Services & Publications

HBS Specialized Services

The application process to Harvard Business School (HBS) involves distinctive steps fully unique to HBS, from a truly individualized interview experience and post-interview writing exercise to a special “Further Consideration” holding pen for applicants.

Gatehouse Admissions HBS clients outperform candidates in the general HBS application pool by 3x, and we attribute much of that success to Gatehouse Special Advisor and Former Associate Director of Admissions at HBS Brooke Wheelan. Having reviewed more than 10,000 HBS applications and interviewed more than 1,000 HBS applicants, Brooke is in a league of her very own as far as understanding how the HBS admissions team thinks and translating her insider knowledge into tactics and strategies that lead to success in HBS’s admissions process.

Under Brooke’s guidance, Gatehouse Admissions offers several HBS Specialized Services to support you at critical inflection points in the HBS application journey. Whether working with Brooke, Gatehouse Director and Resident HBS Interviewer Laura MacLean, or another expert Gatehouse Consultant, you will significantly bolster your chances of gaining admissions to HBS.

• HBS Mock Interview and Post-Interview Reflection Support
• HBS “Further Consideration” or Waitlist Support
• HBS Postmortem Ding Analysis and Reapplicant Strategy

If you are at the beginning of your business school journey and seek comprehensive HBS application support with Gatehouse Admissions, click here. 

HBS Mock Interview and Post-Interview Reflection Support

HBS’s notoriously challenging interview process begins with a 30-minute interview conducted by a member of the admissions team who has read your entire application in advance and customized their approach to your interview accordingly. The school further differentiates its interview process by asking interviewees to submit a written Post-Interview Reflection (PIR) within 24 hours of completing their interview. This submission is essentially your “last word” with the school as they evaluate your interview performance.

What’s included in the Gatehouse HBS Mock Interview service?

• Access to Gatehouse Admissions’ Interview Training video series, led by Liza Weale, founder of Gatehouse Admissions. The training series will take two to three hours to complete in full and will be highly valuable as foundational preparation for HBS—or any other MBA interview, for that matter.
• A 30-minute virtual interview that simulates the HBS interview approach. Before your mock interview, your Gatehouse Consultant will study your HBS application in depth and develop questions specific to your candidacy.
• A subsequent 30-minute session with your Consultant, during which you will receive strategic feedback and guidance

What’s included in the Gatehouse HBS Post-Interview Reflection Support service?

• A 15-minute strategy session with your Gatehouse Consultant after your actual HBS interview to plan out your Harvard Business School PIR
• One review of your PIR draft, offering high-level, strategic feedback

Read more about HBS’s interview, including FAQs and preparation tips from Brooke and Laura, here.

HBS “Further Consideration” or Waitlist Support

HBS makes regular use of its special “Further Consideration” status and its more typical “Waitlist” status to manage its application process. Applicants stuck in these holding pens will find the experience confusing and opaque, with no explicit clues from the school about what was not “good enough” about their candidacy to have been accepted. To shift the likely outcome in favor of an acceptance, applicants must understand their candidacy to date, how they can strengthen it, and how to communicate it.

What’s included in the Gatehouse HBS Further Consideration or Waitlist Support service?

You will receive approximately three hours of your Consultant’s time providing the following:

• Strategic support. In this phase, your Consultant will study your written application, gather intel from you on your interview (for Waitlist clients only), identify areas of opportunity, and help you determine the highest-value steps to strengthen your candidacy. Your Consultant will spend approximately 90 minutes on this stage, and part of this will be spent in discussions with you.
• Tactical support. In this phase, your Consultant will help you develop an outline strategy for your written update to the school and will iterate with you on your draft update to make it submission worthy. Your Consultant will spend approximately 90 minutes on this stage.

HBS Postmortem Ding Analysis and Reapplicant Strategy

Every year, HBS rejects thousands and thousands of applicants. The good news is that every year, HBS also admits reapplicants—applicants who were once rejected. Gaining admission as a reapplicant requires more than simply resubmitting the same application and hoping for a different fate. The bar to admission will not have changed, so you and your application strategy have to instead.

What’s included in the Gatehouse HBS Postmortem Ding Analysis and Reapplicant Strategy service?

• A written Postmortem Ding Analysis and Reapplicant Strategy based on your submitted HBS application, as well as your letters of recommendation (if available). Your Gatehouse Consultant will spend 2.5–3 hours both generating an analysis of what went wrong and crafting specific tactics and considerations to guide you in your reapplication strategy. This analysis will serve as a high-level blueprint to aid you if and when you reapply.
• A 30-minute debrief and Q&A virtual session with your Gatehouse Consultant. Often, your Consultant will suggest areas for discussion based on their analysis, and you will have time to raise questions for further guidance. 

HBS Postmortem Ding Analysis and Reapplicant Strategy clients who decide to purchase our Full Support service for the following application year will receive a $500 credit toward their purchase.