HBS AND AGE JIHAD.

FROM HER MAJESTY’S BLOG. FIRST OFF, THANK YOU, YOUR MAJESTY, NOTHING LIKE GIVING THE PEOPLE THE FACTS AND LETTING THEM DRAW THEIR OWN CONCLUSIONS. WE AWAIT SIMILAR CHARTS FOR GPA AND GMAT SCORES. LIKE WHAT IS SO HARD ABOUT THAT? KELLOGG ACTUALLY USED TO DO SOMETHING SIMILAR FOR GMATS, AND IT WAS VERY HELPFUL. I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SAYING, “HEY, PUTZ, I GAVE YOU THIS, AND ALL YOU CAN DO IS ASK FOR MORE?” WELL, THAT IS  WHAT TRANSPARENCY DOES TO PEOPLE. MAKES ‘EM WANT MORE, LIKE FREEDOM. BUT P.S. THANKS AGAIN. I APPRECIATE IT, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

OK, WHAT WE GOT HERE IS 102 ACCEPTS FR. CLASS OF 2002 + PRIOR, AND MY GUESS IS, IF YOU TAKE OUT WEST POINT AND USNA AND USAFA  SERVICE ACADEMY GUYS (TYPICALLY 40 OR SO) AND OTHER MILITARY TYPES (ANOTHER 15-20) YOU COULD HAVE BASICALLY ~50 ACCEPTS WHO ARE 28+ [SERVICE ACADEMY GUYS COMMIT TO FIVE YEARS, IN THEORY IF YOU GRAD IN 2003, YOU WOULD DISCHARGE IN 2008 AND COULD HAVE APPLIED FOR SEPT 2008 INTAKE, SOMEONE IN MILITARY CHECK ME ON THIS]. THAT IS A PRETTY SLIM NUMBER. ONCE YOU GET TO 29, 30 AND OVER……………..MAN, YOU ARE TALKING LIKE 50 PEOPLE, SOME 20 OR SO OF WHOM COULD BE  MEDICAL DOCS OR PH.D’S. THE NUMBER OF NON-MILITARY, NON-PHD, NON-DOCS IS REALLLLLLLLLLLLY SMALL. BUT ALL THAT SAID, I GUESS IT DOES HAPPEN. MY GUESS IS, INTERNATIONALS, FOREIGN MILITARY W. REQ. SERVICE [ISRAEL, SINGAPORE, TAIWAN, SWITZERLAND, ETC. ] AND YES, MAYBE 4 INDIAN I.T. GUYS, SPREAD OUT ALL OVER GOD’S GREEN EARTH.

Here’s a breakdown of when the Class of 2010 graduated from college/university by class year. Remember, all directly admitted college seniors have the option to postpone matriculation in order to gain work experience.

HBS AGE JIHAD: PERCENT OF HBS CLASS WITH 3 YEARS OR LESS WORK EXPERIENCE ENTERING IN  

2005–26,

IN 2008 –40 –GEE, GUESS WHAT DEMOGRAPHIC  THAT INCREASED 14 PERCENT OF BABIES CAME FROM?????

AGE JIHAD –OH NO, CLASS NOT GETTING YOUGER. BELOW, A POWERPOINT SLIDE FROM AN HBS PRESENTATION TO RECRUITERS, WHICH [CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG] INDICATES THAT FOR THE CLASS OF 2007 (ENTERED IN 2005), THE PERCENT OF GRADS WHO HAD UP TO THREE YEARS OF FULL TIME WORK EXPERIENCE BEFORE ACCEPTING POST-MBA JOB WAS

26–YET HER MAJESTIES POST –GAG, REPRINTED BELOW AGAIN, INDICATES THAT FOR THE CLASS OF 2010 [THE KIDS ENTERING THIS SEPT] THAT NUMBER IS ~40 PERCENT.

Professional Experience: % accepting new jobs and median base salary

Class of	2007
One year or less	2.4% $115,000
More than one year, up to three years	23.6% $115,000
More than three years, up to five years	55.1% $115,000
More than five years	18.9% $110,000

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This is probably an opportune time to address another frequently asked question: “Is Harvard Business School looking for a younger class?”

