harvard student essay

Harvard University Essay Examples (And Why They Worked)

The following essay examples were written by several different authors who were admitted to Harvard University and are intended to provide examples of successful Harvard University application essays. All names have been redacted for anonymity. Please note that Bullseye Admissions has shared these essays with admissions officers at Harvard University in order to deter potential plagiarism.

For more help with your Harvard supplemental essays, check out our 2020-2021 Harvard University Essay Guide ! For more guidance on personal essays and the college application process in general, sign up for a monthly plan to work with an admissions coach 1-on-1.

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. (50-150 words)

Feet moving, eyes up, every shot back, chants the silent mantra in my head. The ball becomes a beacon of neon green as I dart forward and backward, shuffling from corner to far corner of the court, determined not to let a single point escape me. With bated breath, I swing my racquet upwards and outwards and it catches the ball just in time to propel it, spinning, over the net. My heart soars as my grinning teammates cheer from the sidelines.

While I greatly value the endurance, tenacity, and persistence that I have developed while playing tennis throughout the last four years, I will always most cherish the bonds that I have created and maintained each year with my team.

Why this Harvard essay worked: From an ex-admissions officer

When responding to short essays or supplements, it can be difficult to know which info to include or omit. In this essay, the writer wastes no time and immediately captivates the reader. Not only are the descriptions vivid and compelling, but the second portion highlights what the writer gained from this activity. As an admissions officer, I learned about the student’s level of commitment, leadership abilities, resiliency, ability to cooperate with others, and writing abilities in 150 words.

I founded Teen Court at [High School Name Redacted] with my older brother in 2016. Teen Court is a unique collaboration with the Los Angeles Superior Court and Probation Department, trying real first-time juvenile offenders from all over Los Angeles in a courtroom setting with teen jurors. Teen Court’s foundational principle is restorative justice: we seek to rehabilitate at-risk minors rather than simply punish them. My work provides my peers the opportunity to learn about the justice system. I put in over fifty hours just as Secretary logging court attendance, and now as President, I mentor Teen Court attendees. My goal is to improve their empathy and courage in public speaking, and to expand their world view. People routinely tell me their experience with Teen Court has inspired them to explore law, and I know the effort I devoted bringing this club to [High School Name Redacted] was well worth it.

This writer discussed a passion project with a long-lasting impact. As admissions officers, we realize that post-secondary education will likely change the trajectory of your life. We hope that your education will also inspire you to change the trajectory of someone else’s life as well. This writer developed an organization that will have far-reaching impacts for both the juvenile offenders and the attendees. They saw the need for this service and initiated a program to improve their community. College Admissions Quiz: If you’re planning on applying to Harvard, you’ll want to be as prepared as possible. Take our quiz below to put your college admissions knowledge to the test!

Harvard University Supplemental Essay Option: Books Read During the Last Twelve Months

Reading Frankenstein in ninth grade changed my relationship to classic literature. In Frankenstein , I found characters and issues that resonate in a modern context, and I began to explore the literary canon outside of the classroom. During tenth grade, I picked up Jane Eyre and fell in love with the novel’s non-traditional heroine whose agency and cleverness far surpassed anything that I would have imagined coming from the 19th century. I have read the books listed below in the past year.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus *
Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger *
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt ♰
Mongo Beti, Mission Terminée * (in French)
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Arthur Conan-Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
Kamel Daoud, Meursault, contre-enquête * (in French)
Roddy Doyle, A Star Called Henry *
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane *
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying *
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
E. M. Forster, Maurice
E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
E. M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread
Eliza Haywood, The City Jilt ♰
Homer, The Iliad
Christopher Isherwood, All The Conspirators
Christopher Isherwood, A Meeting by the River
Christopher Isherwood, Sally Bowles
Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka, The Trial
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies *
Morrissey, Autobiography
Rudolph Otto, The Idea of the Holy *
Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
Charlotte Perkins-Gilman, Herland
Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way
Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove
Mary Renault, Fire From Heaven
Mary Renault, The Friendly Young Ladies
Mary Renault, The King Must Die
Mary Renault, The Persian Boy
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Terre des hommes * (in French)
Shakespeare, Hamlet *
Mary Shelley, The Last Man
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead *
Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh, Scoop
Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies
Jeanette Winterson, The Passion
Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary: A Fiction ♰
Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman ♰
Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House and Other Stories
* indicates assigned reading
♰ indicates independent study reading

Harvard University Supplemental Essay Option: What would you want your future college roommate to know about you? (No word limit)

Hi Roomie!!!!

You probably have noticed that I put four exclamation points. Yes, I am that excited to meet you, roomie!

Also, I don’t believe in the Rule of Three. It’s completely unfair that three is always the most commonly used number. Am I biased in my feelings because four is my favorite number? Perhaps. However, you have to admit that our reason for the Rule of Three is kinda arbitrary. The Rule of Three states that a trio of events is more effective and satisfying than any other numbers. Still, the human psyche is easily manipulated through socially constructed perceptions such as beauty standards and gender roles. Is having three of everything actually influential or is it only influential because society says so? Hmm, it’s interesting to think about it, isn’t it?

But if you’re an avid follower of the Rule of three, don’t worry, I won’t judge. In fact, if there’s one thing I can promise you I will never do, it’s being judgmental. Life is too short to go around judging people. Besides, judgments are always based on socially constructed beliefs. With so many backgrounds present on campus, it really would be unfair if we start going around judging people based on our own limited beliefs. My personal philosophy is “Mind your own business and let people be,” So, if you have a quirk that you’re worrying is too “weird” and are afraid your roommate might be too judgy, rest assured, I won’t be.

In fact, thanks to my non-judginess, I am an excellent listener. If you ever need to rant with someone about stressful classes, harsh gradings, or the new ridiculous plot twists of your favorite TV show (*cough* Riverdale), I am always available.

Now, I know what you are thinking. A non-judgmental and open-minded roommate? This sounds too good to be true. This girl’s probably a secret villain waiting to hear all my deepest and darkest secrets and blackmail me with them!

Well, I promise you. I am not a secret villain. I am just someone who knows how important it is to be listened to and understood.

I grew up under the communist regime of Vietnam, where freedom of speech and thought was heavily suppressed. Since childhood, I was taught to keep my opinion to myself, especially if it is contradictory to the government’s. No matter how strongly I felt about an issue, I could never voice my true opinion nor do anything about it. Or else, my family and I would face oppression from the Vietnamese government.

After immigrating to America, I have made it my mission to fight for human rights and justice. Back in Vietnam, I have let fear keep me from doing the right thing. Now, in the land of freedom, I won’t use that excuse anymore. I can finally be myself and fight for what I believe in. However, I can still remember how suffocating it was to keep my beliefs bottled up and to be silenced. Trust me, a conversation may not seem much, but it can do wonders. So, if you ever need a listener, know that I am right here.

See, I just shared with you a deep secret of mine. What secret villain would do that?

See ya soon!!!!!

[Name redacted] : )

P/S: I really love writing postscripts. So, I hope you won’t find it weird when I always end my emails, letters, and even texts with a P/S. Bye for real this time!!!!!

Harvard University Supplemental Essay Option: Unusual circumstances in your life

I would like the Harvard Admissions Committee to know that my life circumstances are far from typical. I was born at twenty-four weeks gestation, which eighteen years ago was on the cusp of viability. Even if I was born today, under those same circumstances, my prospects for leading a normal life would be grim. Eighteen years ago, those odds were worse, and I was given a less than 5% chance of survival without suffering major cognitive and physical deficits.

The first six months of my life were spent in a large neonatal ICU in Canada. I spent most of that time in an incubator, kept breathing by a ventilator. When I was finally discharged home, it was with a feeding tube and oxygen, and it would be several more months before I was able to survive without the extra tubes connected to me. At the age of two, I was still unable to walk. I engaged in every conventional and non-conventional therapy available to me, including physical and speech therapy, massage therapy, gymnastics, and several nutritional plans, to try to remedy this. Slowly, I began to make progress in what would be a long and arduous journey towards recovery.

Some of my earliest childhood memories are of repeated, often unsuccessful attempts to grip a large-diameter crayon since I was unable to hold a regular pencil. I would attempt to scrawl out letters on a page to form words, fueled by either determination or outright stubbornness, persevering until I improved. I spent countless hours trying to control my gait, eventually learning to walk normally and proving the doctors wrong about their diagnoses. I also had to learn how to swallow without aspirating because the frequent intubations I had experienced as an infant left me with a uncoordinated swallow reflex. Perhaps most prominently, I remember becoming very winded as I tried to keep up with my elementary school peers on the playground and the frustration I experienced when I failed.

Little by little, my body’s tolerance for physical exertion grew, and my coordination improved. I enrolled in martial arts to learn how to keep my balance and to develop muscle coordination and an awareness of where my limbs were at any given time. I also became immersed in competition among my elementary school peers to determine which one of us could become the most accomplished on the recorder. For each piece of music played correctly, a “belt” was awarded in the form of a brightly colored piece of yarn tied around the bottom of our recorders- meant as symbols of our achievement. Despite the challenges I had in generating and controlling enough air, I practiced relentlessly, often going in before school or during my lunch hour to obtain the next increasingly difficult musical piece. By the time the competition concluded, I had broken the school record of how far an elementary school child could advance; in doing so, my love of instrumental music and my appreciation for the value of hard work and determination was born.

Throughout my middle and high school years, I have succeeded at the very highest level both academically and musically. I was even able to find a sport that I excelled at and would later be able to use as an avenue for helping others, volunteering as an assistant coach once I entered high school. I have mentored dozens of my high school peers in developing trumpet skills, teaching them how to control one’s breathing during musical phrases and how to develop effective fingering techniques in order to perform challenging passages. I believe that my positive attitude and hard work has allowed for not only my own success, but for the growth and success of my peers as well.

My scholastic and musical achievements, as well as my leadership abilities and potential to succeed at the highest level will hopefully be readily apparent to the committee when you review my application. Perhaps more importantly, however, is the behind-the-scenes character traits that have made these possible. I believe that I can conquer any challenge put in front of me. My past achievements provide testimony to my work ethic, aptitudes and grit, and are predictive of my future potential.

Thank you for your consideration.

In this essay, the writer highlighted their resilience. At some point, we will all endure challenges and struggles, but it is how we redeem ourselves that matters. This writer highlighted their initial struggles, their dedication and commitment, and the ways in which they’ve used those challenges as inspiration and motivation to persevere and also to encourage others to do the same.

Harvard University Supplemental Essay Option: An intellectual experience (course, project, book, discussion, paper, poetry, or research topic in engineering, mathematics, science or other modes of inquiry) that has meant the most to you.

I want to be a part of something amazing, and I believe I can. The first line of the chorus springs into my mind instantaneously as my fingers experiment with chords on the piano. In this moment, as I compose the protagonist’s solo number, I speak from my heart. I envision the stage and set, the actors, the orchestra, even the audience. Growing increasingly excited, I promptly begin to create recordings so I can release the music from the confines of my imagination and share it with any willing ears.

My brother [name redacted] and I are in the process of writing a full-length, two-act musical comprised of original scenes, songs, characters. I began creating the show not only because I love to write music and entertain my friends and family, but also with the hope that I might change the way my peers view society. Through Joan, the protagonist of my musical, I want to communicate how I feel about the world.

The story centers around Joan, a high schooler, and her connection to the pilot Amelia Earhart. Ever since I saw a theatrical rendition of Amelia Earhart’s life in fifth grade, she has fascinated me as an extraordinary feminist and a challenger of society’s beliefs and standards. As I began researching and writing for the show, I perused through biographies and clicked through countless youtube documentaries about the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, astounded by her bravery and ability to overcome a troubled childhood and achieve her dream. In my musical, as Amelia transcends 20th century norms, changing the way that people regard women and flight, Joan strives to convince her peers and superiors that the worth of one’s life spans not from material success and grades, but from self-love and passion.

As I compose, the essence of each character and the mood of each scene steer the flow of each song. To me, it seems as though everything falls into place at once – as I pluck a melody out of the air, the lyrics come to me naturally as if the two have been paired all along. As I listen to the newly born principal line, I hear the tremolo of strings underscoring and the blaring of a brass section that may someday audibly punctuate each musical phrase.

The project is certainly one of the most daunting tasks I’ve ever undertaken – we’ve been working on it for almost a year, and hope to be done by January – but, fueled by my passion for creating music and writing, it is also one of the most enjoyable. I dream that it may be performed one day and that it may influence society to appreciate the success that enthusiasm for one’s relationships and work can bring.

