school reviews & insights

Here’s how to prove that at Harvard, it’s not all about the essay*

November 18, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses Harvard Leave a Comment

We went on and on last month about why you probably shouldn’t be reading “sample” essays and we made the assertion that sometimes people get in despite the essays. Like, they had craptastic essays, but they still got the admit.

Or as seems to have been happening right and left this round, they at least got the interview invite, and we’ll have to see what happens in a few weeks on the acceptance front.

It’s not that the essays don’t matter. In some cases, for some profiles, and especially at certain schools, the essays can matter A LOT.

Writing top-notch essays as part of your MBA application is definitely a better path to possible success than so-so essays. Makes sense, right?

But unfortunately, even top-notch essays aren’t a sure thing when we’re talking about Harvard or Stanford.

Want to get proof?

Ask around to some of your buddies who have been rejected from Harvard in Round 1. If you happen to know any who went through some decimation of said essays by the ‘Snark, you may be especially interested to see that, hmmm, their essays were actually kinda good. In some cases, even really good. And still, they didn’t make it through to the next stage.

For Harvard, the essay alone isn’t gonna get you in the door. It needs backing through all the other elements of the profile coming together in the package that you submit. You need to show differentiation based on what you have sought out to accomplish in this life.

Remember, Harvard more than perhaps anyone is constructing a class. Yes, the members of that class tend to be seriously high achievers, which means that a high GMAT or GRE and an impressive GPA from college tend to be correlated with that. But those data alone do little to let you stand out. They’re a ticket to play the game. They’re not going to take you over the finish line — and they’re not even mandatory elements. They are correlations, not causations of success.

And simultaneously, you can have a really interesting background, with unusual datapoints in your personal history and a combination of life experiences that you don’t see every day — and if you don’t execute on the essay and make it part of a pitch where you’re using each and every part of the application to paint a full picture of who you are as an individual today… Well, that also can turn into a “no” from Harvard as well.

The further you move down the competitiveness scale for the schools, and the farther you get away from the H/S/W realm, then the more tolerance you’ll find built into the process, where a single non-optimized component does not hold you back if the facts of your background have these highlights of interest.

In other words: You can get away with a good rather than great set of essays to a school like UCLA and still move forward in their process, especially in Round 1, even if you’re coming from an oversubscribed pool, if there are enough other of those highlights peeking out.

Probably the most important first component at Harvard Business School Admissions is the resume. That’s because the resume captures what you have done with your life to this point.

We’re not saying you need to have a pretty resume. A straightforward standard-format professional layout resume is actually better than one that tries to showcase your style. (Unless you’re a designer or coming from a creative background, and then it might be appropriate for some of that to be reflected on the resume itself. As long as form doesn’t get in the way of function. It still needs to be easy to scan and digest quickly for an admissions person, which usually means that using a more standardized format, and having data in the spots where the reader expects it, will help you communicate to them on their terms. Which is always, always an aim to shoot for in this process. Make it easy on your reader, Brave Supplicant!)

If your resume tells a story of high differentiation, then that’s going to get you really far. The HBS Admissions Board is gonna lap that right up. (Do you know if your resume tells such a story? Our Comprehensive Profile Review will do so!)

If that’s the case, it’s not going to matter too much if your essay is not going above and beyond what’s being conveyed on the resume. (As long as you don’t say something wildly inappropriate, of course.) This is why we say that it’s not wholly about the essay for Harvard. The essay is an opportunity to show how you approach a challenging and ambiguous assignment (also discussed here, and of course in our Harvard Business School MBA Application Guide). The essay is your chance to shine, in terms of demonstrating self-awareness and maturity, and showcasing what you believe are the salient features of your own profile, in a way that goes above and beyond what the other parts of the application are already presenting.

But if the other parts of your application are already robustly demonstrating that you’re a person of depth, of experience, of thoughtfulness, of ambition, who offers diversity in some dimension or another, then that’s what the Harvard Admissions Board will respond to. That’s where an interview invitation is born.

If you’re showing a career path that is quite common to what others in your category have pursued, then it’s going to take a lot more evidence of that differentiation to prove to admissions that you’re one to more actively consider.

