Rejected By Harvard Business School. Can You Believe It?

Mr. Big 4 Auditor/Consultant Now In Private Equity

• 750 (49Q/42V) GMAT
• 3.82 GPA
• Undergraduate and Master’s degree in accounting from a top 50 private with a reputation as a top-three accounting program
• Work experience includes two years at a Big 4 firm in an audit role with a consulting rotation, followed by one year in a back-office role at a small private equity fund without name recognition
• Letters of Recommendation written by direct supervisors at a previous job who knows me well and wrote strong recommendation
• Essay focused on the importance of helping others to reach full potential. Included examples of influences in my life who had helped him realize the importance of this goal.
• Extracurriculars are extensive and include international experience through service mission, NGO internship, and a professional project in Latin America.
• “I suspect that the weak points in my application are that my work experience and education are not from ultra-selective organizations given my demographic.”
• White male

Sandy’s Analysis: You said: “I suspect that the weak points in my application are that my work experience and education are not from ultra-selective organizations given my demographic.”

Frankly, that explains a good deal of it. A big 4 audit practice is not a good place for white males to apply to Harvard Business School. That’s just a disappointing fact.

Getting a gig at a PE firm (even in the back office) was a good number two job. What you need to do moving forward is to get a more selective job in private equity.

You said you wrote about the “importance of helping others to reach full potential” and “included examples of influences in my life who had helped me realize the importance of this goal.”

This sounds like scripted blah blah blah and not at all revealing nor honest, or an interesting set of stories.