harvard essay questions 2023

Harvard University 2023-24 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Early Action: Nov 1

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 1

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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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Harvard University

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Essay prompt

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We take every aspect of your personal profile into consideration when calculating your admissions chances.

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.

What will first-time readers think of your college essay?

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

How to Write the Harvard University Essays 2023-2024

Harvard University, perhaps the most prestigious and well-known institution in the world, is the nation’s oldest higher learning establishment with a founding date of 1636. Boasting an impressive alumni network from Sheryl Sandberg to Al Gore, it’s no surprise that Harvard recruits some of the top talents in the world.

It’s no wonder that students are often intimidated by Harvard’s extremely open-ended supplemental essays. However, CollegeVine is here to help and offer our guide on how to tackle Harvard’s supplemental essays.

Read this Harvard essay example to inspire your own writing.

How to Write the Harvard University Supplemental Essays

Prompt 1: 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)

Prompt 2: Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. (200 words)

Prompt 3: Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are. (200 words)

Prompt 4: How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future? (200 words)

Prompt 5: Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you. (200 words)

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)

Brainstorming Your Topic

This prompt is a great example of the classic diversity supplemental essay . That means that, as you prepare to write your response, the first thing you need to do is focus in on some aspect of your identity, upbringing, or personality that makes you different from other people.

As you start brainstorming, do remember that the way colleges factor race into their admissions processes will be different this year, after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in June. Colleges can still consider race on an individual level, however, so if you would like to write your response about how your racial identity has impacted you, you are welcome to do so.

If race doesn’t seem like the right topic for you, however, keep in mind that there are many other things that can make us different, not just race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and the other aspects of our identities that people normally think of when they hear the word “diversity.” That’s not to say that you can’t write about those things, of course. But don’t worry if you don’t feel like those things have played a significant role in shaping your worldview. Here are some examples of other topics that could support a strong essay:

Moving to several different cities because of your parents’ jobs
An usual hobby, like playing the accordion or making your own jewelry
Knowing a lot about a niche topic, like Scottish castles

The only questions you really need to ask yourself when picking a topic are “Does this thing set me apart from other people?” and “Will knowing this thing about me give someone a better sense of who I am overall?” As long as you can answer “yes” to both of those questions, you’ve found your topic!

Tips for Writing Your Essay

Once you’ve selected a topic, the question becomes how you’re going to write about that topic in a way that helps Harvard admissions officers better understand how you’re going to contribute to their campus community. To do that, you want to connect your topic to some broader feature of your personality, or to a meaningful lesson you learned, that speaks to your potential as a Harvard student.

For example, perhaps your interest in Scottish castles has given you an appreciation for the strength of the human spirit, as the Scots were able to persevere and build these structures even in incredibly remote, cold parts of the country. Alternatively, maybe being half Puerto Rican, but not speaking Spanish, has taught you about the power of family, as you have strong relationships even with relatives you can’t communicate with verbally.

Remember that, like with any college essay, you want to rely on specific anecdotes and experiences to illustrate the points you’re making. To understand why, compare the following two excerpts from hypothetical essays.

Example 1: “Even though I can’t speak Spanish, and some of my relatives can’t speak English, whenever I visit my family in Puerto Rico I know it’s a place where I belong. The island is beautiful, and I especially love going to the annual party at my uncle’s house.”

Example 2: “The smell of the ‘lechón,’ or suckling pig greets me as soon as I enter my uncle’s home, even before everyone rushes in from the porch to welcome me in rapid-fire Spanish. At best, I understand one in every ten words, but my aunt’s hot pink glasses, the Caribbean Sea visible through the living room window, and of course, the smell of roasting pork, tell me, wordlessly yet undeniably, that I’m home.”

Think about how much better we understand this student after Example 2. If a few words were swapped out, Example 1 could’ve been written by anyone, whereas Example 2 paints us a clear picture of how this student’s Puerto Rican heritage has tangibly impacted their life.

Mistakes to Avoid

The biggest challenge with this particular “Diversity” essay is the word count. Because you only have 200 words to work with, you don’t have space to include more than one broader takeaway you’ve learned from this aspect of your identity.

Of course, people are complicated, and you’ve likely learned many things from being Puerto Rican, or from being interested in Scottish castles. But for the sake of cohesion, focus on just one lesson. Otherwise your essay may end up feeling like a bullet-point list of Hallmark card messages, rather than a thoughtful, personal, reflective piece of writing.

The other thing you want to avoid is writing an essay that’s just about your topic. Particularly since you’re going to be writing about an aspect of your identity that’s important to you, you’ll likely have a lot to say just about that. If you aren’t careful, you may burn through all 200 words without getting to the broader significance of what this piece of your personality says about who you are as a whole.

That component, however, is really the key to a strong response. Harvard receives over 40,000 applications a year, which means that, whether you write about being Puerto Rican or Scottish castles, it’s likely someone else is writing about something similar.

