Harvard Business School
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Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School (HBS) is a business school in the United States. It is one of the top graduate schools of Harvard University.
Founded in 1908, Harvard Business School (HBS) started with 59 students. Once it innovated the case method of research and teaching in 1920, HBS ramped up the class size which reached 500 students during the decade. In 1926, the School moved from the Cambridge side of the Charles River to its present location in Allston (part of Boston)
The school offers a full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, as well as many executive education programs, but does not offer an ‘Executive MBA’. The School owns Harvard Business Publishing, which publishes business books, online management tools for corporate learning, teaching cases and the monthly Harvard Business Review.
Harvard Business School offers a two-year full time MBA program, which consists of one year of mandatory courses (Required Curriculum) and one year of unrestricted course selection (Elective Curriculum). Some students are also invited to attend two-three week pre-MBA programs that take place at the end of the summer before the Required Curriulum. Admission is highly selective, with an admissions rate of 12% for the class of 2010 The student body is international and diverse, with 67% of students who are citizens of the United States. Women comprise 38% of the class of 2010.
The Required Curriculum consists of two semesters. The first semester focuses primarily on the internal aspects of the company and includes the courses Technology and Operations Management, Marketing, Financial Reporting and Control, Leadership and Organizational Behaviour, and Finance I. The second semester focuses on the external aspects and includes the courses Business, Government, and the International Economy, Strategy, The Entrepreneurial Manager, Negotiations, Finance II, and Leadership and Corporate Accountability.
The Elective Curriculum can be chosen from among 96 courses. The diverse selection includes courses such as: Agribusiness, Doing Business in China, Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise, Managing in the Information Age, The Moral Leader, Entrepreneurship in Education Reform, Venture Capital and Private Equity, Business at the Base of the Pyramid, Consumer Marketing, Retailing, Power and Influence, Managing Medicine, Supply Chain Management, and Corporate Strategy. The students assign each course a priority and the courses are filled through a lottery system based on student priority and class availability. Elective curriculum students can also complete a field study or independent student research project in lieu of a class. Field studies allow students to work together in a team closely with faculty members to launch a product, develop a new business, or research a real world issue. Independent student research projects provide an opportunity for a student to work with a faculty member to develop deep insights on a particular topic of interest. These options allow students to create a second year curriculum that is aligned with their personal and professional interests.
Current MBA classes have a size of approximately 900 students, divided into ten sections (A–J) of 90 students. Each section takes classes together the first year, with the intention of forming deep social bonds. At the beginning of the first year, all students are assigned to learning teams consisting of 6 students from different sections. These learning teams are intended to meet daily throughout the first year to prepare each day’s class assignment; however, many learning teams stop meeting before the end of the second semester. Graduation rates are approximately 98%. Teaching is almost exclusively (95%) done through case teaching (also referred to as the Socratic method), where the students prepare teaching cases and discuss them in class, with a professor as moderator and facilitator. There is an Education Representative role in each section whose role it is to develop an appropriate learning environment and effective relationships between the students and faculty and between students themselves given the diversity within the section (students from a broad range of industries, undergraduate schools, ethnic backgrounds, geographies, etc.).
FINANCIAL AID
Financial aid is awarded to students based on the cost of the Program and their ability to contribute. A student’s expected contribution is based on their available resources, which include?savings, investments (stocks, bonds, annuities, and employee benefit plans), IRA accounts (after-tax value), trust funds, after-tax earnings for the student and his/her spouse, G.I. or Social Security benefits, home equity and other real estate equity, income tax refunds, outside grants and loans and parental/family contributions.
STUDENT LIFE
Students can join one or more of the more than 75 clubs on campus at Harward. The clubs invite speakers to campus, organize trips, social events, and help forming bonds between students of similar interests. The Student Association is the main interface between the MBA student body and the faculty/administration. It is led by a four-person Executive Committee (2 Co-Presidents, CFO and COO). The decision power rests with the Senate, which is composed of one senator from each section (a total of 10), the Executive Committee, and various committees made up of section officers. Intramurals are also a major part of the student life. Basketball, flag football, volleyball and soccer are the main intramural sports that are offered.
Apart from this there are other sports and activities regularly organised on the campus.
The rigorous schedule of class work is often tempered by high energy social functions and perennial events such as the cross-dressing Priscilla Ball, the spring Newport Ball held at a Newport, RI mansion, and the winter Hollidazzle Ball usually held in Boston, MA.
CAMPUS
The Harvard Business School campus is located in Allston, across the Charles River from the main Harvard campus in Cambridge. Many of the buildings have red-brick exteriors, as do many buildings in Harvard Yard. HBS maintains a number of facilities, including a sports center and The Class of 1959 Chapel, that are dedicated for the exclusive use of its community. A series of underground tunnels connects the basements of nearly every building on the campus, with the noticeable exception of the more recent student housing facilities that are SFP (Soldier Field Park) and OWA (One Western Avenue) buildings. Spangler Hall is widely considered HBS’ main building with student lounges, meeting rooms, administrative offices and dining facilities. Most classrooms are located in Aldrich and Hawes, most of which are 100-student “amphi-theatre” rooms with approximately five rows in a half circle. This design facilitates the teaching of the case method. Baker Library was reopened in 2005 after several years of renovation. The new building features student study spaces as well as faculty offices. The fitness center is located in Shad Hall, across from Morgan Hall, which houses the majority of the faculty. Shad Hall is also the location of the Computer Lab for Experimental Research (CLER) where many business research studies are conducted. Closest to Charles River are MacArthur Hall and Baker Hall, which accommodate the Executive Education programs, and several student dormitories.
CONTACT
Harvard Business School
MBA Admissions
Dillon House
Soldiers Field Road
Boston, MA 02163
Telephone: 617-495-6127
Facsimile: 617-496-9272
E-mail: admissions@hbs.edu
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