Business School

Recently I posted my reactions to a new book about Harvard Business School called "Ahead of the Curve," by recent alum Philip Delves Broughton. Philip thought I had misintepreted his reflections in the book, and he was kind enough to elaborate on his experiences as an HBS student and let me pick his brain. Here's our email exchange about the value of an MBA for career changers, the HBS culture, teaching leadership and ethics in the classroom, being a humanities guy in an Excel world, and more:

AI: I got the sense from your book -- I think you even say so expressly -- that you weren't terribly clear in your own mind about what you were hoping to do with your MBA before you embarked on business school. It sounds as if you went to business school hoping to take more control over your life, and you assumed you'd be able to work out the specifics of a career change while you were there. That didn't seem to come together as neatly as you had hoped -- by the end of the MBA program, you were still trying to sort out what you wanted to do, and you were finding the job search harder than expected. In hindsight, do you wish you had done more planning or soul-searching before starting business school?

PDB: No, I was pretty clear about why I was going. I needed to be. I left a great job to go to business school. The challenge was remaining clear about it under the kind of peer pressure you find at a business school. I wanted to be able to pursue my own interests while controlling my own P&L. I didn't want an employer. I wanted control over my time. Now this is pretty different from a lot of people at b-school. I didn't want a "career change" so much as more power to decide my own personal and economic fate. It's different. The book is not about my failed job search. It's about my struggle to remain on the path I set out on while pulled in various directions.

AI: I've been somewhat skeptical about the value of business school, even a top business school, for career changers, for some of the reasons you mention in the book, and also because the recruiting schedule starts so relentlessly early that you don't really have any time to navel-gaze about your career once you get there. I'm thinking in particular of the hiring interview you did with the Washington Post (pretty dispiriting), and the following:

"But I was not alone in struggling to change my career. Luis, the Franco-Argentine, complained to me that many people felt HBS failed in its promise to give people a new start. 'They say this is your chance to change industry, but very few are succeeding. You see, the problem is that the path of least resistance is to do banking or consulting. Now, if you wanted to do either of those, you probably could. But if you wanted to get out of them, you really have to fight.... If you don't have experience in an industry, they don't want you, so you end up going back to the industries you do have experience in."

Do you think career changers should go to business school? If yes, what can they do to make their time there, and the job search process, less difficult?

PDB: Career changers need to do a couple of things. The first thing, as you say, is to start thinking early about what you want to change to. Even if you're not sure, you must have a vague idea. Then use every resource - especially alumni - to help you do that. The second thing is to regard your first job out of b-school as a bank shot. You go into one of the standard b-school professions - banking/consulting - in order to drop into the career you want in a couple of years. Lots of people do that successfully. But simply hoping the MBA magic dust will transform you into the dream candidate in the career you're after is delusional. The final thing I'd recommend, is to go to places where people know you already, your home town for example - then your career to that point, plus the MBA, plus trust and familiarity will make a career change easier.

PDB: I wasn't so much naive as ignorant of what HBS would be like. I didn't come from a profession where lots of people went to business school. I wasn't surprised that people were like they were - but given all that we heard from the most successful business people, Buffett/Paulson/Whitman, about work-life balance, I thought people should have taken that stuff more seriously. As I say in my book, I made a lot of very good friends at HBS and admired a lot of my fellow students. Anyone reading the book as a whole - and not just the reviews - will see that. I think the best thing to do to educate yourself is find people who have been to business school and ask them. Also ask people you admire - would I benefit from this? Match only really matters if you're fortunate enough to get into a bunch of schools. Otherwise, you go to the best one you can.

AI: You write about some of the difficulties you had as a humanities guy with no quantitative or business background. How can other humanities or liberal arts types best prepare themselves if they think they want to pursue a management or business education?

PDB: Oh, this is just practice. I hadn't done math since I was 16. I had never opened Excel. You have two years to figure this stuff out, which I did. It's a hassle at first, but short of taking an Excel course before getting on campus, there's not much you can do. You pick it up pretty fast once you're there - but just have to swallow your ego while you're trying to catch up.

