hbs essay questions

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• The HBS Essay

The HBS Essay: Writing Strategies that Work and What to Avoid

For the last few years, Harvard Business School has challenged MBA applicants with its sole, open-ended essay question:

• As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program? (900 words)

Where to Begin?

With its broad nature and 900-word limit, it’s no surprise that many prospective business students have trouble getting started with the Harvard MBA essay, and wonder what direction they should take to answer this perplexing prompt. 

Candidates who are applying to HBS in future rounds will likely face the same essay question. In this article, we highlight common mistakes that applicants make and consider the best way for future applicants to approach this unapologetically unlimited essay prompt.

The HBS Essay: What This Year’s Applicants Should Consider

First off, applicants must realize what they are up against before approaching the infamous HBS MBA admission essay. The Harvard Business School acceptance rate is just 11%. Of the roughly 930 individuals who are accepted, there is a very small slice of amazingly fantastic applicants who write the essay as merely a formality. For the rest of the applicants fighting for the available slots–perhaps loads of you reading this article–there are several candidates who are equally qualified fighting for the same seat: great jobs, great career trajectories, great GPAs and GMATs. This means that your personal essay is meant to differentiate you and show the admissions committee why they should select YOU rather than competing applicants.

Learn from those applicants that came before you and make sure to give special thought on how you can really convey who you are in answering this essay question. It is not your typical essay prompt, so it deserves your time and attention.

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Menlo’s Expert Consultant, Yaron Dahan, on: “What more would you like us to know?”

The best advice I can give applicants answering the HBS essay question is this: select a topic that will play as well in the case method as it does with an admissions committee. Ultimately that is what HBS is looking for in its admits: Will this candidate be able to contribute something unique in a case discussion?

Think about the nine areas covered in HBS’s year-one required curriculum (finance, accounting, leadership, marketing, operations, entrepreneurship, strategy, ethics, and government/economics), and figure out where you will be able to add the most value. Dee Leopold, the former admissions director at HBS, told the story of one student who did this very successfully in his interview, and was admitted to the HBS class the following year:

“This is a guy who worked in a small manufacturing facility in a tiny town in Michigan where they make baby formula. He was in quality control, working with union people. Early on the job, they discovered there were bugs in the machinery of the factory. They are contaminating the product, and management was obviously deeply concerned about the problem. The news trucks have gathered outside. The CEO comes. That is an amazing voice to bring to our course on Leadership and Corporate Accountability.”

As an applicant, it’s your job to accomplish the same thing in your essay that this candidate did in his interview. Show them you have a unique contribution to make. If you can do that, then you’ve mastered the HBS essay question.

In the video below, Yaron elaborates on how to approach the personal essays at HBS and Stanford.

Yaron Dahan on Personal Essays for HBS and GSB Admissions

The harvard mba essay: what doesn’t work, playing it safe. .

HBS wants to see several qualities in the applicants it admits: aptitude, accomplishment, character, and passion. Your GMAT and GPA will speak to your analytical aptitude, your resume to your accomplishment, and your recommenders to your character. That leaves your HBS application essay to speak toward your passion: will you have interesting stories and opinions to contribute to the HBS case discussions? Will you involve yourself in the broader Harvard community? Do you have the drive to achieve ambitious things after you graduate? To give the admissions committee confidence in your candidacy, you must let your quirks and passions come through. You cannot play it safe and write a simple, boring essay.

Although you cannot be boring in your MBA essays, you do NOT want to go overboard. In the video below, our co-founder Alice talks about things to avoid while writing the personal essay, namely:

• Using the essay to show literary creativity 
• Boasting in ways that are off-putting 
• Dishonesty and trying to conceal failures

Alice van Harten on Common Mistakes in HBS Essays

Answering the hbs prompt like a typical mba essay question..

The key point of the Harvard Business School essay is the phrase “what more,” which is a clear signal that HBS does not want you using the essay to rehash things that are already covered by your resume, career goals statement, professional recommendations or written application form.

If the HBS admissions team wanted to know why you wanted a business degree, or why you wanted to go to Harvard, or what your career path was, then they would ask. They certainly have asked applicants those questions in years past. But realize that, in providing this very open-ended prompt, HBS expects very open-ended answers. They want answers from applicants that could never be prompted by any questions the admissions committee could ask. They want to learn the things that make you different as an applicant. So take the hint, and realize that HBS ditched the standard essay prompts for a reason. They are looking for something different here. Be creative, and be genuine.

Focusing on one or more of your weaknesses. 

Every year, candidates seem to battle insecurities over the same issues: their GPA was only a 3.2; their GMAT is just a fraction too low; they don’t have many significant extracurriculars. It’s possible that those issues need to be addressed in your MBA application, but this essay is absolutely not the place to do it. HBS will never admit you for mitigating every possible weakness; they will only admit you for showing remarkable strength in one or two really interesting areas. Take the HBA essay question as the opportunity to demonstrate the latter, and leave addressing your GPA or extracurriculars for other parts of your application.

One Menlo Client’s Experience Working on the HBS Essay

Harvard’s MBA admissions essay is not for the faint of heart. It takes dedication, perseverance, and quite a bit of time. It is not a personal essay that you can whip out in one sitting, and we’ve heard many clients say that they woefully underestimated the time and effort needed to complete it well.

For Menlo Coaching client Vicky, the secret to HBS success was to go beyond just talking about her successful career in consulting and retail, and talk about her long-term vision for her family’s manufacturing business.

In the video below, she discusses how we helped her through the MBA admissions process generally, and with finding the right story for HBS specifically (use the chapter “Essay Writing Process” to jump directly to that part).

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HBS Essay Examples: How Former Clients Approached the Harvard MBA Essay & Application Journey and Won Admission

Related articles.

• How to Get Into Harvard Business School
• The Harvard Business School MBA Program Overview
• Achieving Work-Life Balance as a Top MBA Graduate
• How One HBS Alum Leveraged Her MBA for Entrepreneurship

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Sample Essays from Admitted HBS Students

• Sample HBS Essay [2020]: Vulnerable But Invincible
• Sample HBS Essay [2016]: The Mechanical Engineer
• Sample HBS Essay [2015]: The Author

I read the new 2020 Harbus MBA Essay Guide wondering what I was going to gain from it. I’ve been reading HBS MBA application essays for 26 years. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. I also had read the previous Harbus MBA Essay Guide , and the question Harvard is asking hasn’t changed since that one was published. However, while I started The Essay Guide a skeptic, I quickly saw its value, and can whole-heartedly recommend it to HBS applicants. 

Even after having read hundreds of HBS essays, I still found it worthwhile to read The Essay Guide . For applicants who have preconceived notions of what an admissible essay should be, The Essay Guide will open your eyes to 22 successful and different responses. For applicants who are wondering how on earth they should approach their essay, the guide will give them 22 different answers. 

For me it reinforced several valuable lessons:

• There really is no template for a successful HBS essay. The diversity of essays that are acceptable — no pun intended, well maybe a little intended — to Harvard Business School is striking.  
• The commitment of most of the authors to telling their story is also noteworthy. Several said they asked friends to confirm that the essay really mirrors them. Others wrote that they were determined that the essay present an authentic portrait of them.
• Most of the students wrote the essay over the course of months. Give yourself time to draft a persuasive, introspective, and authentic essay. 

Harvard’s question is a fantastic one. It is a probing one. And it requires you to probe yourself so that you can provide a profound reflection of you as you tell the HBS admissions committee what you really want them to know.

A successful Harvard Business School application essay [2020]

This sample essay is from The Harbus MBA Essay Guide and is reprinted with permission from Harbus .  

Essay: Vulnerable But Invincible 

Home country: USA

Previous industry: Consulting

Analysis: The author takes a rather bold approach here. She uses the essay to point to the times when she showed vulnerability in the workplace. This essay presents a strong example of how an essay can be used to complement different aspects of your personality – while resume and application can be used to highlight accomplishments, the essay has been intelligently used to show author’s capacity to be strong enough to talk about situations when she broke down in a professional capacity, but took lessons from each of these situations and employed them to her strength.

I have cried exactly four times at work.

The first time was early in my career. It was 2AM and I was lying in bed struggling with an Excel model. An overachiever my whole life, I was wholly unused to the feelings of inadequacy and incompetence bubbling up inside me. After clicking through dozens of Excel forums with still no right answer, I gave up and cried myself to sleep, vowing to never let myself feel so incapable again.

The second time was a year and a half later. I was unsatisfied with my project and role, and questioning my decision to be a consultant. That uncertainty must have been apparent to everyone, because my manager pulled me aside and bluntly told me that my attitude was affecting the entire team. I cried in front of him, devastated that I had let my doubts bleed into my work.

The third time was just a year ago. I was overseeing a process redesign and struggling to balance the many changes needed. The Partner called me into his office to say, “I’m worried our process is not as sound as it needs to be. I need to know that you care about this as much as I do.” I nodded, say that I do, then ran to the bathroom to cry, overwhelmed by how much change I knew was coming.

Each of the first three times was driven by frustration and anger. I had tamped down my emotions to the point where they overwhelmed me. Particularly as a young woman in business, I never wanted to be viewed as a stereotype or incapable. I was ashamed of my tears and terrified at how others would perceive me.

However, each of those experiences proved to be a turning point. My tears motivated me to ask for help when I needed it, pushed me to restructure my mindset and approach, and gave me a moment to breathe, rebalance, and reprioritize. In each case, my work was better for it. I have also used each experience as a learning moment. Each time I asked myself what decisions led me to the point of tears, and what I could have done differently. I could have raised my hand earlier for help, initiated a conversation with my manager about my uncertainty and dissatisfaction, or involved the Partner more actively in the planning and prioritization. While I can’t change the past, I can learn from it, and am more considerate of such outcomes when I make these decisions today.

Emotions are an inevitable part of the human experience, and as such, an inevitable part of the office. Rather than keeping them at bay, I have begun embracing my emotions to be a better manager and leader, and build more authentic connections. As a manager, I understand my team as people, not just colleagues. I have regular conversations with each of my team members to understand their individual goals and motivations, so I can take those into consideration when building the team structure and delegating responsibilities. As a leader, I invest in traditions and events that foster camaraderie and high morale. I am the proud founder of [NAME OF OFFICE PROGRAM] in the office, a beloved tradition that is now an integral part of the office and that I hope will continue even after I leave.

