essay questions for harvard

Harvard University

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Harvard University’s 2023-24 Essay Prompts

Diversity short response.

Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard?

Intellectual Experience Short Response

Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.

Extracurricular Short Response

Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are.

Future Goals Short Response

How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future?

Roommate Short Response

Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.

Common App Personal Essay

The essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice. What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response. Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don‘t feel obligated to do so.

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you‘ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

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What are your chances of acceptance?

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Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

How to Write the Harvard University Essays 2023-2024

Harvard University, perhaps the most prestigious and well-known institution in the world, is the nation’s oldest higher learning establishment with a founding date of 1636. Boasting an impressive alumni network from Sheryl Sandberg to Al Gore, it’s no surprise that Harvard recruits some of the top talents in the world.

It’s no wonder that students are often intimidated by Harvard’s extremely open-ended supplemental essays. However, CollegeVine is here to help and offer our guide on how to tackle Harvard’s supplemental essays.

Read this Harvard essay example to inspire your own writing.

How to Write the Harvard University Supplemental Essays

Prompt 1: Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard? (200 words)

Prompt 2: Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. (200 words)

Prompt 3: Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are. (200 words)

Prompt 4: How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future? (200 words)

Prompt 5: Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you. (200 words)

Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard? (200 words)

Brainstorming Your Topic

This prompt is a great example of the classic diversity supplemental essay . That means that, as you prepare to write your response, the first thing you need to do is focus in on some aspect of your identity, upbringing, or personality that makes you different from other people.

As you start brainstorming, do remember that the way colleges factor race into their admissions processes will be different this year, after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in June. Colleges can still consider race on an individual level, however, so if you would like to write your response about how your racial identity has impacted you, you are welcome to do so.

If race doesn’t seem like the right topic for you, however, keep in mind that there are many other things that can make us different, not just race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and the other aspects of our identities that people normally think of when they hear the word “diversity.” That’s not to say that you can’t write about those things, of course. But don’t worry if you don’t feel like those things have played a significant role in shaping your worldview. Here are some examples of other topics that could support a strong essay:

Moving to several different cities because of your parents’ jobs
An usual hobby, like playing the accordion or making your own jewelry
Knowing a lot about a niche topic, like Scottish castles

The only questions you really need to ask yourself when picking a topic are “Does this thing set me apart from other people?” and “Will knowing this thing about me give someone a better sense of who I am overall?” As long as you can answer “yes” to both of those questions, you’ve found your topic!

Tips for Writing Your Essay

Once you’ve selected a topic, the question becomes how you’re going to write about that topic in a way that helps Harvard admissions officers better understand how you’re going to contribute to their campus community. To do that, you want to connect your topic to some broader feature of your personality, or to a meaningful lesson you learned, that speaks to your potential as a Harvard student.

For example, perhaps your interest in Scottish castles has given you an appreciation for the strength of the human spirit, as the Scots were able to persevere and build these structures even in incredibly remote, cold parts of the country. Alternatively, maybe being half Puerto Rican, but not speaking Spanish, has taught you about the power of family, as you have strong relationships even with relatives you can’t communicate with verbally.

Remember that, like with any college essay, you want to rely on specific anecdotes and experiences to illustrate the points you’re making. To understand why, compare the following two excerpts from hypothetical essays.

Example 1: “Even though I can’t speak Spanish, and some of my relatives can’t speak English, whenever I visit my family in Puerto Rico I know it’s a place where I belong. The island is beautiful, and I especially love going to the annual party at my uncle’s house.”

Example 2: “The smell of the ‘lechón,’ or suckling pig greets me as soon as I enter my uncle’s home, even before everyone rushes in from the porch to welcome me in rapid-fire Spanish. At best, I understand one in every ten words, but my aunt’s hot pink glasses, the Caribbean Sea visible through the living room window, and of course, the smell of roasting pork, tell me, wordlessly yet undeniably, that I’m home.”

Think about how much better we understand this student after Example 2. If a few words were swapped out, Example 1 could’ve been written by anyone, whereas Example 2 paints us a clear picture of how this student’s Puerto Rican heritage has tangibly impacted their life.

Mistakes to Avoid

The biggest challenge with this particular “Diversity” essay is the word count. Because you only have 200 words to work with, you don’t have space to include more than one broader takeaway you’ve learned from this aspect of your identity.

Of course, people are complicated, and you’ve likely learned many things from being Puerto Rican, or from being interested in Scottish castles. But for the sake of cohesion, focus on just one lesson. Otherwise your essay may end up feeling like a bullet-point list of Hallmark card messages, rather than a thoughtful, personal, reflective piece of writing.

The other thing you want to avoid is writing an essay that’s just about your topic. Particularly since you’re going to be writing about an aspect of your identity that’s important to you, you’ll likely have a lot to say just about that. If you aren’t careful, you may burn through all 200 words without getting to the broader significance of what this piece of your personality says about who you are as a whole.

That component, however, is really the key to a strong response. Harvard receives over 40,000 applications a year, which means that, whether you write about being Puerto Rican or Scottish castles, it’s likely someone else is writing about something similar.

That doesn’t mean you need to agonize over picking something absolutely nobody else is writing about, as that’s practically impossible. All it means is that you need to be clear about how this aspect of your identity has shaped you as a whole, as that is how your essay will stand out from others with similar topics.

Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. (200 words)

Harvard admissions officers are being considerate here, as they’re telling you explicitly what they would like you to write about. Of course, there are still nuances to the prompt, but in terms of brainstorming, just ask yourself: What is an intellectual experience that’s been important to me?

Keep in mind that “intellectual” doesn’t necessarily mean “academic.” You absolutely can write a great response about a paper, project, or some other experience you had through school. But you could also write about attending a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic, or about a book you read for fun that made a big impact on you. So long as the experience was intellectually stimulating, you can write a strong essay about it.

Once you’ve picked an experience, the key is to describe it in a way that shows Harvard admissions officers how this experience has prepared you to contribute to their classrooms, and campus community as a whole. In other words, don’t just tell them what you did, but also what you learned and why that matters for understanding what kind of college student you’ll be.

For example, say you choose to write about a debate project you did in your American history class, where you had to prepare for both sides and only learned which one you would actually be defending on the day of the debate. You could describe how, although you came into the project with pre-existing opinions about the topic, the preparation process taught you that, if you’re thoughtful and open-minded, you can usually find merit and logic even in the polar opposite position from your own.

Alternatively, you could write about a book you read that had been translated from Danish, and how reading it got you interested in learning more about how to translate a text as faithfully as possible. After watching many interviews with translators and reading a book about translation, you have learned that sometimes, the most literal translation doesn’t capture the spirit from the original language, which to you is proof that, in any piece of writing, the human element is at least as important as the words on the page.

Notice that both of these examples include broader reflections that zoom out from the particular experiences, to show what you took away from them: increased open-mindedness to different perspectives, for the first, and a more nuanced understanding of what makes art, art, in the case of the second.

A strong response must include this kind of big-picture takeaway, as it shows readers two things. First, that you can reflect thoughtfully on your experiences and learn from them. And second, it shows them a skill or perspective you’d be bringing with you to Harvard, which gives them a better sense of how you’d fit into their campus community.

The only real thing you need to watch out for is accidentally selecting an experience that, for whatever reason, doesn’t allow you to incorporate the kind of bigger-picture takeaway described above. Maybe the experience just happened, so you’re still in the process of learning from it. Or maybe the lessons you learned are too nuanced to describe in 200 words.

Whatever this reason, if you find yourself unable to articulate the broader significance of this experience, head back to the drawing board, to select one that works better for this prompt. What you don’t want to do is try to force in a takeaway that doesn’t really fit, as that will make your essay feel generic or disjointed, since the “moral of the story” won’t clearly connect to the story itself.

Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are. (200 words)

This is a textbook example of the “Extracurricular” essay . As such, what you need to do is well-defined, although it’s easier said than done: select an extracurricular activity that has, as Harvard says, “shaped who you are,” and make sure you’re able to articulate how it’s been formative for you.

As you brainstorm which extracurricular you want to write about, note that the language of the prompt is pretty open-ended. You write about “any” activity, not just one you have a lot of accolades in, and you don’t even have to write about an activity—you can also write about a travel experience, or family responsibility.

If the thing that immediately jumps to mind is a club, sport, volunteer experience, or other “traditional” extracurricular, that’s great! Run with that. But if you’re thinking and nothing in that vein seems quite right, or, alternatively, you’re feeling bold and want to take a creative approach, don’t be afraid to get outside the box. Here are some examples of other topics you could write a strong essay about:

A more hobby-like extracurricular, like crocheting potholders and selling them on Etsy
Driving the Pacific Coast Highway on your own
Caring for your family’s two large, colorful macaws

These more creative topics can do a lot to showcase a different side of you, as college applications have, by their nature, a pretty restricted scope, and telling admissions officers about something that would never appear on your resume or transcript can teach them a lot about who you are. That being said, the most important thing is that the topic you pick has genuinely been formative for you. Whether it’s a conventional topic or not, as long as that personal connection is there, you’ll be able to write a strong essay about it.

The key to writing a strong response is focusing less on the activity itself, and more on what you’ve learned from your involvement in it. If you’re writing about a more conventional topic, remember that admissions officers already have your activities list. You don’t need to say “For the last five years, I’ve been involved in x,” because they already know that, and when you only have 200 words, wasting even 10 of them means you’ve wasted 5% of your space.

If you’re writing about something that doesn’t already show up elsewhere in your application, you want to provide enough details for your reader to understand what you did, but not more than that. For example, if you’re writing about your road trip, you don’t need to list every city you stopped in. Instead, just mention one or two that were particularly memorable.

Rather than focusing on the facts and figures of what you did, focus on what you learned from your experience. Admissions officers want to know why your involvement in this thing matters to who you’ll be in college. So, think about one or two bigger picture things you learned from it, and center your response around those things.

For example, maybe your Etsy shop taught you how easy it is to bring some positivity into someone else’s life, as crocheting is something you would do anyways, and the shop just allows you to share your creations with other people. Showcasing this uplifting, altruistic side of yourself will help admissions officers better envision what kind of Harvard student you’d be.

As always, you want to use specific examples to support your points, at least as much as you can in 200 words. Because you’re dealing with a low word count, you probably won’t have space to flex your creative writing muscles with vivid, immersive descriptions.

You can still incorporate anecdotes in a more economical way, however. For example, you could say “Every morning, our scarlet macaw ruffles her feathers and greets me with a prehistoric chirp.” You’re not going into detail about what her feathers look like, or where this scene is happening, but it’s still much more engaging than something like “My bird always says hello to me in her own way.”

The most common pitfall with an “Extracurricular” essay is describing your topic the way you would on your resume. Don’t worry about showing off some “marketable skill” you think admissions officers want to see, and instead highlight whatever it is you actually took away from this experience, whether it’s a skill, a realization, or a personality trait. The best college essays are genuine, as admissions officers feel that honesty, and know they’re truly getting to know the applicant as they are, rather than some polished-up version.

Additionally, keep in mind that, like with anything in your application, you want admissions officers to learn something new about you when reading this essay. So, if you’ve already written your common app essay about volunteering at your local animal shelter, you shouldn’t also write this essay about that experience. Your space in your application is already extremely limited, so don’t voluntarily limit yourself even further by repeating yourself when you’re given an opportunity to say something new.

How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future? (200 words)

Although the packaging is a little different, this prompt has similarities to the classic “Why This College?” prompt . That means there are two main things you want to do while brainstorming.

First, identify one or two goals you have for the future—with just 200 words, you won’t have space to elaborate on any more than that. Ideally, these should be relatively concrete. You don’t have to have your whole life mapped out, but you do need to be a lot more specific than “Make a difference in the world.” A more zoomed-in version of that goal would be something like “Contribute to conservation efforts to help save endangered species,” which would work.

Second, hop onto Harvard’s website and do some research on opportunities the school offers that would help you reach your goals. Again, make sure these are specific enough. Rather than a particular major, which is likely offered at plenty of other schools around the country, identify specific courses within that major you would like to take, or a professor in the department you would like to do research with. For example, the student interested in conservation might mention the course “Conservation Biology” at Harvard.

You could also write about a club, or a study abroad program, or really anything that’s unique to Harvard, so long as you’re able to draw a clear connection between the opportunity and your goal. Just make sure that, like with your goals, you don’t get overeager. Since your space is quite limited, you should choose two, or maximum three, opportunities to focus on. Any more than that and your essay will start to feel rushed and bullet point-y.

If you do your brainstorming well, the actual writing process should be pretty straightforward: explain your goals, and how the Harvard-specific opportunities you’ve selected will help you reach them.

One thing you do want to keep in mind is that your goals should feel personal to you, and the best way to accomplish that is by providing some background context on why you have them. This doesn’t have to be extensive, as, again, your space is limited. But compare the following two examples, written about the hypothetical goal of helping conservation efforts from above, to get an idea of what we’re talking about:

Example 1: “As long as I can remember, I’ve loved all kinds of animals, and have been heartbroken by the fact that human destruction of natural resources could lead to certain species’ extinction.”

Example 2: “As a kid, I would sit in front of the aquarium’s walrus exhibit, admiring the animal’s girth and tusks, and dream about seeing one in the wild. Until my parents regretfully explained to me that, because of climate change, that was unlikely to ever happen.”

The second example is obviously longer, but not egregiously so: 45 words versus 31. And the image we get of this student sitting and fawning over a walrus is worth that extra space, as we feel a stronger personal connection to them, which in turn makes us more vicariously invested in their own goal of environmental advocacy.

As we’ve already described in the brainstorming section, the key to this essay is specificity. Admissions officers want you to paint them a picture of how Harvard fits into your broader life goals. As we noted earlier, that doesn’t mean you have to have everything figured out, but if you’re too vague about your goals, or how you see Harvard helping you reach them, admissions officers won’t see you as someone who’s prepared to contribute to their campus community.

Along similar lines, avoid flattery. Gushy lines like “At Harvard, every day I’ll feel inspired by walking the same halls that countless Nobel laureates, politicians, and CEOs once traversed” won’t get you anywhere, because Harvard admissions officers already know their school is one of the most prestigious and famous universities in the world. What they don’t know is what you are going to bring to Harvard that nobody else has. So, that’s what you want to focus on, not vague, surface-level attributes of Harvard related to its standing in the world of higher education.

Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you. (200 words)

Like Prompt 2, this prompt tells you exactly what you need to brainstorm: three things a roommate would like to know about you. However, also like Prompt 2, while this prompt is direct, it’s also incredibly open-ended. What really are the top three things you’d like a complete stranger to know about you before you live together for nine months?

Questions this broad can be hard to answer, as you might not know where to start. Sometimes, you can help yourself out by asking yourself adjacent, but slightly more specific questions, like the following:

Do you have any interests that influence your regular routine? For example, do you always watch the Seahawks on Sunday, or are you going to be playing Taylor Swift’s discography on repeat while you study?
Look around your room—what items are most important to you? Do you keep your movie ticket stubs? Are you planning on taking your photos of your family cat with you to college?
Are there any activities you love and already know you’d want to do with your roommate, like weekly face masks or making Christmas cookies?

Hopefully, these narrower questions, and the example responses we’ve included, help get your gears turning. Keep in mind that this prompt is a great opportunity to showcase sides of your personality that don’t come across in your grades, activities list, or even your personal statement. Don’t worry about seeming impressive—admissions officers don’t expect you to read Shakespeare every night for two hours. What they want is an honest, informative picture of what you’re like “behind the scenes,” because college is much more than just academics.

