Samuel's Essay

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New 2024-2025 Harvard Business School Essay Prompts

For the first time in over a decade, Harvard Business School significantly changed its admissions essays and criteria in its 2024-2025 application. Under the leadership of new Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, Rupal Gadhia, the school has also reframed the criteria on which the Admissions Board evaluates candidates. For many years, the criteria had been: 1) a habit of leadership, 2) analytical aptitude and appetite, and 3) engaged community citizenship. The 2024-2025 admissions essays align with the school’s new criteria: 1) business-minded, 2) leadership-focused, and 3) growth-oriented.

The new 2024-2025 Harvard Business School essay prompts are as follows:

1. Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career choices and aspirations and the impact you will have on the businesses, organizations, and communities you plan to serve. (up to 300 words)

2. Leadership-Focused Essay: What experiences have shaped who you are, how you invest in others, and what kind of leader you want to become? (up to 250 words)

3. Growth-Oriented Essay: Curiosity can be seen in many ways. Please share an example of how you have demonstrated curiosity and how that has influenced your growth. (up to 250 words)

While the essay prompts and evaluation criteria have been adjusted, the characteristics of a successful Harvard Business School candidate have not fundamentally changed. Rather, the essay prompts and refined criteria now signal with greater clarity what the HBS Admissions Board really looks for in candidates. The important question as an applicant is how you can show them that you have what it takes! We at MBA Whisperer believe that analyzing previous essays from successful candidates remains a valuable tool to identify the key elements of a successful Harvard Business School essay.

Successful Harvard Business School Essay

Essay prompt: As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School program? [no word limit]

When I was eight, my oldest brother went to prison for armed robbery of a vehicle as part of a gang on the Southside of Chicago. My family had experienced a lot during our time in Chicago, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back—pushing my parents to move our family in search of a community that would offer their six black boys a better life. My family packed up what little we had and moved away from the familiarity of family and friends to Georgia.

Even as a young boy, I was able to recognize the immediate difference in my community. We had moved from a majority black, low-income city to a majority white city with deep southern roots. On the surface, my transition seemed seamless, but on the inside, I was conflicted. I felt like a misfit stuck between two very different communities. And because I had two communities, it felt like I didn’t have any at all. At least none that I could call my own.

Over the next decade, my parents pushed my brothers and me hard to make sure we didn’t follow the path our older brother took. By the end of high school, I was in the top five percent of my class, had one of the best 800-meter track times in the country, and was on my way to becoming the first college graduate in my family.

But no matter how hard I worked, I still felt like a misfit. In an effort to fit in, I got involved with the wrong crowd. I started drinking and doing drugs. Then one day, things took a turn for the worst. I was pulled over and searched by a police officer. He found the drugs I had with me. I remember thinking, “my life is over.” Only it wasn’t. As the officer held the drugs in his hand, he looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Trust me, you don’t want to go this way. Get off this stuff before it ruins your life. Now get out of here.”

That moment was a major wake-up call, and I realized that I needed to make immediate changes in my life.

Two months later I met the Latter-day Saint missionaries. I could see myself in them—they were young and awkward and seemed like they didn’t quite fit in. However, they had one major difference from me. They were driven by a strong purpose, and I wanted what they had. I decided to take a step in the right direction and was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

One year later I was serving a volunteer mission in Manchester, England. For two years I sought to help others find what I had found—a sense of community matched with a strong purpose. This consistent period of service helped me come to the realization that helping others find community and purpose was what mattered most to me, and that that belief would be my “North Star” for the remainder of my life.

Upon returning home from my mission, however, the pressures and demands of life hit me with full force, and I once again became consumed with my own goals. Within a few years, I had become one of the fastest 800 meter runners in NCAA history and had taken home an international gold medal while representing team USA. I had signed a professional contract, had set the World Record in the Road 800 meter race, and had won the bronze medal at the USA Indoor Championships with one of the fastest 600 meter times of all-time. Yet, I felt empty and unhappy.

It was then that I, for the second time in my life, learned what mattered most to me. Only this time, I also learned why. This time, I was able to recognize how much help I had been given in my life. My parents helped me by moving in search of a better community. The police officer helped me by giving me a second chance. The missionaries helped me by teaching me the importance of purpose. My coaches and professors helped me by encouraging me to shoot for the stars. I suddenly realized that my hard work and determination didn’t make me who I was—my community did.

That moment of realization and reflection was powerful. So powerful, in fact, that I quit track and field that day to pursue opportunities that would allow me to be a more influential mentor. It wasn’t just about helping others find community and purpose; it was about walking the path with them. I had been given just that, and I felt a responsibility to give back. Since retiring as a professional runner, I have sought opportunities that will mold me into an influential mentor.

On this quest, I decided to join the consulting industry and get involved in social impact cases focused on the Black and Hispanic communities. Advising clients on some of the unique challenges these communities face has felt significant, but now I am ready to make an impact in a more hands-on, “on the ground” way. I want to use the search fund model to acquire and operate a small business in a low-income, predominantly black city. In that capacity, I want to leverage the influence the business will give me to bolster the community. Specifically, I want to work with local non-profits, community organizers, and social workers to set up a network of mentors for youth and young adults who are lacking community.

But in order to do that, I need help. I need to learn how to acquire and operate a small business from experts like [HBS Professor] and [HBS Professor]. I need to understand how to better connect with and learn from others by participating in the case method with the most diverse set of students in academia. I need to find like-minded individuals who are willing to help me form a network of mentors to bolster communities. These are some of the many experiences I need and can gain from Harvard. I have attended multiple HBS information sessions and have spoken to several alumni. These interactions have been starkly different from the interactions with other schools. HBS students aren’t going to business school just for a break or to make more money. They are going to business school so that they can gain the skills and network needed to “make a difference in the world.”

This is the kind of community I want to learn from and contribute to. Harvard is my number one choice—there is simply no other community like it in the world.