That’s certainly where the essay can help. But if the evidence of that isn’t already in place in the application, then it’s a missed opportunity. And if the essay is only recapping the same facts that are already in the other parts of the app, then it can be so much of a missed opportunity that the adcom takes a pass.

The prompt for the Harvard essay seems so innocuous: “What more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy?”

It requires digging into the details for yourself, knowing who you are, understanding the landscape of admissions and appreciating what Harvard is about, before writing even the first word of that draft.

(Want help with all of this? Our Complete Essay Package can be a tremendous asset in supporting this process of self-exploration and analysis, and guiding you to what can work best for YOUR profile and YOUR application for an MBA from Harvard Business School.)

So basically, this is yet another cautionary tale: There are so many ways for this to go sideways! AND, you are sitting here RIGHT NOW with all the options available. If you’re considering Harvard in Round 2, then starting the work on that application today is important. If you didn’t make it past the hurdles for HBS in Round 1, then you’re actually in really good company. Today’s post may have made you feel worse about it all over again, and that wasn’t the intention. Instead, it was meant to try and help you cut yourself some slack. You took the actions that you did through the summer in putting together your app strategy, and you’re likely in a very good position at some other very good schools, even if the HBS dream didn’t pan out. And, this whole thing about applying to business school is HARD. It likely feels like a direct rejection of YOU, which is understandable when they’ve asked you to serve up all of yourself on a platter through the app. But a rejection is not saying you’re not any good; it’s saying that there was a gap in execution of the strategy, and that there is more competition for this process than probably anything you’ve undertaken before. The way that Harvard defines “unique” and “accomplished” is quite variable, and there is no one mold that you can aspire to, that will make it all turn into gold.

But, if you’re early days in the process, there are steps you can take to make sure you put together the absolute best app that you can. (Like, starting now. Leveraging the resources available. Working diligently non-stop on app components from here to submit.) And if you do that, then you’re going to come out the other end of the process feeling proud of yourself, no matter what some silly adcom ends up doing in response.

You may also be interested in:

What does it mean to be “differentiated” in the context of your MBA applications?
Another example of the “Harvard type”
What is an ‘MBA resume’?
If you want detailed, actionable feedback on the essay strategy you have constructed: The HBS Essay Decimator

From a BSer of years past, helping you with Harvard in small ways

October 2, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses Harvard Leave a Comment

A very generous former Brave Supplicant forwarded this to us last year after they were through with their entire admissions process, and we figured now was a great time to share it with you! Links go to the Harvard website.

HBS Lingo (We cover some of this in the HBS MBA Application Guide, too — all schools have their own insiders’ lingo with is part of their culture, but Harvard seems to have it to an extreme)
Students Share Interview Experience

And of course: GOOD LUCK!

We’ve got that there MBA interviewing guide in case you’re looking to the ‘Snark for support also!

($) Another example of the “Harvard type”

July 19, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses Harvard

We’ve long used a term here in Snarkville to try and capture what it means to be a candidate who’s actually got a chance of acceptance at Harvard Business School: The Harvard type. We’ve used this term (and the complementary phrase “Harvard material”) frequently as a way of giving BSers a heads-up on what’s required…

While much of the blahg is available completely for free, the content here is reserved for members with full blahg access only ($9.95/month for six months, cancel anytime). Please login to view this content or purchase a membership.

($) Kellogg’s 2019 MBA essays on “impact” and “values”

June 11, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses Kellogg

This paragraph is stolen from our just-published 2019 MBA application guide for Kellogg in our discussion of Kellogg Essay 2: Please. Please. Do not use values like “collaboration” and “teamwork.” That would be pandering. In some very rare cases, yes, there is a Brave Supplicant out there who does truly care about such qualities. But…

($) Pro Tip: How to pronounce (and spell!) business school names

June 5, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses Berkeley Haas, IESE, INSEAD, UNC Kenan-Flagler, Duke Fuqua, ESADE, Georgetown McDonough

Fuqua? McDonough? Kenan-Flagler? INSEAD? Haas? Ever wondered how in heck to say these words? You might want to figure it out before you talk to anybody about them. Like, in an interview perhaps? These are not official phonetic spellings (we’re not sure the rules of all that), they’re just our attempt to help you not…