That doesn’t mean you need to agonize over picking something absolutely nobody else is writing about, as that’s practically impossible. All it means is that you need to be clear about how this aspect of your identity has shaped you as a whole, as that is how your essay will stand out from others with similar topics.

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

Harvard admissions officers are being considerate here, as they’re telling you explicitly what they would like you to write about. Of course, there are still nuances to the prompt, but in terms of brainstorming, just ask yourself: What is an intellectual experience that’s been important to me?

Keep in mind that “intellectual” doesn’t necessarily mean “academic.” You absolutely can write a great response about a paper, project, or some other experience you had through school. But you could also write about attending a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic, or about a book you read for fun that made a big impact on you. So long as the experience was intellectually stimulating, you can write a strong essay about it.

Once you’ve picked an experience, the key is to describe it in a way that shows Harvard admissions officers how this experience has prepared you to contribute to their classrooms, and campus community as a whole. In other words, don’t just tell them what you did, but also what you learned and why that matters for understanding what kind of college student you’ll be.

For example, say you choose to write about a debate project you did in your American history class, where you had to prepare for both sides and only learned which one you would actually be defending on the day of the debate. You could describe how, although you came into the project with pre-existing opinions about the topic, the preparation process taught you that, if you’re thoughtful and open-minded, you can usually find merit and logic even in the polar opposite position from your own.

Alternatively, you could write about a book you read that had been translated from Danish, and how reading it got you interested in learning more about how to translate a text as faithfully as possible. After watching many interviews with translators and reading a book about translation, you have learned that sometimes, the most literal translation doesn’t capture the spirit from the original language, which to you is proof that, in any piece of writing, the human element is at least as important as the words on the page.

Notice that both of these examples include broader reflections that zoom out from the particular experiences, to show what you took away from them: increased open-mindedness to different perspectives, for the first, and a more nuanced understanding of what makes art, art, in the case of the second.

A strong response must include this kind of big-picture takeaway, as it shows readers two things. First, that you can reflect thoughtfully on your experiences and learn from them. And second, it shows them a skill or perspective you’d be bringing with you to Harvard, which gives them a better sense of how you’d fit into their campus community.

The only real thing you need to watch out for is accidentally selecting an experience that, for whatever reason, doesn’t allow you to incorporate the kind of bigger-picture takeaway described above. Maybe the experience just happened, so you’re still in the process of learning from it. Or maybe the lessons you learned are too nuanced to describe in 200 words.

Whatever this reason, if you find yourself unable to articulate the broader significance of this experience, head back to the drawing board, to select one that works better for this prompt. What you don’t want to do is try to force in a takeaway that doesn’t really fit, as that will make your essay feel generic or disjointed, since the “moral of the story” won’t clearly connect to the story itself.

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

This is a textbook example of the “Extracurricular” essay . As such, what you need to do is well-defined, although it’s easier said than done: select an extracurricular activity that has, as Harvard says, “shaped who you are,” and make sure you’re able to articulate how it’s been formative for you.

As you brainstorm which extracurricular you want to write about, note that the language of the prompt is pretty open-ended. You write about “any” activity, not just one you have a lot of accolades in, and you don’t even have to write about an activity—you can also write about a travel experience, or family responsibility.

If the thing that immediately jumps to mind is a club, sport, volunteer experience, or other “traditional” extracurricular, that’s great! Run with that. But if you’re thinking and nothing in that vein seems quite right, or, alternatively, you’re feeling bold and want to take a creative approach, don’t be afraid to get outside the box. Here are some examples of other topics you could write a strong essay about:

A more hobby-like extracurricular, like crocheting potholders and selling them on Etsy
Driving the Pacific Coast Highway on your own
Caring for your family’s two large, colorful macaws

These more creative topics can do a lot to showcase a different side of you, as college applications have, by their nature, a pretty restricted scope, and telling admissions officers about something that would never appear on your resume or transcript can teach them a lot about who you are. That being said, the most important thing is that the topic you pick has genuinely been formative for you. Whether it’s a conventional topic or not, as long as that personal connection is there, you’ll be able to write a strong essay about it.

The key to writing a strong response is focusing less on the activity itself, and more on what you’ve learned from your involvement in it. If you’re writing about a more conventional topic, remember that admissions officers already have your activities list. You don’t need to say “For the last five years, I’ve been involved in x,” because they already know that, and when you only have 200 words, wasting even 10 of them means you’ve wasted 5% of your space.

If you’re writing about something that doesn’t already show up elsewhere in your application, you want to provide enough details for your reader to understand what you did, but not more than that. For example, if you’re writing about your road trip, you don’t need to list every city you stopped in. Instead, just mention one or two that were particularly memorable.

Rather than focusing on the facts and figures of what you did, focus on what you learned from your experience. Admissions officers want to know why your involvement in this thing matters to who you’ll be in college. So, think about one or two bigger picture things you learned from it, and center your response around those things.

For example, maybe your Etsy shop taught you how easy it is to bring some positivity into someone else’s life, as crocheting is something you would do anyways, and the shop just allows you to share your creations with other people. Showcasing this uplifting, altruistic side of yourself will help admissions officers better envision what kind of Harvard student you’d be.