The fourth time I cried was at the rollout of a process redesign I oversaw. This was our first time demo-ing the new process end-to-end for the rest of the team. As the demo progressed, I felt the team’s energy turn from nervous anticipation to dawning excitement, and finally to sheer awe and amazement. As the demo ended, one of my teammates turned to me, and asked in a hushed voice, “Are you crying?” And I was. This time, I cried not with frustration or anger. This time, I cried with joy for our success and with pride for my team. Embracing my emotions allowed me to show that tears are not shameful and don’t need to be hidden in the workplace. I am no longer ashamed of my tears, and I am proud to demonstrate that a strong leader can be pragmatic and emotional all at once.

Word count: 705

Author’s comment: “I started early on my essay (~ 3 months before the submission deadline) because it was important to me to iterate and be thoughtful. I started by laying out potential themes and stories for my essay, and while there are a lot of similarities, the core message changed quite a bit. Don’t get too attached to any one story or theme and allow yourself to let go of a draft if it’s not the right one. What I found most helpful was having 2-3 close friends that I trust wholeheartedly review multiple drafts, because they were able to provide continuous feedback and help me combine pieces from multiple drafts. None of them had ever gone to or applied to business school, but were experienced in writing and communication (e.g. one is a screenwriter) which helped me focus on communicating MY story more so than what is the story that HBS Admissions would most like.”

A successful Harvard Business School application essay [2016]

This sample essay is from  The Harbus MBA Essay Guide  and is reprinted with permission from Harbus. 

Essay: The Mechanical Engineer

Author’s home country: United States of America Author’s previous industry/profession: Operations consulting, operations management  Author gender: Male

Analysis:   The author focuses his essay on two themes – his professional experience as an operations consultant and an experience which motivated him to go for an MBA. Through the essay, the author is able to highlight his professional skills, achievement as well as give a clear picture of his long-term career plans and his reasons for doing an MBA.

I’m [APPLICANT’S FIRST NAME] and I have journeyed here from the hallowed grounds of [APPLICANT’S U.S. NEW ENGLAND HOMETOWN], where I spent my formative years amid wild dreams of achieving greatness by setting world records and winning the Olympics. As I’ve hung up my [OLYMPIC SPORT’S TRADITIONAL SHOES] in favor of business shoes, those dreams have evolved into a desire to achieve greatness in a different arena. Today, my dream centers on helping companies leverage technology to propel their operations into the future, providing unparalleled customer service and delivery, with an operational efficiency to match.

I graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in [GRADUATION YEAR] and spent my first 3 years out of college working as an operations consultant. It was my job to walk into a manufacturing plant and drive significant operational change – for example, I once spent 3 months walking the sticky floors of a milk plant in [MID-SIZED U.S. SOUTHEASTERN CITY] helping plant management boost throughput by 30% in order to take on a new customer. We accomplished this goal with zero capital spend, a feat many had believed was impossible. In our projects, the biggest challenge was almost always convincing managers to reach for that extra tad of unseen opportunity hiding within the operation, because oftentimes it was very difficult to look beyond the daily struggles that plagued their operations. I worked directly with 5-8 person “rapid results teams,” coaching them on how to think about operational improvement, motivating them to sprint towards it, and leading them through the analysis required to capture it. I left those milk, water and oil sands plants with many enduring friendships and inspiring operational victories borne from our journey from ambitious goals to concrete results.

<< READ: What is HBS Looking For? >>

I’ve spent the past two years working in supply chain management at a private industrial goods supplier. I chose direct management because I wanted to drive these same inspirational improvements in an operation I owned. My role was to manage and improve the operation, and through my experience, I learned the nuts and bolts of the supply chain industry. However, my dream of innovating supply chain operations pushed me to consider transitioning to an organization with an ambitious, transformative purpose. In fact, last year I had a unique opportunity to reflect on what type of impact matters to me. This opportunity was my first ever trip to [NORTHWEST AFRICAN REGION], the place of my family’s origin.

On the second day of the trip, I journeyed to [LOCAL NORTHEASTERN AFRICAN TOWN], a small town nestled next an enormous active volcano that is surrounded by a wide expanse of rich volcanic soil, which is used to make wine. This wine is sipped by adventure-seeking tourists relaxing after a long day on the volcano, and thus the town’s two major industries, wine and tourism, are sustained. When we arrived at the town, I was shocked to see it buried by an avalanche of volcanic rock from an eruption [A FEW YEARS PRIOR]. As our guide lamented on the dreary prospects of the Page 2 of 2 town, I was amazed to see just how important these two industries had been to its development.

Through this real world example, I was able to clearly visualize the impact businesses can have on their broader environment, an understanding that had not been as evident to me while working in the larger, more complex American economy. For example, I had spent hours walking among the dilapidated buildings speckling the warehouse district in Cleveland, but only after my trip did I connect them to the decline of the Midwestern manufacturing industry. Upon my return, armed with this broader perspective, I decided my next step would be to attend business school. There I would gain the technical, operational and leadership skills to make my transition to an organization whose goal was to drive change in its broader industry and community, as those wine and tourism companies had done in [LOCAL NORTHEASTERN AFRICAN TOWN OF FAMILY’S ORIGIN].

So, that is how I arrived in front of you today. My goal is to humbly learn as much as I can from our section, our professors, and our experiences. I am excited to get to know you, and will always do my best to support our section intellectually and athletically (we will be the future section Olympics champions!).

How about yourself?

Word Count: 711

Author’s comment:   While the initial draft of my essay did not take more than an hour or two, it was the revision process that I spent a significant amount of time on. I think the most important part of the essay writing process is to ensure that your story and personality come through – and this is perhaps the most difficult part! To help with this, I had individuals who were not as familiar with my story and why I wanted to go to business school provide me with feedback in addition to those with whom I worked closely.

Linda’s comment:

I would hate for any of you to read this essay or any of the other essays in  The Harbus MBA Essay Guide , which I recommend, and think “This is a great template. I’m going to tell a story just like this one!” Bad idea. Wrong response.

The one take-away from this essay and the other successful essays in this book is that the reader feels a little like s/he is meeting the author – not someone else and not some masked being.  Individuality is the common thread in those essays; it isn’t brilliant prose or incredible writing. It’s authenticity and humanity. And yes, the author is accomplished too.

I chose this essay from the Harbus collection because I know there are many engineers applying. Some — both in and out of their field — think of the profession as boring or common. But this essay is neither boring nor common. I loved it because the writer comes to life, and  his passion  and personality shine through. He doesn’t get bogged down in technicalities, industrial jargon, or an alphabet soup of acronyms. He tells his story with energy and clarity, from his perspective, and with a focus on his impact.

Now that’s an example you can follow: Tell  your  story with energy and clarity, from  your  perspective, and with a focus on  your  impact.

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A successful harvard business school application essay [2015], the 2014-15 harvard business school essay question:.

You’re applying to Harvard Business School. We can see your resume, academic transcripts, extracurricular activities, awards, post-MBA career goals, test scores, and what your recommenders have to say about you. What else would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy?

This sample essay is from The Harbus MBA Essay Guide and is reprinted with permission from Harbus.  

Essay: The Author

Author’s Background: Finance & Media

The author sets the stage for the remainder of the essay by first presenting a notable accomplishment of hers and then explicitly illustrating the entrepreneurial drive and diligence she used to see it through. More importantly, the author’s opening introduces a theme – storytelling – that is consistently interwoven through different stages of her life. The reader is lead through the author’s childhood, professional and extracurricular experiences, along with accomplishments, all the while being reminded of the integral role storytelling has played. Beyond highlighting her gift, or passion for the art of storytelling, the author goes on to connect this theme with her future career ambitions, as well as describe how this could also serve the HBS community.

In 2012, I realized a life ambition – I completed my first novel, all while working full time at [Top U.S. Investment Bank]. I could not wait to share it with the world and eagerly went in search of a literary agent. But each agent I contacted declined to represent my novel.

Storytelling is my lifelong passion; it saw me through a difficult childhood. After my father left, my mother raised me as a single parent in [U.S. City/State], a rural Bible Belt town two hours south of [U.S. State]. We did not have much money and that coupled with my bookishness made me a target for bullies. Books and writing were an escape; they gave me an avenue to articulate the feelings of abandonment and powerlessness I otherwise did not want to express. Writing made me happy and the more I wrote, the more my talent blossomed. I began to win awards and my work was published in youth literary journals. These experiences made me more confident, a key part of my success later in life. It all started with a pen, a notebook, and my imagination. Nevertheless, I was passionate about my work and was determined to put it into readers’ hands. In true entrepreneurial fashion, I self-published my novel through the digital platforms Smashwords and Createspace. I worked with a promotional expert to organize a month-long book tour to promote the book to prominent book bloggers and their readers. The result? My novel has received multiple 5-star reader reviews, from Amazon to Goodreads, and was a semifinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Stories are an integral part of the human experience. They uplift and inspire, give us permission to dream and to visualize what could be. Storytelling has been an integral part of my career, from building financial models at [Top U.S. Investment Bank] that illustrated my expectations for the companies that I covered to delivering a presentation to [International Daily Newspaper] ’s chief revenue officer explaining why reducing ad prices for tender house advertisers would not lead to an increase in revenue.

My passion has also informed my growth as a leader; I believe my most impactful expressions of leadership have been my efforts to help others write the narratives of their own lives and careers. At [Top U.S. Investment Bank], I created an informal mentorship program for female and minority interns and first-year analysts in the research division and led a “soft skills” class to help new analysts handle difficult interpersonal situations. For four years, I’ve mentored a young Hispanic woman through Student Sponsor Partners, a nonprofit that gives low-income students scholarships to private high schools. Being a mentor gave me the privilege of guiding another first generation college student along what I know can be a lonely, difficult path. This fall, she started college with a full scholarship.

Storytelling will be a part of my future career path; as an MBA graduate, my goal is to obtain a position in strategy and business development at an entertainment company that specializes in film or television. Long term, I want to start a multimedia and merchandising company with a publishing arm (books and magazines) as well as film, TV, and digital operations. Using strong, fictional heroines and informative lifestyle content, my company’s goal will be to educate and inspire women to become their best selves. My particular focus is creating compelling, multidimensional characters to inspire young women of color, who are constantly bombarded by negative images of women who look like them in media.

