Harvard Business School MBA News
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Published: October 5, 2015
HBS Admissions Director “Impressed,” “Pleased,” “Proud” and on Schedule
Yesterday, Harvard Business School (HBS) Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold had some glowing things to say about applicants in this year’s first round at HBS. “All of us in Dillon are impressed,” she wrote in a post to her Director’s Blog. “Impressed that you met such an early deadline. Impressed at the variety of ways in which you ‘introduced yourselves.’ Impressed that you have all worked so hard to do well,” she wrote. She and her team, meanwhile, are both pleased and proud to be part of a place that applicants see as “a training ground for aspirational leadership,” she continued.
These warm, almost effusive words from Leopold, who is perhaps better known for her direct, no-nonsense style, suggest that the HBS admissions director is indeed quite pleased with the initial responses she and her team received from the new “Introduce yourself” essay prompt that debuted this admission season.
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Published: September 24, 2015
Harvard Business School Admissions Director Shares Plan for Round 1 Interviews
In case you missed it, Harvard Business School (HBS) Managing Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold let Round 1 applicants know what to expect in terms of interview invitations via a post earlier this week on her Director’s Blog. Invites will go out in batches on three days: October 6th, 8th and 14th.
“The day one which you receive an interview invitation does not signal ANYTHING about your candidacy,” Leopold stressed in her post. “We spread out the invitations over three days in order to avoid congestion in the online sign-up stage.”
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Published: September 21, 2015
MBA Application Volume Up Around the Globe, According to Latest GMAC Survey
At the annual Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) conference in Denver this past June, the admissions directors we talked to from leading business schools were almost giddy. It was still early in the cycle, but application volume had been high—and applicants had been strong—making preliminary profiles for the Class of 2017 look very exciting.
As students have come to campus and schools have shared their actual Class of 2017 profiles, the cause of that excitement has become clear. The average GMAT score for this year’s first-year students at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management jumped from 716 last year to an all-time high of 724. At Wharton, the mean score for the incoming class this year is 732, up from last year’s record-setting 728. At Harvard Business School (HBS) the median GMAT score rose from 724 last year to 730 this year. (HBS does not publish mean GMAT scores.)
Today, GMAC, which owns and administers the GMAT, released figures from its 2015 Application Trends Survey , revealing that the giddiness at last June’s conference was warranted—MBA application volume was indeed up around the globe, with a majority of full-time MBA programs reporting an uptick in applicants. GMAC consulted 641 graduate business programs at 306 universities worldwide to arrive at its findings.
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Published: September 20, 2015
New Podcast Series Distills HBS’s Signature Case Method
We spoke with Harvard Business School (HBS) Director Dee Leopold back in June, when she shared that an updated version of the Inside the HBS Case Method video—which every prospective applicant to the school is strongly encouraged to watch—is in the works this year. As far as we know, it hasn’t yet debuted, but in the meantime, HBS has announced the launch of a new podcast series that helps demystify the legendary pedagogy for which the school is known.
Called Cold Call, the podcast series breaks down HBS’s signature case method into twice monthly snippets that help listeners feel as if they are right there in the middle of the HBS classroom. Hosted by Chief Marketing and Communications Office Brian Kenny, each podcast is led by an HBS professor who gives listeners back-stage passes, if you will, to a case he or she has written. The podcast explores what inspired the case and why it matters in the world of management practice. Added bonuses include interesting anecdotes the professor chooses to share that emerged as part of researching and then teaching the class to students.
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Published: September 3, 2015
No Universal “Right Time to Come” to HBS, Admissions Director Says
With less than a week to go before Harvard Business School (HBS)’s Round 1 deadline, lots of anxious applicants are fretting over how their candidacy will stack up against the competition. Cognizant of this fact, HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold yesterday shared some interesting details about recent incoming classes as food for thought.
