My journey to Harvard Business School

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Apologies on the delay – school has been busy. I also did not expect the overwhelming feedback, and when the gift of feedback knocks on your door, you listen. As a result, given this year’s MBA application season is fast approaching, I will do my best to focus on this series and MBA content. I may still write some articles with career insights or relationship thoughts but the MBA train has been prioritized. Let me know in comments if there’s anything you want to hear more about.

Application

Short answer: I wasn’t in the committee room, so who knows?

Admits can only speculate about the reasons for their acceptance. These speculations are often all they have. However, admits do have connections with other accepted students as well as those who were rejected. I found it beneficial to learn from admitted student profiles, which is why I’ve included this information in the MBA series.

Based on a dozen calls with those who reached out these past few months asking for advice, I’ve streamlined the most frequently asked questions to structure this post. Views expressed in my content are my own and not the views of anyone else.

What is an ideal timeline?

1. GRE/GMAT. Study and finish test scores. Get it out of the way.
   1. (Recommended) Attend information sessions for the schools you are interested in. Get an understanding of how they talk about the application process, what they’re looking for.
   2. (Optional) If you want to gauge your competitiveness / feel overwhelmed on what the whole process requires, chat with MBA consultants. I would recommend chatting with them only after finishing this step otherwise you can’t get an accurate gauge – initial chat is free.
2. Essay kickoff. Organize prompts and write bullets/drafts constantly. Best ideas are sometimes right before you sleep, in the shower, on a walk, etc.
3. App miscellaneous. When hitting writer’s block, fill out other parts of app (i.e. extracurriculars, volunteering, transcripts, etc.)
4. Resume. Update your resume MBA style and make sure it has your latest impact points.
5. Recommenders. Ask for recommendations at least 2-3 months before submission date
6. Final PDF read-throughs. 1+ week before submission. Put yourself in adcom’s shoes as you’re reading through them.
7. Submission. Pay and submit applications 1+ day before due so you don’t deal with internet or server issues.

My timeline

• October 2020: Took GRE
• February 2022: Spoke to consultants to gauge competitiveness
• May 2022: 1st draft for Stanford’s “What matters most”
• June 2022: 1st draft for Harvard
• July 2022: 1st draft for Stanford’s “Why Stanford” and optional essay
• July 2022: Requested recommenders; update resume
• May – July 2022: Constantly filling out other parts of the app
• August 2022: Final drafts finished; update resume one last time
• September 2022: Submitted HBS and GSB

My stats

• Undergraduate School: UC Berkeley | Business Major at Haas
• Undergrad GPA: 3.94/4.0 | Summa Cum Laude (Top 3%)
• GRE: 329 | 166 Verbal, 163 Quant
• Letters of Recommendation: Direct supervisors from UberEats and CommonBond
• Total schools applied: 2 (Harvard, Stanford) | Round 1
• Work/Extracurriculars/Awards: See LinkedIn

GMAT or GRE?

This one is not complicated. Take whichever one you can get a higher percentile in. Schools literally write that they do not care. With my background in taking the LSAT, my preference was the GRE (GRE quant felt easier for me to master in a shorter amount of time; verbal was already at 90%+ for both).

GRE ADVICE

I did online self-studying with Magoosh GRE Premium for $180 for 6 months. It was totally worth it.

Tips:

• Utilize free resources. My favorite: Magoosh Vocabulary card app.
• Visibility is key. Make sure it you are prompted to study constantly in your free time.
  • Download Free Magoosh Vocabulary card app, and put it on the home page of your phone screen.
  • If you get Magoosh GRE Premium, put the Magoosh app on your home page. Constantly review problems or study vocab in your commute, waiting for someone, bathroom, etc.

Years of work experience

5 years when entering MBA is the average. I personally was at 6 years.

I have already met a ton of people both older and younger than me in my class. I’ve met 2+2 admits who skewed younger. Many joint programmers (i.e. PhDs, dual MDs/MS/JDs) were around my age. I’ve met ex-veterans and parents who skewed older.

So far, I feel no issues for myself, and about any of them.

While it might be interesting to delve deeper into the optimal years of experience in the future, for the context of this article, the average stands at 5 years.

