You Won’t Believe Who Harvard Just Rejected

Mr. Energy Consultant

• 750 (Q48/V45)
• 3.5 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in engineering from a mid-tier school (Think Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette)
• Work experience includes three years for a small energy-focused consulting firm that works for big clients such as Exxon and the U.S. Department of Energy
• Extracurricular involvement working at a music nonprofit for inner-city youth
• Great recommendations
• Other target schools: Rest of M7, except Chicago Booth
• 26-year-old white male, with trailing spouse

Sandy’s Analysis: I think your ding is in large part based on no anchor experience, e.g. no schooling or work at a place they recognize and use as a frequent flyer into their program. Typically, admits with this record have same stats but first job at MBB, and THEN go to a smaller, niche firm.

That way, HBS credits you with doing something that is hard to do, e.g. getting a job at the MBB. But on the record you display, you never got admitted through any selective doorway, and they just use that as an easy metric.

Sure, there is more, blah, blah but that explains a lot. Good luck at other places, they are not as obsessed with selective prior gigs as HBS.