What HBS Looks for in Candidates | HBS Admissions Series Episode 2

[@onplanetbanana]

This was good information, Maria. I definitely did not think I'd make it through the whole video, but it was helpful content. Thanks

[@MrTheAWESOMEbroski]

Hi, to what extent does this apply to 2+2 admissions?

[@shants710]

Hi, I have 2 questions please: how long does it take to fill an entire application for a school? I want to apply to many on the First round but they are very close one to another. Also, what score of gmat do you think one should feel comfortable with to start with the other sides of the application ? Thank you in advance!

[@gmatclub]

Hi. You can usually apply to 2 schools per month, so if you want to apply to 4 schools in R1, you need to start working at least 2 months early to get those 4 applications in. Things somewhat get easier the more schools you apply to but it is tricky to keep track of all the action items and your recommenders in the process. It is a pretty big deal if you do 3-4/month. Usually you will be making edits on your resume, and then you may want to update all the other resumes and then you will be making an edit to the short answers, etc. You will be writing multiple essays in parallel, it gets tricky.

[@ameyak3283]

You mentioned those mountains that a candidate has to move. I want to refer to the right-most mountain, which includes convincing a government body for something very impactful. This cannot be done by one person. It takes a company's leadership including multiple people to pull this off. But of course, the success is attributed to the company as a whole. In such a scenario, how would you go about representing this in the application? Or just being part of such a company's leadership is enough?

[@Applicantlab]

Hi there! So -- if you were part of a team involved in something like this, "just being part of a team" that does this is not necessarily enough. After all, how is the reader supposed to know if the applicant was the person driving the process forward when others wanted to quit... OR if the applicant was simply the person "taking notes" or "ensuring that the documents didn't have any typos". BOTH of the people I just mentioned might have been "part of the team" that accomplished this, but in the example just given, there's a pretty clear difference in the leadership impact of each of the people. So, when successful applicants do influence a government, they may have been part of a team, but they were the *KEY* person to making something important happen. Examples from clients I've worked with (who got into HBS and / or Stanford, usually both): - Unlocked a key cultural insight to help revive stalled negotiations between a company and a country; this candidate was then put in charge of the negotiation and navigated it successfully to convince the government to allow the company to do a huge project there. In this case the person was part of a team, but they single-handedly figured out how to save the negotiations, and then after that was leading the negotiations. - Working for a government of a developing nation and convincing the Minister of Commerce (I can't remember the *exact* title, but it was the ministry focused on economic development) to create and launch a government-funded "incubator" to support women-led businesses. - Working as part of a management consulting team, this specific person was the main person on the consulting team who persuaded the country's Health Minister to change direction. Again, yes -- this person was part of a team, but *they* were the key person on the team that made positive impact. (The Health Minister was one of their recommenders, and vouched for the fact that the candidate was not exaggerating their role in the essays by saying that the candidate had in fact played the key role and their recommendations would improve health for X million citizens) _ Working as part of a team, the *specific candidate* figured out why a local government was not allowing for a new technology pilot program to launch. This person took the initiative to meet with the City's managers, get to the root of their concerns, and then adapt the company's proposal to allay the concerns and successfully launch the pilot program. This person then became the main point person in their company to work with this city's government... and was then put in charge of helping launch a similar pilot program in other cities in the US. Coincidentally, one of the projects worked on had been a topic of a Case Study that an HBS professor had written. That particular detail wasn't relevant to the application, and I told them *NOT* to mention it; however, I only mention it here to convey that the pilot project in question was a fairly high-profile one. So, these are all real examples of real candidates who were on the "right-hand side mountain". While they didn't do it alone, they were usually the *leader* who was able to single-handedly figure out something vital, or build a vital relationship, or make a vital argument, that positively changed the outcome. Of course, like I said, people don't *have* to be right-most mountain movers to get into an HBS or Stanford, but my point is that the further along you are on that mountain-spectrum, the greater your chances. Put another way -- it's impossible to say for sure who will get accepted or not, but when I first read the profiles of the above people, I was pretty sure they had a super-strong chance of getting into either H or S. Similarly, folks who may have been part of a team that did something cool, but perhaps they themselves were not the key driver... they can ABSOLUTELY still get in to INCREDIBLE MBA programs that will give them amazing career opportunities! As you've seen in my other videos, most of the top MBA employers ALL HIRE from many many schools, so the obsession that many candidates have with H / S / etc. -- while understandable, due to human nature being what it is -- are really overblown for most people.

[@varunshahvo-tv9854]

Hi if I've been in academics then the right mountain can be providing education to a special section of society?

[@Applicantlab]

Hi Varun! Working in education is a wonderful calling (both of my parents are teachers, and both of them work(ed) with special needs students). As you can imagine, MANY PEOPLE from the education field apply to top business schools. What tends to happen is that, the more elite the school, the higher the bar in terms of impact demonstrated. Therefore, someone who teaches 50 children, while admired, may *not* be seen as demonstrating as much leadership potential as someone who created an online course that impacted 1,000 children, and THAT person may not be viewed as having the same amount of leadership as someone who trained 1,000 principals, and then THOSE principals went on to impact 1M children. The best thing to do is to try to find what I call in ApplicantLab the "Resume Twin" -- for example, if right now you're doing Teach for India, and are a classroom teacher but have not yet advanced to a regional or national leadership role, then try to find others from TfI who had similar levels of experience prior to b-school, and then reach out to them to see what *their* admissions process was like!

[@hawadrammeh8870]

LMAOOOOO @51:58

[@Nostradamusknow]

That was a tight slap, at the end, on camera. Gosh that insult will stay on the internet for perpetuity.