What It Takes to Get Into Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, and Wharton (HSW)

HSW refers to the prestigious b-school trio of Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the Wharton School. Besides their legacy of academic excellence, the schools are known for consistently ranking at the top of the MBA leaderboards.

In the QS Global MBA Rankings 2024, Stanford GSB ranks at #1, Wharton at #2, and Harvard sits at #3. It’s no surprise then that their admissions processes are selective, and it’s highly unusual that an applicant makes it to all 3 schools.

At Sam Weeks Consulting, we had a particularly strong year for HSW applications, with 12 out of 26 clients who applied to HSW receiving offers from one or more of these schools in 2023 - 2024. That’s an impressive HSW success rate of 46%.

And remarkably, one client received offers from all 3 of these schools.

In fact, this client was at a disadvantage in their applications, as he belonged to an over-represented and highly competitive applicant group as a male engineer of Indian descent. This meant that he had to work harder to stand out from the rest of the applicant pool.

So how did this client differentiate himself from the rest? In this blog, we’ll discuss 5 impactful factors that helped our client get admitted to HSW.

High GMAT and GPA

Our client’s strong academic credentials likely helped him clear the initial hurdle in the highly competitive HSW admissions process. His near-perfect GPA and high GMAT score of 750+ (with a strong quant score of 48+) was well above average for the HSW class demographic.

This was particularly important for him to stand out as an engineer of Indian descent, a group known for their strong technical skills and academic profiles.

Strong Professional Experience

This client’s resume featured a FAANG company and impactful work experience where he worked on products generating billions in USD and collaborated with director-level leadership. It’s all in the numbers!

His go-getter attitude made sure that he was promoted twice in his early tech career, several years ahead of the standard promotion timeline for an individual in this role. This showed AdCom that he was a high potential employee with a track record of exceeding expectations and stepping up as a leader. It also spoke to his ability to thrive in a demanding, high-impact professional environment.

"Failed" Startup

The client’s work history, however, wasn’t without its fair share of challenges. Early in his career, he launched a startup in his target industry which he was forced to close. Then he pivoted to a well-known tech company (FAANG).

In his applications, the client reflected on this “failed” entrepreneurship experience, and showed how it contributed to his growth by sharing the lessons he had learned from it. He explained how he needed to better understand his customer to develop effective solutions. So, he acted on this lesson through his extracurriculars and improved his skill-set through their full-time role. Going forward, the MBA would teach him to innovate and scale future tech products.

The client was able to turn his failure into a strength by demonstrating resilience, growth, and vulnerability. Coupled with his high-impact professional experience, extracurriculars, and strong academic track record, this painted a picture of a well-rounded and complex individual.

Interestingly, we see a lot of applicants with failed startups who get admitted to the HSW MBAs. It’s far from a strike against their candidacy; it shows that he had the gumption to go after their passion.

Long-term, High Responsibility Extracurriculars

Our client applied the lessons he learned from his failed startup to his extracurricular pursuits, where he was able to understand his customer better. He adopted an adaptive mentorship style to identify their needs. As he didn’t have any direct management responsibilities at work, this was a strong way of showing his leadership skills - a big focus for HSW.

These extracurriculars were aligned with his career and goals. They were consistent, intentional, and high impact, which demonstrated a habit of leadership. He was also able to connect these extracurriculars to his MBA plans by explaining how he would apply his skills and bring his network to the various student clubs and volunteer opportunities offered by the school. For HBS and Wharton especially (two schools with a large student and alumni community) there were a wide range of extracurriculars he could pick from.

Ambitious Goals

The client’s goals were ambitious and unique. They were high impact, forward-looking, and showed big picture thinking, which is a differentiator for HSW. These schools tend to admire applicants who have lofty goals and want to change the world. So when our client presented a tight narrative that linked his previous experience, extracurriculars, and ambitious (yet realistic) goals together, it was a winning combination.

Our client followed his written application with a strong performance in his HSW interviews. All 3 schools have different interview processes: HBS does a highly customized, non-blind interview, Wharton conducts team-based discussions, and Stanford prefers a structured behavioral interview.

---

Want to build a strong application and interview strategy to get into Harvard, Stanford GSB, and Wharton? Get in touch with us for a free chat.