You Won't Believe Who Harvard Business School Just Rejected

Ms. Sustainable Energy

730 GMAT
3.6 GPA
Undergraduate student in mechanical engineering at Ivy League school (H/Y/P), with minors in sustainable energy and materials science
Work Experience includes research and senior thesis focused on battery storage materials; was project manager for a class project in which led a team of 40 to present to NASA-JPL; also led a team of 120 to organize a Model UN conference as SecGen for 1000 participating high school students, and started a social entrepreneurship venture after winning a pitch competition and am currently in an incubator program on campus
Wrote essay on my desire to write my own story and my love for renewable energy
Goal: To do project management and development in the RE industry with the aim of going into rural electrification in the future
Female student from India
Applied to HBS under 2+2 program; gained interview for Yale Silver Scholars program

Sandy’s Analysis: Well, lots to like obviously, especially that fact that you are a female STEM. The only guess I can make is your lack of prestige internships at blue chip companies over the summer. That can count a lot and is an easy way for HBS to see how you compare with other kids. If you had worked for a leading alternative energy (or just energy) company or NASA or M/B/B over summers that might have given some weight to this.

All that said, had you gotten in on this record, I would not have been surprised. Is it the case that you never had a ‘real’ job, even for summer?