Harvard Business School

HBS's New Full-Tuition Scholarship

HBS's New Full-Tuition Scholarship

The students with the highest financial need—roughly 10% of the student body—will get full-tuition scholarships as a result of increased financial assistance money that HBS is unveiling. The school will also extend more need-based scholarships to students from middle-class families. In this blog post, we will talk about how this came about and what this means if you’re applying to HBS.

2022/2023 Harvard Essay Tips and Analysis

2022/2023 Harvard Essay Tips and Analysis

Harvard Business School has been introducing ambiguity into its admission process for years. You might begin by thinking about who HBS is looking for. HBS looks for applicants with a proven track record of leadership, analytical aptitude and appetite, and active community involvement. In this blog post, we will go over the HBS essay topic and offer advice before you hit the submit button.

Thoughts on the incoming 2021 HBS application

Thoughts on the incoming 2021 HBS application

Thoughts regarding the HBS application: THE POST-INTERVIEW RESPONSE ASSIGNMENT (when they see something free, cool and confident, they are impressed), THE UNUSUAL WAITLIST SCENARIO (Only respond if you don’t want to stay on the waitlist), THE OPEN-ENDED ESSAY (can you confidently share something they don't know).

Acing the HBS "further consideration" letter

Acing the HBS "further consideration" letter

Need help tackling writing up your HBS "further consideration" letter? How to ace your letter. Criteria and deadline this Friday, 18th December 2020. Questions you should ask yourself: What new projects? Did you lead? How were you staffed? Do they represent a pioneer? Who benefits? Other stuff? Interacted with Allumni?

Responding to your HBS decision (2016)

Responding to your HBS decision (2016)

This Wednesday (October 12) is one of those days on the calendar that tend to stop everyone in their tracks and dominate the headlines.  Nevermind that the Duke Fuqua or Dartmouth Tuck deadlines are right around the corner - no, it's all about the final HBS Round 1 notification deadline.  Interview or ding?  Rather, interview or ding or deferral, as that appears to be a popular option this year as well.  Let's make sense of things and offer some advice on how to respond from here.  We'll group it result-by-result.

Tackling the “other” questions inside the business school application

Tackling the “other” questions inside the business school application

With the release of the 2016 HBS application, it is clear that shortening the number of essays is a trend that is here to stay for now. With only one essay on the HBS application again this year, it is becoming more important than ever to not only communicate effectively and concisely, but also to leverage the balance of the application (and of course the interview) to stand out from the crowd.

Quick Thoughts on the HBS Essay

Quick Thoughts on the HBS Essay

Unlike Columbia and Stanford, HBS did not make any changes to its essay from last year.  As explained by Dee Leopold in her blog, they were quite simply happy with the content that this prompted generated.  Those handful of people who have spoken to me on consult calls this year know that I predicted HBS would keep this essay and that it would be for this reason - I had a feeling this experiment worked well.  This is because I watched the MASSIVE (all caps are necessary here) gulf between good and bad use of this space, among candidates.

Analysis of HBS’ Big Essay Changes for 2012/2013

Analysis of HBS’ Big Essay Changes for 2012/2013

Harvard's new essays questions and application process (timing) represent the continuation of a theme at HBS – namely, the program's desire to matriculate an even greater diversity of student.  Previously, we have seen this through HBS' introduction of the 2+2 program, as well as the acceptance of the GRE.  The 2+2 program is designed to seek out the best and the brightest from the youngest of potential applicants – undergraduates.  The GRE is an exam whose test taking pool is approximately 50% female.  If you look at Harvard's numbers over the past few years, you can see that demographics are trending younger and more female.  This is something that most applicants to HBS already knew.