mmm111 wrote:
Question about the new HBS essay questions: before, applicants were given enough room to write multiple stories pulling from all the different facets of their life. But, with the new format, it seems like I basically am only able to tell 2 stories. Seems like a jip.
So, my question is whether people think it's better to write about 2 stories...Or, interpret the questions a little more broadly and write about two character traits (for example) that they can then use to tell multiple stories? What are people doing?
Thanks for the opinions!
Well, the new app does feel like lottery, forcing you to make a lot of strategic calls similar to the options presented in posts below. It is annoying to work with and can result in feeling that you have two stories which are not fully representative of your total package. I dont like the app (I have worked on it w. many,many current clients) and most applicants don't either, and like the poster above, feel they are being gamed and played with. This set of questions might have resulted from too many Shirley Temples at one of Dee -Dee's slumber parites for her staff.
All that said, the final outcomes of this app vs. last years, assuming everyone this year was doing last years as a control group, in addition to doing the current app., and we got the results, would be marginal. HBS knows what it wants, and the total app --recs scores, resume, and short answers--is pretty dense.
I've just done a lot of 2+2 mock interviews and read many complete apps answering these new questions (all of which were good enuf to get HBS interviews!) , an exercise which confirmed my own sense of how this was going to play out --HBS is not a stickler for the instructions, altho, sure, dont write a poem, what they want to see in the essays are stories which add info or depth to what they already know about you, show some reflection, are not silly or offensive in tone, voice and (of course) language, and are likeable. You need to consider your app as a whole, the essays are window dressing or maybe window tinting, and can, in most casess, do more harm than good. Serviceable answers are enuf, a lot of the essays I read fr. kids who got interviewed this summer could have been way better, in terms of being more dense, more full of embedded examples of how and why they did things, and more refined lessons, but so what? After reading whole app. you knew pretty much why they got interviewed. HBS has a pretty good idea of what they are looking for, esp. 2+2,
but also generally, and you will rarely change their mind with essays, except as noted, if you are silly or offensive or just slovenly. A lot of #2 Questions took the form, "I did this good thing, but if I had done 1 2 3, the good thing could have been better . . ." Cheesy but effective. Not many just talked about a failure, altho that could work too, just telling you what I have observed. Most #1 questions took on signature extra curric and said blah blah blah. Some talked about ways kids had been succesful at summer jobs, and guess what, the better the summer job, the better the essay seemed somehow, odd? NO, reality. "I was effective as a White House intern by sensing what was needed and also the special culture of a White House in campaign mode . . .so I did 1 and 2 and held back on 3, even tho it was a good idea, and I got help fr. Joe Biden ...." Dunno that is better than saying same thing about working in a bowling alley on the versge of going bankrupt, altho you might have actually done more in the bowling alley. To that degree, the essays are confirmatory.
OK, who cares, what you about you and your two essays? . . . . NAZIS!!!!
Anything to do w. Nazis or victims of any kind is GOLD. My grandma was in a Nazi concentration camp and she never talked about it, MAN I SURE WISH I HAD BROUGHT HER IN FOR SHOW AND TELL IN FIFTH GRADE, because, yadda, yadda, yadda. This also works for Stalin, Mao, Khemer Rouge, or anyone lucky enuf to know, however remotely, any XYZ Survivor. NOT KIDDING --but even if you dont know such a person, try to link your story to anything connected w. victims. Cheesey? Yes! Effective, you bet.