($) Setting the stage: A post about writing an essay for Stanford

May 21, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses Stanford GSB

So you want to go to Stanford. Well hmm. The thing with Stanford is that it’s pretty impossible for anyone to say if you have an honest-to-goodness chance to get in or not… except for Stanford. We often can tell when it’s likely a no-go — as in, someone has little to no hope at…

The secret to how to get into HBS

April 19, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses Harvard 2 Comments

[WARNING: This is a looooong post! May want to jump to the bottom and hit that little Favorite button to save it for later! (Favorite feature available to blahg members)]

We originally wrote this in 2018 and we’re republishing here in 2019 to help you eager-beaver BSers who want a leg up on the quintessential of the quintessential-est schools.

Because anybody who first starts thinking they want to get an MBA is immediately going to be thinking about Harvard.

And why not?

Harvard is a world renowned brand.

EVERYBODY has heard of Harvard.

Even if you have only a vague notion of what an MBA is or why you might want one, you have still heard of Harvard Business School, and you probably wouldn’t mind going there.

An application to the MBA program at Harvard in many ways is going to look like an application to an MBA program anywhere.

They want a GMAT score, or a GRE is fine.

You’ll upload your resume and enter your work history.

They need an essay, and some letters of recommendation.

Pretty standard stuff.

However, that’s where the similarities end.

The approach that you take with your Harvard application should not necessarily be the same as what you might take with, say, Columbia.

Both these schools offer the MBA degree. Both have semi-similar profiles that show average GMAT and grades and they’re not terribly different from one to the next. You can expect that a high GMAT score will be beneficial to you in getting into Harvard, as it would be for Columbia, or Kellogg, or anywhere else.

If you want to get into Harvard, though, you can’t be just another cookie-cutter candidate.

The secret to getting into Harvard is to show how you’re different.

BUT!! There is risk here!!!

Being “different” for the sake of being different is not going to help you.

Wearing different-colored socks to your interview will not demonstrate that you’re unique.

All that will do is demonstrate that you want to stand out and attract attention. That might get people talking, but it’s not necessarily going to land you an offer at this school.

The most important thing to keep in mind with Harvard is that they are trying to construct a class.

That’s true at any school in the world, but Harvard gets first pick.

They’re like the Cleveland Browns but for opposite reasons.

(For any non-US-football-fans out there: The Cleveland Browns were the football team with the worst record in 2017, so they earn the privilege of picking their players from the college draft first in 2018.)

In the bschool market economy, since EV-ER-Y-BO-DY wants to go to Harvard, then Harvard has an abundance of riches. They can cherrypick the ones that they like most. They get first dibs. The best of the best.

Or, in this case, the most unique and differentiated who will fill out their class.

What this means is, if your profile is stereotypical — the Princeton grad who went to McKinsey and now wants to go for an MBA — then HBS will need to see superlative grades and an exceptional GMAT and particularly wonderful recs.

You need to be the best out of a crowded category of very good players.

BUT!

That’s not the only way to impress them.

What if you…

Work at Deloitte (not the most prestigious firm) and went to BC (Boston College; good but also not considered “the best”). You have a 3.6 GPA and a 730 GMAT.

When faced with the profile of the Princeton-McKinsey person, you may assume you have no chance at all. You’re obviously qualified but being qualified and being accepted are two different things.

Or, what if you…

Are an international applicant, like the Indian engineer, or you are coming from finance? Or applying from Singapore or Hong Kong or China?

For all of you, finding ways to stand out will be crucial. It’s not going to be only the basics of your profile. The adcom will need to know who you are — best revealed by what you have done — for you to have a true chance. This is where the advantages of an MBA admissions consultant can pay off. (A very good one, that is. A merely competent consultant is not necessarily going to add much value for Harvard.)

We saw some stat somewhere once that something like 90% of applicants to Harvard are qualified — meaning, they fit within the parameters of acceptance that the school has mapped out. Not sure if that’s saying that 80% of applicants fit within the class profile (the range of GMAT or GRE scores and college academics) or if it was against some internal measure of acceptability that the Admissions Board has.

Regardless, almost anyone applying shows evidence that they could succeed in the curriculum, and that they are capable of completing the program.

