Harvard Business School believes that your financial circumstances should never prevent you from applying to or attending our MBA program.
If you are a R1 or R2 MBA applicant and your annual income at your current or most recent place of employment is $65,000 USD or less, the need-based application fee waiver will automatically apply after you submit your application. If you do not automatically qualify or are a 2+2 applicant and would like to request one due to financial hardship, you may submit a need-based waiver request form.
To request a need-based fee waiver, you will need to start an application and complete the fee waiver request form inside. This request must be submitted two (2) weeks before the application round deadline in which you are applying to allow for processing time. Your full application does not need to be completed nor submitted by that time, just the fee waiver request form.
You can find out whether you are approved for a fee waiver before you decide to apply to HBS. We ask you to use this form to share your 2022 income information (or 2023 income information for 2+2 applicants) as well as your financial circumstances and reasons for requesting a need-based fee waiver. You may wish to include information about your income, financial assets, educational debt, family obligations, and/or any extenuating circumstances that may warrant a fee waiver. Please be aware that in some circumstances, the Admissions Office may request additional documentation after you submit this form.
After submitting the form, we will contact you via email to confirm whether or not we are able to provide a fee waiver. If your fee waiver request is not approved, you will have 48 hours or up until the application deadline date (if that has not passed) to be considered in that round. If your fee waiver request is not approved and you do not submit an application fee, your application will not be considered.
Please note, admission to Harvard Business School is need-blind which means we do not take your financial circumstances into account when making an admissions decision. The information collected in the fee waiver is not shared with the MBA Admissions Board. If you are accepted to Harvard Business School you will have the opportunity to apply for need-based financial aid in a separate financial aid process.