Best Of Sandy’s Post-Intvw R2 Ding Report

globalmanWaitlisted at Harvard Business School without interview. 

  • 770 GMAT
  • 3.44 GPA
  • Undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from top Ivy (Harvard/Yale/Princeton)
  • Work experience includes one and one-half years on a travel/work grant helping local businesses in Latin America develop export relationships with importers in the U.S. and Europe, and three and one-half years working as an assistant to the CEO of a venture-backed integrated logistics startup in the U.S.
  • Extracurricular involvement tutoring Spanish speaking immigrants in English
  • Goals: To work in consulting, with a long-term objective of entrepreneurship and international business development
  • “HBS result: Waitlisted without interview – Anything more you suggest i do at this point? Waiting on Stanford, Columbia, and Wharton.”
  • 27-year-old white male

Sandy’s Analysis: Your problem is the one-two punch of a lowish GPA and no prestige jobs. Other schools might roll over even with that for a 770 GMAT (which you got) but not HBS. I got a better feeling about this profile for Wharton and Columbia, both of which are real GMAT fans. As to the HBS W/L, things happen there, but do I have this right, the news you got today with a W/L with out interview, or have you been on that for a while?

The first step is getting an interview. But you knew that.

Unfortunately, integrated logistics is not a domain HBS is trying to fill, although if they think about it, maybe they should. Good luck at Stanford, Columbia and Wharton.

If you also were turned down by Harvard or Stanford and would like an assessment from Sandy, go to our Post-Interview Round Two Harvard Business School & Stanford Ding Report and provide your profile and stats in the comment section.