转贴Wharton S2S文章

jessicaf

Hi all,

I am a re-applicant for Wharton this year and also from China. To be frank, I am very shocked and even indignant to see this post and I think I cannot keep silent but should speak out not only from a friend’s perspective but also from an integrity standpoint. During the past year, I fortunately got some opportunities to contact or even work with some Wharton Chinese alumni. I can say that REAPPLYCHINA (or Dylan Chao) didn’t speak out the truth but has deliberately twisted some facts.

Because of the cooperation in a venture capital project, I became to know Ms. Luo Hong and Mr. Michael Song (Song Shao Huan) quite well. Like most Wharton alumni I met, they are honest, modest, intelligent and very successful businesspeople, the exemplary standards I want to place myself upon. Although my application partner and I haven’t searched in this market because we didn’t use any services for our applications, I don’t believe that these Wharton alumni will do filthy deals, such as fabricating recommendation letters and buying pre-selecting interviewers.

Ok, let’s first suppose what REAPPLYCHINA claimed is truth. But from a business operation view, how much of the whole US$ 4500 should be spent on securing alumni’s references and buying the interviewers, if we further consider the fee paid for other services, such as essay editing? It’s ridiculous that such a small amount of money could bribe these Wharton alumni, proven successful businesspeople, who cherish the reputation of themselves and their alma mater rather than any amount of money.

Then my doubt comes to how to secure reference letters from Alumni of Wharton or other top B-schools. Although these years more and more Chinese students go to US to obtain MBA degrees from top-10 B-schools, the total number cannot be large and not distributed averagely in many industries, especially in China. So it’s almost impossible to find an “appropriate” recommender (who graduated from a top-10 B-school and has the reasonable chance to know the customer well) for every customer even if customer pays the US$ 4500 service fee. Additionally, every applicant knows that his/her background will be verified if admitted. I believe even if the applicant is desperate to trump up the recommendation letters, these alumni must refuse to risk destroying their reputation. As is said in FF’s post, adcom hope to receive recommendation letters from people who know you best, not the ones just with top-10 B-school MBA degree. Even though I have close working relationship with Ms. Luo Hong and Mr. Michael Song, I don’t think they are the persons who know me best. Therefore, I didn’t ask them to be my recommenders.

Finally, what made me really rage is that REAPPLYCHINA talked irresponsibly that the alumni in charge of interviewing in China often rejected some candidates simply because they did not buy the service! I can take my own experience for an example. During last year’s application, I also didn’t buy any kind of service, but from the feedback session, I knew that my interviewer, a Wharton Chinese alumnus (just the kind can be “bought” as REAPPLYCHINA mentioned), gave me very high evaluation for my performance!

This article written by REAPPLYCHINA has been originally posted on BW Forum, then transferred to S2S, and currently widely spread on Chinese MBA forums. I have to mention here that the author’s irresponsible and despicable behavior has not only slandered those mentioned alumni, but greatly harmed the high reputation of Wharton that is always respected as an extremely just and responsible B-school!