On her Direct from the Director Blog, Leopold published a “years from college” histogram, revealing that the mode (the value that appears most often in a data set) is 4 years. “Plenty of incoming students coming before and after, but wanted you to see this,” she wrote.
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Published: August 24, 2015
HBS Draws More Women, Adds Six Points to GMAT Median
When it released its preliminary class profile in June, Harvard Business School (HBS) was expecting its incoming class to be 41 percent female, a record for the school. In August, with students preparing to move in on campus, things look even better.
HBS DRAWS MORE WOMEN THAN PRELIMINARY PROFILE SUGGESTED
Dee Leopold, HBS managing director of admissions and financial aid, posted the final Class of 2017 profile on her Direct from the Director blog today, revealing that women will in fact make up 42 percent of the class, a two point increase over last year. While this still trails Kellogg and Wharton—each reported earlier this month that 43 percent of their incoming classes will be women—it puts HBS ahead of last year’s leader of the pack, UC Berkeley’s Haas School, which this year slipped to 41 percent, from a high of 43 last year.
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Published: August 24, 2015
MBA Interview Jitters? Don’t Miss Clear Admit’s Latest Interview Guides
We know. The interview can be one of the most nerve-wracking components of the entire MBA application process. But it doesn’t have to be. Clear Admit’s in-depth Interview Guide Series provides expert advice and insider tips on what to expect and how to prepare—helping you quash the MBA interview jitters and ace the interview.
A sample page from one of the guides.
With interview invites already rolling out at schools like Columbia Business School and Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, now’s the time to check out these valuable guides. Five in the series have just been updated for the 2015-16 application season: CBS, Tuck, INSEAD, HBS and Fuqua.
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Published: August 21, 2015
UCLA Hosts 13th Annual Diversity MBA Admissions Conference Saturday, August 22nd
Admissions representatives from 25 leading business schools meet with prospective business school applicants today in Los Angeles as part of the 13th annual Diversity MBA Admissions Conference (DMAC). This annual event is organized by the Riordan Programs Alumni Association (RPAA), a Los Angeles‒based organization devoted to helping prepare high school and college students and recent college graduates from diverse backgrounds and underserved communities for careers in management.
Admissions team members from Columbia Business School, Cornell’s Johnson School, Dartmouth’s Tuck School, Harvard Business School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business are among the more than two dozen slated to attend. Prospective MBA applicants who attend will get to interact directly with admissions directors from top schools face to face as part of small-format roundtable sessions, learning about the schools’ curriculum and student culture as well as each school’s admissions process.
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Harvard Business School Case Method Video Slated for Makeover
If you’ve looked at the new essay prompt for Harvard Business School (HBS) this year, you may have noticed that applicants are encouraged to view a video before starting to write. If you hadn’t noticed, you’re welcome.
HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold is passionate about applicants watching this video, which brings to life the signature HBS case method. “I am a nut about that,” she confesses. “If I could require that applicants watch it, I would.”
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A PEEK Is All It Takes: HBS’s Innovative Initiative to Woo Women
HBS Professor Youngme Moon teaching PEEK students Photo credit: Evgenia Eliseeva
For Priyanka Krishnamoorthy, a 2015 Mt. Holyoke graduate working in investment banking at Bank of America, a recent weekend at Harvard Business School (HBS) helped set her sights on pursuing an MBA. The Sri Lankan native majored in economics and minored in math and had been thinking about business school for a while. She originally read about PEEK—an innovative weekend program HBS debuted last month for students from women’s colleges—in an article in the paper. She decided to apply after attending an information session HBS held at neighboring Smith College. “They pitched it really well as a way to see what HBS is like,” she recalls. “On campus you hear a lot about PhD programs and law school, but not about business school.”
For Krishnamoorthy, the highlight of the weekend was getting to meet current HBS students and alumnae and hearing about the decisions they made both before and after business school. Just a few weeks into her own first job, she found their choices really eye-opening. “I thought there was a set path to it, but they all said, ‘No, you can come from anywhere.’” She was encouraged multiple times throughout the weekend to think of the MBA more as a master’s in leadership than a master’s in business administration.