As always, you want to use specific examples to support your points, at least as much as you can in 200 words. Because you’re dealing with a low word count, you probably won’t have space to flex your creative writing muscles with vivid, immersive descriptions.

You can still incorporate anecdotes in a more economical way, however. For example, you could say “Every morning, our scarlet macaw ruffles her feathers and greets me with a prehistoric chirp.” You’re not going into detail about what her feathers look like, or where this scene is happening, but it’s still much more engaging than something like “My bird always says hello to me in her own way.”

The most common pitfall with an “Extracurricular” essay is describing your topic the way you would on your resume. Don’t worry about showing off some “marketable skill” you think admissions officers want to see, and instead highlight whatever it is you actually took away from this experience, whether it’s a skill, a realization, or a personality trait. The best college essays are genuine, as admissions officers feel that honesty, and know they’re truly getting to know the applicant as they are, rather than some polished-up version.

Additionally, keep in mind that, like with anything in your application, you want admissions officers to learn something new about you when reading this essay. So, if you’ve already written your common app essay about volunteering at your local animal shelter, you shouldn’t also write this essay about that experience. Your space in your application is already extremely limited, so don’t voluntarily limit yourself even further by repeating yourself when you’re given an opportunity to say something new.

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

Although the packaging is a little different, this prompt has similarities to the classic “Why This College?” prompt . That means there are two main things you want to do while brainstorming.

First, identify one or two goals you have for the future—with just 200 words, you won’t have space to elaborate on any more than that. Ideally, these should be relatively concrete. You don’t have to have your whole life mapped out, but you do need to be a lot more specific than “Make a difference in the world.” A more zoomed-in version of that goal would be something like “Contribute to conservation efforts to help save endangered species,” which would work.

Second, hop onto Harvard’s website and do some research on opportunities the school offers that would help you reach your goals. Again, make sure these are specific enough. Rather than a particular major, which is likely offered at plenty of other schools around the country, identify specific courses within that major you would like to take, or a professor in the department you would like to do research with. For example, the student interested in conservation might mention the course “Conservation Biology” at Harvard.

You could also write about a club, or a study abroad program, or really anything that’s unique to Harvard, so long as you’re able to draw a clear connection between the opportunity and your goal. Just make sure that, like with your goals, you don’t get overeager. Since your space is quite limited, you should choose two, or maximum three, opportunities to focus on. Any more than that and your essay will start to feel rushed and bullet point-y.

If you do your brainstorming well, the actual writing process should be pretty straightforward: explain your goals, and how the Harvard-specific opportunities you’ve selected will help you reach them.

One thing you do want to keep in mind is that your goals should feel personal to you, and the best way to accomplish that is by providing some background context on why you have them. This doesn’t have to be extensive, as, again, your space is limited. But compare the following two examples, written about the hypothetical goal of helping conservation efforts from above, to get an idea of what we’re talking about:

Example 1: “As long as I can remember, I’ve loved all kinds of animals, and have been heartbroken by the fact that human destruction of natural resources could lead to certain species’ extinction.”

Example 2: “As a kid, I would sit in front of the aquarium’s walrus exhibit, admiring the animal’s girth and tusks, and dream about seeing one in the wild. Until my parents regretfully explained to me that, because of climate change, that was unlikely to ever happen.”

The second example is obviously longer, but not egregiously so: 45 words versus 31. And the image we get of this student sitting and fawning over a walrus is worth that extra space, as we feel a stronger personal connection to them, which in turn makes us more vicariously invested in their own goal of environmental advocacy.

As we’ve already described in the brainstorming section, the key to this essay is specificity. Admissions officers want you to paint them a picture of how Harvard fits into your broader life goals. As we noted earlier, that doesn’t mean you have to have everything figured out, but if you’re too vague about your goals, or how you see Harvard helping you reach them, admissions officers won’t see you as someone who’s prepared to contribute to their campus community.

Along similar lines, avoid flattery. Gushy lines like “At Harvard, every day I’ll feel inspired by walking the same halls that countless Nobel laureates, politicians, and CEOs once traversed” won’t get you anywhere, because Harvard admissions officers already know their school is one of the most prestigious and famous universities in the world. What they don’t know is what you are going to bring to Harvard that nobody else has. So, that’s what you want to focus on, not vague, surface-level attributes of Harvard related to its standing in the world of higher education.

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

Like Prompt 2, this prompt tells you exactly what you need to brainstorm: three things a roommate would like to know about you. However, also like Prompt 2, while this prompt is direct, it’s also incredibly open-ended. What really are the top three things you’d like a complete stranger to know about you before you live together for nine months?

Questions this broad can be hard to answer, as you might not know where to start. Sometimes, you can help yourself out by asking yourself adjacent, but slightly more specific questions, like the following:

Do you have any interests that influence your regular routine? For example, do you always watch the Seahawks on Sunday, or are you going to be playing Taylor Swift’s discography on repeat while you study?
Look around your room—what items are most important to you? Do you keep your movie ticket stubs? Are you planning on taking your photos of your family cat with you to college?
Are there any activities you love and already know you’d want to do with your roommate, like weekly face masks or making Christmas cookies?

