Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School has a reputation for producing the best business leaders in the world. But they do not achieve that level of proficiency by attracting only the highest GMAT scores.
Their average GMAT is quite high (730), but this average masks a considerable score range — 620–790 (Class of 2022, HBS). That is a swing of 170 points. Meaning that under certain circumstances they admit a score of 620 and regularly reject higher scores in favor of lower scores.
In other words, experience and character matter. Great news, your essay can give your application a significant lift. The question is how.
Over the next ten minutes we will walk you through the writing process, from brainstorming to drafting and final edits, so that you can master your essay and give yourself a leg up with Harvard admissions.
Writing as an Ideal Candidate for HBS Admissions
If you want to know what HBS is looking for in a candidate, then start with the essay prompt. This year (just like every year), HBS has chosen a prompt that is simple and open to the broadest possible interpretative range.
HBS Essay Prompt 2021–2022
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?
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.
This question might be exciting to some but irritates many people at first. It is easy to see why.
The only guidance is to omit information that you have already provided in the rest of your application. Do not repeat yourself. They want to know more than the rest of the application would show them. Sure, the essay can refer to bullet points from your resume, but it would need to add important details.
Once again it appears that character does matter. If this question accomplishes one thing, it puts the ball in your court. Take your shot, they say. Dribble, dunk, take a three-pointer. Whatever you like.
Isn’t it clear? They want to get to know you: what you say when you have the freedom to choose.
Make no mistake: they do not want to get to know you because they care about all living things on the planet. Maybe they do, but that is not the point here. Their ultimate goal is to admit people who will thrive at their school, and to a large extent, character determines who succeeds and who fails at HBS (and after).
There is not one single character profile that they seek. But certain qualities do thrive. To understand what these are you need to understand the Case Method.
Who Thrives with HBS Case Method?
The case method is an educational methodology. It goes like this:
Students receive a case outline, then discuss it in study groups. Classes are not lectures. The professor asks questions. “What would you do as the CEO of CCC Corp?” Follow-up questions broaden participation and spur debate.
Cases provide some key information, but they do not give enough information to yield a “right answer.” Any number of strategies can work, so the conclusion is unimportant. The analytical journey that you take to reach that conclusion is more important.
Logical thinking with limited information and stating your perspective convincingly: these qualities are paramount — in class and in your admissions essay.
Writing the HBS Essay for 2022
Using the case method as a foundation, we can understand three important traits that distinguish master HBS essays from mediocre.
Learning at HBS is dynamic, but can also be very challenging, by design.
Through the application, panel discussions with students, and commentary from HBS admissions personnel, the point about being prepared to put yourself in the seat of the manager or employee in the Case is drilled into you. They make this point repeatedly because HBS fully believes that the educational experience comes directly from your peers (not solely from instructors), so if you are not prepared for the open dialogue in class, you will fall behind.
Personal experiences and unique points of view are cherished at HBS.
The Case Study Method proves that two people looking at the same set of facts and material can come to two very different conclusions. This kind of attitude is encouraged at HBS, where Admissions believes that its class of individuals with different and unique perspectives will create the kind of synergy to inspire the future business leaders of the world.
Listening is a crucial skill that is common to current students at HBS.
This theme binds the class together, and you can bet that Admissions will be looking for clues as to whether you are someone who holds views tightly with a closed-mind or someone open to having his or her mind changed. Most people who apply to HBS are highly motivated and have taken on leadership positions, but HBS is not looking for one-dimensional, career-chasing individuals. These are the types of people who would struggle during the open dialogue portion of the learning community.
Keep these ideas close as you brainstorm. What details from your life demonstrate listening, dynamism, adaptation, and uniqueness?
Your Essay Needs to Accomplish Three Things
HBS has chosen to leave this part of the application sufficiently broad. It is therefore critical that you try to not let your creative juices flow too much. The key to writing this type of essay (or any open-ended essay for that matter) is:
Stick to structure.
Do not mistake the simplistic tone of the question for the challenge that awaits you. This essay is not simple. Therefore, do not try to be overly clever or creative. These things do not score additional points, and they often bog down your writing with unnecessary fluff. We need to stick to tried and true approaches to getting critical messages across. Thesis statement, introduction, set up, main point, why this matters, conclusion.
Speak in your authentic voice.
This begins with an understanding of who the audience is. You are not preparing a memo for a board member or a boss. You do not want to try to write something that attempts to educate the Committee. You do not want to showcase how smart you are. You want to share in this essay something that is not already stated anywhere else in the application. And what “that” is, is who you are, and why you do what you do.