These essay examples were compiled by the advising team at Bullseye Admissions. If you want to get help writing your Harvard University application essays from Bullseye Admissions advisors , register with Bullseye today .

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, my successful harvard application (complete common app + supplement).

Other High School , College Admissions , Letters of Recommendation , Extracurriculars , College Essays

In 2005, I applied to college and got into every school I applied to, including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. I decided to attend Harvard.

In this guide, I'll show you the entire college application that got me into Harvard—page by page, word for word .

In my complete analysis, I'll take you through my Common Application, Harvard supplemental application, personal statements and essays, extracurricular activities, teachers' letters of recommendation, counselor recommendation, complete high school transcript, and more. I'll also give you in-depth commentary on every part of my application.

To my knowledge, a college application analysis like this has never been done before . This is the application guide I wished I had when I was in high school.

If you're applying to top schools like the Ivy Leagues, you'll see firsthand what a successful application to Harvard and Princeton looks like. You'll learn the strategies I used to build a compelling application. You'll see what items were critical in getting me admitted, and what didn't end up helping much at all.

Reading this guide from beginning to end will be well worth your time—you might completely change your college application strategy as a result.

First Things First

Here's the letter offering me admission into Harvard College under Early Action.

I was so thrilled when I got this letter. It validated many years of hard work, and I was excited to take my next step into college (...and work even harder).

I received similar successful letters from every college I applied to: Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. (After getting into Harvard early, I decided not to apply to Yale, Columbia, UChicago, UPenn, and other Ivy League-level schools, since I already knew I would rather go to Harvard.)

The application that got me admitted everywhere is the subject of this guide. You're going to see everything that the admissions officers saw.

If you're hoping to see an acceptance letter like this in your academic future, I highly recommend you read this entire article. I'll start first with an introduction to this guide and important disclaimers. Then I'll share the #1 question you need to be thinking about as you construct your application. Finally, we'll spend a lot of time going through every page of my college application, both the Common App and the Harvard Supplemental App.

Important Note: the foundational principles of my application are explored in detail in my How to Get Into Harvard guide . In this popular guide, I explain:

what top schools like the Ivy League are looking for
how to be truly distinctive among thousands of applicants
why being well-rounded is the kiss of death

If you have the time and are committed to maximizing your college application success, I recommend you read through my Harvard guide first, then come back to this one.

You might also be interested in my other two major guides:

How to Get a Perfect SAT Score / Perfect ACT Score
How to Get a 4.0 GPA

What's in This Harvard Application Guide?

From my student records, I was able to retrieve the COMPLETE original application I submitted to Harvard. Page by page, word for word, you'll see everything exactly as I presented it : extracurricular activities, awards and honors, personal statements and essays, and more.

In addition to all this detail, there are two special parts of this college application breakdown that I haven't seen anywhere else :

You'll see my FULL recommendation letters and evaluation forms. This includes recommendations from two teachers, one principal, and supplementary writers. Normally you don't get to see these letters because you waive access to them when applying. You'll see how effective strong teacher advocates will be to your college application, and why it's so important to build strong relationships with your letter writers .
You'll see the exact pen marks made by my Harvard admissions reader on my application . Members of admissions committees consider thousands of applications every year, which means they highlight the pieces of each application they find noteworthy. You'll see what the admissions officer considered important—and what she didn't.

For every piece of my application, I'll provide commentary on what made it so effective and my strategies behind creating it. You'll learn what it takes to build a compelling overall application.

Importantly, even though my application was strong, it wasn't perfect. I'll point out mistakes I made that I could have corrected to build an even stronger application.

Here's a complete table of contents for what we'll be covering. Each link goes directly to that section, although I'd recommend you read this from beginning to end on your first go.

Common Application

Personal Data

Educational data, test information.

Activities: Extracurricular, Personal, Volunteer
Short Answer
Additional Information

Academic Honors

Personal statement, teacher and counselor recommendations.

Teacher Letter #1: AP Chemistry
Teacher Letter #2: AP English Lang

School Report

Principal Recommendation

Harvard Application Supplement

Supplement Form
Writing Supplement Essay

Supplementary Recommendation #1

Supplementary recommendation #2, supplemental application materials.

Final Advice for You

I mean it—you'll see literally everything in my application.

In revealing my teenage self, some parts of my application will be pretty embarrassing (you'll see why below). But my mission through my company PrepScholar is to give the world the most helpful resources possible, so I'm publishing it.

One last thing before we dive in—I'm going to anticipate some common concerns beforehand and talk through important disclaimers so that you'll get the most out of this guide.

Important Disclaimers

My biggest caveat for you when reading this guide: thousands of students get into Harvard and Ivy League schools every year. This guide tells a story about one person and presents one archetype of a strong applicant. As you'll see, I had a huge academic focus, especially in science ( this was my Spike ). I'm also irreverent and have a strong, direct personality.

What you see in this guide is NOT what YOU need to do to get into Harvard , especially if you don't match my interests and personality at all.

As I explain in my Harvard guide , I believe I fit into one archetype of a strong applicant—the "academic superstar" (humor me for a second, I know calling myself this sounds obnoxious). There are other distinct ways to impress, like:

being world-class in a non-academic talent
achieving something difficult and noteworthy—building a meaningful organization, writing a novel
coming from tremendous adversity and performing remarkably well relative to expectations

Therefore, DON'T worry about copying my approach one-for-one . Don't worry if you're taking a different number of AP courses or have lower test scores or do different extracurriculars or write totally different personal statements. This is what schools like Stanford and Yale want to see—a diversity in the student population!

The point of this guide is to use my application as a vehicle to discuss what top colleges are looking for in strong applicants. Even though the specific details of what you'll do are different from what I did, the principles are the same. What makes a candidate truly stand out is the same, at a high level. What makes for a super strong recommendation letter is the same. The strategies on how to build a cohesive, compelling application are the same.

There's a final reason you shouldn't worry about replicating my work—the application game has probably changed quite a bit since 2005. Technology is much more pervasive, the social issues teens care about are different, the extracurricular activities that are truly noteworthy have probably gotten even more advanced. What I did might not be as impressive as it used to be. So focus on my general points, not the specifics, and think about how you can take what you learn here to achieve something even greater than I ever did.

With that major caveat aside, here are a string of smaller disclaimers.

I'm going to present my application factually and be 100% straightforward about what I achieved and what I believed was strong in my application. This is what I believe will be most helpful for you. I hope you don't misinterpret this as bragging about my accomplishments. I'm here to show you what it took for me to get into Harvard and other Ivy League schools, not to ask for your admiration. So if you read this guide and are tempted to dismiss my advice because you think I'm boasting, take a step back and focus on the big picture—how you'll improve yourself.

This guide is geared toward admissions into the top colleges in the country , often with admissions rates below 10%. A sample list of schools that fit into this: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, MIT, UChicago, Duke, UPenn, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Brown. The top 3-5 in that list are especially looking for the absolute best students in the country , since they have the pick of the litter.

Admissions for these selective schools works differently from schools with >20% rates. For less selective schools, having an overall strong, well-rounded application is sufficient for getting in. In particular, having an above average GPA and test scores goes the majority of the way toward getting you admission to those schools. The higher the admission rate, the more emphasis will be placed on your scores. The other pieces I'll present below—personal statements, extracurriculars, recommendations—will matter less.

Still, it doesn't hurt to aim for a stronger application. To state the obvious, an application strong enough to get you Columbia will get you into UCLA handily.

In my application, I've redacted pieces of my application for privacy reasons, and one supplementary recommendation letter at the request of the letter writer. Everything else is unaltered.

Throughout my application, we can see marks made by the admissions officer highlighting and circling things of note (you'll see the first example on the very first page). I don't have any other applications to compare these to, so I'm going to interpret these marks as best I can. For the most part, I assume that whatever he underlines or circles is especially important and noteworthy —points that he'll bring up later in committee discussions. It could also be that the reader got bored and just started highlighting things, but I doubt this.

Finally, I co-founded and run a company called PrepScholar . We create online SAT/ACT prep programs that adapt to you and your strengths and weaknesses . I believe we've created the best prep program available, and if you feel you need to raise your SAT/ACT score, then I encourage you to check us out . I want to emphasize that you do NOT need to buy a prep program to get a great score , and the advice in this guide has little to do with my company. But if you're aren't sure how to improve your score and agree with our unique approach to SAT/ACT prep, our program may be perfect for you.

With all this past us, let's get started.

The #1 Most Important College Application Question: What Is Your PERSONAL NARRATIVE?

If you stepped into an elevator with Yale's Dean of Admissions and you had ten seconds to describe yourself and why you're interesting, what would you say?

This is what I call your PERSONAL NARRATIVE. These are the three main points that represent who you are and what you're about . This is the story that you tell through your application, over and over again. This is how an admissions officer should understand you after just glancing through your application. This is how your admissions officer will present you to the admissions committee to advocate for why they should accept you.

The more unique and noteworthy your Personal Narrative is, the better. This is how you'll stand apart from the tens of thousands of other applicants to your top choice school. This is why I recommend so strongly that you develop a Spike to show deep interest and achievement. A compelling Spike is the core of your Personal Narrative.

Well-rounded applications do NOT form compelling Personal Narratives, because "I'm a well-rounded person who's decent at everything" is the exact same thing every other well-rounded person tries to say.

Everything in your application should support your Personal Narrative , from your course selection and extracurricular activities to your personal statements and recommendation letters. You are a movie director, and your application is your way to tell a compelling, cohesive story through supporting evidence.

Yes, this is overly simplistic and reductionist. It does not represent all your complexities and your 17 years of existence. But admissions offices don't have the time to understand this for all their applicants. Your PERSONAL NARRATIVE is what they will latch onto.

Here's what I would consider my Personal Narrative (humor me since I'm peacocking here):

1) A science obsessive with years of serious research work and ranked 6 th in a national science competition, with future goals of being a neuroscientist or physician

2) Balanced by strong academic performance in all subjects (4.0 GPA and perfect test scores, in both humanities and science) and proficiency in violin

3) An irreverent personality who doesn't take life too seriously, embraces controversy, and says what's on his mind

These three elements were the core to my application. Together they tell a relatively unique Personal Narrative that distinguishes me from many other strong applicants. You get a surprisingly clear picture of what I'm about. There's no question that my work in science was my "Spike" and was the strongest piece of my application, but my Personal Narrative included other supporting elements, especially a description of my personality.

My College Application, at a High Level

Drilling down into more details, here's an overview of my application.

This put me comfortably in the 99 th percentile in the country, but it was NOT sufficient to get me into Harvard by itself ! Because there are roughly 4 million high school students per year, the top 1 percentile still has 40,000 students. You need other ways to set yourself apart.
Your Spike will most often come from your extracurriculars and academic honors, just because it's hard to really set yourself apart with your coursework and test scores.
My letters of recommendation were very strong. Both my recommending teachers marked me as "one of the best they'd ever taught." Importantly, they corroborated my Personal Narrative, especially regarding my personality. You'll see how below.
My personal statements were, in retrospect, just satisfactory. They represented my humorous and irreverent side well, but they come across as too self-satisfied. Because of my Spike, I don't think my essays were as important to my application.

Finally, let's get started by digging into the very first pages of my Common Application.

There are a few notable points about how simple questions can actually help build a first impression around what your Personal Narrative is.

First, notice the circle around my email address. This is the first of many marks the admissions officer made on my application. The reason I think he circled this was that the email address I used is a joke pun on my name . I knew it was risky to use this vs something like [email protected], but I thought it showed my personality better (remember point #3 about having an irreverent personality in my Personal Narrative).

Don't be afraid to show who you really are, rather than your perception of what they want. What you think UChicago or Stanford wants is probably VERY wrong, because of how little information you have, both as an 18-year-old and as someone who hasn't read thousands of applications.

(It's also entirely possible that it's a formality to circle email addresses, so I don't want to read too much into it, but I think I'm right.)

Second, I knew in high school that I wanted to go into the medical sciences, either as a physician or as a scientist. I was also really into studying the brain. So I listed both in my Common App to build onto my Personal Narrative.

In the long run, both predictions turned out to be wrong. After college, I did go to Harvard Medical School for the MD/PhD program for 4 years, but I left to pursue entrepreneurship and co-founded PrepScholar . Moreover, in the time I did actually do research, I switched interests from neuroscience to bioengineering/biotech.

Colleges don't expect you to stick to career goals you stated at the age of 18. Figuring out what you want to do is the point of college! But this doesn't give you an excuse to avoid showing a preference. This early question is still a chance to build that Personal Narrative.

