For over six months now, the posts we’ve written on Berkeley Haas have trended towards the top in terms of popularity — they’re read more often on this blog than anything else.
Why is that?
Is it because we have a lot of articles on Haas?
No. We have a lot more on Columbia. And Booth. And Duke. Et al.
Is it because Google thinks we have a lot of articles on Haas? (Since a lot of our traffic comes from web searches.)
Maybe. Maybe there’s just not that many other places to go for good Haas-related advice.
Is it because Haas is just so darn popular?
Doubtful. They got about 3600 applications for the class of 2012; compare this to 9500 for HBS. Of course, there’s a lot more content on the web about HBS and their essays.
Is it because the Haas essay questions are whacked?
Possibly. There are no other schools with questions anything like the Haas questions of this past season (even Haas never had anything like them before) so those tackling said questions were often shooting in the dark.
All that being said, we’re interested: What’s the deal with Haas? Are you applying there? Did you apply there? (and what happened?) Or were you going to apply to Haas until you saw impenetrable difficult essay questions?Or, just, do you have any Haas questions that we can help with?
Tell us in the comments below or drop a note to essaysnark (at) gmail.
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MSP says
I didn't apply to Haas. It seems like a cool school but it just wasn't on my radar.
Sunshine says
I've heard rumors that Haas is more of a "by the numbers" school than others. There's talk of a secret (or not so secret since I've heard about it), GPA and GMAT cut off. Perhaps this rumor has people curious…
essaysnark says
@Sunshine, Haas is more of a stickler for GMAT score (esp quant) and GPA than many schools, partly b/c they have a small class size and they like to keep average GMAT high. We woulda thought that would be turning people away!
Maybe the popularity of Haas on this blog is simply a Google loop: the more we write about Haas, the more people searching for Haas stuff end up here. And with those tough essay questions, there's plenty for people to need to search on…
Fuqua gets about the same number of applicants every year; you'd think we'd get about the same amount of interest here. Maybe we'll do an experiment and become Fuqua fanatics for awhile and see if that changes the post popularity.
essaysnark says
Oh, and to MSP: Haas is definitely more a regional school. Great school and all, but in terms of recruiting opportunities, and where graduates mostly live, it tends to be significantly West Coast skewed. Plus, the Haas/Berkeley name just doesn't have the same brand recognition. Even a far lower-ranked school like Cornell has more cachet in many places (e.g., overseas). So, no surprise you didn't extend your horizons to Berkeley. You tackled a good enough number of apps as it is, no reason to paper the country with 'em — and clearly it worked out for you!