Here’s how the incoming class looks: we have 912 people expected to matriculate in September. 371 of these are what we call “within three years of college graduation” which means that they have graduated in 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005. We keep track this way, not by age. About a dozen are coming right from undergraduate school - and another dozen were admitted directly from college but elected to delay matriculation in order to get some - or additional - full-time work experience. Many of the directly admitted college seniors have worked full-time already - all have had significant roles on campus or entrepreneurial experience. All directly admitted seniors are welcome to postpone their date of matriculation.

Back to the class profile and the original question. Do the numbers and I think you’ll find that 541 members of the class of 2010 have been out of college for more than 3 years. That’s more than the total enrollment in many business schools.

Are these numbers “quotas” or “targets”? No. We’ll still do our evaluation and selection the old-fashioned way: one folder at a time. Lots of attention to the written application and mandatory interviews by invitation only. We ask the same questions about every candidate we consider: Is this person a leader? Does he/she give evidence of ability to engage enthusiastically in serious intellectual and analytical work? Will this person invest as much in the educational experience of others as in his/her own?

So the answer would be that we think you can come to Harvard Business School and thrive earlier in your career than you might have heard via the grapevine. That doesn’t mean that those with more experience should be discouraged: apply when it’s optimal for you. When you can look at the questions we pose and feel eager to respond, that’s a good indication of readiness.

HBS AND AGE: HER MAJESTY, ER, COUGHS UP NOT MUCH REAL DATA.

Below, is Dee-Dee’s latest fog, er blog, on the very touchy issue of HBS and age, a topic we have been following like hawks for past coupla years but ESPECIALLY  since fall when we first became aware of the new super-secret HBS AGE JIHAD, which was started by HBS Admin w.the idea of getting younger kids [e.g. 26 or less in many cases, esp. in areas of MC and IB/PE, exceptions for military, PH.D’s and rare oddballs] w. the idea that 1. younger kids are cuter, dumber, more easily trained, have longer earning curves, are nicer to look at, more easily cowed, etc. etc [REAL REASON], 2. recruiters want younger kids [dunno about that, but sure, could be for same reasons as 1. 3. to allow females to have career start, MBA and family planning before say 30 [older females now blocked by this Age Jihad thank you for CHOICE OPTION,but HBS continues to mention benefit to females, AMAZINGLY along w. all the other fog]. Her figures actually CONFIRM the age Jihad, by noting just how many kids are ~25and under, 40 percent  OF THE CLASS,   and as usual she leaves out the KEY stats, which is WHAT IS THE ACCEPT RATE FOR KIDS IN THE NEW DEAD ZONE, 27/28+. Yes, 541 kids in the class have been out of college more than 4 years, but ~100 of them are military, PHDs, MDs and oddballs. So like 441 real kids are left in age bracket 25+ and my guess is, the BULK of those kids are 25 and 26, and maybe 27–w. as noted the new DEAD ZONE being  28. With 27 being the gray zone, and 26 being the safe area, where you do not get age punished or benefited. If you are 1-3 years out, you def get a premium. What am I smoking??? How do I know this. We compiled more robust stats on my blog about age and HBS admits, see http://hbsguru.com/blog/2008/03/where we did a sample of about 60 random admits, and they fell out  as follows, for kids in class years 08, 07, 06, 05 we predicted 36 percent, and now DEE has said actual number is 40percent, so Age Jihad is worse on the super low end (and folks w. error of 4 percent, we are pretty darn happy w. out stats], but more importantly, for the next two class years, e.g. 04, 03, [age 25-27] we show class of  2003 19%, and class of 2004 being 31%–e.g. 50 percent of the class, there is ONLY 10 percent left after behind class of 2003, and if you keeping score at home, and applying next year, THAT MEANS IF YOU ARE CLASS OF 2003 [FOR NEXT YEAR] OR EARLIER, THAT COHORT WILL BE TEN PERCENT OF THE CLASS, e.g. 90-100 kids (higher number is accepted, not enrolled) AND MY GUESS IS, ABOUT 30 PERCENT OF APPLICANT POOL, if not more. To put that in perspective, say there will be 10k apps,  3300 of those will be geezers, of whom 100 will get in, for a geezer accept rate of 3 percent, vs. general rate of 10-12 percent (next year w. 10k apps). Even if I am wrong in speculation that geezers are 30 percent of app. pool (and that is a guess) we have firm stats w. great support in our own sample and Majesty’s partial stats, that geezer cohort is 90-100. FOLKS THAT IS THE AGE JIHAD. Now how else do I know about age Jihad. BECAUSE HER MAJ AND OTHER ADCOMS HAVE AS MUCH SAID SO. Many victims of age jihad are well-connected bankers etc. and their patrons often have contacts in adcom who they can query when pissed, and many of the adcoms when pressed how come 28 year old ace banker or consultant or pe guy did not get in, HAVE ANSWERED, QUITE BLATANTLY, AGE JIHAD.   Sure that is an easy way to get  hothead bigshot distracted, but I believe it is true, some of the convos were actually honest, as I hear them 2nd hand, and you keep hearing it. Also, as Age Jihad issue has become more widely spread, kids are pressing adcoms in face-to-face forums etc. about this issue, and like only about 10 percent of Adcoms can lie w. a totally straight face (it takes lotsa practice). The rest of the adcoms get this grin on their face, and thru clenched teeth, sorta fudge.  Also, in official feedback to WLers, those elite WLers who get feedback,  adcoms are dithering over reapp issue and age, and wishing the call was over (happened MANY TIMES).  So there you have it, Below is Her Maj fog, er blog, and it actually CONFIRMS THE AGE JIHAD, notwithstanding its not very serious attempt to rebut it.  READ HER FOG, ER BLOG HOW MANY HALF-TRUTHS, LOGICAL FALLACIES, FIBS,AND CORPORATE TEETH-CLENCHES CAN YOU FIND IN THE BELOW