Thus, I recommend AGAINST "Undecided" as an area of study —it suggests a lack of flavor and is hard to build a compelling story around. From your high school work thus far, you should at least be leaning to something, even if that's likely to change in the future.

Finally, in the demographic section there is a big red A, possibly for Asian American. I'm not going to read too much into this. If you're a notable minority, this is where you'd indicate it.

Now known as: Education

This section was straightforward for me. I didn't take college courses, and I took a summer chemistry class at a nearby high school because I didn't get into the lottery at my school that year (I refer to this briefly in my 4.0 GPA guide ).

The most notable point of this section: the admissions officer circled Principal here . This is notable because our school Principal only wrote letters for fewer than 10 students each year. Counselors wrote letters for the other hundreds of students in my class, which made my application stand out just a little.

I'll talk more about this below, when I share the Principal's recommendation.

(In the current Common Application, the Education section also includes Grades, Courses, and Honors. We'll be covering each of those below).

Now known as: Testing

Back then AP scores weren't part of this section, but I'll take them from another part of my application here.

However, their standards are still very high. You really do want to be in that top 1 percentile to pass the filter. A 1400 on the SAT IS going to put you at a disadvantage because there are so many students scoring higher than you. You'll really have to dig yourself out of the hole with an amazing application.

I talk about this a lot more in my Get into Harvard guide (sorry to keep linking this, but I really do think it's an important guide for you to read).

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Let's end this section with some personal notes.

Even though math and science were easy for me, I had to put in serious effort to get an 800 on the Reading section of the SAT . As much as I wish I could say it was trivial for me, it wasn't. I learned a bunch of strategies and dissected the test to get to a point where I understood the test super well and reliably earned perfect scores.

I cover the most important points in my How to Get a Perfect SAT Score guide , as well as my 800 Guides for Reading , Writing , and Math .

Between the SAT and ACT, the SAT was my primary focus, but I decided to take the ACT for fun. The tests were so similar that I scored a 36 Composite without much studying. Having two test scores is completely unnecessary —you get pretty much zero additional credit. Again, with one test score, you have already passed their filter.

Finally, class finals or state-required exams are a breeze if you get a 5 on the corresponding AP tests .

Now known as: Family (still)

This section asks for your parent information and family situation. There's not much you can do here besides report the facts.

I'm redacting a lot of stuff again for privacy reasons.

The reader made a number of marks here for occupation and education. There's likely a standard code for different types of occupations and schools.

If I were to guess, I'd say that the numbers add to form some metric of "family prestige." My dad got a Master's at a middle-tier American school, but my mom didn't go to graduate school, and these sections were marked 2 and 3, respectively. So it seems higher numbers are given for less prestigious educations by your parents. I'd expect that if both my parents went to schools like Caltech and Dartmouth, there would be even lower numbers here.

This makes me think that the less prepared your family is, the more points you get, and this might give your application an extra boost. If you were the first one in your family to go to college, for example, you'd be excused for having lower test scores and fewer AP classes. Schools really do care about your background and how you performed relative to expectations.

In the end, schools like Harvard say pretty adamantly they don't use formulas to determine admissions decisions, so I wouldn't read too much into this. But this can be shorthand to help orient an applicant's family background.

Extracurricular, Personal, and Volunteer Activities

Now known as: Activities

For most applicants, your Extracurriculars and your Academic Honors will be where you develop your Spike and where your Personal Narrative shines through. This was how my application worked.

Just below I'll describe the activities in more detail, but first I want to reflect on this list.

As instructed, my extracurriculars were listed in the order of their interest to me. The current Common App doesn't seem to ask for this, but I would still recommend it to focus your reader's attention.

The most important point I have to make about my extracurriculars: as you go down the list, there is a HUGE drop in the importance of each additional activity to the overall application. If I were to guess, I assign the following weights to how much each activity contributed to the strength of my activities section:

In other words, participating in the Research Science Institute (RSI) was far more important than all of my other extracurriculars, combined. You can see that this was the only activity my admissions reader circled.

You can see how Spike-y this is. The RSI just completely dominates all my other activities.

The reason for this is the prestige of RSI. As I noted earlier, RSI was (and likely still is) the most prestigious research program for high school students in the country, with an admission rate of less than 5% . Because the program was so prestigious and selective, getting in served as a big confirmation signal of my academic quality.

In other words, the Harvard admissions reader would likely think, "OK, if this very selective program has already validated Allen as a top student, I'm inclined to believe that Allen is a top student and should pay special attention to him."

Now, it took a lot of prior work to even get into RSI because it's so selective. I had already ranked nationally in the Chemistry Olympiad (more below), and I had done a lot of prior research work in computer science (at Jisan Research Institute—more about this later). But getting into RSI really propelled my application to another level.

Because RSI was so important and was such a big Spike, all my other extracurriculars paled in importance. The admissions officer at Princeton or MIT probably didn't care at all that I volunteered at a hospital or founded a high school club .

This is a good sign of developing a strong Spike. You want to do something so important that everything else you do pales in comparison to it. A strong Spike becomes impossible to ignore.

In contrast, if you're well-rounded, all your activities hold equal weight—which likely means none of them are really that impressive (unless you're a combination of Olympic athlete, internationally-ranked science researcher, and New York Times bestselling author, but then I'd call you unicorn because you don't exist).

Apply this concept to your own interests—what can be so impressive and such a big Spike that it completely overshadows all your other achievements?

This might be worth spending a disproportionate amount of time on. As I recommend in my Harvard guide and 4.0 GPA guide , smartly allocating your time is critical to your high school strategy.

In retrospect, one "mistake" I made was spending a lot of time on the violin. Each week I spent eight hours on practice and a lesson and four hours of orchestra rehearsals. This amounted to over 1,500 hours from freshman to junior year.

The result? I was pretty good, but definitely nowhere near world-class. Remember, there are thousands of orchestras and bands in the country, each with their own concertmasters, drum majors, and section 1 st chairs.

If I were to optimize purely for college applications, I should have spent that time on pushing my spike even further —working on more Olympiad competitions, or doing even more hardcore research.

Looking back I don't mind this much because I generally enjoyed my musical training and had a mostly fun time in orchestra (and I had a strong Spike anyway). But this problem can be a lot worse for well-rounded students who are stretched too thin.

Aside from these considerations about a Spike, I have two major caveats.

First, developing a Spike requires continuous, increasingly ambitious foundational work. It's like climbing a staircase. From the beginning of high school, each step was more and more ambitious—my first academic team, my first research experience, leading up to state and national competitions and more serious research work.

So when I suggest devoting a lot of time to developing your Spike, it's not necessarily the Spike in itself—it's also spending time on foundational work leading up to what will be your major achievement. That's why I don't see my time with academic teams or volunteering as wasted, even though in the end they didn't contribute as much to my application.

Second, it is important to do things you enjoy. I still enjoyed playing the violin and being part of an orchestra, and I really enjoyed my school's academic teams, even though we never went beyond state level. Even if some activities don't contribute as much to your application, it's still fine to spend some time on them—just don't delude yourself into thinking they're stronger than they really are and overspend time on them.

Finally, note that most of my activities were pursued over multiple years. This is a good sign of commitment—rather than hopping from activity year to year, it's better to show sustained commitment, as this is a better signal of genuine passion.

In a future article, I'll break down these activities in more detail. But this guide is already super long, so I want to focus our attention on the main points.

Short Answer: Extracurricular Activities

In today's Common Application, you have 50 characters to describe "Position/Leadership description and organization name" and 150 characters for "Please describe this activity, including what you accomplished and any recognition you received, etc."

Back then, we didn't have as much space per activity, and instead had a short answer question.

The Short Answer prompt:

Please describe which of your activities (extracurricular and personal activities or work experience) has been most meaningful and why.

I chose RSI as my most significant activity for two reasons—one based on the meaning of the work, and another on the social aspect.

It's obvious that schools like Yale and UChicago want the best students in the world that they can get their hands on. Academic honors and awards are a great, quantifiable way to show that.

Here's the complete list of Academic Honors I submitted. The Common Application now limits you to five honors only (probably because they got tired of lists like these), but chances are you capture the top 98% of your honors with the top five.

Charlie wins a Golden Ticket to Harvard.

I know this is intimidating if you don't already have a prestigious honor. But remember there are thousands of nationally-ranked people in a multitude of honor types, from science competitions to essay contests to athletics to weird talents.

And I strongly believe the #1 differentiator of high school students who achieve things is work ethic, NOT intelligence or talent. Yes, you need a baseline level of competence to get places, but people far undervalue the progress they can make if they work hard and persevere. Far too many people give up too quickly or fatigue without putting in serious effort.

If you're stuck thinking, "well I'm just an average person, and there's no way I'm going to become world-class in anything," then you've already lost before you've begun. The truth is everyone who achieves something of note puts in an incredible amount of hard work. Because this is invisible to you, it looks like talent is what distinguishes the two of you, when really it's much more often diligence.

I talk a lot more about the Growth Mindset in my How To Get a 4.0 GPA guide .

So my Chemistry Olympiad honor formed 90% of the value of this page. Just like extracurriculars, there's a quick dropoff in value of each item after that.

My research work took up the next two honors, one a presentation at an academic conference, and the other (Siemens) a research competition for high school researchers.

The rest of my honors were pretty middling:

National Merit Scholarship semifinalist pretty much equates to PSAT score, which is far less important than your SAT/ACT score. So I didn't really get any credit for this, and you won't either.
In Science Olympiad (this is a team-based competition that's not as prestigious as the academic Olympiads I just talked about), I earned a number of 1 st place state and regional medals, but we never made it to nationals.
I was mediocre at competition math because I didn't train for it, and I won some regional awards but nothing amazing. This is one place I would have spent more time, maybe in the time I'd save by not practicing violin as much. There are great resources for this type of training, like Art of Problem Solving , that I didn't know existed and could've helped me rank much higher.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, think about how many state medalists there are in the country, in the hundreds of competitions that exist . The number of state to national rankers is probably at least 20:1 (less than 50:1 because of variation in state size), so if there are 2,000 nationally ranked students, there are 40,000 state-ranked students in something !

So state honors really don't help you stand out on your Princeton application. There are just too many of them around.

On the other hand, if you can get to be nationally ranked in something, you will have an amazing Spike that distinguishes you.

Now known as: Personal Essay

Now, the dreaded personal statement. Boy, oh boy, did I fuss over this one.

"What is the perfect combination of personal, funny, heartrending, and inspirational?"

I know I was wondering this when I applied.

Having read books like 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays , I was frightened. I didn't grow up as a refugee, wrenched from my war-torn home! I didn't have a sibling with a debilitating illness! How could anything I write compare to these tales of personal strength?

The trite truth is that colleges want to know who you really are . Clearly they don't expect everyone to have had immense personal struggle. But they do want students who are:

growth-oriented
introspective
kind and good-hearted

Whatever those words mean to you in the context of your life is what you should write about.

In retrospect, in the context of MY application, the personal statement really wasn't what got me into Harvard . I do think my Spike was nearly sufficient to get me admitted to every school in the country.

I say "nearly" because, even if you're world-class, schools do want to know you're not a jerk and that you're an interesting person (which is conveyed through your personal essay and letters of recommendation).

Back then, we had a set of different prompts :

What did you think?

I'm still cringing a bit. Parts of this are very smug (see /r/iamverysmart ), and if you want to punch the writer in the face, I don't blame you. I want to as well.

We'll get to areas of improvement later, but first, let's talk about what this personal essay did well.

As I said above, I saw the theme of the snooze button as a VEHICLE to showcase a few qualities I cared about :

1) I fancied myself a Renaissance man (obnoxious, I know) and wanted to become an inventor and creator . I showed this through mentioning different interests (Rubik's cube, chemistry, Nietzsche) and iterating through a few designs for an alarm clock (electric shocks, explosions, Shakespearean sonnet recitation).

2) My personality was whimsical and irreverent. I don't take life too seriously. The theme of the essay—battling an alarm clock—shows this well, in comparison to the gravitas of the typical student essay. I also found individual lines funny, like "All right, so I had violated the divine honor of the family and the tenets of Confucius." At once I acknowledge my Chinese heritage but also make light of the situation.

3) I was open to admitting weaknesses , which I think is refreshing among people taking college applications too seriously and trying too hard to impress. The frank admission of a realistic lazy habit—pushing the Snooze button—served as a nice foil to my academic honors and shows that I can be down-to-earth.

