The MBA Gatekeeper To Berkeley Haas

Berkeley's Haas School of Business

Berkeley’s Haas School of Business

What did an applicant do one time that made you want to shake them, metaphorically speaking?

As with all schools we do background checks and we had an applicant, actually somebody we admitted who misrepresented their current role on the application and the resume, and in the interview. It was understood that this person was going to get a promotion, but at the time that all of those materials were submitted, did not yet have that. This was somebody who without that title, without the promotion we still would’ve admitted, they were strong. But in the end we rescinded the offer. When we talk about somebody who’s persistent and contacting us every week, and that’s poor judgment, this was a much greater-scale error in judgment. I had a long discussion with the applicant, to explain, and hoping that it would be a learning experience, about the importance of accurately representing yourself going forward, and learning from it. It was heartbreaking.

What’s the oddest thing you’ve ever received in an application package?

I don’t know if this was the oddest, but it definitely stands out: . a candidate who sent us a DVD of an interview with himself and David Letterman in the future, recreated the whole set and everything. It was pretty spectacular.

Did he get in?

I don’t think so. Substance is what really matters.

What book should every Haas applicant have read?

There’s a book I read several years ago called The Element (by Ken Robinson). It’s based on the idea that by following your passion, you create opportunities for yourself and for others around you. It’s basically how following your passion can change the world. It’s really powerful, because a lot of it is about how, there are examples of Olympic athletes and just people from different walks of life and how because they were encouraged from a young age to do things that didn’t necessarily follow the norm, they ended up becoming Olympic athletes, or . . . there’s this one story of a student who was in high school and it was senior year, and the teacher was asking where everybody was going to college, and he said, ‘Oh, I’m not going to college, I want to be a firefighter. This is my dream, this is what I want to do.’ And the teacher was like, ‘No, you need to go to college, you need to get an education,’ and then years later his teacher was in a car accident and the first responder on the scene who rescued him was the student from high school. I don’t know if that’s a true story, but it’s pretty powerful.

A lot of it is just about our educational system and how it doesn’t reflect the realities of today. A lot of our students come here, they come to Berkeley because they’re following their heart but there are still so many voices around them telling them what success is, and what job they should be going after, what path they should be on. They come here and they start to feel this disconnect between what everybody else has been saying versus what’s really driving them inside. I totally understand what a challenge that is. This book, it puts it in perspective of why it’s so important, just the power of following your dreams.

If you could change one thing about the admissions process, what would it be?

From our perspective, one thing that we’re always thinking about is is there a better way to get more information about our candidates, versus the written application, and the one-on-one interview with a student or an alum, and we’ve had brainstorms about what are other different types of things that we can do, but we’re always limited by just resources, human resources to be able to carry out that type of evaluation, and because of that, then sort of the consistency and fairness of the process. If I could change one thing it would be lifting those restrictions so we could be a lot more creative about how we select people for our programs. 

From an applicant perspective I would love to remove the message boards from their experience, because I think that the level of anxiety that applicants go through just analyzing the littlest message or action which really doesn’t mean anything, but I understand when you don’t have perfect information that you’re hanging on every little kernel. The hypotheses that come out of it, the level of anxiety versus just focusing on, ‘Let me submit my best application’ and adopting a zen approach to it, ‘and then I will just wait and find out’ –  I wish I could take that anxiety out of the process for them.

What’s the biggest difference between male and female applicants?

On the surface, definitely the types of industries that they’re coming from. There are certain industries like finance for example, where women just aren’t as represented as men. Something that’s changed a lot for us in the past, I would even say two years, and a lot of that is just because it’s a larger conversation going on around gender equity globally, is the way our female applicants talk about what being a woman in leadership means to them. That really stands out because we don’t see as much around gendered leadership from our male applicants in the broader applicant pool. It’s powerful to read about. The substance of the conversation has really changed, especially in the past two years, and how our candidates are thinking about it and how they’re thinking about the type of leader they want to be, and the types of organizations and teams that they want to create.

What’s the best application stunt you’ve seen?

If I tell you this now we’re going to see it all year. We did have a candidate this past year. We have a number of candidates who will submit PowerPoint, or videos. But we did have a candidate who created a very short video that really, it told a story very succinctly, but it also allowed us to get a broader sense of his personality. It’s rare that a video will work, but for whatever reason the way that he put it together, and just shared more about who he was, not necessarily his accomplishments, but the experiences that shaped how he sees the world. We all liked it. It worked. It’s sort of along the lines of what we try to do with our essays, to really learn more about who are you, what has made you who you are today, versus all of the things that you’ve accomplished – those are important, but we see that in your resume and your letters.

Applicant X has a 720 GMAT score, a 3.9 GPA, but didn’t get in to Haas. Why not?

It’s possible that they just graduated from college. Work experience is a big part. When you have 240 students in the class, what our students are able to contribute inside the classroom as well as outside is critical. So we are looking for a certain richness of experience, where they’re able to share examples, whether it’s talking about a case or whether it’s being one of our many student leaders on campus.

A few months ago when I was in Berkeley, I saw a guy wearing a Speedo, with suspenders, digging around in a garbage can. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen in Berkeley?

I grew up in Berkeley. I’ve seen it all. That’s, like, a Monday. I don’t know that I’m even fazed by anything now. Somebody in a suit? Actually, I think the weirdest thing, I was here when we had the tree sitters (a 21-month protest against university plans to raze a grove of trees for an athletic center). For the beginning of that, it wasn’t so strange, but for the duration, it was really just the duration of how long they lived up there.

THE GATEKEEPER SERIES:

THE GATEKEEPER TO HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL 

THE GATEKEEPER TO STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS 

THE GATEKEEPER TO THE WHARTON SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

THE GATEKEEPER TO THE KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

THE GATE KEEPER TO CHICAGO’S BOOTH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

THE GATEKEEPER TO MIT SLOAN

THE GATEKEEPER TO DARTMOUTH’S TUCK SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

THE GATEKEEPER TO MICHIGAN’S ROSS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS 

THE GATEKEEPER TO CORNELL’S JOHNSON GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

THE GATEKEEPER TO YALE’S SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

THE GATEKEEPER TO LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL

THE GATEKEEPER TO CAMBRIDGE JUDGE

THE GATEKEEPER TO THE INDIAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.