AI: HBS says its mission is "to educate leaders who make a difference in the world." In your book, Ben asks, "I wonder why the school can't just admit that its job is teaching people how to run profitable businesses? Why does it even think that leadership is best taught through courses on business? I mean, if it is really leadership they want to teach, why don't they have us taking history or religion courses or spending the weekends with the Marine Corps?" Do you agree? Do you think leadership can be taught in a classroom?

(I do know your thinking process changed, and that you found that valuable: "Despite my frustration at being so far behind my classmates technically and in my basic knowledge of business functions, I knew that my intellectual apparatus had toughened. I saw things in the world that I had not seen before. I looked at facts and numbers a different way" -- but that's arguably different than leadership skills.)

PDB: Yes, leadership can be taught. Not in the sense that you're teaching people how to be Churchills or Roosevelts or Napoleons even. Just in the sense of helping people think about managing organizations. Every CEO we heard from said that people management was the biggest part of their job. And this didn't mean making big speeches. It meant hiring and firing, establishing a culture, setting the right incentives - and there is a large academic component to that, in addition to any personal qualities a leader might have.

AI: You took a somewhat dyspeptic view of the HBS culture, which in parts of the book sounds like a cross between American Pie fraternity antics and some kind of EST/Maoist reeducation camp. Do you think that's unique to HBS vs. other business schools? And was perhaps your age a factor? Your non-American-ness? I got the impression throughout the book that the other non-Americans were similarly nonplussed by those parts of the HBS culture. Thoughts?

PDB: Yes, being older made me look at it differently. I was married with a child - therefore not going out to Boston nightclubs midweek. Yes, I'm British, but I've lived in America since 1998, except for 2.5 years, and my wife is American, and my grandfather, aunt and cousins are American.... so I'm not entirely "not American." Yes, I think the foreigners did find it strange. American college culture is somewhat startling to foreigners. I know it's not unique to HBS. But perhaps the contrast between the seriousness in the classroom and the frat-ishness of much of the social life was more glaring. But again, I think this exists in business culture more broadly - you have companies preaching corporate social responsibility in the morning and then doing quite irresponsible things the rest of the day. Would the more exotic nightlife of Las Vegas exist, one wonders, without business expense accounts? I think people outside business are more sensitive to this hypocrisy.

AI: In your book, your classmates come in for quite a drubbing on the ethics front. I'm thinking in particular of the "financial aid BMWs" and the large proportion of the class (3/4 or thereabouts) who thought it ethically permissible for applicants to seek access to an admissions server that they knew to be unauthorized. There seems to be a big disconnect between the values of Dean Clark and his students. Thoughts on that? And do you think ethics can be taught in the classroom?

PDB: Ethics can certainly be discussed in the classroom - but can the ethics of students in their mid-late 20's actually be changed? Not so sure. I did find the discussions thought-provoking though. I'm not sure I give my classmates a "drubbing" about ethics. I'm in no position to do that! What I do discuss, however, is the contrast between what I describe as the rather excessive - and unrealistic - piety of business ethics as we discussed in class and the reality of how most people, business students included, actually behave. HBS took ethics extremely seriously - and kind of sets itself up to be beaten up when its alumni cause the collapse of Enron, and now have their fingerprints all over the current financial mess.

AI: You write in the start of the book that it was not intended as an "inside raid." I hear that some people at HBS nonetheless took it that way. One could argue that you wanted the upside of the brand and the network, but then violated a tacit compact with the HBS community by writing an exposé. In the book you express a lot of appreciation for the power of the HBS network. Do you think you've compromised the value of that network (to you) because you've written the book? Has there been any other kind of fallout? Am I wrong entirely -- perhaps it has increased the value of your network? Why did you write the book?

PDB: I wrote the book because I thought it would be interesting and useful to do so. And because I was offered an advance by a publisher. I knew elements of my experience were shared by many of my classmates. And I think at both HBS and many big firms, one is expected either to be a 100% booster, or a bitter critic. The truth is one can be ambivalent. I say that HBS was about 80% great and about 20% weird. Most people I know who went there agree. I know some people are upset. That's fine. I don't think I violated any compact. I didn't become a Free Mason when I went there. I attended an educational establishment and paid handsomely to do so. And I wrote a book that is honest and true. For every attack I've received from the school, I've received messages from classmates and other alumni thanking me for being so honest about the experience. So I'm ok with that.