So you see how the snooze button acts as a vehicle to carry these major points and a lot of details, tied together to the same theme .

In the same way, The Walking Dead is NOT a zombie show—the zombie environment is a VEHICLE by which to show human drama and conflict. Packaging my points together under the snooze button theme makes it a lot more interesting than just outright saying "I'm such an interesting guy."

So overall, I believe the essay accomplishes my goals and the main points of what I wanted to convey about myself.

Note that this is just one of many ways to write an essay . It worked for me, but it may be totally inappropriate for you.

Now let's look at this essay's weaknesses.

Looking at it with a more seasoned perspective, some parts of it are WAY too try-hard. I try too hard to show off my breadth of knowledge in a way that seems artificial and embellishing.

The entire introduction with the Rubik's cube seems bolted on, just to describe my long-standing desire to be a Renaissance man. Only three paragraphs down do I get to the Snooze button, and I don't refer again to the introduction until the end. With just 650 words, I could have made the essay more cohesive by keeping the same theme from beginning to end.

Some phrases really make me roll my eyes. "Always hungry for more" and "ever the inventor" sound too forced and embellishing. A key principle of effective writing is to show, not say . You don't say "I'm passionate about X," you describe what extraordinary lengths you took to achieve X.

The mention of Nietzsche is over-the-top. I mean, come on. The reader probably thought, "OK, this kid just read it in English class and now he thinks he's a philosopher." The reader would be right.

The ending: "with the extra nine minutes, maybe I'll teach myself to cook fried rice" is silly. Where in the world did fried rice come from? I meant it as a nod to my Chinese heritage, but it's too sudden to work. I could have deleted the sentence and wrapped up the essay more cleanly.

So I have mixed feelings of my essay. I think it accomplished my major goals and showed the humorous, irreverent side of my personality well. However, it also gave the impression of a kid who thought he knew more than he did, a pseudo-sophisticate bordering on obnoxious. I still think it was a net positive.

At the end of the day, I believe the safest, surefire strategy is to develop a Spike so big that the importance of the Personal Essay pales in comparison to your achievements. You want your Personal Essay to be a supplement to your application, not the only reason you get in.

There are probably some cases where a well-rounded student writes an amazing Personal Essay and gets in through the strength of that. As a Hail Mary if you're a senior and can't improve your application further, this might work. But the results are very variable—some readers may love your essay, others may just think it's OK. Without a strong application to back it up, your mileage may vary.

This is a really fun section. Usually you don't get to read your letter of recommendation because you sign the FERPA waiver. I've also reached out to my letter writers to make sure they're ok with my showing this.

Teacher recommendations are incredibly important to your application. I would say that after your coursework/test scores and activities/honors, they're the 3 rd most important component of your application .

The average teacher sees thousands of students through a career, and so he or she is very well equipped to position you relative to all other students. Furthermore, your teachers are experienced adults—their impressions of you are much more reliable than your impressions of yourself (see my Personal Essay above). They can corroborate your entire Personal Narrative as an outside observer.

The most effective recommendation letters speak both to your academic strengths and to your personality. For the second factor, the teacher needs to have interacted with you meaningfully, ideally both in and out of class. Check out our guide on what makes for effective letters of recommendation .

Starting from sophomore year, I started thinking about whom I connected better with and chose to engage with those teachers more deeply . Because it's standard for colleges to require two teachers in different subjects, I made sure to engage with English and history teachers as well as math and science.

The minimum requirement for a good letter is someone who taught a class in which you did well. I got straight A's in my coursework, so this wasn't an issue.

Beyond this, I had to look for teachers who would be strong advocates for me on both an academic and personal level . These tended to be teachers I vibed more strongly with, and typically these were teachers who demonstrably cared about teaching. This was made clear by their enthusiasm, how they treated students, and how much they went above expectations to help.

I had a lot of teachers who really just phoned it in and treated their job perfunctorily—these people are likely to write pretty blasé letters.

A final note before reading my actual teacher evaluations— you should avoid getting in the mindset where you get to know teachers JUST because you want a good recommendation letter . Your teachers have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of students pass through, and it's much easier to detect insincerity than you think.

If you honestly like learning and are an enthusiastic, responsible, engaging student, a great recommendation letter will follow naturally. The horse should lead the cart.

Read my How to Get a 4.0 GPA for tips on how to interact with teachers in a genuine way that'll make them love you.

Teacher Letter #1: AP Chemistry Teacher

I took AP Chemistry in 10 th grade and had Miss Cherryl Vorak (now Mynster). She was young, having taught for fewer than 5 years when I had her. She was my favorite teacher throughout high school for these reasons:

She was enthusiastic, very caring, and spent a lot of time helping struggling students. She exuded pride in her work and seemed to consider teaching her craft.
She had a kind personality and was universally well liked by her students, even if they weren't doing so well. She was fair in her policies (it probably helped that science is more objective than English). She was also a younger teacher, and this helped her relate to kids more closely.
She was my advocate for much of the US National Chemistry Olympiad stuff, and in this capacity I got to know her even better outside of class. She provided me a lot of training materials, helped me figure out college chemistry, and directed me to resources to learn more.

By the time of the letter writing, I had known her for two full years and engaged with her continuously, even when I wasn't taking a class with her in junior year. We'd build up a strong relationship over the course of many small interactions.

All of this flowed down to the recommendation you see here. Remember, the horse leads the cart.

First, we'll look at the teacher evaluation page. The Common Application now has 16 qualities to rate, rather than the 10 here. But they're largely the same.

You can see a very strong evaluation here, giving me the highest ratings possible for all qualities.

In today's Common Application, all of these Ratings are retained, aside from "Potential for Growth." Today's Common App also now includes Faculty Respect, Maturity, Leadership, Integrity, Reaction to Setbacks, Concern for Others, and TE Overall. You can tell that the updated Common App places a great emphasis on personality.

The most important point here: it is important to be ranked "One of the top few encountered in my career" for as many ratings as possible . If you're part of a big school, this is CRITICAL to distinguish yourself from other students. The more experienced and trustworthy the teacher, the more meaningful this is.

Again, it's a numbers game. Think about the 20,000+ high schools in the country housing 4 million+ high school students—how many people fit in the top 5% bucket?

Thus, being marked merely as Excellent (top 10%) is actually a negative rating , as far as admissions to top colleges is concerned. If you're in top 10%, and someone else with the SAME teacher recommender is being rated as "One of the top ever," it's really hard for the admissions officer to vouch for you over the other student.

You really want to make sure you're one of the best in your school class, if not one of the best the teacher has ever encountered. You'll see below how you can accomplish this.

Next, let's look at her letter.

As you read this, think— what are the interactions that would prompt the teacher to write a recommendation like this? This was a relationship built up in a period of over 2 years, with every small interaction adding to an overall larger impression.

You can see how seriously they take the letter because of all the underlining . This admissions reader underlined things that weren't even underlined in my application, like my US National Chemistry Olympiad awards. It's one thing for a student to claim things about himself—it's another to have a teacher put her reputation on the line to advocate for her student.

The letter here is very strong for a multitude of reasons. First, the length is notable —most letters are just a page long, but this is nearly two full pages , single spaced. This indicates not just her overall commitment to her students but also of her enthusiastic support for me as an applicant.

The structure is effective: first Miss Vorak talks about my academic accomplishments, then about my personal qualities and interactions, then a summary to the future. This is a perfect blend of what effective letters contain .

On the micro-level, her diction and phrasing are precise and effective . She makes my standing clear with specific statements : "youngest student…top excelling student among the two sections" and "one of twenty students in the nation." She's clear about describing why my achievements are notable and the effort I put in, like studying college-level chemistry and studying independently.

When describing my personality, she's exuberant and fleshes out a range of dimensions: "conscientious, motivated and responsible," "exhibits the qualities of a leader," "actively seeks new experiences," "charismatic," "balanced individual with a warm personality and sense of humor." You can see how she's really checking off all the qualities colleges care about.

Overall, Miss Vorak's letter perfectly supports my Personal Narrative —my love for science, my overall academic performance, and my personality. I'm flattered and grateful to have received this support. This letter was important to complement the overall academic performance and achievements shown on the rest of my application.

Teacher Letter #2: AP English Language Teacher

My second teacher Mrs. Swift was another favorite. A middle-aged, veteran English teacher, the best way I would describe her is "fiery." She was invigorating and passionate, always trying to get a rise out of students and push their thinking, especially in class discussions. Emotionally she was a reliable source of support for students.

First, the evaluation:

You can see right away that her remarks are terser. She didn't even fill out the section about "first words that come to mind to describe this student."

You might chalk this up to my not being as standout of a student in her mind, or her getting inundated with recommendation letter requests after over a decade of teaching.

In ratings, you can see that I only earned 3 of the "one of the top in my career." There are a few explanations for this. As a teacher's career lengthens, it gets increasingly hard to earn this mark. I probably also didn't stand out as much as I did to my Chemistry teacher—most of my achievement was in science (which she wasn't closely connected to), and I had talented classmates. Regardless, I did appreciate the 3 marks she gave me.

Now, the letter. Once again, as you read this letter, think: what are the hundreds of micro-interactions that would have made a teacher write a letter like this?

Overall, this letter is very strong. It's only one page long, but her points about my personality are the critical piece of this recommendation. She also writes with the flair of an English teacher:

"In other situations where students would never speak their minds, he showed no hesitation to voice questions, thoughts, and ideas."

"controversial positions often being the spark that set off the entire class"

"ability to take the quiet and shy student and actively engage"…"went out of my way to partner him with other students who needed"

"strength of conviction"…"raw, unbridled passion"…"He will argue on any topic that has touched a nerve."

These comments most support the personality aspect of my Personal Narrative—having an irreverent, bold personality and not being afraid of speaking my mind. She stops just short of making me sound obnoxious and argumentative. An experienced teacher vouching for this adds so much more weight than just my writing it about myself.

Teacher recommendations are some of the most important components of your application. Getting very strong letters take a lot of sustained, genuine interaction over time to build mutual trust and respect. If you want detailed advice on how to interact with teachers earnestly, check out my How to Get a 4.0 GPA and Better Grades guide .

Let's go to the final recommendation, from the school counselor.

Now known as: School Report

The first piece of this is reporting your academic status and how the school works overall. There's not much to say here, other than the fact that my Principal wrote my recommendation for me, which we'll get into next.

Counselor Recommendation

Now known as: Counselor Recommendation

Let's talk about my school principal writing my recommendation, rather than a school counselor.

This was definitely advantageous—remember how, way up top in Educational Data, the reader circled the "Principal." Our Principal only wrote a handful of these recommendations each year , often for people who worked closely with him, like student body presidents. So it was pretty distinctive that I got a letter from our Principal, compared to other leading applicants from my school.

This was also a blessing because our counseling department was terrible . Our school had nearly 1,000 students per grade, and only 1 counselor per grade. They were overworked and ornery, and because they were the gatekeepers of academic enrollment (like class selection and prerequisites), this led to constant frictions in getting the classes you wanted.

I can empathize with them, because having 500+ neurotic parents pushing for advantages for their own kids can get REALLY annoying really fast. But the counseling department was still the worst part of our high school administration, and I could have guessed that the letters they wrote were mediocre because they just had too many students.

So how did my Principal come to write my recommendation and not those for hundreds of other students?

I don't remember exactly how this came to be, to be honest. I didn't strategize to have him write a letter for me years in advance. I didn't even interact with him much at all until junior year, when I got on his radar because of my national rankings. Come senior year I might have talked to him about my difficulty in reaching counselors and asked that he write my recommendation. Since I was a top student he was probably happy to do this.

He was very supportive, but as you can tell from the letter to come, it was clear he didn't know me that well.

Interestingly, the prompt for the recommendation has changed. It used to start with: "Please write whatever you think is important about this student."

Now, it starts with: " Please provide comments that will help us differentiate this student from others ."

The purpose of the recommendation has shifted to the specific: colleges probably found that one counselor was serving hundreds of students, so the letters started getting mushy and indistinguishable from each other.

Here's the letter:

This letter is probably the weakest overall of all my letters. It reads more like a verbal resume than a personal account of how he understands me.

Unlike my two teacher recommendations, he doesn't comment on the nature of our interactions or about my personality (because he truly didn't understand them well). He also misreported by SAT score as 1530 instead of 1600 (I did score a 1530 in an early test, but my 1600 was ready by January 2004, so I don't know what source he was using).

Notably, the letter writer didn't underline anything.

