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Home -> Harvard HBS -> 2009-2010 Harvard Essays and Tips |
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Harvard Essays and Tips (2009-2010) |
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Harvard Essays and Essay Tips (2009-2010): First get the basic principles right and then move on to the essay tips. Except for the two new choice essays the essay questions in this year's HBS application remain substantially the same. An essay package that offers excellent scope to present a multi-faceted candidature to the Harvard admissions committee. Harvard Essay 1 What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit) Harvard Essay 1 Tips Straightforward question from Harvard. So start off by forming a straightforward note that lists the 5-6 key achievements from your professional, personal or academic life. Having done that, look at the Harvard MBA application essay package as a whole and then revisit the list. Since you might later write essays highlighting aspects of your leadership, undergraduate days, worldview or career vision, ensuring that abilities/skills already highlighted aren't repeated. The rider to that is that since this is Harvard and since this is an MBA application, there is an exception to that rule - leadership. A generous sprinkling of leadership instances across the entire package might be acceptable and this first essay may be the place for at least one. The final choice can now be made based on the general importance of the achievements, the extent of your contribution to it's success and what the stories tell about you. Choose the qualities that the accomplishments highlight and decide if those are the traits that you want the Harvard admissions committee to remember about you. Of course the second part of the question "why do you view them as such" is truly where you must start from: clarify your position on the "why" and you will almost automatically arrive at the answer to the first part. Go for it! Harvard Essay 2 What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit) Harvard Essay 2 Tips This is a straight failure essay. Learning is however the key aspect of the essay, not the failure as such. Think about why you are writing this Harvard essay and find a situation that has created a difference in your thought process, leadership style, behavior or value system. Once you get a substantial "learning" you can go to the printers with the story. This year the choice of examples and incidents for the Harvard application essays will be extremely difficult as you are presented with a rich collection of choices. Your choice in Essay 2 depends on your preferred essay questions in question 3. Go for it! Harvard Essay 3 Please respond to two of the following (400-word limit each) Harvard Essay 3.1 1. What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience? Harvard Essay 3.1 Tips As an academic experience preceding the Harvard MBA, your undergraduate performance might be a good guide to what you are capable of at HBS. This Harvard essay should speak of that formative phase in your life that has now made you the irresistible applicant/scholar that you are today! Write about all that you found interesting, influential and character-shaping during your undergraduate academic experience. And talk about what YOU helped shape during those years. While "academic" might seem a little limiting, please do not restrict yourself to classroom activities: examples of your initiatives, creativity or leadership in the academic sphere (inside and outside the classroom) could top the list of what may put in. Your choice of electives/program, your suggestions for course/class/program/college improvement, your paper presentation/original research are some possibilities apart from simple recounting of academic brilliance. The little problem with the question is that after a substantial work experience period (4-5+) or following a post graduate academic experience you might find it a little tough to backtrack and look into your undergraduate phase. Also you might feel that the "academic" aspects of your undergraduate days were not exactly electrifying. In which case simply overlook this one and select another essay to write - unlike two years back this is not a mandatory essay! Harvard Essay 3.2 2. Discuss how you have engaged with a community or organization. Harvard Essay 3.2 Tips Have you led or been an important component of an organization or community activity? Do you have significant volunteer activity in your resume? In dealing with a community (in which you might have worked or lived or not) have you exhibited praiseworthy skills and/or attitude that would make the HBS adcom misty-eyed with admiration? Communication, relationship building, leadership, networking, inclusive world view - any or all of these qualities you possess could be covered to best advantage in this essay. Harvard Essay 3.3 3. Tell us about a time when you made a difficult decision. Harvard Essay 3.3 Tips Select a specific situation wherein your decision was difficult - either because it was unpopular or because you stood to lose materially or emotionally. The motivations and reasons that support your decision will be the foundation of this essay. Recount a dilemma you faced in choosing between diverging options. Your reasoning process, decision making skills, strength of purpose and moral rectitude are some of the possible critical factors that can be highlighted in this essay. How you make your judgments about events and people, the methods you adopt to understand varied situations and how you balance the various options to make your decision could be your main areas of focus. Though it is not essential that this be a "success" story where ultimately everyone lives happily ever after, it would be nice to know that your decision ultimately paid off for everyone involved. A display of your strength of character, robust value system and/or intellectual courage might be adequate to polish off the essay. Go for it! Harvard Essay 3.4 4. Write a cover letter to your application introducing yourself to the Admissions Board. Harvard Essay 3.4 Tips Write an essay in cover letter format which highlights your main qualifications to be part of Harvard Business School and explains why you should be admitted to Harvard and mentions why you are interested in HBS. And yes, this will also act as your "goals essay", unless you plan to use essay 3.5 to that end. Since this is an all-purpose essay (oops.. cover letter) a holistic picture of your candidature needs to be presented, including your career progression, your personal achievements/interests, your expectations from Harvard and your "fit" with HBS. How you contribute to the Harvard MBA class would be an underlying overt or subliminal theme. Harvard Essay 3.5 5. What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you? Harvard Essay 3.5 Tips A leading MBA essayist recently told me that she felt dizzy every time she tried to imagine the number of applicants who want to graduate from a leading Ivy League B School, join McKinsey (or another leading Management Consultancy) and then found their own company. If you imagine the career track in your Harvard essay to be similar to that, perhaps you should think again. Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with the idea (or with McKinsey or with entrepreneurship) but that is certainly not a differentiating or different answer. Some lucid thinking and creativity will go a long way in transforming this from a well-disguised sleeping pill to the high point of your Harvard application. Harvard gives you greater scope than in a usual "what is your career goal" question. Define the goal and explain your vision. Show how it makes sense for you and for HBS. Strategic thinking, passion and intelligence: show these in the essay and you'll have my vote.
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