Once you’ve selected three things to write about, the key to the actual essay is presenting them in a logical, cohesive, efficient way. That’s easier said than done, particularly if the three things you’ve picked are quite different from each other.

To ensure your essay feels like one, complete unit, rather than three smaller ones stuck together, strong transitions will be crucial. Note that “strong” doesn’t mean “lengthy.” Just a few words can go a long way towards helping your essay flow naturally. To see what we mean here, take the following two examples:

Example 1: “Just so you know, every Sunday I will be watching the Seahawks, draped in my dad’s Steve Largent jersey. They can be a frustrating team, but I’ll do my best to keep it down in case you’re studying. I also like to do facemasks, though. You’re always welcome to any of the ones I have in my (pretty extensive) collection.”

Example 2: “Just so you know, every Sunday I will be watching the Seahawks, draped in my dad’s Steve Largent jersey. But if football’s not your thing, don’t worry—once the game’s over, I’ll need to unwind anyways, because win or lose the Hawks always find a way to make things stressful. So always feel free to join me in picking out a face mask from my (pretty extensive) collection, and we can gear up for the week together.”

The content in both examples is the same, but in the first one, the transition from football to facemasks is very abrupt. On the other hand, in the second example the simple line “But if football’s not your thing, don’t worry” keeps things flowing smoothly.

There’s no one right way to write a good transition, but as you’re polishing your essay a good way to see if you’re on the right track is by asking someone who hasn’t seen your essay before to read it over and tell you if there are any points that made them pause. If the answer is yes, your transitions probably still need more work.

Finally, you probably noticed that the above examples are both written in a “Dear roomie” style, as if you’re actually speaking directly to your roommate. You don’t have to take this exact approach, but your tone should ideally be light and fun. Living alone for the first time, with other people your age, is one of the best parts of college! Plus, college applications are, by their nature, pretty dry affairs for the most part. Lightening things up in this essay will give your reader a breath of fresh air, which will help them feel more engaged in your application as a whole.

Harvard is doing you a favor here by keeping the scope of the essay narrow—they ask for three things, not more. As we’ve noted many times with the other supplements, 200 words will be gone in a flash, so don’t try to cram in extra things. It’s not necessary to do that, because admissions officers have only asked for three, and trying to stuff more in will turn your essay into a list of bullet points, rather than an informative piece of writing about your personality.

Finally, as we’ve hinted at a few times above, the other thing you want to avoid is using this essay as another opportunity to impress admissions officers with your intellect and accomplishments. Remember, they have your grades, and your activities list, and all your other essays. Plus, they can ask you whatever questions they want—if they wanted to know about the most difficult book you’ve ever read, they would. So, loosen up, let your hair down, and show them you know how to have fun too!

Where to Get Your Harvard Essays Edited

Do you want feedback on your Harvard essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

How To Answer Harvard's 2023/24 Supplemental Essays: Tips & Insights

What's New in 2023/24

What are Harvard's Essay Prompts?

How to Answer Harvard's Essay Prompts

General Guidelines

Explore the changes in Harvard's supplemental essay prompts for 2023/24, understand the nuances of each question, and gain insights on crafting compelling responses with our detailed guide, complete with expert tips and links to successful Harvard essay examples.

Harvard's 2023/24 Supplemental Essay Updates: What's Changed?

Gaining admission to Harvard is no small feat, with acceptance rates sometimes plummeting as low as 3% . In such a competitive environment, every component of your application, especially your essay, becomes a crucial tool to stand out to admissions officers.

Every year, top-tier universities like Harvard fine-tune their application process to get a deeper understanding of their applicants. For the 2023/24 admissions cycle, Harvard University has made notable modifications to its supplemental essay questions .

Last year, applicants had a mix of required and optional prompts, with varying word limits, ranging from 50 to 150 words. These prompts touched on extracurricular activities, intellectual experiences, personal backgrounds, and more.

This year, Harvard has streamlined the process, requiring all applicants to answer five questions, each with a strict 200-word limit . The questions emphasize the importance of diversity, intellectual experiences, extracurricular activities, the utilization of a Harvard education, and personal insights for potential roommates.

This shift indicates a desire for more concise, focused responses from applicants, allowing the admissions committee to gain a clearer, more uniform understanding of each student's background, aspirations, and personality.

What Are Harvard’s Supplemental Essay Prompts for 2023/24?

For the 2023/24 application cycle, Harvard University has outlined specific supplemental essay prompts to understand applicants better in addition to the Common App or Coalition App questions. These questions delve into your experiences, intellectual pursuits, and personal insights. Students are required to answer each Harvard-specific question in under 200 words. Here's a breakdown of the prompts:

Diversity and Contribution : Harvard values a diverse student body. Reflect on your life experiences and explain how they have shaped you and how you plan to contribute to Harvard. (200 words)
Intellectual Experience : Discuss an intellectual experience that has had a significant impact on you. (200 words)
Personal Shaping Experiences : Elaborate on extracurricular activities, employment, travel, or family responsibilities that have played a pivotal role in defining who you are. (200 words)
Future Aspirations : Describe how you envision utilizing your Harvard education in the future. (200 words)
Getting to Know You : List three things your future roommates should know about you. (200 words)

These prompts offer applicants a chance to showcase their personalities, aspirations, and experiences, providing a holistic view of their candidacy.

Looking for inspiration? Dive into these Harvard essay examples to see what successful applications look like!

How to Answer Harvard’s Supplemental Essay Questions?

This guide aims to help you craft a compelling response that showcases your unique journey and potential contributions to Harvard's diverse community.

As you begin planning responses to each individual prompt, be sure to consider what experiences, reflections, and qualities you want to showcase once you’ve responded to all the prompts:

Ensure you won’t leave out any important experiences, reflections, and qualities you want Harvard to know about.
Be sure you’ll avoid repeating the same experiences, reflections, or qualities in the other prompts.

Answering Prompt 1

Harvard values a diverse student body. reflect on your life experiences and explain how they have shaped you and how you plan to contribute to harvard., - 200 words or fewer, 1. understand the question.

Harvard is not merely asking for a list of experiences. They want to understand the depth of your experiences , how they've molded your character, and how you'll use that growth to contribute to the Harvard community.

Since Harvard is telling you they value diversity, consider emphasizing unique experiences or circumstances that highlight the most personal and profound aspects of your personality, values, and perspectives.

2. Reflect on Your Unique Experiences

Consider moments in your life that have had a significant impact on your worldview:

Have you lived in multiple countries, exposing you to various cultures?
Did you overcome challenges that forced you to view the world differently?
Were there pivotal moments in your upbringing that shaped your identity?
How did interactions with diverse individuals or groups influence your perspectives?

3. Dive Deep into Personal Growth

Discuss the evolution of your perspectives, values, or aspirations.

How did these experiences challenge your beliefs or expand your understanding?
What lessons did you derive, and how have they influenced your subsequent actions or decisions?
What experiences or reflections shape your deepest beliefs and values? — or, shape some deep questions or doubts you wrestle with?

4. Connect to Harvard

Consider how your unique perspective will enrich Harvard's community .

Will you introduce new viewpoints in classroom discussions or help teams work together more successfully?
Will you contribute to or initiate student organizations or community projects?
Will you exemplify certain traits that enhance a vibrant, curious, and inclusive learning environment?

5. Be Concise and Authentic

With a 200-word limit, precision is key. Ensure your narrative is genuine, making your essay resonate with the reader. Avoid generic statements; instead, provide specific examples that showcase your journey.

Harvard's first supplemental essay is an opportunity to showcase the depth of your experiences and how they've shaped you . Reflecting on significant moments, emphasizing personal growth, and connecting your unique perspective to how you'll contribute to Harvard is essential. Remember to be concise, authentic, and ensure your essay is polished to perfection.

Answering Prompt 2

Discuss an intellectual experience that has had a significant impact on you..

This question aims to help you articulate the depth and significance of an intellectual experience and its profound impact on your academic and personal journey.

1. Define "Intellectual Experience"

Before diving in, understand that an intellectual experience isn't limited to classroom learning . It could be:

A book that changed your perspective
A conversation that challenged your beliefs
An experience that triggered a profound insight or understanding
Or even a personal project or research endeavor

2. Choose a Meaningful Experience

Reflect on experiences that genuinely transformed your thinking:

Was there a particular course or project that ignited a passion?
Did a specific book, article, or documentary challenge your pre-existing beliefs?
Have you attended seminars, workshops, or lectures that introduced you to new ideas?

3. Delve into the "Why"

Discuss why this experience was transformative:

What preconceptions or beliefs did it challenge?
How did it expand or deepen your understanding of a particular subject or idea?
Did it inspire further exploration or study into the topic?

4. Highlight Personal Growth

Describe how this intellectual experience influenced your academic and personal journey:

Did it guide your academic pursuits or career aspirations?
How did it shape your values, beliefs, or worldview?

5. Be Authentic and Reflective

Your genuine curiosity and passion should shine through. Avoid using jargon or overly complex language. Instead, focus on genuine reflection and personal growth .

Harvard's second supplemental essay seeks to understand your intellectual journey . It's an opportunity to showcase your curiosity, passion, and the transformative power of learning. By reflecting on a significant intellectual experience and its impact on you, you can demonstrate your academic depth, your own intellectual processes and aptitudes, and intellectual growth.

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Answering Prompt 3

Elaborate on extracurricular activities, employment, travel, or family responsibilities that have played a pivotal role in defining who you are..

This question is designed to help you articulate the significance of experiences outside the classroom and their profound impact on your personal journey.

1. Prioritize Depth Over Quantity

While you might have multiple experiences, focus on one or two that have had the most profound impact on you . This allows you to delve deeper and provide a more insightful reflection.

2. Choose a Defining Experience

Reflect on moments that genuinely shaped your character:

Was there an extracurricular activity that taught you leadership, teamwork, or dedication?
Did a job teach you responsibility, time management, or the value of hard work?
Has travel exposed you to diverse cultures, broadening your perspectives?
Were there family responsibilities that instilled in you a sense of maturity, empathy, or resilience?

3. Describe the Experience

Briefly set the scene. Whether it's the bustling environment of a part-time job, the challenges of a leadership role in a club, or the nuances of a family responsibility, paint a picture for the reader.

4. Reflect on the Impact

Discuss how this experience influenced your personal growth:

What challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?
What skills or values did you acquire or strengthen?
How did this experience shape your aspirations, perspectives, or values?

5. Connect to the Present

Highlight how this experience continues to influence you:

How do the lessons you learned guide your current decisions or actions?
How has it influenced your academic interests or future aspirations?

Harvard's third supplemental essay is an opportunity to showcase experiences outside the classroom that have significantly influenced your personal growth . Reflecting on these pivotal moments and their lasting impact can provide a holistic picture of your character, values, and aspirations.

Answering Prompt 4

Describe how you envision utilizing your harvard education in the future..

This question aims to help you articulate how a Harvard education aligns with your future goals and the impact you aim to make in your chosen field or community.

1. Reflect on Your Goals

Begin by identifying your long-term aspirations . Have a clear vision in mind, whether it's a specific career, a desire to address a global challenge, or a passion you wish to pursue further.

2. Highlight Harvard's Unique Offerings

Research specific programs, courses, or opportunities at Harvard that align with your goals. This could be a particular academic program, research opportunities, or extracurricular activities.

3. Draw a Connection

Discuss how these unique offerings will equip you with the skills, knowledge, or experiences needed to achieve your future aspirations . Make it evident that Harvard is the ideal place for you to realize these goals.

4. Go Beyond the Obvious

While Harvard's academic excellence is a given, delve into the broader Harvard experience. Consider the influence of its diverse community, its culture of innovation, or its commitment to leadership and service.

5. Discuss the Broader Impact

Expand on how you plan to use your Harvard education to make a difference . Whether it's in your community, in a particular field, or on a global scale, showcase your commitment to creating positive change.

6. Stay Authentic

Ensure your response is genuine and reflects your true aspirations. Admissions officers can discern genuine passion and commitment from generic responses.

Harvard's fourth supplemental essay is an opportunity to showcase your forward-thinking approach and how you plan to leverage Harvard's resources to achieve your future goals. By drawing a clear connection between what Harvard offers and your aspirations, you demonstrate a purposeful approach to your education.

Answering Prompt 5

List three things your future roommates should know about you..

This question aims to help you present a genuine and well-rounded picture of yourself, offering insights into your personality, habits, and values.

1. Reflect on Your Personality

This prompt is an invitation to share more about your personal side. Think about the quirks, habits, or values that define you. What are the things that make you, well, you?

2. Balance Seriousness with Lightness

While one point could be a deep reflection of your values or beliefs, another could be a fun fact or a unique hobby. This mix gives a rounded picture of who you are.

3. Be Genuine

Avoid coming up with things you believe the admissions committee wants to hear. This is your chance to let your true self shine through.

4. Consider Your Daily Life

Think about your habits or routines, the music you listen to, or the books you read. These can offer insights into your personality and preferences.

5. Reflect on Past Living Experiences

Have you shared a space with someone before — roommate, sibling, family members, fellow campers?… Think about what made the experience harmonious. Were there particular habits, routines, or guiding principles you followed that were appreciated by those you were sharing space with?

Harvard's fifth supplemental essay is a chance to showcase your personality beyond academics and extracurriculars . By sharing genuine aspects of yourself related to day-to-day living and the many small ways you interact with those around you in more personal spaces, you give a glimpse into your life outside the classroom and what it might be like to share a living space with you.

5 Tips for the "Why This School?" Essay

General Guidelines for Crafting Stellar Harvard Supplemental Essays

1. Understand the Question: Before you start writing, ensure you fully understand what the prompt is asking. Break it down and consider its nuances. This will help you stay on track and address all aspects of the question.

2. Be Authentic: Harvard isn't just looking for high achievers; they're looking for genuine individuals. Your essay should reflect your true self, not what you think the admissions committee wants to hear.

3. Show, Don't Tell: Instead of just stating facts or beliefs, use anecdotes, experiences, or stories to convey your points. This makes your essay more engaging and paints a clearer picture of who you are.

4. Stay Within the Word Limit: While it might be tempting to write more, respect the word limits. It shows that you can convey your thoughts concisely and respect guidelines.

5. Proofread and Edit: Always review your essay multiple times for clarity, coherence, and grammar. Consider also asking a teacher, mentor, or friend to review it.

6. Connect to Harvard: While the prompts might not explicitly ask for it, subtly showing why your experiences, values, or aspirations align with Harvard's culture or offerings can be a plus.

7. Reflect on Growth: Colleges love to see personal growth. Reflect on how experiences have shaped you, lessons learned, and how you've evolved.

8. Avoid Repetition: Ensure that your supplemental essays present new information and don't repeat what's already in your Common App essay or other parts of your application.

9. Be Forward-Looking: While it's essential to reflect on past experiences, also touch on how these experiences prepare you for future endeavors, especially at Harvard.

10. Start Early: Give yourself ample time to brainstorm, draft, and revise. Starting early reduces stress and allows you to approach the essay with a clear mind.

Remember, the supplemental essays are an opportunity to showcase aspects of yourself that aren't evident in other parts of your application . Use them wisely to provide a holistic picture of yourself and why you'd be a great fit for Harvard.

Final Thoughts

The journey to Harvard is more than just academic prowess; it's about crafting a narrative that resonates deeply with the admissions committee. Your supplemental essays provide a unique window into your personality, aspirations, and the distinct perspectives you'll bring to the Harvard community.

Every Harvard aspirant has a story waiting to be told. This is your moment to share yours. Approach your essays with authenticity, introspection, and a genuine passion for your narrative.

