Round 2 Interview statistics

As of this morning, we have invited 275 second-round candidates to interview. We will extend an additional 100-125 interview invitations to second-round candidates in the next couple of weeks.

During that same period, we plan to interview some of the first-round candidates who accepted spots on the waitlist without having interviewed.

I hope this is helpful,
Derrick

Posted by Rita Winkler on 25 February 2009 | Permalink

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STANFORD TOTAL INTERVIEW NUMBERS –WILL THEY HAVE TOTAL INTERVIEWS OF 800 OR 1200 THIS YEAR

BOLTON JUST POSTED THAT 275 second-round candidates HAD BEEN INTERVIEWED AND “We will extend an additional 100-125 ” MAKING FOR TOTAL NUMBER OF ROUND TWO INVITES =375-400.

THAT SEEMS SMALL TO ME. STANFORD HAS ALWAYS BEEN CAGEY ABOUT WHAT TOTAL OF INVITES THEY DO IN A YEAR, BOLTON USUALLY SAYS 800-1200, AND NEVER CONFIRMS PRIOR YEARS NUBMERS. IF HE EVER HAS, SOMEONE TELL ME. HBS ON THE OTHER HAND, WHICH IS QUICKLY BECOMING THE MORE TRANSPARENT OF THE TWO SCHOOLS IN THIS MURKY PROCESS, STATES, OFTEN, THAT TOTAL INTERVIEW INVITES ARE ~1800.

SOOOOOOOOOOOO, WE NOW GOT TO WONDER HOW MANY KIDS STAN INTERVIEWED IN ROUND ONE, WHAT WAS TOTAL NUMBER OF APPS IN ROUND ONE VS. ROUND TWO. AND BLAH, BLAH BLAH.  IF ROUND ONE APPS WERE UP FROM PRIOR YEARS, AS MOST SCHOOLS ARE REPORTING, MAYBE THEY INTERVIEWED 500 KIDS IN THAT ROUND, 400 IN R2, AND ~50 IN R3 FOR GRAND TOTAL OF 950.  DUNNO, BUT FEEL FREE TO SPECULATE.  SOME MONKEY WRENCHES ARE THAT ROUND TWO ‘TRADITIONALLY’ GETS MORE APPS THAN ROUND ONE, ALTHO MAYBE THIS YEAR IS DIFF.

THE REASON THIS IS IMPT IS FOLKS ARE ALWAYS TRYING TO FIGURE WHAT THEIR ODDS ARE AFTER GETTING INVITE.

IF 800 INVITES FOR CLASS OF 400 ADMITS (TO WIND UP W. 360) WELLLLLLL LA DE DA, CHANCES ARE 50-50, IF 12OO INVITES FOR CLASS OF 400, WELL, SON, DO THE MATH.

WILL THOSE ~30  MORE HBS ‘TUITIION’  ADMITS AT HBS ALSO BE RICH?

We speculated that the slightly more admits alluded to in Dean Lights recent letter to hbs alums would be like ~30 in number and also not need financial aid, or not as much financial aid. See our analysis of that here http://hbsguru.com/blog/2009/02/23/dean-light-says-mba-class-to-increase-slightly-we-say-slightly-means-30-good-news-for-waitlisters-and-rick-kids/

Story below from today’s Boston Globe seems to confrim these theory by quoting leading adcom officials and college finance economists to the same effect: e.g. when schools need more tuition money [AS DEAN LIGHT SAID HBS DOES–THAT IS WHOLE POINT OF UPPING CLASS FROM 900 TO ~930] they take kids who can pay the full bill.   GIven that this will be the last year that HBS sees a lot of kids from IB and PE who report yearly salaries and bonus of 200-400k [a note uncommon report on HBS apps from financial sector], well, it would not be nuts for HBS to not take advantage of those high earners for its new 30-40 seat, ‘one time,’ (ahem)  expansion, as a kind of farewell to Wall St. Esp. since they are usually pretty darn qualified to begin with–AND WE WILL NOT LIKELY SEE THEIR TYPES AGAIN ANYTIME SOON.

IF ROUND ONE IS ANY GUIDE, THEY DID TAKE A LOT OF PE/IB TYPES, AND EVEN WENT AS GEEZER-Y AS 28, 29, 30 TO DO IT.  MONEY TALKS, NOBODY WALKS   well, not quite, but a lot.

 Economy lifting college prospects of the well-heeled (The Boston Globe)By Peter Schworm
Globe Staff / February 24, 2009
 
For students applying to college, it’s a very good year to have strong grades and deep pockets. Especially the latter.
 
