You Won't Believe Who Harvard Business School Rejected This Month

Mr. Data Scientist

730 GMAT
8/10 GPA
Undergraduate degree in engineering from a Top 10 engineering school in India (think BIT/NIT)
3.9 GPA
Master’s degree in engineering from a Top 5 U.S. engineering school
Work experience includes two years working as a data scientist at an e-commerce company.
Extracurricular involvement as a volunteer teacher (10+ hours a week in the past two years)
“Harvard ding was kinda expected but Booth Ding was a surprise for me”
“Do you think I should hope for an interview call from Sloan & Wharton?”
Indian male

Sandy’s Analysis: A lot at Harvard Business School depends on what they think of your company. They favor Bigfeet like Amazon, Facebook, and Google. If you are doing data analysis at some no-name e-commerce company, that could be the same as the “middle-market PE curse.”

Your college and GPA are solid. HBS might just like other similar kids more, Booth ding is a surprise unless your execution on the application was damaging or unclear. Sloan goes for this profile, but they get a lot of them. Both Sloan and Wharton may turn on company prestige and GPA at college.

Bottom line: You are in a crowded part of a crowded space, so some luck is certainly involved, and small execution boo-boos as to goals, recommendations, and capturing your experiences could have out-sized consequences. That is how borderlands work, alas.

DON’T MISS: DINGED? LET SANDY TELL YOU WHY NOW