AI: You acknowledge that "the Harvard Business School classroom is a safe learning environment, a place to experiment and make mistakes...." and that's why you cloaked the identities of your classmates. You decided not to do so for professors, because you think that they have a "public role." That's not as clear to me. Don't they experiment and course-correct as well? Aren't they entitled to some expectation of privacy in the classroom?

PDB: No. They are paid extremely well for their work at HBS and earn even more from outside gigs linked to their role as HBS professors. Most professors come off well in the book. I'm only actually critical of one. They can experiment and course-correct, fine, but I was paying the school $100 per class. I think I'm entitled to do what I did with the experience.

AI: How would your wife reflect on your MBA? Is she glad you went? Any advice she would give prospective business school spouses?

PDB: My wife enjoyed it, I think. We met lots of interesting people and I was around a lot when our second son was born. The only challenge was going back to a student life and budget after living like grown-ups for so long. But that was pretty easy, and rather refreshing. Advice? Be prepared for your other half to become a navel-gazing egotist while going through the process.

And a nice bonus for people working on their Round 2 HBS essays right now: Philip also had some advice for people writing the "career vision" essay (optional this year, but in my opinion still highly recommended):

PDB: I don't think HBS wants to hear "I want to make VP at 30 and MD at 35 and partner at 40." They want to hear that you have some sense of where you want to go: do you want to be in finance, do you want to manage a factory, do you want to be entrepreneurial? Or in my case, do you want to take your proven skills in writing, journalism and being a foreign correspondent, add on some business know-how and go write your own pay check - somehow. Anyone applying to business school should be able to come up with something which is consistent with their life and professional ambitions.

I don't get books like this new one called Ahead of the Curve by recent HBS graduate Philip Delves Broughton. He was apparently shocked to discover that students there are competitive! And graded on a curve! They work hard/play hard! And head off to stressful, high-paying jobs! This guy was a journalist for ten years before going to business school. Why were these newsflashes to him?

The HBS culture is a strong one, and it's pretty transparent. It's not for everyone, and that's fine. Why go there if it's not your cup of tea? I'm thinking this was more a failure of due diligence on his part than it was a failing of HBS.

With Round 1 deadlines right around the corner, this book is a good reminder to think hard about what kind of environment you want. People are seduced by name brands all the time, and the biggest, baddest name brands do have much to offer. There's nothing wrong with being brand-conscious, because brands have value, and they matter in the real world. (I doubt the author is suffering because he now has an MBA from HBS.) Still, if you're going to be miserable there, as this person obviously was, question whether you should go at all, and at a mininum make sure that the benefits (which can be considerable) outweigh that particular cost to you. And don't go there and then complain that HBS is... HBS.

Good friend Chioma Isiadinso, formerly on the admissions board at Harvard Business School and founder of her own MBA admissions consulting firm Expartus, just came out with her first book: The Best Business Schools' Admissions Secrets. Find Chioma at one of her speaking events here.

It's depressing that I have a whole blog category called "Cheating," but there you go.

From BusinessWeek:

More than 1,000 prospective MBA students who paid $30 to use a now-defunct Web site to get a sneak peak at live questions from the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) before taking the exam may have their scores canceled in coming weeks. For many, their B-school dreams may be effectively over.

On June 20, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted the test's publisher, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), a $2.3 million judgment against the operator of the site, Scoretop.com. GMAC has seized the site's domain name and shut down the site, and is analyzing a hard drive containing payment information.

GMAC said any students found to have used the Scoretop site will have their test scores canceled, the schools that received them will be notified, and the student will not be permitted to take the test again. Since most top B-schools require the GMAT, the students will have little chance of enrolling. "This is illegal," said Judy Phair, GMAC's vice-president for communications. "We have a hard drive, and we're going to be analyzing it. If you used the site and paid your $30 to cheat, your scores will be canceled. They're in big trouble."

Read the rest of the article here.

Think the top business schools are going to give you the best advice about the MBA application process? Not always.