I still appreciate that he wrote my letter, and it was probably more effective than a generic counselor letter. But this didn't add much to my application.

At this point, we've covered my entire Common Application. This is the same application I sent to every school I applied to, including Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. Thanks for reading this far—I hope you've gotten a lot out of this already.

If you keep reading to the end, I'll have advice for both younger students and current applicants to build the strongest application possible.

Next, we'll go over the Harvard Supplemental Application, which of course is unique to Harvard.

For most top colleges like Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and so on, you will need to complete a supplemental application to provide more info than what's listed on the Common Application.

Harvard was and is the same. The good news is that it's an extra chance for you to share more about yourself and keep pushing your Personal Narrative.

There are four major components here:

The application form
Writing supplement essay
Supplementary recommendations
Supplemental application materials

I'll take you through the application section by section.

Harvard Supplement Form

First, the straightforward info and questions.

This section is pretty straightforward and is similar to what you'd see on a Columbia application.

I planned to live in a Harvard residence, as most students do.

Just as in my Common App, I noted that I was most likely to study biological sciences, choose Medicine as my vocation, and participate in orchestra, writing, and research as my extracurriculars. Nothing surprising here—it's all part of my Personal Narrative.

Interestingly, at the time I was "absolutely certain" about my vocational goals, which clearly took a detour once I left medical school to pursue entrepreneurship to create PrepScholar...

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I had the space to list some additional honors, where I listed some musical honors that didn't make the cut in my Common App.

Here are the next two pages of the Harvard supplemental form.

The most interesting note here is that the admissions officer wrote a question mark above "Music tape or CD." Clearly this was inconsistent with my Personal Narrative —if violin was such an important part of my story, why didn't I want to include it?

The reason was that I was actually pretty mediocre at violin and was nowhere near national-ranked. Again, remember how many concertmasters in the thousands of orchestras there are in the world—I wasn't good enough to even be in the top 3 chairs in my school orchestra (violin was very competitive).

I wanted to focus attention on my most important materials, which for my Personal Narrative meant my research work. You'll see these supplementary materials later.

Additional Essays

Now known as: Writing Supplement

For the most part, the Harvard supplemental essay prompt has stayed the same. You can write about a topic of your choice or about any of the suggestions. There are now two more prompts that weren't previously there: "What you would want your future college roommate to know about you" and "How you hope to use your college education."

Even though this is optional, I highly recommend you write something here. Again, you have so few chances in the overall application to convey your personal voice—an extra 500 words gives you a huge opportunity. I would guess that the majority of admitted Harvard students submit a Writing Supplement.

After a lot of brainstorming, I settled on the idea that I wanted to balance my application by writing about the major non-academic piece of my Personal Narrative—my music training . Also, I don't think I explicitly recognized this at the time, but I wanted to distance myself from the Asian-American stereotype—driven entirely by parent pressure, doing most things perfunctorily and without interest. I wanted to show I'd broken out of that mold.

Here's my essay:

Reading it now, I actually think this was a pretty bad essay, and I cringe to high heaven. But once again, let's focus on the positive first.

I used my violin teacher as a vehicle for talking about what the violin meant to me. (You can tell I love the concept of the vehicle in essays.) He represented passion for the violin—I represented my academic priorities. Our personal conflict was really the conflict between what we represented.

By the end of the essay, I'd articulated the value of musical training to me—it was cathartic and a way to balance my hard academic pursuits.

Halfway in the essay, I also explicitly acknowledged the Asian stereotype of parents who drove their kids, and said my parents were no different. The reader underlined this sentence. By pointing this out and showing how my interest took on a life of its own, I wanted to distance myself from that stereotype.

So overall I think my aims were accomplished.

Despite all that, this essay was WAY overdramatic and overwrought . Some especially terrible lines:

"I was playing for that cathartic moment when I could feel Tchaikovsky himself looking over my shoulder."

"I was wandering through the fog in search of a lighthouse, finally setting foot on a dock pervaded by white light."

OK, please. Who really honestly feels this way? This is clumsy, contrived writing. It signals insincerity, actually, which is bad.

To be fair, all of this is grounded in truth. I did have a strict violin teacher who did get pretty upset when I showed lack of improvement. I did appreciate music as a diversion to round out my academic focus. I did practice hard each day, and I did have a pretty gross callus on my pinky.

But I would have done far better by making it more sincere and less overworked.

As an applicant, you're tempted to try so hard to impress your reader. You want to show that you're Worthy of Consideration. But really the best approach is to be honest.

I think this essay was probably neutral to my application, not a strong net positive or net negative.

Supplementary Recommendations

Harvard lets you submit letters from up to two Other Recommenders. The Princeton application, Penn application, and others are usually the same.

Unlike the other optional components (the Additional Information in the Common App, and the Supplementary Essay), I would actually consider these letters optional. The reader gets most of the recommendation value from your teacher recommendations—these are really supplementary.

A worthwhile Other Recommender:

has supervised an activity or honor that is noteworthy
has interacted with you extensively and can speak to your personality
is likely to support you as one of the best students they've interacted with

If your Other Recommenders don't fulfill one or more of these categories, do NOT ask for supplementary letters. They'll dilute your application without adding substantively to it.

To beat a dead horse, the primary component of my Personal Narrative was my science and research work. So naturally I chose supervisors for my two major research experiences to write supplemental letters.

First was the Director of Research Science Institute (the selective summer research program at MIT). The second was from the head of Jisan Research Institute, where I did Computer Science research.

This letter validates my participation in RSI and incorporates the feedback from my research mentor, David Simon. At the time, the RSI students were the most talented students I had met, so I'm also flattered by some of the things the letter writer said, like "Allen stood out early on as a strong performer in academic settings."

I didn't get to know the letter writer super well, so he commented mainly on my academic qualifications and comments from my mentor.

My mentor, who was at one of the major Harvard-affiliated hospitals, said some very nice things about my research ability, like:

"is performing in many ways at the level of a graduate student"

"impressed with Allen's ability to read even advanced scientific publications and synthesize his understanding"

Once again, it's much more convincing for a seasoned expert to vouch for your abilities than for you to claim your own abilities.

My first research experience was done at Jisan Research Institute, a small private computer science lab run by a Caltech PhD. The research staff were mainly high school students like me and a few grad students/postdocs.

My research supervisor, Sanza Kazadi, wrote the letter. He's requested that I not publish the letter, so I'll only speak about his main points.

In the letter, he focused on the quality of my work and leadership. He said that I had a strong focus in my work, and my research moved along more reliably than that of other students. I was independent in my work in swarm engineering, he says, putting together a simulation of the swarm and publishing a paper in conference proceedings. He talked about my work in leading a research group and placing a high degree of trust in me.

Overall, a strong recommendation, and you get the gist of his letter without reading it.

One notable point—both supplemental letters had no marks on them. I really think this means they place less emphasis on the supplementary recommendations, compared to the teacher recommendations.

Finally, finally, we get to the very last piece of my application.

Let me beat the dead horse even deader. Because research was such a core part of my Personal Narrative, I decided to include abstracts of both of my papers. The main point was to summarize the body of work I'd done and communicate the major results.

As Harvard says, "These materials are entirely optional; please only submit them if you have unusual talents."

This is why I chose not to submit a tape of my music: I don't think my musical skill was unusually good.

And frankly, I don't think my research work was that spectacular. Unlike some of my very accomplished classmates, I hadn't ranked nationally in prestigious competitions like ISEF and Siemens. I hadn't published my work in prominent journals.

Regardless, I thought these additions would be net positive, if only marginally so.

I made sure to note where the papers had been published or were entering competitions, just to ground the work in some achievement.

Recommendation Letters: Hopefully you should have developed strong, genuine relationships with teachers you care about. The letters should flow naturally from here, and you will only need to do gentle prodding to make sure they meet deadlines.

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Writing Application Essays and Personal Statements

Some applications ask that you write an essay that draws on more personal reflections. These essays, sometimes called Personal Statements, are an opportunity to show the selection committee who you are as a person: your story, your values, your interests, and why you—and not your peer with a similar resume—are a perfect fit for this opportunity. These narrative essays allow you to really illustrate the person behind the resume, showcasing not only what you think but how you think.

Before you start writing, it’s helpful to really consider the goals of your personal statement:

To learn more about you as a person: What would you like the selection committee to know about you that can't be covered by other application materials (e.g. resume, transcript, letters of recommendation)? What have been the important moments/influences throughout your journey that have led to where (and who!) you are?
To learn how you think about the unsolved problems in your field of study/interest: What experiences demonstrate how you've been taught to think and how you tackle challenges?
To assess whether you fit with the personal qualities sought by the selection committee: How can you show that you are thoughtful and mature with a good sense of self; that you embody the character, qualities, and experience to be personally ready to thrive in this experience (graduate school and otherwise)? Whatever opportunity you are seeking—going to graduate school, spending the year abroad, conducting public service—is going to be challenging intellectually, emotionally, and financially. This is your opportunity to show that you have the energy and perseverance to succeed.

In general, your job through your personal statement is to show, don’t tell the committee about your journey. If you choose to retell specific anecdotes from your life, focus on one or two relavant, formative experiences—academic, professional, extracurricular—that are emblematic of your development. The essay is where you should showcase the depth of your maturity, not the breadth—that's the resume's job!

Determining the theme of an essay

The personal statement is usually framed with an overarching theme. But how do you come up with a theme that is unique to you? Here are some questions to get you started:

Question your individuality: What distinguishes you from your peers? What challenges have you overcome? What was one instance in your life where your values were called into question?
Question your field of study: What first interested you about your field of study? How has your interest in the field changed and developed? How has this discipline shaped you? What are you most passionate about relative to your field?
Question your non-academic experiences: Why did you choose the internships, clubs, or activites you did? And what does that suggest about what you value?

Once you have done some reflection, you may notice a theme emerging (justice? innovation? creativity?)—great! Be careful to think beyond your first idea, too, though. Sometimes, the third or fourth theme to come to your mind is the one that will be most compelling to center your essay around.

Writing style

Certainly, your personal statement can have moments of humor or irony that reflect your personality, but the goal is not to show off your creative writing skills or present you as a sparkling conversationalist (that can be part of your interview!). Here, the aim is to present yourself as an interesting person, with a unique background and perspective, and a great future colleague. You should still use good academic writing—although this is not a research paper nor a cover letter—but the tone can be a bit less formal.

Communicating your values

Our work is often linked to our own values, identities, and personal experiences, both positive and negative. However, there can be a vulnerability to sharing these things with strangers. Know that you don't have to write about your most intimate thoughts or experiences, if you don't want to. If you do feel that it’s important that a selection committee knows this about you, reflect on why you would like for them to know that, and then be sure that it has an organic place in your statement. Your passion will come through in how you speak about these topics and their importance in forming you as an individual and budding scholar.

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Harvard University’s 2023-24 Essay Prompts

Diversity short response.

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?

Intellectual Experience Short Response

Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.

Extracurricular Short Response

Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are.

Future Goals Short Response

How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future?

Roommate Short Response

Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.

Common App Personal Essay

The essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice. What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response. Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don‘t feel obligated to do so.

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you‘ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

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Extracurriculars.

How to Write a Great Supplemental Essay for Harvard

This article is a first-person account by Elias Miller, a CollegeVine livestream contributor. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

Respond to the prompt.

Grammar and Sentence Structure

Bring Meaning to Your Writing

Use your word limit.

Any student interested in applying to Harvard can do so via the Common Application, the Coalition Application, or Questbridge. Applicants can submit supplemental essays with their application. In this article, we break down tips and tricks for writing a great supplemental essay.

Any supplemental essay that you write should directly respond to the prompt. This might seem like an obvious tactic, but many students’ essays fail to accomplish this. A common mistake is taking a supplemental essay written for one school and using it for another prompt for a different school. While you may have a decently written essay to submit, it won’t specifically answer the prompt.

Some students write a supplemental essay that simply doesn’t answer the prompt. Maybe they have a story in their head that they want to share, but it doesn’t work with the essay, or they are trying to be unique. Whatever the reason, it is bad practice not to answer the prompt. Admissions officers will see that you aren’t able to follow directions at the very beginning, and they will assume that you won’t follow directions as a student on their campus. The same rule applies to the word limit.

Grammar and Sentence Structure

Good grammar, correct spelling, and sentence structure are crucial aspects of a well-written essay. Vary your sentence length and structure to keep your writing engaging. If you have a series of long sentences, try to follow up with a short sentence so your reader has a mental break while reading. Conversely, if you have too many short sentences in a row, your writing could lack flow and emotion, so be sure to include long sentences too.

