(GRE Success! ) Fwd: HBS Clarifies What It Wants from Your Recommendations

This is only somewhat off-topic. People usually freak out about graduate
school application essays. This is a good example of what schools look for.

Good Luck,

Srihari

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From: Veritas Prep Blog <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 7:49 PM
Subject: HBS Clarifies What It Wants from Your Recommendations
To: [email protected]


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HBS Clarifies What It Wants from Your
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Posted: 16 Aug 2012 07:11 AM PDT

[image: Harvard Business School]Earlier this week Dee Leopold wrote a piece
<http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html#post-2012-08-13>on the Harvard
MBA admissions blog clarifying what the school expects when it comes to the
three letters of recommendation in the HBS application. In its application
directions, Harvard asks for three recommendations, and states that two
should come from a professional source. Somewhat unintentionally, it seems,
this has implied that the third should NOT come from a professional source,
but Leopold wants applicants to know that this is not the case.

It turns out that the Harvard admissions team was surprised that this was
the signal that applicants were getting from these instructions, and now it
wants to make clear that the “two should come from professional sources”
rule means that *at least* two should come from the workplace, not that *only
two* should come from this part of your life.

On the HBS blog, Dee Leopold wrote:

So, in the hope that this will add clarity, let me re-phrase our guidance:
we are fine if ALL the recommendations come from the workplace. Even from
the same firm. We are not trying to add the additional hurdle of needing to
hear a voice from every phase of your past and present life. If it’s not
possible to get ANY recommendation from your current workplace, you may
wish to explain this situation briefly in the Additional Information
section of the application. This is NOT an unusual occurrence — we don’t
expect every boss in the world to be excited about losing top talent to
business school. As is always the case, use your best judgment about this.

So, don’t sweat it if you have three great sources, and none of them
happens to be from outside the workplace. The criteria that we use always
boil down to how well your recommenders know you, how well they can cite
specific to answer the questions asked, and how enthusiastically they will
support your candidacy (don’t underestimate this last one!). And, if you
can’t get your current boss to write a recommendation, don’t stress over
this too much, either. Admissions officers it: You’re asking your boss to
help you quit… That doesn’t always sit well with every manager.

As an aside, we appreciate that Dee Leopold admits in this post that she
sometimes will fall back on default answers when she gets questions about
the Harvard admissions process. Specifically, she wrote in this post, “As
I’m sure you realize, we do tend to get asked the same questions over and
over and I know I can be guilty of jumping too quickly to “my answer” and
not listening as closely as I might to the question.” It’s hard to blame
admissions officers for doing this since they do in fact receive the same
questions over and over (and over and over…), but we do sometimes wonder if
they would help themselves by going a little deeper and explaining things a
little better. We know they’re capable of doing this because we have seen
admissions representatives go much deeper with some answers in some
settings (particularly when speaking with applicants coming from
pro-diversity organizations)… Sometimes applicants get an okay answer, and
sometimes they get an “Ahh! I wish they had just said that to begin
with”-type answer.

The latter doesn’t give away any real secrets, and sometimes can really
help ease applicants’ misplaced anxiety (as was the case in this “third
recommendation” example). That’s not directed just at HBS, but at every
admissions officer at every school!

For more advice on getting into Harvard Business School, download our Essential
Guide to HBS <http://www.veritasprep.com/business-school/essential-guides//>,
one of our 15 guides to the world’s top business schools. If you’re ready
to start building your own application for Harvard and other top business
schools, call us at 1-800-925-7737 and speak with an MBA
admissions<http://www.veritasprep.com/business-school/>expert today.
And, as always, be sure to find
us on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/veritasprep> and
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