If you're wondering whether your essay truly captures your essence or if it stands out from the multitude of applications, our essay review service is here to help. Our team of experts will meticulously review and provide feedback to refine your essay, ensuring it resonates with admissions officers. For further inspiration, delve into our ebook , which showcases essays from students who clinched spots at top universities. And if Harvard is your dream, these successful Harvard essay examples will provide invaluable insights.

For those just starting their college application journey, consider booking a free consultation with our seasoned college counselors. We're dedicated to guiding you in creating an application that significantly enhances your chances of donning the Crimson colors. Harvard is within reach, and we're here to help you every step of the way.

What Makes Crimson Different

Key Resources & Further Reading

Everything you need to know about US Application Supplemental Essays
Acing your College Application Essay: 5 Expert Tips to Make it Stand Out from the Rest
How to Tackle Every Type of Supplemental Essay
2023-24 Common App Essay Prompts
What are the Most Unusual US College Supplemental Essay Prompts?

What would megan fox's (hypothetical) harvard essay look like.

Unleashing Creativity in Research: How High Schoolers Can Find Unique and Engaging Research Topics

Can Colleges See How Many Times You’ve Taken the SAT?

Crimson students are 7x more likely to gain acceptance to their dream college!

Remember, you don't have to navigate this journey alone. crimson provides a comprehensive suite of services, from academic mentoring and test prep to essay assistance, extracurricular guidance, and career mentoring, ensuring a holistic approach to your college preparation journey..

Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-24 – Prompts and Advice

August 17, 2023

A 3.4% acceptance for the Class of 2027 gives you a pretty informative introduction to the ultra-competitive admissions process at Harvard University. To dive deeper, Harvard rejects the majority of valedictorians who apply each year as well as a sizable chunk of those who bring 1600 SAT/36 ACT scores to the table. Further, more than one-third of current Crimson undergrads are legacy students (their parents and/or other close relatives are alumni) and recruited athletes make up around 20% of each incoming freshman class. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that, if you fall outside of those categories, your chances of getting into Harvard are less than 3%. This brings us to the topic of this blog – the Harvard supplemental essays.

Want to learn more about How to Get Into Harvard University? Visit our blog entitled: How to Get Into Harvard University: Admissions Data and Strategies for all of the most recent admissions data as well as tips for gaining acceptance.

Yet, this sobering and realistic assessment of the facts on the ground should not discourage those with an extremely strong record of accomplishment—both inside and outside of the classroom—from applying. Rather, we present this information to highlight one glaring truth: the essays are one of the best opportunities you will have to make your Harvard application shine brighter than your competition.

For the 2023-24 admissions cycle, there are five Harvard supplemental essays. Unlike previous years, all essays are required.

2023-24 Harvard Supplemental Essays

Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. how will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to harvard (200 words).

This prompt asks you to not only share a particular life experience but also describe why that experience will enable you to contribute to Harvard in general. Essentially, it’s asking you to take your essay’s reflection one step further—you’ll need to share why the experience you’ve chosen has impacted you as well as why/how you believe it will allow you to positively impact the Harvard community.

First, choose a key aspect of your experiences or background that reveals something deep and meaningful about you. (Although you could choose more than one, we’d advise against it, given that you only have 200 words in which to respond.) As you brainstorm, consider the following avenues:

Your role in your family.
Your role in your social group.
A challenge you’ve faced.
A formative experience or realization.
Core values and beliefs.
Important aspects of your upbringing.
Cultural, religious, community influence.

Harvard supplemental essays Continued)

Second, you’ll need to describe both personal and future impact. Make sure that your answer reveals something about how you will live out Harvard’s values or contribute to an academic/social community. For the latter angle, you could name a specific course , research opportunity , or extracurricular club , to name a few—perhaps living in a beach town has heavily contributed to your passion for the world’s oceans, and you seek to bring that perspective to the biology department’s research opportunities. Alternatively, you could discuss something more intangible—perhaps Harvard’s mission to encourage intellectual transformation resonates with you, and you hope to bring your experience of moving frequently for your dad’s job—and the open-mindedness and resilience you cultivated as a result—to classroom discussions about sensitive topics.

Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. (200 words)

In short, admissions officers want to see evidence of your drive, passion, and intellectual ambition. You may have taken over a dozen AP courses, but so did most of your competition. Did you pursue independent research or a more formalized research experience at a university? Did you spend your summer pursuing your academic interests to the best extent that was financially feasible (e.g., expensive summer programs are not accessible to everyone)? What were the fruits of your labor? Does your name appear on published research? Did you present at a conference? Did you independently pursue CS certifications, mastering multiple programming languages? Or did you learn a foreign language outside of school hours? Translate a work of literature into another language? In addition to describing the experience, you’ll also need to share why it was important to you.

Ideally, whatever example you cite will be closely aligned with your future academic area of interest.

Harvard supplemental essays (Continued)

Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are..

Harvard is not necessarily asking you to write about the activity where you earned the most prestigious awards. Nor does it have to be the one where you held the highest position of leadership. The university is going to see all of your activities in that section of the Common App. As such, you want to ask yourself—which of your entries is crying out for more explanation and detail? Which one is closest to your heart and most representative of your unique passions?

For example, you may be a volunteer EMT and have compelling experiences to share that have significantly impacted your perspective, or contributed to your desire to be a physician, or developed your empathy (or perhaps all of the above). Alternatively, you may have worked in a local restaurant and learned more about the lives of your undocumented coworkers, which shaped and contributed to your advocacy work in that area.

An activity or experience that “shaped who you are” is a big ask, but as long as you can demonstrate how it impacted and influenced you in a significant way, the activity you choose can be something you’ve been doing for ten years or two months.

How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future? (200 words)

This prompt differs from your quintessential “Why Us?” essay in a small but important way—Harvard isn’t asking why you want to attend but how you hope to utilize the education you receive. This might seem like a rather nebulous proposition—you are seventeen years old, after all—but think about what your goals, passions, and aspirations are right now . You’ll then need to do some projecting, even if generalized. For example, some students can feel in their bones that they’re bound for the law school track while others only have a vague sense of what the future might hold for them but know that—right now—they’re most drawn to psychology. That’s where your research will come into play—spend some time investigating:

Specific courses offered in your current discipline(s) of interest at Harvard.
Harvard professors whose work/research/writings you find fascinating.
Academically-focused student organizations at Harvard.
Undergraduate research opportunities in the summer or during the school year as well as independent research you would like to conduct under faculty supervision.

Now, merge the two—based on your current goals and what Harvard has to offer, how can you see yourself putting your education to good future use? In short, how will Harvard’s resources prepare you for the real world?

Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you. (200 words)

Applicants can utilize this response to give greater insight into the little details about themselves that may not appear elsewhere in the application. Keep the old adage “you don’t truly know a person until you live with them” in mind. Think about what your future roommate will learn about your daily habits, hobbies, quirks, passions, and preferences. What music do you like to listen to? What activities do you like to do (that, ideally, have not yet been communicated elsewhere)? Talk about your typical routine.

Once you make a list of potential inclusions, think about what each item communicates about you as a person. For example, if you can seldom be found without a novel in hand or spend an hour every morning practicing yoga, why is that important for us to know? That said, at least one detail could be comical or light-hearted (perhaps you can’t survive without a large supply of lime seltzer or always eat salt & vinegar chips when you’re up late studying). In the grand scheme of things, this is a genuine chance to reveal more about your character, unique personality, and also—sometimes— how to get along with others.

How important are the Harvard supplemental essays?

The Harvard supplemental essays are in the “considered” bucket. They are placed in the same category as factors such as test scores, GPA, and recommendations.

Want personalized essay assistance with your Harvard supplemental essays?

If you are interested in working with one of College Transitions’ experienced and knowledgeable essay coaches as you craft your Harvard supplemental essays, we encourage you to get a quote today.

College Essay

Dave Bergman

Dave has over a decade of professional experience that includes work as a teacher, high school administrator, college professor, and independent educational consultant. He is a co-author of the books The Enlightened College Applicant (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) and Colleges Worth Your Money (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).

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August 10, 2023

2023-2024 Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts

A hall at Harvard University shaded by trees

Harvard University has released its supplemental essays for the 2023-2024 college admissions cycle. The Ivy League institution, which defended the practice of Affirmative Action for all American universities and was defeated in a late June 2023 ruling of the United States Supreme Court, is arguably being watched more closely than any other university with respect to its response to the outlawing of the consideration of race in admissions. So how did Harvard change its supplemental essays?

Over the last few admissions cycles, in addition to The Common Application essay(s), Harvard asked applicants one long essay prompt, a short prompt, and a list. This year, the long prompt and list are gone. In their place are five — that’s right — five 200-word essays. The essay questions are new as well. It’s as though Harvard did a refresh. So let’s dive into the language of the Harvard essay prompts for applicants to the Class of 2028 !

2023-2024 Harvard Essay Topics and Questions

1. Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard?

This prompt is Harvard’s most overt response to the Supreme Court’s ruling. While the Supreme Court struck down the legality of Affirmative Action, Chief Justice John Roberts, in his majority opinion ruling against Harvard, wrote, ““At the same time, as all parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

This essay prompt is the manifestation of the loophole Chief Justice Roberts penned in the majority opinion. In response to the Supreme Court’s decision , Harvard President-elect Claudine Gay said, “The Supreme Court’s decision on college and university admissions will change how we pursue the educational benefits of diversity. But our commitment to that work remains steadfast.”

Oh yes, it does — as evidenced by this Harvard essay prompt in which applicants are required to thoughtfully reflect on the diversity — in all of its forms — that they hope to bring to Harvard’s community. And, remember, it doesn’t have to be racial diversity. It can be religious diversity. It can be diversity of thought. The question is intentionally open-ended.

2. Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.

Ideally, applicants will write about an intellectual experience that relates to their hook so they showcase a singular angle rather than well-roundedness on their Harvard application. As such, if a student is an astrophysicist, writing about an intellectual experience beneath the night’s sky has the potential to wow Harvard’s admissions committee.

3. Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are.

Harvard has long asked for students to write about one of their extracurricular pursuits. Applicants should just make sure not to repeat an activity here that they wrote about in any other essay that Harvard’s admissions officers will see. The activity should also be included within the activities section on The Common Application .

And while so many Harvard applicants do love to brag in response to this essay prompt by, for instance, writing about how much money they raised for a charity, Ivy Coach’s students applying to Harvard would never make such a mistake. After all, a big reason Ivy Coach’s students so often earn admission to Harvard — as every one of them has in 26 of the last 30 Early cycles — is that they present as entirely likable. Admissions officers want to root for our students.

4. How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future?

In past years, international applicants to Harvard were presented this essay prompt but, this year, it’s being asked of all Harvard applicants. It’s an opportunity to showcase precisely how a student hopes to change the world in one super specific way — through the hook they’ve ideally presented in their activities and storytelling.

5. Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.

It seems Harvard has taken a page from Stanford University with this latest essay prompt. Stanford has asked applicants to write a note to their future roommate for many years.

For this essay, it’s vital that all three things applicants share demonstrate intellectual curiosity and/or kindness. The responses can’t just be silly. Too many applicants are inclined to answer this question with answers that offer no insight into how they think or wish to change the world. And that’s a wasted opportunity.

Ivy Coach’s Assistance with Harvard Essays

If you’re interested in Ivy Coach ’s help optimizing your case for admission to Harvard by presenting the most powerful storytelling possible, fill out our consultation form , and we’ll be in touch to outline our college counseling services for seniors .

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to write the perfect harvard essay: 3 expert tips.

College Info , College Essays

Aiming for the world-renowned Harvard University? As part of the application to this prestigious Ivy League school, you'll be required to submit responses to five short answer questions.

This is actually a big change! In years past, Harvard offered an optional supplemental essay opportunity that applicants could write to add extra flair to their application. This year, Harvard has opted to require responses to five short answer prompts and completely omitted the optional, supplemental Harvard essay prompt.

But what should you write about for your Harvard essay short answers? What are the different Harvard essay prompts to choose from, and how should you answer them so you can give yourself your best shot at getting in?

In this guide, we give you advice for each Harvard essay prompt as well as tips on how to decide what to write. But before we look at the prompts, let's go over what Harvard actually requires in terms of essays.

Feature Image: Gregor Smith /Flickr

What Essays Do You Need to Submit to Harvard?

Those applying for admission to Harvard must submit an application through either the Common Application or the Coalition Application . For your Harvard application, you'll need to write a personal essay in response to one of the prompts provided by the Common App or Coalition App (depending on the system you're applying through).

This essay is required for all applicants and should typically be about 500-550 words long (and must be less than 650 words). To learn more about this essay, check out the current prompts for the Common App and Coalition App on their official websites.

In addition to this required essay, Harvard first-year applicants are required to submit 250 word (max) responses to five short answer questions .

Here are the prompts for the five required 2023-2024 Harvard short answer questions :

Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard?

Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.

Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are.

How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future?
Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.

Now, you might be wondering: is Harvard offering an optional supplemental essay opportunity as part of this year’s application process? No. This year, Harvard is not accepting optional supplemental essays as part of the first-year admissions process . The optional supplemental essay has been offered in previous years, but not for the 2023-2024 admissions cycle.

Now, here’s where things get a little tricky. The five short answer questions listed above are part of what’s called the Harvard first-year application supplement. But they aren’t the same thing as the supplemental essay from years past! And the important thing to remember is this: these short answer questions–and the entire Harvard supplement–are not optional. You’ll have to answer all five questions if you want to be considered as a candidate for admission!

The good news is that each short answer topic is very open ended, and they give you plenty of room to express who you are and how and why you’re the perfect fit for Harvard!

How to Write the Harvard Short Answers: Every Prompt Analyzed

In this section, we go through the five required Harvard supplement essay prompts and offer you tips on how to write effective, powerful short answers…in 200 words or less!

Prompt 1: Diversity

This first Harvard essay prompt is all about what you can bring to campus that will positively contribute to student diversity. Though we tend to think of race/ethnicity when using the word "diversity," you can actually interpret this word in a number of ways.

As a large and prestigious institution, Harvard strongly values students who have different and unique backgrounds and experiences, so it's important for them to admit students who embody these values as well.

This prompt is essentially a version of the diversity essay, which we talk about in more detail in our guide.

Here are some key types of diversity you can discuss (note that this is not an exhaustive list!):

Your ethnicity or race
A unique interest, passion, hobby, or skill you have
Your family or socioeconomic background
Your religion
Your cultural group
Your sex or gender/gender identity
Your opinions or values
Your sexual orientation

Tips for Answering This Prompt

Choose a personal characteristic that's had a large impact on your identity. Don't talk about your family's religion if it's had little or no impact on how you see and define yourself. Instead, concentrate on the most significant experiences or skills in your life. If you play the theremin every day and have a passion for music because of it, this would be a great skill to write about in your essay.
Be clear about how your unique characteristic has affected your life and growth. You don't just want to introduce the experience/skill and leave it at that. How has it molded you into the person you are today? How has it influenced your ambitions and goals?
Be sure to tie this characteristic back to the diversity at Harvard. Basically, how will your experience/skill/trait positively influence the Harvard student body? For example, if you come from a specific cultural group, how do you believe this will positively impact other students?

Prompt 2: Important Intellectual Experience

With this prompt, Harvard wants you to focus on an intellectual or learning experience that's had a big impact on you in terms of your personal growth, your academic/intellectual interests and passions, the field of study you want to pursue, etc.

This intellectual experience could be anything that's intellectually stimulating, such as an essay or book you read, a poem you analyzed, or a research project you conducted.

