Tackling the Harvard University supplemental essays is no joke. Why? Well, you’ve got 5 essays to write with a combined count of a whopping 1,000 words, not including the 650-word Common App essay you’ll also be submitting.
But on top of all that writing, you’re also competing against over 42,000 other seniors, applying to admission to one of the most competitive colleges in the US, and one of the most prestigious universities in the history of the world.
Not daunted by that?
Great. Keep reading and we’ll walk you through how to write great responses to Harvard’s supplemental essay questions.
But before you get too far—one more thing. You’ll want to take a look at Harvard’s Common Data Set. In it, you’ll find a treasure trove of information on the institution, ranging from enrollment and tuition statistics to student life and financial aid information. Next, read through Harvard’s mission and vision and its academic strategic plan to better understand its values, roadmap for the future, and the role diverse and inclusive communities play in its vision. Checking out both will help you better understand who Harvard is looking for and how you’ll fit in on campus.
So here’s what you’re looking at:
Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard? (10-200 words)
Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. (10-200 words)
Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are. (10-200 words)
How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future? (10-200 words)
Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you. (10-200 words)
Now let’s get into the fun part: how to write great essays for Harvard.
Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard? (10-200 words)
In this essay prompt, Harvard seeks to understand how your life experiences have prepared you to contribute to their diverse student community. Let's break down the key components of the prompt to guide your approach.
Here’s how to brainstorm possible essays:
Again, one important aspect with this prompt is its focus on your contribution to the Harvard community.
Another detail to note is Harvard’s encouragement to show where you come from—the people, places, and things that have shaped who you are today. This is your chance to connect your unique upbringing, in a very broad sense of the word, with what has helped make you unstoppable. So take it.
While there are many things outside of “community” that might fit this prompt, if you’re looking for a way to brainstorm ideas, that’s a good place to start. (Especially since “community” and “identity” tend to overlap a lot. But keep in mind that you’ll want to include some “how will you contribute” details in your essay—this isn’t just a “tell us about a community” prompt.)
For a full guide to “community” essays, head there, but here’s the short version:
Create a “communities/identities” chart by listing all the communities you’re a part of. Keep in mind that communities can be defined by.
You’ll find detail on the BEABIES Exercise + a chart you can use at that link.
You’ll want to offer a few specific ways that show how the experience/s you’re discussing in your essay will allow you to contribute to Harvard. The easiest way to do this is to do some “Why Us”-like research and find ways you’ll engage with and contribute to the Harvard community.
This prompt is new, so we don’t have an example essay written for Harvard just yet. But here’s a nice example essay written for a similar prompt from Colgate University.
Example:
Aside from my inherent love for bagels, my Jewish background has led me to become more embedded in my community, joining Jewish activists and building a website on Holocaust education.
In the 1930s, 36 members of my family were lost to the Holocaust, and that fact has led me to carry on the memory of my ancestors through tradition—with my Bar Mitzvah—as well as with an educational lens—teaching others about the Holocaust and about specific stories of survivors.
Feeling disconnected from Jewish activism, I decided to become an educator on the Student Leadership Board of the Seattle-based Holocaust Center for Humanity last year. Each week, we met to discuss present-day instances of oppression and discrimination across the world, and finished the year by building a website to share the story of a Holocaust survivor.
Being on the board connected me to a network of other passionate Jewish activists, and helped me to channel the pride for my culture and ancestors into visual media that reaches many viewers. At Colgate, I hope to find myself surrounded not only by like-minded Jewish students, but by a diverse group of people with whom I can learn and make connections. (196 words)
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Another example essay:
You wouldn’t think an American Asian Affinity Space would be diverse, after all its whole premise is centered around one specific identity. However, members of the affinity space at my high school come from several different grades, genders and ethnicities. The group included a sophomore from China, a junior from Pakistan, and members from Korea, Japan, and even Israel. We each had unique stories of living as an Asian-American, yet, we had all chosen to come to this affinity group. As we spent time together, we were able to find shared experiences, like our parents preparing packed lunches for us from our country and being too embarrassed to bring them to school. Whether eating humbow or biryani, we all knew what it was like to feel out of place.