That is hardly enough to guarantee admission. It’s kind of like going with a competent admissions consultant. If you’re going for the gold and you’re going to pony up the dollars for help, then make sure you’re going with one that actually can add value in the game that you’re in.

If being qualified is not enough to get in to Harvard, what then does matter? What will tip the scales and convince the HBS adcom to want you?

There is not a specific profile or a specific collection of app stats that will ensure you get in. However, over the years, we have identified what we now call the “Harvard type.” It’s someone who is obviously a go-getter, an overachiever who’s done something interesting in life.

We cover it in many posts here on the blahg:

What is “the Harvard type”? is a good place to start.

We also discuss it at length in our MBA essay and application guide to Harvard Business School.

Heck, we have a whole category of posts here on the blahg on HBS and what they are looking for.

What we would boil all of this down to is one simple word:

The secret of getting into Harvard is that you have to show evidence of drive.

This fact is the main reason we’re able to with complete confidence predict people’s chances of interest from Harvard in our Comprehensive Profile Review. Through that service, you lay out the details of your background, your career, your school targets and core stats, and we go through it all and assess your chances to see if you are presenting enough evidence that will give Harvard reason to say yes. We are very very rarely off base with these and when we are it is only marginal misses. Usually we have BSers come back to us at the end of the season saying some variation of, “Wow, you were right! You said I wouldn’t get into X but that Y would admit me, and they did! That’s exactly how it went with my apps!”

For almost every single business school in the world, we are firmly convinced that getting help on the app is beneficial.

For Harvard? Yes also beneficial, very much so — but only to one certain extent.

The people that Harvard is likely to admit are very likely to get into Harvard anyway. Even without outside help.

Will outside help be useful? Sure, in giving an assist to the process. In making sure that you don’t step in it, and mess things up in an avoidable way. (See also: A Stanford applicant case study: Avoidable Mistakes)

But very often we see Harvard give interviews even for applicants whose essays truly sucked. Where they did not take advantage of what the essay could do.

But based on the other aspects of their profile — or more often, based on how they are coming from a less-crowded pool and so it was easier to stand out against the crowd — this person earned an invite to interview even in the face of a pisspoor job on the essay.

For whom then is getting help on the app the most helpful? In what situation would an MBA admissions consultant (an exceptional one, if you are serious about Harvard) add the most value?

Either for the applicant who is overwhelmed by the steps of applying, or who does not know where to start, or who lacks confidence in her own writing ability, and especially for someone who finds value in the ability to bounce ideas off of someone. Or all of the above. A very good admissions consultant can help that person create a very good essay for Harvard.

You do not “need” an admissions consultant to get in though.

We remain unmoved by any admissions consultant who brags about how many applicants they got into Harvard. It’s like a coach at the Olympics. The coach cannot take credit for the athlete’s success. Yes, a coach can be supremely helpful. But it’s not the coach who earned the medal. It’s the hard work and dedication and the willingness to persevere and the sacrifices made by the athlete that earned that person the spot on the podium.

When Harvard admits people, many times they would admit that person whether or not the essays were incredible. It’s because they are admitting the whole package; the entire set of facts. Not just granting a Best Essay award. That’s not always how it works elsewhere. Sometimes, an exceptionally mediocre applicant can put together an amazing set of essays that totally wins him or her the admit at another school. An incredible essay alone won’t do it for Harvard.

Of course, an MBA essay can keep you out of Harvard, too.

Very often, BSers make foolish mistakes in their essays. They say silly things. They focus on the wrong elements. They don’t maximize the opportunity at hand. For these people, a (highly qualified) admissions consultant can do wonders.

But the secret of getting into Harvard Business School does not come down to the essay. It’s the entirety of who you are and what you are presenting, and it’s at least as much about Harvard as it is about you.

That’s why when you’re rejected from Harvard, it’s not actually that big of a deal. So many incredible people are rejected each year that you cannot read anything into it.

Harvard is the one school that’s least served by the admissions consulting industry.

We’re not saying not to get help on your HBS MBA application. We do believe we can help you! We have dedicated services exactly for that.

But someone who is the Harvard Type is likely to get into Harvard anyway. Not because they paid the big bucks to a consultant to assist them.

