Summer Events Give College Students a Taste of the HBS Experience
Last week, Harvard Business School announced admissions decisions for two summer programs designed to let college students test drive the school’s MBA program. Summer Venture in Management will run from June 15-21 while Peek Weekend will follow from June 21-23.
Summer Venture in Management, now in its 37th year, brings rising college seniors to spend a week on HBS’s campus, where they attend classes taught with HBS’s case method. It immerses participants in the life of a typical HBS student, supplemented with presentations about the MBA program.
The mission of the program is to promote diversity in and access to business education. With this goal in mind, the admissions process for Summer Venture in Management considers criteria such as whether an applicant comes from an underrepresented group or is the first in their family to go to college.
Like Summer Venture in Management, Peek Weekend is a program that aims to give students a better sense of HBS’s MBA program through immersion in the school’s case method.
With Peek Weekend, however, the emphasis is on helping rising college sophomores, juniors or seniors explore their career options, in particular whether an MBA can help them meet their goals.
In line with this mission, the program gives admissions preference to students who have have not had previous experience with business education or business-related internships.
The cost of attendance is $200, with some need-based fellowships available. According to HBS, Peek Weekend and Summer Venture in Management brought together students from 109 and 90 different colleges respectively in 2018.
In neither program do participants need to have an undergraduate major of business. Both programs are efforts by HBS to draw in a more diverse group of MBA students. That includes students from underrepresented backgrounds and students studying in other areas who might not typically consider MBAs.
For potential applicants, these programs are a great way to learn about HBS. They can also be a good ramp up to an application, since this kind of in-depth learning about the school will generally only help.
HBS does emphasize that a student can be rejected from these summer programs and still be admitted to HBS. That makes sense, as someone who’s a strong candidate might not meet the criteria for these two programs. And as HBS points out, there are plenty of other ways applicants can learn about HBS.
If you’re wondering how your application stacks up in terms of the different qualities that HBS looks for in MBA students, we can give you feedback on that, and on how to most effectively communicate your personal brand. Just ask us for a free MBA application assessment!