Hi everyone ! I am new to this forum. I see we are all in the same boat, impatiently waiting admission decisions I am a joint HBS / MPA/ID applicant for fall 2017.
I see there is lot of discussion on different topics here. To help us kill time, I wanted to share some observation / thoughts on two recent topics. I welcome any thoughts that could expand on this discussion. These are just my thoughts and in no way amount to any kind of evidence.
HarvardKey Error Email
As some of you I also received one as well, followed by another email explaining that it was a mistake. Maybe it is just me, but I did not get that other email mentioning the admission decisions, I would not have thought much of it. But since they mention that, I started thinking.
1) First, if everyone who was affected by this error also received another email from HKS admission office saying that it was a mistake, then why did they feel the need to go public with this on their blog? I do not imagine they were swamped with phone calls, because that email explained nicely it was an error. Given that all affected students were informed of the error, what does going public on this achieve from them, except make them look very disorganized and incompetent?
2) From the official post on the HKS blog: "The Admission Office utilizes a specific software platform for receiving and processing applications, but applicant information is also stored in a central university software system. The email message was generated from the central system, not our admission system. The email message sent by HUIT was sent to all HKS Master’s applicants, not any particular subset of applicants."
-Well I am also a joint HBS applicant and I did not receive an email from the HBS admission office saying Harvard IT made an error. We know that these HKS and HBS admission processes are separate from each other, so why did not I receive the email from HBS admission also? How come supposedly HKS applicant information is stored in the central system, but HBS applicant information is not? Well, interestingly, I was rejected from HBS just days or a week before the error email went out. So, while I am on their applicant list, I am not on their admitted or shortlisted applicant list. Interesting, isn't it!
3) We can assume this is the first time that this kind of error happened at Harvard, because if the same error happened before, the system would have been fixed before. But that makes us wonder, how come this kind of error did not happen before? Did HKS just recently start storing applicant information on the central system?
4) Are there other schools under Harvard whose admission offices store applicant information in the central system (there must be)? if so, they also must have been also affected by this error but were they??? Do you know anyone who applied to HBS, HLS or other and got the same error email?
MPA/ID Need-blind Admission
My personal take on this, again from extensive research and observation of current and former students: This is a fairy tale for little kids. Given limited resources of the school, the financial need is certainly a consideration in their process. Obviously, I do not have a proof but I have observations and questions:
1) If it is need-blind, why do not they release their admission decisions sooner, instead of waiting for the financial aid / scholarships decisions also? If MPA/ID admission committee is short-listing and recommending applicants for Word Bank program in early February, then they must have finished their admission review by then to be able to do this. Would they be short-listing applicants who they are not even sure would be admitted to the program? No.
2) Between 6-7 admission committee members it does not take that long to review 150 or so applications. As point of reference, HBS emailed all the rejections 3 weeks after the application deadline and they get 15,000+ applications (I know they do not read all of them, but still MPA ID practically takes from Dec 1 to late March - almost four months!).
3) Let's say admission is really need based and they admit 70 applicants to the program. For the sake of example, let's say of these 70, half come from developing countries and they are not sponsor by their governments. They also do not get full scholarship from HKS, so they cannot afford to pay the remaining portion. Let's say they have to defer admission for next year, in order to find the funding. Think about this kind of scenario, the program extends offers to 70 students, but half of them do not attend that year because of financial reasons. I am not aware that MPA/ID has a wait list, so that they can admit those students if this happens. Then, why would they be taking this kind of risk any given year? They need to consider if the student would be able to attend when they make a decision in order to maintain the quality of the program. They need to know with some level of probability that the student will be able to pay or that they would ultimately be able to offer him more financial aid later (which I also heard of happening in the past).
Anyways, I am just thinking out loud on these topics and sharing with you. I welcome your thoughts and discussion. Sorry for typos.