My work with the AAAS got me thinking about what diversity can look like, and what it means to embrace diversity. On the one hand, you can find diversity even when people appear to be alike. By exploring our differences, we can continue learning from each other even when it seems we have shared backgrounds and values. At the same time, people who seem really different may have shared human experiences, feeling like the "other" or being embarrassed by their parents, that can bring them together. Moving forward, I want to learn about people’s differences, hearing their stories and learning about their backgrounds while also creating spaces for people to have shared experiences that bring people together.
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Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. (10-200 words)
For this short essay prompt, you’ll aim to share a brief story that highlights your intellectual curiosity, growth, and maybe even a profound realization.
Pro tip: don’t feel like you have to have all the answers here. Very often, complex, maybe unanswerable questions that you feel driven to explore can demonstrate your intellect, curiosity, and values better than statements.
Essentially, you want to give Harvard admissions officers insight into how you engage with ideas and concepts. Help them see you sitting in a classroom, engaging with other students on complex ideas.
Here’s a great example essay:
During quarantine, I enrolled in IBM's AI For Everyone and Harvard's CS50 on edX and traveled down a TED rabbit hole. While intriguing to learn each emoji we send so effortlessly is made up of patterns like this: 11111011000000010, after further investigating AI, Cloud Computing, and the emerging field of Computational Sustainability, I became fascinated and humbled by the human applications offered by AI. With AI’s pending impacts worldwide, I feel driven to optimize technology for society’s benefit. CS50 Professor Malan teaches that there is a right way, a wrong way, and a more efficient way to code. I believe a school in the cloud that utilizes AI to help young students discover classes they enjoy, increasing retention rates and making education equitable, would be a more efficient way to educate. What if students worldwide had access to choosing Ethnic Studies and Education instead of simply History? (147 words)
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Here are two additional sample essays written for similar essay prompts:
Bonus example:
My love for Spanish came by accident. Trying to avoid an eighth-grade computer class, I enrolled in Spanish 1, simply because it fit my schedule. I ended up staying because I fell in love with how the language came together. I felt as if the words came naturally, whether it was differentiating between the verbs saber and conocer, or how different letter combinations produce different sounds, like how two l's make a y sound. The more I learned Spanish, the more I realized why it was fun: It was much like Arabic, taking what I knew and putting a new spin on it. Like how camisa means shirt but is pronounced differently in both languages. Soon, I was listening to some of my favorite Spanish songs, “Tusa” and “Taki Taki,” without needing a translation.
In addition to Spanish and Arabic, I also speak Turkish, the language of my father’s family, and English, which I learned in school. It wasn’t enough to just learn. My love of linguistics prompted me to inspire that same love in others, so I volunteered to teach English to Arabic-speaking elementary students. I started recognizing a familiar spark in the eyes of my students, and I found joy even in little things, like when Maram learned to conjugate know to knew or run to ran. My journey in Spanish started unintentionally, but it has given my life new purpose.
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Another bonus example:
Throughout high school, I have taken great interest in science-based subjects, especially the biological sciences. I took IB Biology at my high school to further my interest, and was particularly inspired by our study of human biological systems and heredity.
As I began researching the topic in my free time, I stumbled across an AP Biology course offered by UCScout. Excitedly, I enrolled in the course and began learning about topics including gene expression and the nervous system’s role in communication, exploring things like the connection between the nervous system and hormones through the work of neurosecretory cells. I developed my understanding of neurohormones and their relations to other organ systems, like the influence of norepinephrine on heart rate.
Furthering my interest in neuroscience through course learning has been a way for me to deepen my understanding of the relationship between the numerous biological systems and neurological function.
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Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are. (10-200 words)
This is your classic 150-word extracurricular essay. You’ll find an in-depth step-by-step guide at this link, with specific advice for the 150-word format (plus some really great examples) towards the end. We recommend using that post to guide you as you’re writing.
But if you want to see the short version, here’s what to do:
Pro-tip: Be careful about writing about an activity that you’ve already shared a lot about elsewhere on your application. If you’ve already written about your most important extracurricular activity in your main Common App personal statement or any of the other Harvard supplements, write about your 2nd or 3rd most important activity. This essay is your chance to say “Hey, here’s this other cool thing I’ve spent some time doing that I haven’t told you about yet!”
Here’s a nice example essay.
Example:
“The word is YES, say it a million times … it always leads to something good.” - Jim Carrey, Yes Man
But there are dangers to being a Yes Man. Accepting opportunities and information without questioning can lead to sticky situations and embarrassing moments.
