Personal Story: HBS 2+2

kartikiitr · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:32 pm Post subject:

hey frey-2..thanx a lot for your valuable suggestions..its helpful....

kartikiitr · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:44 pm Post subject:

how are international applicants arranging for accommodation..i strongly urge international aplicants to post abt such things....

kismet · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 7:28 am Post subject:

Hey everyone, I'm another person with an interview. Yay! We made the first cut!

frappucinogrl · Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:18 am Post subject:

Hello everyone,

I'm entering HBS this fall, was a college senior when I applied to HBS (we didn't have 2+2 back then) - but my situation isn't that different from yours.

Ok so basic things about the interview:
- As people have mentioned earlier - it will be very specific to your application
- For someone without work experience - a lot of questions will be about your personal experience and extracurricular activities and how they have shaped YOU as a person. It reminded me a lot of the interviews I did to get into college.

Here is my interview transcript:
My interview was with a professor who is also an adcom. It was exactly 30 min but there were a lot of questions. He was intimately familiar with even the smallest details of my application.
- Have you visited HBS before?
- You're very young. Why an MBA? Why now?
- Why not (my undergrad alma mater - which is also a top 3 b-school)? [Business majors - they may ask you what benefit you think you can get from an MBA.]
- I see from your application that you don't like to take "No" for an answer (he listed out some examples from my internships from my application) - where do you think that comes from?
- How do you lead?
- Then he asked me in detail about my employment during school. We talked about my part-time job - he asked me how I supervised, how I trained new employees, what our clients are like.
- He probed for a long time about my role at my latest internship, how I work with and communicate with my team (which is global), what sort of projects I do.
- Why is your work experience so different from your long-term goals? Was it because of interest or opportunity?
- He probed about my long-term goals, I showed my knowledge and research about the field (it's very different from my current one). He asked me exactly what role I plan to pursue in that field.
- What leader do you admire most?
- What leader do you admire most in the country you plan to work in?
- What quality do you feel is most overrated in a leader, and what's most underrated? Do you display the underrated qualities you admire?
- What are you passionate about?
- What would you differently about your life, aside from what you wrote about in your mistake essay?
- He asked me about the situation behind one of my essays - I wrote about moving 10 times.

He was pretty impassive, but there were times when his eyebrows went up, or he laughed a little at my answer (in a good way) - like when he said I didn't know how to take no for an answer! When he asked me if I had any questions at the end, I asked him if he was a professor. At that point he initiated a conversation on his own, about how he knew professors who were involved in research that gelled with my long term goals. I took notes at this point. I felt like he was really welcoming. He gave me his personal business card; I wrote him a thank-you note thanking him both for interviewing me and for telling me about the facilities at HBS that suited my career goals. I didn't get a response from him until after I was admitted.

A site I used to prepare (but didn't help me much, questions were very specific to my app!!):
http://www.clearadmit.com/wiki/index.php?title=HarvardInterview

p.s. they give all regular HBS interviewees a free pass to eat at Spangler and a free pass to exercise at Shad Hall...they might do that for you guys so it's a good idea to meet up in one of those places Smile

p.p.s. coordinate to share hotel rooms it is cheaper

Hope this is helpful...and private message me if you want my email addy to ask more questions (but I can only speak about my experience, I have no idea what the adcoms want). Always rooting for more youngsters to get in to HBS!!

achao913 · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 12:46 am Post subject:

Thanks so much for the transcript and the advice! Sounds like it was pretty intense!

kartikiitr · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 1:54 am Post subject:

hey all...wat u are doin for accommodation..specially the international students......please reply!

CanadianinZambia · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:39 am Post subject: Accommodation

Hey all,

Congrats to everyone interviewing! My interview is on the 24th. If anyone wants to share a room for the weekend let me know!

Cheers

kartikiitr · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 7:06 am Post subject:

hey hi my interview is also on 24 ..do mail me at kartiksharma1987@gmail.com

rejectedFromMIT · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 1:31 pm Post subject:

Congrats to everyone who got an invitation... I'm a sophomore this year and I will apply next year. I don't have any work experience or leadership positions, is there anybody here who got an invitation without being in leadership positions or having work experience? I will probably get an internship my junior year before my application but I want to know more about what they're looking for so if anyone who got an invitation can talk about his leadership or work experience that would be great, thanks in advance

legend2005 · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 2:50 pm Post subject:

It's really hard to tell what HBS is looking for in applicants...

However, the one definite is that GMAT does not appear to be all that important...just looking through this thread will show you that there's a range of GMATs from high 500s to mid 700s that received interviews with a median in the mid to high 600s...

My hunch is that leadership and internship experiences (as expressed through the essays) were very important in determining the invitees...

soccer6 · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:18 pm Post subject:

harvard2p2interviewee · Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 6:24 am Post subject:

I'm not too sure about that. I think it's the roughly same distribution as with the regular MBA program, it's just that GMAT scores may average 20 points lower since students haven't taken the GMAT multiple times.

From what I can tell, HBS has always focused on the leadership over just the scores when selecting interviewees. Their median GMAT score is only around 710, I'm pretty sure they could do a lot better than that if they really cared all that much about it.

Also, note that very few have actually posted their scores and grade point averages on this forum. All the data we have before us shows is that good leadership and internship experiences are important, it doesn't necessarily say anything about other parts of the application.

aim-wsc · Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 10:04 am Post subject:

jasperthecat · Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 10:08 am Post subject:

i have an interview on monday. staying at the Irving House, looking to split a room. Your half would be $60. jguoey@gmail.com

flashwaver · Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:33 am Post subject: Dressing attire?

WHat to wear?? I am completely clueless in such things. Will a nice business casual be enough? or a full suite (tie+jacket, etc) is required?
thank for all the help!!!
i will be interviewing on wednesday!
good luck folks!