As colleges and universities provide more financial aid to families hit by the recession, they are also more likely to give wealthier students preference in admissions and scholarships to help offset that extra cost, according to college administrators and consultants…
 
http://www.boston.com/news/education/

higher/articles/2009/02/24/economy_

lifting_college_prospects_of_the_well_heeled
 

HBS TO INCREASE MBA CLASS ‘SLIGHTLY’ –DUH, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN ????

AMPLIFICATION TO THIS POST:

SOME ALUMS WHO READ THE POSTS ABOUT INCREASED HBS CLASS SIZE  HAVE NOTED THAT INCREASING THE  SECTION SIZE BY FIVE KIDS PER 90 KID SECTION [OF WHICH THERE ARE 10 AT HBS EACH CLASS] COULD PROB. BE DIGESTED PRETTY EASILY FROM THEIR EXPERIENCE, SO CLASS BUMP COULD GO FROM 900 [THIS YEAR] TO ~950 NEXT YEAR [5 KIDS PER SECTION] BUT THAT HAS GOTTA BE NEAR OUTSIDE –SO CURRENT THINKING IS 930-950 FOR NEXT YEAR’S CLASS SIZE.

WHAT WE WILL NOW CALL, IN LIGHT OF DEAN LIGHT’S LETTER, THE 2010 CHARGE OF THE SLIGHT BRIGADE  

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IN A FEB 19TH LETTER TO HBS ALUMS, DEAN LIGHT SAID THAT HBS PLANNED TO INCREASE INCREASE THE MBA CLASS ‘SLIGHTLY’ WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???? TO WIT, IN THIS PARAGRAPH [FULL TEXT OF DEAN LIGHT LETTER IS BELOW]

 ”We are exploring revenue opportunities, too. We plan to increase the size of the MBA program slightly this fall, and we are developing new Executive Education programs we anticipate will do well.”

 ——————————————————————————–

 First of all, I assume it means they will take slightly more kids for entry this fall, and not that they will announce an increase of more kids this fall for year after that. You can construe the grammar and context all you want, but the fact is, HBS and Dean Light (in particular) are always iffy and fuzzy about such projections, and the letter itself is one of those thumb-sucking jive sheets w. a mix or real bad news, sprinkled with projects and projections, and no doubt outright lies, typical for this genre. And what genre is that????? Dean’s Letter to Alums, showing bogus transparency as a way of fishing for more donations. Translation, dont bet the ranch on any stat therein. Moving right along. What it cert. does not sound like they are doing is ADDING A SECTION [~90 kids] b.c. 1. that strikes me as a super big deal; and 2. 90 on top of current enrollment of ~910 is not exactly slightly. But if they do not add a section, how many kids are they going to add. hmmm check this out????

 what strikes me about above is that enrollment can jump 6 or 7 kids (in 2008 and 2009) and a whopping 19 kids (2007) WITHOUT ANYONE SAYING ANYTHING. And those are numbers I consider to be ’slightly’ –so of course, like any good dean, Dean Light may have been informed that due to app. increases, etc. class of last year class (2010, e.g. first year class NOW) of 900 would go to say 914 (as it was for class of 2007) a sort of normal fluctuation, and he opportunistically puts this fact in his bogus transparency letter to make it seem like it was all planned.

Assuming that inter. is too snarly for you, what would slightly be in the above context?  925, 940, 950???? Adding 40- 50 more kids is like adding 5 kids per section, and that does begin to bang on the bars a bit, e.g. diff. between 90 vs. 95 kids per section. Esp. since all those kids are cutthroat hand raisers for airtime, since it is an impt grade component.

An interesting question is if they added a section between 2006-7 when enrollment popped by 19–probably not. they just dispersed those 19 kids and each section went up by 2-3 kids, sorta neglible.

Sooooooooooo, my guess as to what will happen next year? They add 3 kids per section, for an enrollment of 930 which is both manageable and also ’slight’.

BUT: which 30 kids. Given that Deano has said that one driver of adding kids is raising $$$$$, they are going to add kids who dont need fin. aid. esp. of the grant kind. Not sure about loans. HBS often gives cert number of kids free tuition, and in some cases, actual $$$ to come. That may still happen but dont expect any of those dudes to be part of the Light-30???

 In light of Dean Light’s letter, what is the status of need blind admissions??? Expect a long and baloney filled affirmation of need blind admissions as soon as someone tweaks them about contradiction just noted above. (And who would that tweaker be??) 

