Posted 3:49 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Photo: Spring Thaw

Gallup Park, Ann Arbor, Michigan (map).

Posted 9:05 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Goldmine for Business Students
Google Scholar extends search functionality to academic papers.

Posted 7:53 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Spring Reaches Ann Arbor: Break Out the 'Cue!
Since I've posted photos of Ann Arbor at its bleakest, it's only fair to crow when the weather turns nice.


Today was the first day of Spring here, coming two to three weeks earlier than last year. Highs in the 60s means only one thing: break out the barbecue!







I figure I've got eight to twelve more weeks of here, which works out to 56 to 84 more dinners...thus I'm aiming for a good 30 barbecues or so before I'm off to Manhattan or Brooklyn or wherever.

Next up: getting back to the driving range...

PS: If you're wondering why I don't write more about classes...well, that just about answers itself, eh?

Posted 7:09 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
What Did My MBA Two Years Feel Like?
Looking back, here are the broad themes that I'll remember about these two years at Ross:

Sept. 03 to Jan. 04: Football & The Job Sprint
Feb. 04: Recovery From Recruiting
Mar. 04 to May 04: IMAP & Ireland
June 04 to Aug. 04: The Internship
Sep. 04 to Jan. 05: Football & Finance Club
Feb. 05: Death in the Family
Mar. 05 to May 05: The Long Goodbye

This is the place where most people write, "Time sure flew by", but I honestly don't feel that way. It feels like five or six years have passed since I was last a fulltime employee (at CSFB); in actuality, it's only been twenty months!

Maybe it's egotistical, but I'll go ahead and name the next chapter of my life:
June 05 to ???: Ascendance.

Posted 7:04 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
The Cost of Disorganization
My post on organizing daily life proved popular. Since it's a pretty abstract topic, I thought I'd provide a couple examples of disorganization in my own life that I've uncovered during the past few days of packing.

Exhibit 1

Shown here is about 50% of the small handtools I've found so far. Mind you, prior to business school I was not a mechanic, nor a handyman, nor did I work for a NASCAR pit crew. I was in software development. I probably didn't need more than a dozen screwdrivers. But because they were never where I could find them, I ended up buying more than a dozen screwdrivers.

I mean, when will I ever need three pairs of plyers?!?

Exhibit 2

Staplers are very useful. Having one stapler per room of your house, though, is pushing it. Having two staplers per room is OCD.

Posted 10:26 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
PSA: U-Haul Is The Worst Company In The World
We had our first full-service moving company estimate this morning, for the upcoming move to New York. One of the advantages of taking a digital approach to organization is that I still have the estimates from our 2003 move here (from a New Jersey suburb of NYC). So I can roughly compare the estimate I got for this move with that one. That fact that we'll be going into the city this time will bump prices up a bit; on the other hand, I hope hope hope that we'll have reduced the amount of stuff we have as well.

When we moved here in 2003, I decided to rent a truck and drive the stuff here myself (I wrote about that decision here). In retrospect, two things went wrong with that decision. First, the cost of hiring people to pack/unpack the truck was much higher than estimated (especially on the New Jersey end).

Second, U-Haul is the worst company in the entire world. If you get one thing out of reading my weblog, let it be that you should never, ever, ever use U-Haul for anything, ever. Let me try to put it more clearly:

I would rather walk barefoot, carrying our stuff on my back, piece-by-piece, from here to New York, than use U-Haul again.

There are too many reasons for this abject, undying loathing of U-Haul to list here, so I'll just share one. Back in 2003, I initially rented a 26' truck and car trailer (pulled behind the truck). As I was returning to my house with said truck and trailer, the trailer came off the back hitch of the truck, fell to the highway (I-78), dragging along behind the truck solely by a safety chain. After I pulled over and tried to re-attach the trailer myself, it became clear that it didn't fit the truck's hitch properly. So I had to turn around, and slowly crawl back to the store to return it.

When I got back to the U-Haul location, their only reaction to the fact that they'd given me the wrong trailer, improperly hooked it to the back of the truck, and in doing so risked the lives of anyone driving behind me, was "Oh." No apology.

Even today, I'm amazed that I refrained from burning that building to the ground and pissing on its smoking remains.

