brianfox5

Institution: Harvard Program: DBA - Strategy Decision: Rejected Funding: N/A Notification date: February 14 Notified through: E-Mail Posted on Grad Cafe: Yes Comments: anyone know what the final admit number is?

I figured that there would be formal policies in place given the sheer number of applicants. Just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing a potential avenue for improvement. With respect to looking at the incoming class, are you referring to a comparison of their stats / profiles with respect to ours? I agree that this would be a beneficial exercise. Is there a general procedure that schools follow that provides information about the incoming class? In my past research, it seemed like the release of that kind of information varied widely from school to school.

Not that I have heard anything yet, but if you are rejected from a school, what is the protocol to elicit feedback from the admissions department / committee in order to improve your candidacy for later years? Has anyone done this in the past? What were the typical responses? Were there any responses to these types of questions?

Discipline: Strategy Type of Undergrad: New England B-School, Economics and Strategy Undergrad GPA: 3.8/4.0 Type of Grad: N/A Grad GPA: N/A GMAT: 750 (45V, 48Q) Courses: Bunch of Random Math (Calc, Linear Algebra, Discrete Math, Ops Research, Stats), Econometrics, I/O, Intermediate Macro Letters of Recommendation: 2 professors (math and strategy), 1 industry (supervisor, assisted with research) Research Experience: honors thesis, industry based research Teaching Experience: TA for accounting, tutor for stats, math and economics Research Interests: Co-evolution of boundaries between firms and the industries that they inhabit, particularly looking at entrepreneurship and innovation as driving factors Concerns: Lack of publications, good recommendations, but no nobel prize winning recommenders, not coming from a research-focused undergrad Applying to: BU, UMass, UConn, Stern, Wharton, MIT, HBS

This is the "clean" admissions and rejections thread for the Fall 2011 season. Please refrain from using this thread for comments, but rather use it for providing confirmed admissions or rejections from schools you have applied to. For interviews and other information, as well as commentary on the process, please refer to phdhope's "Official 2011 Admissions Results" where there is a very lively discussion going on for many of the areas. The template for submissions is below. Institution: Program: Decision: Funding: Notification date: Notified through: Posted on Grad Cafe: Comments:

This thread is being created in order to facilitate the consolidation of all applicant profiles for this year's season. Please no comments on this thread, just your profile and schools you are applying to this year. Hopefully, this will allow the forum members to identify others in their discipline to share information, etc. The profile template is below. Best of luck to all. PROFILE: Discipline: Type of Undergrad: Undergrad GPA: Type of Grad: Grad GPA: GMAT / GRE: Courses: Letters of Recommendation: Research Experience: Teaching Experience: Research Interests: SOP: Concerns: Other: Applying to:

if you look at the econ forums, they have put together quite the system over the years. I think that this thread is most like the "Comments on Admissions and Rejections" thread - it provides a place for the rumor mill to run without bogging down this year's hopefuls (and future applicants as well) from ascertaining information on acceptances and rejections. If anyone has official news (i.e. acceptances and / or rejections), it would be beneficial to keep that on one thread w/o the noise of interviews and other secondhand information. In addition, I think that a roll call thread may be beneficial as well to figure out what the candidate pool looks like this year. While the accounting and marketing groups have started to coalesce as information has been released, there hasn't been the same level of clumping for the strategy, management, finance or ops areas. To LongFang's comment, I am strategy guy as well, so no worries - there are other hopefuls out there. To that end, I will put together two threads later this evening- a 2011 Roll Call and a 2011 Admit / Rejections Thread. We will let the tyranny of the masses decide, they will float to the top or quickly sink to the bottom. Also, as a side note - is there some way for one of the moderators of the forum to turn this thread into a sticky for the remainder of the season?

for finance and strategy folks, a Bus Ec interview has been posted on TGC, i wonder what the eventual cross section of the interviewed populace is on this board as a % of the total. Has that been looked into in the past?

