You Won’t Believe Who Harvard Just Rejected

Ms. Startup

• 770 GMAT
• 3.6 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in math and engineering at a Top 10 university
• Work experience includes four years in strategy roles at a major tech company (think Google, Facebook or Apple); then moved to a startup and finally another famous tech company after the startup was acquired
• Extracurricular involvement in arts-related stuff in college, with lighter involvement after college
• Recommendations showcased a lot of stories and tied in with the rest of the application. One recommendation was from an HBS alum
• Goal: To transition to a specific type of product management in tech
• Other target schools: Stanford, MIT, Chicago
• 25-year-old Asian-American female

Sandy’s Analysis: Not sure what happened here. It was not the alum status of your rec writers or extras after college. Could have been your failure to explain story in app and essay or just bad luck. You obviously have a real solid resume and scores.

This does not seem like a Stanford admit because there is no WOW factor, but I think Sloan and Booth are going to like this, unless your application or recommendations were mangled and tone deaf.