So, repeat after me: "I do solemly swear that neither I, nor my family, nor my acquaintances, will EVER directly or indirectly use or invest in U-Haul, so help me God.

Amen.

Posted 8:45 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Buy? Now? In New York?!?
A very hot topic amongst my Investment Bank-bound classmates is whether to rent or buy in New York.

I wrote about the Rent vs Buy decision before moving to Ann Arbor in 2003. I very strongly supported renting then, and the idea of buying, right out of school, in the New York City area seems crazy to me. Why?

1. Length of Residency?
Unless home prices appreciate dramatically, homeowners who stay in a home for less than 4 years lose money compared to renters. That's primarily becaues of the "transaction costs"--lawyers, points, registrations, fees, inspections, brokers--involved in buying/selling a property.

Yes, in New York's case, home prices have appreciated tremendously each year for the past 8 or 9 years. That doesn't mean they'll continue to do so.

Moreover, how many fresh graduates can say, with certainty, what they'll be doing two years from now? People have kids, lose their job, get transferred abroad, etc., etc.

2. Job Security
Investment Banking and Sales & Trading are two of the least secure jobs out of school. Banks merge. Desks are fired. Especially when you're just establishing your career, you can go from employed to escorted out by security in less than an hour.

In the face of that, why take on the risk and responsibility of a huge mortgage? Especially because the correlation between losing your job and a downturn in the housing market is not insignificant.

3. Renting is Cheap!
The article in today's Wall Street Journal (page D1) crystallizes what I've been hearing anecdotally: New York rents are cheap!

I know that in most parts of the country, paying $2500 for a two bedroom apartment seems ridiculously expensive. But considering where rents were five years ago, it's a steal.

Two data points: the rent on the exact 1 bedroom, Jersey City apartment I rented in 1999 is exactly the same today as then. And a friend living in Brooklyn Heights (very trendy neighborhood of Brooklyn, 1 subway stop from Manhattan) reports that his rent has gone down the past two years (i.e. 2003 and 2004; that's not the effect of 9/11, that's the effect of lack of rent demand).

4. Housing Prices Don't Go Up Forever
Basically, anyone in my age range cannot remember a time when house prices fell. That in itself should give anyone pause.

Yes, if you have the money, you can "ride out" a housing downturn. But, 1) what are the chances you lose your job as part of this recession? 2) Are you going to put your family plans on hold for two or three years in the meantime, because you're stuck in a 1BR you bought right out of school? 3) If your house is $50K, $100K underwater you literally cannot move. So that closes off any job advancement through transfers.

...

For me, this discussion is fairly academic, because, between my and my wife's student loans, there's no way we could buy a place in NYC anyway.

And of course, for each person, there's a different calculus in play. Some classmates have a substantial bank account, or have a wife that worked to pay their way through school, etc. And I acknowledge that it seems unlikely that interest rates will be this low for a while.

But I look at the risk versus reward of buying a place at the start of an Investment Banking career, and I shake my head.

Posted 5:24 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Leadership: LDP, MLP, LTW, Oh My!
Eighteen months ago, I, and the other new MBA1s, started our MBA experiences off with a week-long Leadership Development Program (LDP).

Seven months ago, I was back as an MBA2 section leader for the incoming Class of 2006 in the renamed Michigan Leadership Program (MLP).

Now, the bulk of MBA2s will be spending the next two days in the capstone Leadership Transition Weekend (LTW), focusing on our post-graduate futures.

LTW didn't exist before last year. But, then those eager busybodies in the Class of 2004 asked themselves (and more importantly, the Dean), "Why is it so important to work on leadership skills as we enter school, but not as we leave to re-enter the working world?" Hence, this two day off-site workshop was put together, drawing together MBA2s, alumni, and guest speakers (thanks again to GE, P&G, 3M, and others).

This year, LTW is being held at the Westin Detroit. Tomorrow's schedule is full of speakers and career workshops, and Saturday will see a return to Focus HOPE for a day of community service.

Personally, I'm looking forward to a couple days away from the school grind. I'm looking forward to spending some time with classmates that I aren't in the same classes as me. I'm looking forward to chatting some with alumni.