Professional Review by MBA Whisperer

The Four Ingredients of a Perfect HBS Essay

Samuel’s essay demonstrates what MBA Whisperer calls the Four Ingredients of a Perfect HBS Essay:

1. Offers a glimpse of the world through your eyes

2. Imbues strong leadership, impact and ambition with a deeper purpose

3. Demonstrates intellectual curiosity

4. Brings a “quiet confidence” with humility and vulnerability

HBS Essay Ingredient #1: Show what makes you uniquely you

As former HBS admissions director Dee Leopold once wrote, getting into Harvard Business School isn’t an “essay writing competition.” MBA admissions officers don’t admit essays—they admit applicants. Samuel’s essay offers us a compelling glimpse of the world through his eyes using the unique elements of his (admittedly stellar) profile: a challenging childhood, an accomplished student-athlete, and two religious/purpose-driven awakenings. In this 1,100+ word essay, he dedicates almost no real estate to his consulting career, his least-differentiating factor. Rather, he showcases a glimpse of the world through his eyes that no one sitting next to him in the HBS classroom can bring.

Think about what key experiences have made you uniquely you. I would recommend selecting a different experience across your academic, professional, extracurricular, and/or community involvement for each of your three HBS 2024-25 essay questions.

HBS Essay Ingredient #2: Leadership, Ambition & Purpose

HBS isn’t looking for the next class of middle-managers; they genuinely want to “educate leaders who make a difference in the world.” Samuel demonstrates his work ethic and ambition through his athletic achievements, and then ties his personal and professional experiences to his future ambitions. You will have 500 characters elsewhere in the application to outline your career goals, and be honest! It’s okay to have “traditional” goals like consulting, banking, PE, etc. But as you write your Business-Minded essay, be bold and ambitious as you connect your career goals to a deeper purpose.

HBS Essay Ingredient #3: Intellectual Curiosity

I’m glad to see that HBS replaced the “analytical aptitude and appetite” evaluation criterion with “growth oriented”—i.e. candidates who are eager to learn and improve. Your academic potential will largely be assessed via your undergraduate institution, coursework, GPA, test scores, etc. Even though Samuel didn’t attend an Ivy League institution, and his GMAT score is below the school’s average, his ability to weave together his seemingly disconnected experiences into a unified theme demonstrates thoughtful reasoning skills.

However, I would have encouraged Samuel to include some “nuggets of knowledge” to showcase his depth of understanding regarding his industry, career goals, or other societal trends; even a simple statistic about the value of mentorship in underrepresented communities could show intellectual curiosity. Since this ingredient in his essay is light, if he were an MBA Whisperer client, I would encourage him to ask his recommenders to highlight experiences that showcase his analytical skills.

HBS Essay Ingredient #4: Quiet confidence, humility, and vulnerability

This may sound strange, but at MBA Whisperer, I tell my clients that the essays are not where you sell yourself to the Admissions Board. There’s always a temptation to try to scream, “Look at me! Look at me! I promise I’m qualified! Pleeeeease let me into your school!” Other elements of your application—most notably your resume and enthusiastic letters of recommendation—do the selling for you.

Do you notice Samuel’s tone? He brings a quiet confidence that shows he’s already qualified to attend the program. Yes, he touches on some adversity, and yes, he briefly highlights accomplishments, but in a remarkably humble tone. By acknowledging that life’s path isn’t always a perfectly straight line, he demonstrates humility, vulnerability, and growth-mindedness.

Final note: The 2024-25 HBS essay prompts are too specific and word counts too short for you to rattle off a list of reasons why you want to go to HBS. This is likely by design—Harvard doesn’t need you to tell them why they’re great. Stick to the four ingredients, use short, impactful “mini-stories” to give the Admissions Board a glimpse of the world through your eyes, and drop the mic!

By Travis Morgan, Founder of MBA Whisperer

Hailey's Essay

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Boosting an exceptionally high acceptance rate to schools like HBS, Wharton, Columbia and MIT Sloan, the firm personally vets each client to make sure they're truly competitive at the level they're targeting. Schedule your free consultation today at: www.MBAIvy.com

Successful Harvard Business School Essay

Growing up as a competitive dancer, I sought to deeply understand my teammates’ personalities in order to improve communication, build comradery, and perform our best onstage. I enjoyed learning about the specific choreography pieces that spoke to them and including those components in our routine, enabling each person to find joy in their performance. Although I’m no longer choreographing, I’ve continued to emphasize the importance of strong communication channels in my professional endeavors. Until my grandfather’s passing, I thought my professional passions were rooted in retail’s digital disruption. I was fascinated with how technology improved the holistic retail experience. However, as my grandfather battled dementia, I witnessed the information asymmetries that plague the U.S. healthcare system. Due to a data miscommunication amongst his physicians, he endured an erroneous resuscitation, which resulted in a great deal of preventable pain and his subsequent passing.

The jarring realization that an industry worth 18% of our GDP was so technologically behind shifted my professional focus towards addressing the communication inadequacies besieging healthcare. Many doctors aren’t given the data they need and are often rushed to the next patient, fostering an error-prone environment that pushes for the quickest, rather than the best, care. After observing my grandfather’s complications, it became my mission to challenge the information and communication inaccuracies of the U.S. healthcare system, refusing to believe that an industry worth so much could let patients down so frequently. Thousands of patients die annually from preventable errors and nearly 5% of diagnoses are incorrect altogether. As hospitals purchase independent medical practices and leverage more at-home services, the need for streamlined communication will only increase.

In order to help tackle the communications issues that providers face, I aim to work as a VP of Product at a leading hospital system. I will focus on making information more actionable by developing products that better integrate data from patient health records. Leading my consulting team through the launch of a Medicare business, I discovered a niche curiosity for the challenges providers face when communicating internally; unfortunately, the status quo is adversely affecting patients. As our team designed a hospital discharge workflow, we observed doctors transitioning responsibilities to the discharge team, who sometimes didn’t have the right information to discharge patients. Concerningly, patients often left the hospital without the best care plan or equipment to promote a healthy recovery. We saw how providers are stretched thin, burned out, and left without the right tools and data to provide high-quality care.