I’m pursuing a Harvard MBA because I want to become a better business strategist and strong general manager. Also, I want to further develop my leadership and presentation skills as I will manage professionals on the content and business side; it will be my task to unite them behind a shared strategic vision. Specifically, I want to learn how to motivate teams and individuals to perform at their highest level, and to become more adept at persuasion and generating “buy-in” from others. Harvard’s unique approach using the case method and emphasis on leadership development will challenge me to grow in both these areas. I also feel that I have much to contribute to Harvard’s community. My varied background in finance and media has given me a unique perspective that will be valuable in classroom discussions and team projects. I want to share my passion for the entertainment industry with my classmates by chairing the Entertainment & Media club and planning conferences, career treks, and other opportunities.

My background gives me the capacity for fearless thinking that is needed to meet the challenges of the entertainment industry’s shifting landscape. A Harvard MBA will strengthen that foundation and help me to become the kind of dynamic leader who can bring the vision for my own company to life and be at the forefront of entertainment’s structural shift.

Time & Effort: “It was about 6 or 7 drafts. Not sure on the hours.”

Word Count: 805

This sample essay is from The Harbus MBA Essay Guide and is reprinted with permission from Harbus . We highly recommend the book!

If you would like advice on responding to this year’s HBS essay question, (which is different from the 2014-15 prompt) please read our Harvard Business School essay tips .

Linda’s comments:

Bottom line: You want your readers to feel like that they are meeting you — not someone else, not a scripted piece of shallow PR devoid of personality and humanity, and not some phony combo of you and the author of an essay in a guidebook or on a website. They really and truly want to meet you!

So think about your story. 

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Related Resources:

• Get Accepted to Harvard Business School , a free webinar • Harvard Business School MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines • What is HBS Looking For:   Analytical Aptitude and Appetite , The Habit of Leadership , Engaged Community Citizenship • M7 MBA Programs: Everything You Need to Know in 2022 • More sample MBA application essays

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A Guide to the HBS Essay

Our guide to one of the most important parts of the MBA application for Harvard Business School: the essay, including our hand-picked HBS coach recommendations and other articles to get you started.

Posted January 10, 2024

Featuring Karla M.

From Waitlisted to Admitted: Insider Tips for MBA Admissions

Tuesday, april 9.

6:00 PM UTC · 60 minutes

Harvard Business School is one of the most renowned universities and business programs in the world. Established in 1908, it boasts impressive alumni like Michael Bloomberg, George W. Bush, and Abigail Johnson. With such a reputation, it is no surprise that the HBS application can be a grueling process. This is our guide to one of the most important parts of that application: the essay. Read on for tips to help you distinguish your candidacy and present the best essay possible.

HBS Essay Prompts (2024): Traditional & Deferred

Traditional application essay prompt.

The HBS essay asks a simple and open-ended question that gives applicants the ability to highlight whatever they believe is most important and relevant. The prompt is as follows:

As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program? (900 words maximum)

On its website, Harvard advises applicants, “Don’t overthink, over craft, and overwrite. Just answer the question in clear language that those of us who don’t know your world can understand.” HBS has only recently instigated the limit of 900 words. With such an ambiguous question, it’s important to make every word count. It is easy to go on tangents, use the wrong example, or write simply to put words on the page. Students often don’t know where to start, and when to end.

HBS 2+2 Deferred MBA Essay Prompts

As of 2024, HBS has updated its deferred MBA essay prompts for the first time in many years. The new deferred essay requirements involve writing three short essays: two personal ones and one career one. Each essay has a limit of 300 words.

Personal Essays

The HBS classroom and community thrive when we bring together people who can share a variety of perspectives. To get to know you better and how you will engage at HBS, please choose two of the three prompts below to tell us more about yourself:

1. How have your experiences shaped who you are, how you lead, and how you will contribute at HBS? 2. What intellectual experiences have influenced your approach to learning and have led you to pursue an MBA? 3. What communities have you been engaged with that have defined how you invest in others?

Career Essay

How do the career plans you shared in the Career Plans section of the application fit into your current long-term career vision? What skills and/or professional experiences do you hope to obtain in the deferral period that will help build the foundation for your post-MBA career?

For more info on the HBS deferred MBA essays, read: HBS 2+2 Deferred MBA Essay Prompts & Tips (2024)

Here at Leland, we provide you with the expertise and opportunity you need to succeed as an MBA applicant, and beyond. Put in your email here to receive access to free coaching resources, community events, and exclusive updates.

Now, here are our five HBS essay tips, designed to help you stand out among the over 9,000 applicants that apply to Harvard Business School each year.

HBS Essay Tips for Success

1. tell a story.

There is no set formula or “right” way to write your HBS essay. Every MBA candidate comes from a different background and unique circumstances. Your job with this essay is to paint the most accurate picture you can of who you are and why you should be accepted into Harvard. They want you to stay true to yourself and let your personality shine. Your resume, test scores, and GPA are important, but they don’t show character; the essay is where you can really make a difference in your application.

With that being said, don’t write what you think the admissions committee wants to hear. They have read through thousands of essays, but they have never read an essay by you , so capitalize on your individuality. HBS wants to know where you have come from and what experiences have shaped who you are. This essay should absolutely not be a retelling of your resume and professional achievements.

Through this essay, HBS wants to see that you understand yourself. They also want to know whether you align with Harvard’s missions and values. They are looking for future leaders who want to make a difference in the world. The best way to prepare for this essay is to deeply reflect on yourself. Who are you? What matters to you? Why are you the way you are? At the end of the day, if you can answer this question, posed by an HBS alum , then you have got a good start: “Could this essay also describe someone else?” If so, then you probably need to do some more introspection.

2. Be Concise

When in doubt, ask yourself, “Does the admissions committee need to know this?” If not, it’s probably safe to take out. There is no “right” length to hit as every candidate will have a different story they’re trying to tell; however, there is a difference between telling a story and rambling. Include relevant information and paint an accurate picture, but do so in a clear and concise manner. Imagine that your essay is the hundredth that the adcom member is reading that day. How would you write to keep them engaged while also preserving the integrity of your story? That is the balance that you are looking for.

3. Don’t Just Answer “Why HBS?”

Unlike many other business schools, Harvard does not ask the stereotypical “Why HBS?” question. With that being said, applicants often feel like they need to use the essay to demonstrate their commitment to HBS. Most of the time, this is not the right approach. Your essay should be about you. Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world and you don’t need to justify why you want to attend. Using the precious space you have to talk about HBS is a missed opportunity to shed light on your experiences.

The caveat to this is if providing your reason for attending Harvard makes your overall essay stronger. Some applicants may have a personal story tying them to HBS that they want to expound on. If that’s the case, then include it. The same adage from earlier applies here: If your “Why HBS?” answer could also explain someone else, then you probably don’t need it.

4. Build, Build, Build

Like any good story, your HBS essay should have a thread of continuity throughout. Introduce a theme or lesson, touch base on it every once in a while, and tie everything together in the conclusion. In addition to making your essay more interesting, this will prevent it from coming off as disjointed. Building up to the main point will also keep the reader in suspense and eager to read on. Because the prompt is so open-ended, it’s easy to have many different things you want to talk about. Sticking to a theme will help you ensure that everything you include is relevant.

5. Get Feedback

After spending lots of time writing something, it can be difficult to step back and view your work with a fresh, unbiased eye. Once you’ve written a rough draft, have a peer or mentor read through your essay and provide feedback. Ideally, the person reviewing your essay will be an alum of the school. But if that’s not an option, choose someone with business experience and writing skills that knows something about your background.

Don’t overedit your essay. Drafts, reviews, and edits are all part of the writing process but you don’t want to overpolish, especially to the point that you rub out your individuality. Instead, we recommend starting your essay early so that you have plenty of time to self-reflect, write, and step back for perspective. Once you’ve completed your first draft, ask for feedback and make some edits, but then put it away for a while. When you come back to it, you will have a fresher perspective and be less bogged down by the details.

At Leland, we have a broad network of world-class coaches who can help with any part of the MBA application. Many of them are experts in essay writing, browse them here. Want to work with an HBS alum who has first-hand experience of the Harvard application process? Here are some of our highest-rated MBA admissions coaches.

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Where Can I Start?

The application process can be daunting and difficult, especially without help. Read these articles to get started on your HBS journey.

• Harvard Business School: MBA Program & Application Overview
• How to Write a Powerful MBA Essay
• A Comprehensive MBA Timeline–With Chart
• How to Ace the HBS MBA Interview

The HBS Waitlist Strategy

• Harvard Business School MBA Application Deadlines (2023-2024)
• How I Got Into Harvard Business School With Low Test Scores

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How to Write the Harvard HBS MBA Admissions Essay – Tips for 2022-2023

• May 10, 2022

7 Steps to Answer the Harvard MBA, HBS Essay Question:

“As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program?”

When you’re putting together a successful HBS essay, the most valuable thing you can do is tell an Epic Story . Before I get into what that means, let’s clear one thing up: There is  no set formula for writing the Harvard essay. There’s no “right” way to do it, no “right” thing to say. But, take it from me, an Epic Life Story is the best thing you could possibly have in your application toolkit. 

Table of Contents

Prefer videos.

Find out how to ace Harvard’s admission essay in 2022

So what is an Epic Story?

An Epic Story is a narrative that takes the reader — any  reader, adcom members included!— on a journey through a series of key events .Epic Stories situate the reader in space and time and establish a crucial emotional connection between writer (you!) and reader. Emotional connection is king when it comes to MBA applications. It’s how you stand out from the pack. And that wide-open Harvard MBA Essay is the perfect platform for doing this work.

What if I don’t have an Epic Story?

If you’re afraid you don’t have what it takes to tell an Epic Story, let me let you in on a little secret: You do . It’s not about having the most page-turning life events under your belt—you don’t need to have cured cancer or sailed solo around the world, although that would be totally awesome if you did!—it’s about being human and sharing that essential, inspiring, loveable humanness with your reader in the most effective way possible.

Each of us has an Epic Story to tell. Promise. You just have to dig deep and tap into it. So before you protest that your life (or your writing skills) just don’t fit the bill for this kind of thing, take a look at the foolproof steps I’ve put together below for how to tell an Epic Story and write your Best Harvard MBA Essay !

1. Take a closer look at that HBS Essay Question; it’s not as open ended as you think!

Let’s take a closer look at that question. Here’s the Harvard Business School essay prompt, straight from the horse’s mouth: “ As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program? ” And here are the essay tips HBS gives: “ There is no word limit for this question. We think you know what guidance we’re going to give here. Don’t overthink, overcraft and overwrite. Just answer the question in clear language that those of us who don’t know your world can understand .”