Recently I went to hear a panel of MBA admissions officers representing some of the highest-ranked business schools in the world, as well as two more regional MBA programs. Most fascinating to me was that the representatives from the top schools had almost nothing interesting or useful to say about the application process, while the most concrete and practical advice came from Suffolk's MBA rep. Lillian Hallberg, Suffolk's Assistant Dean of Graduate Programs and Director of MBA Programs, had some great advice to share about prepping for the GMAT. I'll paraphrase it here [with my thoughts in brackets] because it's applicable to all MBA applicants.

1. The quant section is the easier one in which to raise your score, not the verbal section.
2. GMAT prep courses are a good idea. [I completely agree, just make sure you choose a great course, which is not necessarily the one that advertises on every bus stop.]
3. Because you won't have studied some of this math since junior high, review the basics before the prep course starts. That way, you can spend your time during the prep course focusing on test-taking strategy rather than refreshing your memory about the properties of isosceles triangles.
4. To review the basics, go to your local Borders or Barnes & Noble and pick up some books on Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry. Review those before your prep course starts.
5. Schedule two real GMAT tests. The first one will be your trial run, and you won't stress out because you know you'll be taking it again. [And if you get a great score, you can stop right there and cancel the second test.] For the second test, make sure to take the entire day off so that you can be as relaxed as possible. [Most schools take the higher or highest of your scores, so it pays to keep retaking it if you think you can push your score up higher.]

US News has some timely tips for aspiring MBAs. (While I'm not a huge fan of their rankings, I'm happy to pass along good content when I see it.) The article also has a little shout-out to AIGAC, on whose board I serve.

Waitlists stink, don't they? I'm receiving a lot of emails right now from applicants agonizing about their waitlists. No matter what kind of program you've applied to -- college, business school, law school, public health, doesn't matter -- the process works more or less the same. Here's the drill:

You're on a waitlist because something about your file made you less than an easy decision to admit.

Maybe it's because one of your numbers is too low.

Maybe it's because you are a total stud and the school assumes you'll go somewhere higher up the food chain. Why risk taking a hit to its yield rate by wasting an offer on you?

Maybe it's because your numbers are great but your essay is subliterate.

Maybe one of your recommenders sandbagged you.

Maybe you flubbed your interview.

Maybe you're a perfectly fine applicant but your competition is really, really tough this year.

There could be a million reasons why you're on a waitlist. Or in a cryptic "hold" category. Or a cryptic... something. Example:

Dear Anna,

First, thank you so much! I applied to law school last Fall and consulted your book religiously. It's hard for me to describe how much your guide helped me through my application process -- not least in helping me avoid a number of things I now recognize to be application pitfalls. As a result, I've been admitted to 9 of the 12 law schools to which I applied, all but one in the top 14. I've recommended your book to everyone I know who's interested in applying to law school.

But now I find myself in a position that your book doesn't seem to address directly. I've been but on hold at two schools (Harvard and the University of Chicago). I've also received a cryptic email from a third (Yale) that said I would either be admitted or waitlisted in the coming weeks.

My roommate is in the same situation with Columbia, and I know a number of other applicants that are currently in the "on hold" limbo at other schools. Being put "on hold" seems fairly common, but no one seems to know the best course of action in this scenario. Should I start sending additional materials? Should I call the HLS admissions office and tell them Harvard is my first choice? I'm worried that by doing nothing I'll be wasting a huge opportunity.

Thanks again for all your guidance so far. Any advice you could offer would a great reassurance.

First, you should know that at this point in the season, being waitlisted, being "on hold," and not having heard anything at all are more or less the same for practical purposes.

Schools are waiting to see how things shake out after their first deposits come in. Then they do a head count, see if they are under- or over subscribed, see what their medians and quartiles look like, make sure they have enough minorities, etc. etc. -- all the stuff they get paid to worry about. Inevitably, there's some tweaking they have to do, and that tweaking continues for the rest of the summer, even into orientation. They spend the rest of the summer feverishly engineering their incoming class.

Why so long? Because in a world of the common app, gazillions of applications per person, and multiple deposits (with some variation, but not much, from program to program), admissions officers really can't get a true headcount just by looking at deposits. Deposits signify nothing about your true intention to attend, which is the main reason schools now maintain waitlists that are absurdly deep.