Additionally, hospitals’ antiquated processes, such as lack of technology adoption and excessive regulatory restrictions, hinder rapid transfer of information, often impeding the smaller, innovative companies who want to not only send information quickly, but make it more actionable. Recalling my grandfather’s experience, I knew this issue wasn’t restricted to just insurance. The internal communication problems affected doctors’ offices, hospitals, and other facets of the industry. An opportunity remains to disrupt the provider’s experience by bridging this communication gap. I want to streamline provider workflows by developing better internal communication products that leverage patient health records. I will draw upon my experience in healthcare technology roles to enable more efficient product implementation, especially as it pertains to increasing the speed and accuracy of effective information transfer. My time at this company has allowed me to grasp a deeper understanding of the industry, enabling me to see that this communication problem is systemic and affects other stakeholders in the U.S. healthcare ecosystem.

Furthermore, I continue to witness the issues that startups endure given the slow implementation rate that legacy organizations face, specifically hospitals. Confronted with this issue early on, I led the team through a strategic pivot of our business model. I executed the cost-benefit analysis that moved our focus away from hospitals and towards independent medical practices, which also experience various information asymmetries due to their smaller size and budgets. While this has proven beneficial for our growth, I question how often this happens with smaller players in the industry and what hospitals, providers, and most importantly, patients, are missing out on as a result. My experience has shown me that I want to bridge this information and communication gap at a broader scale by working with a hospital system that has bought independent medical practices and has started to enhance their at-home services. I seek to prepare myself to be an executive in the space, one that leads with passion and fortitude to tackle the industry’s greatest communication challenges in a way that appeals to business, provider, and consumer stakeholders. In transitioning to a product management role at a hospital, I will use the skills learned in my consulting and operational roles to drive change in an environment that hasn’t, until fairly recently, been on the cutting edge of technology.

However, I understand that developing certain technical skill sets will be imperative in order to deeply understand the intricacies of the healthcare system and drive decisions alongside minds from business, clinical, technological, and political backgrounds. I will immerse myself in areas that challenge my perspectives with regard to formulating strategy, analyzing unstructured data, and managing technological and operational change in order to best position myself to lead within my organization and further my healthcare career. A HBS MBA will give me the technical skills required to analyze prior market decisions to inform future strategies and challenge this convoluted healthcare system alongside innovative thinkers. While my grandfather’s experience is in the past, I’m committed to reducing miscommunication errors within hospitals and increasing information sharing amongst providers to alleviate these issues for other patients. Drawing upon my learnings as a young dancer, I’ll enable my teams to develop products that bridge the communication gap and put joy back into care delivery for the provider. I will continuously seek to be at the forefront of healthcare innovation where I can launch products that invert the communication status quo of an archaic model – one that no longer meets the needs of the 21st century provider or patient.

Professional Review by MBA Ivy

Though disjointed in the beginning with the applicant's almost non-sequitur discussion of dance team and choreography in what feels like a very forced example to highlight her background in "teamwork" (i.e. it would have been better to instead discuss a more professional work example), this essay does however quickly shift to a very solid and meaningful discussion of the problems and issues within the US healthcare system, alongside the applicant's passion for addressing the serious problem of inadequate technology and data organization within the current system and her desire to create change.

Drawing from her own background in healthcare technology and using examples that describe this background in a level of detail admissions will understand, the result is a very strong personal essay that shows admissions her awareness of the existing problems in this niche that she wishes to solve, as well as the "how" and "why" of how her interest originated and is very much rooted in her own personal values and motivation.

As the essay further progresses, the applicant then elaborates on how she intends to execute this proposed focus in both her MBA study and her career moving forward -- again, not just speaking abstractly, but utilizing her strong, relevant, past experience and examples in the field to build solid connections to her desired future work: seeking to bridge the data and communication gaps she's identified with her own past expertise. Overall, a very solid essay, outside of the beginning few sentences, which still managed to get her in.

How to Adjust for the Newly Released HBS Prompts:

HBS doesn't just have new prompts, they are now expanding the personal statement into three separate essays that seek to discover how you are 1. Business-minded, 2. Leadership-focused, and 3. Growth-oriented. The most important point here is to not repeat yourself as you work your way through these essays and expand on each point. Each essay should discuss different examples and experience from your background and, when taken as a whole in terms of your overall personal narrative, show you as a very multi-faceted and interesting MBA applicant who is very well qualified to succeed.

Emma's Essay

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Successful Harvard Business School Essay

“See those letters up there? They’re over six feet tall,” she whispered, grinning. Standing below Michelangelo’s dome inside St. Peter’s at the Vatican, my mother pointed at the lapis-lazuli letters in the mosaic hundreds of feet above us. After confirming the letters’ size relative to a man standing on the platform above, their significance was clear and my passion for art, its geometric precision, and its import in the world had been ignited. While my interest in art history has only grown since that moment 14 years ago, I’ve also discovered passions for the arts more broadly, business, and the environment. Experiences stemming from these interests have led me to integrate art and analytics, build adaptability, and grow and exercise a passion for positive impact.

Art + Analytics: From Evensong to EBITDA

In addition to an early interest in Renaissance art, studying ballet for 12 years inspired a passion for classical music and, subsequently, a love of singing that continues today. While the formulaic precision of classical music intrigues me, singing is even more captivating to me. From joining a church choir in third grade to completing a European tour with a high school group to taking lessons at the Peabody Institute, singing has allowed me to share arguably-underappreciated genres of music with the community. Most recently, after moving to Texas last summer, I tried out for and joined the adult choir at a local church. I’m very excited to continue my pursuit of music while co-leading our 2020 tour to New York.

