HBS Info Session in Toronto

Went to the HBS info session in Toronto last night. Talked with some applicants, alumni, financial aid officer, and AdCom....Some highlights

1. Financial Aid: "On average, each admitted HBS students receives $26k scholarships and tuition is $46k...So you can consider the tuition $20k."

2. Salary after graduation: "If you work in a non-for-profit organization that pays you significantly lower than your peers, HBS will make up the difference to match that of your peers."

3. GMAT: "I can almost guarantee you with my life, GMAT does not weight as much as most of you think! We have rejected candidates with 800 scores. Do not spend too much time in order to get a high GMAT. An 800 score can at most get you an interview. At the interview, it's a fair game between a perfect gmat scorer and a 600 GMAT person. As long as you are within the GMAT range, you are fine on that. Essays and references are the most important parts."

4. Competition in Toronto/Canada: Talked to several candidates. They are from varous industries: PE, Equity Research, IT/management consulting, charity organizatopn, government, and some with their own business. There were about 100 people in the room last night. The admission team will travel to Vancouver, Montreal too. In the past a few years, HBS has admitted 35-60 from Canada each year.

5. Essays: Be yourself and tell you own stories. An HBS alum told me that one of his best friends got a 450 GMAT, but he was a soldier in Iraq for 5 years. One of his classmate had climbed up the Summit of Mount Everest. "Well, these may be a bit extreme, but you really need to tell a different story and distinguish yourself from the applicant pool. If you do not think you are special, then you had better give up on applying."

I hope above can help answer some of fellow CDers' questions about HBS~~

I did not ask whether Mexico is considered "North America" or not. With my experience in Canada, when people mention Mexico, they see it as a Latin American or Central/South American country even though Mexico is geographically located in North America.

I have seen the same admission person two years in a row in the event, he and other alumni confirmed the range of 35-60 Canadian students every year, so I think 4% of the students (36 out of 900) refers to Canada only.

Well, I am a Chinese passport holder with Canadian Permenant Residency, but I don't plan to change my citizenship even when I become eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship. I guess I will fall into the "Asia/South Pacific" category~~