HBS shocked the admissions world one beautiful day in June 2024 by announcing that it had abandoned the “what more would you like us to know?” prompt after eight venerable years and switched to a much more conventional admissions essay format. However, do not be deceived: this is Harvard, and the questions are far from conventional. Read each one carefully.

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. (300 words)

With this essay, and the next HBS prompt, working backwards may be the most helpful approach. You will want to start by making a list of your aspirations.

  • What are your career goals?
  • What led you to choose these goals?
  • What were your primary influences in the past?
  • Who will benefit from the work you plan to do?
  • What overall impact do you expect to have?
  • How else do you hope to leave your mark on the world? (as an HBS alum, you will be expected to leave your mark!)

After you’ve made a list, consider your responses to each. What led you – or is leading you – to provide those answers? Can you identify one or more experiences or influences that shaped the direction you have taken and plan to take? Can you find some commonalities among those responses?

Ultimately, this essay will yield about two or three paragraphs, but your first version should be much longer as you connect the choices you have made and are making to the past. Be aware of the fact that this is not just a regular goals essay. HBS wants to understand where your goals originated. Dig down to the roots of your ambition.

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

HBS is all about developing people into leaders. In this essay, you need to demonstrate to them that you have leadership potential.

Again, I’d recommend working backward as you brainstorm this essay, starting with “what kind of leader do you want to become?” Make a list of attributes that you will exhibit as a leader, or write a paragraph describing your future self. What is it about this style of leadership that appeals to you? How is it a fit for your personality? How do others respond to you when you’re exhibiting your leadership traits?

Then, try to make a list of pivotal experiences that motivated you to become a leader and discuss how you managed to figure out how to lead unique to who you are: your strengths, your personality, your interpersonal skills. What forces and experiences have shaped your leadership style? What has your journey been like, so far? Have you had a chance to validate your own leadership model, whether in a professional, extracurricular, family, or social environment? If you are early in your career, you may not have a management title, but you have undoubtedly had other opportunities to step up and make things happen. What drives you and how is that drive manifested?

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. (250 words)

The third prompt is, in many ways, the most intriguing of all. Although it’s entitled “growth-oriented” the question pertains to curiosity. But not just any curiosity! After all, most of us are curious a few dozen times a day, mostly about inconsequential topics. (Will my houseplant perk up, or will it turn brown if I leave it in the sun?”) In this essay, we’re talking about curiosity that evolves into personal or professional growth.

Because we’re talking about Harvard, you want to choose an example that depicts your curiosity guiding you to take action that had an impact on people, places, or things. “I realized my firm’s production process was inefficient, and I was curious as to whether we could save money by combining two steps. Although I was a junior member of the team, I presented my idea to my manager, and eventually to senior management, who thought my suggestion was novel and implemented it. I learned not to be afraid to take risks and to think creatively.” That’s a professional example, but no need to limit yourself to work stories. If you’ve got an extracurricular activity or a hobby that you find absorbing, can you describe how your curiosity has allowed you to amplify the value of that activity/hobby?

For the first drafts, you can write freely, but as you finetune these essays, your focus needs to be on the impact you have had on the people/places/organizations around you, not the impact they made on you. In everything related to Harvard, you are the doer who charges ahead. You’re not waiting for life to happen.

Remember: one of the goals of business school is to produce graduates who can convey ideas in a succinct yet powerful way. With the new, low word count (a total of 800 words, down from 900) it’s more important than ever to make every word carry its own weight.

I think of successful HBS applicants as shiny pennies. They’re the people you can pick out from the crowd, not because they’re smarter or harder working but because they consistently come up with good ideas, know how to persuade others to climb on board, and get the job done. They have encountered a few setbacks and bumps along the way and have persevered and prevailed. And they manage to pull it all off while remaining positive and pleasant, the kind of people you want on your team. Show admissions your mettle, and you can be among them.