Summer Fellowships
The Arthur M. Rock Center for Entrepreneurship oversees the Rock Summer Fellowship program funded with gifts from Arthur Rock and the John F. Lebor Family.
The Rock Summer Fellowship is competitive and we always have more applications than funding available. In past years, we have been able to fund less than half of the applications. And, it is difficult to know what demand will be until the actual deadline, by which point it will be too late to help calibrate applicants' expectations and sense of how competitive the process will be. So, please be conservative in any estimates you make of your chances of receiving a fellowship as you consider your options and course of action. Note also that the criteria below are intended to help, but the actual "bar" will—by necessity—have to be set as a function of the number of applicants and the quality of those applications. The awards committee reserves the right to create a pool of all the applications at or above a given quality level and conduct a "lottery" among that pool if it chooses to do so.
Students may submit only one application. All applications will be considered after the submission deadline listed below and all awards made after that date. We know that some applicants will have offers early in the cycle, and that our inability to respond to your application may be a hardship in terms of responding promptly to your offer. However, we have found that—given our limited funding—the only way to create a fair and level playing field is to consider all applicants at the same time.
Note that applications will be considered based purely on the paper application submission. In fairness, we can't take into account any conversations we may have had with applicants, or any information not in the application itself. There won't be time to circle back to ask for clarifications or amplifications, so your application will be evaluated strictly on the paper submission.
Also note that the committee has no information on the financial need to students; financial need—or lack thereof—is not a factor in the deliberations.
Attend the information session and panel discussion with second-year students on finding a job or working on your own business for the summer on 3/26/13 at 3:30 PM in Aldrich 108 or watch the video (Login Required) if you miss it in person (video available April 1).
Working for an Existing Entrepreneurial Venture
Students should find their own internship position and negotiate the terms before submitting their application. RC students looking for internship positions can view the postings on Career Hub (Login Required) by following these steps: under Job Search, select the box next to "Include HBS Coordinated Interviews," go to Advanced Search; choose "Yes" under the Start-Up category. Contact MBA Career & with any questions about this search process.
The Rock Summer Fellowships subsidize MBAs during their summer work experience (between first and second year) in order to allow students with an interest in smaller, entrepreneurial ventures to take a job at such a company without the usual financial sacrifice this would impose. The Fellowships also help subsidize students working on their own ventures.
The program attempts to make up the difference between the compensation that the company is able to provide by itself and the roughly $1,200/week compensation for summer work experience that the fellowship targets. We do this with a sponsorship grant for up to a maximum of $600/week. It is our preference that the company provides half (or more) of the $1,200 target amount, with the remainder coming from our subsidy. If the company's subsidy is greater than $1200/week, there is no contribution possible from us. If the company either cannot fully match or offers only unpaid internships, we will consider a fellowship application in conjunction with a letter from the CEO or top executive. Such a letter should verify the compensation commitment (or an explanation for why it does not provide matching dollars) and demonstrate a a strong commitment to the internship (e.g. student reports to CEO or senior executive; plan for internship is well articulated with a specific and defined set of deliverables). Internal HBS contact points and references may be helpful in this case as well.
It is the intent of the fellowships to encourage student entrepreneurial experiences that might not otherwise occur. The program favors full-length (i.e. 10-12 week) student assignments where the student will be working directly for the entrepreneur or another senior executive, and where the project is a substantive one with a significant opportunity to contribute to the enterprise. The program also favors student projects in operations-oriented companies rather than professional service businesses. Sponsoring companies must have less than $25 million in revenues and fewer than 200 employees. The position must be a full-time assignment at the company's facility. There is generally a maximum of one fellowship award per sponsoring company, and preference will be given to companies that have not had fellows before. See Guidelines for Participation/Criteria below.
Note that students working for or starting a non-profit/social enterprise are generally encouraged to apply for a Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship. You may not apply to both programs.
