Who HBS Dinged In The First Round

Mr. Private Equity

• 750 GMAT
• 3.95 GPA
• Work experience includes there years in a family office and three years for a mid-market private equity firm
• Goal: To pursue a senior private equity role at a firm consistent in size and investment objectives as my current firm
• Extracurricular involvement tutoring underprivileged, minority groups and significant alumni engagement
• 27-year-old male

Sandy’s Analysis: Note to PE applicants. The track record of your PE firm at getting kids into HBS is SUPER important. There are MANY, pwerful, well respected, mid-market PE firms who almost never place kids at HBS, and those kids are often Ivy applicants with 3.6+GPAs and 730+ GMATs, along with Bulge Bracket first job experience. I also think the percent of enrolled class with PE backgrounds this year will be either steady or less than last year, maybe less by a percent or two. What I don’t know, but can guess, is that the number of PE applicants this year, especially as a result of PE hires one to three years ago, based on expanding stock market. The absolute number of private equity applicants may be up. So the keyhole may be the same or even smaller, hence OUCH.

Lena Dunham (SK fav!) has compared her early sexual experiences as feeling like shoving a loofah into a Mason jar. That could be going on here. Loofah=PE total applicant pool, Mason Jar=number of PE admits. Dee Leopold ROFL while reading this.