Calling all Harvard (HBS) Applicants Class of 2020 (2018 intake)

Hello hello, HBS applicants! Jon Frank here, comin' atcha from Chicago.

Wanted to see if I could offer some help here, since i know the HBS essay is... well, a toughie A lot of people see just one essay and celebrate. "WAHOO! This one should be painless!" But when you really get into it, this "just one question" is as tough as they come. And in my 10-year experience with apps, I've seen many, MANY people fail at essays like this. So I want to help.

And while we don't normally share this with eeeeveryone, since y'all are on GMAT Club (which makes you a VIP to me),I decided it was only fair to give you the VIP treatment and share our highly regarded and requested HBS Essay Analysis with you.

Give this a read. Before you do ANYTHING else!


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? (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.)

ANALYSIS: “There is no word limit for this question.” Yeah, there is actually. Maybe not a hard number, but there is such a thing as a reasonable amount of space it takes for someone to communicate something that would move the admissions needle. Use past word limits as reference. Generally, HBS essays have ranged from 400-750 words. Honestly, for a totally prompt-less prompt like this one, our recommendation is to land somewhere between 400-600 words. Much less and maybe you’re wasting an opportunity. Much more and you’re likely expending words that other folks don’t need to expend – and that makes YOU look bad.

Now then, we have our made-up target of roughly 400 or 500 words (think 600 as max). What exactly do we talk about? Let’s zoom out a touch and consider your overall application. On a scale of 0 to “President of the Galaxy” … how would you score yourself on leadership? If on the basis of your resume and LORs and all other aspects of your application alone, your leadership is plain, and mighty, then your need to make a point of it here in the essay may be less aggressive than the next guy we’re gonna talk about. Imagine a candidate who IS a born leader, but may not have the kind of resume where such traits LEAP off the page as readily as that first guy. In this case, you’d wanna lean heavily on anything and everything that helps to MAKE that quality plain to HBS. Zip forward to the end point for BOTH example candidates. The goal is for the adcom to conclude that EACH of those two candidates is “high” on HBS-style leadership. “Check!”

Let’s go back to Candidate 1. Military guy, say, with leadership screaming from every resume bullet. Maybe this guy/gal spends a touch more time revealing something sparkly his/her personality or future aspirations that when COUPLED WITH the leadership that speaks for itself, makes the adcom hot and bothered. Candidate 2, however, say, an IT guy from India who doesn’t appear to have quite as much in the way of leadership experience, may want to focus less on future aspirations and more on “oh and by the way, after you read this, you can stand me next to that military general and see that, in fact, we have a bunch more in common in the way of leadership than might have been evident on my resume. Aren’t you glad I told you that story here?” See the difference? Similar end point, but the paths might be a touch different.

HBS = leadership. If you can prove that you have future CEO, boss, leader, big and badass mover-shaker flowing through your blood, you will be considered strongly. Think about it for a second, though, because this is gonna circle back to the word limit issue. If someone tells you they’re a lawyer, do you believe them? Probably. Why not? If someone tells you they’re a school teacher, do you believe them? Yeah, why not. If, on the other hand, someone tells you they’re funny… do you believe them? Probably not, they need to make you laugh. In other words, you need proof. Leadership (like funniness) is a quality, not a profession. You can’t just say it and expect others to buy in. At the same time, it’s one of those things where… the more you say, the less likely it may seem to be true. (Hence, 400-500 words = enough.) So, if you’re gonna demonstrate your leadership chops through an anecdote, remember to focus on the types of actions that we can picture. The actions that reveal your particular leadership style, and talent.

So that’s just some general background. How do you begin to answer this HBS prompt? Work backwards. The adcom should conclude after reading your essay, in context with all other aspects of your application that they have, that if introduced to the HBS community, you would help others to succeed, and you would benefit from others and succeed in kind. This is gonna sound frustrating, but, there’s a vapor that comes off of the future “HBS admit” essay that is characterized by one word: confidence. You’re not gonna get admitted to Harvard Business School to LEARN how to become a “manager.” You’re admitted because you’re ALREADY a manager, and HBS is gonna help you grow it.

So, posture that way. As you write drafts, and this may melt some brains out there, posture as though you need Harvard to prove why they are YOUR best choice, not the other way around. Posture like you expect admits from Stanford and Wharton and Booth and Sloan and wherever else, and that you’re not so stuck on brand names, you’re looking for a place that’s gonna be best for you to develop the talent you know you have. How does that posturing subtly affect your tone? Or your approach?

You guys and gals are businessmen and businesswomen right? When negotiating, do you ever prematurely show your hand and reveal just how badly you need the deal? Or is it stronger to posture the other way? “Here’s my final offer, I’m happy to walk away because… I already have many others.” You can be sure that that exact same deal weighs more than the one coming from the guy who seems desperate. So, embrace your inner badass. And be a little cocky. Be a little presumptuous. Be a little smug. (We can always dial it back to the perfect balance… but, no born leaders come to this particular game vulnerable, meek, shy, etc.) Puff your chest. And begin drafting your essay with the mentality that you already have Stanford’s “yes” in hand, and now you’re gonna kick an application over to Harvard for fun, but… YOU are the one in high demand, not the other way around.




And that's that. Helpful, eh? If you have any questions on it or HBS or anything, just reply here or shoot me a DM. And if you want more Essay Analysis Goodness, check out more schools here. We're updating 'em daily as new prompts are released, so keep checking back.

GOOD LUCK!!

-- Jon Frank