<p>Maybe Sanford Kreisberg is not surprised, but I am truly shocked. I can’t believe that Harvard admissions would go along with this and devalue the MBA degree of every Harvard graduate of the past 50 years. I expect a huge outcry from alumni. I would certainly be (more) upset if I had a Harvard MBA. For W it is second nature, the same as appointing Harriet Miers to the supreme court, or Mike Brown head of FEMA. Why not just appoint this kid to be Treasury Secretary? (there is an opening). The really scary thing is that Bush will still be president when Gottesman gets his MBA. Of course at that point even a cabinet level position won’t be able to compete with the wall street offers that will be thrown at this kid’s feet for his White House connections. I am appalled. I could see him getting in as an undergrad, but the MBA program makes no sense. How do you get a 2 year advanced degree after skipping the 4 year undergrad degree? It is grotesque!</p>
<p>Cosar:</p>
<p>As I suggested, why would Gates or Dell even want to apply to HBS? By the time they became Bill Gates and Michael Dell, the yardstick by which exceptions to HBS rules of admission may be made, they would be welcome with open arms to TEACH at HBS, not to take courses. </p>
<p>It would have been different if they had applied when they had not yet created Microsoft or Dell Computers. I am pretty confident neither would have been given the time of day.</p>
<p>The most shocking thing about this admission, however? It’s HBS admitting a college drop-out gopher for a president with a 30% approval rating whose own party is, if news accounts are accurate, considering as an electoral liability. That’s not a “political” statement but one stemming from a hard-boiled assessment of the possible benefits to HBS of this decision. They are very hard to fathom. </p>
<p>As for Yale’s decision, it’s the result of a totally misguided do-good impulse combined with the hubristic feeling that a Yale education can truly change not only one individual but the world as well. Maybe Yale believes in the lifetime benefits of an Ivy education(see another CC thread)!</p>
<p>EDIT: Cosar, not all Harvard Extension school classes are separate. My S took two as a high schooler that included both Extension and College students. They are the exception, not the rule, however.</p>
<p>Look, if this kid “dropped out” after only a year at Claremont, how long do you think he will actually last at HBS? It doesn’t take too many neurons to date the President’s daughter, baby-sit the critters, or pass the breath mints. It takes quite a few more to get through HBS. What am I saying??? W did it! Silly me.</p>
<p>LOL Quiltguru. W graduated from Yale, so he did not have to bend the rules. Went to HBS before Dad became president, too. His connections were not all that impressive then. But who would have thunk that HBS would be impressed by a college drop-out who fetched and carried and dated a president’s daughter? I would have guessed it would have needed a Master of the Universe!</p>
<p>Lesson #1 in life: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Sad, but true. (Especially applies to the W regime.)</p>
<p>I don’t blame him for dropping out–it was the chance of a lifetime to do a job few young people would ever get a chance to do. I’d probably support my own son doing that.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, I’d expect him to go back, and get some kind of baccalaureate, before being admitted to grad school. If higher education itself (in the form of HBS) is going to start devaluing a college degree by waiving that as a requirement for graduate study…well, it’s just surprising.</p>
<p>I’d waive it for Bill Gates, sure. This young man isn’t Bill Gates.</p>
<p>If Mr Gottesman does well at the HBS with only a hs diploma as a credential and with basically a hs education, it not only demeans the HSB but all MBA recipients. Can you imagine what would happen to a hs’er or college freshman dropout if admitted to a graduate program in applied math, theoretical physics or electrical engineering?</p>
<p>HBS should have reated to this application, “go get your undergraduate degree, and then reapply.”</p>
<p>“If Mr Gottesman does well at the HBS with only a hs diploma as a credential and with basically a hs education, it not only demeans the HSB but all MBA recipients.”</p>
<p>Why? You certainly wouldn’t suggest that the HBS curriculum is all that demanding, would you? I mean, even for undergraduates at H., there is the “happy bottom quarter” - and virtually none of them drop out because they couldn’t do the work. The degree should be judged by what one learns - the outputs, not the inputs.</p>
<p>As for GW, he couldn’t even get into his in-state law school with a degree from Yale. Legacies count for somethun!</p>
<p>marite, did you forget GWB’s grandfather Prescott, former senator from CT?</p>
<p>Did you forget where GWB went to HS and college?</p>
<p>Put these things together and he had EXCELLENT connections when he applied to HBS.</p>
<p>Ill start with the disclaimers: I disagree with HBSs admissions decision; I havent compared and wouldnt compare Blake Gottesman to people like Bill Gates or Michael Dell; I agree that it would have been better if Mr. Gottesman had gone back and completed his undergraduate degree before heading on to business school.</p>
<p>Having said that, I think the magazine and news stories, and many of the posts in this thread, are unfair to Mr. Gottesman. Hes not a college drop-out in the sense that he couldnt handle the work. He left to work on a successful presidential campaign and then was offered what many would view as the opportunity of a lifetime. While I think it would be better for him now to complete his undergraduate degree, I cant say that I would be completely unsympathetic if at the age of 26, having spent four or five years traveling the world with the President of the United States, he were to be reluctant to go back and become a college sophomore with a bunch of 19-20 year olds.</p>
<p>One might even make the argument that hes learned as much in the last four or five years as he would have learned in three more years of college (albeit a different kind of learning). I would also note that business school admission tends to be less focused on academic record, and more focused on real-world experience, than just about any other kind of graduate or professional school (its not in any way comparable to admission to a graduate program in applied math, theoretical physics or electrical engineering). While I think it was the wrong decision, I dont find it shocking or grotesque nor do I think it demeans anyone.</p>
