Forbes Article on How To Get Off B School WL: same cliches
The recent Forbes article about how to get of B school WL has some useful quotes fr. Meehan at Columbia and Flyte at Kellogg but it repeats the same cliches (and did no research) about HSW:
Every school has a different policy about whether you should be in touch with them. Some say outright don’t call us, we’ll call you. If yours is one of them, follow those instructions. Disobeying will most likely do more harm than good. [THAT IS WRONG--SK]
The official policy at H/S/W is not to contact them when on the WL, and just, well, wait. The reality is different. I work w. lots of kids on those WL’s and have first hand experience in running campaigns where impactful alums and in cases, current students, lobby on your behalf. OF the ~60 kids who got off the HBS WL this year, my guess is, 20 had some kind of contact. I have first-hand experience w. five and have stories fr. others which sound credible. The trick is to have your supporters put personal capital on the line,and make it clear that YOU getting in is important to them. Sure, it helps if they can say why you getting in is also a plus for the school, but that is harder. At Stanford, FOD’s (friends of Derrick) are always impactful in both admission and WL situations, and Wharton has a HISTORY of accepting dinged kids who get MAJOR bigfoot support. Altho a thin history, it happens. I also gotta say, I know of major bigfoot intervention at HBS which did not change outcomes, but I DO NOT THINK IT DID THE CANDIDATE ANY HARM. Sure, you gotta use your judgment and have some cards to play, but the fact is, most H/S/W WLers do TOO LITTLE, not too much.