It'll be interesting to see what level of attendence there is. I've heard some talk that many MBA2s will skip out, which sucks for many reasons, not the least of which is the school reserved hotel rooms for everyone. And, of course, the higher the attendance, the more you get out of a workshop. To be fair, the school hasn't done a good job publicizing this event--both in terms of getting basic information out, as well as explaining its benefits to MBA2s. Perhaps that reflects the youth of this particular event.

I'll post a wrap-up after returning to Ann Arbor.

Posted 5:52 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Update: Sources of Media for my iPod

1. I'm finding that a side benefit of downloading historical speeches is that the file size is much smaller than high-quality music files. Prior to downloading all these speeches, I had about 1.7 days of music on my iPod, weighing in at about 2.3 GB of memory. I now have 5.1 days of sound files (i.e. added 3.4 days of speeches), but am still only at 3.6 GB of memory.

2. UM's Shapiro Undergraduate Library ("UGLI"; just 1 block up from the Ross School of Business) has a section just of CDs and DVDs. I've just--for free--downloaded "The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.", "Great Speeches of the 20th Century", and "The Greatest Speeches of All Time". I've also thrown out my Blockbuster card; why pay for movies if students can rent them free at the library?

3. One drawback of many of these CDs is that they only feature excerpts of speeches (in this sence, their titles are misleading). I'd like to hear the speeches start-to-finish.

4. A reader referred me to PennSound, a UPenn effort to provide free MP3 [audio] downloads from the largest collection of digital poetry on the internet.

5. Another online resource for historical speeches is HPOL. Alas, all its sound files are in Real Audio format, which I've had trouble transferring into iTunes.

6. Next up: The Ann Arbor District Library's music collection.

Posted 9:26 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Tripling the Value of my iPod
I tripled the value of my iPod over the weekend, with a couple of discoveries. First, I found that C-SPAN offers, for free, a large number of political speeches and debates via Audible.com. This is like free crack for someone like me, for whom March Madness is nothing compared to Presidential convention season. I've downloaded every inaugural from FDR to GWB, along with the important 2004 convention speeches (important = from politicians who'll run in 2008, like Sen. Clinton, Sen. McCain, Giuliani, etc.), 2000 and 2004 debates, and President Bush's inaugural speech.

...

"Yet the same revolutionary beliefs, for which our forebearers fought are still at issue around the globe. The belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God...

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall...oppose any foe to ensure the survival and success of liberty...

Let both sides unite to heed...the command of Isaiah to 'undo the heavy burden...and let the oppressed go free...'"

President Bush at his most infuriatingly arrogant, unilateralist, and Christian fundamentalist?

No. President Kennedy in his 1961 inauguration. It's frankly amazing how religious (and historical minded) FDR, Truman, and Kennedy's inaugural speeches were, considering modern attitudes. Of course, that was back when Democrats won elections.

...

The second discovery that boosted my iPod's value was the realization that the libraries around here (and presumably in other towns) have huge collections of CDs that patrons can check out. And store to an iPod.

This hit me after reading Mark's post about the Napster-to-Go service, which is basically a $15-a-month, all-you-can-download music service. I realized that, 95% of the music on my iPod came from CDs that I (or my wife) owned, and that I've spent very little money buying new music from iTunes (probably fewer than 40 songs). Once I realized the selection available at the public library (and the UM library, which also has a treasure trove of political recordings--Nixon vs Kennedy, anyone?), I thought "jackpot"!

And so, my iPod is worth three times more today than it was last week at this time.

Posted 9:19 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Is a Cinema Studies Degree the New M.B.A.?
No. But this New York Times article makes for an interesting read, anyway.

Posted 10:39 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Organizing Our Lives
One of the tasks I've embarked upon in the past few months is organizing the vast amounts of information that is generated by daily life. Off the top of my head, I have to deal with dozens of logins/passwords for various websites, monthly bills, schoolwork, growing stocks of digital photos, health insurance, househunting in New York, IRA investment choices, any plans for a vacation before starting my job, legal options for adopting internationally, tax preparation, phone numbers, magazine subscriptions, business contacts, etc. I'm sure that most readers have a similar list.

An MIT computer science education, if nothing else, gives you good organizational skills, and on a scale of 1 (a complete, unorganized wreck) to 10 (flawless information machine), I'd put myself at a 6, meaning there's a lot of room for improvement. This is a project I'm focusing heavily on during the remaining months in Ann Arbor, because once I hit the trading floor my attention will be elsewhere.