Note that this experience does not need to be limited to something you did for school —if you've done anything in your spare time or for an extracurricular activity that you think fits this prompt, feel free to write about that.

For example, you could write about how you found an old copy of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species at a garage sale, and how reading this prompted you to develop an interest in biology, which you now intend to major in and eventually make a career out of.

This is also an ideal prompt to highlight a particular interest or passion you have that differs from the academic field you want to study in college.

For instance, perhaps you're applying for admission as a computer science major, but you're also a huge fan of poetry and often take part in local poetry readings. Writing about a poem you recently read and analyzed could illuminate to the admissions committees a different, less prominent side of your personality and intellectual interests , ultimately showing that you're open minded and invested in gaining both new skills and experiences.

Choose an experience that had a significant impact on you . Don't talk about how reading Romeo and Juliet in eighth grade made you realize how much you enjoyed writing plays if you were already writing plays way before then! Pinpoint an intellectual experience that was meaningful to you, and write about it honestly.
Be specific about the intellectual experience you had and clearly relate it back to your strengths and interests . In other words, what kind of impact did this experience have on you? Your academic goals? Your future plans? For example, instead of writing about how a scientific paper on climate change made you think more deeply about the environment, you could talk about how this paper prompted you to form a recycling program at your school, take a class on marine biology, and so forth.

Prompt 3: Non-Academic Defining Experiences

This prompt is asking you to discuss experiences you've had that involved traveling, living, learning, and/or working in some capacity outside of the formal classroom. Most importantly, you’ll need to explain what kind of effect that experience has had on you.

Here are examples of experiences you could talk about for this essay:

Any extracurricular activity you engage in, particularly a spike approach, if you’ve got one (learn more about creating your spike approach in our complete guide !)
Living or traveling abroad
Moving to a new place or living in multiple places
Working a part-time job
Working a temporary job or internship somewhere outside your own community
Helping with finances, caregiving, or maintaining a family business (like a farm or lawn care business, for example)
Choose a truly significant experience to talk about. Although your experience doesn't need to be life-changing, it should have had a noteworthy impact on you and who you've become. If, for example, you traveled to Mexico with your family but didn't really enjoy or learn much from the trip, it's better to avoid writing about this experience.
Make sure to talk about how this travel/living/work experience has affected you. For example, say you spent a couple of summers in high school visiting relatives in South Africa. You could write about how these trips helped you develop a stronger sense of independence and self-sufficiency—traits which have made you more assertive, especially when it comes to leading group projects and giving speeches.
Don't be afraid to get creative with this essay. For instance, if you lived in a country where you at first didn't understand the local language, you could open your Harvard essay with an anecdote, such as a conversation you overheard or a funny miscommunication.

Prompt 4: Harvard and Your Future

This Harvard essay prompt is pretty self-explanatory: it wants you to discuss how you intend to use your education at Harvard after you graduate—so in a future job or career, in grad school, in a particular research field, etc.

Basically, how will your college education help you achieve your future goals (whatever those may be)?

If you’re still undecided about the field(a) you want to study at Harvard, don’t panic! It’s okay to think outside the box for this prompt.

Maybe you don’t know what you want to major in yet, but you do know that you share Harvard’s values and want to bring those values to the world after you graduate. Whether you’ll do that by joining the Peace Corps or heading back to your hometown to volunteer for a few months before starting your career, just be specific about how Harvard is the right school to put you on the path to your future!

Be careful when talking about your future goals. You don't want to come off too idealistic, but you also don't want to sound too broad or you'll come across unfocused and ambivalent. Try to strike a balance in how you discuss your future dreams so that they're both attainable and specific.
Clearly connect your goals back to your current self and what you've accomplished up until this point. You want to make it clear that your goals are actually attainable, specifically with a Harvard education. If you say you hope to start your own interior design business after graduation but are planning to major in biology, you're only going to confuse the admissions committee!
Emphasize any ways Harvard specifically will help you attain your academic goals. For example, is there a club you hope to join that could connect you with other students? Or is there a particular professor you want to work with? Don't just throw in names of clubs and people but specifically explain how these resources will help you reach your goals. In short, show Harvard that what they can offer you is exactly what you need to succeed.

Prompt 5: Your Future Goals

How you hope to use your college education

This Harvard essay prompt is pretty self-explanatory: it wants you to discuss how you intend to use your education at Harvard after you graduate —so in a future job or career, in grad school, in a particular research field, etc.

Should You Choose This Prompt?

If you have a pretty clear vision for your future goals during and after college, this is a perfect prompt to choose for your Harvard essay.

If, on the other hand, you're still undecided about the field(s) you want to study or how you intend to use your major, you might want to choose a different prompt that's less focused on your future and more concentrated on how past events and experiences have shaped you as a person.

Prompt 6: List of Books

A list of books you have read during the past twelve months

Of all Harvard essay prompts, this one is by far the most unique.

Here, you're asked to simply list the books you've read in the past year. This essay is more than just a list, though—it's a brief overview of where your intellectual interests lie. These books may include works of fiction or nonfiction, essays, collections of poetry, etc.

Have you read a lot of diverse and interesting books in the past year? Are you an avid reader who loves dissecting books and essays? Do you enjoy a creative approach to college essays? If you answered yes to these questions, then this prompt is a perfect fit for you.

Even if you haven't read a ton of books this past year, if you were especially intrigued by some or all of what you did read, you could certainly use this prompt for your essay.

Instead of just listing the titles of books you've read, you might want to include a short sentence or two commenting on your reaction to the book, your analysis of it, why you enjoyed or didn't enjoy it, etc., after each title. Be sure to vary up your comments so that you're highlighting different aspects of your personality. Also, don't just regurgitate analyses you've read online or that your teacher has said—try to come up with your own thoughts and interpretations.
Don't feel the need to stick to only the most "impressive" books you read. The Harvard admissions committee wants to see your personality, not that of a pretentious applicant who claims to have only read Jane Austen and Ernest Hemingway. Be honest: if you read Twilight in a day, why not make a short joke about how addictive it was?
Go beyond a chronological list of books. It'll be far more interesting if you list the books you read in a more unique way. For example, you could organize titles by theme or in the order of how much you enjoyed them.

Prompt 7: Honesty

The Harvard College Honor code declares that we "hold honesty as the foundation of our community." As you consider entering this community that is committed to honesty, please reflect on a time when you or someone you observed had to make a choice about whether to act with integrity and honesty.

As you can see with this quotation, Harvard strongly values honesty and integrity. Therefore, if you go with this prompt, you're essentially telling Harvard that you, too, embody a powerful sense of morality and honesty.

Was there a specific time in your life when you had to make a difficult choice to be honest about something with someone?
Could this incident be considered morally ambiguous? In other words, was the "right thing to do" somewhat of a gray area?
If you didn't make the "right" choice at the time, how did you come to terms with or learn from this decision? What were the consequences, and what did this experience teach you about your own morals and how you value honesty?
Be wary of the topic you choose to write about. Don't discuss a situation in which you did something obviously unethical or, worse, illegal. These types of situations are very black and white and therefore don't pose much of a moral dilemma. Additionally, talking about such an experience might make you seem dishonest and immoral, which you absolutely do not want Harvard to think about you!
Try to find a topic that isn't black and white. Choosing "gray" incidents will help emphasize why the choice was so difficult for you and also why it's affected you in this way. For example, say your friend calls you crying right before you have to leave to take the SAT. Do you skip the test to comfort your friend, or do you hang up and leave? This kind of situation does not have an evident "right" answer, making it an ideal one to use for this essay.
You could also discuss a time when you did not make the "right" choice—and what you learned from that mistake. As long as you look closely at why you made the "wrong" choice and what this incident taught you about integrity, your essay will be interesting and relevant.

Prompt 8: Citizens and Citizen-Leaders

The mission of Harvard College is to educate our students to be citizens and citizen-leaders for society. What would you do to contribute to the lives of your classmates in advancing this mission?

This prompt might sound a little vague, but all it wants to know is how you'll have a positive impact on both your classmates and on other people after graduation. Put simply, what kind of leader/citizen will you be at Harvard? After you graduate from college and enter the real world?

This prompt is similar to Prompt 5 in that it wants to know what kind of person you'll become after you leave college and how you'll positively influence society.

If you're a natural-born leader and have had at least a few significant experiences with leading or facilitating things such as club activities, field trips, volunteer efforts, and so on, then this Harvard essay prompt would be a great fit for you.

Focus on a time when you led others and it resulted in a positive outcome. For instance, you could write about your position as team captain on your school's soccer team and how you would gather your teammates before each game to offer words of encouragement and advice on how to improve. You could then describe how your team began to perform better in games due to clearer communication and a stronger sense of sportsmanship. Make sure to answer the critical question: how did you lead and what ultimately made your leadership style successful?
Discuss what kind of role your leadership skills will have at both Harvard and after you graduate. The prompt is asking about your classmates, so you must specifically address how your leadership skills will contribute to the lives of your peers. How will your past experiences with leading help you approach group projects, for example? Or clubs you join?
Make sure to mention how you'll be a good citizen, too. By "citizen," Harvard essentially means a productive member of both the school and society in general. Basically, how have you contributed to the betterment of society? This is a good place to talk about experiences in which you played a crucial supporting role; for instance, maybe you helped out with a local volunteer initiative to feed the homeless, or maybe you joined a community project to build a new park in your town.

Prompt 9: Taking Time Off

Each year a substantial number of students admitted to Harvard defer their admission for one year or take time off during college. If you decided in the future to choose either option, what would you like to do?

Here, you're being asked what you plan to do with your time if you decide to defer your admission to Harvard or take time off during college. For example, will you travel the world? Work a full-time job? Do an internship? Take care of a sick relative?

Obviously, Harvard doesn't want to read that all you're going to do is relax and play video games all day, so make sure to think carefully about what your actual plans are and, more importantly, how these plans will benefit you as a person and as a student.

Only choose this Harvard essay prompt if you're pretty certain you'll be taking time off from college at some point (either before or during) and you have a relatively concrete idea of what you want to do during that time.

Be specific and honest about your plans. While many students like to take time off to travel the world, you don't just want to write, "I plan to backpack Europe and learn about cultures." Think critically about your desires: why do you want to do this and how will this experience help you grow as a person? Don't just reiterate what you think Harvard wants to hear—be transparent about why you feel you need this time off from school to accomplish this goal.
Be clear about why you must do this at this particular time. In other words, why do you think this (i.e., before or during college) is the right time to do whatever it is you plan to do? Is it something you can (or must) do at this exact time, such as a one-time internship that won't be offered again?

Prompt 10: Diversity

Harvard has long recognized the importance of student body diversity of all kinds. We welcome you to write about distinctive aspects of your background, personal development or the intellectual interests you might bring to your Harvard classmates.

This final Harvard essay prompt is all about what you can bring to campus that will positively contribute to student diversity. Though we tend to think of race/ethnicity when using the word "diversity," you can actually interpret this word in a number of ways.

This prompt is essentially a version of the diversity essay , which we talk about in more detail in our guide.

The main question to ask yourself before choosing this prompt is this: do you have a unique background or interest you can write about?

If any of these topics stand out to you and you can easily come up with a specific characteristic or experience to discuss for your essay, then this is a solid prompt to consider answering.

Be clear about how your unique characteristic has affected your life and growth. You don't just want to introduce the experience/skill and leave it at that. How has it molded you into the person you are today? How has it influenced your ambitions and goals?

Want to build the best possible college application? We can help. PrepScholar Admissions combines world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. We've guided thousands of students to get into their top choice schools, from state colleges to the Ivy League. We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit and are driven to get you admitted to your dream schools. Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in:

A Real Harvard Essay Example

Our resident full SAT / ACT scorer and co-founder of PrepScholar, Allen Cheng , applied to, got into, and attended Harvard—and he's posted his own Harvard supplement essay for you to look at. You can read all about Allen's essay in his analysis of his successful Harvard application .

Allen describes his essay as "probably neutral to [his Harvard] application, not a strong net positive or net negative," so it's important to note that this Harvard essay example is not representative of exactly what you should do in your own Harvard supplement essay. Rather, we're showing it to you to give you a taste of how you could approach the Harvard essay and to demonstrate the kinds of simple mistakes you should avoid.

Writing a Memorable Harvard Essay: 3 Tips

To wrap up, here are three tips to keep in mind as you write your Harvard supplement essay.

#1: Use an Authentic Voice

Having a clear, unique, and authentic voice is the key to making yourself stand apart from other applicants in your Harvard application—and to ensuring you're leaving a long-lasting impression on the admissions committee.

Therefore, write your essay in the way that comes most naturally to you, and talk about the things that actually matter to you. For example, if you love puns, throwing one or two puns into your essay will emphasize your goofier, non-academic side.

Using your voice here is important because it humanizes your application. The essay is the only chance you get to show the admissions committee who you are and what you actually sound like, so don't pretend to be someone you're not!

The only thing to look out for is using too much slang or sounding too casual. In the end, this is still a college essay, so you don't want to come off sounding rude, disrespectful, or immature.

In addition, don't exaggerate any experiences or emotions. The Harvard admissions committee is pretty good at their job—they read thousands of applications each year!—so they'll definitely be able to tell if you're making a bigger deal out of something than you should be. Skip the hyperbole and stick to what you know.

Ultimately, your goal should be to strike a balance so that you're being true to yourself while also showcasing your intelligence and talents.

#2: Get Creative

Harvard is one of the most difficult schools to get into (it only has about a 4% acceptance rate! ), so you'll need to make sure your essay is really, really attention-grabbing. In short, get creative with it!

As you write your personal essay, recall the classic saying: show, don't tell. This means that you should rely more on description and imagery than on explanation.

For example, instead of writing, "I became more confident after participating in the debate club," you might write, "The next time I went onstage for a debate, my shoulders didn't shake as much; my lips didn't quiver; and my heart only beat 100 times instead of 120 times per minute."

Remember that your essay is a story about yourself, so make sure it's interesting to read and will ultimately be memorable to your readers.

#3: Edit and Proofread a Lot

My final tip is to polish your essay by editing and proofreading it a lot. This means you should look it over not once, not twice, but several times.

Here's the trick to editing it: once you've got a rough draft of your essay finished, put it away for a few days or a week or two. Don't look at it all during this time —you want to give yourself some distance so that you can look at your essay later with a fresh perspective.

After you've waited, read over your essay again, noting any mistakes in spelling, grammar, and/or punctuation. Take care to also note any awkward wording, unclear areas, or irrelevant ideas. Ask yourself: is there anything you should add? Delete? Expand?

Once you've done this step several times and have a (nearly) final draft ready to turn in, give your essay to someone you can trust, such as a teacher, parent, or mentor. Have them look it over and offer feedback on tone, voice, theme, style, etc. In addition, make sure that they check for any glaring grammatical or technical errors.

Once all of this is done, you'll have a well-written, polished Harvard essay ready to go— one that'll hopefully get you accepted!

What's Next?

If you've got questions about other parts of the Harvard application, check out our top guide to learn what you'll need to submit to get into the prestigious Ivy League school .

How tough is it to get into Harvard? To other selective universities ? For answers, read our expert guide on how to get into Harvard and the Ivy League , written by an actual Harvard alum!

What's the average SAT score of admitted Harvard applicants? The average ACT score? The average GPA? Learn all this and more by visiting our Harvard admissions requirements page .

