Highlights:
HBS has officially announced its 2022-2023 application cycle deadlines, and they continue the 2-round application season, unique from any other school. The essay question remains the same as in previous years, but there’s a caveat – this year there’s a word limit to a maximum of 900 words.
In April, HBS also announced the new Kraft Fellowship Fund (the largest endowed fellowship fund of $24M), which is intended to support promising leaders of low socioeconomic backgrounds and first-gen college students as well as other underrepresented students. This means that there are added opportunities for affording an MBA.
Deadline:
Applications are due at 12:00 PM Eastern Time on the day of the deadline; This is different from all other b-school deadlines, so don’t miss it.
Round 1: deadline 9/7/2022; decision 12/8/2022
Round 2: deadline 1/4/2023′; decision 3/29/2023
*The HBS interview invitation will be announced once the applications are submitted.
**The HBS 2022-2023 Application portal will officially open in late June.
Essay Questions for the 2022-2023 Application Cycle:
Q: 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? (900 words maximum)
While many candidates initially consider the HBS essay straightforward, once they take the time to start writing, they realize it’s one of the most challenging essays of all the b-schools’ applications – what do you choose to write?
Before diving into the essay writing and analysis, we must discuss what matters to HBS. Of course, HBS looks for high-achieving professionals that can enrich the collective student experience. When you examine the characteristics of a successful HBS applicant, you will notice a few traits:
1. They are growth-minded: A term coined by Stanford University Professor Carol Dweck (pick up her book “Mindset” if you want to learn more) where she characterizes growth mindset as individuals who have a propensity toward development – they view challenges as opportunities and examine them from a lens of learning and development. When it comes to your application, reflect on moments in your past where you’ve exuded this personality – what was the challenge? How did you approach it? In your initial steps, it’s best not to limit your reflection to 1-2 examples; instead, write out as many as possible for reasons described later.
2. They are calm and collected in stressful times: Every business and team goes through periods of turmoil. During those times, employees look to leaders for reassurance and direction. As a future executive, which HBS expects you to be, and a representative of the school, it is imperative that you illustrate how you showed up in times of uncertainty – HBS expects the character trait to be innate (or attained through your own personal development), rather than expecting it to be developed at the b-school. Identify times in your professional and extracurricular experiences where you were a part of an event that had everyone involved feeling uncertain. Then write your thoughts and feelings during that time. Identify as many examples as possible, and spend more time on the 2 most distinct experiences.
3. They understand the value of transformational experiences: While you want to identify moments that speak of a strong character in your professional and community engagements, this is an excellent opportunity to also reflect on your missteps as well as transformational moments from your personal life that speak of a growth-minded person. What are experiences where you handled things wrong? What experiences did you encounter that challenged your voice where you had to stand up for your beliefs? How were those experiences transformational for your development?
Once you have collected examples from your past experiences, it is time to put a structure together and identify the stories you want to share with HBS as you cannot share all experiences identified. To write a strong HBS essay, I suggest taking the following steps:
1. Reflect: Once you have collected the list of experiences, you want to reflect on your values and character, particularly when you experience setbacks. Can you identify your values? What about the character? To have a successful reflection, you need to evaluate yourself objectively; if you can, look at your experiences as if you were considering the main character in a movie (and not your own life). There is no fooling the admission team, so it’s best to be honest with your reflection because that’s the only way to present a strong character.
2. Identify a theme: After identifying values and characters, select the most prominent theme; you will anchor your essay on this theme.
3. Include at least 2 examples (and no more than 3): Discuss your character and values through at least 2 examples (one at a time) that show you as someone who holds the traits of an HBS student. Be sure the examples you choose cannot be easily identified in the rest of your application materials, so it follows the guidelines of the prompt. Also, while I recognize that we are a product of our upbringing, please do not use other people’s stories in your essay. An applicant once used his grandfather’s success as his driver for impact, but there was no evidence in the applicant’s experiences supporting that impact-minded leader. So be mindful to include your transformation and experiences.
A final note: Initially, permit yourself not to worry about word count. The first 2 drafts should focus on the story – don’t put undue pressure on yourself to deliver something close to finished. In the initial drafts focus on writing out what is in your mind and heart, then re-arranging details for better flow and storytelling. The final step requires you to focus on word count, trimming excess articles (“the” and “a”/”an”) and re-writing sentences where you know the sentiment could be expressed in fewer words so you meet the limitations.
If you you would like to discuss your profile and ways we can help, apply to work with us.
