Want to work with Nanako? HBS/HKS MBA/MPA Joint Degree + Scholarship

Welcome Nanako Yano, the newest member of the Sam Weeks Consulting team!

Nanako’s Background

Nanako Yano is the newest member of the Sam Weeks Consulting team.

She spent her childhood in the US and Japan, and decided to study economics at a small liberal arts school in California. After college, she moved into management consulting in New York. That’s where she toyed with the idea of going back to school and exploring her interest in international development further. But she wanted to gain experience in the field first.

So she left for Eswatini, a small landlocked country in Southern Africa. There, she started working with a public health NGO called the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). At CHAI, she facilitated policymaking for HIV and tuberculosis programs in the region. Nanako had no background in public health, but quickly found that she could apply the toolkits and analytical problem-solving skills she had developed in consulting at CHAI. 

Given her positive experience at CHAI, she made a commitment to pursue a career in international development. But at the same time, she broadened her horizons beyond the narrow world of consulting and saw how the private sector could be a powerful player in approaching public health issues. That’s when Nanako set her sights on a joint MBA degree.

Although she got into the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), her first applications to Harvard Business School and Stanford GSB were unsuccessful. She deferred her enrollment at HKS and spent another year in Africa, which she considers a blessing in disguise. That’s also when she reapplied to HBS and GSB, and got accepted to the HBS MBA and HKS Master in Public Administration-International Development (MBA/MPA-ID) joint program. 

We sat down with Nanako to learn more about her joint degree application process, experience at HBS and HKS, and her career in international development. If you’re applying to a joint degree MBA or aiming for a social impact role after your degree, watch the full interview below.

Q. You were a reapplicant. Tell us about your application process.

Nanako:  In a joint degree application, you have to be successfully admitted to both schools independently. In my case, HBS and HKS. There's also a dedicated joint degree team at both schools that assesses your application as a joint degree candidate.

For me, the most important thing was spending as much time as possible reflecting on what my joint degree narrative was going to be. At the end of the day, it paid dividends when I actually started school, because having a lot more clarity on what I wanted to do helped me focus and prioritize during my program.

When I first applied to HBS, I was a Round 2 candidate who had only spent a few months in Africa at the time. I interviewed but didn’t get in. There are likely a number of different factors that led to an unsuccessful admit, but I think my recommendations were a key part of that. 

One of my recommenders was from my time in consulting, so he knew me really well. But my manager in Eswatini had only worked with me for a few months, and didn’t know me well enough. I suspect that contributed to a weaker recommendation which likely impacted the overall application package.

Once I got the rejection, I had some time to reflect on how I could strengthen my application. I applied as a re-applicant from Round 2 (January deadline), to Round 1 (September deadline) the following year. I had 9 months to improve my profile. 

During that time, I didn’t change jobs – I just continued my work at CHAI in Eswatini. But I did develop a close relationship with my supervisor, who re-wrote my recommendation letter for my reapplication. And after I got accepted, she showed me this amazing letter she’d written which I realized had pulled my application together. 

My essays improved as well. I spent more time in Africa, saw more of the challenges on the ground, and my narrative changed. By the time the second application rolled around, I had done enough work to understand the power of philanthropy and the donors who funded the public health work I was doing, but also the risk of donor dependency. And when certain macro events happen, such as a global financial crisis that impacts funding flows, there is a real impact on the efficacy of our work.

So when I re-applied, I was able to write about my experiences in much more detail and confidently discuss them in my interview. 

I think I was a successful re-applicant since I took the time to think about what went wrong and focus on what I could strengthen. 

Q. What application strategy should joint degree applicants use?

Sam: Initially, you would think that statistically your chances of getting admitted into a joint degree are lower because you have to apply to two schools independently and get admitted to both. In my experience, though, applicants who are well suited to a joint degree program actually benefit from this because they have twice as much real estate to write about their experiences. What do you think is the strategic route to take to have the highest likelihood of getting into Harvard?

Nanako: There are two ways to see this. 

On one hand, it seems like an impossible task to get into two schools with very low acceptance rates. 

But at the same time, there are certain people with backgrounds that really lend themselves to a joint degree curriculum and experience. There are probably also fewer applicants applying to joint programs, although joint degrees are increasingly becoming popular. When I asked the average person at HBS if they applied to a joint degree program, the answer was no. But at HKS, the average person I spoke to said they had applied for a joint or dual degree and had gotten in, or didn’t get accepted to a joint degree and opted to just do HKS..  

And it's not just HKS. For example, at HBS, I had classmates who were doing joint degrees with the law school, medical school, etc. HBS also started a new MS/MBA Engineering Sciences program recently. There are many different combinations you can do across all the Harvard schools. And that’s just within Harvard alone!  

Given the variety of disciplines you can combine, a good strategy to use in applying to multiple schools is to present yourself as a candidate uniquely placed to benefit from and contribute to two distinct programs.