DEE-DEE’S BLOG ON AGE JIHAD

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS

This is probably an opportune time to address another frequently asked question: “Is Harvard Business School looking for a younger class?” [HELL YES!!!!!!!, WHAT A QUESTION, STRONG EVIDENCE OF A GUILTY MIND, WHERE DID THAT QUESTION COME FROM ???  ]Here’s how the incoming class looks: we have 912 people expected to matriculate in September. 371 of these are what we call “within three years of college graduation” which means that they have graduated in 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005. We keep track this way, not by age. About a dozen are coming right from undergraduate school - and another dozen were admitted directly from college but elected to delay matriculation in order to get some - or additional - full-time work experience. Many of the directly admitted college seniors have worked full-time already - all have had significant roles on campus or entrepreneurial experience. All directly admitted seniors are welcome to postpone their date of matriculation.Back to the class profile and the original question. Do the numbers and I think you’ll find that 541 members of the class of 2010 have been out of college for more than 3 years. That’s more than the total enrollment in many business schools. [YEAH, AND WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO W. ANYTHING???]Are these numbers “quotas” or “targets”? [YES, GUILTY MIND AGAIN, HOW COME SHE IS ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE,IF THERE IS NOTHING THERE, WHERE DID THEY COME FROM]  No. We’ll still do our evaluation and selection the old-fashioned way: OH BOY, CATCH PHRASE FROM OLD TV COMMERCIALS–CAUTION]  one folder at a time. [I GIGGLE] Lots of attention to the written application and mandatory interviews by invitation only. We ask the same questions about every candidate we consider: Is this person a leader? Does he/she give evidence of ability to engage enthusiastically in serious intellectual and analytical work? Will this person invest as much in the educational experience of others as in his/her own? So the answer would be that we think you can come to Harvard Business School and thrive earlier in your career than you might have heard via the grapevine. [NO, THE GRAPEVINE, AT LEAST THE ONE RUN BYME, IN FACT SAYS THE OPPOSITE, TODDLERS WELCOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] That doesn’t mean that those with more experience should be discouraged:[HAHA METHINKS THE LADY DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH] apply when it’s optimal for you. When you can look at the questions we pose and feel eager to respond, that’s a good indication of readiness. YES, READINESS TO GET DINGED.

