Four Sample HBS Essays, With Comments
Three of these are IT focused, just to show you that not all good essays are about saving the world or winning the Olympics (but if you have done either of those, well, feel free to write about it).
These were done when the essay length was 300 words (it is now 400 for most essays today) so these also prove that with concise writing you CAN get a lot of information in to an essay in 400 or even 300 words!!! The last essay, the strongest, is 297 words!!!
All these applicants got in, but they also had strong records, good extra curriculars, and rock solid gpa/gmats.
Admission to HBS is not a writing contest–if you have the assets they are looking for (some of those assets change slightly in terms of age, background, country of origin, etc) , and your essays are solid and present you as reflective and likeable, that is often enough.
There is one caution, these essays were done in the early 90’s, when IT and Indian applicants were much more rare than they are today, it is not crystal clear that these same applicants would be admitted today, for one thing, they are might be considered on the old side.
>> READ SAMPLE ESSAYS AND COMMENTS