Hopefully, these narrower questions, and the example responses we’ve included, help get your gears turning. Keep in mind that this prompt is a great opportunity to showcase sides of your personality that don’t come across in your grades, activities list, or even your personal statement. Don’t worry about seeming impressive—admissions officers don’t expect you to read Shakespeare every night for two hours. What they want is an honest, informative picture of what you’re like “behind the scenes,” because college is much more than just academics.

Once you’ve selected three things to write about, the key to the actual essay is presenting them in a logical, cohesive, efficient way. That’s easier said than done, particularly if the three things you’ve picked are quite different from each other.

To ensure your essay feels like one, complete unit, rather than three smaller ones stuck together, strong transitions will be crucial. Note that “strong” doesn’t mean “lengthy.” Just a few words can go a long way towards helping your essay flow naturally. To see what we mean here, take the following two examples:

Example 1: “Just so you know, every Sunday I will be watching the Seahawks, draped in my dad’s Steve Largent jersey. They can be a frustrating team, but I’ll do my best to keep it down in case you’re studying. I also like to do facemasks, though. You’re always welcome to any of the ones I have in my (pretty extensive) collection.”

Example 2: “Just so you know, every Sunday I will be watching the Seahawks, draped in my dad’s Steve Largent jersey. But if football’s not your thing, don’t worry—once the game’s over, I’ll need to unwind anyways, because win or lose the Hawks always find a way to make things stressful. So always feel free to join me in picking out a face mask from my (pretty extensive) collection, and we can gear up for the week together.”

The content in both examples is the same, but in the first one, the transition from football to facemasks is very abrupt. On the other hand, in the second example the simple line “But if football’s not your thing, don’t worry” keeps things flowing smoothly.

There’s no one right way to write a good transition, but as you’re polishing your essay a good way to see if you’re on the right track is by asking someone who hasn’t seen your essay before to read it over and tell you if there are any points that made them pause. If the answer is yes, your transitions probably still need more work.

Finally, you probably noticed that the above examples are both written in a “Dear roomie” style, as if you’re actually speaking directly to your roommate. You don’t have to take this exact approach, but your tone should ideally be light and fun. Living alone for the first time, with other people your age, is one of the best parts of college! Plus, college applications are, by their nature, pretty dry affairs for the most part. Lightening things up in this essay will give your reader a breath of fresh air, which will help them feel more engaged in your application as a whole.

Harvard is doing you a favor here by keeping the scope of the essay narrow—they ask for three things, not more. As we’ve noted many times with the other supplements, 200 words will be gone in a flash, so don’t try to cram in extra things. It’s not necessary to do that, because admissions officers have only asked for three, and trying to stuff more in will turn your essay into a list of bullet points, rather than an informative piece of writing about your personality.

Finally, as we’ve hinted at a few times above, the other thing you want to avoid is using this essay as another opportunity to impress admissions officers with your intellect and accomplishments. Remember, they have your grades, and your activities list, and all your other essays. Plus, they can ask you whatever questions they want—if they wanted to know about the most difficult book you’ve ever read, they would. So, loosen up, let your hair down, and show them you know how to have fun too!

Where to Get Your Harvard Essays Edited

Do you want feedback on your Harvard essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

How To Answer Harvard's 2023/24 Supplemental Essays: Tips & Insights

What's New in 2023/24

What are Harvard's Essay Prompts?

How to Answer Harvard's Essay Prompts

General Guidelines

Explore the changes in Harvard's supplemental essay prompts for 2023/24, understand the nuances of each question, and gain insights on crafting compelling responses with our detailed guide, complete with expert tips and links to successful Harvard essay examples.

Harvard's 2023/24 Supplemental Essay Updates: What's Changed?

Gaining admission to Harvard is no small feat, with acceptance rates sometimes plummeting as low as 3% . In such a competitive environment, every component of your application, especially your essay, becomes a crucial tool to stand out to admissions officers.

Every year, top-tier universities like Harvard fine-tune their application process to get a deeper understanding of their applicants. For the 2023/24 admissions cycle, Harvard University has made notable modifications to its supplemental essay questions .

Last year, applicants had a mix of required and optional prompts, with varying word limits, ranging from 50 to 150 words. These prompts touched on extracurricular activities, intellectual experiences, personal backgrounds, and more.

This year, Harvard has streamlined the process, requiring all applicants to answer five questions, each with a strict 200-word limit . The questions emphasize the importance of diversity, intellectual experiences, extracurricular activities, the utilization of a Harvard education, and personal insights for potential roommates.

This shift indicates a desire for more concise, focused responses from applicants, allowing the admissions committee to gain a clearer, more uniform understanding of each student's background, aspirations, and personality.

What Are Harvard’s Supplemental Essay Prompts for 2023/24?