Here's some of my tips for organization:

1. Push Towards Digital - Over the past year I've moved strongly towards 100% digital records. In practice, this means I don't use my film camera anymore. It means I scan my tax records for permanent keeping. It means I've switched to online payment of all our credit card bills. The reasons are numerous: thousands of digital photos don't take up space in a cramped NY apartment; it's easier to search digital files; it's easier to make backups; etc.

2. Tools - Moving to digital organization requires some tools: a computer (obvious), scanner, CD or DVD burner, digital camera, PDA/cellphone. For me, getting a scanner has paid off handsomely. Besides being able to post my artwork, I now have [password-protected] PDF files of tax returns, INS/immigration documents, etc. The only item I'm still lacking is a PDA or PDA-like cell-phone; once my Verizong Wireless contract expires in May, I'm moving to a fancy, GSM-enabled Blackberry or the like.

3. Backups - One area I fall into the "anal" scale on is backing data up. I have reminders every three months in Outlook to back everything up onto DVDs, and in between I make backups onto a 1MB USB key drive.

Until recently, I used the CD burner that came with my laptop. But as the digital pictures pile up, that option was getting more and more cumbersome, since one CD can "only" hold about 750 MB. So I recently purchased a DVD burner, which can fit 8.5 GB on a [double-sided] DVD. I'm safe for now...but some day, maybe when I switch to digital video, that won't be big enough either. Sigh.

4. Folder Organization - One of the basics: it's vastly easier to start out with a good organization of folders in your computer than try to reorganize later on. No problems on this front: top level folders for "Career", "Schoolwork", "Finances", "Health", and "Personal" have held up fine over time for me.

5. File Formats - If given the choice, I've stuck with Excel for organizing personal data like contact information and the like. 1. It's very flexible, so I'm not stuck with the fields that someone else prefers. 2. It's easily searchable, graphable, etc. 3. It's easy to port into other Microsoft apps; for example, making address labels in Word. 4. Although a Microsoft proprietary format, I can always export to CSV or text files.

I know some of my classmates have started using online contact management tools, like LinkedIn. I've resisted that, because I want to keep my data local (just look at how many privacy slip-ups have been in the news over the past month!) and I don't want to be stuck with one company's contact format.

6. Getting Rid of Stuff - Because my last two homes have been in a 3BR house and a 3BR townhouse here in Ann Arbor, there hasn't been much pressure to get rid of excess belongings. With our goal to move into New York City (as opposed to the suburbs), that equation has changed: every square foot is valuable. Thus, I've been using Amazon, eBay, and iMpact classified ads to reduce the mass of stuff we have and make a few bucks on the side. We've also donated ten boxes of ill-fitting clothes to the Salvation Army (8 hers, 2 his ;-) and four boxes of books to the Ann Arbor Library (3 boxes 80s softcover thrillers, 1 box 90s non-fiction). Next up: getting rid of the lawnmower, hedge trimmer, rakes, shovels, hoses, etc. that probably won't be useful in New York City.

...

This topic came to mind when I stumbled on the weblog 43 Folders (through Lilek's blog, one of the best daily reads on the web). I haven't gone through the site much, but it seems to be one hipster's guide to organizing your life. I'm not in synch with everything it proposes--the hipster's PDA is a stack of index cards--but I'm certainly impressed by the thoroughness and humor displayed. Plus, you can never be sure where you'll find your next useful idea.

Posted 10:10 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Ethics and Sexual Dysfunction: A Cartoon
This post is completely unrelated to MBAs:

The latest comic strip from Achewood touches upon two themes that I've been thinking about lately. First, the whole question of ethics--what is the right thing to do in different situations? Second, the psychology of sexuality--hey, my wife's an MSW at Michigan, majoring in mental health care, and is currently taking SW 700: Treastment Strategies for Sexual Dysfunctions, so I've gotten an earful of this kind of stuff for the past two months. Most of which I didn't want to know about. Sigh.

Anyway, this comic will make you ask, "What is 'right'?", "What does it mean to be a friend?", and "Do taunts really cut that deep?" Plus, it'll make you shoot coffee through your nose, if you drink any while reading it:
Achewood - March 11, 2005 (warning: adult(?) situations)

Posted 9:58 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Michigan Weather: Much Colder This Year
I took a glance at my blog archives from last year and ran across this post about the weather. Clearly, this year has been much colder--not only did winter start earlier (end of November vs early January), but it's stayed much colder. This time last year we were facing a forecast of daily rain and 50s; now it's been in the low 30s and snowed pretty much every day this week.