Resume

An MBA resume differs from your work resume. Here are some suggestions:

MBA Resume

• Bullets should focus on leadership
• Avoid technical jargon and acronyms
• Highlight different facets of yourself:
  • Allocate more space to extracurriculars and volunteer work
  • Mention honors and awards
  • Include activities from your school years

Job Resume

• Bullets should reflect the actual job description you are applying for
• Technical jargon may be ok if it’s industry, but avoid acronyms unless obvious
• Generally highlight (often one-dimensionally) in your experience for the role specifically
  • Place a strong focus on relevant experience

Both

• Focus on outcomes and results (i.e. x% increases QoQ or $y million through z)
• Showcase interests, hobbies, and languages

Why I am glad I applied round 1

HBS has ~900 students per class.

Anecdotally, in HBS Admits Slack after Round 1, there were around ~600-700 people already (note: not 100% of everyone in the slack decided to go and some were also staff members). But from a pure “spots available” perspective, it seemed Round 1 already took a majority of the HBS class.

As soon as I was admitted, I was flooded with a prematriculation checklist, pre-MBA required courses, housing information to learn, ASW (Admitted Student Weekend), info sessions, panels, and alumni dinners. Applying in Round 1 gave me more flexibility and time to address and plan for these tasks. More on this on Prematriculation.

There are definitely reasons you might want to wait for Round 2, such as better test scores, better essays, and/or a big upcoming promotion. But it’s not a science. In the end, if you have only one shot to share who you are in a concise, limited amount of space, when can you submit the best package of yourself?

How do I ask for recommendation letters?

Imagine that you are your manager. Imagine all the things their plate. If you’re able to see their calendar, go ahead and activate lurker mode. To shine as a direct report, you generally want to do everything you can to make your manager’s job easier.

Think of your asking for recommendation letters like asking for reviewers in performance review season.

If you’re pretty lost when it comes to either, hopefully this helps you twofold.

At work, usually at a mid-sized or larger company, when performance review season come around, I either cheer or give myself a bop on the head. If I documented everything I did well, my self-reflection takes an hour. If I didn’t, it can drag on for days trying to remember and search for everything I did. Reviewing everything I accomplished and giving my manager ammo to bat for me is critical.

As a product manager, I also usually have a ton of peer review requests – a handful of engineers, a designer, product analysts or data scientists, operations members, and some other cross functional stakeholders all tend to request me as their reviewer. If they didn’t work with me recently or daily, I don’t remember enough off the top of my head to write reviews that sound genuine or substantive.

I have seen several approaches, but these are the 2 ends of the spectrum:

1. I get an automated system-generated notification that Person A put me as their reviewer, and I sit there thinking “hmm… what did I work on with this person again…”
2. Person B gives me a reminder on what we worked on together, what we/they accomplished, any context that would be helpful to know (i.e. I am going up for promotion this cycle) and gives me a heads up on the system-generated notification that is coming. If we really haven’t worked together that much, they might ask me if I can accept their request beforehand.

I appreciate it when my colleagues give me a reminder on what we worked on together and what they accomplished if they put me as a reviewer. If I don’t agree with what they said, then I don’t have to include it in my review. I don’t even have to read it if I don’t want to. The review is still in my own words and thoughts.

No matter what your self-reflection says about yourself, your manager will ultimately write out your review, make the decision, and present it to their seniors. You won’t even know if they end up taking anything from your self-reflection, but chances are, it helps jog their memory.

What would make things easiest for them when they have a hundred other things on their mind, other direct reports to write a review for, and their own performance cycle to worry about?

Being a good direct report

I hadn’t worked with my Uber manager in a while. Before I asked him to be my recommender, I actually sat there and tried to remember what I did at Uber that were not just the bullet points on my resume.

So I pulled out all of my old conversations, documents, project names, and old performance reviews. I looked up old emails. I then I attached feedback quotes directly from the performance reviews others had given me as objective feedback so that my manager would not have to dig it up, in case he wanted to use it or if he needed help jogging his memory like I did.

I made sure to include all of this in my email to them. I then did the same for my recommender at CommonBond, which was my latest company.

Do I know if they even cared or if it ended up being helpful for them or not? No.

Did it likely help jog their memory, at least a little bit, if they read through it? Yes.

They must have also wrote something awesome, because I somehow got in. 🥂 

It felt even better because they were probably some of the managers I respected most in my career, even though I was far from being a perfect direct report to them.

Be the direct report you would want if you were a manager.

Thank your recommenders

Make sure you also thank them afterwards.

