How I Chose HBS Over Other Top 10 MBA Programs

My name is David Santos, and I’m a Stanford Graduate with a degree in Electrical Engineering.

I was born and raised in South America. I lived there most of my life and moved around a lot during high school because my parents are in the oil industry. I have lived in various parts of the US and Europe.

After high school, I applied to Stanford for college, was accepted and studied electrical engineering. After that I decided to try doing marketing for a technology company in the Bay Area, and I’m there now.

I’ve recently applied and been accepted to Harvard Business School and will start in August. I decided to apply to business school because I was involved in multiple projects at work where I got to take an idea and launch it in the marketplace. It was a lot of fun and I had a great time doing that.

I decided I really wanted to pursue a Top Ten MBA because I wanted my own start-up company.  I didn’t know a lot of people who were in the business area, especially for the industry I’m interested in. I decided to go to business school to meet people who share my interests.

There are many plusses for attending a top business school. It’s also important to me that I’ll be able to use the resources of the school to help me launch my own company.

When I began thinking about business schools, naturally I wanted to get into one of the top schools. The business schools I had heard the most about were Harvard and Stanford, as the top 2. Wharton was pretty close to them since I’d heard about Wharton a lot.

After considering those 3, many people have different opinions. MIT is pretty high on the list, then Kellogg, Berkeley, Columbia, and a few others that are within the top 5 category.

Your goals make a difference in which school you choose. Harvard’s known for general management, so if you want to work for a big corporation you’ll always find an alumni network to get the best jobs at the best corporations.

Stanford is known for the start up environment, Kellogg for marketing, and Wharton is very strong on finance. With each of these schools, even with their individual strengths, you can pretty much pursue any business goals at any one of them.

I’ll be going to Harvard Business School because it has a big student body. That increases my chances of finding people who really share the same interests I have in starting a company.

Harvard is a top business school so the “brand” aspect of having a Harvard degree will really help me with networking. I’m sure to be able to find venture capitalists who want to invest in my ideas.