Want to write the perfect college application essay? We can help. Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will help you craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. We learn your background and interests, brainstorm essay topics, and walk you through the essay drafting process, step-by-step. At the end, you'll have a unique essay to proudly submit to colleges. Don't leave your college application to chance. Find out more about PrepScholar Admissions now:

Hannah received her MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California. From 2013 to 2015, she taught English in Japan via the JET Program. She is passionate about education, writing, and travel.

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Harvard University 2023-24 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 1

You Have:

Harvard University 2023-24 Application Essay Question Explanations

The Requirements: Five essays of 200 words or fewer

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Diversity , Activity , Oddball

Harvard is asking 2023-24 applicants to pen five short essays in response to the following prompts:

Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. how will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to harvard* (200 words).

Admissions wants to know what has made you into the person you are today and how those experiences will affect the way you engage with and contribute to the Harvard community. So, tell a story about an experience that has shaped you and connect the lessons you learned to the ways in which you will contribute to diversity on campus next fall. Start by thinking about the kinds of experiences you’ve had in the communities you’ve been a part of thus far. Then, once you’ve identified the life experience(s) that have shaped you, think ahead to how those will impact your time at Harvard. Admissions wants to know what your area of influence will look like on campus—whether that be applying the leadership skills you developed in your community theater troupe to the drama productions at Farkas Hall, celebrating intersectional identities with other members of the queer Jewish community with BAGELS , or connecting and networking with your peers through Harvard Black Students Association . Whatever you write about, make sure your response to this prompt shows that you have put some serious thought into the things that have shaped you and how you will apply those lessons and experiences to your time at Harvard next fall.

Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.* (200 words)

It’s no surprise that Harvard is hoping to invite students to campus who are excited about learning, so take this opportunity to geek out about an awesome learning experience you had recently. Maybe you find marine life to be absolutely fascinating, so you’ve been reading up on the most dangerous creatures in the deep dark sea (and their preferred prey, of course). Perhaps you had the opportunity to take a class or seminar with a thought leader you really admire or you went on a reading retreat that expanded your horizons. Whatever it may be, this is the perfect opportunity to show admissions your passion for pursuing knowledge and reflect on the impact it had on you.

Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are.* (200 words)

Next up is a fun twist on the classic activity essay, which asks you to expand on an extracurricular endeavor that has shaped who you are. Our advice is to focus on one or two activities that have made the biggest impact on you. Although we usually urge students to write about items that haven’t appeared elsewhere on their application, the activity essay is an exception since it specifically asks you to address an item on your resume. The trick here is to pick something with meat! Maybe your trip to visit your extended family members in Thailand opened your eyes to how limited your world had been in your small Midwestern town. Perhaps four years of debate club have nurtured your communication skills and ability to speak up for yourself. Whatever activity you choose to write about, be sure to pick one that has been fundamental to your understanding of who you are.

How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future?* (200 words)

Admissions already knows a bit about what makes you you; now they want to know why Harvard is the obvious next step in the trajectory of your life. Take some time to meditate on what you hope your life will look like after Harvard—we’re talking ten, twenty years in the future. Once you have an idea of what you hope for that person to be like or do on an average day, invite admissions into your vision and show them how a Harvard education is a pivotal step (or three) on the ladder of success to get there. Regardless of your vision, your response should cite programs, activities, and organizations that Harvard offers. Anyone can say they hope to become a renowned doctor or an attorney for the people, but not everyone is going to do their homework to show admissions that they’ve thought through exactly how they want to get there. Of course, admissions isn’t going to hold you to your blueprint, but they do want to see that you’ve given not only your decision to apply to Harvard some serious thought, but your life post-graduation as well.

Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.* (200 words)

With this prompt, admissions is hoping to see a different side of you, perhaps one that is less intellectual (unless that’s just who you are, in which case, rock on with your nerdy self) and a little more casual. Start by making a list. Write down everything that comes to mind. You can edit and revise later—no idea is too silly to jot down! Maybe you think your roommates should know that you just can’t not sing while in the shower (we’re talking Celine Dion, Adele, Whitney Houston) or that you make the meanest plate of rice and beans in your pressure cooker (and you love to share). Once you’ve narrowed your list down to three (3) things, see if you can weave together a narrative that gives admissions a little taste of what it would be like to hang out in the dorms with you. How do you connect with your peers? What most excites you about residential life? What are the quirks that make you you ? By the time admissions puts down your application, they should feel like your personality is jumping off the page.

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How to Respond to the 2023/2024 Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts

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How to Respond to the 2023/2024 Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts

Chances are, you have heard of Harvard University, a private Ivy League research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Known as the oldest university in the United States, Harvard attracts students from all over the world. With an acceptance rate of around 4% , your application needs to stand out. One of the best ways to show who you are is through your very own writing. Keep reading our guide for how to ace the Harvard supplemental essay questions!

Before answering the essay questions

All Harvard University applicants are required to respond to five 200 word supplemental Harvard essay questions.

All of the Harvard supplemental essay questions have a 200 word limit. Remember, 200 words is not a lot of words to express yourself. Therefore, you will need to be short, sweet, and direct with your answers. The goal is to share your unique personality on the page–do not drag on or use filler words! Just remember to be yourself in your response.

Essay question #1

“Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard?” (200 words max)

Ultimately, this question wants to hear about what makes you unique and diverse. Try to brainstorm main aspects of your identity that you want to be highlighted to Harvard. Some examples could include your ethnicity, your hometown, a club you are a part of and more. Most importantly, you should be thinking about life experiences you have had that have shaped you.

For example, if your Asian heritage is an important part of your identity you should detail a time in which you attended an Asian festival as a child and realized how proud you are to be Asian. Telling a narrative and life experience you have had rather than just stating a piece of your identity will give you a leg up on the competition.

Once you have told a story about the life experience you have chosen to talk about, now you have to detail how you will contribute to Harvard. Remember, Harvard prides itself on having a diverse student body, so use this to your advantage! Discuss how this important part of your identity and life experience can be brought to the Harvard community. Perhaps you want to join or even start a club on campus or you hope to do something in your dorm related to your identity. Whatever you hope to bring to the Harvard community, make sure you are discussing it in this response! Make sure that it connects back to the life experience you wrote about earlier in the essay.

Questions to consider

What is an important part of your identity?
What experiences have you had that have shaped you?
How will you help contribute to the Harvard community? What hopes do you have for attending Harvard?

Essay question #2

“Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.” (200 words max)

Harvard wants to admit applicants that are intellectually curious and driven. These engagements do not need to fit into any structure. For example, you can write about an online French class you took, an art camp you attended, or a research project you worked on. All are relevant as long as you write about what has special meaning to you.

Ultimately, in your response you should be revealing to the Harvard admissions officers how you critically think. Begin by detailing a narrative about this intellectual experience, make sure you are describing rather than just simply stating. Next, you should reflect on this experience. What did you learn from this experience? Would you do anything differently next time? Then, you should connect back to Harvard. Discuss what characteristics you now possess from this experience that would make you a great addition to the Harvard community.

What is an intellectual experience you have had?
How does this experience make you prepared for Harvard?
What reflections do you have regarding this intellectual experience?

Essay question #3

“Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are.” (200 words max)

This is such a great place to expand on the activities you described on your Common App activity list. Once you’ve picked an extracurricular activity or a few that you are heavily involved in, be sure to then mention specifics.

Be sure to provide context and valuable information regarding your extracurricular activities/work experience. Whoever is reading your response should gain a better understanding of the activities and work experience you have.

Lastly, connect to how these experiences have shaped who you are today. Think about any life lessons or characteristics you have gained from these activities.

Questions to consider:

What do you do during your involvement?
What is your role in this activity or place of work?
Why did you choose to participate in this activity or work?

Essay question #4

“How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future?” (200 words max)

This is your opportunity to describe your long-term goals! Make sure you are not only describing your future goals but also how Harvard will help you reach them.

To begin, describe any future aspirations you may have. This could include your intended major, career and life goals. In fact, both small and large goals can be described in this response. However, you should be extremely specific about these goals as something like “I want world peace” may cause your Harvard essay to become muddied.

Then, connect back to Harvard! What specific student organizations, classes, professors and extracurricular activities that Harvard offers will help you achieve your goals? You need to be emphasizing how Harvard will be able to help you better reach your goals than any other education offered.

Questions to consider:

What life goals do you have for yourself?
How will Harvard help you achieve your goals?
Why do you want a degree from Harvard?

Essay question #5

“Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.” (200 words max)

This last prompt is a lighter response! It’s a chance for you to take a more casual approach on a Harvard essay.

To begin you should brainstorm some ideas! Try to think about hobbies, music taste, extracurriculars, siblings or any fun facts you may have! You can also discuss your living habits and maybe some unique things about your bedtime routine.

Whatever three things you choose, make sure your list has some variety to it! It should not be 3 things you do every morning after you wake up but rather an assortment of fun facts about yourself.

Additionally, you can play around with the formatting of this essay! Since it is asking you to list the top three things your roommates might like to know about you, you can make a bulleted list. Or, you can even format it as a text or letter to your future roommate. Whatever format you choose, just be creative and authentic!

What are some unique fun facts about yourself?
How are you as a roommate?
What activities would you like to do with your roommate?

Next steps after applying to Harvard University

Congratulations! It is time to submit your perfect application to Harvard. Take a breather and acknowledge all the hard work you just completed! Continue to show interest in Harvard so they know you are committed and prioritizing their school.

This can be done by:

following their social media accounts
reaching out to admissions officers
scheduling an in-person or virtual tour
reading up on what you want to get involved in on campus

Additional resources

For students applying to colleges, there are an abundance of things to consider during the process. The most important thing is understanding what colleges to apply for to ensure you have good options to choose from. Check out our guides on how to find safety, reach, and match schools .

In addition, check out our guide on whether to send test scores to test-optional schools . Make sure that you are putting your best “you” on the page!

Lastly, funding college can be a challenge. So, check out our t o help fund your education!

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Harvard University Essay Examples (And Why They Worked)

The following essay examples were written by several different authors who were admitted to Harvard University and are intended to provide examples of successful Harvard University application essays. All names have been redacted for anonymity. Please note that Bullseye Admissions has shared these essays with admissions officers at Harvard University in order to deter potential plagiarism.

For more help with your Harvard supplemental essays, check out our 2020-2021 Harvard University Essay Guide ! For more guidance on personal essays and the college application process in general, sign up for a monthly plan to work with an admissions coach 1-on-1.

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. (50-150 words)

Feet moving, eyes up, every shot back, chants the silent mantra in my head. The ball becomes a beacon of neon green as I dart forward and backward, shuffling from corner to far corner of the court, determined not to let a single point escape me. With bated breath, I swing my racquet upwards and outwards and it catches the ball just in time to propel it, spinning, over the net. My heart soars as my grinning teammates cheer from the sidelines.

While I greatly value the endurance, tenacity, and persistence that I have developed while playing tennis throughout the last four years, I will always most cherish the bonds that I have created and maintained each year with my team.

Why this Harvard essay worked: From an ex-admissions officer

When responding to short essays or supplements, it can be difficult to know which info to include or omit. In this essay, the writer wastes no time and immediately captivates the reader. Not only are the descriptions vivid and compelling, but the second portion highlights what the writer gained from this activity. As an admissions officer, I learned about the student’s level of commitment, leadership abilities, resiliency, ability to cooperate with others, and writing abilities in 150 words.

I founded Teen Court at [High School Name Redacted] with my older brother in 2016. Teen Court is a unique collaboration with the Los Angeles Superior Court and Probation Department, trying real first-time juvenile offenders from all over Los Angeles in a courtroom setting with teen jurors. Teen Court’s foundational principle is restorative justice: we seek to rehabilitate at-risk minors rather than simply punish them. My work provides my peers the opportunity to learn about the justice system. I put in over fifty hours just as Secretary logging court attendance, and now as President, I mentor Teen Court attendees. My goal is to improve their empathy and courage in public speaking, and to expand their world view. People routinely tell me their experience with Teen Court has inspired them to explore law, and I know the effort I devoted bringing this club to [High School Name Redacted] was well worth it.

This writer discussed a passion project with a long-lasting impact. As admissions officers, we realize that post-secondary education will likely change the trajectory of your life. We hope that your education will also inspire you to change the trajectory of someone else’s life as well. This writer developed an organization that will have far-reaching impacts for both the juvenile offenders and the attendees. They saw the need for this service and initiated a program to improve their community.

Harvard University Supplemental Essay Option: Books Read During the Last Twelve Months

Reading Frankenstein in ninth grade changed my relationship to classic literature. In Frankenstein , I found characters and issues that resonate in a modern context, and I began to explore the literary canon outside of the classroom. During tenth grade, I picked up Jane Eyre and fell in love with the novel’s non-traditional heroine whose agency and cleverness far surpassed anything that I would have imagined coming from the 19th century. I have read the books listed below in the past year.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus *
Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger *
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt ♰
Mongo Beti, Mission Terminée * (in French)
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Arthur Conan-Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
Kamel Daoud, Meursault, contre-enquête * (in French)
Roddy Doyle, A Star Called Henry *
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane *
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying *
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
E. M. Forster, Maurice
E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
E. M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread
Eliza Haywood, The City Jilt ♰
Homer, The Iliad
Christopher Isherwood, All The Conspirators
Christopher Isherwood, A Meeting by the River
Christopher Isherwood, Sally Bowles
Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka, The Trial
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies *
Morrissey, Autobiography
Rudolph Otto, The Idea of the Holy *
Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
Charlotte Perkins-Gilman, Herland
Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way
Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove
Mary Renault, Fire From Heaven
Mary Renault, The Friendly Young Ladies
Mary Renault, The King Must Die
Mary Renault, The Persian Boy
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Terre des hommes * (in French)
Shakespeare, Hamlet *
Mary Shelley, The Last Man
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead *
Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh, Scoop
Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies
Jeanette Winterson, The Passion
Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary: A Fiction ♰
Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman ♰
Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House and Other Stories
* indicates assigned reading
♰ indicates independent study reading

Harvard University Supplemental Essay Option: What would you want your future college roommate to know about you? (No word limit)

Hi Roomie!!!!

You probably have noticed that I put four exclamation points. Yes, I am that excited to meet you, roomie!

Also, I don’t believe in the Rule of Three. It’s completely unfair that three is always the most commonly used number. Am I biased in my feelings because four is my favorite number? Perhaps. However, you have to admit that our reason for the Rule of Three is kinda arbitrary. The Rule of Three states that a trio of events is more effective and satisfying than any other numbers. Still, the human psyche is easily manipulated through socially constructed perceptions such as beauty standards and gender roles. Is having three of everything actually influential or is it only influential because society says so? Hmm, it’s interesting to think about it, isn’t it?

But if you’re an avid follower of the Rule of three, don’t worry, I won’t judge. In fact, if there’s one thing I can promise you I will never do, it’s being judgmental. Life is too short to go around judging people. Besides, judgments are always based on socially constructed beliefs. With so many backgrounds present on campus, it really would be unfair if we start going around judging people based on our own limited beliefs. My personal philosophy is “Mind your own business and let people be,” So, if you have a quirk that you’re worrying is too “weird” and are afraid your roommate might be too judgy, rest assured, I won’t be.

In fact, thanks to my non-judginess, I am an excellent listener. If you ever need to rant with someone about stressful classes, harsh gradings, or the new ridiculous plot twists of your favorite TV show (*cough* Riverdale), I am always available.

Now, I know what you are thinking. A non-judgmental and open-minded roommate? This sounds too good to be true. This girl’s probably a secret villain waiting to hear all my deepest and darkest secrets and blackmail me with them!

Well, I promise you. I am not a secret villain. I am just someone who knows how important it is to be listened to and understood.

