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May 25, 2006
PB&J & HBS
Apparently being able to make a dandy PB&J sandwich -- as long as it's for a sitting president -- is now enough to get you into Harvard Business School.A 26-year-old college dropout who carries President Bush's breath mints
and makes him peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches will follow in his
boss's footsteps this fall when he enrolls at Harvard Business School
(HBS).
Though it is rare for HBS--or any other professional or
graduate school--to admit a student who does not have an undergraduate
degree, admissions officers made an exception for Blake Gottesman, who
for four years has served as special assistant and personal aide to
Bush.
Gottesman, a Texas native who attended Claremont-McKenna
College in California for one year, has long had ties to the Bush
family. He dated the president's daughter, Jenna Bush, nearly ten years
ago when he attended St. Andrew's Episcopal School of Austin.
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Slacker legacies! Its the latest Business School craze in the world of little or no accomplishment.
I don't see the comparison, Brian. These guys dropped out to do something beyond than pad their resumes . . .
seriously,
Gottesman spent 1999 through now working on the president's campaign and as the president's body man.
Isn't the #1 reason people go to business school connections?
What MBA student would have better connections than Gottesman?
Hell, i know a few people who got admitted to HBS this year and they're exceptional - however network wise they have nothing on Gottesman.
This is very hard to believe; but the Crimson is usually reliable. This guy has one year of college; how will he handle the quant work, for example? It's clear he's no self-taught genius. The only remaining explanation seems to be that he got in purely through connections -- a smudge on HBS, and another counter-example to the claim that "Affirmative Action is un-American".
Let's check back in June 2007 and see if he has hit the screen (flunked out).
Not surprising. The leader of the free world should be expected to have some sort of juice especially for close friends. Likewise, Harvard is wise to do a few favors. I assume this guy will still have to pay his own way.
#4: Answer is that he won't have to handle the quant work... all the would-be CEOs and hacks will do his work for him and cover for him in the group projects. Anything to get close to power. HBS is all about connections, not linear programming and corporate case studies.
But think about how many graduate business schools would salivate over admitting famous dropouts: (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell).
Of course, Gottesman hasn't yet started a billion dollar tech company, but he is still young!