HBS round one, first thoughts. 490 accepts?? We hazzard a guess.

Sandy – please provide your thoughts on how HBS round 1 went. Any surprises? More dings or waitlists? How do you think round 2 / 3 will play out?

hmmmmm, no surpises in terms of Youth Jihad, if anyone who is currently 28 or got BA degree in 2004 or earlier,  and was an admit,  please let me know (assuming you did not use connections).  Well, actually there are about 100 people like that in class – but the majority are MD’s, PhD’s,Military and oddballs. If you are just reg person  in IB/PE/consulting  etc. and part of that 100, consider yourself SPECIAL.

Aside fr. that, as odd as it may seem to you folks at home keeping score fr. counting dings, which let’s fact it, are the vast  majority of outcomes and reports, rest assured that come Sept 2010, 920 or so accepted kids will show up for school at HBS fr. the four corners of the earth, like always.  And the 7000 or 8000 who got dinged will show up someplace else.  Now the difference between being kinda the last 400 accepted and the last 400 dinged is hard to discern at times, and that is where a great deal of the head scratching and anger  about the process sets in. 

 I am aware her majesty said that they are putting maybe 100 non-interviewed kids on WL, and who am I to doubt her, I just dont see it in my reporting, but 100 kids out of app. pile of who knows what 4-5k, well, it could escape me.  I’ve only heard of a few of those.

I got a hunch HBS accepted ~490 kids round one this year  vs. 506 round one  last year, make of that what you will. Last year they had record number of apps in Round 1, and normal amnt in Round 2 and they were certain of R2 stats, and certain of expanding the class to 440 as part of Slight Brigade. This year they are “on record”  of targeting class of 920, and dont really know what Round 2 will look like. If you are on WL, you should be hoping that R2 comes in smaller than expected.

I personally got the usual number of  head scratchers and odd outcomes. I bet one client $50 she would get an interview invite one way or the other after she was not invited in first blast (and I was not just being nice guy, I really thought)– and lost! So either I dont know what I am talking about, or HBS does not know what Sandy Kreisberg thinks they should be doing.  Maybe a bit of both.

One thing that was impressed upon me as I went over unexpected dings after interview (not WL) was just how impt the interview is.  Many kids who reported sorta ok interviews “but but but” –well, DING.  Man, there is a lot of congestion once you get past the ultra stars, and you just look for ways to ding people. A couple of questionable interview answers can have tragic consequences, if they then light up some other latent doubts. 

Also dealt w. some very, very attractive and engaging oddballs, super kids, in cases w. amazing stats, but not traditional feeder background. They all got dinged. Altho some interviewed (some great interviews). Still ding.  There may be some ballerinas, race car drivers, mumblecore  movie mogul wannabes, and dudes who stare at goats in the class, but I dont know them.

more later as I get more outcomes. . . .