It’s one reason we strongly recommend against reading other people’s essays in your quest for the HBS admit. Seeing what someone else said is not going to let your best essay come through — and frequently, an essay did NOTHING for an applicant’s chance of success. All you can extrapolate from reading a Harvard student’s essay is that the essay did not PREVENT them from getting in. You cannot know that the essay itself helped them at all.

ESPECIALLY not when the essay was written in a different admissions cycle for a different entering class in a different era of MBA admissions, such as we’re entering now.

Someone who got into the Harvard Class of 2009 was operating on a totally different playing field as an applicant, compared to someone who got in for the Class of 2019, and most definitely there are major differences from what the ’19 applicant faced compared to what the Class of 2021 will be facing this year. It’s a different school. It’s a different admissions landscape. Almost definitely it will be a different application for Harvard this year. You cannot make inferences from one person’s essay to your own.

The only constant that remains?

The Harvard Type.

It’s something that we recognize when we see it (the Comprehensive Profile Review being the best way for us to assess this). It does not come down to any static descriptor or a set of stats on a profile. It’s the sum total of who you are based on how you present yourself — in the resume, in the college experience, in your profession today. Yes, in the essay itself too, but that’s rarely the differentiator that it can be at other schools.

There are many ways to get your message across in your HBS MBA essay, and we’re not saying that the essay is inconsequential. The essay matters — for some candidates even more than others. But the adcom is going to overlook a subpar essay if the profile itself shows as differentiated against the pool of others with whom you’re competing.

If you’re wondering right now whether or not you’re the “Harvard type” then that’s a fair question. We can help you with some objective advice on whether you might be perceived that way today.

And what else you can do is work on being that even more in your day-to-day efforts at work.

Nobody can predict with certainty if you’re going to be accepted into Harvard. But stepping it up and doing all that you can to be a better person every single day is the best way to find out.

Oh hey LOOK!
We wrote a whole book on how to get into Harvard Business School!!

SnarkStrategies Guide for Harvard Business School 2018 MBA essays and app

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Is it a new era in bschool leadership?

April 5, 2019 by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

We’ve been in this industry long enough that we’re able to identify and (try to) analyze some longer-term trends. One interesting cycle involves leadership of top business schools and who is appointed as dean. (Warning: Long post ahead! And who the dean is, well, that might not matter altogether much for you as a current or near-term future MBA student. Read on if you’re curious but this post may not offer too much practical utility for actually constructing an MBA application strategy.)

You would think that naming a new dean at a school would be a wholly independent and internal event, not tied to or associated with any other factors or circumstances in the outward environment. In other words, you would think that a business school, when their current dean announces his retirement (and it’s almost always a “his”), would go about finding a replacement as an activity they manage unto themselves. From the outside, that’s what it appears that they do:

1. School issues announcement that Dean X is retiring and will finish out the current academic year, and then step down on June 30th next year.

2. A few weeks later, school announces that a search team has been formed to find Dean X’s replacement.

3. Everything goes dark on the process and you hear nothing as months and months go by.

4. Maybe two or three months before Dean X is supposed to leave, Dean Y is announced as his successor (or, sometimes, an interim dean is named if the school hasn’t been able to find the right permanent candidate, and then six months-ish later, we hear who the next actual dean will be).

That’s typically not how it goes with any corporate leadership change. If a CEO is retiring from a major company (or being fired) then usually the board of that company figures out who will replace him (again, usually a “him”) and they issue a single press release that announces the departure and his successor, all at once. There would still be a similar process going on behind the scenes, where a committee is working with a high-end executive search firm (aka headhunter) to find the replacement if they’re going outside, or they’re figuring out who to promote from within, which seems to happen more regularly in the corporate world than it does in academia. We can only recall one time in recent memory that a school opted to promote from within, and that was Ross when they brought Dean Scott DeRue into the head office (more on him later).

So why the difference in process? Why do bschools make a big deal about the departing dean long before he’s gone and before they have a replacement?

One reason is to signal to the market that there’s an opening.

