A Ding Or Admit? Find Out Why

There was good and bad news for thousands of applicants to the Harvard Business School and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business today (Dec. 7). Both schools are sending out their round one admit letters and rejections, only to be followed in the next couple of days by Stanford GSB, Wharton, UC-Berkeley Haas, NYU Stern, Dartmouth Tuck, Michigan Ross, and Duke Fuqua.

All this means a good number of highly qualified applicants were, in the parlance of the HBS admissions office, “released.” If there’s any solace in getting dinged from any one of these elite MBA programs, it’s this: In all probability, you are among the most highly qualified candidates in this year’s applicant pool, and you have plenty of company. After all, even if you don’t get a ‘yes’ from your number one choice, your chance of admission to a rival prestige school could be pretty good.

Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru.com

No matter what your ultimate fate–whether you have  been accepted or rejected–let us know how the story turned out for you. If you’ve been accepted, it would help others determine trends or patterns in this year’s admission decisions. And besides, if you’re like most dinged candidates, you are probably perplexed by the turn down. Often times, prospective students who have great stats and careers are turned down for subtle and not easily understood reasons. Last year, for example, several dinged candidates boasted GMAT scores as high as 780 or GPAs as high as 4.0 from the very best Ivy League schools. They worked for Fortune 100 companies and major global consulting firms, investment banks, and startups. We’re talking Goldman Sachs, Google, Procter & Gamble, and McKinsey, Bain or BCG.

So, as we have in the past, we’ve asked Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru.com, a leading MBA admissions consultant and an astute reader of all tea leaves, Harvard in particular, to take a look at the profiles of both admitted and “released” applicants and explain why they did or did not make the first cut.

If you would like Sandy to explain your decision, just post below in the comment section your profile, your GPA, GMAT, company information, and any other facts you think made your application different. The more detail you provide, including what you wrote in your essay, the easier it will be for Sandy to provide helpful feedback. And if you were admitted, you might even share why you think you made it.

Here’s a simple way to report your story:

Industry: Consulting, IB, PE, Tech, Consumer Products, Manufacturing, NonProfit, Family, other

And if you’re still a bit shaken by some bad news, just take a look at who HBS turned down, WITHOUT an interview this year. At least you got a chance to present your case face-to-face.

YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHO HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL REJECTED