HRH LEOPOLD, the HBS adcom dean,  IS BLOGGING AGAIN: THIS FROM HER MAJESTY’S LATEST ENTRY:

Here’s some more advice. As you explore websites, chatrooms, books and information sessions held by MBA consulting services, be mindful of claims of “inside information” from former members of admissions boards. I’ve been on the HBS Board for a (very!) long time and I can’t begin to tell you how much has changed . Applicants are certainly smart to explore the admissions processes at different schools but, speaking for HBS, be careful about very specific advice that may not reflect current practices. This includes application advice from our own loyal and well-meaning alumni/ae!

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Yes, indeedee!!! I have no idea what precipitated her  side trip into consultant town, but let the record show that yours truly, is 1. NOT a former adcom member; 1A. Never claimed to be;  2. Never pretended to have inside information fr. adcoms; 4. Agrees with her that a good deal of advice from alums is off the mark (altho some alums do get it).

For the record: my knowledge of HBS process is based on over  10 years of helping 1000’s [not a figure of speech, I have talked to over 1000 -2000 applicants in various ways, including full application help [a very high number right there], interview prep [also a high number], post-mortems, ding reports, free advice on the phone, and conversations w. current students, alums,  leakers, gossips, nutcases,and camp followers –some of whom have useful tidbits of info which are noted and appraised. I also have useful statistics based on my own files,  of successful and dinged apps,  and spend a good deal of time following publically available info. The proof is in the pudding, I called the 80 percent Round 1 interview invites vs. 50 percent being reported by HBS itself, AND I WAS CORRECT. I called the Youth Jihad, and provided powerful data support. I make ’shoot from the hip’ predictions to kids on this board and over the phone about their chances at HBS, and MY RECORD IS PRETTY DARN GOOD.   Beyond that, it aint exactly rocket science to begin with, and I am really good at this naturally.

I actually feel for Dee Dee on this one, she is running a very professional organization of smart and hard working staff members who take their jobs seriously and  take great pride in being associated with a world class institution. But as they say at the clerical union over there at Harvard, “You cannot eat prestige” [well, for too long anyway]. HBS itself, and every other b school, has to make a decison about how many resources to put into admissions versus faculty hiring, new dorms, etc., etc. and admissions usually is not a large priority, esp. the nuts and bolts of staffing an adcom. That is why Stanford and Wharton do it on the ‘cheap’ so to speak, using students (at Wharton, who are paid some nominal amount) and alums [who do almost all interviewing at S] while for the most part HBS has a large, fully professional staff, who read ALL the files and do 90 percent of the interviewing. But it is impossible to maintain a staff like that, given salaries and limited room at the top, and normal geo movements of young-ish and successful people, many w. mbas, sooooooooooo, you do get a bunch of staff members, esp. staff members fr. years ago, thinking that becoming a admissions consultant and playing off the old connection, is an easy new career. Nothing is going to change that, and it is WAY worse at other schools. As noted, Wharton should think about having Admissions Consulting as part of its regular MBA course offerings. ;-) 

(more…)

below are excerpts from Dee Dee’s blog entry about HBS round 1 interview invites, and our annotations, and amplifcations. Her full blog entry is after the dotted line.  

–We will be interviewing from November 5 up until notification day, January 16 (and beyond if we need to).I think we will begin sending interview invitations during the week of October 22.

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this is the normal prior gap between end of applications and first invites: about 20 days. That is what the gap sorta was in year’s prior. The invites pulse out in sort of a bell curve, OVER THE NEXT 30-40 DAYS, so if you have not received an invite by Decemeber 1, your chances of getting an invite are less than 5 percent.if you are totally parnoid, you can plot your odds, by using stock image on left, and subtracting 3.2 percent  every  day, altho obviously if you dont hear fr. Oct 22-29 you have not lost 21percent, since invites get thicker, cresting around November 8-14 is my guess, it is not a symmetrical  bell curve, it falls off  faster after Nov 8-10,  than it rises. Sorry for any stats boo-boos but hope you get the idea.

We will be interviewing from November 5 up until notification day, January 16 (and beyond if we need to).

This is true, but needs a footnote. They do interview and send out interview invites outside the 90-95 percent window of Oct20-Nov 23rd–but dont count on that being you. If you have not gotten an interview invite by Thanksgiving, things are looking real grim.  Exceptions: you get on WL on decision day, and get interviewed later (that is maybe, duh, ~10 kids a year out of class of 1000, maybe less) or your letter on decision day is an interview invite (sell that on E-bay dude, it is very rare).