While I indulged my passion for singing through voice minor lessons at Johns Hopkins, by studying art history and business courses, I further cultivated my interest in art and analytics. Additionally, interviewing a student investment group for a JH News-Letter article significantly expanded my opportunity paradigm of the intersection of art and analytics. Just as art history demands a combination of aesthetic appreciation and well-researched logic, finance presented fascinating ways to leverage research in solving business challenges. While proactively moving up the financial knowledge curve helped me secure internships with [Asset Management Firm] and [Investment Firm], recruiting for investment banking roles as an art history student at a “non-target” school posed significant challenges. After countless cold emails and informal conversations, I received and accepted an offer with [Investment Bank] in Milwaukee. Upon arrival, I strove to build a rigorous analytical base while applying the dual art-plus-analytics lens from my humanities background, thereby earning the respect and trust of my originally-skeptical colleagues. Receiving “top bucket” performance ratings and being selected for an Associate promotion felt like affirmations of the value of blending art and business.

A Quest to Become U-Haul’s Top Customer

Transitioning from art to investment banking represented one big leap – studying in Italy and moving to four different cities in the span of four years helped me further appreciate the importance of adaptability. While I’d studied Italian at Hopkins, living with a host mom who spoke minimal English in Florence challenged me to rapidly improve Italian language proficiency while adjusting to a new culture. Similarly, living in Baltimore, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Dallas has stretched my horizons. Having grown up in quiet Connecticut, living in Baltimore during college offered exposure to a more urban environment, but that transition did little to prepare me for the Midwest. In fact, Milwaukee’s exceptionally-friendly people and bone-chilling winters sometimes felt as foreign as elements of studying abroad.

After spending three years with [Investment Bank] in Milwaukee and Chicago – a period during which I absorbed many new perspectives and proactively flung myself into new communities – I accepted a private equity role in Dallas with confidence, knowing I’d adapt to the scorching summer heat and abundance of barbeque joints just as I’d adapted to polar vortices living along Lake Michigan. While often stressful and initially lonely, these transnational moves have exposed me to diverse viewpoints, allowed me to interact with people of varied experiences, and helped me become comfortable integrating into new environments.

A Tale of Two Passions: Education and the Environment

Beyond exposure to city life, living in Baltimore helped me understand the need for a stronger U.S. education system and gave me an outlet to drive positive impact. In serving as an Organizer with a school-affiliated tutoring program supporting elementary school students, I guided progress across pairs of tutors and students while connecting Hopkins with the Baltimore community. Transitioning from one-on-one tutoring to leading tutor-student pairs enabled me to learn how to motivate others. Sharing success stories of helping students advance across multiple reading levels, for example, generated renewed commitment from high-achieving undergraduates with limited time, and connecting tutors with one another empowered them to refresh their knowledge of teaching tools. It was extremely rewarding to develop relationships with students, their families, and tutors, and to witness demonstrable student progress that often led to transformative opportunities in middle school and beyond.

At [Private Equity Firm], I’ve continued fostering a passion for creating positive change, albeit for a broader set of communities. Having grown up in a family that, ever-conscious of the Earth’s finite resources, recycled enthusiastically and regularly held “shortest shower” competitions to conserve water, I believe the business community can and should do good via an environmentally-conscious approach to growth. As a personally-passionate champion of environmental sustainability initiatives, I was thrilled with the opportunity to guide an air pollution control company within Insight’s portfolio. Through this experience, I’ve helped lead the portfolio company’s expansion into aftermarket services, a recurring revenue stream that will boost Insight’s financial return but, more critically, will enable customers to maintain their aging anti-pollution systems, reducing airborne toxins and converting waste into usable materials.

Looking forward, I hope to funnel my love for blending art and analytics, appreciation for adaptability, and commitment to positive impact toward transforming how we engage with our planet. Post-MBA, I aspire to join an environmentally-focused investing firm that considers financial, social and environmental metrics. I hope to strengthen the critical skills of efficiently synthesizing complex scenarios, listening intently to and comfortably sharing ideas, and thinking from the perspective of a leader at Harvard. Longer-term, my career mission involves leveraging these skills to lead an investment firm that benefits the planet while achieving attractive financial returns. Specifically, I aim to create environmental solutions through investing and supporting technologies and companies that reduce waste, plastic consumption, ocean pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Art and music provided me with early connections to our shared world history – it’s critical to pioneer new ways of interacting with our world that will enable the continuation of art, music, and other noble endeavors for millennia to come.

Professional Review by Embark MBA

Let’s start with the topic at hand - What more would you like us to know? The beauty and challenge of this topic (and others like it - I’m looking at you, Stanford’s “What Matters Most” essay!) is to tell the reader who you are and why. For the majority of the essay, Emma did this well! I felt like I was sitting down over a cup of coffee with her. I could hear her voice - she’s clever, thoughtful, introspective. From the six-feet tall lapis-lazuli mosaic letters, to the polar vortices of Lake Michigan, to the “shortest shower” competitions, I could picture, sense, and imagine the scenarios she placed for the reader. Her essay invites you to want to know her more. As a former Admissions Committee Member who read thousands of essays a year, this is a rare feat - I applaud her!

What would I have done differently? The intro reads as mismatched to the rest of the essay. Her intro introduces the idea of art opening her aperture of the world, concluding with additional passions for arts, business, and the environment and THEN overlaying on “integrating arts more broadly, build adaptability, and grow and exercise a passion for positive impact”. Whew! That’s a lot for 1 essay! Had this essay more precisely either A) threaded a singular art theme to all 3 vignettes (she does so in the first, not the other two) or B) positioned the intro as her having 3 passions - art, analytics, and the environment - this would have read as a more united, fluid essay. Again, this essay is warm and inviting, but suffers from the common pitfall of tackling too many topics.