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FIFA Corruption Scandal Serves Up Ethics Course Material for MBA Students
“Ethics and integrity are essential in the world of sport and are topics that have continued to gain importance for FIFA and the football community in recent years." These words, spoken by former Fédération Internationale de Football (FIFA) President Joseph “Sepp” Blatter in August of last year, ring somewhat hollow today. At the time, the international governing body for soccer that he then led was preparing to host the first-ever World Summit on Ethics in Sports in Belgium. "We therefore welcome the opportunity to host this special summit and look forward to a fruitful debate among international experts on these important topics,” Blatter continued.
Maybe he missed the conference? Apparently, he either didn’t listen to the international experts or he thought that what they had to say somehow didn’t apply to his own organization. Earlier this week, Blatter announced that he would resign as president of FIFA following the indictment by the United States government of several current and former FIFA officials and sports marketing officials for bribery, fraud and money laundering.
As devastating as the unfolding scandal has proven for Blatter and FIFA’s reputation, there are valuable lessons to be learned, and professors at several leading business schools fully expect to use the FIFA case to teach their MBA students.
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HBS Alumnus Gives Largest Gift in University’s History to School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
An alumnus of the Harvard Business School (HBS) today made the largest gift in Harvard University’s history—a $400 million endowment that will support the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The gift, from billionaire hedge fund manager John A. Paulson (MBA ’80), will help fund SEAS’s planned expansion across the river from Cambridge to Allston, where its scientists and engineers will occupy research and teaching facilities adjacent to HBS and the Harvard Innovation Lab (i-lab).
“John Paulson’s extraordinary gift will enable the growth and ensure the strength of engineering and applied sciences at Harvard for the benefit of generations to come,” Harvard University President Drew Faust said in a statement. “His appreciation of the importance of SEAS to faculty, students, and schools across the university has motivated a historic act of generosity that will change Harvard and enhance our impact on the world beyond.”
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Sustainability Takes Center Stage at Harvard Business School Commencement
Leah Ricci (left) and Allison Webster (right) stand ready to help HBS Commencement attendees dispose of materials properly
Forget crimson. The stoles and tassels worn by Harvard Business School (HBS) graduates today may have been deep red, but the school was going for green in its commencement exercises this year. As part of the day’s events—as well as those of Class Day yesterday and Reunion tomorrow—HBS graduates, alumni and guests will take part in a coordinated composting effort unlike any in the school’s history.
For the first time ever, the back-to-back celebrations this week at HBS will feature completely compostable lunch containers and utensils, which attendees will sort into designated bins for recycling, composting and trash. And because it can sometimes be hard to determine which items go into which bins—especially for novice environmentalists—HBS Green Team volunteers will staff each of the 20 sorting stations to help people know what’s what.
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Harvard Business School Aims to Become “Go-To Place” on Gender Issues
Harvard Business School (HBS) wants to help the world understand gender-related matters as never before—so today it launched a brand-new Gender Initiative designed to promote gender equity in the business world and society as a whole.
“Harvard Business School and its faculty have been leaders in defining the roles and functions of business, as well as effective business practice," Dean Nitin Nohria said in a statement. "With the launch of this initiative, we want to have a similar and lasting impact on the way the world understands and acts upon gender-related matters."
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Published: April 29, 2015
Harvard Business School Wants Its Business Fundamentals Course to Be Law of the Land
Harvard Business School (HBS) today announced that the online business fundamentals course it launched last year will now be available to entering students at Harvard Law School. Today’s announcement follows on the heels of an announcement yesterday that HBS would likewise make its signature online business fundamentals course, known as HBX Credential of Readiness (CORe), available to undergraduate students at nearby Amherst College, with plans in place to roll it out to additional undergraduate institutions in the future. HBX CORe has been available to Harvard College undergraduates since last year.