And as soon as someone gets off a waitlist somewhere else, and withdraws from the schools to which he has already sent deposits, the Big Mad Shuffle begins. It's like musical chairs. And it also means that admissions officers themselves have no earthly idea how the waitlist is going to unfold. There are even people who put down deposits and then just fail to show up at orientation. You might get that waitlist call after you've moved into student housing and bought your books and started playing stupid getting-to-know-you icebreaker and team-building games with your new classmates.

The bottom line is that the waitlist process is completely unpredictable for everyone involved. If admissions officers seem cryptic, it's because they don't know how things are going to develop any more than you do.

Which is why I scratch my head a bit when I get other emails from people saying, "I just sent my waitlist stuff in two weeks ago, and I still haven't heard anything, and OMG it's already so late, why haven't I heard anything yet???" It's not late in the process at all. By waitlist standards, it's early. Really, really early.

So, what to do when you find yourself in that situation? Well, put yourself in the shoes of the admissions officer. You're a mere mortal, and mere mortals are a little bit lazy, right? So if you find yourself having to fill a spot, and you're looking at a waitlist that's hundreds deep, do you want to have to call 300 people to find that one person who is willing to change his plans at the very last second? Nope. You'd rather call your mental shortlist of the 5 or 10 people who you think are the most likely to say "yes" when you call. You'll still have certain gaps to fill -- numbers you need, demographics you need, all that stuff over which applicants have no control anyway -- but fundamentally, you also care very much about how quickly you can fill that spot, and applicants do have some control over that.

What that means for you, the applicant: if you find yourself waitlisted, "on hold," or completely ignored by the powers that be at this point in the admissions season, you want to make crystal clear to your school of choice that you would be the guy who says "yes." You do that by writing them and telling them without any ambiguity that you remain very, very interested, and that you would accept an offer if you received one. You can make that promise to only one school, so be strategic about it, and be honest with yourself. (And if you know in your heart that you wouldn't say "yes" if that call came around, be a good citizen and take yourself off the waitlist. You'll make someone else very happy.) The other schools on your shortlist should get the strong expression of continued interest, without the promise to accept an offer.

Stay in touch with your shortlist of schools about once a month. That's often enough to stay on their radar screens without looking like a pest or a stalker. Those letters will feel very repetitive, and that's OK. If you have updates to share in those communications, so much the better, but don't feel as if you have to manufacture lame updates if all you have to say is... "I'm still really interested."

If your schedule and budget permit, visit the school. Say hello. Introduce yourself to the nice people at the front desk. Hand deliver your LOCI (letter of continued interest). Do not pitch a tent in the quad or call people at home or do anything stupid.

What doesn't work, in my experience?

• Extra letters of recommendation. Rec letters have such questionable value to begin with; sending more of them doesn't add a whole lot more value, although I would make an exception for MBA applications, where the recs really do matter.
• Extra essays, unless (1) additional essays are invited (like Chicago Law School's hold essay), or (2) you have not yet sent a very tailored, very credible "here's why I love your school!" essay as part of your original application.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you you... I know the wait is excruciating.

In other news... I'm excited to welcome a new member to our team. Jennifer Lee will be offering career coaching to college students and graduates who are considering business careers (finance, consulting, etc.) and/or MBA degrees. Below is her bio, which gives a sense of the interesting twists and turns one's career can take. Jennifer spent eleven years as a cello student at Juilliard before attending Harvard College, where she played varsity lacrosse, founded a conductorless orchestra and double majored in Music and Anthropology. She earned her M.Phil. in Musicology and Performance at Oxford (Lincoln College) and currently attends Harvard Business School for her MBA. She spent a year at a music conservatory in Freiburg, Germany, and her solo and ensemble performances have taken her to France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, and South Korea. Prior to HBS, she worked as both a for-profit and nonprofit management consultant. Most recently, she has worked at JP Morgan in London as an investment banking summer associate in the Technology, Media, and Telecom Group. Jennifer is conversant in German and Korean.

Can entrepreneurship be taught in the classroom? Many business schools (both undergraduate and graduate) seem to think so, and they are booming. In an article in the current University of Cambridge alumni magazine, some entrepreneurs weigh in on what makes them successful.

The always excellent Penelope Trunk has a great article in today's (technically tomorrow's) Boston Globe about the best timeline for different graduate degrees. Check it out here.