Corporations don’t do this because shareholders get spooked by instability, and the company’s stock would tank if they announced that they were having turnover in leadership without knowing who would be driving the ship. Also, non-competes are very common in big businesses, where a high-level exec of Google is prohibited by contract from going to work at Facebook, even though it still happens frequently enough, though it also can result in lawsuits about theft of intellectual property and trade secrets . Academia has traditionally been much more incestuous; it is rare indeed that any university would hire a non-academic for any leadership role in any of its schools or colleges. The one exception that stands out in the recent past is UVA who brought in former McKinsey exec Scott Beardsley to run Darden after beloved dean Bob Bruner stepped down from the post. (Beardsley was just this week reappointed to a second term at Darden.)

Anyway, enough backstory. We’re here to talk about trends.

And this is what we’ve observed. For whatever esoteric chaos-theory reason that would be better studied by philosophers or behavioral economists, top bschools tend to experience turnover in waves. We have been doing this long enough that we’ve observed the pattern: Clusters of bschools go through leadership transitions at once. It’s not always the same bschools who have a change in deanship together; different schools apparently have different term lengths for their appointments, and certainly some schools’ deans stay for longer and get their appointments renewed. All of this happens at irregular intervals; these are not lock-step patterns or trends.

But there will be clusters, where one school, and then another, and then at least a third if not more schools announce that their dean is stepping down and they are to bring in new leadership in the same year or two. And then all quiets down for at least two or three years with no movement at the top of any school, before another wave starts to hit. When there are changes, those changes come in groups, where more than one school is going through it simultaneously.

Here’s what a last wave looked like in 2015 and 2016:

Dartmouth Tuck: Dr. Matthew Slaughter	UVA Darden: Dr. Scott Beardsley	UPenn Wharton: Dr. Geoffrey Garrett

Stanford GSB: Dr. Jonathan Levin	Michigan Ross: Dr. Scott DeRue

And here’s what our current wave looks like so far in 2019:

Berkeley-Haas: Dr. Ann Harrison	Kellogg: Dr. Francesca Cornelli	Yale SOM: Dr. Kerwin Charles

As we’ve laid out, finding a successor to a departing dean is a very secretive process on campus and everyone is totally hush-hush about it until they’ve secured their new person, and you would think that it would be an entirely internal task where the school board selects the best candidate for them looking at their own priorities for where they want their school to go, and not impacted or influenced by anything in the outside world.

But clearly, the world has had its influence.

If anyone believes that #MeToo has not had an impact, they are mistaken. And #BLM. And all the other social upheavals and long-overdue changes that society is trying to finally accommodate.

Drs. Harrison and Charles are succeeding white men; Dr. Cornelli is succeeded a white woman, Sally Blount, who had become the last female dean of a major school after the only other female dean, Judy Olian at UCLA, had announced her retirement in early 2018 (Dr. Olian is now President of Quinnipaic University; Dr. Blount has returned to a faculty role at Northwestern and will continue to teach there).

In between, we had NYU Stern’s popular dean Peter Henry — a Black American, born in Jamaica — step down, and Dr. Raghu Sundaram — an Indian American, born in Madras — be appointed from within to take his place. There’s actually been quite a few Indians leading top bschools, however, including current Booth Dean Madhav Rajan, former Booth Dean Sunil Kumar, Cornell Johnson’s former Dean Soumitra Dutta, and current HBS Dean Nitin Nohria. Indians are minorities in the U.S. however they’ve been represented quite well on the business school circuit (at least, men of Indian heritage have been).

So who’s next?

Well, UCLA still doesn’t have a permanent dean. After Judy Olian left, they named an African-American, Dr. Al Osborn, as interim. After having a woman, and now a minority as interim dean, the pressure is on at Anderson to not hire another white man.

And the other big one we’re waiting on is Columbia, who is saying goodbye to Glenn Hubbard this summer. Unfortunately, given Columbia’s track record and generally conservative or even staid approach to change, we kind of expect them to replace like for like. Not exactly expecting to see them hire, say, a Hispanic woman for the top slot.

Duke Fuqua’s Bill Boulding has also been there quite awhile; we have no knowledge that he’s planning on stepping down anytime soon, nor have we heard that Harvard’s Dean Nohria will be doing so, but both of those gentlemen have been in their respective positions for quite a long time. Maybe one or both schools will end up being part of this latest wave too? UPDATE 11/6/19: DEAN NOHRIA HAS ANNOUNCED THAT HE IS STEPPING DOWN FROM HIS ROLE LEADING HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL AT THE END OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR (apparently we called that one!)