Nostalgia point: at this time last year, I was gearing up to go to Ireland for my IMAP. That was an awesome experience.

Posted 7:21 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Ethics and Leadership: Respect the Grayscale
Maybe I'm cynical, but whenever I read about business schools emphasizing ethics, I have to choke back a laugh. Not because an MBA student is any more unethical than the next guy, but because five years ago no school emphasized it. It was only with the bad PR of Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Adelphia, and others that came to light in 2001-2003 that, lo and behold, every school decided training ethical leaders was their top job.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I think ethics is a gray scale. And I truly question whether, in both business and society, the most pure, white-as-the-driven-snow, ethical people end up as the top leaders. I wonder if people who, when faced with a minor ethical issue, always ask themselves, "Oh, will someone, somewhere think the worse of me?" are truly those who American society regards most highly.

In other words, I think the best leaders, by necessity, are a little gray ethically.

Note: I'm not saying that we should celebrate those towards the black end of the ethics scale; rather that people willing to take some risks, willing to get a little dirty, usually end up more successful, and more respected as leaders.

This is the opposite of business schools' (including Ross') party line, and pretty politically incorrect, but I think it's backed up by, well, pretty much all of American history.

Here are some top "leaders" that come to mind from the past sixty years of American history:
* Bill Gates (business leader) - Anyone here willing to say he's pure white ethically?
* Dr. Martin Luther King (social leader) - One of the greatest change agents in our history. If you read his biography, however, you'll find some small ethical questions in his personal life.
* JFK (political leader) - Lied continuously about his physical health (at the very least). This is a light shade of gray.

The list goes on and on. When I run through great leaders in my mind, whether they be military (General Sherman--how ethical was his march to the sea?), political (President Truman--sure bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima won the war, but..?), or business (GE's Jack Welch--enough said), I keep finding complex individuals that are not at either end of the ethical scale. Admittedly, part of this is because the winners write the history.

Americans respect success, and they respect the scratches, scars, and patches of gray that it requires. Any business school that pretends otherwise is either too full of itself, or is preening for public relations' sake.

Final Update: The editors at the Harvard Crimson agree: "If this action was some sort of indication of the worst behaviors our future business leaders, the business ethics community has much to celebrate."

Posted 7:01 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
HBS Update

1. It's only fair that I mention that my beloved MIT has followed HBS' footstep, and announced that it will reject all the applicants who improperly accessed their applications. This is the first time in my knowledge MIT has punished someone for hacking; when I was a student there, the administration passively accepted students doing all kind of crazy stuff, including risking their life (by climbing up on the dome), for hacking purposes. I'm disappointed in my alma mater.

2. The Washington Post has an article on the situation this morning. I note that the media headlines have stopped using the word "hack". Smell something weird? That's HBS starting to sweat, when they read this is the national media:

"Some experts in business ethics said the students were not the only ones at fault.

"What they would have done in an ideal world was wait to get their results, but that curiosity got the better of them does not make them bad people," said Edwin Hartman, director of the Prudential Business Ethics Center at Rutgers University. "If this were the worst thing businesspeople ever did, we'd be living in Utopia. I think the punishment was a bit harsh."

...

Already at least one potentially gray area has emerged. The schools know which files were accessed because users had to log in. One Harvard applicant's fiancee said she checked his application status without his knowledge. Another applicant, currently a student in Los Angeles, said his sister checked his application when she saw "brookbond's" invitation. He had an admission interview scheduled at Harvard, but it was rescinded today, he said."

Posted 7:23 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Crisis Management 101: HBS and The 119
Those of you not in the business school world might not be aware of the gathering controversy surrounding Harvard Business School (HBS) and its online application. I took Michigan's "crisis management" course last term, and have been meaning to write about it, and this seems to be too great an opportunity to pass up.

Background
HBS, and several other nationally recognized business schools, use online applications run by AppyYourself to manage their MBA application process. Applicants fill out forms on the ApplyYourself (henceforth, AY) website, upload essays to AY, can check the status of their application on AY, and, on decision day, read the schools acceptance/rejection decision on AY.