Great essays connect the applicant’s authentic self with the leadership experience or accomplishment the applicant is most proud of. Think of speaking to your heart over your head. Yet it must read like someone coming away from your essay would be able to follow along easily, gather the main points, and understand something about you that makes you unique.
Be confident. Be courageous.
The HBS application is filled with ambiguity – the kind that would make many applicants anxious. HBS may do this on purpose because the school seeks the type of individual who can operate in such a scenario and still stay composed. Here is your opportunity to do so!
What to Avoid
It is just as important to explore aspects of the essay you should avoid. Perhaps these insights will resonate more with you than the earlier points made. Nevertheless, they are still very important in considering your application essay:
Do not skip a thesis statement.
Any extended written portion of your application needs to have a theme or a general takeaway for Admissions. The Committee reads in excess of 10,000 applications each year – make it easy for the reader to understand the main point of the piece. Therefore, I advise you to hit them over the head with the main point (figuratively speaking, of course).
Do not write content that is too broad.
The key is to get as narrow as you can in your scope. You do not have enough space, time, nor the reader’s attention to try to cover everything and get it all down on paper. It is better to have one specific thesis and stick with it. If you do this, you will be well ahead of your peers.
This is not Stanford.
This may seem obvious, but I have seen people err too often in this area to not bring up. It is not lost on Admissions that candidates applying to Harvard are also most likely applying to Stanford. Therefore, you should not start with your “What Matters Most and Why” essay from your Stanford application and turn it into your HBS essay. The Committee is smart, and they will assess the overly sentimental nature of the essay is not the right fit here.
Read an Example HBS Essay
Knowing what your essay should do is a great start. Now for the hard part: transitioning your understanding from facts to an intuitive grasp so that you can apply this knowledge to your essay.
This leg of the journey is much easier when you can read successful examples from the past.
Be aware that this is a final product, not a draft. So do not pay attention to the grammar or style. It is more important at this stage to read and watch yourself make conclusions about the person who wrote it.
“In Between”
I enjoy never giving up, always thinking there’s a way, and if there is not one, creating it. I enjoy walking through Central Park with Paige, my girlfriend of six years, and discovering new paths. I enjoy helping Ground Zero construction workers by cold-calling major insole distributors and organizing five hundred pairs of insoles to be donated to the Red Cross. I enjoy seeing that the elevator has not moved off my floor between the time I come home late and when I wake up early to go running the next morning.
I enjoy having close friends with not-so-close personalities, histories, goals, and lifestyles. I have friends who work at Lehman and Solomon, and another who works at her mother’s Common Grounds coffee shop; I have friends who visit families on opposite sides of the Dead Sea but can still have peaceful conversations about U.S. foreign policy.
I enjoy never having a single regret, standing in the present and leaning toward the future. I enjoy making mistakes and realizing my first impression was wrong. The best manager I ever worked for initially struck me as a timid and uninspiring person. Weeks later I realized how her unthreatening nature was an incredibly powerful tool in putting clients at ease with changing their minds and with accepting her bold and innovative ideas.
I enjoy listening, learning, trying new things, and growing. I enjoy finally learning to surf Costa Rica’s fifteen-foot waves after spending the better part of two days underwater. I enjoy seeing my first boss finally laugh when I built up the nerve to do an impression of her at the company Christmas party. I enjoy laughing, making people laugh, and people that can laugh at themselves.
I enjoy how my family’s diversity has shaped me. My younger brother, who spent time in three different high schools, is beginning to act on my coaching that straightening up his act does not mean living an uninteresting life. While my father grew up playing stickball on the streets of Queens, New York, my mother learned how to sail her father’s boat on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. I enjoy my parents’ different renditions of my childhood. I enjoy knowing that my personality lies, like the truth in their contrasting tales, somewhere in between.
Post-Reading Questions (Think from the POV of HBS Admissions)
Ask yourself:
Does the essay show listening?
Do you imagine the writer as courageous? Why?
Do they seem like a real, authentic person or are they putting on a show? Why do you think that?
Does the essay show Leadership? How?
Does the essay show “Analytical aptitude and appetite?”
Does the essay show community engagement?
What is your general impression of the applicant? What facts in the essay leant you toward that opinion?
Read In-Between with full analysis on EssayMaster
These questions are based on qualities that HBS craves. Do you see how the essay portrays some/all of these qualities by presenting lucid details?
A good brainstorming session will lead you to numerous details/concepts that accomplish similar tasks.
If you find yourself thinking too closely to the example you just read, feel free to read other examples! There is not right way to do this, so reading multiple examples will help to formulate your own unique path. Good luck!