There is absolutely no discernible pattern to how/when interview invitations are issued.

hmmmmm, this is mostly true, BUT for interview invites for HUB cities–this year first round that means – London, Paris, Mumbai, Delhi, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston and possibly Austin and Seattle – do in fact go out in pulses and patterns, and if you live in SF and you find out that SF hub interview is going to be e.g. on November 16th, well, duh, a lot of SF invites will go going out 6-10 days prior to that, and if you miss that window, it aint good, altho you are still alive. You can get a later invite on campus,  or an alum interview, etc. but NOT GOOD. 

 to repeat, there will always be a number of interview invitations issued up to and including January 16.

to repeat, there will always be a number of six-leaf clovers, flying pigs,and POWER BALL lottery winners. (more…)

Dee-Dee Droppings–more “WTF”??? from the official HBS adcom blog — or what the hell does this mean? Inside the box below is an excerpt from Dee-Dee The Adcom Lady’s latest official HBS blog entry http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html

folks, what does this mean, and how can it help you apply???

Any of you who have heard me speak know that I worry that “leadership” can be misunderstood. Sometimes the very word conjures up a powerful figure who charges over the hill yelling “follow me!!” - someone both larger-than-life and louder-than-life! This panel gave me another opportunity to talk about leadership styles being another measure of diversity in the HBS classroom. We are serious about finding out how individuals lead and what happens when leaders listen to each other. Imagine a case with a protagonist grappling with a challenging management team or board of directors. What if he finds him/herself suddenly in the top position at a firm with a culture that rewards a leadership approach very different from his/her natural style? We want to bring together entrepreneurial leaders, those that gravitate to positional authority in complex organizations, thought leaders and hands-on leaders who thrive with small teams. Some of the most dramatic moments in a case discussion come when a student proposes a course of action that he/she finds eminently logical and obvious —and someone else in the room finds it completely wild —even preposterous! This kind of diversity of perspectives is what makes a case method discussion so exciting and unpredictable.

If you read Dee-Dee’s recent  interview in BW carefully, you sense her obsession with the HBS case method  where diverse opionons clang and clash to amp out some truth. She is loving those case discussions where some cat proposes something “completely wild —” at least to some other dude, or “protagonist” (her word for dude) who has another style of leadership.  Weeeeel, I will leave it to the testimony of actual HBS kids to verify if those “something wild” moments in class are not more often remarks by slackers, crackpots, or wise guys (you called) than anything that is both wild and useful, who cares??? the point is to get inside Dee Dee’s head and find out what she is looking for between the tea leaves as it were of  the above primary process screed about “leadership,” which quickly zig-zags  in its bloggy way, to her homeport, which is not leadership but case method.

What is  the take away for the applicant, trying quite legitimately to game the system for some actual useful info.  First, she recognizes dif. styles of leadership, and the cliche style, Teddy Roosevelt yelling “follow me” the Rough Riders as they charge San Juan Hill is not her fav, nor is it one that many applicants have exp. with, even in their exaggerated essays. More to her liking and experience are those more quiet leadership moments, entrepreneurial leaders, those that gravitate to positional authority in complex organizations, thought leaders and hands-on leaders who thrive with small teams. Leaving aside for a moment if this laundry list has 3 or 4 items, hey, call it four, and imagine there is 1. entrep leader, 2. positional leader, 3. thought leader and 4. hand’s-on leaders in small teams, DO NOT BE SO SILLY AS BEGIN ASKING YOURSELF WHICH TYPE ARE YOU. BECAUSE YOU ARE ALL OF THE ABOVE, DEPENDING ON CIRCUMSTANCES. Such a list is a useful corkscrew of buzz words that can extract some useful refinements in any essay, even one’s nominally not about leadership.  Like substantial accomplishment. They want to see a subtantial acomplishment, sure, but they also want to see how you accomplished it, how you exercised leadership, even the watered-down anything goes leadership of hand’s-on actions in small groups (not sure if hand’s-on is literal but doing small things in smal groups like sending out blast emails, putting up posters, calling the others, increasing morale, and overcoming depressions can quality as leadership, altho you dont need to call it such. Also it seems a GREAT BINGO ITEM is to describe in some essay how you responded to wild ideas of, ahem, another protagonist, whom you did not call out for being slacker, crackpot, etc. but actually respected and grew and learned from. You could do a prtty good MISTAKE essay by saying how you started out as FOLLOW ME leader on some project but in response to some WILD objections, you reigned yourself in, or did not, and shudda. All these gold is right there in the Dee-Dee dross if you know how to look.