<p>P.S. to NJres: the Treasury Secretary position has now been filled (with a pretty good choice imo). :)</p>
<p>Doesn’t Harvard BS accept degrees or experience that are “comparable.” I believe that HBS has accepted foreign soldiers who did not earn an undergraduate degree. At least, one such account appears in a tell-all book about the business school. </p>
<p>For the record, Gottesman could have earned a degree in little time from a number of schools while working in the White House. At least, we know he can write and read at a respectable level… we only wish we could say the same about every college graduate.</p>
<p>Cosar:</p>
<p>There are many older students who return to complete their degrees. Apparently, Rivers Cuomo is finally graduating from Harvard at age 35. I also agree that 26 years old bring something to a classroom that 19-year olds don’t. But Mr. Gottesman would not have to share a dorm room with a 19-year old if he so choose.</p>
<p>Personally, I am far more perturbed about HBS procedures than about Mr. Gottesman’s qualifications.</p>
<p>
Boston politicos know of more stories to back this up. The stories I heard while I was in the area completely changed my opinion of the school. Perhaps this new attention might make more people aware of their practices, but I doubt their bizarre admission activity will change.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>At the time W applied to HBS, his grandfather had retired from the US Senate the previous year, and his father was a former two-term Congressman who was currently serving as the chairman of the Republican National Committee. He would be appointed special US envoy to China the same year that W enrolled at HBS. Those sound like pretty good political connections to me.</p>
<p>Coureur:</p>
<p>I stand corrected. Still, W was no worse than many students of his background that were admitted to HYP in those days. And by the time he applied to HBS he did have a UG degree as well as those connections. I do not wish to use his admission to Yale as an excuse for current HBS practices.</p>
<p>Even if this young man has “what it takes” via life and work experiences to succeed at HBS, it seems like a huge exception was made for him and I believe there are many people without a college degree who could document learning via a job or experience too. It seems that if an exception of the standard/criteria to have an undergraduate degree is made for this guy, then it should open it up to a clause in admissions that others may apply who can document learning via other paths besides an undergraduate degree as well. If he is the only one admitted without a college degree, that is where the problem lies. Then, it wreaks of connections.</p>
<p>who cares that he didn’t finish college? The things he learned with President Bush would most likely prove to be more beneficial than a 4 year undergraduate degree. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that you take a lot of pointless courses in college that will never be practiced in real world applications, some of you (especially those who attended LACs) view these courses as beneficial to the person and makes them more well rounded, etc. At least this kid has spent a good deal of time working closely with the president, he’s probably absorbed a lot from presidential meetings and being around the advisors.</p>
<p>Business school will really teach him everything he needs to know when it comes to working at an actual job – I’d say he’s equal to someone who studied a subject totally unrelated to business like a humanities major.</p>
<p>I’m sure after graduating he’ll end up somewhere great – such as the Carlyle Group</p>
<p>mini, I agree that a degree should be base on what one learns ie the outputs but that just reinforces my point. Nobody would expect a hs graduate to be able to successfully negotiate a graduate program in theoretical physics because the academic foundation an undergraduate program provides is necessary as a prerequisite to understanding higher order concepts. Academic rigor if you will.</p>
<p>I admit I know little about business curricula in general or MBA programs in particular. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that there is analytical knowledge necessary for understanding first year MBA coursework, things such as probability, statistics, data analysis, calculus, micro/macro economic theory, operations management, accounting principals.</p>
<p>Perhaps developed analytical knowledge is not required to be successful in an MBA program. If this is true that it deminishes the MBA degree in my mind, reducing it to little more than a glorified undergraduate degree. It has nothing to do where Mr Gottesman finished in his class at the end of the day.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that Mr Gottesman is a very intelligent, engaging and accomplished man. However the HBS has done itself a disservice IMHO.</p>
<p>I seriously, seriously doubt he is the only admitted without an undergraduate degree. Again, note that law schools and med schools admit folks without undergrad degrees all the time, including many such programs touted on these boards. And if you went to those school admission sites, they would all tell you that an undergrad degree is required. I doubt it was a “huge” exception.</p>
<p>That it wreaks of connections is obvious enough. But then there was GW…</p>
<p>“Nobody would expect a hs graduate to be able to successfully negotiate a graduate program in theoretical physics because of the academic foundation an undergraduate program necessary as a prerequisite to understanding higher order concepts.”</p>
<p>On the contrary, this is precisely the example I would have imagined. My junior high school classmate Nobel Prize Winner Frank Wilczek did most of his prize-winning work as an undergraduate (at Chicago) and needed NONE of the academic prequisites at Chicago to do it. He had mastered all the concepts necessary before he got to Chicago, and started his graduate work in his freshman year. This is very common with high-level physicists and mathematicians, and you will find a couple of dozen Ph.D.s in both fields who lack undergraduate degrees.</p>