Get the inside scoop on jobs and careers with Vault career guides. Harvard Business School Buzz Book is your complete resource to jobs, careers, interviews and recruiting.
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Harvard Business School Buzz Book Get the inside scoop on jobs and careers with Vault career guides. Harvard Business School Buzz Book is your complete resource to jobs, careers, interviews and recruiting. |
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Harvard Business School Buzz Book Welcome to the first edition of Vault's Harvard Business School Buzz Book. In this new and unique guide, we publish extended excerpts and sample admissions essays from surveys of students and alumni from HBS to bring you the inside scoop on its MBA program. The survey comments cover the following areas:
The guide is intended to serve as a complement to other references to business schools currently available that utilize school-reported data. Unlike those guides, Vault's Buzz Books (which also include the Business School Buzz Book , Law School Buzz Book and College Buzz Book) are composed almost entirely of information provided directly to Vault from students and alumni.
We received comments from HBS, which we have included comments next to appropriate survey sections, offset with a different font and indented to be easily recognizable as school-provided comments. Corrections within the body of the comments are enclosed in brackets. HBS also provided separate narratives that have included them at the end of each chapter, under the heading "The School Says."
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Status: Current student, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 8/2003-Submit Date
Survey Submitted: April 2005
Be honest and candid; be sure to demonstrate leadership, academic capabilities, high ethical standards and impact. Selectivity is high and yield rate is extremely high. Once admitted, very few people turn it down.
Regarding the "yield rate" (the percentage of students admitted who accept and enroll), the school says: "HBS has a yield rate in the neighborhood of 90 percent, highest of any school."
Status: Current student, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 8/2003-Submit Date
Survey Submitted: October 2004
HBS has the most thorough of all the applications I filled out. Prospective students are advised not to put it off until the last minute! Follow the application deadlines. Selected candidates are invited to interview. Mine was conducted by a member of the admissions board who was also an alumnus. It was held in New York City, where I lived at the time. Interviews may also be held in Boston or over the phone.
HBS says: "All admitted students have been interviewed, but not all interviewed students are admitted. Interviews are held all over the world."
Academics: Students Speak
Status: Alumnus/a, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 1/2001-1/2003
Survey Submitted: March 2004
The environment is exciting and dynamic; if you choose to embrace it and challenge yourself, you will learn lots and meet many. But this is grad school, and yes, you can coast by.
The case method was excellent--it is how real-world business issues are dealt with. The diversity in country and work background and everything else does prevail here--you will never find a discussion with more perspectives and more insight than in an HBS classroom (provided everyone has read the case). The professors step aside here and let the class go--and although it is doesn't happen all the time, when it does it is amazing.
Employment Prospects: Students Speak
Status: Alumnus/a, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 8/2000-6/2002
Survey Submitted: February 2004
HBS is the premier MBA program in the world, no matter what rankings, magazines or web sites say. You know this. Everyone does. Rankings change every year. Schools go from the Number One position to Number 11 in one year. Only one stays consistently on top. That's HBS. For international students, this is even more true. Outside the U.S., there's HBS and the rest.
Status: Current student, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 9/2004-Submit Date
Survey Submitted: October 2005
High prestige; lots of hedge funds; private equity folks; superior network and good recruiting staff. The school comments: "Hundreds of firms and companies recruit on campus, and the range of industries and sectors represented has continued to broaden. Students have also become increasingly proactive in their job searches in recent years. For the MBA Classes of 2006, 96 percent of graduating students had job offers at graduation."
Quality of Life: Students Speak
Status: Current student, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 8/2004-Submit Date
Survey Submitted: June 2005
HBS is a campus. It has its own housing, its own library, its own gym, its own Career Services, its own faculty building and its own student service center building. It is like living at a country club for two years with your best friends. The dining hall has its own sushi chef who comes in for lunches. I am not sure that quality of life could be much higher on a campus. You need to come visit.
Social Life: Students Speak
Status: Current student, full-time
Dates of Enrollment: 8/2003-Submit Date
Survey Submitted: July 2004
The social life at HBS is extremely unique and provides more to do than any one person can handle. Given the large size of the class (approximately 850 students), the opportunity to meet new people never ceases. The first few months of the first year are an extremely critical time to meet as many people as possible. I felt like I was out from morning to night given the flurry of activity and the desire to get to know as many people as possible. Though the sections at HBS are renown for being a source of friendships (the entire class is divided into 10 sections of approximately 90 students each; you take classes in your section for the whole of first year), I think it is very important to reach out beyond section and make friends. Of course, some people prefer to stick with their section, but I think your social experience will be much more diversified and meaningful if you branch out.