As we’ve said, whoever is in the dean’s chair at your school doesn’t really matter to you as a student. However, seeing the world change and be more open and flexible and representative is a good thing for all of us — and we will be watching who else these other schools choose to lead them into the next era.

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News from the Trenches! A former BSer sends a first-term report with astute observations on NYU Stern

March 22, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses NYU Stern Leave a Comment

Just in case you were starting to wonder why you put in all this effort only to have to sit on your hands for what seems an interminable amount of time while the schools figure out if they even want to meet you to interview… Today we have a fun update to share! This person sent in a happy update once they started their first semester at their Dream School last Fall. We are sharing it with permission so that it hopefully can infect you with excitement for what you are working towards.

B-school has pretty much lived up to the hype. And all the things I heard about the first semester are actually true – recruiting hits you earlier than you thought it would, there are some tough courses, and it’s easy to sometimes get blown away by the diversity you see in your class. This last point, more than anything else, has been what I’ve enjoyed most at NYU Stern in the two months I’ve been here. And by the way, the EQ thing seems to be true too. My classmates are highly accomplished in multiple ways, but they are mostly nice and helpful human beings as well.

As you had suggested, this was the right choice for me – I love the people, the exposure to media that I have here, and yes, New York!

But when I was randomly going through some of your latest posts, I find one very interesting comparison between Columbia and Stern (not the first time you’ve pitted those two against each other). I entirely agree with you – Stern is still seen as an ‘inferior’ school by many, even some of my current classmates! There are some who have remarked that they decided to attend Stern only because either they got a sizeable scholarship or that it happened to be the highest ranked school they could get into. This is rather perplexing to me, and even disheartening. Stern was one of my top choices, as you know, and I have been more than impressed by the quality of the student body, professors and the access that I have to all top companies across industries so early in my MBA. What else were these people looking for? This ‘status anxiety’ is rather disappointing.

That being said, I do wish we had some time for career exploration before recruiting began. It starts too early in my opinion, and the process is even more stressful because of the increasing conversion rates for summer internships into full-time offers. Most students see getting a big summer internship as their primary goal, after which the second year promises to be more relaxed. This is not entirely surprising for international students though, as the number of companies ready to sponsor them have reduced significantly in the last two years.

Anyway, I have to get back to work. I promise to be back again for another update in a few months.

All the best for the admissions season!

And all the best to you, too, former BSer! And all we can say is: When trying for an MBA, it’s very easy to get caught up in the hype and FOMO and get confused around what an MBA will actually bestow. Going to a “top” school becomes paramount, and there’s a good chunk of Sternies who end up there only because everywhere else that they tried turned them down. Stern remains one of those sleeper schools that flies under the radar, but which in our eyes is an underappreciated gem! But if someone wants an MBA because of the prestige they think it’ll bestow, then an admit to NYU and NYU only is gunna be a letdown. It’s not an ego-enhancing school. Maybe that’s why we appreciate them so much, because they are high quality and innovative and they have been strong carriers of culture and values since the beginning of time. That’s one reason it was so enjoyable to work with this BSer when they were applying to bschools, because it seemed that they were choosing their targets intelligently, for personal and professional reasons that went beyond the shine, to the substance. Always gratifying to see a candidate like that make it in to their top choice institution!! And always fun to get reports like this from the field when they start in on the adventure. All of you now applying: Don’t forget about the ‘Snark, ya hear? We’d love to post updates like this from your experiences, too, when the time comes next Fall. Fingers are crossed for all of your successes to come!! 🙂

You are being brainwashed and used.

March 4, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses Harvard Leave a Comment

This is admittedly an odd post to be publishing on a blahg selling services to help you get into business school, but there it is.

Go watch this Exhibit A video:

Transiting to a new industry by leveraging transferable skills

Of course, that advice is 100% sound. It’s what we help applicants do in positioning themselves for success in their apps!

But that video….

That video is SO polished. It is SO slick. It is so obviously intentionally produced as MARKETING.