What do I mean? Her first paragraph details her exploration of art through singing and art history and how she found similar appreciation for analytics - love it. What I don’t love is weaving in the perceived challenges of recruiting for an investment banking internship and winning over her ‘originally-skeptical colleagues’. Positioning herself as disadvantaged and the magnification of how she was maybe looked down upon takes away from what I’d rather read - her perception of beauty shared between art and numbers. It’s unnecessary detail that pulls me away from knowing her.

The second vignette is set to show how she’s built adaptability by moving from studying art to her investment banking roles and subsequent moves. This paragraph has some lovely detail - AND I would have chosen to either detail how art was at the core of her travels + put the more in line with “appreciation” for adaptability as what we read in other vignettes. She describes her moves mostly as being required to adapt (“stressful and lonely”) vs. maybe a sense of adventure, which those two adjectives betray.

The third vignette is the weakest for me - education and the environment. Again, while there’s beautiful detail, she’s chosen 2 large topics. I would have chosen just 1 as this paragraph is too ambitious. Further, detailing her accomplishments in tutoring is the one place in the essay that begins to read as if any one could have written it.

For most applicants, it does not make sense to state your goals within this particular essay, unless the content of the essay ties into your goals. HBS already has a separate goals essay, therefore the content repeated here could be repeated. I don’t know if that’s the case for Emma. That said, it seems like Emma is reflecting on the “why” behind her goals, which she may not have had room for elsewhere. In that case, this is perfectly fine although I would have guided her to tie her experiences / goals more succinctly and instead devoted more content to the essay's main body.

Emma is clearly a strong candidate with a warm, inviting tone to her essay - no wonder she was invited to interview! I am tough on essays - when I read, I try to imagine what I would have thought as Adcom. My advice for anyone drafting is to narrow topics while ensuring that every paragraph sounds uniquely like you.

Olivia's Essay

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Successful Harvard Business School Essay

Sixty feet up, I swung from Corona Arch in Utah’s canyonlands and weighed my options. Midpoint in my descent my long braid caught in the rope and threaded through my rappelling gear. I stopped my downward momentum in time to prevent injury, but my hair was wound and wedged tightly. Climbing up a few feet to create slack, I worked to pull my hair free, but it was impossibly tangled. With limited resources, tethered by only sixty feet of rope, I needed a solution. I called to my canyoneering companions below to pull the rope taut so I could use both hands. Then I swung my small pack off one shoulder and dug through it to find the serrated switchblade intended for cutting rope, not hair.

As a supply chain consultant, I often face challenges that require quick and resourceful response as while climbing Corona. For example, I was assigned to a project where the team I joined was behind schedule. In just four weeks we were expected to present client executives with answers to a long list of complex questions. Like using my rope knife, I confronted the client’s needs with assertive resolve, redirecting my team’s initial plan. I led us to use advanced analytics tools, personally coaching two team members from Korea and India. My creative approach to our problem accelerated data cleansing and analysis iterations, allowing us to exceed expectations ahead of schedule. Our work resulted in a strong client relationship with requests for additional work proposals worth millions of revenue dollars.

This tenacity and skill for creative problem-solving was developed early in my life. I took a creative educational path, happy to be an autodidact, and graduated from high school at fifteen years old. Not old enough for a driver’s license and rather young to go away to college, I rode my bike to work and class at nearby University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), despite the 110-degree heat. Mom said it built character. I strategically chose credits that transferred a year later to my school of choice: Brigham Young University (BYU).

I was determined to have a foreign experience but lacked funds for a traditional study abroad. I found a nonprofit program to sponsor me as an English teacher in Russia. While there I didn’t live in university housing with English-speaking students but instead with a Russian family in a poor, rural area. I spent that invaluable semester teaching English to grade-school children. By refusing to succumb to limitations, I made my dream for international travel a reality.

I was different from peers in college because of my age and in Russia because of my nationality. Through this difference, I learned to appreciate and optimize diversity while asserting my authenticity. For me, authenticity means accepting myself and others, expressing my thoughts honestly and clearly, learning from my mistakes, and taking actions consistent with my values. I work to be authentic.

For example, during my first college internship I was the only female on a fifteen-person team. My job was to establish operations with a newly contracted school district, organizing transportation for special needs students. Despite age and gender, I connected with co-workers and did my job so well that when my employer learned I was too young to rent a car — something they took for granted I could do because they failed to notice my age and something essential to my accomplishing my work — they accommodated me by providing prepaid cards for taxi rides and pairing me with another team member as needed. I proved such an asset to my employer that they offered me a full-time position at the end of my internship, which I declined in favor of returning to BYU. They extended offers over the years. Although I turned these down, I did recommend several friends whom they hired. This experience of being myself even though I was different from the group and even from the employers’ expectations, reinforced my commitment to authentic representation in every aspect of my life.

While at BYU, my commitment to authenticity helped me cultivate a collaborative dynamic within my supply chain team. We competed at several 24-hour case competitions, which can induce the same anxiety as dangling sixty feet above the ground with my hair caught in a carabiner. Our collaborative culture, centered on open discussion, helped us work under pressure to develop winning solutions. We were awarded first place at the BYU supply chain case competition, first place at the Mountain-West competition, and fourth place at the national level. While at BYU I also served as the supply chain program’s Executive VP of External Relations, fostering connections between students and professionals. Harnessing my ability to connect with others I built a network that directly linked three of my classmates to full-time jobs, and many underclassmen to internship offers. My dedication to building collaborative teams and meaningful connections has served me and is a core value of my personal and professional life.

During my three and a half years with [Professional Services Firm], I’ve worked on sixteen projects with thirteen different clients, many of whom are global and Fortune 500 companies. In addition to my core client work, I sought opportunities for organized community service upon joining [the firm], which further developed my collaborative skills and power for creative problem-solving. Discovering a nascent pro-bono consulting program for local nonprofits, I noticed an upcoming project for a global startup accelerator based in Boston. [Their] mission to provide equity-free funding to impact-focused startups resonated with my values, so I joined [the firm’s] project team.