Before we get into the how-to of all this, it’s worth pausing for a minute to pick those last two statements apart. Harvard asks you not to overthink, overcraft, or overwrite . They’re really driving at something here. They want YOU to remain in your essay—your essence, who you are at the core. They want a real person to come through the page, not some hollowed out, cookie-cutter façade designed to meet some assumption about who they want you to be.

Okay, that was a mouthful. But what I’m saying—and what Harvard is saying—is simple: be you . Don’t obscure (or write over ) who you really are by trying to fit some imaginary mold or by writing what you *think* “they” want to hear. As the HBS admissions director warns in their App Tips Series , “Be careful in all that polishing that you don’t ‘shine away’ your personality.”

Lest you forget, the adcom is made up of humans . And all humans want the opportunity to connect with and contribute to other humans. So give them that chance with your essay.

So what is Harvard really looking for?

“ What more would you like us to know?”

It’s a wide open question—and that’s part of what makes it so intimidating, as John Byrne, editor-in-chief of Poets & Quants, points out in a helpful piece written earlier this year—but Harvard does give you two key pieces of information about what they’re looking for in the essay instructions: clear language, and a ticket into your world . They want to know more about who you are based on where you’ve been (literally and figuratively speaking). The background, life experiences, and human encounters that shaped you.

“What more ” is the other key part of this equation. As the Harvard App Tips highlight, this essay should NOT be a rehashing of your resume. The adcom will be bored to tears if you give them your resume (again) in paragraph form.

Instead, your Harvard Essay should be a supplement: think of it as one key building block in the larger structure of your application. It builds on the rest, fits in with the rest, but it adds something completely new. Even more than that, it should create a world that is all your own for the reader to step into. (More on how to do that momentarily.)

With an essay question that leaves so much in your court, Harvard is really looking for evidence of self-knowledge . They want to know that you’ve done the deep introspection necessary to communicate what drives you and what you, as a one-of-a-kind human being, will contribute to their incoming class. They also want to see that you resonate with their values and their mission —that you can demonstrate a habit of leadership , among other qualities.

If you aren’t familiar with Harvard’s mission, here it is : “The mission of Harvard Business School is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world.” This is a really concrete mission that they have. They're not out to teach business; they're not out to help people make more money. They're out to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. And if you're talking to a leader, the most important question you can ask that person is, “What do you want me to know about you?” With this question, you're given free license to say whatever is meaningful, interesting, and important to you about yourself.

Soooo before you start getting too caught up in what they might “want” to hear from you (keep resisting that urge!), let’s talk about the most vital step in the entire application process: self-discovery .

2. Use Self-Reflection to ensure that your HBS Essay is unique

Step 1 in our magical essay process at Career Protocol is always self-discovery.

Self-discovery is a really underrated process. Seriously. Sooo SO underrated. As we’ve learned in over 30 years of collective admissions experience, the very best MBA applications are built on foundations of deep self-awareness, self-compassion, and clarity. Our Discovery Process is the tried-and-true, totally irreplaceable first step to essay-writing MAGIC. (I can’t get enough of it. Can you tell?)

So what should you write about for your Harvard essay?

Glad you asked! You’re gonna love the answer: It depends.

On what? On what you find out about yourself during the vital process of self-discovery. This is your starting point. There are no shortcuts to self-knowledge, and no successful Harvard Application Essay will come to fruition until you’ve taken a good hard look at yourself, your life, your accomplishments, and—most importantly—how you define all of the above.

One of the most valuable things the Discovery Process will teach you is that, as a candidate for admission, you are more than your GPA. You are more than your professional record. You are far more than any one component of your application, and Harvard’s adcom—like any other group of humans—wants to see the whole picture . The essay is where this all comes together. 

There are 5 key areas of inquiry that you should dig into when you’re preparing to write the Harvard Essay (or any essay for a school of your choice).

     1.  Your Back Story

If you had to sum up your life story in a couple of paragraphs (or even pages), what would you choose to write down? What would you tell others, if you had to give a succinct “back story” for who you are? What snippets of information would make the cut? Which life experiences? As you explore your back story, you might also think about the people in your life who have had the greatest influence on you. Consider your hobbies and what makes you tick—even if it’s something you used to love to do, but haven’t found the time for lately. Write it all out.

     2.  Your Academic Achievements

I like to think in terms of achievements during the self-discovery process, because—as you’ll discover if you undertake this work—everyone defines achievement differently. We each have our own yardstick for measuring accomplishment. (Some of us find it painfully difficult to call anything at all an achievement.) What you deem an achievement is telling, and thinking in this way encourages you to drill down to what really matters (and has mattered) to you. So, first, consider what your top academic achievements would be.

     3.  Your Community and Extracurricular Achievements

Same thing here, only with community work and extracurricular involvement. What have you accomplished outside of school and work that really meant something to you?

     4.  Your Professional Achievements

You know the drill by now. If you had to list your top professional achievements, what would they be?

     5.  Your Personal Achievements

Last, but certainly not to be underestimated, what are your top personal achievements? What are some of the moments in your life that really stay with you—those poignant human-to-human experiences, the times when you were able to make a contribution, pure and simple, to another person (or group of people)?

If you want a sense of how all that discovery rolled up into successful essays for our clients, here is a smattering of general topics and big picture summaries of successful MBA essays:

• A few days in the life
• Career story twists and turns
• Difficult relationship with a parent
• Journey into entrepreneurship
• Journey to master confidence
• Lessons from observing managers
• Lessons learned through an important hobby
• Life story told through difficult decisions
• People who influenced me
• Perspectives on success and leadership in career to date
• Problem solving
• Rags to riches through failure, leadership style
• Sports and career
• Struggle to be a woman in male-dominated field
• Struggles to live up to values and culture
• Travel and passion for understanding others

The thing to notice is that there really isn’t anything special about any of these topics. You, too, could probably write an essay about a number of them. What made these essays unique wasn’t the executive summary of the story, it was the depth of character they revealed in the telling. Depth of character flows from values.

Homing in on your Values

By the time you’re done listing and evaluating your personal achievements, you’ll have built up some muscle for defining what matters to you at a fundamental level: what your intrinsic values are.

Values are the basis of a person's principles or standards of behavior—their judgment of what is important in life. These are the things you would never change about yourself, because if you did, you would no longer be recognizable to yourself as you. Without them, you’d be some other person. Any great Life Story Essay should encapsulate and reflect these intrinsic values, even if they’re never overtly mentioned, and that’s part of what makes any essay founded on self-discovery unique .

One great piece of advice from a Harvard alum is to ask yourself, after you’ve drafted the essay, “Could this essay also describe someone else?” If you’ve done the hard but rewarding work of self-discovery, the answer will be: No .

In an essay like Harvard’s, you are the hero of your own story. If you use the steps above to home in on your values, you will significantly deepen your awareness about the specific kind of hero you are. We want to get clearer and clearer about what kind of hero you are, because that's where your uniqueness lies.

Finding your Voice

The final aspect of essay-writing that self-reflection will help you tap into is your voice .

Your voice is critically important to your success in your MBA applications. It sets you apart, instantly and continually, from any other writer. Even if another applicant narrated the exact same experiences, it wouldn’t come out sounding the same. (Because they wouldn’t have your voice .)

So how do you find it? What defines it? It's really choice. When I help clients find their voice, what I’m really doing is helping them identify the key choices that produced their life as they know it and developed them into the people that they are.

Character is the combination of values and choices.

As I hope I’ve driven home by this point, values are an important part of the equation. But they're not the whole story. We become who we are by virtue of our choices . Sometimes those choices result in (or include) failure, whether it’s failing to live up to your values or failing in some other way because you adhered to those values. Keep in mind that these brushes with failure are a very important part of your story . They reveal your humility and your vulnerability.

Talking about success without revealing the human part of it—your failures, fears, and setbacks— will not inspire someone . It might read like an interesting set of facts, but the reader isn’t really going to understand, or respect, or feel connected to you. In order to be inspired, they need to see your humanity .

As you wrap up the self-discovery process and start planning your essay, ask yourself: What are some of the most important choices that I've made so far? And why did I make them? How did I make them? And what were the consequences? Where did they lead me? These kinds of questions will help you clarify your values and decide which life stories you want to include.

3. Create an Essay Outline

If you ever learned how to write college essay outlines, you may know a thing or two about the general outlining process. (Get some tips from the experts here and here .)

We’re not sticklers when it comes to the kind of outline you should make for your Harvard Essay—or any essay. It could be anything from a paragraph-by-paragraph or point-by-point game plan for your essay to a sketch of the general flow. (I prefer the latter, but if detailed outlines are your jam, have at it!!)

For me, the outlining process is a means to an end: a way to determine what’s in and what’s out, structure your thinking, and get that scary ole writing process kicked off!

However you choose to do it, don’t spend a lot of time trying to perfect the outline . Personal essay writing is an iterative process: You are learning the story as you tell it, and it's impossible to figure it all out before you sit down to write it. Use the outlining stage (even if you never actually create an outline!) as a space for answering this vital question: What will you include?

What’s In and What’s Out ?

As you probably know, Harvard has three criteria that they're looking for in every applicant:

• engaged community citizenship
• a habit of leadership
• and analytical aptitude and appetite.

(This is in their stated evaluation criteria .) Most applicants will show analytical aptitude and appetite through grades and scores, possibly in work experience and recommendations, and very definitely in some ways through the resume.

Likewise with a habit of leadership. If you're doing your resume right (check out our bomb crash course in MBA resumes ), it should show all the ways in which you've been a leader so far in your community and in your career. And your recommendations should further corroborate that, because your recommenders *should* be speaking to your leadership qualities. (More on our coaching for recommenders here , ‘cause that’s a whole other story.)

So for most people, the essays include an element of engaged community citizenship. This one is the hardest to quantify, and it's the hardest to turn into a resume bullet. One of the things that most of our successful HBS client essays have in common is that they are covering—in some way—the candidate’s penchant for being an engaged citizen of the communities that they've been a part of.

But—I can’t stress this enough—your resume is going to do the heavy lifting in conveying your accomplishments. The essay really isn't about how great you are, or how accomplished you are, or what you've achieved in your life. It's about the intangibles. It's about your values and your character. To put it one more way: it’s essentially about what you stand for.

Leaders of Consequence

Harvard wants to admit and shape Leaders of Consequence . But what does it mean to be a Leader of Consequence? First of all, it doesn’t mean that you’ve checked off a certain set of accomplishments. Rather, it’s a very powerful way of being .