and more, but like Dee Dee, I am a blogger too, and dont have to finish my thinking in some stinking powerpoint set of charts. “We dunneed your stinkin powerpoint ”

more Deezies:

from the adcom director’s blog

“What is the difference between applying in round one and round two?”Not much. We’ll make roughly the same number of admissions offers in each round. While we have a smaller number of applications in round one, I will generalize and say that they historically tend to be a very organized and eager group who want to know where they stand as soon as possible. Round two offers the opportunity to polish the application again over the winter holiday break. Sometimes candidates will wait until round two in order to report on a recent promotion —that’s understandable. Our advice is to submit your application when you have had a chance to devote serious and sustained effort to making it the best case for admission.That’s all for now. Maybe next time I’ll talk about the case method video that’s up on the website… anyone have any questions or comments about it? [IS THIS BEING SUBMITTED AT CANNES,LIKE THE MEDALIN MOVIE ON ENTOURAGE???? HAVE YOU SEEN THE PARODY OF THIS KIND OF THING ON THE STANFORD GSB WEBSITE?]

Folks, finally, a pixel of useful info breaks out, and now you know why sooner or later, and problably later, the Internet will open up China, and even years after that, famous Walled City of the HBS adcom.  For those ‘organized and eager group’ of Round One applicants that Dee refers to,  read investment bankers, consultants from McK, Bain, and BCG plus  PE princes from the usual suspects (calling Tom Lee and Geore Soros). TO the extent we can hold Dee to speaking factually here, it seems that Round One admission odds are better, since same number of admits, and fewer applicants, but you are competing against a wall of kids who are super stars and have backgrounds, should I say, stats (nope cannot say that, after all what are stats) that are often “associated” as they say in cancer studies, with certain outcomes. It also seems to be official confirmation of wht she has said in BW interview, DONT BOTHER APPLYING IN ROUND 3 IF YOU HAVE 2NDRY SEX CHARACTERISTICS. THAT IS FOR COLLEGE SENIORS AND ESTABLISHED ODDBALLS.

this piece of bloggerol is sorta what we have been saying all along.

THE DEE-DEE BLOG WATCH!!!!!!

In this section we follow HBS adcom Deirdre “Dee” Leopold  (”Dee” is her formulation, what humiliations  blogging drives us to) Leopold. I will try to”demystify” the typical adcom, ahem,  blogulations.

her latest entry

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html

has some doozies,or shall I say, Dee-zies. Seems like most of the kids who are sending her questions are not interested in 10 Ways HBS is Great, or a list of famous faculty, or her thoughts on the slap-happy videos of HBSers around the campfire (several of whom I was shocked to recognize as former clients, they sure look different than I imagined) :   OH no, get a grab of this:

Before I close, let me try to answer a couple of the questions that have been submitted. I need to remind everyone that “here are my stats, what are my chances?” type of questions are not what I have in mind! [WHERE DID ANYONE GET THAT IDEA!!!!! WHO WOULD POSSIBLY ANSWER QUESTIONS LIKE THAT? HOW COULD HE???] That’s not the way we look at applications and I could surely do more harm than good were I to try to reduce our process to “stats”. I hope you all understand that this is not a way of saying that everyone should apply to HBS —a strong academic record really matters as does a track record of leadership. I just can’t speculate on how a person’s stats translate into a complete application.

well, I CAN!!!! SO keep those questions coming. At least she does admit that not everyone should apply to HBS, that is something Brit “The Black Box”  Dewey (prior adcom director of beloved memory) would never admit!!! (You may recall our parody Brit answer to guy who told her at a Forum that he has anger problems and murdered prof in college, “Well, that could really add to our case discussion teaching method, as a diversity point of view, APPLY!!!”).

more on her entry later, just wanted to get the ball rolling.

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