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Imagine paying the fee for a Harvard MBA and missing out on arguably the most valuable aspect of it - nepotism and networking.

hartator 6y ago
This. You can also learn everything taught there and better by just buying and reading the books.
- falcor84 6y ago
  Beyond nepotism, there's a lot of actual learning experiences you can gain from your peers by debating them in case study lessons, working with them on projects and participating in simulations etc.
  - wegs 6y ago
    Plenty of other schools in the area offer better, more rigorous instruction. If that were central to the value offering, no one would go to HBS.
  - ideals 6y ago
    Could you gain the same experience by finding people like that in an online community and debating case studies among them? Doesn't that happen in an informal way on a lot of subreddits and even here?
    - otoburb 6y ago
      I think determined individuals could, but it's much harder without ready access to pre-designed course material (e.g. case studies) and a learned facilitator, ideally one who has a mix of hard won industry experience, academic/research rigour and is a great teacher to boot. This doesn't come close to describing every single professor, but I imagine (albeit without any sources to back this up right now) that the ratio of such unicorn professors is higher at Tier 1 univerities vs. non-Tier 1. Perhaps with a larger supply of determined students willing to tackle this on their own, this is the year where a larger number of focused case-study groups could be formed and sustained online.
    - 015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago
      I didn't get an MBA from HBS, but I did cross-register into a class there while getting a different degree. The classroom experience there is sui generis, and it definitely couldn't be translated into an online format without diminishing its value. It's not just a matter of transmitting and absorbing information. If I were an incoming MBA student, I'd defer a year rather than going online.
    - ilikehurdles 6y ago
      Online communities self-select and self-censor. A student with a contrary, incorrect, or controversial viewpoint in a classroom has a voice and can spark discussion given they operate with best intentions and have a decent instructor. They can be wrong one day, come in the next day and continue to speak. Such a user in an online community gets downvoted, muted, banned, ignored, hidden, or any of those things that keep the chamber full of its own echoes. In theory these communities can exist online. In reality, the vast majority of online communities are not open to being a classroom setting.
- tengbretson 6y ago
  > And two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin’ education you coulda got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library. > Yah think yah so smaht? How do you like them apples?
015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago
It's even more than that. The classroom experience is absolutely central to the program.
ss2003 6y ago
That can be done online too.
- pphysch 6y ago
  A lot of the aforementioned things happen spontaneously and not within the confines of a scheduled 1-hour seated meetings. Has Harvard even announced that they are using more "mingly" online conferencing tools?
andygcook 6y ago
I'm friends with quite a few Harvard MBAs now (think what you will, but the ones I know are all great people :) because my partner is a Harvard MBA. Without a doubt, they all said they'd take a gap year if they were in the current situation. Half the value is the credentialing, but the other half is the experience and network you build through it.
- shuckles 6y ago
  Unfortunately, Harvard's offer to admitted MBAs was to defer til 2021 or 2022, but the specific year would be up to Harvard. That's not uncertainty that many people with families and advanced careers can or should plan around. People in their mid-20s should definitely defer regardless.
  - ryanwaggoner 6y ago
    Almost 90% of admitted HSB students are under 30.
screye 6y ago
I find it completely absurd that so many people are happy about remote classrooms. Online videos and assignments at most top universities have been available for free for years now. Universities are entirely about the advantage of learning in person, peer groups and signalling. If the value of university when remote remains the same for your major/university, then it is a scathing indictment of the in-classroom experience the major/university offered. If I found myself in such a situation, the first thing I would do is un-enroll and reflect on the stupid financial decisions I've made. I hope this is a wake up call for middling private universities and non-lucrative majors that can be easily made remote. A $100k+ fee for something that can be accessed online for free without any real loss in value is highway robbery.
- albntomat0 6y ago
  There is some amount of capture of returning students. Due to the difficulties of transferring, it may be easier and collectively cheaper for a senior to return for their final year.
- vkou 6y ago
  > Online videos and assignments at most top universities have been available for free for years now. Universities are entirely about the advantage of learning in person, peer groups and signalling. If anyone seriously doubts this, consider that pretty much any young person in America can just walk into a university lecture hall, and sit through all the classes they could ever wish for, without paying a cent. [1] Nobody takes attendance, and if you look like a student, nobody's going to notice that you're not actually enrolled in the class. And yet, nobody actually does this! Instead, millions of people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition, so that their attendance will be officially recorded. Those people aren't stupid. They aren't paying for the education, they are paying for everything besides the education. [1] Okay, it may cost you a few hundred dollars per year to buy second-hand, old-edition books, if you can't be arsed to study at the university library. This is much less of a financial hurdle than having the luxury to devote 20-40 hours/week on attending classes, and doing classwork.
  - hansvm 6y ago
bartread 6y ago
It's not just Harvard. I feel bad for anybody who was due to go to pretty much any university this year because they're going to miss out on so much of the experience. If it were me I'd be looking to defer and reapply later, but then I went to the University of Nottingham and, if they'd chosen not to accept me when I reapplied, I'd probably have been just as happy in Bristol or London. If you're due to attend a high prestige institution like Harvard or Cambridge, where demand far outstrips supply, it becomes a much more difficult decision. Attending those schools is an end in itself and if your heart is set on that end you might feel you're risking a little too much by deferring.
aardvark1 6y ago
This decision does not apply to HBS though
Anon4Now 6y ago
Nepotism means showing favoritism towards family members, e.g., a nephew hired or promoted instead of a more qualified person. Sorry to nitpick. I just see that word misused a lot online. I doubt that you're implying that a person would be effectively disowned by family members for taking a semester of their Harvard MBA program online instead of on site.
- centimeter 6y ago
  Nepotism also refers to preferential treatment of friends and loosely defined "family" members (e.g. members of your tribal group), and universities like Harvard are certainly involved in laundering that kind of behavior.