CORe, says HBS, uses the HBS signature case-based method to teach participants the key concepts of business. As in an HBS classroom, CORe classes require active participation and social learning. Three individual courses make up the HBX CORe core offering: Business Analytics, Economics for Managers, and Financial Accounting.
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Published: April 27, 2015
HBS Inks Agreement with Amherst Making Online Business Fundamentals Course More Accessible
Undergraduates at Amherst College will have increased access to HBX, Harvard Business School’s online business fundamentals course, thanks to a new agreement announced this week between the two schools. Similar agreements with other colleges and universities are expected to follow, according to HBS.
The agreement with Amherst is designed to increase access to the HBX Credential of Readiness (CORe) program, an 11-week online course on the fundamentals of business designed by HBS faculty. First offered last summer, HBX CORe has now been offered to four cohorts of students. The next program will begin on June 3rd.
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Published: April 21, 2015
Leading Business Schools Commemorate Earth Day
From Philadelphia to Los Angeles, business schools and their students are endeavoring to combat climate change at both the campus and the corporate level through innovation, conservation and awareness raising.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, for its part, is hosting the 8th Annual Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL) Conference. This year’s theme, “Business Takes the Lead,” will examine how business innovation holds promise for helping the world both mitigate and adapt to climate change.
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Published: April 14, 2015
HBS Rolls Out New Recruiting Program Targeting Students at Women-Only Colleges
Harvard Business School (HBS) last week announced a new recruiting program designed to help increase the pipeline of qualified female applicants to its MBA program. The program, called Peek Weekend, invites juniors, seniors and recent graduates from women’s colleges for a June weekend of case studies, presentations and other activities designed to serve as an introduction to HBS and the MBA degree.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, HBS Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold explained that the school hopes through the program to give women a fuller sense of what an MBA can lead to. Calling the MBA “a misunderstood degree,” she noted that there is a perception among many that pursuing one “must mean you want to go work in a bank forever and sit in a cubicle and wear a suit.”
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Choosing an MBA Program Based on Where You Want to Work
With some lucky applicants now having been accepted to multiple top-tier business schools, a new challenge faces them: choosing where to go. A New York Times article decided to look at that question in an interesting way, offering suggestions for what school to attend based on the specific company you hope to work for upon graduation.
According to the Times analysis, the best school to choose if you want to land at Amazon is the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Amazon last year hired 27 Ross MBAs, displacing the school’s historical No. 1 recruiter, Deloitte, according to the Times. Another 37 Ross grads headed to the e-commerce giant in the two years before that.
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Published: March 23, 2015
Round 2 Decision Day at UPenn’s Wharton School, Harvard, Stanford
The fate of many hopeful MBA applicants hangs in the balance, with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School scheduled to release Round 2 decisions today and Harvard Business School (HBS) and Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) scheduled to release Round 2 decisions tomorrow. We know from the Clear Admit LiveWire that lots of applicants have already gotten the good word from Wharton and Stanford via phone today, so a hearty congrats to those of you who fall into this category!
Don’t expect early calls from HBS, says Admissions Director Dee Leopold. “While we love to give happy news, we don't want to create an anxiety zone where you are watching your phone constantly,” she wrote in a post to her Director’s Blog today. All notifications from HBS will go out via email at 12 noon Boston time tomorrow. “We know you've been out-of-control throughout much of this process - we can give you the control of where you are and with whom when decisions go out,” Leopold added.
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Published: March 15, 2015
SXSW Conference Spotlights Business School Students’ Embrace of Design
Student-led design clubs can be found at 70 percent of the top-ranked MBA programs both in the United States and globally, an indicator that MBA students are embracing design wholeheartedly as part of their general management education, according to a presentation yesterday at the SXSW Conference in Austin. The presentation, entitled “Design in Tech,” was delivered by John Maeda, former president of the Rhode Island School of Design who last year joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) as its first “Design Partner.”
