HBS 2+2

What is HBS 2+2?

Harvard Business School launched a deferred program which is meant for admitting exceptional college undergraduates who may not have considered business education. The first set of students were selected in fall of 2008. They will be enrolling in the year 2011 and would be completing their education by 2013.

For whom is HBS 2+2 ?

HBS 2+2 is meant for college students in their pre-final year. The students who want to enroll in the year 2013 will have to graduate by the year 2011 and they will have to submit their application in the year 2010. This program is not meant for graduates who have graduated by the year 2010. Those type of graduates will have to apply normally (i.e complete with people who have an average of about 4-5 years of experience)

Why was this program introduced by Harvard?

This program was introduced to mainly attract those type of students who typically wouldn't be thinking of a business education, for e.g., women may be more inclined to study law or medicine, very intelligent students in engineering field may go on for programs like PhD etc. Also contrary to popular saying of business schools rejecting early career applicants straight forwardly, some schools do accept them. Yale has a silver scholar program which takes in student just after they graduate. Stanford too takes in students who don't have work experience or have less work experience. So, with lot of quality students (read: future leaders) being lost to other business schools, Harvard has come up with this unique program to give students a confirmed admit though it is a deferred seat.

Difference between applying now and after 2 years>>

Whether a student gets admitted for the HBS 2+2 program or applies after having 2 years of work experience applies and gets admitted it doesn't make a lot of difference. The advantages of getting admitted for the HBS 2+2 program is  you get confirmed seat in Harvard which is a great thing. Also, the admitted students will have a dedicated career coach and access to strategic career coaching advise thorough the self-assessment tool developed by the HBS.

HBS 2+2 essays: 

1) What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600 words)

Through this question, HBS wants to know about the candidates definition of an accomplishment. It may or may not be successful.  HBS wants to know, how you as a person and how you made a positive impact on the people and the community. While mentioning your accomplishment don't forget the second part why do you view them as such.  HBS wants leaders and they want the students to have showcased some sort of leadership while they were doing their under graduation. It may be better to demonstrate your leadership activities or accomplishments in different fields like internship, academics (can be mentioned in the next question), community service, or any other leadership roles held.

2) What would you like us to know about your undergraduate academic experience?

One is not only expected to convey about their grades and their GPA to the admission officials through this question but also about why they chose the particular course? Did anything in their life lead them to choose it? What are the things that you have learnt? What are the things that you haven't learnt and hope to get it covered by an MBA program at HBS? How have you improved in the course of your study?

3) What have you learned from a mistake?

In this question one must say what was the mistake he committed and also how he learned from a mistake. You can provide an example where you have grown as a leader by learning from the previous mistake that you have committed.

Articles to read:

1) The Wall Street Journal

2) Harvard Business School Media Release

Remember that the admission officials want to know who you are as a person and what matter to you. If you try to modify your answers thinking that it would better your chances of getting an admit, you couldn't be more wrong.

Note:- Optional essay questions and a few other things related to HBS 2+2 program will be added soon.

Chinese GMAT cheating

Recently, an article came in Business week magazine which mentioned that the Chinese were cheating in the GMAT exams and there were many cases reported. There was an instance in which a woman had impersonated persons and took the test for eight different persons. There were touts who went to the exam just for memorizing the questions which appeared in the test and later reporting the questions to the companies generating some money for both the parties. Also, a website in China was giving ACTUAL GMAT questions to students who paid a few dollars to them. That company was sued by GMAC for some thousands of dollars and the website was ordered to display what happened to it due to its cheating and similar actions would be taken on other companies. One of the things to be noted from this incident is that GMAC had got access to the database of the students who had registered with the firm. Some students scores were cancelled - those who had reported that the questions which had come for them was also there in the website. I remember getting an email sometime back where a similar incident had happened elsewhere with GMAC taking similar action. It is good that GMAC is taking this action so that only the deserving students will get an admit. Also, the business schools too do not place too much emphasis on GMAT and differentiate the levels of competencies of students by their GPA, leadership and extra-curricular skills and an interview too.

Resume writing

Writing a resume is quite difficult and should be planned and as essays there will be a few drafts before you make the final perfect one or the one as perfect as possible. In essays each word is worth its weight in gold. An resume on the other hand must follow the format as specified by each business school. Different schools might have different format so one must be carefully follow the format specified.

The resume should typically not exceed one page. However hard it may seem, for the ones who have done a lot of internships or worked in a lot of jobs, you will have to squeeze the information within one page.

The fonts used should be consistent. One must not use differing fonts for similar parts.

And when describing the leadership experience or work experience don't be generic. Explain to the admission committee what you have done. This can be further supplemented in the essays part. In the essays, one must be able to bring the whole story and you must be able to fit what you have done in the past with your career goals.

Mention dates for everything. If there is a gap, explain in the optional resume the reason for that gap.

Utilize the verbs effectively. Don't repeat the verbs though. Words like "improved", "supported", "organized", "assisted", "facilitated" etc may be used.

State your non-academic interests. The admission committee goes through thousands of applications each year and if there is something that will pique the interest of the admission officials, it will do more good than harm.

Lastly, check for typographical errors thoroughly. Even if one mistake is found out, it could spoil your chances of getting admitted drastically.

To submit Stanford application by third deadline

The last two months was pretty hectic for me. After submitting my HBS application, I realized that there was a lot of things which I had not addressed properly in my application such as the optional essay questions which asked about the career vision and how is it meaningful to you. I have done a lot of introspection from that time and I have found out what I really want to do. Somehow, that application has helped me tremendously even though I got rejected. I would recommend any person to apply as soon as they graduate or when they are in the final year so that they can truthfully judge themselves and see what lies ahead in store for them.

Regarding Stanford, I decided to apply just before the third deadline as I don't think it is going to make a difference whether I submit my application in my second round or in my third round as I am applying to the deferred program. It is very difficult to get selected for the Stanford's deferred program as they don't have any specific number of students to select such as HBS 2+2 program which selects about 100 students (10% of the total students selected). Since, it is very difficult to get selected I might as well apply as late as possible but bring out the best application that I can. The questions in Stanford application is more or less similar to the HBS 2+2 program, having said so, one must not cut and paste the answers. The answers to each school should be tailored to that particular school.