Harvard Business School MBA News
Get the latest MBA news from Harvard Business School.
Published: January 2, 2023
HBS MBA Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Adcom / Zoom
The interviewer had read the entire application in detail (including details I had mentioned only in the application form) and had done basic research on some of the niche parts of my work. The questions were not technical, but did try to gauge basic understanding of the industry. I felt the interviewer was mostly just trying to have a conversation and there was no element of pressure testing. The interview lasted around 30-32 minutes. Some of the questions were: 1. Describe this niche part of your work in the current job. Who are the key competitors? 2. Are
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Published: January 1, 2023
The Week Ahead: MBA Deadlines, January 2-6, 2023
Welcome back to the series, The Week Ahead, in which we provide a brief rundown of what is happening in MBA admissions this week! Round 2 is underway. It’s the New Year, which means it’s time for the Round 2 crunch! Tuesday, January 3, Washington / Foster has their Round 2 application deadline. Wednesday, January 4, Harvard, UPenn / Wharton, Dartmouth / Tuck and UCLA / Anderson have their Round 2 application deadlines. Oxford / Saïd has their Stage 3 application deadline. Thursday, January 5, Stanford GSB, Chicago / Booth, Yale SOM, Berkeley / Haas, Duke / Fuqua, UVA /
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Published: November 15, 2022
Harvard Business School Employment Report: MBA Class of 2022 Excels
The Harvard Business School employment report shows a successful MBA Class of 2022 that secured a high median base salary of $175,000. Of the 732 students who matriculated for the class, 71 percent were seeking employment post-MBA. Of those, 95 percent secured offers and 90 percent accepted offers. Twenty-nine percent of the MBA Class of 2022 did not seek employment. Thirteen percent started their own business and 12 percent were company sponsored or already employed. Industry Choice Positions in the financial services industry, including investment banking, investment management, venture capital and
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Published: November 7, 2022
HBS Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Adcom / Zoom
I was interviewed by an Adcom member at HBS. The Adcom member was very warm and welcoming and started off by warning me about some internet connectivity issues they were having. The interview went mostly smoothly with a few spikes in the internet so we had to turn off the video feed for a minute towards the end. The questions were very specific to my application, but here are some questions from the interview: 1. Explain what your company does and the technology (I work at a life science start up). 2. Follow up on the technology. 3.
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Published: November 7, 2022
HBS Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Adcom / Zoom
The interview was conversational, with a member of the admissions committee who had read my entire application and was eager to know about the motivations behind my life’s transitions (primarily professional) and about my industry of work. It was a 30min interview, which maybe went ~1-2min over the mark. The questions she asked were specific to my resume, application and profile: 1. She asked about a social impact organization I was part of at college and what we did there 2. We spoke about the improvement in gender ratio in IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology – premier institutes
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Published: November 7, 2022
HBS Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Adcom / On-Campus
I interviewed with an Adcom and had an observer present. The tone of the interview was conversational, mostly resume-based to begin with and a couple of deeper follow-ups on resume as per HBS’s typical interview style. Nothing was very surprising, although there were two questions that made me think a bit more before I responded. One of the questions had to do with how my client responded to my recommendation as a consultant; the follow-up was, what would I have done as a C-suite executive at the client’s company? The other question was about companies I wanted to join post-business
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Published: November 7, 2022
HBS Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Adcom / On-Campus
The interviewer had no time to spare, and she jumped right into asking me about a failure that I wrote about in my essay. Her questions made it clear that she was well-informed on my entire application, but she had my resume pulled up for reference and asked me specific questions about lines from my resume. At one point I was surprised that she mentioned a very personal detail about herself, and there were also some spontaneous questions as I revealed some jobs I worked during college, which had not been on the resume. The questions were much more broad
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Published: November 7, 2022
HBS Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Adcom / On-Campus
Adcom led interview with no observer. It was completely resume based and focused on my current work experience. No questions like why an MBA or why HBS. The interviewer did research before the interview and asked me very pointed questions about my company. Overall, it’s hard to prepare for this interview with canned answers, so definitely know your resume and application well.
