“Habit of leadership, analytical aptitude & appetite and engaged community citizenship, are what HBS is looking for in its applicants,” shared Andrea, who is a former HBS Admissions Officer and HBS MBA on the Stacy Blackman Consulting team.
Contact us for an assessment of your HBS MBA candidacy today. Here’s a snapshot of our HBS expertise on the SBC admissions consulting team:
Program Overview
Harvard Business School is the home of the case method of business education. It brings “the complex and dynamic realities of business analysis and decision making into the classroom.” The school’s mission is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world.
Students at Harvard Business School are part of a storied institution with a dense network of connections and resources. The volume of cases, research, and publications the school puts out each year is part of what makes Harvard unique. Ideas are exchanged at nearly 20 conferences each year and at speaking engagements that take place regularly.
Within the larger MBA program, students become part of a smaller community through their “section” groups. Each group of about ninety students has a dedicated faculty team, and together, they complete the first-year curriculum. All students take the same five courses during the first year, focusing on the internal functional operations of business enterprises.
With one of the largest and most influential alumni networks in the world, Harvard Business School is very well-connected. In fact, 20% of the top three executive positions at Fortune 500 companies are filled by HBS alumni.
Harvard Business School ranked #6 in the 2025-2026 U.S. News & World Report‘s Best Business Schools.
Admissions Stats
Here’s a snapshot of HBS’s MBA Class of 2026 relative to Stanford:
| Admission Stats | Harvard | Stanford |
| Median GMAT | 740 | 738 |
| GMAT Range | 540-790 | 560-790 |
| Average GPA | 3.69 | 3.75 |
| Acceptance Rate | 11.2% | 6.8% |
| Class of 2026 | Harvard | Stanford |
| Enrolled MBA Students | 930 | 424 |
| International MBA Students | 35% | 39% |
| Women MBA Students | 45% | 44% |
| Black/African American Students | 8% | 8% |
| Hispanic/Latino Students | 10% | 7% |
| Asian American Students | 25% | 30% |
HBS Admissions Essay
Applicants to the MBA Class of 2027 (matriculating fall 2025) need to respond to these three essay prompts:
Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career choices and aspirations and the impact you will have on the businesses, organizations, and communities you plan to serve. (up to 300 words)
Leadership-Focused Essay: What experiences have shaped who you are, how you invest in others, and what kind of leader you want to become? (up to 250 words)
Growth-Oriented Essay: Curiosity can be seen in many ways. Please share an example of how you have demonstrated curiosity and how that has influenced your growth. (up to 250 words)
HBS Admissions Tips
SBC reviews its admit pool each season to identify key trends and lessons. For instance, we recently wrote about how to demystify the HBS acceptance rate. When we evaluated all our successful HBS admits across our SBC client pool, we found that their essays had some common success factors:
- Core passion and driving motivation are shared through several examples, professional, community, personal
- Autobiographical and also key achievements
- Multi-topical as opposed to one topic, but with a structured framework of some type and not colloquial, freeflow presentation
Similarly, academic stats, intellectual horsepower, leadership track record, career clarity, and proven ambition are all important factors in HBS admissions.
From the Blog
Check out How to Get Into Harvard Business School, which features lessons learned from our admissions experts.
Sample HBS Essays
Winning essays from our successful admits are new on the SBC site and can be found here:
HBS Essay Examples
More HBS Application Tips
View our extensive overview of how the application for Harvard varies from that of Stanford here.