I grew up under the communist regime of Vietnam, where freedom of speech and thought was heavily suppressed. Since childhood, I was taught to keep my opinion to myself, especially if it is contradictory to the government’s. No matter how strongly I felt about an issue, I could never voice my true opinion nor do anything about it. Or else, my family and I would face oppression from the Vietnamese government.

After immigrating to America, I have made it my mission to fight for human rights and justice. Back in Vietnam, I have let fear keep me from doing the right thing. Now, in the land of freedom, I won’t use that excuse anymore. I can finally be myself and fight for what I believe in. However, I can still remember how suffocating it was to keep my beliefs bottled up and to be silenced. Trust me, a conversation may not seem much, but it can do wonders. So, if you ever need a listener, know that I am right here.

See, I just shared with you a deep secret of mine. What secret villain would do that?

See ya soon!!!!!

[Name redacted] : )

P/S: I really love writing postscripts. So, I hope you won’t find it weird when I always end my emails, letters, and even texts with a P/S. Bye for real this time!!!!!

Harvard University Supplemental Essay Option: Unusual circumstances in your life

I would like the Harvard Admissions Committee to know that my life circumstances are far from typical. I was born at twenty-four weeks gestation, which eighteen years ago was on the cusp of viability. Even if I was born today, under those same circumstances, my prospects for leading a normal life would be grim. Eighteen years ago, those odds were worse, and I was given a less than 5% chance of survival without suffering major cognitive and physical deficits.

The first six months of my life were spent in a large neonatal ICU in Canada. I spent most of that time in an incubator, kept breathing by a ventilator. When I was finally discharged home, it was with a feeding tube and oxygen, and it would be several more months before I was able to survive without the extra tubes connected to me. At the age of two, I was still unable to walk. I engaged in every conventional and non-conventional therapy available to me, including physical and speech therapy, massage therapy, gymnastics, and several nutritional plans, to try to remedy this. Slowly, I began to make progress in what would be a long and arduous journey towards recovery.

Some of my earliest childhood memories are of repeated, often unsuccessful attempts to grip a large-diameter crayon since I was unable to hold a regular pencil. I would attempt to scrawl out letters on a page to form words, fueled by either determination or outright stubbornness, persevering until I improved. I spent countless hours trying to control my gait, eventually learning to walk normally and proving the doctors wrong about their diagnoses. I also had to learn how to swallow without aspirating because the frequent intubations I had experienced as an infant left me with a uncoordinated swallow reflex. Perhaps most prominently, I remember becoming very winded as I tried to keep up with my elementary school peers on the playground and the frustration I experienced when I failed.

Little by little, my body’s tolerance for physical exertion grew, and my coordination improved. I enrolled in martial arts to learn how to keep my balance and to develop muscle coordination and an awareness of where my limbs were at any given time. I also became immersed in competition among my elementary school peers to determine which one of us could become the most accomplished on the recorder. For each piece of music played correctly, a “belt” was awarded in the form of a brightly colored piece of yarn tied around the bottom of our recorders- meant as symbols of our achievement. Despite the challenges I had in generating and controlling enough air, I practiced relentlessly, often going in before school or during my lunch hour to obtain the next increasingly difficult musical piece. By the time the competition concluded, I had broken the school record of how far an elementary school child could advance; in doing so, my love of instrumental music and my appreciation for the value of hard work and determination was born.

Throughout my middle and high school years, I have succeeded at the very highest level both academically and musically. I was even able to find a sport that I excelled at and would later be able to use as an avenue for helping others, volunteering as an assistant coach once I entered high school. I have mentored dozens of my high school peers in developing trumpet skills, teaching them how to control one’s breathing during musical phrases and how to develop effective fingering techniques in order to perform challenging passages. I believe that my positive attitude and hard work has allowed for not only my own success, but for the growth and success of my peers as well.

My scholastic and musical achievements, as well as my leadership abilities and potential to succeed at the highest level will hopefully be readily apparent to the committee when you review my application. Perhaps more importantly, however, is the behind-the-scenes character traits that have made these possible. I believe that I can conquer any challenge put in front of me. My past achievements provide testimony to my work ethic, aptitudes and grit, and are predictive of my future potential.

Thank you for your consideration.

In this essay, the writer highlighted their resilience. At some point, we will all endure challenges and struggles, but it is how we redeem ourselves that matters. This writer highlighted their initial struggles, their dedication and commitment, and the ways in which they’ve used those challenges as inspiration and motivation to persevere and also to encourage others to do the same.

Harvard University Supplemental Essay Option: An intellectual experience (course, project, book, discussion, paper, poetry, or research topic in engineering, mathematics, science or other modes of inquiry) that has meant the most to you.

I want to be a part of something amazing, and I believe I can. The first line of the chorus springs into my mind instantaneously as my fingers experiment with chords on the piano. In this moment, as I compose the protagonist’s solo number, I speak from my heart. I envision the stage and set, the actors, the orchestra, even the audience. Growing increasingly excited, I promptly begin to create recordings so I can release the music from the confines of my imagination and share it with any willing ears.

My brother [name redacted] and I are in the process of writing a full-length, two-act musical comprised of original scenes, songs, characters. I began creating the show not only because I love to write music and entertain my friends and family, but also with the hope that I might change the way my peers view society. Through Joan, the protagonist of my musical, I want to communicate how I feel about the world.

The story centers around Joan, a high schooler, and her connection to the pilot Amelia Earhart. Ever since I saw a theatrical rendition of Amelia Earhart’s life in fifth grade, she has fascinated me as an extraordinary feminist and a challenger of society’s beliefs and standards. As I began researching and writing for the show, I perused through biographies and clicked through countless youtube documentaries about the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, astounded by her bravery and ability to overcome a troubled childhood and achieve her dream. In my musical, as Amelia transcends 20th century norms, changing the way that people regard women and flight, Joan strives to convince her peers and superiors that the worth of one’s life spans not from material success and grades, but from self-love and passion.

As I compose, the essence of each character and the mood of each scene steer the flow of each song. To me, it seems as though everything falls into place at once – as I pluck a melody out of the air, the lyrics come to me naturally as if the two have been paired all along. As I listen to the newly born principal line, I hear the tremolo of strings underscoring and the blaring of a brass section that may someday audibly punctuate each musical phrase.

The project is certainly one of the most daunting tasks I’ve ever undertaken – we’ve been working on it for almost a year, and hope to be done by January – but, fueled by my passion for creating music and writing, it is also one of the most enjoyable. I dream that it may be performed one day and that it may influence society to appreciate the success that enthusiasm for one’s relationships and work can bring.

These essay examples were compiled by the advising team at Bullseye Admissions. If you want to get help writing your Harvard University application essays from Bullseye Admissions advisors , register with Bullseye today .

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Let’s Talk About Harvard’s Brand New College Application

The Harvard College Office of Admissions and Financial Aid is located in Radcliffe Yard.

Last month, the Common Application portal officially opened, inviting high school students across the globe to showcase themselves and their talents to admissions officers at top U.S. universities. With this application comes a variety of supplements: excitement about the potential outcomes of the process, apprehension about the mortifying ordeal of being known by admissions officers, and of course, the actual supplemental essays themselves.

These elements of the application process are as old as the Common App itself. But this year, with the end of race-based affirmative action in university admissions, applicants are facing an added uncertainty: the extent to which their diverse backgrounds can factor into their essays, and in turn, their admissions.

Recognizing this confusion, Harvard decided to change its supplemental essay questions from one optional open-ended essay and two optional short essays to a series of five required short essays, each with a 200-word limit.

While Harvard’s new prompts signify a notable effort to meet the moment, we have misgivings about the ability of these new questions to thoroughly capture the diverse array of student experiences.

Our foremost concern: How can students reasonably condense discussions about formative life experiences and their identities into 200 words or less?

Moreover, shortening the essays has a disparate impact that falls heaviest on those from marginalized backgrounds. Learning to package yourself within a shorter amount of space is a product of advanced education; longer essays more equitably allow applicants to discuss their experiences in full, particularly if they are from non-traditional backgrounds and require more space to elaborate on nuanced qualifications.

Another issue is the prompts themselves. Formerly, students picked one topic from a list of prompts, giving them maximum agency over the best way to share their own narratives; now, the new mandatory prompts force students to answer questions that may not even be relevant to their background at all.

Take one of the new prompts: “Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.” This question seemingly privileges applicants from well-resourced backgrounds for whom additional academic opportunities were plentiful in high school.

And while one may argue that students without equivalent resources can compensate with the other prompts, in what world is it equitable to have one out of the five required short-answer prompts seemingly cater to those from highly privileged backgrounds?

Harvard’s restructuring of its supplemental essay questions amid the post-affirmative action turmoil also gives us an opportunity to reevaluate the role of “trauma dumping” in the application process. Despite the negative connotations of this term, we feel that oversharing past hardships can be appropriate in college admissions essays considering that evaluators are seeking to understand the sum total of applicants’ experiences and how they’ve excelled despite personal circumstances.

Given polarized conversation surrounding the imprecise phrase “trauma dumping” and its place in college applications, we need to distinguish between explaining how past life experiences have shaped who you are and voluntarily offering highly volatile and sometimes triggering life experiences in social contexts. Those who have undergone traumatic experiences should not have to fear that writing about the experiences that shaped them looks like a beg for admission.

If we have faith in the college admissions system, we can trust that evaluators will not reward students who merely provide a litany of past traumas in their applications, but instead give credit to applicants who discuss how they have grown from or coped with these experiences. If Harvard is willing to entirely restructure its supplemental essays in the aftermath of affirmative action’s fall, it ought to also provide underprivileged students with resources on how they can write about trauma productively given the new prompts.

Furthermore, Harvard needs to communicate what other steps they will take to ensure the College’s student body remains diverse. How will the University conduct outreach to underprivileged communities? Organizations like QuestBridge — a service that connects low-income students with selective universities — could play a helpful role in promoting student diversity.

As the Class of 2028 gets to writing, we mourn the loss of Harvard’s old application. However, the focus on retaining a diverse student body in the questions Harvard asks its applicants is a welcome supplement.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

Have a suggestion, question, or concern for The Crimson Editorial Board? Click here .

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A strong analytical question

speaks to a genuine dilemma presented by your sources . In other words, the question focuses on a real confusion, problem, ambiguity, or gray area, about which readers will conceivably have different reactions, opinions, or ideas.
yields an answer that is not obvious . If you ask, "What did this author say about this topic?” there’s nothing to explore because any reader of that text would answer that question in the same way. But if you ask, “how can we reconcile point A and point B in this text,” readers will want to see how you solve that inconsistency in your essay.
suggests an answer complex enough to require a whole essay's worth of discussion. If the question is too vague, it won't suggest a line of argument. The question should elicit reflection and argument rather than summary or description.
can be explored using the sources you have available for the assignment , rather than by generalizations or by research beyond the scope of your assignment.

How to come up with an analytical question

One useful starting point when you’re trying to identify an analytical question is to look for points of tension in your sources, either within one source or among sources. It can be helpful to think of those points of tension as the moments where you need to stop and think before you can move forward. Here are some examples of where you may find points of tension:

You may read a published view that doesn’t seem convincing to you, and you may want to ask a question about what’s missing or about how the evidence might be reconsidered.
You may notice an inconsistency, gap, or ambiguity in the evidence, and you may want to explore how that changes your understanding of something.
You may identify an unexpected wrinkle that you think deserves more attention, and you may want to ask a question about it.
You may notice an unexpected conclusion that you think doesn’t quite add up, and you may want to ask how the authors of a source reached that conclusion.
You may identify a controversy that you think needs to be addressed, and you may want to ask a question about how it might be resolved.
You may notice a problem that you think has been ignored, and you may want to try to solve it or consider why it has been ignored.
You may encounter a piece of evidence that you think warrants a closer look, and you may raise questions about it.

Once you’ve identified a point of tension and raised a question about it, you will try to answer that question in your essay. Your main idea or claim in answer to that question will be your thesis.

point of tension --> analytical question --> thesis

"How" and "why" questions generally require more analysis than "who/ what/when/where” questions.
Good analytical questions can highlight patterns/connections, or contradictions/dilemmas/problems.
Good analytical questions establish the scope of an argument, allowing you to focus on a manageable part of a broad topic or a collection of sources.
Good analytical questions can also address implications or consequences of your analysis.
picture_as_pdf Asking Analytical Questions

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Writing Application Essays and Personal Statements

Some applications ask that you write an essay that draws on more personal reflections. These essays, sometimes called Personal Statements, are an opportunity to show the selection committee who you are as a person: your story, your values, your interests, and why you—and not your peer with a similar resume—are a perfect fit for this opportunity. These narrative essays allow you to really illustrate the person behind the resume, showcasing not only what you think but how you think.

Before you start writing, it’s helpful to really consider the goals of your personal statement:

To learn more about you as a person: What would you like the selection committee to know about you that can't be covered by other application materials (e.g. resume, transcript, letters of recommendation)? What have been the important moments/influences throughout your journey that have led to where (and who!) you are?
To learn how you think about the unsolved problems in your field of study/interest: What experiences demonstrate how you've been taught to think and how you tackle challenges?
To assess whether you fit with the personal qualities sought by the selection committee: How can you show that you are thoughtful and mature with a good sense of self; that you embody the character, qualities, and experience to be personally ready to thrive in this experience (graduate school and otherwise)? Whatever opportunity you are seeking—going to graduate school, spending the year abroad, conducting public service—is going to be challenging intellectually, emotionally, and financially. This is your opportunity to show that you have the energy and perseverance to succeed.

In general, your job through your personal statement is to show, don’t tell the committee about your journey. If you choose to retell specific anecdotes from your life, focus on one or two relavant, formative experiences—academic, professional, extracurricular—that are emblematic of your development. The essay is where you should showcase the depth of your maturity, not the breadth—that's the resume's job!

Determining the theme of an essay

The personal statement is usually framed with an overarching theme. But how do you come up with a theme that is unique to you? Here are some questions to get you started:

Question your individuality: What distinguishes you from your peers? What challenges have you overcome? What was one instance in your life where your values were called into question?
Question your field of study: What first interested you about your field of study? How has your interest in the field changed and developed? How has this discipline shaped you? What are you most passionate about relative to your field?
Question your non-academic experiences: Why did you choose the internships, clubs, or activites you did? And what does that suggest about what you value?

Once you have done some reflection, you may notice a theme emerging (justice? innovation? creativity?)—great! Be careful to think beyond your first idea, too, though. Sometimes, the third or fourth theme to come to your mind is the one that will be most compelling to center your essay around.

Writing style

Certainly, your personal statement can have moments of humor or irony that reflect your personality, but the goal is not to show off your creative writing skills or present you as a sparkling conversationalist (that can be part of your interview!). Here, the aim is to present yourself as an interesting person, with a unique background and perspective, and a great future colleague. You should still use good academic writing—although this is not a research paper nor a cover letter—but the tone can be a bit less formal.

Communicating your values

Our work is often linked to our own values, identities, and personal experiences, both positive and negative. However, there can be a vulnerability to sharing these things with strangers. Know that you don't have to write about your most intimate thoughts or experiences, if you don't want to. If you do feel that it’s important that a selection committee knows this about you, reflect on why you would like for them to know that, and then be sure that it has an organic place in your statement. Your passion will come through in how you speak about these topics and their importance in forming you as an individual and budding scholar.

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A blank computer screen. That was what the summer before my senior year looked like.

Screenshot of blank Microsoft Word document with the title "Common Application Essay, August 2013"

A pretty familiar sight my senior summer...

