This is usually Allen’s space but I asked him if I could borrow it and he agreed. The reason I’m borrowing the column is to encourage all first-years to register for the Harbus EC Course Review. The school provides a great deal of quantitative information (see my.HBS) but honestly, what’s really the difference between a professor ranked 6.3 and another one who scored 6.5? It beats me – I have no clue, and neither do most of you. The point is that context matters.
What sets the Harbus apart is that its Course Review is more than a sea of numbers: it includes 2,500 comments from nearly 300 second-years.
For those of you craving 1s and 0s, relax, we have those too. We even have smiley-faces and frowns – think what a research report from Goldman would look like if Big Bird wrote it.
Go to www.harbus.org and look for a link in the left column. Click there to register – only students with mba2004.hbs.edu e-mail addresses can access the site. If you like what’s there let us know. We publish the Course Review at both a significant cost and risk to the organization but we do so because we believe it’s an important tool to help students navigate what’s at best a pretty sketchy process. If you have suggestions for how we could improve the review let us know those as well. You can e-mail me at derck@mba2004.hbs.edu.
I’d like to personally thank all the ECs who responded to our poll. All of us in the class of 2004 owe you big time. RCs, listen up: next March it’s up to us to help the class of 2005. When I e-mail you asking for your help don’t pretend you have no idea what I’m talking about.
Best of luck with pre-registration!
Dan Erck
Publisher, Harbus News Corp.