Also, try to make good word choices. It is natural for you to get a bit tired while writing essays during the application cycle, but the words that you pick have specific meanings. Words are how we express our thoughts and emotions, so ensure that your words accurately share the message that you want to get across. If you are writing and put down a word that doesn’t feel quite right, a great tip is to put a bracket around it and come back to it a week later. This is an excellent way to approach word choice with fresh eyes.

Limiting redundancies and repetition is the easiest way to bring meaning to your writing. Part of this means making suitable transitions between sentences and paragraphs. You don’t want to end a topic too abruptly, as that could confuse the reader, but you also want to use your word count wisely. It’s a delicate balance, and a great way to know if you need help with paragraph transitions is by having someone proofread your essay .

Also, be sure to evaluate your writing. Each sentence serves a purpose, like contributing to the overarching narrative, adding details, and explaining an event or topic. Read each sentence in your essay and glean its purpose. Then, try to categorize that purpose. In the end, make sure all the sentences flow together logically, with no repetition.

This last tip is relatively straightforward. There aren’t many things about your application that you can use to convey your personality and passions. While your GPA and test scores enable admissions officers to determine what kind of student you are in the classroom, your essays are where admissions officers get to learn who you are. If your essay comes in significantly below the word limit, you are missing out on valuable space. Every sentence you write is a glimpse into who you are, so by not maximizing your word count, you are showing less of yourself to your readers. Your essay doesn’t need to match the word limit exactly, but if you have over 30 words left, you might want to check if any details are missing.

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First-years recount the agony and the ecstasy

Late nights. Discarded drafts. That one great idea. Most high school seniors would agree that the admissions essay is the hardest part of a college application. The Gazette asked first-year students to reflect on theirs — the writing, the inspiration, the hand-wringing — and the lessons learned.

Share this article

Louisville, Ky.

I stayed up really late at first, when my inhibitions were down, so I could write without being self-critical and brainstorm ideas. I probably went through 20 ideas, narrowed them down to five, wrote drafts of five, and then picked one and edited and edited and edited until I finished. All of the days writing the essay were stressful. I wrote about the transition from independence to interdependence and my personal growth that was catalyzed by my parents’ divorce. I reflected on my early independence as a child and how that transitioned to me depending on other people, working together in teams, and leading people to accomplish important things in our community.

“I stayed up really late at first, when my inhibitions were down, so I could write without being self-critical and brainstorm ideas.”

Nick Nocita

Arlington Heights, Ill.

I distinctly remember writing my Harvard essay at Thanksgiving on my phone. The inspiration just came in waves while I was spending time with my family. I talked about my grandmother, who passed around five or six years ago. She was someone who really influenced me in terms of seeing what one can do with a selfless attitude. She had only ever earned a high school education, and she didn’t have the opportunity to go beyond that. Seeing what someone can do with a high school education was amazing for me, to think about what I could do with the power of a prestigious college education. It was such an inspiration that I immediately wanted to start writing about her. My family was watching a football game, and I was pumping out this essay.

“The inspiration just came in waves while I was spending time with my family.”

Divya Amirtharaj

Portland, Ore.

There were a couple of weeks when I was sitting in front of my laptop and getting nothing. But once I figured out what I wanted to write, it was fast; in a day, I was done. In one of my essays, I wrote about growing up in a predominantly white area and a skin condition that I have called vitiligo. I wrote about how those things impacted my identity as an Indian woman. In another, I wrote about how I went from competitive swimming, to lifeguarding, to teaching lessons, to starting a program for free swim lessons for underprivileged kids in my area. It was interesting to go back at the end and see what I had written, summing up my entire life for 17 years.

“It was interesting to go back at the end and see what I had written, summing up my entire life for 17 years.”

Sophie Clivio

Kingston, Jamaica

I did submit my essay with a typo! I wrote it on Google Drive and made a comment to myself and a reference to switching something around. It’s at the bottom of my essay, and I didn’t realize until yesterday. I also wrote the essay as kind of a spoken-word poem. How many people have done that? I did not want to do the whole paragraph thing. I wrote about the culture shock I experienced moving from Jamaica to Milton, Mass., to attend boarding school, in terms of race and identity, because I’m a mixed-race person. I was really happy with the essay. It was very emotional to write, and I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders when I finished it. The typo was disappointing, but it’s fine! I’m here!

“I wrote the essay as kind of a spoken-word poem.”

Marcus Miller

For my essay, I wrote about being an athlete and finding your way after athletics by applying yourself in school. In eighth grade, I broke my femur, and I wrote about overcoming that. Then in my senior year of high school I tore my UCLs in both hands playing football. [That experience] brought me back to the process of rehabbing through injury. My essay was about finding your identity afterward. I’m more of a math and numbers guy, and I probably went through three or four ideas before I found this one.

“I’m more of a math and numbers guy, and I probably went through three or four ideas before I found this one.”

Kylie Simms

Travelers Rest, S.C.

I wrote about living in Milan when I was younger and how it opened my eyes to other perspectives and taught me not to be so quick to judge other people. In middle and high schools, I lived back in my small town in the U.S. and missed those interactions that helped me grow, so I also wrote about wanting to attend Harvard because I wanted to experience those different perspectives again. I didn’t edit my essay a lot because I wanted it to sound authentic and like my voice. I didn’t want to go through and replace all the words with fancier words. I wanted to sound like a person.

“I wanted it to sound authentic and like my voice.”

Alexander Park

Belmont, Mass.

I had just gotten out of the shower and thought, “Oh, I got this.” I remembered this anecdote of me sitting in the back of my grandfather’s car in Korea, and he was telling me about when Korea was a kingdom and about these kings from the Chosun dynasty. It was really interesting learning about this history that I wasn’t able to learn in America from somebody who was super-knowledgeable and cared a lot about it. I remember my sister was leaning on me, and we were driving on the highway. It was very calming and peaceful. So, I wrote about my love for history and my love for listening to stories. A lot of people say that you have to write down your entire life story in however many words you’re given, but you can highlight one really essential aspect of your identity. Telling a story about that is much more compelling than trying to fit everything in.

“Telling a story about that is much more compelling than trying to fit everything in.”

Nayleth Lopez-Lopez

When I started middle school, my mom went back to college. She emigrated from Venezuela and worked in her own convenience store for 17 years. When she started college, I took on the role of helping her edit her essays. In my essay, I wrote about asking for help and how she inspires me to ask for help, because she had the courage to ask her young daughter for help. It was so emotional to write. The first time I asked my mom to read it, I freaked out because she said she didn’t know if she liked it. She thought it was too much about her. But I think it all turned out OK.

“I wrote about … how [my mother] inspires me to ask for help, because she had the courage to ask her young daughter for help.”

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First-Year Applicants

Take the next step in your academic journey.

We seek promising students who will contribute to the Harvard community during their college years, and to society throughout their lives.

While academic accomplishment is important, the Admissions Committee considers many other factors—strong personal qualities, special talents or excellences of all kinds, perspectives formed by unusual personal circumstances, and the ability to take advantage of available resources and opportunities.

First-Year Application Requirements

All first-year applicants—both international and U.S. candidates—must complete the Common Application or Coalition Application by Scoir , along with the required supplements. You will need to submit:

Subsets of questions
An activities list
Personal essay ( Common Application prompts , Coalition Application prompts )
Harvard College Questions for the Common Application or Coalition Application Harvard supplement. There are five required short-answer questions with 200 word limits for each
$85 fee (or request a fee waiver )
AP exam results
IB Actual or Predicted Scores
GCSE/A-Level Actual or Predicted Results
National Leaving Exams Results or Predictions
AP or other examination results are not required, but may be submitted
School Report (which includes a counselor letter) and high school transcript
Teacher Recommendations (2)
Midyear School Report (after your first semester grades)
Final School Report (for admitted students only)

Application Timeline

You may apply to Harvard under either our Restrictive Early Action or our Regular Decision program, both of which allow you to compare admission and financial aid offers from other institutions and to wait until May 1 to make a final college choice.

Your materials are due by the deadline for whichever round you choose; high school counselors may submit supporting materials up to a week after the deadline if necessary.

Restrictive Early Action candidates apply by November 1 and receive notification by mid-December .
Regular Decision candidates apply by January 1 and receive notification by the end of March .

You are welcome to apply to Harvard using the Common Application which opens August 1, or the Coalition Application, Powered by Scoir, which opens August 15.

First-year Timeline Questions

View detailed application timeline.

Spring or Summer (prior to the year you apply) Consider taking the following tests:

SAT or ACT - Harvard requires the submission of standardized testing

Fall (of the year you apply) As early in the fall as possible, please submit:

Your online application to Harvard, via the Common Application or the Coalition Application, Powered by Scoir. This is needed to open your admissions file, track your documents, and set up a possible alumni interview.
The $85 application fee or a fee waiver request . You may send the application supplements at a later date, preferably no later than 2 weeks after the application deadline.

October 31 Restrictive Early Action applicants: We request that you submit your required test scores by the end of October. However, you are still eligible to apply using the November series as they should reach us in time for consideration.

November 1 Restrictive Early Action applicants: Your portions of the application are due by November 1 at 11:59pm (your local time); high school counselors may submit supporting materials up to one week later if necessary.

Also submit your financial aid application so that if you are admitted, we will be able to send you financial aid information in mid-December when decisions are released.

Early November If you are applying Regular Decision, we recommend that you submit standardized test scores from the November series or earlier, though you may submit December scores (SAT) or February scores (ACT).

Mid-December Restrictive Early Action applicants: Decisions released.

January 1 Your portions of the application are due by January 1 at 11:59pm (your local time); high school counselors may submit supporting materials up to one week later if necessary.

February 1 Notify the Admissions Office ( [email protected] ) if you have not received your application confirmation email.

Submit your financial aid application (if still pending), so that if you are admitted, we will be able to send you financial aid information in late March when decisions are released.

Mid-February Request that your school submit your Midyear School Report forms with your most recent grades.

End of March First-year admission decisions released.

Early May Reply deadline for admitted students. No deposit required.

How and when to submit ACT or SAT scores (for students submitting standardized test scores)

You may self report your SAT and ACT test scores. Admitted students who decide to enroll at Harvard College and have submitted self-reported ACT or SAT test scores will be required to submit official test scores at the time of enrollment.

If you are applying Restrictive Early Action, we would like your testing results by the end of October; however, you may submit the November series if needed.

For Regular Decision, although it is possible to submit scores from tests taken as late as the February, we recommend that you submit testing as early as possible.

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Restrictive Early Action

Applying to Harvard under the Restrictive Early Action program empowers you to make a college choice early. Early applicants apply by November 1 and hear from us by mid-December.

If your record and accomplishments have been consistently strong over time, Restrictive Early Action may be an attractive choice. You don’t have to commit to coming to Harvard, but you will learn earlier if it is an option for you.

Consider if Restrictive Early Action is Right for You

What is restrictive early action.

Harvard welcomes interested applicants to apply under our Restrictive Early Action plan by November 1 in order to be notified of a decision in mid-December. Restrictive Early Action is a non-binding early program, signifying that if admitted, you are not obligated to attend, and have until May 1 to reply to our offer of admission.

IMPORTANT:

If you are applying to Harvard under Restrictive Early Action, you may not apply to any other private institution under an Early Decision, Early Action, or Restrictive Early Action plan, or to a binding early program at a public university.
You are welcome to apply early to any public university, military academy, or university outside of the United States under a non-binding program.
Additionally, you are able to apply to other universities under their Regular Decision or Early Decision II programs.
If your application is deferred in the early action round, you may apply to a binding early decision program at another college (i.e. Early Decision II).
You may apply for scholarships or special academic programs with an early deadline at another institution, public or private, if the timing is proven to be a necessary aspect for consideration, and the outcome is non-binding.
Harvard will meet the full financial need of admitted students regardless of whether they apply Restrictive Early Action or Regular Decision.

Is it easier to be accepted if I apply Restrictive Early Action?

Harvard does not offer an advantage to students who apply early. While admit rates tend to be higher in Restrictive Early Action, this reflects the remarkable strength of the applicant pool rather than a benefit of application timing. For any individual student, the final decision likely would be comparable whether the student applies Restrictive Early Action or Regular Decision.

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While Sandel argues that pursuing perfection through genetic engineering would decrease our sense of humility, he claims that the sense of solidarity we would lose is also important.

This thesis summarizes several points in Sandel’s argument, but it does not make a claim about how we should understand his argument. A reader who read Sandel’s argument would not also need to read an essay based on this descriptive thesis.

