HBS’ Admissions Director Writes About Post Interview Reflection

In an update today, HBS’ Director of Admissions, Dee Leopold wrote a detailed post explaining the intent behind the newly introduced post interview reflection as part of HBS’ MBA application process.

What is all the fuss about?

A little over a month back, on May 22, HBS released its MBA application and along with that, their curveball Post Interview Reflection. Calling it “Have the last word”, HBS stated that following their interview, candidates would be required to submit a written reflection using the online application system. Furthermore, candidates would be required to submit this within 24 hours following the completion of the interview. You can read about this requirement here. This announcement by HBS caused great flutter in the online blogosphere, forums and everywhere else with everyone making their own inference about the same. As a result of the activity and the questions received, Dee Leopold has made a clarifying blog post entry to provide some more detail on this new requirement.

What does all this mean for you?

The main point that Dee Leopold stresses in her blog post is that this additional requirement is not meant to be perceived as an essay. The distinction between an essay and this requirement is strengthened further when Dee states that Admissions is looking for real time writing that looks and feels more like an email. Furthermore, she stresses twice that AdCom will be generous about typos and grammar stating they are not looking for a polished response.

Another thing to note is that she warns candidates against coming with a prepared response even ahead of the interview (even as far ahead as September). She mentions that AdCom will be screening for coached responses, essays from other schools pasted herein and multiple more accomplishments disguised within the response. Great to see this post as it will probably help HBS a lot of pain downstream when it comes time to read the responses.

What question will interviewees be expected to answer?

“You’ve just had your HBS interview. Tell us about it. How well did we get to know you?” (No Word Limit)

Tentative Instruction Note from HBS

This is not an essay. Think of this as an email you might write after a meeting. We will be much more generous in our reaction to typos and grammatical errors than we will be with pre-packaged responses. Emails that give any indication that they were produced BEFORE you had the interview will raise a flag for us. We do not expect you to solicit or receive any outside assistance with this exercise.

You can read the original entry by Dee Leopold here.