Unlike carefully structured teams for standard client projects, my pro-bono team was a coalition of willing, passionate people donating night and weekend hours. A few weeks in, our project manager became too busy with core client work to continue. Due to my strong relationships with teammates they asked me to fill the leadership role. We had just completed the strategic assessment and I recognized that to deliver real value we needed to provide [the startup accelerator] something more tangible: they needed a tool to enable their work. My teammates proposed we recommend tools on the market or identify technical requirements for future development. I knew we could do better than simply provide recommendations. Understanding my client’s unique challenges, I built an Excel-based tool to automate workflows and visualize data. After several iterations with my team and the client, the tool offered an intuitive user design and custom data dashboards. [The startup accelerator] received the tool with enthusiasm, then expanded its use to all internal teams. Months later, they reported that the tool helped them secure their largest donation to date.

The project became a hallmark narrative for [the Professional Services Firm’s] bourgeoning pro-bono consulting program. I formally reported our success on several occasions, including at [the firm’s] quarterly northeast partners’ meeting. Interest in my presentations rallied support for the creation of a larger, more formal program which [the firm] coined [Program Name]. I managed our first project during the Boston pilot. [The program] is now in Boston, Chicago, and Seattle—going nation-wide in 2020. My [project] experience proved I can affect positive change. It also validated my desire to exceed creative problem solving by capitalizing on what I call my “maker nature” producing real products that deliver real value.

There is no better vote of confidence in my ability to deliver real value than the recent decision made by [the firm’s] Senior Partners to sponsor me as a Digital Accelerator. This promotion involves a year-long role of weekly protected time intended for training and experimentation with emerging technologies. Additionally, in November I was asked to lead the development of a supply chain analytics platform that will change the way [the firm’s] supply chain teams deliver value to clients. These opportunities are important and exciting to me because I see their potential for me to affect significant positive change.

The case-based learning model and carefully crafted student experiences at HBS are even more exciting to me because they promise exponential opportunity for me to contribute in real ways. I hope to utilize Harvard’s Innovation Lab and field courses in operations, technology, and entrepreneurship. While exploring the student experience, my husband and I were drawn to the Partner Club and community culture at HBS. We believe this will support my efforts to develop relationships with classmates, faculty, and alumni. Earning an MBA at Harvard will be an ongoing adventure as arduous, breathtaking and awe-inspiring as rock-climbing in Utah’s canyonlands. I intend to face academic and professional challenges at HBS with the same tenacity, creativity, and authenticity as I do rappelling because my life depends upon it.

Professional Review by ApplicantLab

So, let me start by saying that I’ll usually discourage you from reading “sample essays” – in part, because sometimes candidates themselves are so impressive that the essay was not the deciding factor in their acceptance (they might have gotten in despite their essay), and also because there’s a risk that you might (even sub-consciously!) adopt someone else’s “voice” or style: sub-optimal in a process where authenticity is paramount.

We can start by acknowledging that this candidate is fundamentally VERY strong – they have a very compelling story, appear to work in a “feeder” role (consulting), and clearly show a years-long “habit of leadership” (a defining characteristic HBS file readers look for).

The strongest parts of this essay are those where the candidate effectively reveals some information I would not otherwise know – e.g. their early graduation from high school and subsequent tenacity going to college / Russia. One thing I like is that the writer states the challenges overcome in a fairly matter-of-fact (not melodramatic) way, explaining how these obstacles shaped them.

It was also a good idea to point out their lasting impact – e.g., how their success in the pro-bono consulting project led to the firm expanding the initiative. This is yet another detail I might not have otherwise known, and as such, is a terrific use of the essay space.

That having been said, the essay could have been optimized in a few ways. First of all, please realize that the file reader will be reading NOT ONLY your essays, but also your resume, recommendations, and the many little text boxes within the application form as well (awards; extra-curricular activities; and most importantly, your work accomplishments and challenges). So, e.g., the paragraph about the college supply chain competition – most of that information was probably already covered elsewhere? To make your essay as strong as possible, think about strategically using the rest of the application, and reserving the essay(s) for otherwise-unknown details!

Also, for HBS specifically, there is no need to talk about why you want to go there. Harvard has historically had the highest “yield rate” (roughly 90%) of any business school. They know their case method is terrific, they know their community rocks, etc. Providing a laundry list of their offerings isn’t necessary.

Finally, there are two stylistic choices here that could have been improved. First, the repeated rappelling / knife references were distracting due to being too forced / ham-fisted. There is no need to force your essay(s) around a central theme (unless you’re specifically asked to).
Secondly, the author makes (understandable) usage of buzzwords and trendy business phrases such as “I …appreciate and optimize diversity while asserting my authenticity...learning from my mistakes”. Which, to be clear, are wonderful sentiments! But then no strong, specific evidence is provided of the candidate actually doing those things. The example given of “commitment to authentic representation” was … merely bringing up that they were too young to rent a car? That’s a mere minor logistical hiccup, not a dramatic moment of “asserting authenticity”? In your essays, resist the temptation to overly-dramatize events, include trendy buzzwords, or make claims about yourself without providing parallel evidence.

In sum, this is an impressive candidate with a strong essay (who was probably going to get accepted regardless of the essay!). Trimming of superfluous information (found elsewhere), removal of “Why HBS?”, avoiding the temptation to force a metaphor, and ensuring that parallel structure is adhered to (e.g. don’t bring up “I am a ____ sort of person” without then providing a concrete example), would have brought this essay to an even stronger level.