Q. What were three interesting things about the HBS/HKS joint degree experience that somebody from the outside might not be aware of?

Nanako: 

1) JD vs. Dual Degree: It’s important to distinguish between a joint degree and a dual degree. We tend to throw these terms around interchangeably. I certainly did until I actually joined the program!

A joint degree is awarded by one institution, while a dual degree means pursuing two degrees at two different institutions. For example, the HKS / HBS combination is a joint degree, with an integrated curriculum, joint programming, faculty and staff etc. You start with a cohort of 25-30 students and you spend all three years together. HKS also has a number of different research institutions affiliated with the school, but the Center for Public Leadership (CPL) has a fellowship specific for HBS/HKS joint degree students. They offer different programs and trainings around leadership development, including retreats and dinners with leaders from across the public, private, and non-profit sectors. In short, there’s a whole joint HBS / HKS team looking out for you for 3 years.

On the other hand, HKS combined with other business schools, such as MIT Sloan, Dartmouth Tuck, Stanford GSB, and Wharton, would be a dual degree, where you're basically on your own. You're spending a year and a half at each school and going back and forth between the two. You’ll share this experience with a certain set of classmates, but it’s very independent and separate otherwise – the two schools aren’t talking to each other. 

2) Cost of attendance & Fellowships: Interestingly enough, doing the HBS / HKS joint degree was actually cheaper than attending the two schools separately! At Harvard, there is a generous CPL fellowship funded by  David Rubenstein, founder of the Carlyle Group. He wanted to make the investment in a 3-year joint degree program the same as a a 2-year program, so the Rubenstein Fellowship fully funded my first year of school and a summer internship. 

HBS is also one of the few schools that offers need-based scholarships. Given my non-profit salary at CHAI and the fact that I had no income the year before I started the MBA (since I was in my first year of the joint degree program), HBS offered me a very generous financial aid package. HBS’ Social Enterprise Initiative also gave me funding to pursue an unpaid summer internship.

In my third year, through the Center for Public Leadership at HKS, I was lucky to receive another fellowship specific to joint degree students. It paid for about half of my tuition. The myth I’m trying to bust here is that people hear 3 years and think that it’s so expensive to do a joint degree. MBAs are already expensive enough! But the Harvard joint degree program has a lot of funding in place to make it affordable and accessible to students.

3) Maximize your experience: Finally, having three years to pursue your degree is a true luxury. Three years may sound long, but believe me, they fly by. It’s also amazing to have two summers to really think about what you want to do. Some of my classmates ended up doing four internships over two summers to test all the different hypotheses they developed during grad school and narrow down their career choices.

Between having the funding for internships and doing independent projects outside of school, there are just so many resources available at Harvard. You have every opportunity to maximize your experience and explore every corner of the universe that you're interested in to help you figure out your interests.

Q. How did the curriculum for your MBA and MPA at HBS and HKS overlap? 

Nanako: Business schools tend to focus on practical, real-world training. HBS uses the case method pedagogy where you’re reading 200-250 cases per year. Each case looks at a real organization and a real issue, and the discussion focuses on what would you do as the protagonist.

HKS has a number of different programs. I did the MPA-ID program which tends to be quite quant-heavy. That’s different from the MPP (Master’s in Public Policy) which tends to be a lot more qualitative in nature. The HKS curriculum depends on which program you choose.

I actually started off my MPA-ID school year with a three-week math camp. We all arrived early on campus before any of the other programs did and refreshed our knowledge of calculus, linear algebra, probability, and statistics. Math camp was an important stepping stone to dive deep into the MPA-ID core curriculum, which is heavy on micro and macro economics, and econometrics. 

Generally speaking, I would say that the two schools’ curriculums were complementary: HBS focused on practical training, HKS focused on theory.  

I’ll also say that my economics training at HKS was very useful in the HBS curriculum. For example, in the BGIE (Business, Government & the International Economy) class each case focused on a country, and the protagonist was usually a head of state. We had to think: as the President or Minister of Finance, what would I do to solve this specific macroeconomic issue affecting my country? In those cases, bringing in my HKS training on macroeconomics and game theory were helpful to think about big-picture issues.

In terms of when there was a little bit of a clash – and I think this is probably the most interesting and compelling part of the joint degree – was when I had to straddle these two different worlds. The biggest difference I noticed was how the the unit of analysis differed at each school. At HBS, the unit of analysis through the cases is a business unit or a company, generally speaking. You optimize for decision-making around that individual unit.

At HKS the unit of analysis is a city, a country, the world – you’re optimizing a certain policy at a much higher level.The way you would approach problem solving is just so different and much harder in my mind, since you're thinking about so many different stakeholders. 

It’s not that HBS cases are a simplistic representation of the world, but I do think there is a fundamental difference if you're a policymaker. The processes and stakeholders you need to think about are so different compared to if you're operating an individual business unit or a company. 