For the 2023/24 application cycle, Harvard University has outlined specific supplemental essay prompts to understand applicants better in addition to the Common App or Coalition App questions. These questions delve into your experiences, intellectual pursuits, and personal insights. Students are required to answer each Harvard-specific question in under 200 words. Here's a breakdown of the prompts:

Diversity and Contribution : Harvard values a diverse student body. Reflect on your life experiences and explain how they have shaped you and how you plan to contribute to Harvard. (200 words)
Intellectual Experience : Discuss an intellectual experience that has had a significant impact on you. (200 words)
Personal Shaping Experiences : Elaborate on extracurricular activities, employment, travel, or family responsibilities that have played a pivotal role in defining who you are. (200 words)
Future Aspirations : Describe how you envision utilizing your Harvard education in the future. (200 words)
Getting to Know You : List three things your future roommates should know about you. (200 words)

These prompts offer applicants a chance to showcase their personalities, aspirations, and experiences, providing a holistic view of their candidacy.

Looking for inspiration? Dive into these Harvard essay examples to see what successful applications look like!

How to Answer Harvard’s Supplemental Essay Questions?

This guide aims to help you craft a compelling response that showcases your unique journey and potential contributions to Harvard's diverse community.

As you begin planning responses to each individual prompt, be sure to consider what experiences, reflections, and qualities you want to showcase once you’ve responded to all the prompts:

Ensure you won’t leave out any important experiences, reflections, and qualities you want Harvard to know about.
Be sure you’ll avoid repeating the same experiences, reflections, or qualities in the other prompts.

Answering Prompt 1

Harvard values a diverse student body. reflect on your life experiences and explain how they have shaped you and how you plan to contribute to harvard., - 200 words or fewer, 1. understand the question.

Harvard is not merely asking for a list of experiences. They want to understand the depth of your experiences , how they've molded your character, and how you'll use that growth to contribute to the Harvard community.

Since Harvard is telling you they value diversity, consider emphasizing unique experiences or circumstances that highlight the most personal and profound aspects of your personality, values, and perspectives.

2. Reflect on Your Unique Experiences

Consider moments in your life that have had a significant impact on your worldview:

Have you lived in multiple countries, exposing you to various cultures?
Did you overcome challenges that forced you to view the world differently?
Were there pivotal moments in your upbringing that shaped your identity?
How did interactions with diverse individuals or groups influence your perspectives?

3. Dive Deep into Personal Growth

Discuss the evolution of your perspectives, values, or aspirations.

How did these experiences challenge your beliefs or expand your understanding?
What lessons did you derive, and how have they influenced your subsequent actions or decisions?
What experiences or reflections shape your deepest beliefs and values? — or, shape some deep questions or doubts you wrestle with?

4. Connect to Harvard

Consider how your unique perspective will enrich Harvard's community .

Will you introduce new viewpoints in classroom discussions or help teams work together more successfully?
Will you contribute to or initiate student organizations or community projects?
Will you exemplify certain traits that enhance a vibrant, curious, and inclusive learning environment?

5. Be Concise and Authentic

With a 200-word limit, precision is key. Ensure your narrative is genuine, making your essay resonate with the reader. Avoid generic statements; instead, provide specific examples that showcase your journey.

Harvard's first supplemental essay is an opportunity to showcase the depth of your experiences and how they've shaped you . Reflecting on significant moments, emphasizing personal growth, and connecting your unique perspective to how you'll contribute to Harvard is essential. Remember to be concise, authentic, and ensure your essay is polished to perfection.

Answering Prompt 2

Discuss an intellectual experience that has had a significant impact on you..

This question aims to help you articulate the depth and significance of an intellectual experience and its profound impact on your academic and personal journey.

1. Define "Intellectual Experience"

Before diving in, understand that an intellectual experience isn't limited to classroom learning . It could be:

A book that changed your perspective
A conversation that challenged your beliefs
An experience that triggered a profound insight or understanding
Or even a personal project or research endeavor

2. Choose a Meaningful Experience

Reflect on experiences that genuinely transformed your thinking:

Was there a particular course or project that ignited a passion?
Did a specific book, article, or documentary challenge your pre-existing beliefs?
Have you attended seminars, workshops, or lectures that introduced you to new ideas?

3. Delve into the "Why"

Discuss why this experience was transformative:

What preconceptions or beliefs did it challenge?
How did it expand or deepen your understanding of a particular subject or idea?
Did it inspire further exploration or study into the topic?

4. Highlight Personal Growth

Describe how this intellectual experience influenced your academic and personal journey:

Did it guide your academic pursuits or career aspirations?
How did it shape your values, beliefs, or worldview?

5. Be Authentic and Reflective

Your genuine curiosity and passion should shine through. Avoid using jargon or overly complex language. Instead, focus on genuine reflection and personal growth .

Harvard's second supplemental essay seeks to understand your intellectual journey . It's an opportunity to showcase your curiosity, passion, and the transformative power of learning. By reflecting on a significant intellectual experience and its impact on you, you can demonstrate your academic depth, your own intellectual processes and aptitudes, and intellectual growth.

