With an acceptance rate of only 11 percent, even people with the most impeccable credentials and test scores routinely get turned down from Harvard Business School.
What sets people apart are their truly unique experiences, and whether they can really get them through to the admissions board in their personal essays.
There's no magic formula, but these 5 essays from "65 Successful Harvard Business School Applications" are great examples of what can work.
Thanks to the publisher and the individual authors for permission to feature these essays
Jason Kreuziger shared his goal of ringing the opening bell at his company's NASDAQ IPO
Graduating class: 2008
Current Job Title: Vice President at Summit Partners
Essay prompt:"What is your career vision, and why is this choice meaningful to you?"
My highest career aspiration is to ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ as my company celebrates the successful completion of its initial public offering. My experiences have prepared me to build market-disrupting technology companies fit for public investment, but they have also exposed me to the intangible qualities of successful entrepreneurs. These qualities include the ability to manage, presence to inspire, charisma to lead, and fortitude to persist in the face of challenge. These virtues are represented in the bedrock of Harvard’s MBA program. My desire to internalize these qualities is the catalyst that drives me to pursue a Harvard MBA with such conviction. The timing of my application coincides with both my developmental needs and the natural termination of my current position in July 2006.
To achieve these goals, I have focused my academic and professional pursuits in the areas of finance and technology. In addition to my undergraduate majors, my work in the technology group of a San Francisco based, middle-market investment bank has given me a first-hand view into Silicon Valley’s technology incubator and the lives of successful technology entrepreneurs. I have learned revolutionizing technologies ranging from enterprise software applications to price-per-click Internet advertising services. The experience has placed me in close contact with senior executives who share the story of my career aspirations as their own reality. The opportunity to interact with such innovative individuals has been an inspiration, and provided me a first-hand account of what qualities today’s entrepreneurial leaders possess.
While these experiences form a solid foundation, an MBA from Harvard is necessary for developing the managerial skills, leadership ability, and influential network necessary to achieve my goals. This assertion was confirmed during my campus visit to Bill Sahlman’s entrepreneurial finance class where I observed the case method in action as debate raced from eager hand to eager hand, with each comment seeking to improve upon the discussion. The collaborative energy was tangible, the environment exciting, and the effect impressive. A visit to the Arthur Rock Center revealed a collection of memorabilia from companies founded by Harvard alums, foreshadowing the addition I hope to make. A student lunch with a former tech start-up CFO ensured me other students will share my goals and enthusiasm, adding vital energy to the MBA experience. I left my campus visit knowing that Harvard Business School is where I want to build the next layer upon my foundation.
Why it works
This particular essay gets right to the point of the prompt with the vivid image of ringing the opening bell. It also made the applicant stand out from what was likely a sea of other banking applicants by focusing on technology and Jason's unique experiences, and made a strong case for why an HBS MBA would be help him to his goal.
Source: 65 Successful Harvard Business School Applications
John Coleman took a "case method" approach to his undergraduate education
Graduating class: 2010
Current Job Title: Strategic Planning Manager at Invesco
Essay prompt: "What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?"
I first considered applying to Berry College while dangling from a fifty-foot Georgia pine tree, encouraging a high school classmate, literally, to make a leap of faith. Every autumn, my school’s graduating seniors took a three-day trip to Berry to bond on the ropes course, talk about leadership, and speak frankly about the future, and it was on that retreat, after the ropes course, that I made my own leap.
I had narrowed my college choices to my top scholarship offers, but after a number of campus visits I still hadn’t found a place that truly felt like home. On the retreat, I realized Berry College was different. The students I met were practical, caring, and curious. The 28,000-acre campus was idyllic. The atmosphere was one of service, leadership, and intellectual curiosity (as founder Martha Berry termed it, an education of the “whole person . . . the head, the heart, and the hands”). Berry also offered what I thought was the best opportunity to mold my own academic experience, take diverse leadership roles, and change myself and my college community in the process.
That is exactly what I did. Taking a “case method” approach to my undergraduate education, I complemented every academic lesson with a practical application. I supplemented my formal education in economics, government, and political philosophy with cigar shop chats, competitive international fellowships, leadership in student government, and in-depth academic research. Rather than studying communication, I practiced communication. As a freshman, I was the campus’s top new television reporter, and as a junior and senior, I translated that passion for human connection into a stint as Berry’s top newspaper opinion columnist and a widely read campus poet. I was the lead in a one-act play and led my college speech team to its highest ever national finish. I learned business, finance, and organizational leadership by founding a community soup kitchen and leading the campus investment group to unprecedented stock market returns; and in everything, I sought not simply to become better educated, but better rounded — a “whole” person—and to change my campus community in the process.
At Berry, I learned that you can stand trepid before a challenge, transition, or experience. Or you can embrace new challenges, define your own experience, and make a leap of faith. I am proud that my undergraduate academic experience was a period lived in leaps.
Why it works
Not only does the essay show that a brand name or Ivy League college isn't the only path to Harvard Business School, it does an excellent job of showing the author's personality through the narrative and the way it's written, has a clear sense of energy, and makes it very clear what John would bring to HBS.
Source: 65 Successful Harvard Business School Applications
Anne Morriss wanted to engage Michael Porter and other strategy gurus to fight poverty
Graduating class: 2004
Current Job Title: Co-Founder and Chief Knowledge Officer at Concire Leadership Institute
Essay prompt: "What is your career vision, and why is this choice meaningful to you?"
I have watched the world change around people who were unprepared for its transformation. I have defined “commodity” for Brazilian coffee brokers whose market suddenly seemed to ignore them. I have argued about Mercosur with a tired finance minister in Ecuador, and have seen Dominican friends fight for jobs in a new zona franca condemned by international labor groups.
I want to help clarify the confusion, and I want the Harvard Business School to be my ally.
I am choosing HBS for the traditional outputs. I want to increase my impact on organizations, to join a network of people with the courage to reach difficult goals, to gain unmatched credibility as a messenger. HBS has an outstanding reputation for offering these things, and my research confirms it. Most of the HBS students and alumni I know are expanding their definitions of greatness.
I also want the journey. I want the daily luxury of exploring the world with the extraordinary community that HBS builds. I want to engage Frances Frei on my company’s failed technology dream and see Haitian competitiveness from Michael Porter’s perspective. I want to argue with James Austin about the private sector’s ability to drive social change and discuss the responsibilities of corporations with exceptional peers who will translate their convictions into meaningful action.
I came to ontheFRONTIER to learn to fight poverty in a new global context. I want to advance that fight, and I want to test and improve my strategy at HBS, a place that will hold me to the highest standards of analysis and tutor me in the messy art of leadership.
Why it works
This essay shows that not every essay has to have the traditional "thesis plus evidence" structure. This is much more free form and poetic, but very clearly shows the author's passion, commitment, and reasons for wanting to attend HBS.
Source: 65 Successful Harvard Business School Applications
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