<p>I share the misgivings others have expressed about making exceptions to rules on the basis of connections which is why, on balance, I disagree with the HBS decision in this case. But my guess is that there are more egregious cases than Mr. Gottesman, who does, after all, have a fairly unique set of life experiences at the age of 26. While I would have been happier to see him stick to his original plan and complete his college degree before going to business school, I expect that he will bring a fair amount to the table (to use minis terminology) at HBS.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t know Bush’s feelings about grad school, but as of August 6, 2004, he said he felt college admissions should be all about merit, not about connections. Shall we assume he made no special calls on this young man’s behalf? Or is grad school a different ball game? ;)</p>
<p>I agree the applicant has got some unique experiences. They would seem more germane to his admission (IMHO) if he were applying to a grad program in the JF Kennedy School of Government.</p>
<p>From the recent Time magazine:</p>
<p>“[Gottesman] found a 1991 Boston Globe article, “Harvard Business School on a High School Diploma,” that described cases of successful graduates who had been admitted without finishing college, and he won over admissions officials by outlining the earlier cases in an essay. “I researched not just the precedent but whether I’d be able to hack it and contribute to the classes,” Gottesman says. “I talked to a bunch of alumni and current students and decided it was worth a shot.” Gottesman scored in one of the top percentiles on his Graduate Management Admission Test. He also got into Stanford’s business school.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1202932,00.html[/url]”>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1202932,00.html</a></p>
<p>For those interested in truth-in-advertising, this was the original (partial) article. While the full article requires a payment, the description seems sufficient to accept that the Gottesman case was hardly without precedent. </p>
<p>HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL ON A HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA A RARE FEW STORM THE HBS CITADEL WITHOUT A COLLEGE DEGREE</p>
<p>Published on December 22, 1991
Author(s): Paul Hemp, Globe Staff</p>
<p>In the mid-1960s Edward Popper flunked out of the undergraduate journalism program at Northwestern University – not once, but three times…But in 1973 he was admitted to the MBA program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Business Administration. Two years later he was graduated in the top 5 percent of his class and stayed on to get a doctorate. Today he is dean of his own business school, at Aurora University in Illinois. His history makes Popper a member of an unusual</p>
<p>Xiggi-
Have I told you lately that I love you?
LOL</p>
<p>I honestly don’t know how to phrase this, so bear with me: I think colleges are looking to produce very successful people and also those who will contribute such skills and talents to the university that will help others succeed as well. The admissions process is designed to help them identify such people. Sometimes there are special cases where, because of background and experience, it’s fairly apparent that the graduate will make an impact of some kind on society.</p>
<p>I think universities taut their graduates who are CEOs and politicians and actors and artists who have been successful/famous. Now we might say the REASON they want to produce successful people is to enhance their endowment, but the point is, success may not be based on “merit” alone. That’s why past experiences and passion and community service are factored in as well. That’s why schools are looking for people who have overcome obstacles to succeed.</p>
<p>I’d be the first to complain if I thought connections got him in, but I think that when you have a unique situation like this, with the experience you can’t get anywhere else, rules are made to be bent (as xiggi’s post shows). So I think HBS is well within their right to do this.</p>
<p>I’ve read about his duties in the White House, and it’s a little more than being the carrier of mints for Bush.</p>
<p>If I am correct he is the son of a prominent Austin real estate developer that I knew back in my Austin days–Sandy Gottesman who was appointed to a government board by Bush. Gottesman donated a library to Columbia U on behalf of his wife.</p>
<p>I can see even more why H might have made an exception.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2003/11/24/daily8.html[/url]”>http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2003/11/24/daily8.html</a></p>
<p>Perhaps the folks at Harvard agree, at least somewhat, with Andrew Abbott (Sociology of Occupations):</p>
<p>Our belief that college education has cognitive importance rests pretty completely on our belief that we can statistically solve the problems of selection bias and unmeasured variables, because the only nonstatistical way of handling them is controlled experiment. No one has ever taken 1,000 bright, ambitious young people and sent them not to college but to another, equally challenging, intellectual environment that did not involve classroom instruction, courses, or curricula. Suppose you could spend the next four years going through a structured rotation of working internships in businesses, not-for-profits, and government agencies, where you would be left to pick up skills the same way everybody else there does: by asking friends and coworkers what to do, by reading a manual, or by going to some organizationally sponsored classes on particular necessary techniques. You might still live in dormitories. You might still have an extracurricular life. But there would be no classroom instruction. I submit that in all but a few areasthe hard sciences and perhaps engineering you would be every bit as ready for law school or business school or management consultancy or social-work training as you will be after your four years in classrooms…</p>
<p>Remember also that in many colleges a high school diploma is not a requirement for admission.</p>