• Leaders of Consequence are empathetic, so they have the ability to connect with other people.
• They're inspiring people, but they're also very human. They exude a sense of humility and vulnerability.
• They have a vision. To be a leader, you're going to have to have some kind of vision.

Schools are also looking for these qualities in the application. And the HBS Essay is the ideal place to exhibit them. This doesn't mean you won't talk about success and accomplishments in the essay, it just means that that's not really the point. The point of the Harvard MBA Essay is to reveal these softer and less tangible qualities about you, your values, and your character.

It’s a platform for sharing your authentic self. Sharing is the key word here: It's not about talking about or telling them who you are. Instead, it's about sharing your experiences, values, beliefs, thought processes and strategies, feelings, desires, hopes, and fears through some of the strategies I’ll discuss below. These are all the things that make you human.

What about my goals?

One of the most common questions I get from clients is whether the HBS Essay should include your goals. The quick answer ? Probably not. In our experience, for only one in about 9 or 10 MBA applicants is career vision an essential part of their Epic Story. For these people, fully sharing who they are and how they want to be known for the purposes of admission requires a discussion of the future. For everyone else, your goals belong squarely in the 500-character short answer box about goals.

Building a Narrative (Or, as we like to call it, Storyboarding )

Alright, now the next step in the process is storyboarding . You’ll take all of the material, all of the amazing things about your life that you identified in the Discovery stage, and boil it down into the few components that you're going to put together to answer this question.

The big thing you have to keep in mind when you're approaching the Harvard question, and really any essay question, is that you need to answer the question directly . Harvard is asking, “what more would you like us to know?” So you're going to have to tell them, “here's what I'd like you to know.” You don't have to have that sentence in there , but it is effectively the question that you're answering. So start from that place.

Key Stories

The Discovery Process will also help unearth the building blocks of your HBS Essay: key stories . In order to tell an Epic Story, you need to determine the pivotal anecdotes it’s comprised of. If your Epic Life Story is a constellation, think of your key stories as the individual star points.

Pro Tip: Imagine your Epic Life Story as a biopic.

I prefer to think about the Epic Life Story Essay in cinematic terms. From this perspective, it’s essentially a biopic : it’s a movie about your life so far. (You know, like that one about Mike Tyson that’s coming out?) So instead of using a traditional outlining framework—point one; subpoint A, B, C; point two; and so on—we’ll map your Life Story and your narrative in terms of scenes. At Career Protocol, we treat your essay like we would a screenplay.

In my experience, this leads to a much more dynamic version of your story. It also gives you more breathing room for the creative process than a tightly structured outline. So as you plan your Harvard essay, try thinking about it in these terms: What comes first in the movie? And then, what comes next? And what comes after that?

Oh, and make sure you nail that opening line.

TL;DR (A Step-by-Step Cheat Sheet for Our Storyboarding Process)

• Choose the core value that you want the Harvard adcom to know about you. You can choose at most two to focus on. (Typically one is enough. You don't need to boil the ocean on the values front.)
• Determine the three or four most important scenes in the film of your life related to this value. Think about which life choices were most revealing of your character and/or which experiences most shaped you and forced you to change. These are the key anecdotes (a.k.a. key stories).
• Decide what other scenes or details from your life are going to help fill in the rest of your film.
• Get writing! See what your story says, and then refine it around your values so that it reflects what you want the adcom to know about you to the greatest possible extent.

4. Decide how to start your essay (Note: That first line is crucial.)

Sitting down to write the first words of an essay can be an intimidating moment. Maybe you love that fresh start, that blank page staring back at you, but more likely you dread it. Never fear! I’m about to give you some great advice for tackling that first line and starting your writing process off on the right foot. (Er, finger?)

You want to be in the mindset of upliftment and inspiration before you sit down to write. That will ensure that what comes out will actually resonate with your best self and not, you know, the you who woke up on the wrong side of the bed and didn't drink your coffee.

So be sure that you're caffeinated if you drink caffeine. Be sure that you ate and slept well. Be inspired, and then sit down and see what comes out. For more great advice on how to write your Best MBA Essay—including how to get inspired!—check out our new article, Pro Tips: How to Write a Great MBA Essay. (The long and short of it is: Pixar movies .)

What should a first line look like?

Here are some first lines from actual winning Harvard essays:

Here are some examples. Some of these are from our clients, others are from The Harbus MBA Essay Guide (Summer 2020 Edition or the 2016-2017 Edition):

“On March 1st, 1995 my family boarded a plane at [INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT] with our entire lives packed into a few suitcases.”

“An early influence on my worldview was my father.”

“I never got along with my father.”

“As a six foot tall sixth grade girl, you really only have two choices: (1) stand up and be proud of your height or (2) slink off awkwardly and hide.”

“While my application materials have highlighted some of my proudest professional achievements, I want you to also know about the influence my parents have had on my life, my values, and the direction of my career.”

“I am defined by my appreciation for beauty.”

“I have cried exactly four times at work.”

“A wise woman once told me that I have had an extraordinary number of failures for someone my age.  I’d never thought about it that way before, but she’s got a good point.”

“It’s summertime, I’m 11, and the cool things to do are ride around town on bikes, eat ice cream, and play tennis.”

“The proudest moment of my lacrosse career is also my most embarrassing one.”

“I didn’t do well in school as a kid.”

“‘What should I do about praying at work?' [Name] asked me, concern emanating from her voice.”

“I had a near-death accident in September last year that knocked me out and ended me up in a hospital with a brain haemorrhage, a broken shoulder and a fractured ankle.”

“My mother fully believed in being ahead of the curve at all times.”

What you'll notice about these opening lines is that they're very workmanlike. They're direct. They get right into the story—say what happened, what was happening, sum it up, hop to it.

Each one of these is also interesting . It grabs you. It makes you want to keep going. And that's because each of these first lines uses the rules of narrative to bring you into the story. One of the most important rules to remember is that stories take place in space and time . Good stories, stories that grip the reader, have to be grounded in these dimensions.

As you may have noticed, most if not all of these winning first lines set the stage: They give you something you can picture, a scenario or location you can imagine—something to sink your teeth into.

Excuse me, rules of narrative?

There are some rules to how you think about your first sentence. It doesn't have to be flowery, it doesn't have to set an elaborate scene (in fact, for gosh sake, please don’t do any of that!!). It's almost certainly better if it's not dialogue or a quotation, despite some things you may have read here or there on the internet. (That can sometimes work, but it's rarely the most jet-fueled, engaging way to bring the reader into your world.) Instead, you want to dive right into the story and let the story carry you as you're writing it.

In summary.

Outline it if you want to, but don't waste a lot of time on that. Then get yourself to a position of being inspired. Decide on the opening line, and then just write—just write the story. You've got the big scenes, you've got the ideas in your head. Write it and see what comes out, and then iterate. The key scenes will come into focus as you edit.

For more on this—and for all my auditory learners out there—watch my MBA Monday video on how NOT to write a boring first line (or essay) .

And for an even more in-depth read on the storyboarding and essay writing processes we’ve developed at Career Protocol, dive into “ A Screen writer's Guide to Epic MBA Narratives. ”

5. Draft your HBS Essay (Write. Revise. Rewrite.)

“Good writing is essentially rewriting.”                   – Roald Dahl

“The only kind of writing is rewriting.”                – Ernest Hemingway

The next step on this essay-magic journey is storyshaping . This is a huge labor of love.

Let me say that again. It’s a HUGE labor of love .

Drafting continues to deepen the Discovery process. (By drafting, or storyshaping, I mean some combination of writing and rewriting and revising.) Most of our clients are still discovering their story as they're in the process of telling it. Your understanding of your values and exactly how you want to communicate them is clarified with each passing draft. So that's why we call it storyshaping.

The first thing to know about this stage is that there is no right number of drafts . Everybody needs a different number of iterations. Here’s how many drafts it took some of our clients who got into Harvard to write their masterpieces:

Our process includes unlimited drafts and boy do we mean it!

It may take a while because you’re a perfectionist, or because you totally changed gears in the middle, or because the story continues to evolve. You have to follow that inspiration and allow the story to go where it wants to go.

There's nothing better or worse about taking more or fewer drafts. Like everything else in this process, it depends on you, your writing habits, and how much time and space your story needs to achieve its potential. So for those of you who plan to go through this process on your own, give yourself plenty of time to revisit your draft and shape the essay as you go.

And what about word count ?

Okay, so word count. This is one of my favorite subjects. If you had to guess the upper limit of word count for a successful HBS Essay, what would you say? The lower limit?

If you read any other advice about the Harvard Essay, you're going to find that almost everyone says 1000 words. Tops. Or 750-1250 words . Tops. Or 1100 words. Tops . Or something like that. So let me be the one to tell you: Any firm answer to this question is a load of hooey. The length of the essay is totally irrelevant.

A few stats from some of our recent Harvard admits will help you get a sense of just how varied and individualized the writing process is for the HBS Essay.

Here’s a sampling of our successful clients’ word count in recent years:

You want to tell the story in as much time as it takes to really do it justice. For most people—it’s true—that’s somewhere in the 1200-1400 range. But not for everyone! Some essays will take a lot more than that, and some will take less.

For successful essays in the 1000-word range, they’re shorter because they have a simpler and more straightforward story to tell. The successful client essays that broke into the 2000-word range had the most amazing, fascinating, and riveting life stories and experiences I’ve ever come across.

I repeat: There. Is. No. Right. Number.

The takeaway here is that each story has its own cadence and its own pace. It takes place in its own time. Again, the number of words that it has is completely irrelevant. You want to tell the story in the amount of space that allows you to fully show the admissions committee your best self . Because, ultimately, it's not your essay that gets you in. It's not your GMAT. It's not even your resume. It's who you are .

6. Seek out feedback

Please remember : Essays need readers . Every storyteller needs an audience.

One of the best things you can do for yourself when you’re writing the HBS Essay is find someone to bounce drafts off of. (Trust me, you’ll be SO thankful you did.) You need to know how the story that you’re telling is going to land for someone else.

Gauging a reader’s reaction and asking for feedback can help you answer questions like: Do any of my anecdotes need more detail? Is everything spelled out clearly enough? Do any parts of my essay seem to drag on endlessly? Am I emphasizing the right things? And—in more extreme but all-too-common cases—do I come off sounding like a selfish jerk? Or an airhead? (Obviously you’re not those things, which is exactly why we don’t want your essay putting off those vibes!!)