SOOOOOO, in summary, Dean’s letter is good news for 1. Waitlisters 2. Rich kids (read bankers who have stockpiled two years worth of bonuses, or other rich kids who do not need any kind of fin. aid.) We are in tuff times my friends, and HBS, and Harvard U itself, has, in one quick year, gone fr. princely to prudent and possibly prickly in so many ways.

Sad and scary.

FOR FULL TEXT OF DEAN LIGHT LETTER TO HBS ALUMS, SEE BELOW

(more…)

HBS TO ACCEPT GRE

1. FOR 2+2 PROGRAM THIS YEAR –CONFIRMED BY ADCOM

2. FOR EVERYONE YEAR AFTER NEXT–MY INFERENCE FROM THE BELOW. ALTHO YOUR READING OF THIS MAY DIFFER.

Careers
Business Schools Want You Now More Than Ever
Beth Lattin 02.18.09, 6:00 PM ETAccording to Educational Testing Service, the big standardized testing organization, more and more business schools are accepting the Graduate Record Examination from applicants in place of the traditional Graduate Management Admission Test.

Now even Harvard Business School has announced it will join the trend. The GRE is used for admission to graduate schools in general while the GMAT is just for business schools, but they cover the same basic skills and measure math knowledge in the same way.

According to Deirdre Leopold, managing director of admissions and financial aid, Harvard Business School is accepting GREs for the first time as part of the school’s new 2 + 2 Program. In 2 + 2, students apply as undergraduates; if they are accepted, they spend two years in the workforce before beginning the two-year master of business administration program. No other part of Harvard Business School will accept GREs for at least another year.

Mark McNutt, a spokesman for ETS, says one reason business schools are embracing the GRE is because it brings in a more diverse applicant pool. “The typical model of an MBA student isn’t working,” he admits. “Schools are seeing value in recruiting creative people.”

McNutt says that allowing the GRE in place of the GMAT should attract students who wouldn’t have traditionally pursued a business degree, such as English majors and artists.

MIT, Stanford, the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins and Instituto De Empresa in Madrid are all jumping on the GRE bandwagon. David Bach, associate dean of MBA programs at Empresa, echoes Mark McNutt: “Accepting the GRE supports our efforts to attract high-quality participants from very diverse backgrounds, including students who might not have previously contemplated an MBA.”

He adds, “We realize that we need to recruit the best and most diverse students. Therefore, we have to accept different tests and test formats, provided they are well-suited to select the best.”

Representatives of the University of Chicago and Stanford have also voiced their desire to reach a larger applicant pool with the GRE. According to ETS, the GRE is offered in 165 countries, whereas the GMAT is offered in only 100, so schools that take the GRE can hope to build a more international student body.

Still, some schools, like Wharton, in Philadelphia, are standing firm with the GMAT. “Wharton has in no way committed to changing its testing policies,” says Kathryn Bezella, associate director of MBA admissions at Wharton.

In all, ETS reports, more than 150 MBA programs now accept the GRE.

HBS ROUND ONE WAITLIST –NO NEWS TIL INTERVIEWS FOR ROUND 2  ARE OVER.

Some convoluted news about the HBS Round One WL from her Majesty’s HBS adcom blog–this important news inserted   amid some jokey  explanation from HRH as to why HBS does not send out dings before Decision Day. 

The entire post, and faux explanation as to why HBS does not send out dings (’denials’ is the preferred term at the Palace) is mildly funny.  They just cannot oficially ding anyone until they have buzzed every demographic in terms of age, gender, nationality etc. and made sure they got enuf flowers from that bunch. I am sure they just keep going thru each and every application, looking for underserved  demos,  20 adcoms on their hands and knees, lugging back up every file fr. Albania and N Korea not to mention Sri Lankan men, and also, no doubt the cry will go out to find files  which has been pre-graded by “leadership style,”  whatever that means.  The reason they do not send out dings before decision day is that they do want to keep some flexibilty in terms of numbers, etc. and allow kids who know bigfeet to have them pound on the table. At Wharton, which does send out dings along w. Int. invites, the situation is diff. b.c. they interview way more kids per year, sorta 3000 or more vs. 1800 for HBS

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More About Round 2

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html#post-2009-02-12

Here’s a question I’ve been asked a few (hundred) times in the past few days:

Why doesn’t HBS send out denials at the same time we issue interview invitations?

We don’t send out final decisions until the notification date because we need to see the results of the interview process before we extend offers to join the waitlist. After we’ve finished interviewing, we want to make sure we are still considering enough candidates from certain profiles - which include nationality, gender, industry background, leadership styles…and other dimensions - to compose the overall portfolio of next year’s class. This is why it is important for us to keep EVERY round 2 applicant under consideration until notification day. I know this process isn’t perfect, but I am absolutely certain that it’s thoughtful and thorough.