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Published: November 6, 2022
HBS Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Adcom / On-Campus
Had one interviewer and an observer. Interview was very fast-paced — there were maybe 20 questions that touched on every aspect of my work experience, 2 questions on my ECs that were very general, and 2 questions on my interests included on my resume. Observer did not ask questions, but verbally reacted throughout the interview, and I found myself recapping things the interviewer already knew from my app because I wanted the observer to have the context – in retrospect, I’m guessing this was a mistake. Even then, interview went by very quickly and was very conversational/friendly tone. No idea
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Published: October 30, 2022
Round 2 MBA Application Deadlines 2022-2023
To help you stay organized, we’ve compiled all of the Round 2 MBA application deadlines (and some Round 3 ones) all in one place. You’ll find links to our corresponding Essay Topic Analysis in the “Essay Analysis” column. School Deadline Decision Essay Analysis Application Live? INSEAD (R2 August Intake) 11/15/2022 1/20/2023 Yes Yes Indian School of Business 11/27/2022 2/2023 Yes Yes Dartmouth / Tuck 1/4/2023 3/16/2023 Yes Yes Harvard Business School 1/4/2023 3/29/2023
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Published: October 23, 2022
HBS MBA Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Adcom / Zoom
Don’t let the HBS Interview information online scare you! I interviewed virtually this morning and had a really pleasant conversation! It just felt like I was talking to someone who shared a passion for my industry and wanted to discuss it in depth. The time flew by and I was generally at ease. 90% of the questions were very specific to my industry. At the end of the conversation I was asked something about one of my ECs and the final question was surrounding what more that I would like to share. Good luck out there! If you know yourself
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Published: October 2, 2022
HBS Announces Timing of Round 1 Interview Invitations & Early Release
Applicants to Harvard Business School can expect some big news from the school on Thursday, October 6th at noon EST. In a post to the Direct from the Director’s blog, Managing Director of HBS admissions Chad Losee wrote that Round 1 applicants can expect the following: “All Round 1 applicants will receive an update via their Application Status page on next steps in our process. There are three possibilities: Invite to Interview – this is very good news! If you are invited to interview, you will receive additional information regarding the
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Published: September 29, 2022
Admissions Exodus: Stanford & HBS Admissions Directors Latest to Leave Posts
In between the Round 1 and 2 deadlines, two major admissions directors in the MBA space have announced this week that they’re moving on: Kirsten Moss of Stanford GSB and Chad Losee of Harvard Business School. Kirsten Moss of Stanford GSB Moss, whose professional history spans leadership coaching, consulting, admissions and more, has held the role of Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions & Financial Aid at Stanford GSB for the last five years. She shared in the email announcement to the Stanford community, “Over the last few years, the classes that have joined Stanford have had record
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Published: September 21, 2022
Real Humans of the Harvard Business School MBA Class of 2024
Find out what it’s like to be a member of the Harvard Business School MBA student community in this edition of our Real Humans: MBA Students series. The Harvard MBA Class of 2024 is comprised of 1,010 students, a class size larger than usual due to deferrals related to Covid. Women make up 46 percent of the class and 38 percent are international. HBS shares the racial and ethnic identities of its domestic students in two ways. Federal reporting guidelines allow each individual student to be represented in a single race or ethnic group, whereas
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Published: September 15, 2022
Bloomberg Businessweek Business School Rankings 2022-2023 Key Takeaways
Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2022-2023 Best B-Schools ranks the top business schools globally by region, charting assessments of programs in the U.S., Europe, Asia-Pacific region, and Canada through a rigorous analysis of data and survey responses. This year, the ranking covers 117 business schools. To qualify, programs had to be taught primarily in English. Bloomberg Businessweek surveyed 6,422 students, 11,304 alumni, and 778 employers, and also weighed compensation and employment data to determine schools’ scores. The top five of the U.S. business schools ranking sees the same schools as last year’s, with some slight shuffling. The Stanford Graduate
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Published: September 14, 2022
Harvard MBA Class of 2024 Profile: Diversity Reigns & Deferrals Conclude
See the Harvard MBA Class of 2025 profile here. Harvard Business School shared their MBA Class of 2024 profile today and, while HBS couldn’t dodge the industry-wide dip in application volume, the program maintained diverse representation, academic strengths and an enlarged class size. The percentages of women, international students and U.S. minorities nearly mirror last year’s class. The new HBS MBA candidates also maintained the median GMAT score of 730 and had earned an average undergraduate GPA of 3.70. HBS received 8,264 applications for the Class of 2024 and 1,015 ultimately enrolled. The
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Published: September 8, 2022
MBA Admissions Interviews 2022-2023: On-Campus, Off-Campus or Virtual?
