Tuesday’s Headlines: Q&A with Harvard Business School's Admissions Managing Director

It’s an MBA applicant’s dream-come-true: an interview with Dee Leopold, the head of admissions for Harvard Business School. Read all about it in this Wall Street Journal article, in which Leopold reveals some interesting tidbits. She personally reads 1,800 of the 9,000 applications. Just 900 applicants are accepted each year. The scoop:

• The school is admitting more engineers and applicants with entrepreneurial and international experience.
• Students tend to over-emphasize the importance of the essay and use too much jargon and literary flair.
• The best recommendations have lots of verbs.
• “Successful re-applicants use the same basics, but they simply reflect on it with another year of maturity or judgment,” Leopold says.

Other News:

A lending program that taps on business school alumni to fund loans for international students will come to the U.S. this year. [Businessweek]

Wells Fargo will expand into 20 markets around the globe. [Financial Times]

Goldman lost $103 million in Asia last year for the first time since 2008. [Bloomberg]

Goldman expanded its suite of algorithms for electronic trading in Brazil. [On Wall Street]

A team of three Merrill advisors that managed $1.4 billion joined HighTower. [Investment News]

KKR formed a $250 million partnership with Chesapeake Energy. [NY Times]

BofA will lay off 62 employees at its Jacksonville, Fla. office. [Jacksonville Business Journal]

AIG completed the $6 billion sale of its Asian business, American International Assurance. [Financial Times]

Nasdaq and Axioma launch commodity equity indexes. [On Wall Street]

Monster Worldwide retained Stone Key and BofA as advisors. [DealBook]

European lawmakers propose pay caps for bankers. [Bloomberg]

Oaktree raises $4 billion for a distressed Europe fund. [Businessweek] 

Singapore-based hedge funds Henderson Group and Tantallon Capital closed down. [Reuters]