This back-and-forth between you and a trusted reader is a fantastic way to give greater definition to your narrative. If you move from draft 1 to draft 2 to draft 3 all inside the vacuum of your own mind, you’ll get caught up in one big smush of perfectionism and wordsmithing and miss the most important point: the big picture—emotional connection with the reader.

But do choose wisely . We’re the best at what we do (in large part, I’d argue, because we love doing it ). So if you want a buddy for your HBS essay-writing and beyond, start your journey with Career Protocol today.

If working with a professional is out of the question, ask a friend, peer, or mentor to be your trusted reader. Choose someone you can count on to be honest with you—to give you their true reactions and ask questions freely, rather than petting your ego. (This isn’t the time for that!!!)

But also make sure to choose someone whose opinions about you are generous and who doesn’t feel the need to control your narrative or grammar. Moms can sometimes be great. But sometimes they have their own preconceived notions about who they think you are that isn’t well aligned with who you ACTUALLY are today. And that grammar stickler friend of yours just might wordsmith all the life out of your writing voice.

More advice on this here:

So, I’ll say once more, choose your reading buddy wisely! To collect great feedback, try using our Friends-Family Fly Test . And remember, we’re here if you need us.

7. When in Doubt: Read more great advice & some solid essay samples

Here’s some advice on approaching the hbs essay from a few of our harvard admits:.

“I think for HBS, I always considered it a long shot, so I wasn't afraid to present what I felt was my true story. I think it's more of an opportunity to reflect on what the most important part of your story is. I wanted to be honest and true to myself, because I knew that I'd otherwise look back and think, ‘Wait a minute. What if I had just told the story I wanted them to know all along?’”

“Be honest! Show the school your capacity for self-reflection, give a thoughtful appraisal of your past actions/mistakes.”

“Be authentic! It is really easy to be caught in the trap of saying what you think is important or focusing on what may be perceived as ‘most impressive,’ but from what I have seen, admissions committees are so good at sniffing out inauthentic essays that it may end up backfiring!”

(are you noticing a trend here?)

“After you have a few drafts under your belt, take a break on your application for a few days. When you come back, reread your essay while asking yourself ‘does this cut to the core of who I really am?’ Share your essay with your family and close friends with the same question. If you don’t get a resounding yes from all parties, go back to the drawing board.”

“DON’T SUBMIT SOMETHING THAT FEELS FORCED OR FAKE. I wrote an entire draft of my HBS essay and spent two weeks trying to edit it into something I believed reflected who I really am, and at the end of it I decided to start over. Don’t be afraid to start over.”

One more nugget of wisdom from an HBS admit:

“Definitely try to be as concise and to-the-point in your essays as possible. Also, do not feel the need to crack open your SAT vocab books!”

And now a final word from me…

This is my most important piece of advice in approaching the Harvard Essay:

There are no guarantees. Most of you will not get in. That's a fact. So you might as well do yourself proud in the essay. Write it in such a way that you can look back on the choices that you made on this journey with no regrets , because you told the story that you wanted to tell. You authentically answered the question. You told Harvard what it was that you really wanted them to know about you.

If you remember, choice equals voice. You're making choices continually—even as you go through this process. I recommend that you make strong choices in your essays, and especially when you're applying to Harvard.

Helpful Sources

Harbus 2021  Essay Guide. Need I say more? (Check out earlier editions, too, to broaden your sample set.) But be sure to read SEVERAL essays so you get clear about the fact that there is no right answer. Don’t anchor your story to someone else’s. Own it.

Subscribe to our Career Protocol YouTube channel to watch my MBA Pro Tips, including my Top Tips for Writing the Harvard Essay.

And if you’re wondering how to write those other Epic Life Story essays, listen to me tackle Stanford’s “What Matters Most to You and Why?” (also on our YouTube channel)

Aaaaanddd on that note: Our Top 10 Tools for Your Creative MBA Essays

Angela Guido

Student of Human Nature| Founder and Chief Education Officer of Career Protocol

Let’s have a conversation!

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How To Write Harvard HBS Essay With Examples

Harvard Business School’s MBA is one of the most well-known, acclaimed professional degrees in the world. When applying to HBS is a competitive next step in your education and career, every aspect of your application deserves careful deliberation and preparation, especially your HBS essay. 

The application essay requires even more thought because Harvard Business School views essays as a real-time representation of who you are (besides the interview and statement of purpose ), professionally and personally. This blog will take you through a step-by-step process so you’ll know exactly how to write the Harvard Business School essay.  

Hopefully, it will also help invigorate your pride in your own story, for Harvard Business School will be more likely to see your potential if you demonstrate that you see it too.

Harvard Business School Essay Prompts

The Harvard Business School essay is just one component of a complete MBA application, but it certainly has its own considerations. So, it is important that you take time to consider the essay separately from the rest of the documents and information in your application. The essay prompt is as follows:

As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program?

This essay question is particularly challenging for many applicants due to its vague nature.  The other potentially unexpected kicker to this prompt: there is no word limit. Regarding the length of your essay, the Harvard Business School webpage suggests that you “use your best judgment, and try to be clear… and concise.” 

We’ll discuss how to best work on this deliverable later in the blog, as it is an important factor in the overall presentation of your writing. 

Unless you have an exceedingly in-depth resume, the essay is definitely going to be the most personal aspect of your application. The essay is your chance to use your own words to describe yourself, your values, and your insights. 

It will be the most significant signal to the admissions committee as to how your background has influenced you and how HBS would fit well into your future.

How to Write Harvard Business School Essay in 6 Steps

Organization is key to ensuring quality in your HBS essay. It’s important to order tasks in an accomplishable, reasonable way where each goal is clear and manageable. 

Exploring blogs about MBA essay writing is one way to get ideas flowing. To help wrap your head around organizing your essay-writing efforts, here are some beginning-to-end steps for the creation of your HBS essay:

• Self-Reflection
• Decide on the Right Story and Its Theme
• Write an Outline
• Start Your Essay Carefully and Deliberately 
• Draft Your Essay and Revise
• Get an Outside Perspective ‍

1. Self-Reflection

Start the process of HBS essay writing with something as equally fundamental as it is simple: thought. Consider the role that the essay will play in your application and how to make the essay benefit your goal of getting into Harvard Business School. 

There are two sides to useful self-reflection regarding a goal like a Harvard MBA.

First, think purposefully about your career goals and tie them to an MBA at Harvard Business School. Ask yourself, how would a Harvard MBA help you get to where you want to go, professionally? What would you most like to gain from your time studying at HBS? 

Thinking about these things and then including them in your essay will demonstrate to the admissions committee that you have a clear trajectory for your MBA experience and your career. 

Additionally, revealing these considerations in your essay will speak to your confidence in your aspirations and in your decision to apply for Harvard Business School, which will likewise be attractive to the admissions committee.

The other side to a useful introspection would be considering what you as a student would contribute to Harvard and to its MBA program. A US News article about successful MBA essays encourages you to highlight what you would contribute to the HBS MBA program, so that you come across as a useful addition instead of simply a “taker.” 

If you were in the admissions committee's shoes, what would be the most enticing aspects of your past education, your experiences , and your personality. Essentially, you should think, specifically and without judgment, about what your biggest strengths as an applicant are, realistically. 

Knowing this will help you, both consciously and subconsciously, weave your most compelling characteristics into your essay so that the admissions committee gets to know your best side. ‍

2. Decide on the Right Story and Its Theme

You absolutely do not want to use your essay as a canvas on which to dump information about yourself. Harvard is not interested in reading an essay that expands on your entire resume or simply describes you. Tell a story! 

Elucidate on an impactful experience or explain a significant lesson you’ve learned. You’ll probably either overflow with abounding exciting examples to choose from, or you’ll struggle to find even one compelling anecdote. 

Don’t worry if you sit in this situation for a while; after all, you’ll ultimately still need to decide on just one topic, whether that means whittling down your options or sifting through your past to isolate that one perfect story. 

Once you finally do settle on that one excellent, fascinating subject that excites you enough to write about, you should also deliberate about what you intend your themes and tones to be. What would the ideal takeaway(s) be for a reader of your essay? 

Additionally, and this is annoyingly subjective, so apologies; how do you want to sound ? You should have a picture of how your essay will present your information, and you should have a picture of how your essay will present you . 

The admissions committee will use the essay to try to imagine you and the role you’d play at Harvard , so keep in mind how they would do this with the essay you write. ‍

3. Write an Outline

This step is fairly straightforward. Take the most important points of your topic, and put them in an order that would flow well as you write. Make sure, as you lay these points out, that they align with each other coherently and that they reflect your intended theme. 

From there, write out some thoughts on how best to integrate each point into a complete essay. You might want to explicitly write out which details are most crucial to each part of your story or subject. For example, let's say your compelling story about a transformative internship abroad begins by explaining what you were doing before it. 

Then, intuitively, you’d have to include details about where you were at this stage of the story and whether you were working, studying, traveling, etc. Put this information in your outline, so you know that you don’t leave things out and lose your reader. ‍

4. Start Your Essay Carefully and Deliberately

The way you begin your essay is quite important and will in many ways determine how the rest of your essay will shape out. First things first, make sure you feel good about your first sentence. 

Just like the opening scene of a movie, the first statement or two of your HBS essay will introduce your writing style and general tone to the admissions committee readers. Consistency always improves readability, and consistency starts with your opening sentence. 

Try to make the first couple sentences intriguing to garner some interest right from the get-go.

From the first sentence, ensure you’re keeping to your tone, at least peripherally. We can all agree a shift in tone tends to break the flow of good writing, and to have that break early on in your essay might throw the admissions committee off. 

The more sentences you write in a consistent tone and manner, the easier it will be to continue to write in holding with them. Because you’re trying to tell one, coherent story, the reader will be most interested if your writing follows an intuitive flow of ideas.

5. Draft Your Essay and Revise

From this last point, try as best you can to find a steady pace, and begin expanding on your outline. The nice part of this step is that you don’t have to get carried away with wording, sentence structure, or length. Again, focus on including all the relevant details and continue matching your tone. 

Try to write at a reasonable rate for decent chunks of time instead of writing intermittently while giving in to distractions. The more consecutively you write each sentence and paragraph, the better they’ll run together when someone’s reading them.

The reason you’ve already prepared an outline, and plan to edit throughout the rest of your writing process, is to make your first attempt at writing the essay as easy as it can be. 