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Answering Prompt 3

Elaborate on extracurricular activities, employment, travel, or family responsibilities that have played a pivotal role in defining who you are..

This question is designed to help you articulate the significance of experiences outside the classroom and their profound impact on your personal journey.

1. Prioritize Depth Over Quantity

While you might have multiple experiences, focus on one or two that have had the most profound impact on you . This allows you to delve deeper and provide a more insightful reflection.

2. Choose a Defining Experience

Reflect on moments that genuinely shaped your character:

Was there an extracurricular activity that taught you leadership, teamwork, or dedication?
Did a job teach you responsibility, time management, or the value of hard work?
Has travel exposed you to diverse cultures, broadening your perspectives?
Were there family responsibilities that instilled in you a sense of maturity, empathy, or resilience?

3. Describe the Experience

Briefly set the scene. Whether it's the bustling environment of a part-time job, the challenges of a leadership role in a club, or the nuances of a family responsibility, paint a picture for the reader.

4. Reflect on the Impact

Discuss how this experience influenced your personal growth:

What challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?
What skills or values did you acquire or strengthen?
How did this experience shape your aspirations, perspectives, or values?

5. Connect to the Present

Highlight how this experience continues to influence you:

How do the lessons you learned guide your current decisions or actions?
How has it influenced your academic interests or future aspirations?

Harvard's third supplemental essay is an opportunity to showcase experiences outside the classroom that have significantly influenced your personal growth . Reflecting on these pivotal moments and their lasting impact can provide a holistic picture of your character, values, and aspirations.

Answering Prompt 4

Describe how you envision utilizing your harvard education in the future..

This question aims to help you articulate how a Harvard education aligns with your future goals and the impact you aim to make in your chosen field or community.

1. Reflect on Your Goals

Begin by identifying your long-term aspirations . Have a clear vision in mind, whether it's a specific career, a desire to address a global challenge, or a passion you wish to pursue further.

2. Highlight Harvard's Unique Offerings

Research specific programs, courses, or opportunities at Harvard that align with your goals. This could be a particular academic program, research opportunities, or extracurricular activities.

3. Draw a Connection

Discuss how these unique offerings will equip you with the skills, knowledge, or experiences needed to achieve your future aspirations . Make it evident that Harvard is the ideal place for you to realize these goals.

4. Go Beyond the Obvious

While Harvard's academic excellence is a given, delve into the broader Harvard experience. Consider the influence of its diverse community, its culture of innovation, or its commitment to leadership and service.

5. Discuss the Broader Impact

Expand on how you plan to use your Harvard education to make a difference . Whether it's in your community, in a particular field, or on a global scale, showcase your commitment to creating positive change.

6. Stay Authentic

Ensure your response is genuine and reflects your true aspirations. Admissions officers can discern genuine passion and commitment from generic responses.

Harvard's fourth supplemental essay is an opportunity to showcase your forward-thinking approach and how you plan to leverage Harvard's resources to achieve your future goals. By drawing a clear connection between what Harvard offers and your aspirations, you demonstrate a purposeful approach to your education.

Answering Prompt 5

List three things your future roommates should know about you..

This question aims to help you present a genuine and well-rounded picture of yourself, offering insights into your personality, habits, and values.

1. Reflect on Your Personality

This prompt is an invitation to share more about your personal side. Think about the quirks, habits, or values that define you. What are the things that make you, well, you?

2. Balance Seriousness with Lightness

While one point could be a deep reflection of your values or beliefs, another could be a fun fact or a unique hobby. This mix gives a rounded picture of who you are.

3. Be Genuine

Avoid coming up with things you believe the admissions committee wants to hear. This is your chance to let your true self shine through.

4. Consider Your Daily Life

Think about your habits or routines, the music you listen to, or the books you read. These can offer insights into your personality and preferences.

5. Reflect on Past Living Experiences

Have you shared a space with someone before — roommate, sibling, family members, fellow campers?… Think about what made the experience harmonious. Were there particular habits, routines, or guiding principles you followed that were appreciated by those you were sharing space with?

Harvard's fifth supplemental essay is a chance to showcase your personality beyond academics and extracurriculars . By sharing genuine aspects of yourself related to day-to-day living and the many small ways you interact with those around you in more personal spaces, you give a glimpse into your life outside the classroom and what it might be like to share a living space with you.

5 Tips for the "Why This School?" Essay

General Guidelines for Crafting Stellar Harvard Supplemental Essays

1. Understand the Question: Before you start writing, ensure you fully understand what the prompt is asking. Break it down and consider its nuances. This will help you stay on track and address all aspects of the question.

2. Be Authentic: Harvard isn't just looking for high achievers; they're looking for genuine individuals. Your essay should reflect your true self, not what you think the admissions committee wants to hear.

3. Show, Don't Tell: Instead of just stating facts or beliefs, use anecdotes, experiences, or stories to convey your points. This makes your essay more engaging and paints a clearer picture of who you are.

