As an example, this means that every section will have, say, two individuals who have a manufacturing background; thus, 20 of the 900 spots will be devoted to applicants with this background. Therefore, HBS is looking for the 20 best manufacturing applicants, and it’s nearly irrelevant to compare these applicants against all other types of applicants.
The important implication is that you must differentiate yourself from your peer group of similarly profiled applicants. You are not competing against the 10,000 other would-be HBS-ers; you are competing against the subset of similarly profiled applicants.
To illustrate this point, my personal competitive peer group was other US management consultants. Once I understood this, I reframed my essays significantly. I realized that demonstrating that I was a phenomenal management consultant was only half the battle. In fact, the broader goal was much more difficult: demonstrating that management consulting is only scratching the surface of a much deeper, multi-dimensional applicant. This had big implications in my essays as I ended up writing a lot more about my college a cappella group and my community service engagement with a local charter school, and a lot less about my pure professional life than I had initially anticipated.
All of this discussion of peer competitive groups makes it difficult to get too specific about what “HBS is looking for,” but I will attempt to draw some broad-stroke conclusions based on admissions statistics and my own personal experience.
Let’s Talk Numbers
GMAT. HBS does not have an absolute cut-off for your GMAT score. However, it is still important to understand what expectations will be with regard to your specific score. First, you should be aware that your professional background will influence HBS’s GMAT expectations. If you are a poet, you better score extremely well on the verbal portion, and there will be more wiggle room on the math section. The opposite is true for an engineer.Second, again, you will be compared against your peer group. If you are an international applicant with English as your second language, it is probably acceptable to do worse than average on the verbal portion, but you should target being in the top quartile compared to other international applicants. All that said, my rule of thumb is that you should target a minimum of 700-710, with preference to scores of 720 and above.
For reference, the median GMAT for HBS's 2012 class is 730, and I personally scored a 740 with a 6 on the writing portion. Finally, recognize that the GMAT is one of many components considered in your application. Many people with perfect 800 scores are turned away from HBS every year.
GPA. Similar to the GMAT, there is not an absolute threshold. Instead, HBS wants to see that you’ve excelled with the opportunities you’ve had, and that you’ve consistently challenged yourself to be the best in your context. An upward trend is also preferred to a downward trend across your undergraduate years.
Keep in mind that the median GPA for the class of 2012 is 3.67, so while every individual has specific circumstances, an unusually low GPA will be a red flag. However, expectations for GPA will be influenced by the subject you studied and what you were doing with the rest of your time while in school. Finally, remember that having acceptable or even stellar GPA and GMAT scores is necessary but not sufficient for acceptance - many, many other factors are considered.
Statistics for the Class of 2012. Here are some numbers as food for thought. Of 9,524 applicants, 11% were accepted; 903 of these applicants actually enrolled. Of these 903 entrants:
- 36% are women
- 34% are international students across 73 countries
- 43% studied humanities/social sciences, 33% engineering or other technical disciplines
- 22% were consultants, 18% were venture capitalists or private equity professionals, and 14% financial services
So, how do you apply this information to your personal process? It’s not as straight-forward as it might seem. Sure, a bigger chunk of the class (22%) is occupied by consultants, but bear in mind that a bigger chunk of the overall applicant pool is composed of consultants as well. That said, my personal take is that I’d rather be part of a non-traditional segment of applicants than a status-quo applicant in the HBS admissions process.
All else being equal, I believe it’s to your advantage to be a female non-profit professional, for example, than a white male consultant. This is because less traditional candidates have a less well-tread path to follow than candidates from traditional industries that feed business schools; yet, HBS still has a set of slots it wants to fill with these profiles. Of course, you can’t control where you fall in this, but this information can help you gauge your own group’s level of competition against your own level of competitiveness.
HBS’s Official Criteria
A habit of leadership. HBS is huge on leadership. Leadership can be expressed in many forms, and you have to think deeply about framing your professional story through the lens of leadership. Furthermore, your objective should be to convey how in most settings in which you find yourself, you organically rise to the top and directly or indirectly emerge as a leader. Conveying this message is a nuanced and balanced art for a couple reasons. One reason is that, at the same time, you also want to demonstrate humility, empathy, and an ability to learn, listen, and collaborate effectively.Thus, leadership isn’t always shouting down to the troops from the mountaintops (in fact, it rarely is). As such, you need to demonstrate a more nuanced view of your leadership. My personal take on this application challenge is to envision a great leader as a great golfer: he/she knows precisely the right club to use in a given situation - and how to use each club to its maximum effectiveness.