Mistakes and breaks in your thinking can easily be caught by careful reading after the fact, so capitalize on inspiration when it hits and simply get your first draft onto the page. When writing an important, personal essay like this one, it also serves you well to keep boosting your confidence. 

If you fixate on word choice and how your writing is sounding, you’ll be more likely to break up the flow of your statements and make reading your essay feel choppy. You are telling your own story, and the point of the essay is for the admissions committee to get a better idea of your personality and character, so take pride in the fact that you’re unambiguously the best writer for this subject. ‍

6. Get an Outside Perspective‍

Once you’ve written the entirety of your essay and edited it carefully and precisely, get some extra peace of mind by having one or two other people read your essay. The more insightful and writing-experienced your readers of choice are, the more you’ll benefit from their critiques and opinions. 

The crucial part of this step is to get thoughts from someone unattached to your writing. As fervently and specifically as you may edit your own essay, you’ll always struggle to distance yourself from your emotional attachment to certain phrases, details, or even words. It’s ok. Every writer goes through this with the things they write. Trust us.

This other person allows you to hear a perspective from someone who read every sentence as how it sounded, not how it was intended. In this way, they fill the shoes of the admissions committee, but at a stage where you can still make changes to your essay. 

Don’t take criticisms personally; it's better to hear them now than to be at their mercy after submitting your application. 

No, you don’t need to force yourself to accept every change proposed by your reader(s). The point of an outside perspective is not to find a qualified editor and let them rewrite an essay about something important to you. 

This step is more useful just in reinvigorating your own thoughts about your paper because, in the late stages of your essay writing, it's much easier to get bogged down with the same considerations and forget the bigger things you’re trying to say to the admissions committee.

3 Successful Harvard Business School Essay Examples That Worked

Here are successful Harvard Business School essay examples to give you an idea of what to write. 

Sample Essay #1

“Start again,” my mother would demand after tossing my less-than-perfect homework into the trash. As a kid, I was taught that ‘work is finished when it’s not just your best work, but the best.’ Most kids would resent a parent for this, but I didn’t: my mom practiced the same rigor with her own work. She had to—a Latin immigrant with only a high school degree in 1980s [City] was held to a higher standard, especially one fighting to change both the media’s and corporations’ impressions about Latinx consumers.

I have applied this doctrine of “do better, be better” throughout my life, focusing on improving my own communities, be it through offering students a taste of food around the world with a college underground pop-up kitchen or planning a [Latinx event] as a conference chair. Last year gave me the chance to continue to work on being an inclusive leader in the Black/Latinx (B/LX) community as a ‘white-passing’ individual. Ultimately, however, these concerns were unimportant when given the opportunity to improve things now for the B/LX community. My new work projects helped me confront leaders I felt had not supported teams during the summer’s tragedies. I learned how feedback framed as suggestions could have powerful consequences. In fact, one of my managers actually came to me for advice on how to engage his peers in order to help his local community use pooled funds from [consulting group].

These experiences have helped me refine my long-term aspirations. Though I would still like to build on my mother’s legacy of a community-minded entrepreneur, I dream of founding my own venture capital fund. I want to alter the face of business by empowering young, diverse entrepreneurs who will bring novel approaches to lingering problems from past generations. Rather than improve my community only through projects supporting others’ priorities, I intend to be an active participant, building an incubator for entrepreneurs of color to eliminate barriers that maintain inequality such as urban food insecurity and underfunded education systems.

HBS will immerse me in the rapidly evolving entrepreneurial environment, helping me to understand process and practice creating ideas as both a founder and funder. On campus, I intend to be an active participant in HBS’ Anti-Racism goals, fighting to bring equity and inclusion with the same passion I have brought to my office and B/LX network. After graduating, I plan to continue engaging with HBS, either by working with student-run investment groups (like IVP’s Steve Harrick and the students behind the inclusion-focused Phoenix Fund) or working with professors to influence HBS’ future (like alumni Lulu Curiel and Eric Calderon, who helped develop a case study with Professor Alvarez to improve Latinx representation in MBA programs). Internalizing the case-method and the hands-on experiences acquired in my two years on-campus will embolden me to disrupt the status quo, both from the grassroots and executive levels.

What Made It Successful 

So, what works well in this thoughtful, personal HBS application essay? Starting with the introduction, the anecdote that this writer starts their essay with grabs attention through the strict rigor that their mother required for them growing up. 

Again, the key to the first few statements of an application essay lies in their ability to compel the reader to read on. An excellent introduction. will ensure  reading your essay is  a pleasure instead of a chore. 

Further on in this essay example, the reader understands where the applicant's motivation for equality and fair representation stems from, and this theme persists throughout the piece. It’s through demonstrating strong points like these that the reader reaches a higher empathy for the writer, which never hurts when applying to Harvard Business School. 

We also gain appreciation for the leadership skills of the writer due to their clear descriptions of past examples. Crucially, do not just hear how these examples played out, but what lessons the writer learned from them that they continue to apply. 

Finally, the essay’s conclusion cites both short-term and long-term goals for the writer's schooling and career, and this section feels very specifically written for HBS. 

Including references to Harvard Business School and its alumni, as done in this example, shows the admissions committee that your efforts in writing this essay are totally aimed at getting into HBS’s MBA, and that you’ve thought hard enough about the decision to do in-depth research.

Sample Essay #2

Our life experiences shape our skills, perspective and help define our paths. Reflecting on my personal and professional journey, I would like to share three lessons which have strongly shaped my journey and outlook.

My first lesson is about people. I feel fortunate to have understood the enormous potential in empathizing and collaborating with individuals to achieve community success, organizational targets and personal goals.

Perhaps due to my father’s frequent job transfers, I grew-up as a reticent, lone worker, shying away from forging long-lasting relationships. While excelling academically, I skipped participating in anything at school that required dependence on other people. It was only at my undergraduate institution, [University] that I really started building relationships with my hostel-mates and exploring the various opportunities [University] offered.

However, soon dark realities came to the forefront when a final-year student committed suicide while my close friend, [Name], got sucked into a vortex of depression due to his poor academic performance. Deeply shaken, I resolved to address mental-health issues on campus and joined the Institute Counseling Service, comprising student volunteers, faculty and professional counselors who sought to provide emotional and academic help to students.

Driven to make a difference, I led 240 student volunteers, strengthened our mentorship program to identify students in need of professional help and organized Orientation Programs. To dispel the stigma associated with mental-health and build trust, we increased the approachability of counsellors by initiating hostel visits and collaborated with NGOs to use theatre and generate awareness. I personally mentored students and it was heartwarming to create an environment in which people were able to discuss their personal issues freely with me. While I gained friends for life, I realized there is no greater happiness than witnessing one’s mentee overcome difficulties and be successful! Listening to varied personal experiences inculcated empathy and fostered ability to forge strong interpersonal connections.

This experience stayed with me during my professional journey with [Consumer Goods Company]. Just out of college, I had to navigate union strikes, reconcile socio-political contexts and motivate 600+ unskilled workers, several years my senior to transform the quality performance of an $800M factory in a small town. Leveraging interpersonal skills, I understood employee concerns and created an experiential training program. Listening to them, educating them, sharing success and owning failures together, I immersed myself in the workforce environment, instilling a culture of innovation and change. Our efforts reaped dividends as we eliminated all consumer complaints and achieved the best-ever performance in quality metrics, securing [Consumer Goods Company] market-share and launching 24 premium product variants. Thus, I learnt to drive organizational change by harnessing people’s potential.

My second life lesson is about values. I feel long-term success can only be achieved if one has the character to stand by one’s principles during testing times.

At age-5, I recall accompanying my mother to court hearings to witness a long-drawn trial involving my father. Overtime, I understood how my father had been slapped with a fake harassment case because he refused to accept a bribe for professional favors. Standing by his principles, he was later acquitted emerging as my inspiration and teaching me values of honesty and integrity.

After 17 years, these values were tested. Early-on in my role as Quality Manager of [Consumer Goods Company] plant, consumer complaints for a particular defect inflicted 10% market-share losses in [Big City]. On probing, I realized that we had overlooked an important data trend during manufacturing that could have averted the disaster. While corporate auditors were preparing a report attributing the occurrence of defect to chance, I presented the true picture, taking full responsibility. It was a difficult decision as our factory had already lost credibility prior to my joining. Our General Manager intervened to manage the crisis and while recognizing my ethics and courage, placed faith on my ability to redeem myself.

Motivated to prove myself, I worked incessantly with my team, ensuring that I drive systemic changes and build a culture of continuous improvement. Within one-year, we achieved benchmark performances, restoring faith in the unit/team. During our annual performance review, our unit was appreciated for data-integrity, reinforcing my belief in my value system.

The third lesson is about impact. I believe true success is achieved when people are guided by a desire to create sustainable impact and make a positive difference in society.

During a factory-visit, I engaged with our CEO, and advocated driving growth by monetizing [Consumer Goods Company] distribution network to service regional firms/startups. Intrigued, he inducted me into his office in the Trade Marketing and Distribution function in a strategic role, a move unheard for any non-MBA engineer. Initially, I engaged with product entrepreneurs to offer them [Consumer Goods Company] distribution for scaling-up. One case was [Company], a [City]-based startup that innovated on cost-effective sanitary napkins. We are helping them reach 60M consumers in [Country], a country where 75% women resort to unhygienic alternatives. Curious to understand their success, I engaged with the founder, [Name]. I realized [Name] was driven by a desire to positively impact the lives of rural women and this motivated him to innovate continuously.

Reflecting on this conversation, I identified how [Consumer Products Company] could play a larger role in adding to consumer-value and go beyond giving distribution access to CPG startups. If tech leaders such as Google, Microsoft could incubate technology startups, we needed to explore similar models in the CPG space. I formulated a strategic investor model to incubate and eventually acquire CPG startups, a first for an Indian CPG firm, and pitched it to senior leadership. They appreciated my vision of synergizing with startups, providing [Consumer Products Company] marketing expertise and product development insights to encourage product innovation, thereby creating an inorganic growth roadmap for [Consumer Products Company] vision of achieving $15B by 2030.

These lessons provide the foundation to succeed and define my professional ambitions. Going forward, I envision energizing the [Country] CPG startup ecosystem, stimulating innovation and strengthening symbiotic relationships with Corporations to deliver high social-impact products, creating sustainable value for 1.2B Indian consumers. While my experiences have created the primer, I see Harvard as the perfect catalyst to transform me into a change leader. Building on my life lessons, I can’t wait to engage with classmates who bring with them a wealth of global experiences and stories!