This year, HBS' second round of MBA applications were due in January, and the decision will be posted at the end of March. However, a little over a week ago, an individual discovered that AY has a flaw. If an applicant logged in to their own account, they could find some sort of ID string. This ID string, when used in the browser address box in a certain way, would ostensibly give them access to a "hidden" part of their application which, in some cases, for some schools, seemed to reveal their admission decision. Exact details of this process can be found here.

The individual who discovered this then posted the instructions on the popular Business Week (BW) Forums message board, where many MBA applicants and students hang out. Several other applicants, curious about their own applications, followed the simple instructions to see if they could find out their decision early.

Schools' Reactions
AY and the schools eventually heard about this loophole, and 8 or 9 hours after it was posted on the BW forum, the loophole was closed. Since most schools that use AY did not have any decisions uploaded to the system (HBS seems to be the exception), most applicants who followed this process didn't find out any information.

HBS took the lead in reacting to this, stating that it has received records from AY of 119 accounts for which the improper page was accessed. It then declared that these acts were "at best" an ethical breach, and that it would automatically deny admission to all 119 of those applicants. Other schools have since followed HBS' lead, including MIT and Tepper (Carnegie Mellon), whereas Stanford has taken a more nuanced approach, simply using the "ethical breach" as one factor in its decision.

Crisis Management Options
When the HBS admissions office heard of this system loophole, it had every right to be angry--at ApplyYourself. Decision information that it had uploaded to a "private" part of the system in fact had been public. Both parties are lucky that (as far as we know) more information--applicants' credit card numbers, social security, etc.--didn't become available to anyone.

HBS then had to decide how to respond to the list of 119 accounts that was improperly accessed. Because of the nature of the loophole, only the applicant him/herself, or someone very close to the applicant (i.e. who knew their password), would have been able to use the tip.

As I see it, there are a couple of paths HBS could have chosen to follow:
1. Since the loophole was fixed, they could have ignored the incident and posted a general, "Please use the system appropriately" message on their website.
2. They could have decided that this improper access was a black mark, and weighed it as part of the overall qualifications of the 119.
3. They could automatically reject every applicant whose account was accessed improperly, as a demonstration that "ethics are taken seriously at HBS."

HBS, if one takes their public statements at face value, chose the third approach. Was this a smart choice?

Pros
1. With the fall of Enron, we entered a time when business ethics are questioned in society. HBS wanted to send a strong message that it takes ethics very seriously, a message that would be appreciated by the public at large.
2. There's no way to check if HBS follows through with their public "line in the sand." Nobody knows if a rejected applicant was rejected because they were one of the 119, or because of their qualifications.
3. Even the applicants themselves admit they messed up (some say it was unethical, some say it was poor judgement). HBS can always say, "Shouldn't people live with the consequences of their actions?"
4. Once the 119 are publicly branded as "hackers", the public is even more set against them.

Cons
1. If the public reads the details of these incidents, they'll realize that calling this a "hack" is a bit of a stretch.
2. Individual applicants, who wanted nothing more than to check the status of their application, effectively got the ultimate punishment. The more the public reads about individual cases (including those where a spouse logged into the account), the more sympathy the applicants will feel.
3. When other schools take a more nuanced approach to this (i.e. Stanford), it makes HBS seem more uptight and preening by comparison.

My Verdict: The Ethics
First, it's clear that the 119 did do something improper. Even though the pages they accessed were publicly available (just by typing the proper URL into the system), the 119 should have known that they probably weren't meant to be seen. Just because the back door of a house is wide open doesn't mean it's okay to go waltzing in.

However, when deciding the nature of a crime, and its proper punishment, judicial systems always take into account motive and harm. In this case, the motive of these applicants' motives were the same as every other applicant's: to find out the status of ther application. They were not trying to change their application, or change the results, or see someone else's application, or anything else; they were simply curious (many probably didn't even expect the URL to work). Furthermore, I can't for the life of me figure out who was harmed by their actions. Not the school, not other applicants, nobody.

Thus, from my perspective, the ethical offense the 119 committed was miniscule. Personally, I think that automatically denying admissions to applicants based solely on this minor transgression is a tremendous overreaction, and would be laughable if it didn't involve the emotional pain that many of the 119 are going through now (remember, these are people who have had great careers, put hundreds of hours into their apps, gotten coworkers to spend their time to write recommendations, and paid a large application fee).