4. Stay Within the Word Limit: While it might be tempting to write more, respect the word limits. It shows that you can convey your thoughts concisely and respect guidelines.

5. Proofread and Edit: Always review your essay multiple times for clarity, coherence, and grammar. Consider also asking a teacher, mentor, or friend to review it.

6. Connect to Harvard: While the prompts might not explicitly ask for it, subtly showing why your experiences, values, or aspirations align with Harvard's culture or offerings can be a plus.

7. Reflect on Growth: Colleges love to see personal growth. Reflect on how experiences have shaped you, lessons learned, and how you've evolved.

8. Avoid Repetition: Ensure that your supplemental essays present new information and don't repeat what's already in your Common App essay or other parts of your application.

9. Be Forward-Looking: While it's essential to reflect on past experiences, also touch on how these experiences prepare you for future endeavors, especially at Harvard.

10. Start Early: Give yourself ample time to brainstorm, draft, and revise. Starting early reduces stress and allows you to approach the essay with a clear mind.

Remember, the supplemental essays are an opportunity to showcase aspects of yourself that aren't evident in other parts of your application . Use them wisely to provide a holistic picture of yourself and why you'd be a great fit for Harvard.

Final Thoughts

The journey to Harvard is more than just academic prowess; it's about crafting a narrative that resonates deeply with the admissions committee. Your supplemental essays provide a unique window into your personality, aspirations, and the distinct perspectives you'll bring to the Harvard community.

Every Harvard aspirant has a story waiting to be told. This is your moment to share yours. Approach your essays with authenticity, introspection, and a genuine passion for your narrative.

If you're wondering whether your essay truly captures your essence or if it stands out from the multitude of applications, our essay review service is here to help. Our team of experts will meticulously review and provide feedback to refine your essay, ensuring it resonates with admissions officers. For further inspiration, delve into our ebook , which showcases essays from students who clinched spots at top universities. And if Harvard is your dream, these successful Harvard essay examples will provide invaluable insights.

For those just starting their college application journey, consider booking a free consultation with our seasoned college counselors. We're dedicated to guiding you in creating an application that significantly enhances your chances of donning the Crimson colors. Harvard is within reach, and we're here to help you every step of the way.

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Key Resources & Further Reading

Everything you need to know about US Application Supplemental Essays
Acing your College Application Essay: 5 Expert Tips to Make it Stand Out from the Rest
How to Tackle Every Type of Supplemental Essay
2023-24 Common App Essay Prompts
What are the Most Unusual US College Supplemental Essay Prompts?

What would megan fox's (hypothetical) harvard essay look like.

Unleashing Creativity in Research: How High Schoolers Can Find Unique and Engaging Research Topics

Can Colleges See How Many Times You’ve Taken the SAT?

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Remember, you don't have to navigate this journey alone. crimson provides a comprehensive suite of services, from academic mentoring and test prep to essay assistance, extracurricular guidance, and career mentoring, ensuring a holistic approach to your college preparation journey..

Are you seeking one-on-one college counseling and/or essay support? Limited spots are now available. Click here to learn more.

Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-24 – Prompts and Advice

August 17, 2023

A 3.4% acceptance for the Class of 2027 gives you a pretty informative introduction to the ultra-competitive admissions process at Harvard University. To dive deeper, Harvard rejects the majority of valedictorians who apply each year as well as a sizable chunk of those who bring 1600 SAT/36 ACT scores to the table. Further, more than one-third of current Crimson undergrads are legacy students (their parents and/or other close relatives are alumni) and recruited athletes make up around 20% of each incoming freshman class. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that, if you fall outside of those categories, your chances of getting into Harvard are less than 3%. This brings us to the topic of this blog – the Harvard supplemental essays.

Want to learn more about How to Get Into Harvard University? Visit our blog entitled: How to Get Into Harvard University: Admissions Data and Strategies for all of the most recent admissions data as well as tips for gaining acceptance.

Yet, this sobering and realistic assessment of the facts on the ground should not discourage those with an extremely strong record of accomplishment—both inside and outside of the classroom—from applying. Rather, we present this information to highlight one glaring truth: the essays are one of the best opportunities you will have to make your Harvard application shine brighter than your competition.

For the 2023-24 admissions cycle, there are five Harvard supplemental essays. Unlike previous years, all essays are required.

2023-24 Harvard Supplemental Essays

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).

This prompt asks you to not only share a particular life experience but also describe why that experience will enable you to contribute to Harvard in general. Essentially, it’s asking you to take your essay’s reflection one step further—you’ll need to share why the experience you’ve chosen has impacted you as well as why/how you believe it will allow you to positively impact the Harvard community.

First, choose a key aspect of your experiences or background that reveals something deep and meaningful about you. (Although you could choose more than one, we’d advise against it, given that you only have 200 words in which to respond.) As you brainstorm, consider the following avenues:

Your role in your family.
Your role in your social group.
A challenge you’ve faced.
A formative experience or realization.
Core values and beliefs.
Important aspects of your upbringing.
Cultural, religious, community influence.