Broad thesis (arguable, but difficult to support with evidence)

Michael Sandel’s arguments about genetic engineering do not take into consideration all the relevant issues.

This is an arguable claim because it would be possible to argue against it by saying that Michael Sandel’s arguments do take all of the relevant issues into consideration. But the claim is too broad. Because the thesis does not specify which “issues” it is focused on—or why it matters if they are considered—readers won’t know what the rest of the essay will argue, and the writer won’t know what to focus on. If there is a particular issue that Sandel does not address, then a more specific version of the thesis would include that issue—hand an explanation of why it is important.

Arguable thesis with analytical claim

While Sandel argues persuasively that our instinct to “remake” (54) ourselves into something ever more perfect is a problem, his belief that we can always draw a line between what is medically necessary and what makes us simply “better than well” (51) is less convincing.

This is an arguable analytical claim. To argue for this claim, the essay writer will need to show how evidence from the article itself points to this interpretation. It’s also a reasonable scope for a thesis because it can be supported with evidence available in the text and is neither too broad nor too narrow.

Arguable thesis with normative claim

Given Sandel’s argument against genetic enhancement, we should not allow parents to decide on using Human Growth Hormone for their children.

This thesis tells us what we should do about a particular issue discussed in Sandel’s article, but it does not tell us how we should understand Sandel’s argument.

Questions to ask about your thesis

Is the thesis truly arguable? Does it speak to a genuine dilemma in the source, or would most readers automatically agree with it?
Is the thesis too obvious? Again, would most or all readers agree with it without needing to see your argument?
Is the thesis complex enough to require a whole essay's worth of argument?
Is the thesis supportable with evidence from the text rather than with generalizations or outside research?
Would anyone want to read a paper in which this thesis was developed? That is, can you explain what this paper is adding to our understanding of a problem, question, or topic?
picture_as_pdf Thesis

Harvard University 2023-24 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 1

You Have:

Harvard University 2023-24 Application Essay Question Explanations

The Requirements: Five essays of 200 words or fewer

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Diversity , Activity , Oddball

Harvard is asking 2023-24 applicants to pen five short essays in response to the following prompts:

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* (200 words).

Admissions wants to know what has made you into the person you are today and how those experiences will affect the way you engage with and contribute to the Harvard community. So, tell a story about an experience that has shaped you and connect the lessons you learned to the ways in which you will contribute to diversity on campus next fall. Start by thinking about the kinds of experiences you’ve had in the communities you’ve been a part of thus far. Then, once you’ve identified the life experience(s) that have shaped you, think ahead to how those will impact your time at Harvard. Admissions wants to know what your area of influence will look like on campus—whether that be applying the leadership skills you developed in your community theater troupe to the drama productions at Farkas Hall, celebrating intersectional identities with other members of the queer Jewish community with BAGELS , or connecting and networking with your peers through Harvard Black Students Association . Whatever you write about, make sure your response to this prompt shows that you have put some serious thought into the things that have shaped you and how you will apply those lessons and experiences to your time at Harvard next fall.

Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.* (200 words)

It’s no surprise that Harvard is hoping to invite students to campus who are excited about learning, so take this opportunity to geek out about an awesome learning experience you had recently. Maybe you find marine life to be absolutely fascinating, so you’ve been reading up on the most dangerous creatures in the deep dark sea (and their preferred prey, of course). Perhaps you had the opportunity to take a class or seminar with a thought leader you really admire or you went on a reading retreat that expanded your horizons. Whatever it may be, this is the perfect opportunity to show admissions your passion for pursuing knowledge and reflect on the impact it had on you.

Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are.* (200 words)

Next up is a fun twist on the classic activity essay, which asks you to expand on an extracurricular endeavor that has shaped who you are. Our advice is to focus on one or two activities that have made the biggest impact on you. Although we usually urge students to write about items that haven’t appeared elsewhere on their application, the activity essay is an exception since it specifically asks you to address an item on your resume. The trick here is to pick something with meat! Maybe your trip to visit your extended family members in Thailand opened your eyes to how limited your world had been in your small Midwestern town. Perhaps four years of debate club have nurtured your communication skills and ability to speak up for yourself. Whatever activity you choose to write about, be sure to pick one that has been fundamental to your understanding of who you are.

How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future?* (200 words)

Admissions already knows a bit about what makes you you; now they want to know why Harvard is the obvious next step in the trajectory of your life. Take some time to meditate on what you hope your life will look like after Harvard—we’re talking ten, twenty years in the future. Once you have an idea of what you hope for that person to be like or do on an average day, invite admissions into your vision and show them how a Harvard education is a pivotal step (or three) on the ladder of success to get there. Regardless of your vision, your response should cite programs, activities, and organizations that Harvard offers. Anyone can say they hope to become a renowned doctor or an attorney for the people, but not everyone is going to do their homework to show admissions that they’ve thought through exactly how they want to get there. Of course, admissions isn’t going to hold you to your blueprint, but they do want to see that you’ve given not only your decision to apply to Harvard some serious thought, but your life post-graduation as well.

Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.* (200 words)

With this prompt, admissions is hoping to see a different side of you, perhaps one that is less intellectual (unless that’s just who you are, in which case, rock on with your nerdy self) and a little more casual. Start by making a list. Write down everything that comes to mind. You can edit and revise later—no idea is too silly to jot down! Maybe you think your roommates should know that you just can’t not sing while in the shower (we’re talking Celine Dion, Adele, Whitney Houston) or that you make the meanest plate of rice and beans in your pressure cooker (and you love to share). Once you’ve narrowed your list down to three (3) things, see if you can weave together a narrative that gives admissions a little taste of what it would be like to hang out in the dorms with you. How do you connect with your peers? What most excites you about residential life? What are the quirks that make you you ? By the time admissions puts down your application, they should feel like your personality is jumping off the page.

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What Harvard Business School Really Wants: How To Ace The HBS Essay

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What HBS really wants from your admissions essays

The Harvard Business School MBA application includes a single, staggeringly general essay question: “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?”

For many applicants, this question is maddeningly wide-open. It’s so non-specific it can be paralyzing. And HBS offers a generous word limit of 900 words to tell your story. With that much space and so little to go on, candidates may find themselves wondering, “ Where do I begin? What do I share?”

As a Fortuna Admissions coach and former Associate Director at HBS leading Ph.D. admissions and supporting the MBA Interview Board, I spend a lot of time putting this essay into context for anxious candidates. Everyone wants to know, what is HBS looking for?

Beyond credentials, HBS is looking for character. The Admissions Committee seeks principled, passionate individuals who have the potential to fulfill the HBS mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. While this aspect is readily understood, the process of how to convey this is far more complex.

Character is not quantifiable. It doesn’t show up on a resume, in your test scores, or through grades or your transcripts. Therefore, the essay is often the make-or break factor in your HBS application. It’s your opportunity to show them what you are made of and what drives you. The competition is fierce, so this is the place where you can convince them you have what it takes to be part of this incredible community.

Remember that the majority of applicants will come with strong credentials. Those credentials get you to the threshold, but they won’t get the interview, because Harvard has seen it all. Once you’ve reached a certain level of exceptionalism in terms of being brilliant, driven, and dedicated, it’s all about your story. Think of your essay as drafting a “movie trailer” for your life; it should be engaging, interesting, with a level of drama and a pace that keeps the story moving. A great essay will entice the reader to say wow, I cannot wait to meet this person and learn more.

Here are five key tips for writing a powerful HBS essay:

1. do not produce a highlight reel of professional achievements.

The biggest temptation — and the biggest snooze — is a “resume-to-prose” essay, in which you restate your accomplishments. Nothing will put your wearied admissions reader to sleep faster. And frankly, staying awake was the biggest challenge I faced when reading applications, from my time at INSEAD to HBS and even doing admissions work at Stanford.

Too many applicants wrote essays that were boring, lifeless, and dull. What really made my eyes glaze over were narratives from candidates who sailed through life, having never failed or struggled, who always excelled at everything and then segued to the details of some deal or consulting project.

This can’t be overstated: Your essay must not read simply as a story of successes and accomplishments . It’s a common pitfall, and it robs your story of the potential for making an emotional connection. Above all, write an essay you yourself would want to read.

So, when HBS asks you, “what else do you want us to know?” focus on the “what ELSE.” You have already detailed your job experiences in the short answer section of the application along with your resume. Do not restate these same facts again, and again. Remember, they know what consultants and bankers do in the office, so unless you are introducing something new or connecting your work to a broader theme, avoid trying to “show off” by writing at length about work achievements.

2. Be open, imperfect, and REAL

I find it disheartening that my strongest piece of advice, which is to tell the truth and be yourself, is also so difficult at times. Most people are afraid to be real, and they spend hours polishing and perfecting an image or “brand” that is an illusion. When you take the risk to be yourself, to be vulnerable, it inspires a human connection. It gives you credibility. What’s more interesting to read: the story of someone who sailed through life and had everything work out perfectly, every single time? Or the story of someone who struggled, faced extraordinary challenges, and demonstrated the tenacity and resilience to not only survive but to thrive?

That’s why the more personal and open you can be in terms of why you do what you do, the more memorable and appealing you’ll be — because it’s so rare. Few people are rigorously honest, and fewer are vulnerable in the process of storytelling.

Some of the best essays I have ever read open with the story of a failure and how that shaped them. From my perspective, if you are never making mistakes, you aren’t working hard enough. Besides, there is something so powerful about the truth when you read it — it hits you and tunes up your curiosity. And that’s what you want to inspire — enough enthusiasm and curiosity for the admissions committee to want to meet you and learn more. Always remember: this is a search for authenticity.

3. Show vs. tell

In the process of storytelling, the details are everything. Avoid the temptation to qualify your experience or tell the readers what they are supposed to think. Show them instead. For example, what is more powerful — someone saying, “I had a horrible flight,” or, “We pulled onto the runway, and I could see from my window the dark clouds above; the captain announced once cleared for takeoff, we were in for a bumpy ride. I could feel my pulse quickening.”

While you want to avoid detailing a terrible flight experience for the HBS adcom, this concept is critical for effective storytelling. Show them what you have been through and the challenges you have faced through vivid recollection. A consultant can help you sift through your experience to help you identify what to focus on. Generally, experiences that shaped your values and attitude toward life are a great place to start. You might talk about a challenge, for example, or a time you fell and picked yourself back up. Underscore how it shaped you as a human being and what you learned from the experience and remember to SHOW them the impact vs. simply telling them.

4. Connect the dots

Your essay should have what I refer to as the “thread of continuity” that will serve as a unifying theme. Perhaps you can introduce an experience that was momentous or marked an important milestone in your opening paragraph. As you weave together stories that show the committee who you are and the twists and turns your life has taken, you will want to revisit this theme at different points in your story as a way to unify the narrative. The conclusion should serve to tie it all together. This may sound formulaic, but rest assured, this is a tried-and-true model that allows you to connect the dots for your reader. Any great story or even speech — from Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream to the latest Hollywood blockbuster — has a cohesive flow and a pace that keeps the audience’s attention. There is always an intangible driving force that builds, which is an essential ingredient to a winning essay.

5. Respect the reader’s time

HBS previously gave no word count. Now they limit the essay to 900 words, or about two pages. As noted above, content is critical, details matter, and some stories need more space. One of the most powerful essays I have ever worked on with a client was one word under 2,000, and the feedback he received in the interview was that his essay was one of the best the committee had ever read, and his interviewer thanked him for his openness and honesty.

That said, a shorter word limit helps keep you focused. If you can showcase your unique facets succinctly in fewer words, that’s fine. Being pithy and succinct shows discipline and humility. It also shows that you recognize your audience and respect the busy application reader’s time.

Ultimately, HBS is looking for people who are ambitious and extraordinary, with a habit of leadership, a history of engaging the community, and the appetite and aptitude for success that separates them from the simply smart and hard working. Beyond a demonstrated professional track record and impressive credentials, they also want to see a proclivity for consistently exceeding goals.

More than that, they’re seeking mission-driven doers who are motivated by a deeper purpose and poised to make the institution proud. Your challenge — and opportunity — with the essay is to fuse that with a captivating story of who you are as an individual. And if that feels daunting, keep in mind that no one else has lived your story but you, which makes you uniquely qualified to tell it.

For more tips on applying to Harvard Business School, view my short video strategy session , or read my related article on Acing the HBS Interview.

