Rejected by Harvard Business School – Now What?
January 29, 2025, was either an exciting day or a tearful one for Harvard Business School (HBS) Round 2 (R2) applicants: the school’s MBA admissions board notified candidates as to whether they were invited to interview or had merited “early release.” As euphemistic as it sounds, meriting early release should really be viewed by R2 applicants as a kind of blessing. They now know that they and about 30,000 others are out of the running for the HBS program and are free to consider other options. So if you were among HBS’s early release candidates this year, dab your eyes with a tissue, patch up the wall you punched, and take a look at what some of those other options are.
Options for U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents
If you are a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, you can still consider applying in Round 3 (R3) at a few top programs, especially if you have a unique background or profile that these schools might be seeking to round out the diversity in their classes. MIT Sloan’s R3 deadline is April 7, and the Stanford GSB’s is April 8. Some great programs have a fourth round, including Carnegie Mellon Tepper on May 5, Texas McCombs on May 15, and UNC’s Kenan-Flagler on April 29. Vanderbilt Owen even has a Round 5 deadline on May 15.
Did you steer growth in Africa, lead a new product in Eastern Europe, or pioneer a revolutionary health program in Mongolia? These are the kinds of unique experiences and insights that many top MBA programs would love to have represented in their student body. While visa challenges tend to discourage R3 and R4 applicants who need an F-1 Visa to study in the United States, if you have U.S. residency, you might be a prime candidate for one of these later rounds.
Moreover, if you are living in the United States, you might find one of the many top MBA programs with part-time options to be a great alternative if there are weak points in your profile. Students in Berkeley Haas’s full-time program have a median GMAT of 730 (Class of 2026), but those in its part-time program have a median GMAT of only 700 (with 80% of students falling within the 610-750 range). The average GMAT score for students in Northwestern Kellogg’s full-time program is 733 (Class of 2026), while the average GMAT for Evening and Weekend MBA program students is 694. Kellogg waives test requirements for applicants with an undergraduate GPA of 3.4 or higher in a business, economics, or STEM field, and for candidates who graduated from a Northwestern undergraduate program. Chicago Booth’s full-time students have a 729 average GMAT (Class of 2026), but the average for students in its part-time program is only 692. If you believe your GMAT score held you back at HBS, you might consider part-time programs, which offer the opportunity to graduate with the same degree without making another attempt – or several! – to improve your GMAT scores.
If you have more than eight years of work experience, you could consider applying to an EMBA program; most of those have rolling admissions every month. However, for this option, you must be actively employed and able to present a letter to the program from your employer stating that appropriate allowances will be made for you to attend the program as needed. Non-U.S. candidates are not eligible for EMBA programs unless they are working in the United States. You cannot get a student visa for a part-time program.
Options for Non-U.S. Citizens
If you are an international student, you are not a good R3 candidate for U.S. fall-entry MBA programs because of possible visa issues. However, there are alternatives that might put you in a business school classroom in the coming year. First, if your heart is set on building your career in the United States, then there are some program options to consider here. For example, if your goals are in finance, you might consider a Master of Financial Engineering degree from Berkeley-Haas (the R3 deadline is June 5) or an MS in finance from Georgetown (the R5 deadline is May 2, and R6’s is June 20). Columbia offers a Master of Applied Analytics whose final deadline is June 1.
Options Available Outside the United States
MBA aspirants who wish to pursue international careers might consider top MBA programs in Europe and Canada. Cambridge Judge has one remaining deadline for this year: May 6. And IESE has an R4 deadline of May 6. Similarly, opportunities are still available to apply for INSEAD’s August intake, for which the R2 deadline is April 22, R3’s is June 17, and R4’s is August 5.
Opportunities to Address Your Weaknesses
Finally, if your heart is still set on HBS and its full-time U.S. program peers, early release offers you time to assess your application profile and address any weaknesses over the next seven months. Many applicants find Accepted’s rejection review the perfect starting point in identifying the parts of their application and profile that would benefit from improvement.
Have you made a noticeable impact beyond the norm in your professional role? Have you demonstrated deep community engagement? Is your GMAT/GRE score meeting (or ideally, exceeding) your target program’s average score? If not, this is a great time to take action and patch those holes.
If you would like a free profile review to identify weaknesses in your profile or shortcomings in your previous applications, register for a free consultation.
Dr. Christie St-John has more than 25 years of higher ed and admissions experience, including ten years in admissions at Dartmouth Tuck. She was formerly the director of MBA recruiting and admissions, director of international relations, and an adjunct faculty member at Vanderbilt University. Having also served on the board of directors of the MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance and the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Management, Christie has a deep knowledge of MBA and other graduate admissions. Want Christie to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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