Due to Covid-19, business schools conducted MBA admissions interviews virtually the past few seasons. Now, some business schools are opening back up to welcome MBA applicants to campus for visits and interviews. See if your target programs offer the options of on-campus, off-campus, and/or virtual interviews for the 2022-2023 admissions season in the chart below. School On-Campus Off-Campus Virtual Columbia Business School ✔ ✔ Cornell University SC Johnson Graduate School of Management ✔ Limited ✔ Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business ✔ Duke University Fuqua School of Business ✔ ✔ ✔ Harvard Business School
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Published: August 25, 2022
Harvard Business School Announces Full-Tuition Scholarships
Harvard Business School (HBS) seeks to remove cost as a barrier to higher education with the announcement that they will provide scholarships to cover the total cost of tuition and course fees for those with the greatest financial need. This will apply to approximately 10 percent of the HBS MBA student body. While students will be responsible for their own living expenses, the funding from the school works out to $76,000 per year for the two-year program. More scholarship support will also be made available to middle income students. “We know that talent is much more evenly distributed than
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Published: August 23, 2022
Real Numbers of MBA Admissions: Percentage of U.S. Minorities at Top U.S. Business Schools
The percentage of U.S. minorities at top U.S. business schools can provide a sense of the diversity you will find in your MBA program. U.S. minorities is defined as enrolled students at business school who are US citizens or permanent residents who self identify as African American, Hispanic/Latinx, Native American, Asian Pacific, or Asian Indian. See the percentage of minorities as reported by top business schools in the chart below. U.S. School % U.S. Minorities Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business 44% Columbia Business School 40% Cornell University SC Johnson Graduate School of Management 43%** Dartmouth
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Real Numbers of MBA Admissions: Percentage of Female MBA Students
Over the past decade, the percentage of female MBA students has been on the rise across leading business schools. USC Marshall was the first leading business school to achieve gender parity while others have achieved or continue to strive for that benchmark. The Forté Foundation has also consistently reported that women are either gaining or holding their ground on b-school campuses. Look at the chart below to see the percentage of female MBA students at leading business schools around the globe. Business School % Women Arizona State University
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Early & Round 1 MBA Deadlines 2022-2023
To help you stay organized, we’ve compiled a chart of the earliest deadlines, including Early Action and Round 1, of the top business schools in one place. For schools that have announced their essay topic(s), you’ll find links to our corresponding Essay Topic Analysis in the “Essay(s) Released” column. We will continue to update this table as more Round 1 MBA deadlines and essay topics are announced. Deadlines are for Round 1 (unless otherwise noted). Last updated: August 16, 2022 School Deadline Decision Essay(s) Released? Application Live? Oxford / Saïd 8/31/2022 10/26/2022
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Admissions Director Q&A: Chad Losee of Harvard Business School
Chad Losee is back for this Admissions Director Q&A to tell you all about Harvard Business School (HBS) admissions, the entrepreneurial might of the MBA program, what to expect in your interview and more. Losee joined the HBS MBA Admissions and Financial Aid team as Managing Director in 2016. After graduating from HBS as a Baker Scholar in 2013, he worked for a year as a fellow in the Dean’s Office, helping to launch HBS Online among other projects. In 2014, Losee returned to Bain & Company’s Dallas office, where he had worked as
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Real Numbers of MBA Admissions: Class Size of Top U.S. MBA Programs
Business schools come in all shapes and sizes and the class size of top MBA programs can be a factor in considering fit. From networking to a tight-knit culture to campus opportunities, class size can reveal much about an MBA program. No matter which program you choose, the top MBA programs strive to ensure relationship building during full-time b-school life. Some larger programs, such as Harvard Business School and CBS, mainly break the student body down into cohorts/sections/clusters of dozens of students. Other U.S. business schools, like Wharton, also have Learning Teams, groups of 5-6 students who
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Real Numbers of MBA Admissions: Average GRE Scores by Top U.S. Business Schools
Average GRE scores by business school can provide applicants with a sense of the rigor of the MBA program, expectations of the adcom and general competitiveness of the applicant pool. While the GMAT used to be the only accepted admissions exam at leading MBA programs, many have opened up to other options, including the GRE. The GRE consists of a 60-minute Analytical Writing section, which includes two essays that applicants have 30 minutes each to complete. An additional Verbal Reasoning section also features two 30-minute sections of 20 questions each. Another two sections are devoted to Quantitative
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Key Takeaways from The Economist 2022 Best Full-time MBA Ranking
Harvard Business School tops The Economist’s 2022 full-time MBA ranking, as more business schools elected to participate again. As many may recall, most of the top U.S. MBA programs abstained from last year’s Economist ranking due to the pandemic. This resulted in a top-10 that was half European MBA programs and half American MBA programs. Last year, IESE and HEC landed in the #1 and #2 spots, respectively. Meanwhile, the highest ranking U.S. programs taking part last year were Michigan Ross (#3), NYU Stern (#4), U. Washington Foster (#8), CMU Tepper (#9), U. Minnesota Carlson
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