In the end, I wouldn't think anything less of any classmates if I found out they accessed their admissions decision early through an inadvertently public website.

My Verdict: The PR
So I think HBS' decision was wrong on the ethics; but how about from a PR perspective?

From a perusal of the BW Forum, HBS has taken a hit in prestige amongst the applicant community. Most of hose that aren't jeering at the 119's misfortune are honest enough to admit that, had they seen this trick, they would have given it a try. Especially when compared to Stanford, HBS comes across as tight-asses to many applicants. They don't feel that peeking early at your own application status is a reflection of your leadership potential or value as a classmate.

But the applicant community is unimportant when compared to the public at large, and I think, initially at least, HBS' decision was the smart choice. Early news accounts decried the 119 as "hackers", and painted HBS' decision as a valiant, "we won't stand for this" move.

However, the longer this drags out, the worse the decision plays in public. Why? First, we'll hear about Stanford which is taking this incident as only one piece of the application whole. This makes HBS' blanket statement seem overly rigid in comparison (after all, HBS could have said they'd judge each case individually, then rejected all 119 quietly).

Second, there will be more news stories about individual applicants. We'll hear how qualified they are (some might be military veterans, for example). We'll hear how it wasn't the applicant himself who used this loophole, but his/her spouse, parents, friend, etc. The public might start to get past the (emotionally fraught) word "hacking" and realize, "Hey, they were just trying to see their own status!" Tthere's a chance that AY has further security holes, which focus the spotlight back on them and the schools. And how long is it before an enterprising reporter surveys the current MBA students at HBS and finds that 70%+ (my estimate, based on my MBA experiences) think that this whole situation is ridiculous?

The Aftermath
Think that this whole issue will die down quickly? Think again.

ClearAdmit, an application consulting company, is covering the story on its blog. Both the AP and USA Today have run the story. Other MBA blogs are abuzz about it. Some are running opinion polls on it. Techies are ridiculing HBS' use of the word "hacking". Washington Post reporters seem to be sniffing around.

Heck, there are even T-Shirts for sale ("Free the HBS 119")!

HBS chose to take a loud stand publicly. They took a semi-public incident and blew it up into a "battle for right and wrong", rather than handle it quietly (and appropriately, in my opinion). Now, as the public starts to realize who truly is in the "right" and the "wrong", HBS will probably start to regret it.

Conclusion
"When you're in a hole, stop digging".

Posted 10:25 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Final Term: Winter B Begins
The final seven week, half term begins today. My schedule is little changed from that which I posted at the beginning of Winter A. The only difference is that I decided not to take the FIN 631/632 sequence of classes, which, although getting raves from classmates, just felt like more work than I wanted. Considering the two weeks of classes I missed last month, that was a wise decision.

Thus, my schedule for the final seven weeks is gorgeous:
LHC 508 (Securities Law), Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:20 to 12:40.
FIN 618 (Derivatives), Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:40 to 14:10.
BE 560 (Macroeconomics), continuing on Tuesday evenings.
Business Japapnese II, continuing on Tuesdays and Fridays from 13:00 to 15:00.

Yes, Mondays and Wednesdays are completely free. Those are days that will be filled with imaginary practice at the driving range (imaginary, since it won't be warm enough to do so for another three or four weeks).

Posted 9:51 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Final Term Activities
The pace has certainly picked up heading into the final couple months of school. I'm getting busier, but in a much less "hectic" way than when I was busy with internship recruiting in the first year. Now, the schedule is filling with school events--scholarship dinners, Dean's speeches, social events--and with moving prep--a day in New York for Deutsche Bank orientation, packing up the townhouse, searching for an apartment.

Most Investment Banks have new hires start between mid-July and mid-August; Deutsche is on the early side (this year) with a start-date in mid-July. In this point, Michigan's schedule--with graduation taking place at the end of April!--is a benefit, since I'll have a good ten weeks off before work starts (in this point, the Chicago GSB students get the short end of the stick, since their graduation isn't til mid-June).

Posted 12:33 PM by Zachary (e-mail)

Bahia Honda State Park, the Florida Keys