crappy LSAT score is more amazing than buying your way into undergrad. Also note: Jared never took the BAR exam ... failing it is public record.
Took or passed?
I'd say it's possible, but it requires more than money. It requires a reputable background.
I think Harvard wants someone who they can brag about the world to.
Notice how they didn't accept Buffett or Jack Ma - but they'd be happy to accept their children.
A normal millionaire wouldn't be worth it. They'd need a real mover and shaker. An Elon Musk type.
Buffet went to Wharton U-Grad and dropped to go to Nebraska since it was the cheapest school he could go to, then went to Columbia for his MBA to learn from Ben Graham.
I wonder why Harvard MBA rejected him, maybe based on fit?
Buffett wasn't a big name when he applied to Harvard, not really surprising that he was rejected.
As mentioned by many, money alone isn't going to be enough, but say a candidate (usually from an emerging market) is being groomed to take over the (very large) family business. So you have someone who is destined to become the CEO of a large business AND comes from a family that has fuck you money and is therefore able to commit to a large donation to the school (Stanford bans candidate and their family from making a donation concurrently with an application, but Harvard definitely does not). So even if the candidate has an otherwise average profile, it's really a win-win for the business school, there'a a reason why Harvard has such a big endowment. And this is where section X comes from.
Now, this is definitely not something that unique to HBS, every top bschool has a family business club. I just think HBS does it much, much more blatantly.
what gets me about these schools is no matter how nice the degree and fancy - it doesn't save you from anything in life.
Jared Kushner hasn't paid a penny of the $1.2 billion mortgage owed on 666 Fifth Avenue. Epic failure and perfect business case horror story.
I keep sending them checks in the mail, but have yet to receive my entrance acceptance letter.... I figured $100 a month would be sufficient, due to the vast nature of their endowment size. Anyone have any tips?
everything has a price
I think it can and does happen, though I personally don't think it happens as much as we may suspect. While there were a fair amount of my MBA classmates from rich families (Billionaire level and mostly from Asia), they were all actually very qualified. They weren't the types you'd wonder how they got in.
In short, I think there are enough rich AND qualified candidates that the top schools don't really need to lower their standards to get more money. They probably get enough money from qualified sources as is.
I would add that a lot of alums are a big source of donations so a school like HBS doesn't have a strong need for wealthy families. For example, a standard MBA student (i.e. not from a wealthy background) who goes on to be a F500 CEO or start a successful HF/PE fund will often give back quite a lot. HBS has plenty of these types.
I've heard that it happens, but that its tougher to do than at the undergrad level. I can't remember where I heard this but I thought I read somewhere that it took
For context:
I had a friend's Dad who worked pretty close to the admissions office at Stanford.
To buy admission for undergrad at Stanford, it was something like 250k + an application that hits their median stats would get you in.
$2 million for Stanford. $250k is not even close. I know someone who got in. He openly told us it cost him $2 million. Nothing for a guy with a father who owns a construction empire valued at $300 million though. They buy Rolls Royces and Aston Martins like they're sandwiches at McDonalds.
Foreign kids rich enough to buy their way in are rich enough to have a fake puffed up resume, prestigious letters of rec, have someone take the GMAT for them, and were probably savvy enough in college to pay kids to type their papers, etc. to pump their GPA. You give an MBA admissions consultant all of that plus some of daddy's connections, you can get into any MBA program.
My friend and her siblings all went to Harvard undergrad because her Dad bought them a science building. My other friend and all her siblings got into Stanford undergrad + MBA because again their Parents bought Stanford a building.
So if you have the funds for a building, I'm sure you can attend. But then again, after attaining a degree from Stanford, I had to show her how to create a Pivot table on Excel.
See Kushner, Jared, Harvard Business School 1998.
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