Harvard Accepts Rajat Gupta

Harvard Business School (HBS) has its own mission when it comes to admitting candidates for its MBA program. While high intellectual abilities are desirable, most important criteria in its selection process seem to be factors that could make a candidate a major decision-maker in the society thus enhancing and furthering HBS, its professors and its ideologies’ interests.

Rajat Gupta had many desirable attributes. First of all, almost everybody will agree that he had superior intellect when it comes to verbal and quantitative skills. He placed 15th on the JEE and at IIT-Delhi was involved in plays and debates.

He displayed excellent people skills too. It is not easy to become a General Secretary at IIT. This demanding position takes lot of time and could have hurt his grades. Luckily, to Harvard grades are not that important.

Still, it is difficult to get admission to Harvard Business School unless one can get good reference letters from influential people in business and government. Without good contacts it is difficult for even a talented person to assume good leadership roles, more so in a country like India.

While I was at IIT-Bombay, I heard about a person who had excellent people skills – was a General Secretary at IIT, had excellent intellect – scored equivalent to 800 (by current standards) on GMAT , was from a very well-to-do-family, who applied to a top-notch business school - Harvard or some place similar, and was told to get a reference letter from someone equivalent to a US Senator – Cabinet Minister in India, before he would be considered for admission. No financial aid though, that was almost impossible to get.

If what I heard about this person’s admission process is true, I wonder who wrote reference (recommendation) letters for Rajat Gupta that not only did he get admission but also a rare scholarship. Harvard has many scholarships but very few are given on academic merit only. High School teachers and IIT professors can write many glowing reference letters but unless a candidate has letters from really influential people, admission with scholarship seems to be almost an impossibiltiy at Harvard.