He’s a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt at a Fortune 100 company where he has worked in a process improvement consulting role for the past two years. With a hefty 760 GMAT and a 3.8 grade point average from a Top 20 university, this 26-year-old professional also has spectacular extracurricular activities to his credit, from spearheading a mentorship program at work to volunteering for an animal rescue organization. He wants an MBA to make the transition from the corporate world to management consulting.
With a job lined up with JP Morgan’s investment banking group, this 21-year-old British woman is currently finishing up her undergraduate degree in Latin and Ancient Greek at the University of Oxford. With a 710 GMAT and a 3.7 GPA, she applied to Harvard Business School’s 2+2 program, with an eventual goal of becoming CEO of a leading global luxury goods brand.
A West Point graduate, this 27-year-old military officer has spent the last five years in the U.S. Army. Consistently rated the top junior officer in his battalion, he has spent most of the last year commanding 80 soldiers and decided to leave the Army to get an MBA degree from a top school.
Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru.com
They are all exceptional candidates for an elite MBA program, yet what all of them share in common is that they have recently been dinged by Harvard Business School — without even an interview. There may be some consolation in the fact that these round two applicants–and many others you’ll read about here–are among thousands of people who were turned down by HBS this month.
In fact, some had GMAT scores as high as 780. Or GPAs as high as 3.98 from the very best Ivy League schools. They work for Fortune 100 companies and major global consulting firms, investment banks, and startups (see below our table of applicants who were dinged by Harvard (or Stanford). They generously shared their raw stats and profiles with Poets&Quants in the hopes of gaining some insight into why they didn’t make the cut.
For some candidates, it might be easy to isolate a factor or two that led to the ding. But for many of them, it’s very much a mystery–particularly without the ability to see the entire application submitted to HBS. Consider this head-scratching profile: A 26-year-old Asian male who has a 780 GMAT and who graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a 3.6 GPA. He leveraged his economics and public policy degree into a two-year stint with Goldman Sach’s investment banking division and then two years at KKR in its private equity group. His recommendations were written by a partner at KKR who is an HBS alum and a Nobel Prize winning professor at Princeton. Yet he was dinged by Harvard Business School without even an invite to an interview.
It just shows how random success can be when the applicant pool is filled with so many exceptional candidates. Or consider this young, highly talented woman. She seems like the perfect MBA candidate: a 760 GMAT, a 3.98 GPA from an Ivy League university, four years of work experience and 26 years of age. She led marketing and communications for a major non-profit for two years and then founded her own social enterprise organization that she has led for two years. Dinged!
So how come these truly extraordinary applicants couldn’t get in?
We asked Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru.com who more typically does our MBA handicapping column, to take a look at the backgrounds and stories of these candidates and tell them why they failed to get into Harvard or Stanford. Both business schools released their round one decisions last week and thousands of applicants got disappointing news.
It’s no small hurdle to get into either Harvard or Stanford. The average GMAT score for latest class enrolled at HBS is 727, while the average at Stanford is 732. The undergraduate grade point averages are in nose bleed territory as well: 3.73 at Stanford and 3.67 at Harvard. Less than 7% of Stanford applicants and less than 12% of HBS applicants are accepted each year. And for the record, the Princeton/Goldman/KKR ding even stumped Kreisberg (see his take at the end of the article).
If you also were rejected by Harvard or Stanford and would like an assessment from Sandy, go to Round Two Harvard Business School Ding Report and provide your profile and stats in the comment section.
And for the best of Sandy’s ding reports on top Round 1 candidates, check out Best of Sandy’s HBS & Stanford Ding Report.
THESE HARVARD & STANFORD APPLICANTS WERE TURNED DOWN BY THEIR TARGET SCHOOLS
| GMAT | GPA | College | Major | Employer | Gender | Age | Applicant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 780 | 3.6 | Princeton | Economics | Goldman/KKR | Male | 26 | HBS R2 |
| 780 | 3.6 | Ivy | Economics | Bain/Startup | Male | 21 | 2+2 |
| 780 | 3.4 | Mid-Tier Ivy | Economics | Hedge Fund | Male | 28 | HBS R2 |
| 770 | 9.46/10 | IIT Bangalore | Engineering | MBB Consulting | Male | 26 | Stanford R1 |
| 770 | 3.44 | HYP | Engineering | Logistics Startup | Male | 27 | HBS R2 |
| 760 | 3.98 | HYPS | Poli Sci | Non-Profit | Female | 26 | HBS R2 |
| 760 | 3.9 | Top 100 Private | Psychology | Fortune 100 | Male | 27 | HBS R2 |
| 760 | 3.6 | Ivy | Psychology | Investment Management | Male | 29 | HBS R2 |
| 760 | 3.45 | Cornell | Engineering | Capital One | Male | NA | HBS R1 |
| 760 | 3.9 | Top Univ. Philippines | Economics | I-Bank (Asia) | Male | 26 | HBS R2 |
| 760 | 3.8 | Top 20 U.S. | Business | Fortune 100 | Male | 26 | HBS R2 |
| 750 | Top 10% | Little Ivy | NA | Booz Consulting | Male | 24 | HBS R2 |
| 750 | 3.94 | Medical School India | Medicine | Big 4 Consulting | Male | 27 | HBS R2 |
| 750 | 3.54 | Small Liberal Arts | Liberal Arts | Automotive OEM | Male | 25 | HBS R2 |
| 740 | 3.6 | Pacific-12 | Business | Non-Profit | Male | 27 | HBS R1 |
| 740 | 3.65 | NYU | Economics | LEK Consulting | Male | 27 | HBS R2 |
| 740 | 3.96 | Ivy | Accounting | CPA | Female | 25 | HBS R2 |
| 740 | 8.9/10.0 | IIT Delhi | Engineering | ———- | Male | 22 | 2+2 |
| 730 | 7.9/10.0 | IIT Kharagpur | Engineering | Energy Startup | Male | 26 | HBS R2 |
| 730 | 3.5 | Top Public | Engineering | Bain/PE Firm | Male | 29 | HBS R2 |
| 730 | 3.6 | Harvard | Education | Education Startup | Male | 26 | HBS R2 |
| 720 | 3.33 | Ivy | Philosophy | Fortune 500/Civil Rights Org. | Male | 25 | HBS R2 |
| 710 | 3.97 | Texas-Austin | Liberal Arts | Deloitte Consulting | Female | 25 | HBS R2 |
| 710 | 3.7 | Oxford | NA | ———- | Female | 21 | 2+2 |
| 710 | 3.6 | Top Ten | Engineering | TFA/Healthcare Consulting | Male | 25 | HBS R2 |
| 710 | 3.65 | Ivy | NA | Major Tech Company | Female | 24 | HBS R2 |
| 700 | 3.6 | Top 15 | Finance | I-Bank | Female | 28 | HBS R2 |
| 700 | Top 15% | “Ok Israeli University” | Social Science | Career Officer | Male | 27 | HBS R2 |
| 670 | 2.96 | West Point | Engineering | U.S. Army | Male | 27 | HBS R2 |
| 660 | 3.77 | University of Washington | NA | Goldman Sachs | Male | 24 | HBS R2 |
| 170V/163Q | 3.47 | Small Liberal Arts College | Liberal Arts | Education | Male | 32 | HBS R2 |
| 145V/145Q | NA | NA | NA | McKinsey/Deloitte | Male | 28 | HBS R2 |
| 1500 GRE | 3.8 | Public Ivy | Science | Int’l Development Firm | Male | 26 | HBS R2 |
| 710 GRE | 3.6 | Top 20 | NA | Top 10 I-Bank | Male | 25 | HBS R2 |
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