For me, right before my decisions came out, I sent them a thank-you gift. For my Uber manager, I asked his fiance on what he might like. For my CommonBond manager who was a big UNC fan, I was browsing around cute furry indoor UNC slippers and UNC stuffed animals until my husband finally brought me back down to earth. I ultimately decided a gift card would be better, so that he could just buy the slippers himself (he probably did not…).

Regardless of what the result was, they took time out of their busy day to write out something for and about you.

Essays

A few years ago, my high school teacher reached out to me to speak to his 11th grade Honors English students. I was sitting in their exact shoes a decade ago. I was torn. Had I learned something in the last 10 years that could be useful to these extremely driven, slightly tunnel-visioned kids? Or would I just be those old, tone-deaf speakers they would roll their eyes at?

To make things worse, the prompt wasn’t entirely clear. After some back and forth, it got to:

I think just come prepared to talk about what you would want to tell yourself 10 years ago, and tell them that.

Even better, a heads up that I wouldn’t be saved by a Q&A session, because “reserved high school students don’t ask questions since it seems uncool”. Somehow, my teacher still believed in me so I went along with it.

For the next few days, I thought about this prompt constantly. In the shower, in the bathroom, when I was cooking, during my commutes, before bed. I would jot down ideas whenever I had a chance in my Notes app.

I put myself back in the shoes of Grace the high schooler – what was my mind space at the time?

Connecting the Dots

In one of Steve Jobs’s most famous, riveting, and timeless speeches at a Stanford commencement, he connected the dots of his life. He didn’t focus on what he did, but centered more on why he did it, and how they connected. It’s definitely worth the read or watch if you have the time, but to break down the first part of his speech:

What he said:

• Why he dropped out of college → Background story as an adopted child whose biological mother cared about education
• How unique curiosity drove him to stay → Fascination with calligraphy class
• So what bringing together his points together → Windows vs. Mac typography, driven by calligraphy foundations, became the competitive edge for Apple

What he didn’t say:

• I dropped out of college but still became successful → This was not the point
• I am a curious learner and that’s what made me to succeed → This doesn’t tell the audience much and is too general
• Apple typography and typefaces are amazing and makes Macs a superior product → His focus is not on the company’s successes

People rarely care about what as much as the why and the how. The art is in weaving all 3 together through great storytelling. Much like how I would lose the attention span of hundreds of high school kids if I only focused on what I did, I spotlighted why and how in my MBA essays for the admissions committee.

I didn’t say, “I was student body president at Berkeley Haas, and executed 30 new events and programs.” That’s resume talk.

Instead, the story went deeper, reflecting several dots connecting a tough childhood being bullied and an immigrant family’s struggle. These struggles with exclusion formed the inclusive, servant leadership style I utilized to tackle the fragmented community and elitism I witnessed in my undergraduate program.

What are your dots? And so what? What connects those experiences? My best advice is to not think of this process as a chore. Think about it as an opportune moment to pause and reflect not only on your career, but your life.

That’s going to take time, thinking, and introspection, but the good news is, you’ll need to flex those muscles in business school. 2 years of your life and $$$$ is a big investment, and when you’re being pulled on every side from the moment you’re admitted, it can be critical to be intentional about your MBA even before you begin.

Don’t hesitate to leave a comment below if you are seeking advice, have questions, or want me to write more about a certain topic. I will reply to every posted comment.

Appendix: admission consultants

There are a lot of questions on admission consultants. This decision is ultimately completely up to you. Here are helpful questions to ask yourself:

• How busy am I? Will structure benefit me?
• Do I have people around me who can give me genuine, helpful feedback that I also trust, or would someone with experience help me know what to do efficiently?
• Will not having one make me feel like I did not give it my best shot?

If deciding to go with one:

• How many other clients do they have? Is this their full-time job and can they give me the time and attention I need?
• How many people has the consultant helped? What is their track record?
• Are they actually excited about my candidacy?
• Do I have some questionable situations I need to navigate? (i.e. huge work gap, issues from the past)

Notable consultants: Justin Marshall, Stacey Blackman (podcast), MBAMission, Menlo Coaching, Stratus, ApplicantLab. Many also have free resources on their website.

Also note that with all of these consultants above, you get a free consultation to see if you’d be a good fit where you can ask questions, share about yourself and realistic candidacy expectations, etc. If you’re still curious, read more in the comment section here.

Note: This series represents a niche perspective geared to those who may have 1) went to a business undergrad, 2) had career opportunities they were satisfied with, and/or 3) primarily considering top programs, aka my own.

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