Not marketing Harvard Business School. Marketing the companies that are featured in it.

You get three beautiful students who are so incredibly amazing that they made meaningful contributions in entirely new industries in only 10 weeks during summer internships.

Yeah, we know, that’s the premise behind the summer internship experience that most MBA students at all schools are supposed to be going through.

EXCEPT IT’S NOT.

An internship is where you’re an intern — someone new to the field who is learning how it works. Who by definition knows little to nothing about it.

Yes, the companies that hire interns are hoping to get a return on their investment and have the interns actually be productive.

But who are we kidding. In your first three months of any new job, did you really learn much more than where to find the restroom?

Yet this is touted as if these ah-ma-zing Harvard students are so fabulous that they hit the ground running and learned a full statistical programming language (R) and used it to product insights on a new industry they’d never worked in before.

We’re really not trying to harsh on these students. This is ALL the fault of the marketing department at Harvard Business School who came up with this ridiculous concept and sold it to the companies that come recruiting on campus.

THIS IS A PROMOTIONAL VIDEO TO EMBELLISH THE BRAND OF HARVARD AND BOOST UP SOCIAL MEDIA SIGNALS FOR THE COMPANIES WHO DO THEM A FAVOR BY HIRING THEIR GRADUATES.

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Have you ever seen a video featuring students promoted by a business school where the students talk about how hard it is?

How they really didn’t like their pushy overly competitive classmates?

How all the partying was a turn-off?

How they partied so much that they effed up their grades?

How they suffered from imposter syndrome for weeks and got borderline depressed?

How they were endlessly sleep-deprived and always feeling guilty about FOMO and thinking they were losers for not doing enough?

How they were BROKE and hated it?

How stressful it was to land on campus the first semester and have to almost immediately begin worrying about interviews for the summer?

How they ate like crap from being too busy and free pizza and ended up putting on weight?

How they STILL didn’t know what they wanted to do with their life, and had next to no time to figure it out or any spare time to sit down and work through it?

How their relationships suffered with family and friends from their previous life?

How they broke up with their pre-MBA significant other because the relationship couldn’t survive the pressure?

How their classes were SO HARD and there was no support available and everybody else was pretending like it was easy, and they were embarrassed to admit they were barely hanging on?

How they HATED corporate finance and accounting?

How this new city is so expensive?

How they keep getting lost?

How they don’t know anybody?

How they feel so alone?

No. Didn’t think so.

Instead we get taken on a tour of trendy offices with open-floor layouts and smart-looking people in white lab coats. The video is pretending that this is everyday life and how all interns breeze through their days. How brilliant they all must be! So successful!

OMG no.

This is so polished it’s ridiculous.

Truly, we apologize to those three HBS students — this is NOT directed at them. We know they must be incredibly accomplished or they never would’ve made it to Harvard!!!

But that’s kind of the point.

Why does HARVARD need to produce a video like this?

C’mon people, IT’S HARVARD!

We know your students are smart. We know they’re super accomplished.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS VIDEO?

Who is the intended audience? What is the reaction supposed to be?

The only thing we can tell is it’s intended to boost social signals FOR THESE THREE FIRMS in a modern-day quid pro quo.

They may all be wonderful companies.

This may have been produced with no conscious ill intent.

It’s just marketing. It’s just showcasing our students.

But puh-lease people. Why the need for this – what is it meant to actually convey?

Yes this struck a chord.

Why?

Because it just seems so disingenuous.

Like, Harvard Business School needs to market in this way?

They’ve already got 10,000 poor souls a year falling over themselves trying to get in.

This video, dunno, for some reason it comes across as really pompous and smarmy. The students are being taken advantage of, like they’re the product that this gleaming machine is spitting out.

It just feels somehow a teensy tiny bit evil, like we should be looking closer, opening up the hood, examining.

What is really going on here?

Is this our 2019 Stepford Wives???!?

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And so, a challenge.

For any bschool admissions folks who may wander into this post:

Why not BE AUTHENTIC yourselves and share what the MBA really is like?!???

And for all of you interestd in bschool, for those of you wanting to change the world, for all of you professing your interest in making a difference, for those gearing up to this next exciting phase of your careers:

Maybe what the world needs is less spin and more real.