This guide is designed to pack lots of learnings that I am uncovering as I go through the RC experience at HBS. Be warned, it’s crazy… But it’s also the most fun and incredible experience I’ve ever gone through.

I don’t expect that this guide will help you avoid mistakes. You will definitely go through lots and lots of mistakes. But hopefully this guide does help serve as a comforting reminder that I went through those same tough experiences and everyone else around you is going through it as well.

I recommend only reading the next section as you are about to go through that experience. Doesn’t do you any good to read the whole thing in one sitting.

Some things are best experienced for yourself, and it would be a mistake for me to deprive you of those moments. But I also do want to capture some of those key learnings. I have marked those with [SPOILER ALERT]. Please be mindful and avoid reading those sections if you don’t want to abuse cheat-codes to the game.

Please try to update the sections as you go through them with your own experiences and pass it on to some other RC next year.

Move Logistics:

On campus housing is extremely coveted. The best apartments are Soldiers Field Park and One Western Ave. They aren’t cheaper than off-campus apartments but they are so close to school that you can roll out of bed and make it in time for your 8am discussions.

Dorms are a decent option but they are way way too small in my opinion. I like spending some time at my own apartment to unwind which would be difficult in the prison cell that is the dorm room. Also impossible to host friends to your house and cook if those things are important to you.

I chose to go off campus for my housing because I didn’t get a good lottery time slot and I think it’s been amazing. I pay $1500 for my own room in an Allston 3b2b townhouse and it’s a 12 minute walk/4 min bike to campus. It’s more affordable than any of the on-campus apartments/dorms and

The Harvard Square area of Cambridge and Allston are both reasonable options to look for an apartment. Any further and you will probably have a tougher time getting to class or hosting friends at your place. Cambridge is nice because there are a lot more restaurant options and people generally choose to hang out at the bars there after class but it’s probably a bit pricier.

Most people don’t get to campus until the weekend before START Week.

A ton of people will sell furniture in August because they are moving out. You can negotiate with folks on the whatsapp buy/sell groups and get great deals.

Pre-MBA Treks:

The MBA experience starts before the actual start of school. Generally, the value of these Pre-MBA trips is the chance to meet lots of your future classmates and make friends before getting to campus.

I went to Yacht Week which is the canonical trip for pre-HBS. There are about 350 HBS students and 100 GSB students that fly to Croatia and spend a week on sail boats in the Adriatic sea.

As a vacation experience, I had a great time, but it wouldn’t be how I plan a trip. You can imagine lots of parties, exotic nightclubs, and boat hopping with hundreds of drunk students at 2am. Lots of people party like it’s their last chance to ever party.

You’ll spend the first half of the week exchanging small talk and pleasantries 200 times and then hopefully the second half of the week will be really meaningful and make for some life changing memories.

But despite the craziness of that experience and lack of sleep, the experience is so worth it. You meet 150 students and some of those will end up being really close friends when you get to campus. For the first few weeks of school, people end up inviting their Yacht week friends to small group gatherings and parties. So you will have a community you can rely on from the first day. This is the primary value of the Pre-MBA treks.

There are other treks you can consider if you are really opposed to Yacht Week. This year, we had Morocco as an alternative.

For me, I kinda regretted going to Croatia while I was there. I didn’t enjoy the small talk and craved more sleep. But looking back I am extremely grateful I went because of the friends I made before school started.

Core Classes:

These are absolute pain. Try to test out of them if you can. They take a long time and you can still choose to take the course content if you want to.

The accounting one is extremely valuable. It goes through all of the content that you will need to know for the first Financial Reporting and Controls class in the first semester. The accounting core class honestly takes 50+ hours so you should budget a lot of time for it.

The excel one was useful to learn about some of the excel shortcuts but I already forgot them.

START Week:

Alright, welcome to Boston! You made it to school and hopefully the transition went by ok.