May 12, online chat with HBS MBA candidates

starbird

Just a few day earlier, I consulted some so-called "one of the best advisory agency for MBA application in China", and was told that I had the odds below 60% for applying Top-Ten even with an 800 for GMAT and even with their helps, and the most humiliating thing was they even had not asked for my undergraduate school, don't mention GPA,,, Frankly, I had seldom met such a cold-welcome before (you must have some knowledge about how these insurance or bank reps try to be pursuasive!) except for queuing for a dear train ticket during Spring Festival! And, thanks god, this really helps me to realize that my background is too indecent to show... T_T

After careful consideration, I decided that this was not for my attitude, and actually, I was in quite a good manner during the conversation. To my understanding, "below 60%" means they didn't put any interest in me, or regarded me as one of their target customers,,, They simply wanted to save the trouble from seeing me faint on spot when they decided not to tell me that the hope is "little higher than zero!!"

And I was also told that there were over thousand applicants from China Mainland for the Top-Ten, among them several were already seniors(Dear me, not partners,,, - -|| ) in Big-Four or regional managers for Asia area,,,,,- -|||,,, and even they had to compete with other Chinese from Hongkong, Taiwan, or those graduated and now working in US.

As a compensation, they told me that they had had a successful customer with similar backgroung to mine. However, hardly had I had time to sigh for relief when they followed that that customer was younger than me and she was a female,,, To be honest, I still fail to understand why being a young girl is such an advantage,,,You see, four years before, when I had finished my college courses, I was told I needed working experience to apply for MBA, and then I am too old to be competitive,,,,, - -#

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Sorry for the long story above, and my question is:

1. Are there any bias when HBS evaluates applicants? Such as,,, Are there really more girls? And to what ratio non-financial-related were accepted? How many from non-Western-corpoerations?

2. What is the policy in HBS for ruling out applicants. It is hard to believe that they have so much time and patience to read every essay of over thousand applicants. So, first cut by GMAT score? By GPA? Or by working company?

3. Can you give some advice about how many schools to apply are appropriate? How many 2-Tier or 3-Tier schools did you consider as save-keeping when applying for HBS?

4. Are these consultant agency really helpful. Somewhat I fear that those preparing all by themselves may be in a disadvantage if so many people ask these agencies for help. Did you also consult with these agencies?

Forgive me if the questions look rude or private. After that frustrating experience, it seems that Top-Ten is away from me at light-speed, and what I need is only a window high above the ground,,, - -||,,,

I find it is perhaps necessary to re-consider my whole plan. If what those advisor said is ture, I'm afraid I'd better seek for some B-school in Kenya, Africa, and ask the flamingo do me a favor,,,, T_T ,,,,

[此贴子已经被作者于2007-5-9 9:37:07编辑过]

robinst

以下是引用starbird在2007-5-9 8:49:00的发言：

Just a few day earlier, I consulted some so-called "one of the best advisory agency for MBA application in China", and was told that I had the odds below 60% for applying Top-Ten even with an 800 for GMAT and even with their helps, and the most humiliating thing was they even had not asked for my undergraduate school, don't mention GPA,,, Frankly, I had seldom met such a cold-welcome before (you must have some knowledge about how these insurance or bank reps try to be pursuasive!) except for queuing for a dear train ticket during Spring Festival! And, thanks god, this really helps me to realize that my background is too indecent to show... T_T

After careful consideration, I decided that this was not for my attitude, and actually, I was in quite a good manner during the conversation. To my understanding, "below 60%" means they didn't put any interest in me, or regarded me as one of their target customers,,, They simply wanted to save the trouble from seeing me faint on spot when they decided not to tell me that the hope is "little higher than zero!!"

And I was also told that there were over thousand applicants from China Mainland for the Top-Ten, among them several were already seniors(Dear me, not partners,,, - -|| ) in Big-Four or regional managers for Asia area,,,,,- -|||,,, and even they had to compete with other Chinese from Hongkong, Taiwan, or those graduated and now working in US.