Fortunately, my participation in policy debate has taught me to be anything but a yes man. Sifting through databases of information to research both sides of a resolution has instilled in me a healthy skepticism of overly simple solutions to complex societal problems. Just as my speeches are typically filled with indicts of my opponents’ cases, I find myself instinctively detecting the fallacies in billboards and commercials.
So, for most questions, it’s a maybe from me—until I consider several other possibilities and perspectives. As Jim Carrey comes to realize,
“Maybe’s fine. I like maybe!” (135 words)
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Another example essay:
I listen to the echoes of my panting as I sprint up and down the flights of stairs. An outsider would likely assume my peers and I are members of a soccer team. They would be baffled to learn that in my ballet school’s curriculum is a Progressing Ballet Technique (PBT) class, where agile dancers train muscle memory through cardio, goblet squats, and every exercise ball activity imaginable. Brushing off my sweat, I understand that dancers are athletes, not just artists. Here we gather the strength to balance on a three-inch long satin pointe shoe box executing sixteen fouettes, or a saut de basque, achieving height and a perfect split as we spring into the air. I remember how difficult it was to even balance on the ball during my first PBT class, and now I execute jete leaps, sissones, and triple pirouettes with ease. (145 words)
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How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future? (10-200 words)
This short essay prompt asks you to consider the practical application of your Harvard education. This is actually a big thing for Harvard—they’ve said before, directly and indirectly, that it’s important/helpful for them to see a student’s hoped-for impact. So this prompt provides an opportunity to showcase your forward-thinking, goals, and aspirations, while also demonstrating your understanding of how a Harvard education aligns with your plans.
Here are a few tips to get your creative juices flowing before you start writing:
This is another new prompt for Harvard, so we don’t have any sample essays that directly discuss how students hope to use their Harvard education. However, here’s an essay that a student wrote for UT-Austin, addressing a similar prompt, that demonstrates the approach here:
European politics and the limits of multiparty democracies, the future of the European Union, refugee policies, and the power of community engagement and social media. my interest in these issues led me to seek UT’s International Relations and Global Studies program with a regional concentration in European Studies. As the granddaughter of Italian immigrants, and an active member of community and school groups, I am interested in studying the factors that weaken or strengthen public engagement in national and local politics, and opportunities for a global agreement on issues relating to the environment and human rights.
My favorite classes in high school have been Human Geography and Comparative Government/Politics. When I started learning about the UK, I was intrigued by the UK's parliamentary system and its ramifications for economic and social issues, all of which play out differently in the US. Outside of class, I continued doing my own research on the Unitary System and the way it impacts the Irish question, Brexit and European monetary policy. This is why I plan on following the footsteps of Dr. Michael W. Mosser and his work on the European Union and security. Even if there was no mandatory study abroad requirement, I would still have jumped at the opportunity to study at the University College London.
Also, majoring in IRG will prepare me to address different issues affecting my community. We can gain valuable insights on immigration or climate change, by studying how other countries address social problems. When I joined V3ssel, I realized the importance of engaging with local officials on issues such as education, immigration, public health, and environmental policy. As an IRG major, I can continue becoming a world citizen and build a career focused on global issues and community engagement. (293 words)
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Here’s another sample essay:
Imagine all the stars in the universe. The brain has a thousand times the number of synapses, making neurological errors a near certainty. I learned this fact firsthand as a 14 year-old, when I suffered from sleepless nights because of an uncomfortable, indescribable feeling in my leg. It took months of appointments and tests to be told it was a condition called cortical dysplasia. Even after the diagnosis, there is no cure.
I am lucky. My condition does not severely affect my quality of life. However, I know this is not the case for everyone. After this experience, I took AP Biology and attended a neuroscience program, which reinforced the subject as my future calling. One of the most impactful lectures discussed the plight of healthcare in developing nations. Newborns with extreme neurological deficits are common, but finding treatments is not. Without prenatal care, this is becoming a growing epidemic, leaving millions of children helpless.
With a degree in neuroscience, I will gain a strong understanding of neural tube development and neuronal migration in infants. I will then become a neurologist, specializing in pediatric care. I hope to work for humanitarian organizations, such as Doctors Without Borders, in Africa, where HIV and polio are rampant, as are numerous other diseases.
Imagine the stars once more. From across the world, I will look at the same stars in the future, as I help children secure the ability to not only look at the stars, but do much more. (247 words)
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Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you. (10-200 words)