Lots of work, really impressive faculty, and people who don't suck.

Experience during the program

Overall I got a lot out of attending HBS. The first year was really regimented which was a bit frustrating for me but second year was a lot of fun as I dove into subjects that I was passionate about. The faculty are world class and readily accessible to students, alumni answer your emails, and despite the reputation, most everyone is friendly and willing to help you out. I am friends with many HBSers to this very day and I still remember them taking the time to work with me on financial models or accounting principles outside of class when they could otherwise have been doing more fun things.

The biggest surprise for me was the sheer amount of work involved. Between case prep, study groups, and classes, HBS seems to have the heaviest academic workload of the top b-school programs despite the fact that it has a reputation of being filled with people only focused on networking (probably true for some but not most).

I went into HBS to either do a startup or try to transition into tech. I started a tech startup during school and leveraged their many resources available to entrepreneurs. The relationships we developed with the school, faculty, and the broader Boston startup scene really helped a great deal. I've since transitioned to a large tech company in product marketing and I still leverage many of the things I learned at b-school every day.

For future applicants, I highly recommend looking beyond the name and the prestige to the actual experience. I chose HBS because I genuinely wanted a more academic experience and the HBS faculty impressed me the most. I also was on the hunt for jerks during admit weekend and I was pleasantly surprised not to find very many.

Overall BSchool experience (4.0)
Schools contribution (4.0)
Classmates rating (4.0)

Strengths of the program:

Curriculum, Classes, Professors
Student body, diversity
Alumni Network

Best fit at this program:

Consulting
Finance
Marketing
Investment Banking
Tech
Entrepreneurship
Management

Can be improved:

Culture & Student Support
FIELD