Working on your Own Business
The fellowships are also available for students seeking to start (or advance) their own new ventures during their RC-EC summer. In these cases, the fellowship still has a maximum award of $6,000, but we understand that there is unlikely to be a "matching" element from the company. We can fund more than one HBS student per start-up, but are unable to give more than two fellowships worth of funding (i.e. a maximum total of $12,000) to any one team or idea. For applications in this category, students will be expected to submit a business plan and their plan for the summer (see more details below).
For students working on their FIELD III start-up: please note that if your application for the fellowship is approved, you will be required to obtain signatures from each of your FIELD III co-founders indicating they are on-board with you working on the business for the summer as a Rock Summer Fellow.
Note that students working for or starting a non-profit/social enterprise are generally encouraged to apply for a Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship. You may not apply to both programs.
Applications
Application materials must be submitted in hardcopy form to Alice Moses in Rock Center 107.
Contact Meredith McPherron mmcpherron+hbs.edu or Alice Moses amoses+hbs.edu with any questions.
Application Materials
Applications should consist of the following:
A) Working for an existing business:
- Poll Submission
- Application Cover Sheet
- Memorandum from the applicant, including these components:
> current resume;
> a full description of the proposed project and a detailed assessment of how you believe the experience will contribute to your educational experience in the MBA program and your own career development;
> a description of the company and its history, including sales for the most recent twelve months and number of employees. To be eligible, a company must have less than $25 million in revenues and fewer than 200 employees. - A letter from the host company indicating:
> its plan for you for the summer, the compensation it will provide, your plan of employment, the dates of your employment, and information about who will supervise your work. The letter should be signed by the CEO or another senior executive. Contact phone number and e-mail address should be included so that the selection committee can contact this person (if necessary).
B) Working on your own business:
- Poll Submission
- Application Cover Sheet
- a business plan indicating the state of the business;
- funding requirements and funding status of the business;
- the long-term plan as well as specific objectives/tasks you hope to accomplish over the summer;
- a proposal for what you would submit at the end of the summer to demonstrate having accomplished this work.
Application Deadline
Fellowship applications must be submitted by 12:00 noon on April 19, 2013. Late applications will not be accepted. Applications will be evaluated by a committee of HBS faculty and Rock Center staff. Recipients will be selected based on the degree to which their projects appear to offer contributions to the enterprise and a good learning experience for the student, consistent with the guidelines below.
Guidelines for Participation
The intention of the program is to allow students to experience an entrepreneurial summer with an operational company that they might not have previously considered. Below are important criteria to consider while preparing your application:
Requirements/Criteria (for companies other than student's own new venture)
- Operational and funded/financed companies (consulting, research, brokerage, or investment funds/companies are unacceptable), with:
- More than ten employees, but less than 200;
- Less than $25 million in revenues;
- Must be entrepreneurial in nature;
- Generally, a maximum of one fellow per company per summer;
- Student responsibilities should be clearly defined by the company;
- A senior executive internal mentor should be assigned by the company to work with the student on a regular basis;
- Operational function or exposure to operational functions preferred;
- Responsibilities should not be based solely on research/analysis, and should be articulated carefully and thoroughly in both the application/student memo and the company letter.
Requirements for Working on your Own Business
Preference will be given to proposals where the student has performed a thorough opportunity analysis and intends to actually start the business, as opposed to using the summer to perform that earlier phase of work. Preference is also given to businesses other than consulting, research, brokerage, or investment funds/companies.
Student Responsibilities
All applicants: complete the poll and submit the hardcopy application by the deadline listed above.
For students working at an existing business: prepare a three- to five-page end-of-summer report and set of power point slides that describes your experience, how the experience differed from your expectations, what you learned from it, business and career "lessons," and how you expect the experience to affect your career choices. You must also provide contact information for an executive at the sponsor company familiar with your work so we can send this person a survey. We will also have a Rock Summer Fellows wrap-up session where we will ask you to share your learnings and experience with others.
For students working on your own new venture: a series of three reports will be due during the summer (June 30, July 30, August 30) and a final, summary report will be due at the end of the summer (4 reports total). We will also ask you to participate in a Rock Summer Fellows wrap up session to share your learnings and experience. Complete details on these reports will be sent to fellows before the summer starts.