As part of the presentation, Maeda provided a data-driven examination of the intersection of design and technology. Reporting on the findings of his inaugural “Design and Technology Trends Report,” Maeda highlighted the rising importance of design in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, noting the acquisition of design firms by tech companies like Facebook and Google, as well as the trend toward venture capitalists funding startups that have designers as co-founders.
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Published: March 10, 2015
Stanford GSB Edges Out HBS, Wharton in 2016 U.S. News & World Report Rankings
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business took the number one spot in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of the nation’s best MBA programs, released yesterday, knocking Harvard Business School (HBS) to second and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School to third. Last year, the three powerhouse schools tied for first place, but slight differences on core metrics caused HBS and Wharton to slip this year.
U.S. News uses multiple core measurements to compile its rankings, with the greatest weight given to quality assessments by deans and MBA directors at peer schools and corporate recruiter survey scores. Wharton’s scores slipped in both these regards, as well as in average pay for its MBA graduates, precipitating its drop this year in the rankings.
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Harvard Business School Names New Innovation Lab Director
If Harvard Business School (HBS) is in your cross hairs, and if innovation and entrepreneurial pursuits are what rev you up, you may be interested to learn that Harvard’s innovation lab will soon have a new commander in chief. Jodi Goldstein, a long-time investor and entrepreneur, will become Harvard i-lab’s new Evans Family Foundation Managing Director beginning this June, responsible for leading the university-wide facility that brings students, faculty, alumni and the community together for team-based and other entrepreneurial activities.
Goldstein, who replaces outgoing Managing Director Gordon Jones, is no stranger the i-lab, Indeed, she’s been part of its management team since the lab’s 2011 launch, coming up with and implementing much of the top programming and resources it’s been able to offer. Just last year she spearheaded the Launch Lab, a business incubator for Harvard alumni, which is putting Allston, MA—where the i-lab is located—on the map as a solutions-centered hub swirling with interdisciplinary collaboration.
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Published: February 10, 2015
Which Business School’s Alumni Network Reigns Supreme?
Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business can claim top honors for the strength of its alumni network, according to a recent Economist ranking, in which current MBA students were asked to rate their school’s network. Nine of the top 10 strongest alumni networks are affiliated with U.S. schools, the Economist notes. “They, after all, have the biggest incentive, being the world leaders at tapping into their alumni networks to secure huge financial gifts. Such schools spend a lot of resources on maintaining relations with ex-students,” read the Economist’s analysis.
As for what helped Tuck secure the very top spot, here’s what the Economist hypothesized: “Its fierce collegiate spirit is famous, perhaps fostered by its setting in the small, sleepy town of Hanover, New Hampshire, which means that students have little else to do but bond.”
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Published: January 26, 2015
Harvard Business School to Send Out Round 2 Interview Invitations Beginning Tomorrow
As applicants to Harvard Business School (HBS) are probably well aware, Admissions Director Dee Leopold and her team are scheduled to send out the first of its Round 2 interview invitations tomorrow, Wednesday, January 28th. What about the blizzard that’s blanketing the northeastern portion of the United States, you wonder? As of yesterday, Leopold expected that invites will still go out as planned, at noon Boston time. “If we need to delay, we will let you know via this blog, a general announcement on the admissions website and also with a voicemail recording on our general phone line,” she wrote in a post to her Director’s Blog, but as of this writing, no updates.
So, some details about HBS interview invites. They will go out in two waves, one tomorrow, and a second on February 4th. Historically, HBS has sent out the bulk of its invites in the first wave. Leopold offered that her best guess is that roughly 600 applicants will receive invitations tomorrow, with another 200 or so receiving invitations next week. “I've said this before, but please don't speculate or develop theories or algorithms about first vs. second,” she urged. “It doesn't work that way. And it has nothing to do with when you submitted, where you live, or the first letter of your last name.”
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