The Common Application opened August 1, and in my summer schedule I’d left myself a whole four weeks to sit down and figure out what I was going to send to colleges.

Or so I thought. The reality of that August--beach trips, field hockey pre-season, and just generally anything I could do to avoid sitting in front of a blank computer screen with a document titled “Common Application Essay”--was a little different from the four weeks of writing, revising, and finishing my college essays that I’d planned out in May.

The college essay (officially your “personal statement,” at least at Harvard) was the most intimidating part of my application process--because, by the beginning of my senior year, it was the only thing I had any real control over. Think about it this way: by the time you hit the summer before you apply to college, most of your application is already complete. You probably have a pretty good idea of what your scores are going to look like, the majority of you high school grades have already been entered into your transcript, your recommending teachers already know you (I hope…), and you’ve already gotten involved in whatever school activities you’ve filled your last three years in high school with.

I thought of the Common App essay as my chance to have a voice in the committee room when [fill in college-of-choice here]’s admissions officers sat down to decide my fate--and that made a blank Word document utterly terrifying. I mean, what do you say to convince someone to let you into Harvard?

This week, I’ve been asked 14 (I counted…) questions about the essay component of the Harvard application, and most of them have started with the unassuming, “What did you write your application essay on?”

If you really want to know, after hours of debate over whether or not writing about my failures was really a good way to attempt to get into college, I picked the Common App essay prompt, “Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure,” and wrote about the two years in high school I spent generally making a mess of my time in a Navy JROTC program--complete with exactly five terrible nautical puns.

But, if you ask me, I think you’re asking the wrong question.

The whole point of your application essay--and the reason Harvard calls it your “personal statement” instead--is that it’s personal. I wouldn’t recommend including my nautical puns in your writing to Harvard for a lot of reasons, but the most important is that they’re a part of my story, not yours.

I’m sitting in an office with four other students right now, and (after a brief poll) it turns out we wrote about everything from writer’s block to being a pastor’s kid to the U.S. Navy. So the answer to the all-important question, “What do you say to convince someone to let you into Harvard?” is that you talk about you .

You spend all day with yourself, but your admissions officers meet you for the first time the day they pick up your application. They meet you through your transcript and teacher recommendations and extracurricular resume, but mostly they meet you--the parts of you that don’t revolve around a list of leadership positions or your stellar (or not-so-stellar, in my case) math grades or how helpful you were in English class that one time--in what you write to them.

So write about you: what matters to you, how you spend your time, what makes you tick and keeps you up at night. Don’t try to write what you think Harvard wants to hear, whether that’s an essay about a love of mathematical theorems you don’t really have or your “life-changing” experience helping poor orphans in Indonesia that wasn’t really that life-changing at all. If you’re reading (or writing) your essay and it feels like you’re describing someone else, there’s a big problem.

So write about your grandmother. Or your gym teacher. Or your after-school job bagging groceries. Or math theorems, if they really are your favorite. Write in your voice, whatever that sounds like--whether you love dialogue or description or have a soft spot for terrible Navy puns. Come up with something that’s uniquely you--no matter how long it takes. I spent the first 27 days of those four August weeks trying to wrap my head around how I was even going to put an essay on that blank page at which I was staring. And on the 28th day, in a corner on the floor of my high school’s senior homeroom right before my last first day of school, something clicked, I grabbed my laptop, and I went from lamenting having nothing to say in my college essay to having 2,500 words of stuff to say that I spent the next eight weeks cutting down to 650.

My preferred essay-writing spot.

Colleges aren’t asking for your whole life story (please…) or a piece of art in which you expound upon your love of all things Harvard; they’re asking for a little more information about you, and you’re the one who gets to decide what you tell them. It’s a daunting task, but no one is better prepared to write about your life than you are.

No one’s college process is all smooth sailing, and that’s because figuring out what you’re all about and then trying to tell someone else about it is hard. As stupid as it can feel sometimes to write answers to canned prompts like, “Write about a person who has had an impact on you” and “Tell your story,” eventually you just have to conquer the blank page, test the waters, and come up with something--even if you end up throwing 2,499 of your initial 2,500 words overboard.

After all, I used nautical puns in my college essay (and in this blog post...) and got in. How much crazier could a Harvard application essay get?!

Holly Class of '18 Alumni

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Dear homesick international student at harvard college.

David Class of '25

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The Art of Asking Smarter Questions

Arnaud Chevallier,
Frédéric Dalsace,
Jean-Louis Barsoux

With organizations of all sorts facing increased urgency and unpredictability, being able to ask smart questions has become key. But unlike lawyers, doctors, and psychologists, business professionals are not formally trained on what kinds of questions to ask when approaching a problem. They must learn as they go. In their research and consulting, the authors have seen that certain kinds of questions have gained resonance across the business world. In a three-year project they asked executives to brainstorm about the decisions they’ve faced and the kinds of inquiry they’ve pursued. In this article they share what they’ve learned and offer a practical framework for the five types of questions to ask during strategic decision-making: investigative, speculative, productive, interpretive, and subjective. By attending to each, leaders and teams can become more likely to cover all the areas that need to be explored, and they’ll surface information and options they might otherwise have missed.

These five techniques can drive great strategic decision-making.

Idea in Brief

The situation.

With organizations of all sorts facing increased urgency and uncertainty, the ability to ask smart questions has become key. But business professionals aren’t formally trained in that skill.

Why It’s So Challenging

Managers’ expertise often blinds them to new ideas. And the flow of questions can be hard to process in real time, so certain concerns and insights may never be raised.

Strategic questions can be grouped into five domains: investigative, speculative, productive, interpretive, and subjective. By attending to each, leaders and teams are more likely to cover all the areas that need to be explored—and they’ll surface information and options they might otherwise have missed.

As a cofounder and the CEO of the U.S. chipmaker Nvidia, Jensen Huang operates in a high-velocity industry requiring agile, innovative thinking. Reflecting on how his leadership style has evolved, he told the New York Times, “I probably give fewer answers and I ask a lot more questions….It’s almost possible now for me to go through a day and do nothing but ask questions.” He continued, “Through probing, I help [my management team]…explore ideas that they didn’t realize needed to be explored.”

Arnaud Chevallier is a professor of strategy at IMD Business School.
Frédéric Dalsace is a professor of marketing and strategy at IMD.
Jean-Louis Barsoux is a term research professor at IMD and a coauthor of ALIEN Thinking: The Unconventional Path to Breakthrough Ideas (PublicAffairs, 2021).

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Harvard asks students about sexual assault and misconduct in third survey since 2015

Survey open April 2 through May 2 for degree-seeking students

Nicole Rura

Harvard Correspondent

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and on April 2, the University launched the Higher Education Sexual Misconduct and Awareness (HESMA) Survey. This is the third in a series of surveys that the University has used to understand and address issues related to sexual assault, misconduct, and harassment on campus. (The first two were held in 2015 and 2019 .) Harvard is a member of a 10-university consortium that is administering the HESMA Survey.

The survey will be open through May 2, and all degree-seeking students can access it by scanning the QR code displayed on materials around campus, visiting hesma.harvard.edu , or following instructions emailed to them by Westat, the independent research firm conducting the survey. To encourage participation, all students who complete the survey will receive a $20 gift card, with an option to donate the funds to select nonprofit organizations.

To learn how these surveys have changed sexual assault and misconduct prevention practices on campus, why it is critical for all eligible students to participate, and how the results can impact campus resources going forward, the Gazette spoke with Deputy Provost Peggy Newell and Kathleen McGinn, the survey’s principal investigator and the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Is this survey the same as the ones from 2015 and 2019?

McGinn : The core of the survey is almost identical to the 2015 and 2019 surveys because we want to be able to compare the data across all three surveys. That allows us to learn where students’ experiences have gotten better over time and where they may have remained constant or gotten worse. With data from all three surveys, we can quantify the effects of changes Harvard has made and move forward with steps suggested by survey responses.

Newell : Beyond the core survey, we added questions to ensure that we meet key requirements mandated by Massachusetts law. Students, in particular Harvard students and alumni , were critical in supporting and advocating for Massachusetts campus sexual assault legislation , which requires every higher education institution in Massachusetts to administer a campus climate survey of all students every four years. The HESMA Survey continues our ongoing commitment to engage in climate surveys, and thanks to the hard work of those Harvard students, all Massachusetts colleges and universities will also gather this important data.

Why is this survey so important?

Newell : It’s very important because it helps us measure what’s happening on our campus, not only the incidence of sexual assault and sexual harassment, but also how well we’re doing in addressing problems that we have on campus. For example, we’re asking participants about their knowledge of available resources and their experiences with accessing resources and University processes designed to address issues of sexual harassment and misconduct on our campus. The results from the HESMA Survey will give us very useful insight that we can use to improve our efforts in this area, with the goal of reducing and ultimately eliminating sex-based harassment and discrimination.

McGinn : The survey is one way for us to be proactive instead of reactive, which is critical. Unfortunately, sexual harassment and sexual assault continue to be a reality of campuses across the U.S. If we don’t have a way to understand what’s going on in terms of sexual harassment and sexual assault, we can only be reactive and address cases after they’ve happened. This survey allows us to take a proactive stance and change things that might stop sexual harassment before it happens.

How did the results from the 2015 and 2019 survey change how the University addresses these issues?

McGinn : The 2015 survey was the first of its kind. People had been talking about the prevalence of harm occurring on college campuses, but there was little data available about the actual prevalence of sexual harassment and misconduct within higher education. We didn’t really know how problematic and pervasive this was as a national public health issue until we got that solid data in 2015. Continuing to survey at regular intervals is essential for us to see how certain strategies are or are not making a difference over time. And as one in a group of universities conducting this survey, we can share information across institutions and learn from our peers. We must work together to find effective solutions.

Newell : Before 2015 and even until 2019, there was a lot of focus on policy. Since 2015, research has confirmed that solely focusing on policies, procedures, and the law doesn’t change behavior or reduce harm. Since that first iteration of the survey, we’ve shifted our approach to looking at the issue of sexual harassment and other sexual misconduct in higher education as a public health issue, which must be addressed from multiple angles, including individual or bystander action, cultural change, and policy awareness.

McGinn : The survey also provides information about the places and the situations in which sexual harassment and sexual assault takes place, allowing us to focus efforts there. For example, the 2015 and 2019 surveys revealed that alcohol consumption is co-occurring with student-on-student sexual harassment and assault. In response, HBS has supported student-led efforts toward having social events that aren’t centered around alcohol. Additionally, we learned from the 2019 results that Harvard should emphasize bystander strategies more. Since the 2019 survey, we’ve increased both online and in person training for our students, staff, and faculty on bystander intervention.

This time of year is hectic at the University, especially for students. Why is important for all degree-seeking students to pause and take the survey?

McGinn : For any survey to be useful, it’s critical to have a representative sample. By hearing from all people across campus regardless of their positive or negative experiences, we can fully understand what’s going on and continue to try to get in front of it.

Newell : My biggest worry is a low response rate. We can’t address and prevent sexual misconduct without engaging the community. The more voices we hear, the stronger the survey results will be and the better positioned we will be to understand what changes are needed. So, we really do need to get as many students to take it as possible.

The survey includes questions about highly sensitive issues and topics, and some students may have concerns about confidentiality. How will students’ privacy be protected?

Newell : Westat, an independent research firm, is conducting the survey. They are contractually required to anonymize all responses and won’t maintain or generate any connection logs with IP addresses. No information about a person’s identity will be shared with Harvard at all — there’s a complete separation. And it’s up to a student to decide whether or not they participate. We hope they will, but it is entirely voluntary.

How could faculty and staff encourage students to participate?

McGinn : I think it’s paramount for faculty to get the word out there. As a faculty member, you can mention it in class; you can put the QR code on your office door. Just talking about it is really, really important.

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Forget ‘doomers.’ Warming can be stopped, top climate scientist says

Michael Mann points to prehistoric catastrophes, modern environmental victories

Yes, it’s exciting. Just don’t look at the sun.

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Brazilian Capitol attack: The interaction between Bolsonaro’s supporters’ content, WhatsApp, Twitter, and news media

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Bolsonaro’s supporters used social media to spread content during key events related to the Brasília attack. An unprecedented analysis of more than 15,000 public WhatsApp groups showed that these political actors tried to manufacture consensus in preparation for and after the attack. A cross-platform time series analysis showed that the spread of content on Twitter predicted the spread of content on WhatsApp. Twitter also predicted news coverage of Bolsonaro’s supporters, suggesting a propaganda feedback loop. Our findings indicate that investigative journalism and public policy initiatives could benefit from monitoring public groups on encrypted messaging apps.

Center for Media Engagement, University of Texas at Austin, USA

Palver, USA

Research Questions

What type of content were Bolsonaro’s supporters spreading on WhatsApp and Twitter during the January 8 Brasília attack?
How did WhatsApp and Twitter content from Bolsonaro’s supporters interact with each other during the attack?
How did the news coverage interact with Bolsonaro’s supporters’ content during the attack?

Essay Summary

On January 8, 2023, thousands of Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters ransacked official buildings in the country’s capital intending to promote a military coup d’état to keep Bolsonaro in power. In this study, we investigated how Bolsonaro’s supporters spread content on WhatsApp and Twitter during the Brasília attack. We ran a descriptive and longitudinal analysis on more than 15,000 WhatsApp public groups—a number without precedents in WhatsApp research. We used LDA topic modeling to identify the main topics of discussion on Twitter. We applied a time series model to investigate the temporal interaction between WhatsApp, Twitter, and news coverage.
The spread of disinformation on WhatsApp and Twitter closely followed key events in preparation for the Brasília attack. The main topics associated with Bolsonaro’s supporters were religion, infiltrators, armed forces, left-wing, and nationalism. Bolsonaro’s supporters’ content on Twitter anteceded the spread of content on WhatsApp. This temporal pattern implies that Twitter was the platform where Bolsonaro’s supporters originally published propaganda to manufacture consensus around the coup d’etat. Then, users spread these messages organically on WhatsApp. Finally, Twitter also predicted news coverage of Bolsonaro’s supporters.
Our findings have implications for our understanding of the temporal patterns involved in far-right content spread between WhatsApp, Twitter, and news coverage in the context of the insurrection in Brazil. For example, we add evidence to journalistic reports that the insurrection was first organized through encrypted messaging apps. Monitoring public groups on such apps could bring insight into future political movements, prevent attacks

Implications

The Capitol attack on January 6, 2020, in the United States holds several similarities and political connections with the attack on January 8, 2022, in Brazil, when Lula da Silva won the election over former president Jair Bolsonaro. Many have noted that, in both cases, the proliferation of election fraud allegations and conspiratorial claims on social media platforms contributed to physical attacks on the official buildings (Wendling, 2023). These similarities may also reflect a troubling international trend to refute elections on the false basis of election fraud, particularly among far-right political leaders. Attacks on the electoral system have implications for worldwide democracies, as it could be extremely risky if the blueprint laid by Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro were followed in other political contexts.