Leadership as a subtle, highly interpersonal art is the right conception - particularly in younger ranks (e.g., analyst level employees). As a final note, remember that HBS is looking for an already-proven leader who can leverage HBS to mold him/herself into an even more effective future leader; HBS is not looking for someone with “leadership potential” who will start to see it realized after HBS.
Capacity for intellectual growth. In a nutshell, HBS wants to see that you 1) Can handle the academics/extracurricular load of the program; 2) Will maximally benefit from what HBS offers; and 3) Have the verbal acuity to participate meaningfully in class discourse.
How do you demonstrate “capacity for intellectual growth”? Much of this aspect of your candidacy will be demonstrated through your GMAT score and your undergraduate performance. The quality of your discourse with an interviewer in the interview stage will also come into play here.
In the application itself, the biggest bang for your buck may be to demonstrate an ability to quickly learn and apply those lessons to future actions and decision-making.
I wrote an essay, for example, that discussed how I had stepped on the toes of a client senior project leader, causing a wave of tension for the entire engagement. I conveyed how I mended that relationship successfully (she ended up even writing one of my recommendation letters), how we went on to a successful completion of the project, and how I learned from that experience for future similar situations.
Engaged community citizenship. This criterion is indicative of HBS’s requirement that you provide evidence you are a highly ethical individual who will positively contribute to your community on campus. How can you express this in your application?
There are multiple possible avenues:
1) Discuss directly what you intend to get involved with on campus. (I talked about taking advantage of the Immersion Experience Program and other field-based opportunities.)
2) Demonstrate your involvement with your community. In fact, there is usually an entire essay that might be devoted to this, so this should be much more than light occasional volunteer work.
3) Provide evidence of how you engaged with your undergraduate or other academic communities - the perfect 4.0 GPA student who never left the library is much less likely to get admitted than the 3.5 GPA football captain and Spanish club President.
So Who Really Gets In?
Given the above context, it’s worthwhile to go over a few brief thoughts on common trends I’ve observed for who ends up getting admitted at HBS.Top people within each applicant segment. At the risk of being repetitive, recall that a certain number of members from each applicant group will be selected for admission. At HBS, it is typically the “top picks” within each group.
In other words, it’s not sufficient to be “good” or even “great” in your peer group. You have to be nearly indisputably among the best. One frame to put on this is what your recommendation letter writers will say about you. Will he/she say that you’re a “really great” employee or “among the top three he/she has ever worked with”? There’s a big difference.
Overcoming hardship. I’ve noticed a trend toward applicants who have overcome some type of extremely difficult life circumstance to emerge as inspirational individuals who can use this success as a catalyst for developing their leadership potential. This category may include a person who has overcome the grips of a poverty-stricken, violent childhood environment, or one who has overcome a personally debilitating handicap.
Either way, these individuals demonstrate strength of character, tenacity, and resolve - important leadership characteristics. If you are in a position like this, don’t be shy to thoughtfully discuss how these circumstances have forged you into an authentic leader.
The Exotics. HBS also seems to have a penchant for the exotic. I have friends from HBS who are former NFL football players, members of prominent families in Asian countries, and decorated military heroes. And it was all the rage when Tyra Banks joined the Executive Education program and ate in our cafeteria.
These folks all deserved to be at HBS, but there seems to be a trendy flair for the dramatic at HBS. Personally, before going to HBS, I left my consulting job and lived in Bolivia for four months where I worked as an internal consultant at a language institute. I informed HBS in my application that I was doing this, and it may have helped with the “exotic” factor.
A Note about Individual Expectations
For the last section of this chapter, I’d like to provide some parting thoughts for you to keep in mind that may be helpful to frame your individual candidacy.HBS’s expectations of you are dependent upon your background. Whether you know the difference between a balance sheet and an income statement is inconsequential by itself. If you are a financial professional, however, then it is extremely consequential. On the flip side, if you are an MD, it would not be an expectation that you’ve encountered this before, and so it carries much less impact on your candidacy (although you would be expected to be at the top of your own personal craft).
It is worth noting that if you come from a non-traditional background, there is a comprehensive training series before the official MBA program start that will bring you up to speed with the rest of your classmates. In fact, this program is a great way to get integrated into HBS and make new acquaintances before everyone else gets to campus.
All candidates must demonstrate some facility with analytics. You don’t have to be the Excel Guru, but you have to show that you can think through unstructured business problems. In other words, in one way or another, you must demonstrate that you can structure and synthesize ambiguous information, and draw conclusions for action. It’s a plus if your demonstration of analytics prowess involves numbers.