NO invite today–here is what happened in Round 1. HBS DID send out ~100 invites, after first 750,  as Adcom notes below, via standard email notification, in what seemed to me, two squirts and some dribble  (as well as special phone invites and last minute deals as alluded to above on this thread, but those were outliers). Soooo,  My guess is, they will send out 50-100 more invites, sorta random (not military! per se) among the usual suspects, including bankers, consultants, etc. etc. and also some oddballs. –altho I agree, if you dont have an invite yet, things look grim as a matter of pure statistics. SK

the latest fr. Her Majesty about Round 2 offers. This pretty much parallels round one practice, where in fact, they DID send out more interviews, in a couple of spurts, altho I dont have exact numbers, but it could have been 100 as advertised. [exact words of this msg Round 1 were  “Today we sent out about 750 invitations to interview. I think we will ultimately send around 850 by the notification date, January 21. I can’t predict when this additional 100 invitations will go out nor to whom.” ] Compare that to below, “I think there will be between 50 and 100 additional invitations sent between now and April 2′ which seems to lower the number (100 in Round 1, versus 50-100 in Round 2).  All this confirms, a bit, my intel about round one admits being 500+, and R2 apps being level w. last year vs. R1 apps being up 20-25 percent. My guess is, TOTAL ROUND ONE apps were mabye a bit more than R2 (a flip of usual situation) and stronger (as usual). SO they will accept more R1 kids. Duh, maybe 25-50 more than average. Not sure what it means for WL.

Hello to Round Two Applicants

from HBS MBA Program

Today we are sending emails to about 750 applicants inviting them to interview. Detailed information will be included in the email. I think there will be between 50 and 100 additional invitations sent between now and April 2. These will be sent out as files are reviewed - not on a designated day or days.

As I’ve said before, I know that the business school application experience is anxiety-producing. We are trying hard to minimize anxiety and stress while preserving a time-intensive selection process in which the applications you invested so much in are carefully reviewed by multiple members of the Admissions Board.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

STANFORD LAY_-OFFS. hmmmm, looks like reality is biting B schools, as well as applicants. Endowment may soon become a key driver of b school quality, and perhaps another factor to be added to the endless HBS versus Stanford debate, altho there are many ways to measure endowment beyond just size, including endowment per student, etc., endow. growth, and prob. an unanswerable metric, endow. pipeline. The fact is, as Booth/Chicago  windfall makes clear, an endowment can gain 20, 30 percent w. one key donation, sorta out of the blue.  Altho the chances of $100M+  gifts are now also becoming less likely.

Stanford culls 49 staff

By Della Bradshaw

Published: February 5 2009 12:31 | Last updated: February 5 2009 12:31

Stanford has become the first of the top US universities to announce lay-offs as part of its bid to rein in expenditure to deal with an expected shortfall in endowment income. This year the school expects a $15m - 10 per cent - shortfall in income.

Perhaps even more significant is that because endowment income is calculated over several years, business schools may be hit more significantly next year and in 2011, even if the economy improves. ”We’re essentially looking at an endowment revenue decline for three years,” according to Dan Rudolph, senior associate dean for operations at Stanford.

As a result, 49 staff members (12 per cent) have been laid off at Stanford GSB with a further eight people going on to reduced schedules. Cuts in travel, food, library services, marketing activities and printing have also been announced.

The announcements are a sad end to Bob Joss’s 10-year tenure as dean of Stanford, during which time he oversaw what was arguably the most radical overhaul of any two-year US MBA programme. ”This was the most painful decision I have had to make in my nearly 10 years as dean,” he said in a statement. ”We regret the need to lay off staff members who have been dedicated to the school and its educational mission.”

What is certain is that where Stanford leads, other top business schools will follow. Many have already announced pay freezes for both staff and faculty. At some business schools, faculty departments are rushing to fill tenure and tenure-track appointments in the belief that these positions will disappear if they are left vacant.

As a result, the US endowment model, widely lauded as the most sustainable funding model for business schools, is looking shaky. This comes at a time when most US schools were implementing expensive plans to increase their global reach in a bid to counter the growing popularity and reputation of business schools in Europe and, in particular, Asia. In last month’s Financial Times Global MBA rankings, there were three Asian schools in the top 20 and one, Ceibs in Shanghai, in the top 10.

www.gsb.stanford.edu

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009