- Harvard Business School / David Jones
Here are our HBS alum's tips for the two essay questions for this year:
Tell us about something you did well. (400 words)
- Very open question, which makes it challenging, but also allows you to use creativity in defining "something". Something could be a project, an idea, an execution, a inter-personal relationship situation, etc. It really can be anything you did well.
- The wording of the question clearly implies that the answer they're looking for is not "heroic" - so, there are no superlatives in the question - like your biggest accomplishment or your most proud moment, etc. Keep it simple.
- Most people will use professional themes and situations for this essay, but by all means, if you have personal situations or relationships that fit the theme, use them because they can be very powerful tools for telling your story
- A lot of what we said in the first question applies here as well, but the biggest to watch out for in these questions is to avoid shying away from your mistake or situation and putting the blame for it, directly or indirectly, on someone else
- The best part about this question is it doesn't ask for a failure or mistake, it just asks for a time you could have done something better; this is wonderful because a lot of times, very accomplished people have a hard time describe a true 'failure'
- Between this and the prior question, it's ideal to describe both a professional and personal situation but this is not necessary -- pick the most powerful stories regardless of where they came from, keeping in mind that they should both expose a different aspect of your application
- A side note: Do not, ever, try to spin a good quality into something you could have done better. Best example of this is saying you are a perfectionist and so have a hard time "shipping" a product. Do. Not. Do. This.
