How to Get Into HBS: Play the Piccolo, Not the Violin

Undaunted, Motlagh ignored her advice. As soon as Motlagh returned from Spain, he visited the Harvard campus, something he didn’t get a chance to do before applying. He met with an admissions officer at Dillon Hall, sat in on a class, visited student friends, and then sent a follow-up letter to the admissions department. His enthusiasm was contagious. As he would later put it, “I was completely energized by what was happening (in the Harvard class). I wanted to raise my hand and jump in, even though I didn’t really know what was going on. I believe in learning by doing, but I saw that this was a way of learning by not doing. You get a chance to build an education based on borrowed, real-life experiences.”

He also reached out to the water polo team to see if he could shake out an extra recommendation to the three required letters Motlagh already filed with his application. And he smartly told Harvard about a job offer from the BBC that he would take if the program didn’t accept him.

The school eventually pulled him off the wait list–in the second round.  Motlagh, who interned with Goldman Sachs over the summer, hopes to one day “realize my dream to start my own business, to push myself through good times and bad to make something amazing.” If he bumps into Stark at a cocktail party one day, Motlagh’s unlikely to pretend he doesn’t know her. After all, she helped him get into his dream school and he’s not ashamed of it.

This is part three of an ongoing series on MBA admissions consulting. The first story in the series, “Suddenly Cozy: MBA Admissions Consultants and Business Schools,” was published last Monday, while “The Rebel Savant of MBA Admissions Consulting” was published last Thursday.

Other stories in our series on MBA admissions consulting:

“The MBA Admissions World, According to Sandy”

“The Cost: $6,850  The Result: An Invite to a Dream B-School”

“A Yale Ethics Professor on the ‘Arms Race’ To Get Into An Elite MBA Program”

“Leading Firms in MBA Admissions Consulting“