Class of 2021 – they're here!
The admissions team sits in a small building on the HBS campus called “Dillon House” surrounded by Chase Hall, one of the many residential dorms and apartments on campus. So we’ve had the chance to catch up with many members of the Class of 2021 moving in over the past few days. We are delighted that they have joined the HBS community, and had their kickoff events this morning. What a thoughtful and talented group!
We’ve just published the Class of 2021 class profile. The profile gives you an “average” sense of the Class but misses the individual impact each has had and will have. I hope you’ll keep that in mind when you’re applying—don’t worry about where you fall relative to the “average” statistic, but instead focus on helping us get to know what you would add to the HBS community as an individual. Over the course of this year, many current students will introduce themselves to you on the MBA Voices blog; hopefully that gives you a better sense of the diverse individuals behind the averages.
A few other notes about the class profile:
You may remember that we did not have a Round 3 for the Class of 2021. We have heard from applicants that their experience was much better, as they were able to better plan for things like housing and visas. This was our goal, and we will have only have two rounds for the Class of 2022 as well.
This change did affect the number of applications that we received overall this year, so I thought I would share a bit more detail in case that’s of interest to you: In the 2017-2018 application year we received 9,886 applications overall, 551 of which we received in Round 3. So without Round 3, we received 9,335 applications in 2017-2018. This is the apples-to-apples number to compare with the 9,228 applications we received in 2018-2019 without Round 3.
We updated our job categories in the class profile to better align with the categories that the HBS Career and Professional Development office uses, so we’re all on the same page. This doesn’t affect how we read applications, interview, or make decisions in the admissions process, but should make it easier for students at HBS.
That’s it for now. Best of luck to those of you finishing up R1 applications that are due next week!
