How to get into Harvard Business School
As a graduate of Harvard Business School, I get approached fairly often by prospective students asking me advice on how to get in. I decided to write this blog to share my thoughts on strategies to get into the business school of your dreams.
Plan Ahead
I decided that I wanted to attend a top business school during my first year in the working world. I was an engineer, and I quickly realized that I didn’t want to be stuck at a computer building CAD models and running tolerance stacks for the rest of my life. Nothing against my fellow engineering brethren; it just wasn’t for me. After I determined I wanted to attend business school, I started doing research on the weekends. I bought two books about how to get into top business schools (Your MBA Game Plan by Omari Bouknight and Scott Shrum, and How to get into the Top MBA Programs by Richard Montauk). After reading both from cover to cover, I realized that I was not nearly ready to apply. I needed more time in the working world, some additional successes under my belt, and some impressive outside-of-work experiences to round out my application. The first step however was to take the GMAT. I spent almost one full year studying for the GMAT in the public library on weekends with admittedly little progress. I finally decided to take a test prep class with Veritas Prep. The results were remarkable. I ended up far exceeding my targeted GMAT, which put me in the running for a top business school. To accelerate my career, I took on larger projects, volunteered for special initiatives, and moved around with the company gaining experiences in different types of roles. To round out my resume, I taught financial literacy to children through Junior Achievement, started an alumni club for my alma mater Lehigh University, and volunteered with Engineers without Borders as a project manager for a potable water project in rural Ecuador. These three extracurricular experiences ended up being some of the most transformative experiences of my life. The important point here is that I spent four years preparing to apply for MBA programs. It was not something decided on a whim. I slowly and methodically put the pieces in place, so that when I did apply I knew I had many of the characteristics of a strong applicant.
Do Some Soul-Searching
It’s not all about having a good GMAT score or a strong resume. You also need to have a compelling reason for wanting to go to business school. Hopefully your reasoning isn’t purely financial. Instead, you likely have ambitious goals about what you want to do in the future. It’s important to spend less time worrying about what you think the admissions department expects and to spend more time thinking about what you really want to do with your life. Authenticity is paramount. The people who work in Admissions at the top schools are extremely bright and experienced professionals, who can recognize when someone is pandering, lying, or being insincere. This may seem like a daunting task. “What if I don’t know exactly what I want to do with my life?” This was the frustrating question that kept me up at night. It took me a while to think about it differently. I decided to try to have fun with it and think about what I’d really love to do if I knew I couldn’t fail. Once I started down this path, I got really excited about my story. It ceased being a chore and actually became enjoyable and inspiring. I was originally considering a story about my goal to become the Chief Sustainability Officer at a large corporation (much like the type of company I was then working for). I thought this was the most realistic story that tied to all my past experiences and skills. The only problem is that I loathed the idea of the actual career path, which made trying to write about it a very painful and uninspired process. When I took off the constraints, I realized I would really love to start my own company in the energy space, even though I had scarcely any entrepreneurial experience on my resume. I then started thinking about realistic cleantech business models and how business school could help me get there. My genuine excitement about my future helped me tell an authentic story and kept me motivated to put intense effort into the admissions process.
Find the Right School for You
The time to really get to know the culture of the top business schools is before you even apply. To understand the culture, you ideally need to visit the school, sit in on a few classes, and meet the students. Really examine how you feel in that environment and ask yourself if you could see yourself there. Interacting with the students is the best way to quickly differentiate between cultures. Do the students seem contented with their decision and proud of their school? Are they engaged in the classroom learning process? Are they willing to help you on your journey? Are they excited about their career prospects? These are all important questions for you to answer during your visit. If you can’t visit, I suggest setting up phone calls with students at the clubs your most interested in. In most cases, the club leaders will post their email addresses publicly on club websites. More often than not, they will be willing to speak with you. Aside from assessing the culture, figure out what specific programs you’d be interested in participating in when you arrive on campus. For example, you should know what clubs you want to participate in, what classes you’d like to take, what professors you’d like to learn from, what business plan contests you’d like to compete in, etc. I’m often shocked at how little prospective students know about the programs at their supposed “dream school.” Articulating the differentiating characteristics of the school will help admissions understand why their school is a good fit for you, and vice versa.
If you follow this advice, you will have a much better chance of attending a top school. Attending HBS was a phenomenal experience, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to jumpstart their career in business. If you have any specific questions or areas that I didn’t cover, feel free to reach out directly.