[MBK]

בתגובה ל: ארכיון 2: ???Any Israeli Applicants #7316

To: LPOW

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Hey LPLOW,

The real answer is – Of course! no experince will make it much harder to find a job in a specific industry. Then what most young post-MBAs do is one of two:

– Start with banking/consulting to get experince and brand

– Work hard and convince an employer that you're smart and capble enough to start in the specific position.

My experince made me think that the sooner the better – as i said, in the worst case you'll have to do a year or two in banking which isn't such a bad decision to begin with.

We can continue it offline – [email protected]

MBK

[MBK]

בתגובה ל: ארכיון 2: ???Any Israeli Applicants #7287

To: All

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Hey,
I'm a recent grad of HBS and thought that it could be useful to read the following Q&A about HBS in particular and MBA in general:

My first disclaimer is that it's all my personal believes (though based on some research I made prior and during school).

In general, I believe that every applicant should view the application as a marketing project, rather than an exam. There're no right answers and in the end of the day a bunch of officers, some even without an MBA, will make the final decision, and they make many mistakes. In HBS, just as an example, in a recent talk at HBS, Warren Buffet described how this particular school rejected it. On the other hand, they didn't make this mistake with George W. Bush. If there's one criterion to success is the ambition to succeeded in it. The more you research and work on the application the chances are that it'd be better accepted.


a. How early before I intend to start learning abroad should I start the process?
I started 4-5 months before the date of application and decided to force myself to apply for my three favorite programs (HBS, Stanford and Wharton) in the first round no matter what happened (maybe this is the best recommendation I can give you – first round has more chances than the other two!!!). You can also do a great application in 2 or 3 months. The GMAT is the most time consuming.

b. How important is the GMAT?

As a matter of fact in HBS, GMAT wasn't a requirement until recent years. What does it mean? That in the eyes of the school. GMAT is only in indicator and not the most important one. If at all, it's useful to see the GMAT as a balancing factor – lower grades could be balanced by great GMAT. Question on your English fluency (as someone who never worked outside of Israel) can be answered by a high English score on the GMAT.

c. How important is it to graduate with honors?

if you apply directly after school (with only the army as your work experience, which counts), it's obvious that the better your academic credentials the better your chances to get in. Does this mean that you'd work your ass on getting an honor? probably not. I never got honors and made it to a few programs.

d. Should I ask for recommendations from my professors?

The issue of recommenders could be easily described as an optimization of the following factors (sorry for the mathematical description but it's really the best way):
1. Your strategy – what is the "story" you market to the admission board – what makes you unique in comparison to all the other applicants from Israel. Based on this, you should decide on the people who recommend you ( i.e. if the point is that you're the great student, you'll definitely require, of course, backing from professors; and if you've been active in public work, someone would have to describe except you)
2. Your broad horizons – reference can be used exactly to show how "interesting" you are, to show activities that weren't the core of your life but add a flavor to your main story
3. Intimacy – schools are looking for someone who really knows you and can write a very detailed reference about who you are, what do you want to do, etc. (check out the specific reference that HBS ask as an example. they want someone who knows a lot about you and can testify on it)

4. Calibration and standardization – the school would try to understand how good are you in your peer or age group and the better you can convey it with your reference the better it is. I mean that the recommender should be one that can say that you were THE best of the people under him, so it's better that he's not your direct boss with only two employees. This also shad some light on issue of the brand of the recommender. If a random guy will say that you're one of the best that he met in his life, it won't have the same validity if the CEO will say it. This means that if you can have a distinguished person (it doesn't have to be the CEO/chief of staff or prime minister) but still someone who can say – "I know the age group in Israel and in the US and x is clearly part of the top group" – it worth more!

e. What are the chances to get a scholarship and what does it requires from me to get one?

There're pretty good chances to get a scholarship when you are excepted to the best schools – the private schools in the US have A LOT of money and there perception is that poor student is more important than highly academic one, so they give money on need base. Why? The issue of merit-based scholarships should be researched on your own, but I believe that the better the school, it's giving less money for merit b/c the assumption is that you'll earn a sizable income after school and it's more important to bring poor students (let say from the Middle East) than another top student from Yale with very rich parents.

f. How old are most of the people who learn with you?

I believe that the average age in my class at HBS was 27, and the range was between 22 (as starting age) and 36 (an American army guy).

g. How were most of the people you studied with?

GREAT!
But this is really a silly answer from my part. The class at HBS has 900 people. That's huge, and also the most important advantage of school – it creates a large network, but still very cohesive one. How? First the class is divide to 10 section with 90 people in each, with whom you study all through the first year. The outcome is that you know those 89 students pretty well, and on top of that with 900 students, there's a good chance you'll be able to find people similar to you with the same interests, even if they're as obscure as accounting practices in the 17th century.

h. Do you think it's important to first finish my internship and than apply?

It can't hurt, but my answer is NO. it depends on what you bring to the table today, your confidence and ability to make a difference (both in the application and in school). You'd be competing with other people who did the internship themselves so finishing it for itself won't be an advantage. It's better to apply as the best student in the class than another lawyer/accountant.

i. Anything else?

Well, I highly recommend the HBS experience to everyone but especially to people who're open to new cultures and are happy with socializing. It's expensive but I wouldn't include it as an issue if you're younger than 30 and with no more than one child. I believe it's important not to be locked on one specific school, apply to a few (that you'd really consider attending) and than take the best choice of the ones you were offered admission. As an Israeli, you'd always remember than you're still at least 2-3 years older than most US students so apply as soon as you can.
Moran, [email protected]

[MBK]

בתגובה ל: ארכיון: לחברים בלבד #7275

שלום לכולם! הצטרפתי לפורום לאחרונה והבנתי שצריך לספר קצת על עצמי, אז קודם כל כמה דברים כלליים:
I just graduated from an MBA program in the US

Studied in TAU (Law and Econ) and in HBS

Still working on it…

Being there, done that

HBS Grad

Only answers, no questions

.

אז בהצלחה לכולם,

MBK

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