How NOT To Mess Up Your HBS Interview

If you are thinking of Paris or New York and are REALLY worried about this (more so than is normal) it might be worth coming to campus. Otherwise, chances are, you will get a reg. adcom anyway, or a lively ringer whom you enjoy, etc.

At that point it becomes more important to think about time, expense, and how tired and stressful the trip will be. There is something to be said, if you live near Paris or London or New York, to just doing it, and POOF, it is over by lunch, not a 4-day, 3-TSA frisk, flight and taxi-rumble to Boston. With the real possibility of snow storms.

You’re obviously doing a good number of mock interviews right now. What most bothers you about the whole process?

What upsets me are good people who have a bad hair day. The call I fear is from the person crying on Amtrak. They had their interview at HBS. They are on their way home on the train to New York, and they call in tears because they think they have blown their interview. If you think you’ve blown your interview at Harvard, you probably have blown it. Those are real sad calls, especially if you like the person, and they rehearse how they lost a step, then another and then tripped. If you could have prevented the first lost step, they would be in at Harvard. That happens, man, trust me. That happens. Years of work and hours of preparation and poof, it’s gone, because they could not explain why they went to Cornell for college in 30 concise seconds.

For more admissions advice from Sandy Kreisberg, also see “ The World, According to Sandy.”

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