Sample Essay #3

I remember my hands trembling as I clenched the scissors, and my mother’s gorgeous locks fell to the ground − I was six years old. Compelled to quit her studies after marriage, my mother resumed her masters in [course] after ten stifling years. With my father’s solitary income going into tuition for my mother, sister and me, a proper haircut was a wasteful luxury. My parents shielded us from their struggles, but the gravity of our situation hit home as I cut my mother’s hair.

When my mother finally cleared her examinations, I expected things to change. Instead, she declined lucrative offers to join public-services, catering to marginalized populations through [country’s] public healthcare system. My parents unwavering desire to lead a life of meaning, fuelled my own. Over the course of my journey, I have carved my own path to making a difference – one of spreading my ideas and impact, beyond what I could accomplish alone. I would like to share how three transformative experiences, starting over a decade ago, have progressively shaped this lifelong approach.

At 13, I was devastated to see my sister’s tiny frame shake violently as she coughed from asthma. What affected me most was learning that we had all contributed to these respiratory problems, by making [city] the most polluted city in the world.

I refused to remain a silent spectator and started an environment club, [club], at school. Digging-up compost pits and conducting tree-plantation drives, our team explored every opportunity to make our premises greener. The efforts of our small 10-member team indicated to me the potential to spur larger change by motivating all 1500 students to step-up. Our idea to achieve this, by integrating environmental-awareness within our curriculum, was dismissed by the administration for lack of resources. Undeterred, I started writing applications to garner financial support, and within months, led our team to the first place in a national competition. The $15K we won infused both resources and enthusiasm to implement our eco-friendly curriculum.

Juggling my graduation-examinations and endless hours of organizing activities for the entire school, we grew [club] five-fold. Students stepped-up to expand our efforts, from transitioning our school to using solar energy to organizing large-scale zero-waste campaigns. ‘Exponential’ was no longer just a graph I studied, I could tangibly see my impact multiplying by mobilising individuals around me.

Eager to replicate our success beyond school, I initiated environmental workshops for children from urban-slums in [city].

“Boys don’t need to save money for dowry, do they not have to conserve environmental resources either?” asked 11-year old [name]. Half-way into my first workshop, my analogy of saving money to explain the concept of conserving environmental resources, had derailed my session-plan.

Having witnessed the consequences of gender-disparity in my own childhood I started my non-profit [non-profit], during college, to promote holistic life-skills education to uproot such evils. I was happiest spending weekends in community-centres and public-classrooms, with my team of student-volunteers, conducting activity-based workshops for hundreds of children. I vividly remember when, beaming with pride, [name] told me that she had saved enough money to buy her house. She not only grasped complex concepts of banking and savings, but acknowledged herself as a financially-independent female – albeit in a game of Monopoly!

By graduation, we grew to a 20-member team and reached 1,000+ children. However, once I moved to join Investment-Banking, our student-volunteer model disintegrated and fundraising for a full-time team seemed impossible. While struggling to sustain momentum, I saw a class-teacher enthusiastically taking initiative to support our program, during a workshop. Watching her, it struck me that scaling-up [non-profit] was not the only way to further impact.

‍ "Over the course of my journey, I have carved my own path to making a difference – one of spreading my ideas and impact, beyond what I could accomplish alone."

Restructuring our workshops into a comprehensive curriculum, we showcased it to the state academic department. Winning their support, we trained 100 public-school teachers and principals to deliver the program. Within two years, these teachers extended our program to 10,000 children and even co-opted their colleagues. Their efforts reaffirmed my conviction that enabling change-agents at a systemic-level could accelerate impact at scale.

To steer my journey in this direction, I decided to quit my investment-banking job in [country] and return to [country]. Forgoing the financial comfort I was finally providing my family weighed on me, but I chose to follow my heart. I joined [foundation], a philanthropy focused on driving systemic change to tangibly impact India’s education landscape.

Innovative, low-cost teaching-aids developed by [company], my [foundation] portfolio-organisation, drastically improved learning for children in rural classrooms. However, their low-monetization potential generated minimal funder interest, threatening their existence. Their question, “How will we serve these children, when we can barely stay afloat?” echoed my own struggles at [non-profit].

Collaborating with the [state] government, I helped [company] reduce costs through subsidies and extend their program to 40,000 students. I was leading large-scale projects with public systems at [foundation], but I realized that empowering social-enterprises such as [company] to drive systemic change could create ripple-effects throughout the ecosystem.

My ten-year-old self wouldn't believe just how far I have come – my hands no longer shake when I take decisive actions, whose outcomes I cannot always predict.

Today, non-profit social-enterprises in India fail to reach their potential, owing to lack of financial and strategic support - the largest remains 1/100th the size of its global peers. So, I took on the mandate to launch an Accelerator within [non-profit], to ensure this support, even though this meant leaving my team and starting out alone. My path was uphill, given [non-profit’s] strategic shift towards working directly with governments − the initiative was peripheral for every decision, be it budget-allocations or team-building.

The eagerness of portfolio-organizations in leveraging every support opportunity kept me going. Months of co-creating monetization strategies and facilitating government meetings paid off, in one instance, enabling immense expansion for the portfolio-organization to reach 800,000 children. Such successes helped evangelize our potential and we are now raising an independent fund to support 30 entrepreneurs to help transform education for 5M children.

My ten-year-old self wouldn’t believe just how far I have come – my hands no longer shake when I take decisive actions, whose outcomes I cannot always predict. Striving to continually widen my impact has helped me progress from empowering school-students to supporting social-entrepreneurs, towards enabling an entire ecosystem of social change-makers.

Battling one constant challenge throughout, that of inadequate resources, has highlighted how social-finance could be the ‘driving-force’ towards my goal. Most importantly, I have learnt that beyond individual efforts, by spearheading thought-leadership and global alliances, I can mobilize the entire ecosystem, catalyzing robust social-investment markets in India.

My friend [name] described how assimilating diverse perspectives through the case-method at HBS helped him understand nuances of business across cultures, while the vibrant community provided access to global networks. HBS equipped him to launch and grow his company across eight emerging economies, through partnerships with local entrepreneurs. Similarly, I am convinced that the ideas, experiences and relationships built at HBS will help me realize my vision where every [club], [non-profit] and [company] can go on to create the change it aspires to.

Mistakes to Avoid in Your Harvard Business Essay

1. Show Don’t Tell

If you use your essay to outright explain what you’re trying to show the admissions committee about yourself, you run a much higher risk of losing readability and taking your application from an opportunity to a plea. Instead, demonstrate your takeaways, your best qualities, through your story and its examples. 

The reader is far more likely to be compelled by the conclusions of your essay if they feel like they came to them themselves. By not explicitly explaining the point of your essay, you come across more sure in the topic you’ve chosen and its ability to reveal the point. ‍

2. Avoid Lackluster Anecdotes

Your essay will be bolstered or weakened by the intrinsic quality of the experiences about which you write. Only include anecdotes that you’d be just as comfortable and confident about retelling to dinner guests or friends at a bar. 

Obviously, the formality of those situations and the Harvard Business School MBA application differ starkly, but the gist of this statement is that if you’d feel awkward telling a story to your friends, it’d be hard to make it sound good for an unseen admissions committee reader. 

If it’s a story you’ll enjoy writing about, it’ll stand a better chance of being enjoyable to read. ‍

3. Don’t Narrate – Craft a Compelling Story

Ensure your topic flows seamlessly through relevant experiences and lessons. Establishing clear cause-and-effect relationships among different events not only maintains the reader's interest but also justifies each inclusion in your essay. While coherence is essential, be cautious not to force connections between unrelated experiences or anecdotes; instead, strive for a well-integrated narrative with a cohesive beginning-to-end structure."

4. Don’t Do This Yourself

Utilize guides and blog posts about the undertaking of applying to an MBA program, getting as specific to Harvard Business School as you can. 

Reviewing a concise guide about applying to Harvard Business School can be the best way to ensure that your application is sound, not just for any MBA program, but for Harvard Business School’s MBA.

 Many resources, like Final Application Reviews, will focus heavily on your essay, but will also provide insight on every aspect of your application so you feel best about your attempt.

If you still have questions about the HBS essay, check out these frequently asked questions. 

1. How Can I Best Edit My Essay?

To best edit your essay, focus on refining syntax, word choice, and common mistakes in MBA application essays. Research prevalent errors, specifically addressing them to catch the admissions committee's attention. Utilize tools like Grammarly for a comprehensive review, increasing the likelihood of submitting an error-free essay.

2. How Long Should My Essay Be If There's No Word Limit?

In the absence of a specified word limit, aim for conciseness while conveying your message effectively. Generally, one to three pages or around 500-1000 words is a reasonable guideline, allowing you to present a comprehensive narrative without unnecessary information.

3. Is the Essay Portion Different If I’m Reapplying?

No, if you're reapplying to Harvard Business School, the essay portion remains the same as for first-time applicants. There is no distinct essay prompt for reapplicants.

4. Can I Use the Same Essay If I’m Reapplying?

HBS does not explicitly prohibit this, but, intuitively, it’s probably a better idea to write a new essay. You would have no way of knowing that your essay and the topic you chose played no role in your initial rejection. 

5. Are There Bad Topics to Write About?‍

Yes, some topics are best avoided in your essay. Steer clear of overly controversial or sensitive subjects and refrain from solely highlighting academic or professional achievements unless they contribute to a broader, more personal theme. 

Also, avoid repeating stories already addressed in recommendation letters to provide the admissions committee with new insights. Choose an original and unique topic that reflects your character, emphasizing its personal significance. 

If you struggle to justify your topic's importance, consider opting for a more compelling subject for your essay.

6. Can I Over-Edit My Essay?

Excessive editing can make your writing sound stiff and fragmented. The concept of "over-editing" suggests a misuse of time better spent on other tasks. It's challenging to determine the perfect editing point, but if changes result in minimal, unclear differences, you may be over-editing. 

Recognizing this, it's advisable to ease back on editing efforts, especially if changes are made simply because they come to mind.

Conclusion‍

Harvard Business School's MBA program is highly competitive, and the HBS essay is your chance to stand out. Choose a topic that excites you and reveals your unique experiences. Use organizational resources and time management for effective essay development. 

Simplify the process with outlined steps, ensuring authenticity and enthusiasm. Maintain confidence in your chosen topic and writing style for a more assured essay. This is an opportunity to showcase why you're applying to Harvard Business School, so approach it with confidence and purpose.

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