As a compensation, they told me that they had had a successful customer with similar backgroung to mine. However, hardly had I had time to sigh for relief when they followed that that customer was younger than me and she was a female,,, To be honest, I still fail to understand why being a young girl is such an advantage,,,You see, four years before, when I had finished my college courses, I was told I needed working experience to apply for MBA, and then I am too old to be competitive,,,,, - -#

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Sorry for the long story above, and my question is:

1. Are there any bias when HBS evaluates applicants? Such as,,, Are there really more girls? And to what ratio non-financial-related were accepted? How many from non-Western-corpoerations?

2. What is the policy in HBS for ruling out applicants. It is hard to believe that they have so much time and patience to read every essay of over thousand applicants. So, first cut by GMAT score? By GPA? Or by working company?

3. Can you give some advice about how many schools to apply are appropriate? How many 2-Tier or 3-Tier schools did you consider as save-keeping when applying for HBS?

4. Are these consultant agency really helpful. Somewhat I fear that those preparing all by themselves may be in a disadvantage if so many people ask these agencies for help. Did you also consult with these agencies?

Forgive me if the questions look rude or private. After that frustrating experience, it seems that Top-Ten is away from me at light-speed, and what I need is only a window high above the ground,,, - -||,,,

I find it is perhaps necessary to re-consider my whole plan. If what those advisor said is ture, I'm afraid I'd better seek for some B-school in Kenya, Africa, and ask the flamingo do me a favor,,,, T_T ,,,,

hmm...at least from ur writing you seem like interesting and meaningful......i love challenge, so i would really love to see why the agency concluded unfavorably toward you, and to conquer that most probably false conclusion....

Pls shoot me a short message with ur email if you'd like to. I believe I can give some unbiased feedback, hopefully, meaningful ones, after knowing more of your overall background:p

starbird

Thank you~~~ This perhaps is the only words that have brought me some comfort these days,,, of course, besides mum told me, "No worry. When you fail, the cow and farm field behind the house are still yours",,, - -|||

To be precise, I told the advisor I was working for a IT-corporation(though not F-500, at least a international one) for the last four years with one year overseas working and one year management experience, and I was very very very interested in their services,,,,,Nothing less and nothing more,,, I even hardly had time to say,"Please give me the most honest answer, I can stand it.",,, Obviously, he didn't think I was meaningful, but just mean... - -||

And I'm afraid so thought the BBS-message system,,, for I have fail to send a message at least five time in a row,,,- -|| ,,, and none of these were more than 1000 characters or empty, at least judged by MS-Word,,, So it take some guts to give another try,,, if you never see me again, I must have been kicked out of the BBS as some sort of junk message provider,,, - -||

sammin2008

想问Alex，广告业3y的背景，长期希望成为branding professional, TOP10中哪几所B－School的特点适合这样的发展（HBS, Kellogge?）? 这个行业的背景在申请中的优势和劣势是什么？多谢啊。

magieus

I transferred from a university in China to a college in US, which I got my degree from. Do I need to take TOEFL? Thanks.

yaoyao99

以下是引用magieus在2007-5-9 22:17:00的发言：

I transferred from a university in China to a college in US, which I got my degree from. Do I need to take TOEFL? Thanks.

Please contact the admissions office for technical questions!  Good luck.

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/contact.html 

kemu8018

想请教牛牛，是不是都是非常事业型的人？读HARVARD MBA毕业出来势必会一直PUSH自己在顶尖行业工作吗？MBA的CONCENTRATION是什么？以后想如何BALANCE自己的事业和家庭？

赫赫。。顶礼膜拜。

 

hjyvian

i will take part in the discussion on Saturday, hoping the day coming

danghui80

请问能否介绍一下consulting背景的申请HBS应该注意什么？（在local startup的firm和global firm都做过）

另外top school graduate, low gpa, high gmat应该采取什么策略。

还有就是HBS很重视achievement,能否举些具体的例子？

多谢

cental

请问一个只有高中毕业生，已经从事3年的金融工作，新TOEFL 110分，GMAT 780分，她可以申请HBS 的金融管理专业吗？

如果可以，要注意什么事项？