Carlyn's Essay

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Successful Harvard Business School Essay

Six pm on a freezing February Saturday in Evanston: after twelve hours of shooting across three locations for our upcoming issue of STITCH, Northwestern University’s student-run fashion magazine, our 15-person team was fading fast. The models shivered in the frosty air, our photographer wrung her hands in despair over the disappearing light, and the make-up team was starving. We had one final shot to complete on our shoestring budget. As STITCH’s Creative and Photo Shoot Director, I needed to rally our discouraged group. I draped warm leather jackets on the models, posed them under a photographer-approved street light, and found a 50% off coupon to order pizza for the team. Two months later, Teen Vogue featured that shot when it named STITCH one of the country’s top 10 college fashion magazines. This experience highlighted the importance of values which I endeavor to consistently practice: advocating for a balance of creativity and business-oriented pragmatism in fashion, taking deep-dive initiatives to create solutions, supporting the growth of others, and establishing common ground to drive impact.

While interning at Proenza Schouler in New York, I realized that both creativity and business are pivotal for success in fashion. After a confusing day left me questioning my dream of working in fashion, I walked to the Metropolitan Museum’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibit. As I waited in the two-hour line, I internally debated the topic. I was the company’s sole finance intern and my Parsons-trained peers seemed disinterested in the economics of fashion. If future designers didn’t care about the financials, did an impactful place exist for me? When I entered the exhibit, though, it suddenly made sense. Among the horsehair jackets and antler headdresses, I realized these uniquely beautiful creations couldn’t exist on their own. While Alexander McQueen created runway art that enchanted audiences, the business team behind the brand converted that awe into a commercial powerhouse. From that exhibit, I developed a mission to help fashion brands achieve success by balancing art and business.

Through its gold-standard executive development program, Neiman Marcus has given me amazing opportunities to blend art and analytics. These experiences have taught me the value of proactively tackling problems with an open solution mindset. Having happily rotated through Buying and Marketing, I felt particularly excited to advance into our more quantitative Planning team and lead the financial growth of a $75M Ladies Shoes office. One of our keystone brands, [Brand], was down $700K to last year. Combining through sales data, I discovered that the brand’s historically successful fashion-forward styles no longer resonated with customers. Rather, basic styles constituted our most successful silhouettes and consistently sold out. Leveraging the data as evidence, I pitched a two-part proposal to our VP of Planning and Divisional Director: 1) increase the brand’s budget despite its low productivity and allocate 50% of this increased budget to basic styles—a 1.5 multiplier to the existing basics allocation; 2) utilize the Beauty division’s automated replenishment system to optimize revenue and ensure constant stock of top-selling styles. With our senior leaders on board, we then persuaded cross-functional teams including IT and Allocation to help transform strategy into reality. From this initiative, our keystone brand generated an additional $1.3M in sales and now the replenishment system is employed across our entire division. Without creative problem solving and collaboration across company divisions, this current growth would not have been possible.

Benefiting from amazing mentors in my academic and professional journey, it’s important to me to support the growth of others. I lead training classes for new Assistant Buyers and have directly mentored ten colleagues. While I love discussing the intricacies of product, color, and trend, I also strive to share the analytical fundamentals of buying, planning, and retail math to excite junior teammates about the power of data. So far, eight mentees have earned accelerated promotions. When Neiman Marcus upgraded its outdated system platforms, confused chaos erupted. With no available manuals, I taught myself to navigate the new systems and experimented until I found solutions. The company named me a system “Super-User” allowing me to lead meetings training our 30-person Merchant team on best practices. Our team became experts on the new systems which resulted in an incremental $30M in revenue for the company.

At Alexander Wang and Neiman Marcus, I have witnessed how passions often run high in creatively-geared industries. I’ve learned the importance of identifying common ground and building consensus to enable success and have applied these skills to other areas. I love playing sand volleyball—and you can bet emotions can run as hot as the sand we play on! When I became team captain, we were a patchwork of different levels of expertise, yielding embarrassing losses and frustration among more competitive players. To grow mutual understanding and camaraderie, I partnered tenured players with novices and implemented a democratic playing-time system. While we’re not league champions yet, we made it to the second round of playoffs.

While planning the SPCA of Texas’ Strut Your Mutt fundraiser, two teammates on our PR committee vehemently disagreed on whether to focus promotional efforts on social media or traditional outlets. During a particularly heated meeting, it became apparent that without intervention our team would splinter. I asked the opponents to share pros and cons of their perspectives and actively listen to the alternative approach. Creating space for and identifying commonalities in differing opinions got us to a solution everyone felt invested in: we would use influencers to promote the race on social media and news shows. With the broad exposure, the race successfully raised $275K for animal rescue efforts.

Going forward, I hope to continue melding creativity and business, leading impact by finding common ground, and taking initiative to find creative solutions to successfully scale new luxury designers. The fashion industry is a $1.2 trillion global business and growing every year. With fast fashion and an over-saturation of top designers in the marketplace, customers are looking for unique clothing to differentiate their wardrobe. However, many young brands that could fill this market void struggle to get off the ground due to a problematic funding structure: companies have to pay for everything upfront but aren’t reimbursed until the product sells. I hope to launch a luxury brand accelerator, like those traditionally found in the tech sphere. In exchange for equity, my accelerator would provide new designers an ecosystem in which to strategically assess, grow, and fund their businesses, encouraging the most innovative to expand. I hope to transform the fashion landscape and help designers transport brilliant new concepts from paper sketches to customers’ closets.

Professional Review by Mr. MBA®, Val Misra

Carlyn takes us on a delightful journey of self-discovery and achievement, one that is brimming with ‘passion’ for data and creativity, shining ‘intellectual curiosity’, and ‘insight’ by displaying vibrant, heartfelt examples of introspection and growth. Her detailed progression from creative university student to finance professional and the many “show, don’t tell” experiences she thoughtfully portrays ‘shows’ us why she is a superior candidate for any coveted MBA program.

As a Northwestern student in Para 1, Carlyn’s vivid account of freezing Evanston, shivering models, and a starving make-up team resound similar campus memories for most college students during challenging assignments. Her splendid example of overcoming an obstacle and quick thinking resulting in an award-winning photo and team-building pizza moment are superb for “show, don’t tell”. She highlights her 2 personal brand themes: creativity and business excellence.

