Burning Questions Answered at Harvard Business School

Over on the Director’s Blog, Dee Leopold, Harvard Business School‘s Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, has posted answers to application and application process questions flooding her inbox.

Here are the Q&As Leopold has dispatched so far for Harvard Business School…

At Harvard Business School, do you accept the GMAT or GRE total score in the application without the AWA or Analytical Writing score?
You must have a GMAT or GRE score in order to submit an application. If you haven’t yet received your AWA or Analytical Writing score, that’s fine. We will add it to your file when it arrives.

Is it OK to write about accomplishments that are not recent?
Every year at Harvard Business School, many successful candidates write about things that happened quite a while ago. It’s probably not a good idea to have everything you write about be from your childhood – we would wonder if you were moving forward or fixed in the past. As always, we encourage you to use your best judgment and remember that this is an application to business school.

What should I enter on the application for GPA if my university doesn’t use a 4.0 grading system?
Don’t enter anything. Don’t convert your grades to a 4.0 system. We review all transcripts to Harvard Business School and are familiar with a wide variety of grading systems.

Are essays read in consecutive order?
Not always. Each Board member may have his/her own way of approaching the written application. Speaking for myself, I often skip around with no particular pattern. If I start with an essay that seems to be building on a theme in another essay, I just go back and catch up. Not a problem. I can reassure you that all essays are reviewed!

We’ll keep you posted as more updates to the Director’s Blog become available.

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