Dear workonnet1,
I'm not sure if you ultimately opted to apply to HBS or not, but I saw this question and wanted to help shed some light on HBS's process.
While you could certainly have called the HBS admissions office and asked them how many slots they had remaining for R3 admits, the truth is that they couldn't have really given you an answer. The reason for this is that they don't yet know exactly how many of their R1 and R2 candidates are going to matriculate (or even exactly how many R2 folks they will be admitting next week - as admissions board meetings are ongoing this week). Without that information, it's hard to come up with an exact figure for available spaces in the class going into the final admissions round.
In addition, keep in mind that many of the 'R3 admits' may actually come from the R1 and R2 waitlist - so getting a sense as to how many spots are open may only have limited value. Dee Leopold (HBS's admissions director) stated in her blog yesterday that they expect to admit 40 R1 waitlisters in early April - and presumably additional waitlisted candidates later.
I hope that clears things up somewhat. I wish you the best of luck if you did submit an application!
Regards,
Graham