7 in, now the waiting game begins

Based on your profile, it sounds like you have both the academic qualifications and some professional experience to inform your research area. How does your work experience inform your research topic specifically? I think that your focus on the Top 20 is appropriate, in particular i think UCLA and similar schools are the sweet spot. I would have applied there myself if it wasn't so far away. The LoRs are just going to push you over the top, not make your case. I was having a conversation with a professor recently and he made the excellent point that there is no variance in an LoR, so unless it is someone in the top of their field writing for you, it doesn't matter all that much. So if this Harvard prof is top of the top, you should pursue it. He doesn't need the internet to write, correct? Otherwise, I would bail.

As I understand it, Strategy and Business Economics tackle similar phenomena using different toolboxes. A strategy program tends to use two of the three primary methodological pillars (pyschology, sociology, economics) while the Bus Econ programs tend to focus on the econ perspective exclusively. Some bus econ programs also house a finance program (HBS is an example of this). In some programs you will be taking the same classes as the Econ PhD students. After doing my research, I realized that (in most cases) the Bus Econ programs will look at you much like a traditional econ program would (looking for classes such as real analysis). I would seem like you have enough preparation in the maths to have a shot at those programs because of your MSc. The strategy programs are a little harder to read because they can sit in multiple areas, but typically they are nestled within the management department with OB. It really depends school to school, and in some cases (Northwestern is an example) there are multiple areas where a "strategy" focused individual could fit in. For your references, did you have a thesis requirement for the MSc? is there anyone that you kept in touch with after the fact? I am three years out of undergrad but I was still able to reconnect. Many of my professors think of recommendations part of their service to the academic community, so if you show genuine interest you should be able to drum some people up.

Are there are "third rail" words within an SoP that you should not use? For example, in mine, I made the mistake of mentioning teaching, which as I understand it, may be a death sentence at some institutions (e.g. Stern). It definitely seems (like in many professions) words tend to have their own connotations. Continuing this example, when I say "teaching", I mean 1 - 2 classes a semester in order to interact with students and elicit feedback on new developments from a different perspective to dovetail with the academic (read journal article) perspective. However, it has been made known to me that "teaching" in the academic realm means 5+ classes a semester to the significant detriment of research. Are there any other such words that people should avoid using? Also, if you are lucky enough to get an interview, how do you communicate it is more of a "lost in translation" moment than a stated objective?

pinakiroy, what interests you in the strategy field? For my part, I am planning to continue to read up on my sectors of interest. In addition, I have recently started a discussion group with a bunch of friends from college to share some of the new research coming out in strategy and related fields, but academically as well as in the popular media. That way, I'll have something to talk about come interview time. Not sure if there are some words of wisdom from those who have been to this barn dance before...

I have been searching for a thread that has people interested in applying for the Fall 2011 cycle in the fields of Strategy or Business Economics and I haven't been able to find on. I thought that it would be good to get one going now so that we can share ideas, results, all that good stuff. I for one do not have the maths background to apply for Bus. Econ, so I am applying for strategy programs exclusively with an emphasis on the evolution of entrepreneurial firms and their impact on the industries of which they are a part of. My profile is below (I am lifting this from the "Profile / Lessons Learned / Advice from 2010 cycle thread, which I found to be quite informative): Profile - Age: 24 Undergrad: B.S. in Business, concentrations in Econ and Strategy, small private B-school UGPA: 3.85 Grad: none GGPA: N/A GMAT: 750 (48Q/45V), 6.0 AWA GRE: N/A Quant Prep: multivariate calculus, discrete math, linear algebra, econometrics, operations research Research XP: Senior thesis focusing on strategy and decision making processes, RA for director at my firm who was completing his dissertation Pubs: None Teaching XP: Tutor (econometrics, industrial organization, statistics) Work XP: Consultant at an economics consulting firm, 2.5 years Recs: recommendations from thesis advisor, director at firm (who completed dissertation), ops research professor Applications - Areas: Strategy Submitted to: HBS, MIT, NYU, UPenn, UMass, BU, UMich - Thinking about UCLA, Northwestern, Berkeley Admitted: Waitlisted: Rejected: I think it would be great if others in my boat tacked onto this thread so that we can go through the process together. Here's hoping!