Sandy–in regards to the undergrad experience essay, when explaining the reasons why GPA is low, is it ok to further discuss a post-grad class taken recently to boost profile, or do I have to stick to 100% undergrad only? I feel the essay will be much more powerful if I can put all the arguments (of why my low GPA is not representative of my capabilities) all together in one essay.  

I ve said it many times, at HBS, THERE IS NO WRONG ANSWER. You can  be quite liberal in answering questions, and most of the better apps are, to wit, including important identidy politics issues (origins, family, obstacles, race, sex, gender, diseases, sexual orientation) into every kind of answer. You can often use the Undergrad essay to give your whole bio, in quick form, and explain how college influenced you.  They dont care if you stay between the lines of the question, they care about WHAT you actually say.  Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for Global Warming warnings–duh, what’s that got to do w. PEACE?? At HBS, they get the connection, and will give you even more rooom, they’d give Al Nobel Prize for Physics if they had to.

The SINGLE biggest mistake that smart kids make, especially techies and some finance people, on HBS app. is just generic answers: I worked on Generic Project, it had outcomes x y z, I was able to support my unnamed team, and do some great models, I also worked w. QA team and product had results x yz.   Five essays like that, and welcome to 760gmat, 8.9 IIT/3.7 Engineering at Ivy  and dingsville.

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