The people are also very different, in a good way! At HKS, I would overhear conversations about some obscure policy question or recent political event . Only about 10% of my MPA-ID class wereAmerican, so it was just very interesting to hear my classmates’ perspectives, who represented countries I know little about. HKS students are also very mission and impact driven. They’ve come to school to solve a specific social problem or market failure. Their interests may evolve over time, but the passion is there for big societal problems that we’re all trying to fix. 

On the other hand, at the business school, the conversations tended to be more practical in nature, and especially around recruiting season, focused on interviews and networking opportunities. But there were also some really interesting classroom discussions. For example, when Trump won the Presidential election in 2016, my HBS professor canceled the case for the day and gave us space to talk about the election outcome. While the conversations can differ significantly across the two  schools, it’s an incredible experience to be able to bridge those two worlds.

Q. How did the HBS Case Method differ from the teaching style at HKS?

Nanako:  It was very different. HKS focused heavily on lectures and solving problem sets. We had a lot of homework, reading, and writing to do. 

At HBS, you’re sitting in a classroom with 90 other brilliant people. There's a scribe in the back of the room taking note of who has participated and spoken up. Half your grade is class participation. If you’re not talking, you will be cold called. The case method pedagogy was intimidating at first, but I grew to appreciate it. Electronics were not allowed in the classroom, so if it was a Finance class, we’d have to print out the Excel model and discuss that in the classroom. You feel like you’re in a big corporate boardroom for all your classes. 

But my biggest takeaway from this experience was how this training helped me become a more effective communicator. The case method really forced me to  think more thoughtfully about how and when to speak,  and how to say something that is actually moving the conversation forward versus just speaking for the sake of speaking. 

I think it’s the most understated skill, and HBS does an incredible job instilling that in you. 

Q. Tell me about your career in international development and how the MBA/MPA-ID Joint Degree programme helped you.

Nanako: Going into the joint degree program, I knew I wanted to further my career in international development. I had loved my public health work in Africa and I wanted to go back. Having seen the pitfalls of relying on donor funding though, the main question I wanted to focus on was how to make these donor-dependent countries more self-sufficient. 

This was also the narrative I used in my application essays. I wrote about the need for a tax base to fund health systems, and for this, the importance of a thriving private sector. My focus was on private sector development in Africa and in the healthcare sector, but knew that my mind would change over the three years of my joint degree. 

In my first year at HKS, we conducted  “growth diagnostics” of different countries, where we ran all sorts of statistical analyses and regressions to identify the binding constraints to a country's economic development. Access to finance and infrastructure were some of the key constraints that I would often see over and over. 

So after my first year, I decided to do an internship with  an agency of the Rwandan government, whose mandate was to facilitate private investment into the country. I got to  put on my government / policy hat and interact with the private sector to understand their challenges with doing business in Rwanda. It piqued my interest in being on the investment side of private sector development. 

In my second year at HBS,  I joined the Africa Business Club, where we organized the annual Africa Business Conference and invited speakers who became key parts of my network. I also met classmates who had worked in private equity in Africa.found their work very interesting. I ended up doing a private equity internship in Ethiopia for my second summer, which was an eye-opening experience for me. 

Reflecting on my two summers in government and PE, in my third year of the joint degree, I decided that I wanted to work at an institution that sat at the public-private intersection. I decided to join the International Finance Corporation (IFC) which is the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. It's a commercially driven institution, but has a development mandate and thinks deeply about both social impact and financial returns. It works closely with governments, since it operates within broader World Bank programs. That really appealed to me, and that's how I ended up at IFC after graduating. 

Q. Now as an admissions consultant, who are the groups of students that you vibe with best? 

Nanako: I am excited to connect with anyone who is interested in an MBA because my experience was so positive.

But I particularly love helping people who are interested in joint / dual degrees. It doesn’t have to be public policy, but I can speak to that experience the most. People with nonprofit careers or international development careers are also a great fit. 

But it can really be any degree combination!

Q. What is 1 piece of advice for Joint Degree MBA program applicants?

Nanako: My one piece of advice is to try to talk to as many people as possible who have actually done the joint or dual degree program you're interested in. There’s so much information and experience that just can't be shared without having those conversations. 

Cold-email people. I did a lot of that, and while most people didn’t respond, some did. Those conversations provided so much insight. I know this may be hard for international students, but I’d also really encourage you to go to campus and sit in on a class if you can. It’s the best way to figure out if a school is a good fit for you. The degree might sound appealing, but if you end up sitting in a class at HBSand find out that the case method just doesn’t work for you, you might want to apply elsewhere. Visiting can also be very useful in your essays, and perhaps in your interview experience as well. 

Get in Touch with Nanako

Book a call with Nanako via www.samweeks.com to discuss your profile and whether MBA/ joint degree admissions consulting is for you.