So much for Harvard Business School (HBS) “hating” finance candidates. Financial services and private equity/venture capital candidates make up 28% of HBS’s incoming class, in aggregate the strongest representation of any industry, followed closely by…(what? You guessed it!) consulting at 20%. Yes, despite candidate anxiety about suddenly being from the “wrong” field (as if you could jump into a time machine and turn back the clock on your career choice), HBS is still accepting a plurality of students from these fields, and the numbers have actually risen ever so slightly this year over last (when HBS accepted about 25% of its class from finance).
Candidates may think that finding a place in the HBS class is getting easier, given that applications have fallen from more than 10,000 for the Class of 2102 to a mere 8,963 for the Class of 2014. But candidates also have to factor in members of the school’s 2+2 programs, who are not (according to past comments from the school) counted in the overall application volumes. So, consider that 8,963 applicants are vying for 800 to 825 available places, and the percent admitted is actually more like 9.0%, rather than the 13% reported.
Of course, the numbers released today were preliminary and unofficial. We will take a closer look once the school releases the final, official data.