Para 2 perfectly illustrates Carlyn’s ‘A-ha’ moment, after questioning her business worth in fashion, her discovery that business and financials serve as the foundation to all fashion art houses. If done correctly, the ‘A-ha’ moment is an excellent means to showcase one’s ‘insight’, self-discovery, self-realization, and wisdom. Great job!

MBA Admissions officers need to see professional achievement, leadership and giving back in candidates and Carlyn details this well in Para 3-4. At Neiman, she showcases her guts, bravery, and leadership to turn around a failing product line, quantifies the work example with financial data (growth, loss, revenue) to show real impact, and provides valuable insight on creativity and collaboration to achieve her goal. Carlyn also highlights the importance of helping others come up as she did. Nicely done!

In Para 5-6, Carlyn chooses to showcase her extracurricular passions for sand volleyball, incorporating her strategic management and teambuilding style with her team, and social impact fundraising initiatives, including her successful management of an inter-person conflict and the quantifiable results of her team’s collective efforts. A+ on her extracurricular and social impact examples!

Finally, MBA Admissions teams desire candidates with clear, well thought out career ambitions. In Para 7, Carlyn details her continuing passion for creativity and business fashion and provides a concrete market opportunity for her future ‘luxury brand accelerator’ solution. It would have benefited Carlyn to briefly specify how an MBA education would help her achieve her future goals- gaps in her knowledge (Entrepreneurship major), professional/social clubs, alumni network, etc.

Siddharth's Essay

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Successful Harvard Business School Essay

Last year, I fell in love at first sight. She had big gleaming eyes and would laugh like a child. We started dating in a week, I proposed to her a month later, and in six months, we were married. My parents were praying that we don’t take just six months to have a baby! Some of my instinctive decisions, often outside my comfort zone, have led me to the most rewarding experiences of my life.

When I left a capital markets job at Deutsche Bank to work for an Indian Member of Parliament (MP), many of my friends thought I was taking an insane risk. I was working at a fraction of the salary to set up his office from scratch. But my gut told me that this could be a unique opportunity to have large-scale impact. In six months, the MP became the Deputy Finance Minister, second in command of the Indian economy, and appointed me as his Chief of Staff. Life changed completely, and all of it had happened because my heart told me to believe in someone.

Dealing with financial products for three years at Deutsche Bank taught me a valuable life lesson – returns come with corresponding risk. And just as investors generate good returns by taking measured risks, we make impact by taking difficult decisions in the face of uncertainty. Over two years ago, I read in the newspapers that the HBS-educated [HBS Alum] had quit his corporate career to work on economic policy and contest parliamentary elections. Inspired and intrigued by how a successful professional could utilize his business acumen to effect better governance, I cold-emailed him and offered help. Within a week, I was in his hometown of Hazaribagh, a poor, rural district in the tribal state of Jharkhand, a region marred by extremism and with abysmal income levels.

This exciting new world was a far cry from my comfortable office. I managed the campaign war-room, from where we ran a low-cost, tech-friendly, and creative campaign. We mobilized our party-workers through a call centre, bypassed conventional media through social media and inexpensive pamphlets, and used analytics and marketing techniques to engage more effectively with the voters. I realized how business skills could be used to solve a political problem. And finally, we managed to get Narendra Modi to Hazaribagh and organized a massive rally for him. Jayant won by a record margin! My decision to break boundaries had moulded me to adapt and thrive in unknown settings. Not only did the Hazaribagh adventure lead me to the Finance Ministry, it also motivated me to help drive pro-poor welfare initiatives, such as universal social security and pharmaceutical crop licensing. The Ministry gave me an insider’s perspective on the functioning of a government, along with a chance to work on some major economic reforms, such as recapitalizing state-owned banks, setting up a sovereign wealth fund, and deepening capital markets. However, my biggest learning was that the power of relationships can often surpass the power of position. While decision-making authority can often be beyond our control, relationships can still make things happen. The complex Indian bureaucracy is hierarchical and resistant to outsiders. It was inspiring but also challenging to work with people twice my age at the Ministry. I would often offer my help to senior bureaucrats and build rapport through informal chats. Strong relationships thus built helped me mediate complicated negotiations between diverse stakeholders.

Over time, I have realized that who we become is largely determined by the decisions we take, the boundaries we break, and the relationships we make. Our time at HBS will give us the grit to cross boundaries and face unfamiliar situations. When we discuss case studies in a class, share our perspectives over coffee, or work together in a club, we will sharpen our instincts to make better decisions. My teenage hero Albus Dumbledore told Harry Potter that it is our choices that show what we truly are. And my mentor, [HBS Alum], often mentions how his HBS experience trained him to make difficult decisions. I am sure that in the next two years, we will help each other in shaping our choices, while forging enduring bonds. When we go back to the world, we will face success and setbacks, satisfaction and sorrow, but this section will always be home. Dear section-mates, I am excited to begin this life-long journey with you!

Professional Review by Admit Expert

HBS looks for a habit of leadership, and leadership can be gauged in various ways, including gauging one’s leadership qualities and traits. In this essay, Siddharth has displayed his leadership traits of taking calculated risks by listening to his intuition and going against the flow, courage to come out of his comfort zone, and an ability to forge interpersonal relationships. Further, he has been able to elucidate these leadership traits by weaving them into a story of his life by narrating instances where these traits are evident. Siddharth also displays his passion to join HBS by mentioning the HBS alumni he is inspired by and has interacted with, and narrating what he looks forward to doing, while at HBS. Siddharth also gives the ad-com a glimpse into his leadership style when he dives deeper into his campaign management story, by explaining the actions he took, impact he created, and how he was able to create the impact, thus giving the ad-com a sneak peak into the traits which can help him become a future leader.