DON’T MISS: READ THREE ACTUAL HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL MBA ESSAYS

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What All Of The 3.6% Admitted Students At Harvard Have In Common This Year

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Harvard College

Every year, tens of thousands of students from around the world apply to Harvard University in the hopes of attending one of the nation’s most prestigious universities. To write that receiving a coveted letter of admission is challenging is a gross understatement—only 3.59% of Harvard hopefuls were admitted during the 2023-24 application cycle. Earning acceptance in the cutthroat admissions landscape requires strategy and planning. While Harvard's admitted class is composed of a diverse group of students with widely varied interests and backgrounds, there are a few guiding commonalities that unite them.

As they develop their interests and build their applicant profiles, Ivy League hopefuls should keep in mind that successful students who are bound for elite institutions showcase:

1. Academic Prowess

While academic skills are not the sum total of what a student needs to get into Harvard, they are a foundational component of a successful application. Students can demonstrate their preparedness for the rigors of Harvard academics in two ways—through a strong GPA (particularly in classes related to their intended major) and through standardized test scores. Dartmouth notes in their announcement of their reinstated standardized testing policy that students’ perception of what admissions officers look for in scores is strongly misunderstood. The press release states: “The absence of such scores underscores longstanding misperceptions about what represents a "high" or a "low" score; those definitions are not binary. A score that falls below our class mean but several hundred points above the mean at the student’s school is "high" and, as such, it has value as one factor among many in our holistic assessment.” While strong candidates typically submit scores that match or exceed an institution’s published average for admitted students, this is not always the case, and students should be mindful that their scores will be evaluated within the larger context of their application.

2. Singular Passions

Although a stellar academic record and impressive standardized test scores are critical for admission, they are merely the foundation of a successful Ivy League application. Harvard and other top colleges seek students with more than great transcripts—students who not only excel academically but who also possess a guiding passion, often one that they have mobilized in service of their communities. As Harvard’s admissions website states : “There is no formula for gaining admission to Harvard. Academic accomplishment in high school is important, but the Admissions Committee also considers many other criteria, such as community involvement, leadership and distinction in extracurricular activities, and personal qualities and character.” Reflecting a passion in an applicant profile requires strategy, motivation, and—perhaps most importantly—time.

While students should use their freshman and sophomore years to explore their interests and get involved in clubs and organizations on campus, it is critical that they do so with the intention of discovering their core passions and honing their involvements by junior year. Rather than spreading themselves thin by pursuing a multitude of interests, admitted students at top schools demonstrate deep engagement and leadership in a particular area of interest, aiming to become specialists in their field. Whether it's a passion for scientific research, a commitment to social justice advocacy, a love for the performing arts, or a dedication to community service, focused pursuits allow applicants to showcase their talents, accomplishments, and potential contributions to their future college community.

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, 3. demonstrable impact on their communities.

Beyond mere interest or involvement, successful Harvard applicants demonstrate tangible impact in their communities through their endeavors. Demonstrated impact is a powerful indicator of an applicant's drive, initiative, and potential for future success, and it illustrates to admissions committees the kind of community member the student will be on campus. Therefore, students should not only strategize for discovering and pursuing their core passions, but they should also be intentional about crafting a compelling and cohesive narrative demonstrating those passions through their Activities List, essays, and letters of recommendation .

The small percentage of students who earn admission to Harvard are not only academically gifted—they are deeply engaged, committed, and impactful. By telling a cohesive narrative about their grounding passions in their applications, students can stand out to admissions officers and boost their chances of admission to their dream schools.

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Harvard Is Bringing Back Standardized Tests. Other Schools Should, Too.

Emi nietfeld didn’t have access to lacrosse or advanced placement classes, but she did have standardized tests..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions. [MUSIC PLAYING]

My name is Emi Nietfeld, and I am a journalist and the author of Acceptance, a memoir. For the last 15 years of my life, I have thought back to studying for standardized tests with this warm affection. I think that it’s important that standardized tests remain an option for students to submit, because it is one path to college when some of the other paths fail.

The Ivy League universities — they are now changing their tune on standardized testing.

During the pandemic, many colleges dropped the requirement to submit SAT or ACT scores. Then Dartmouth required standardized tests following an analysis that they did that showed that the same students coming from a lower income background who were supposed to benefit from test optional policies were actually being harmed by it.

Harvard University is planning to reinstate standardized test scores for admissions requirements, and it follows some of its peers after a pause caused by the pandemic.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When I saw the news, I was pretty surprised at first. Because I feel like the zeitgeist has been so anti-standardized tests. For example, students generally do not like taking them, parents complain about how stressful they are, and there are concerns about equity and whether these tests are really fair to students who are coming from different backgrounds, especially because a high score is associated with wealth and with racial privilege.

At the same time, I really liked these tests as a college applicant. I did not have access to a consistent school life, to teachers who could recommend me to extracurriculars that were going to impress colleges. So, really, the one thing that I did have was these standardized tests. And because of that, they were my hope for the future.

When I was nine years old, my parents separated, and that triggered pretty severe mental health issues for both of them. And it also meant that I went into therapy. And pretty quickly, I was diagnosed, I was medicated, and my life fell apart.

I had been a straight-A student. But, suddenly, I was switching between schools, in between these treatment programs. And when I was 14, I was sent to a locked facility, where we didn’t go to school, except for the classroom that was staffed by the Special Education Department.

And every afternoon, we had hours and hours of quiet time where we just had to sit alone in our rooms unless we had earned the privilege to go outside. And on one of those afternoons, I was still stuck in my room. I hadn’t been outside in weeks. And the staff went on an outing to the library.

And so I asked them, hey, could you get me a standardized test prep book? And I was so shocked when they came back, and somebody was like, here, and handed me Barron’s guide to the ACT. I just felt like this beam of light was shining down from heaven on me because, finally, I had something to do. I had a way to pass all that time. And I didn’t have to just feel like, oh, I’m stuck here, falling behind, while all these other people who are richer, and healthier, and get to live in the real world, are taking advanced placement classes and playing field hockey.

For me, and for a lot of people who are in difficult situations, having this objective score to show colleges is something that is available to us. You look at the other parts of the college application like the essay, or teacher recommendations, or even GPA. And all of that stuff is also shaped by what kind of background you’re coming from. And I did not have control over where I went to school or if I could finish out the year at a certain school, but I did have control over being able to study for and take this test.

When I was writing my personal statement, I felt like I would have to show my trauma in order to get in. I worked on drafts of my application while I was sleeping in the back seat of my rusty Toyota Corolla. I was brainstorming it from a homeless shelter, and it was just this incredible emotional weight to have to make myself so vulnerable for colleges. And at least when I was studying for standardized tests, I was able to focus on academics, and I was able to imagine myself as a scholar instead of another vulnerable teenager.

Part of why I really wanted to attend an elite university was that they offered really incredible financial aid, and that was what I got when I went to Harvard. I don’t think standardized tests should be the only metric that colleges use to evaluate applicants — not at all. But I do think that it can be a really important objective metric that can compare different students from different contexts against each other, and I would hate to see that disappear.

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By Emi Nietfeld

Produced by Kristina Samulewski

Harvard University is among the latest institutions to announce it is reversing its test-optional policy and requiring students to submit test scores in their applications. For the writer Emi Nietfeld, it’s a positive sign. Growing up homeless and in the foster care system, she didn’t have a lot of control over her education or resources that would bolster her college applications. But one thing she did have control over was studying for standardized tests. In this audio essay, Nietfeld explains how Scantron sheets helped her unlock a better life.

(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available on Monday in the audio player above.)

A close-up photo of a person filling in a standardized text answer sheet.

This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Kristina Samulewski. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. Mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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A group of Harvard faculty is calling to form a University-wide faculty senate.

Updated April 17, 2024, at 12:27 p.m.

A group of prominent Harvard professors is seeking to establish a University-wide faculty senate, as skepticism of the University’s governing boards continues to grow among faculty amid a year of turmoil.

The professors behind the effort, an 18-member group spanning all nine Harvard faculties, outlined their plans in a nine-page memo obtained by The Crimson. The memo was shared with hundreds of Harvard faculty members, including top administrators.

Some of the group’s notable members include University Professor Danielle S. Allen, Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard Co-President Edward J. “Ned” Hall, and Harvard Law School professor Andrew M. Crespo ’05.

In the April 9 memo to colleagues, the group argued that Harvard’s existing governance fails to fully leverage faculty perspectives.

The document requested that Harvard’s faculties choose delegates for a faculty senate planning body — or determine a process for doing so — by May 15. The planning body would be tasked with drafting bylaws with an eye toward completing its work by Jan. 1, 2025.

The planning committee would allot a set number of delegates to each Harvard school based on size: the FAS would receive 12, Harvard Medical School would receive four, and each of the other Harvard schools would be awarded three representatives.

University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment for this article.

In a one-page document titled “Why Harvard Needs a Faculty Senate,” the group wrote that turmoil at the University has placed faculty members “in regular and intense conversation with one another across schools for the first time in generations.”

“This represents an opportunity for faculty to support university leaders in important strategic decision-making about our shared future,” the document continued.

In the main memo, the group added that without University-wide faculty governance, “efforts to communicate with the faculty, including in times of crisis, depend on makeshift and second-best tools, such as group letters or ad hoc and informal consultations with individual faculty members.”

The proposal is being circulated just weeks before the FAS is set to host a town hall with interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 and members of the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.

Allen wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson that she hopes to have a discussion about the proposal — but not a vote — at the FAS’ next meeting on May 7.

The meeting agenda will not be posted until May 3, though any voting member of the FAS is permitted to submit new business for consideration during the meeting.

Crespo said in an interview that he shared the memo and accompanying context over HLS’ faculty mailing list and that he was coordinating next steps with interim HLS Dean John C.P. Goldberg.

HLS spokesperson Jeff Neal declined to comment on the faculty senate proposal.

While the circulated documents did not detail how the proposed faculty senate would interact with the University’s central administration, Crespo said that delineating this relationship would be a key goal of the planning process.

Several of Harvard’s peer institutions already have mechanisms for faculty governance, such as Columbia University, Northwestern University, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago. The memo points to these schools in particular as possible examples for Harvard to follow.

Calls for a faculty senate at Harvard are not new, but the April 9 memo indicates the strongest push for expanded faculty governance in decades.

In 2012, a faculty group met to discuss the creation of a faculty senate, ultimately dissolving over the summer. And, in 2015, Harvard Law School professors Charles Fried and Robert H. Mnookin ’64 urged Harvard, through an op-ed , to move away from increased centralization and implement a faculty senate.

Then-University President Drew G. Faust responded to Fried and Mnookin’s op-ed , saying in an interview with The Crimson that she doesn’t “personally think that it’s particularly well-suited for Harvard because so many decisions are made at the school level and our structures have always organized themselves around that.”

Although Harvard has not had University-wide faculty governance in living memory, the memo invoked the University’s statutes — among Harvard’s core governing documents — to argue that instating a faculty senate falls within the scope of the faculty’s existing authority.

The University’s fourth statute provides for a University Council that consists of Harvard’s entire professoriate, tasked with considering “questions which concern more than one Faculty, and questions of University Policy.” The memo describes the Council as “dormant for well over a century,” and The Crimson’s digitized records do not mention any meetings of the Council since 1902.

“Calling a meeting of the full University Council today would be impractical, as it now comprises thousands of members and lacks any mechanism for convening or managing such a body,” the faculty group wrote in the memo.

“A faculty senate, elected by and answering to the various Faculties of the University, would solve this problem,” they added.

—Staff writer Tilly R. Robinson can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on X @tillyrobin .

—Staff writer Neil H. Shah can be reached at [email protected] . Follow him on X @neilhshah15 .

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The Future Faces of Science

Author: Bryan Guevara (Indiana University)

Video Essay

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The Undergraduate Life of Hector : Learn about the undergraduate research that Hector Sanchez is working on, and how he got here. Watch to see where he plans on going, and what life is truly like as an undergraduate researcher.

Josie's Undergraduate Life as a Scientist : Come along and learn with me about what work Josie Bliss is up to as an undergraduate researcher. Get to know how she got where she is and what her everyday life looks like outside the laboratory!

Keywords: daily life of scientist, being a scientist, video about scientists

Guevara, B., (2024) “The Future Faces of Science”, Synthesis: A Digital Journal of Student Science Communication 5(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.17077/2643-8410.33688

Downloads: Download Josie’s Undergraduate Life as a Scientist Download The Undergraduate Life of Hector Download Narrative View PDF

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Published on 16 apr 2024, in copyright. free to read and download, harvard-style citation.

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