hartator 6y ago

This. You can also learn everything taught there and better by just buying and reading the books.

falcor84 6y ago
Beyond nepotism, there's a lot of actual learning experiences you can gain from your peers by debating them in case study lessons, working with them on projects and participating in simulations etc.
- wegs 6y ago
  Plenty of other schools in the area offer better, more rigorous instruction. If that were central to the value offering, no one would go to HBS.
- ideals 6y ago
  Could you gain the same experience by finding people like that in an online community and debating case studies among them? Doesn't that happen in an informal way on a lot of subreddits and even here?
  - otoburb 6y ago
    I think determined individuals could, but it's much harder without ready access to pre-designed course material (e.g. case studies) and a learned facilitator, ideally one who has a mix of hard won industry experience, academic/research rigour and is a great teacher to boot. This doesn't come close to describing every single professor, but I imagine (albeit without any sources to back this up right now) that the ratio of such unicorn professors is higher at Tier 1 univerities vs. non-Tier 1. Perhaps with a larger supply of determined students willing to tackle this on their own, this is the year where a larger number of focused case-study groups could be formed and sustained online.
  - 015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago
    I didn't get an MBA from HBS, but I did cross-register into a class there while getting a different degree. The classroom experience there is sui generis, and it definitely couldn't be translated into an online format without diminishing its value. It's not just a matter of transmitting and absorbing information. If I were an incoming MBA student, I'd defer a year rather than going online.
  - ilikehurdles 6y ago
    Online communities self-select and self-censor. A student with a contrary, incorrect, or controversial viewpoint in a classroom has a voice and can spark discussion given they operate with best intentions and have a decent instructor. They can be wrong one day, come in the next day and continue to speak. Such a user in an online community gets downvoted, muted, banned, ignored, hidden, or any of those things that keep the chamber full of its own echoes. In theory these communities can exist online. In reality, the vast majority of online communities are not open to being a classroom setting.
tengbretson 6y ago
> And two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin’ education you coulda got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library. > Yah think yah so smaht? How do you like them apples?

015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago

It's even more than that. The classroom experience is absolutely central to the program.

ss2003 6y ago

That can be done online too.

pphysch 6y ago
A lot of the aforementioned things happen spontaneously and not within the confines of a scheduled 1-hour seated meetings. Has Harvard even announced that they are using more "mingly" online conferencing tools?

andygcook 6y ago

I'm friends with quite a few Harvard MBAs now (think what you will, but the ones I know are all great people :) because my partner is a Harvard MBA. Without a doubt, they all said they'd take a gap year if they were in the current situation. Half the value is the credentialing, but the other half is the experience and network you build through it.

shuckles 6y ago
Unfortunately, Harvard's offer to admitted MBAs was to defer til 2021 or 2022, but the specific year would be up to Harvard. That's not uncertainty that many people with families and advanced careers can or should plan around. People in their mid-20s should definitely defer regardless.
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  Almost 90% of admitted HSB students are under 30.

screye 6y ago

I find it completely absurd that so many people are happy about remote classrooms. Online videos and assignments at most top universities have been available for free for years now. Universities are entirely about the advantage of learning in person, peer groups and signalling. If the value of university when remote remains the same for your major/university, then it is a scathing indictment of the in-classroom experience the major/university offered. If I found myself in such a situation, the first thing I would do is un-enroll and reflect on the stupid financial decisions I've made. I hope this is a wake up call for middling private universities and non-lucrative majors that can be easily made remote. A $100k+ fee for something that can be accessed online for free without any real loss in value is highway robbery.

albntomat0 6y ago
There is some amount of capture of returning students. Due to the difficulties of transferring, it may be easier and collectively cheaper for a senior to return for their final year.
vkou 6y ago
> Online videos and assignments at most top universities have been available for free for years now. Universities are entirely about the advantage of learning in person, peer groups and signalling. If anyone seriously doubts this, consider that pretty much any young person in America can just walk into a university lecture hall, and sit through all the classes they could ever wish for, without paying a cent. [1] Nobody takes attendance, and if you look like a student, nobody's going to notice that you're not actually enrolled in the class. And yet, nobody actually does this! Instead, millions of people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition, so that their attendance will be officially recorded. Those people aren't stupid. They aren't paying for the education, they are paying for everything besides the education. [1] Okay, it may cost you a few hundred dollars per year to buy second-hand, old-edition books, if you can't be arsed to study at the university library. This is much less of a financial hurdle than having the luxury to devote 20-40 hours/week on attending classes, and doing classwork.
- hansvm 6y ago

bartread 6y ago

It's not just Harvard. I feel bad for anybody who was due to go to pretty much any university this year because they're going to miss out on so much of the experience. If it were me I'd be looking to defer and reapply later, but then I went to the University of Nottingham and, if they'd chosen not to accept me when I reapplied, I'd probably have been just as happy in Bristol or London. If you're due to attend a high prestige institution like Harvard or Cambridge, where demand far outstrips supply, it becomes a much more difficult decision. Attending those schools is an end in itself and if your heart is set on that end you might feel you're risking a little too much by deferring.

aardvark1 6y ago

This decision does not apply to HBS though

Anon4Now 6y ago

Nepotism means showing favoritism towards family members, e.g., a nephew hired or promoted instead of a more qualified person. Sorry to nitpick. I just see that word misused a lot online. I doubt that you're implying that a person would be effectively disowned by family members for taking a semester of their Harvard MBA program online instead of on site.

centimeter 6y ago
Nepotism also refers to preferential treatment of friends and loosely defined "family" members (e.g. members of your tribal group), and universities like Harvard are certainly involved in laundering that kind of behavior.