Disinformation about the alleged election fraud and a “rigged campaign” contributed greatly to the Brasília attack (Deliso, 2023), as was the case in the U.S. Capitol attack (Soto-Vásquez & Sánchez-Santos, 2022). An important factor for this study is the use of nationalist discourse features that pit “patriots” (those loyal to the far-right populist leader) not only against their fellow citizens but also against democratic institutions. Research indicates that far-right populists, such as Trump, manipulate the concept of patriotism to advance anti-pluralism, consolidate their authoritarian power, and oppose liberal institutions such as the judiciary system and free press (Curren, 2020). The same type of extremist discourse proliferated on several different social media platforms in the days leading up to the Brasília attack (Frenkel, 2023). Bolsonaro’s supporters heavily adopted the nickname “patriots” (in Portuguese “patriotas”) as an identification of the pro-Bolsonaro movement. Thus, we investigated the use of the term “patriots” in the Brasília attack, recognizing its important symbolic meaning. In the United States, the term has been utilized not only to convey support for Trump but also to identify anti-communists—bearing in mind that “the communist label is often conflated with and used to signify the other” (Soto-Vásquez & Sánchez-Santos, 2022, p. 8). Similarly, the Brazilian term carries the symbolic meaning of support for Bolsonaro and, following the populist playbook, opposition to “the other.” Insurrectionists have employed the term “patriots” to identify and organize people in favor of the Capitol attack in the United States (Munn, 2021), as well as in Brazil (Frenkel, 2023). Studying how Bolsonaro’s supporters adopted the term has important implications for the literature that identifies right-wing extremism as a transnational movement as it allows us to understand propaganda flows between different countries.

Our evidence suggests that, in addition to spreading content directly related to Brazilian politics (e.g., praise for the military and criticism of Lula da Silva’s government), Bolsonaro’s supporters used nomenclature and narratives similar to those used at the U.S. Capitol attack, such as religious language (Bastos & Recuero, 2023) and false information that members of the left have infiltrated the patriots and orchestrated the attack (Wendling, 2023). These findings establish that there are common values spread by right-wing extremists in the United States and Brazil. Future studies should address the reasons behind these common values and whether there is a relationship between the U.S. patriot agenda and its counterpart in Brazil. Understanding transnational patterns among extremist movements will help us understand why they spread and how to counter them.

This study also investigated how Bolsonaro’s supporters spread content on WhatsApp and Twitter during the January 8 Brasília attack. The Brazilian population widely adopted WhatsApp for personal communication, with over 165 million WhatsApp users in the country (Mari, 2022). However, the app became a fundamental source of news, as 41% of Brazilians receive news from WhatsApp (Newman et al., 2022). Research suggests that WhatsApp was an important platform for spreading pro-Bolsonaro propaganda during the 2018 presidential election, and later, the former president kept an official department for propaganda spread during his term in office (Ozawa et al., 2023). Our study focuses on Bolsonaro’s propaganda in the period immediately following his government and the beginning of Lula da Silva’s new term in office. Our unique dataset of more than 15,000 WhatsApp public groups allowed us to get a significant glimpse of Bolsonaro’s supporters’ content on the WhatsApp space. We also analyzed content spread on Twitter given that this platform was widely adopted by right-wing extremists in Brazil (Santini et al., 2021). In the face of the prominence of WhatsApp among the Brazilian population and the importance of Twitter to right-wing extremism in the country, we found that comparing content spread through these two platforms brings important insight into still understudied cross-platform behaviors (Guess & Lyons, 2020).

Our analysis shows that Bolsonaro’s supporters spread the largest number of messages on WhatsApp and Twitter during key events related to the Brasília attack, as detailed in the Findings section. Interestingly, these messages were especially concentrated in the immediate days after those key events. For instance, we found peaks in message volume after Lula’s victory and after the Brasília attack. This suggests that political actors look to present narratives to supply their supporters with information so they can make sense of the events of the previous days. In practice, this would be an attempt to manufacture consensus (Woolley, 2023) in favor of a conspiracy theory of a fraudulent election right after Lula’s victory and, later, in favor of disinformation related to the Brasília attack. This evidence has implications for our understanding of how extremists use propaganda. In this study, Bolsonaro’s supporters spread content in reaction to events, either to mobilize supporters against the election results and ask for a military coup or to spread narratives about the events that took place during the Brasília attack.

Our analysis presented evidence that Bolsonaro’s supporters’ content on Twitter anteceded the spread of content on WhatsApp. By the same token, the variation in the volume of messages on Twitter could predict the variation in the volume of messages on WhatsApp. This temporal pattern may suggest that Bolsonaro’s supporters used Twitter to initially publish propaganda to manufacture consensus around the coup d’etat. Then, users spread these messages organically on WhatsApp. Using an open platform such as Twitter to spread this content is reasonable given that there was no attempt to hide Bolsonaro’s propaganda about a fraudulent election. On July 18, 2022, Bolsonaro invited diplomats from 40 countries to present his charges that Brazil’s election system was open to fraud (Boadle, 2022). The Brazilian Supreme Court used his presentation as a central argument to make Bolsonaro ineligible to hold public office for the next eight years (Nicas, 2023). Bolsonaro’s public allegations would help explain why activity on an open platform such as Twitter would predict organic activity on a closed platform like WhatsApp. While previous research found consistent evidence that Bolsonaro has taken advantage of the closed features of WhatsApp to spread propaganda in the past (Ozawa et al., 2013), he used open platforms to openly discredit the electoral system in Brazil. Although our analysis certainly has limitations on conclusions about causality, our findings bring insight into the understanding of cross-platform patterns of disinformation spread, a research gap this study attempts to fill (Guess & Lyons, 2020).

During the 2018 election, journalistic reports documented the extensive spread of pro-Bolsonaro propaganda by marketing agencies, which published a large number of messages on WhatsApp (Mello, 2018). These journalistic reports prompted investigations by the Electoral Supreme Court. Subsequent research found evidence suggesting that the marketing agencies were likely not used after the investigation (Ozawa et al., 2013). Also, the WhatsApp company stated that it took down thousands of WhatsApp accounts dedicated to spreading propaganda (Sögur Hous, 2018). If political actors are indeed not using mechanisms to automatize the spread of messages on WhatsApp, our findings may add evidence to the effectiveness of public policy and journalistic investigation in reducing propaganda and misinformation spread on social media platforms.

Additionally, we investigated mainstream media coverage of Bolsonaro’s supporters who identified as “patriots.” We found evidence that the variation in the volume of messages about “patriots” posted by Bolsonaro’s supporters on Twitter could predict the variation in the volume of news coverage of “patriots.” This finding may suggest that the content of the “patriot” discourse about the insurrection on social media platforms managed to set the mainstream media agenda. Our longitudinal analysis potentially suggests that propaganda went higher up the chain to mainstream media, possibly feeding a propaganda feedback loop, which happens when politicians, the public, and the media enter a vicious circle of propaganda spread (Benkler et al., 2018). This would make sense given that Bolsonaro’s supporters first organized and executed the attacks, which were then covered by the press. After all, it was only days after the attack that news media reported that Bolsonaro’s supporters were planning the attack days earlier on encrypted messaging apps (Frenkel, 2023). Although our findings have limitations on causality that future studies should address, we add evidence to journalistic investigations that reported about the insurrection first being organized through encrypted messaging apps. In this sense, investigative journalism could benefit from data journalism efforts, which could harvest important information for investigative stories. Monitoring encrypted messaging apps could bring insight into important political movements.

Finally, our findings can help to guide those who are interested in developing strategies to counter the advancement of extremist content online. From a public policy perspective, monitoring public groups on encrypted messaging apps can bring important information on organized movements that represent a threat to democracy. While early information can help authorities prevent future insurrections, monitoring online spaces after real-world events can help understand how political actors are manipulating narratives to justify their actions. This information should drive fact-checking initiatives and inform the population.

Finding 1: The spread of disinformation on WhatsApp and Twitter closely followed key events in preparation for the Brasília attack.

We analyzed messages published on WhatsApp between September 1, 2022, and January 31, 2023—the five months that comprise the total period around the presidential election and the Brasília attack. Our analysis period began one month before the presidential election and ended three weeks after the Brasília attack. The volume of patriot-related messages on both WhatsApp and Twitter roughly tripled after the presidential election. In the first two months of the analysis, we found 4,836 patriot-related messages on WhatsApp and 310,291 on Twitter. In the last three months of the analysis, there were 11,402 messages on WhatsApp and 1,100,606 on Twitter. More importantly, WhatsApp and Twitter received the largest volume of patriot-related messages on the days after key events that led to the Brasília attack (see Figure 1).

The first peak of the volume of messages happened between November 1 and 3, 2022—the days that followed Lula’s victory in the election runoff. The messages called on Bolsonaro’s supporters to protest Lula’s allegedly fraudulentvictory. The content was spread in images, videos, audio messages, and especially long-form texts. This content spread false news stories, false explanations for political events, conspiracy theories, instructions for the next protests, and requests for donations in favor of the protests.

The next peak occurred on the day after the first Brasília attack, on December 12, 2022. This initial attack occurred before the large insurrection that took place on January 8, 2023. In this initial attack, Bolsonaro’s supporters set cars and buses on fire and tried to break into the Federal Police headquarters. The subsequent peak in messages occurred in the days following the Brasília attack. The messages spread false information, blaming members of the left for infiltrating the patriots and orchestrating the attack. Another prevalent and false narrative involved claims of mistreatment of Bolsonaro’s supporters who were in prison.

Finding 2: The main topics associated with Bolsonaro’s supporters were religion, infiltrators, armed forces, left-wing, and nationalism.

Figure 2 shows the results of a 15-topic model that we created to identify the main topics spread on Twitter. Each of the 15 graphs shows clusters of words that users posted frequently alongside the hashtag #patriotas, which allowed us to qualitatively assess the main topics. We identified the following topics that were relevant to our interest in far-right extremist discourse: religion, infiltrators, armed forces, left-wing, and nationalism. It is worth noting that some topics occurred multiple times within the 15 identified. Religion relates to the frequent use of the word “God.” Research suggested evidence that religious nationalism (Armaly et al., 2022) and appeal to God (Bond & Neville-Shepard, 2021) were associated with the Capitol attack. Infiltrators relates to a disinformation narrative stating that rioters at the Brasília attack were left-wing infiltrators dressed up as Bolsonaro’s supporters. An identical narrative was spread after the Capitol attack (Reuters, 2021). Armed forces references praise for the military and mentions the headquarters where the Brasília attack was organized. Left-wing is related to Lula and his left-wing government. Nationalism references nationalist language, nationalist symbols, and other patriots’ Twitter profiles.

Finding 3: The spread of Bolsonaro’s supporters’ messages on Twitter predicted the spread of their messages on WhatsApp.

A Granger-causality test presented evidence that Bolsonaro’s patriots’ messages on Twitter predicted the spread of their messages on WhatsApp ( F = 10.399, p < 0.01). Granger causality tests the relationship between two variables over time. The test shows whether past values in a time series can predict future values in another time series. 1 Clive Granger initially developed Granger-causality tests in the field of econometrics (Granger, 1969) to examine the temporal relationship between variables. Although the term implies causality, it is more accurate to state that Granger causality tests whether one variable forecasts the other (Hamilton, 1994). Communication scholars have increasingly employed this type of longitudinal analysis, especially due to the availability of granular levels of data in social media (Wells et al., 2019). For instance, research has applied Granger causality to study temporal relationships between disinformation campaigns on different social media platforms (Lukito, 2020). While Granger tests reveal patterns of prediction between variables, impulse response functions (IRFs) allow us to assess the duration of this relationship. Activities on both platforms increased in preparation for the Brasília attack, but we found evidence that an increase in Twitter activity predicted an increase in WhatsApp activity. The reverse does not hold true. An analysis of impulse response functions (IRFs) showed that activity on Twitter tends to predict activity on WhatsApp between 2–4 days in advance (see Figure 3).

Finding 4: The spread of Bolsonaro’s supporters’ messages on Twitter predicted news coverage of Bolsonaro’s supporters.

A Granger-causality test presented evidence that Bolsonaro’s supporters’ messages on Twitter predicted news coverage about Bolsonaro’s supporters ( F = 10.323, p < 0.01). Indeed, the first peak in news coverage occurred on November 3, 2022, four days after Lula’s victory in the presidential election. The second peak happened four days later, on November 7, 2022. The third and highest peak occurred on January 9, 2023, the day after the Brasília attack. An analysis of impulse response functions (IRFs) showed that activity on Twitter tends to predict news coverage between 2–3 days in advance (see Figure 4).

Our period of analysis was between September 1, 2022, and January 31, 2023, for all the three variables that we analyzed. We collected WhatsApp data through a platform developed by Palver, a company that currently monitors more than 25,000 public WhatsApp groups in Brazil. Through a dashboard, the company shows the volume of messages containing chosen keywords along a timeline. The platform recognizes words written or said in images, videos, and audio content. We collected the daily volume of messages with the keywords “#patriotas” and “patriotas” (N = 16,238). Palver monitored 14,480 public groups at the beginning of the analysis and 19,718 groups at the end of the analysis. We also collected all Twitter posts using the hashtag #patriotas, except for retweets, using the R package {academictwitteR} (N = 1,410,897). The tweets were published by 402,015 different users. We used MediaCloud to collect news articles that mentioned the keywords “patriotas” and “patriota” (N = 736) in the online versions of the following media outlets: Globo, UOL, CartaCapital, Veja, Brasil 24/7, JovemPan, Terra, Istoé. This collection considers variations in size, editorial ideology, and platform (e.g., TV vs. magazine).

We first ran a descriptive longitudinal analysis of the daily count of Bolsonaro’s supporters’ messages on WhatsApp and Twitter. We qualitatively assessed which events were taking place during the peaks of message volume by reading WhatsApp and Twitter messages posted on those days and by reviewing news articles published around those dates. We had access to the full dataset of anonymized messages monitored by Palver, but those cannot be extracted directly from the dashboard. Therefore, we used Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to build a 15-topic model of the main topics that were discussed alongside the hashtag #patriotas on Twitter (but not on WhatsApp). More details on our methods are available in Appendix B.

We applied a time series model (Lütkepohl, 2013) to investigate the temporal interaction between disinformation content spread on WhatsApp and Twitter, as well as the interaction with news coverage. These were treated as endogenous variables. We accounted for the content peak during the Brasília attack as an exogenous control. Twitter was the only time series that did not meet the assumption of stationarity according to the Augmented Dickey-Fuller Test ( p = 0.121). After a visual inspection, we found fractional integration through the R package {fracdiff} ( p < 000.1), so we fractionally first differenced after an ARFIRMA test. We also visually checked all the time series for seasonality. Only the news coverage had a seasonal component, and we removed it through the decomposition of additive time series. We used a vector autoregression (VAR) model to study temporal relationships. We found the optimal lag structure of our VAR model through Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC) (Korobilis, 2008) and determined that the best model had a lag of 1 (BIC = 3786.607). We used Granger-causality tests to evaluate our findings (Benati & Surico, 2009; Lukito, 2020; Soroka 2002). As a robustness check, we reran the analysis solely with tweets that contained calls to action related to the Brasília attack (see Appendix A). All the results held the same, so this served as confirmatory evidence.

Conspiracy Theories
/ Elections
/ Mainstream Media
/ Propaganda

Cite this Essay

Ozawa, J. V. S., Lukito, J., Bailez, F., & Fakhouri, L. G. P. (2024). Brazilian Capitol attack: The interaction between Bolsonaro’s supporters’ content, WhatsApp, Twitter, and news media. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review . https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-137

/ Appendix B

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This study is a project of the Center for Media Engagement (CME) at Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin and was supported by the Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics, Knight Foundation, as well as UT Austin’s Good Systems.

Competing Interests

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This study was based on secondary data collected from WhatsApp, Twitter, and news media. No approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB) was necessary as we did not collect data directly from human subjects.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are properly credited.

Data Availability

To protect the privacy of users, the content collected on WhatsApp groups and Twitter accounts cannot be released.

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