Anurag Jain's Blog on Bangalore Events, Travel, IIM Bangalore, IIM, IIMB, Management

Friday, March 11, 2005

Posted 8:22 AM by Anurag

The HBS 119

Apparently, a number of top B-schools in the US have been using the services of Apply Yourself for their onlie admission processes. At the beginning of this month, a b-school applicant (candidature to HBS included) discovered a simple URL modification technique in the online admission system of Apply Yourself to find out one's application status/decision. He then posted the instructions on Businessweek magazine's discussions group. (The 'hack' has since been removed by BusinessWeek, but its available here to see.) The word spread around, and quite a few applicants took a peek into their application decision. When B-schools found that out, they took a higher moral ground saying such unethical behaviour was unacceptable. Carnegie Mellon (Tepper School of Business) was the first to 'react' in denying admission to those who had tried to look into their application status. Next was Harvard Business School, which ascertained that 119 applicants had tried to look into the online system to find out whether they had been accepted or not, denied admission to all 119 'hackers'! Stanford is still waiting and has not given a verdict on its 'peekers' yet.

It's definitely wrong on part of HBS/CMU to deny admission to so-called 'hackers'. It's their fault to have contracted the services of a not-so-foolproof systems company. Applicants were just being curious. Moreover they looked at their own records only, and not that of other applicants. This is hardly hacking. Heck, if this is hacking then I must be a great hacker as I use URL modification all the time to get around sites that do not have a good navigation/sitemap in place.

Coincidentally, If you recall, last year there was similar brouhaha in India about IIMs results leak. The only difference in that case was that IIMs were much saner becuase they categorically stated that it was during the early live testing of results on server when some applicants might have peeked into their results. Now, that makes sense. Making applicants scapegoats for system issues, in the case of US B-schools, is unwise, and high-handed. (Why does this whole episode remind me of the Bobby Fuller classic "I Fought The Law (and the Law Won)"?)

Amidst all this, one of the 119 applicants has decided to use this opportunity to make a bit of money on the side. He's come out with Free the HBS 119 T-shirts, mousepads etc! Remember Rhett Butler of Gone With the Wind, or Rick Blaine of Casablanca? :-). Just kidding. I like the spirit of this guy! Don't forget to read The Great Moments in Ethics at HBS at the back of the t-shirt.

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