Harvard Business School (HBS) sent out the second and final wave of interview invites for Round 2 candidates yesterday. A quick analysis of the status updates received on MBA LiveWire in the past 24 hours suggests that the rejected HBS applicants are incredibly impressive. Of the 114 candidates who shared a status of rejection, the average GMAT was 722 and the average GPA was 3.51.
Of course, lessons from the MBA LiveWire data in Round 1 tell us that those making the cut for interviews and ultimately admission do not look terribly different where the raw statistics are concerned. Here’s a quick recap: Roughly one-third of Round 1 applicants who reported results on MBA LiveWire received an invitation to interview. Among those, reported GPAs ranged from 3.0 to 3.8, with an average of 3.6. The GMAT score range was from 560 to 760, with an average score of 735. The ranges and averages were much the same for those who got a rejection. The GPA range was 3.09 to 4.4, with an average of 3.56, and the GMAT score range was 630 to 780, with an average of 735.
All of this to say that HBS has many more qualified candidates than it can possibly accept. “At the end of the day, while you clearly need great scores and grades to stay in the running at HBS, the difference comes down to several other factors, like leadership experience, employer caliber, caliber and nature of undergraduate experience, career sector, current location, future plans, outside activities, emotional intelligence, letters of recommendation and ethnic/social/socioeconomic diversity,” notes Clear Admit Co-Founder Eliot Ingram.