Harvard supplemental essays Continued)

Second, you’ll need to describe both personal and future impact. Make sure that your answer reveals something about how you will live out Harvard’s values or contribute to an academic/social community. For the latter angle, you could name a specific course , research opportunity , or extracurricular club , to name a few—perhaps living in a beach town has heavily contributed to your passion for the world’s oceans, and you seek to bring that perspective to the biology department’s research opportunities. Alternatively, you could discuss something more intangible—perhaps Harvard’s mission to encourage intellectual transformation resonates with you, and you hope to bring your experience of moving frequently for your dad’s job—and the open-mindedness and resilience you cultivated as a result—to classroom discussions about sensitive topics.

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

In short, admissions officers want to see evidence of your drive, passion, and intellectual ambition. You may have taken over a dozen AP courses, but so did most of your competition. Did you pursue independent research or a more formalized research experience at a university? Did you spend your summer pursuing your academic interests to the best extent that was financially feasible (e.g., expensive summer programs are not accessible to everyone)? What were the fruits of your labor? Does your name appear on published research? Did you present at a conference? Did you independently pursue CS certifications, mastering multiple programming languages? Or did you learn a foreign language outside of school hours? Translate a work of literature into another language? In addition to describing the experience, you’ll also need to share why it was important to you.

Ideally, whatever example you cite will be closely aligned with your future academic area of interest.

Harvard supplemental essays (Continued)

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

Harvard is not necessarily asking you to write about the activity where you earned the most prestigious awards. Nor does it have to be the one where you held the highest position of leadership. The university is going to see all of your activities in that section of the Common App. As such, you want to ask yourself—which of your entries is crying out for more explanation and detail? Which one is closest to your heart and most representative of your unique passions?

For example, you may be a volunteer EMT and have compelling experiences to share that have significantly impacted your perspective, or contributed to your desire to be a physician, or developed your empathy (or perhaps all of the above). Alternatively, you may have worked in a local restaurant and learned more about the lives of your undocumented coworkers, which shaped and contributed to your advocacy work in that area.

An activity or experience that “shaped who you are” is a big ask, but as long as you can demonstrate how it impacted and influenced you in a significant way, the activity you choose can be something you’ve been doing for ten years or two months.

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

This prompt differs from your quintessential “Why Us?” essay in a small but important way—Harvard isn’t asking why you want to attend but how you hope to utilize the education you receive. This might seem like a rather nebulous proposition—you are seventeen years old, after all—but think about what your goals, passions, and aspirations are right now . You’ll then need to do some projecting, even if generalized. For example, some students can feel in their bones that they’re bound for the law school track while others only have a vague sense of what the future might hold for them but know that—right now—they’re most drawn to psychology. That’s where your research will come into play—spend some time investigating:

Specific courses offered in your current discipline(s) of interest at Harvard.
Harvard professors whose work/research/writings you find fascinating.
Academically-focused student organizations at Harvard.
Undergraduate research opportunities in the summer or during the school year as well as independent research you would like to conduct under faculty supervision.

Now, merge the two—based on your current goals and what Harvard has to offer, how can you see yourself putting your education to good future use? In short, how will Harvard’s resources prepare you for the real world?

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

Applicants can utilize this response to give greater insight into the little details about themselves that may not appear elsewhere in the application. Keep the old adage “you don’t truly know a person until you live with them” in mind. Think about what your future roommate will learn about your daily habits, hobbies, quirks, passions, and preferences. What music do you like to listen to? What activities do you like to do (that, ideally, have not yet been communicated elsewhere)? Talk about your typical routine.

Once you make a list of potential inclusions, think about what each item communicates about you as a person. For example, if you can seldom be found without a novel in hand or spend an hour every morning practicing yoga, why is that important for us to know? That said, at least one detail could be comical or light-hearted (perhaps you can’t survive without a large supply of lime seltzer or always eat salt & vinegar chips when you’re up late studying). In the grand scheme of things, this is a genuine chance to reveal more about your character, unique personality, and also—sometimes— how to get along with others.

How important are the Harvard supplemental essays?

The Harvard supplemental essays are in the “considered” bucket. They are placed in the same category as factors such as test scores, GPA, and recommendations.

Want personalized essay assistance with your Harvard supplemental essays?

If you are interested in working with one of College Transitions’ experienced and knowledgeable essay coaches as you craft your Harvard supplemental essays, we encourage you to get a quote today.

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How to Respond to the 2023/2024 Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts

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Maria Geiger is Director of Content at Scholarships360. She is a former online educational technology instructor and adjunct writing instructor. In addition to education reform, Maria’s interests include viewpoint diversity, blended/flipped learning, digital communication, and integrating media/web tools into the curriculum to better facilitate student engagement. Maria earned both a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature from Monmouth University, an M. Ed. in Education from Monmouth University, and a Virtual Online Teaching Certificate (VOLT) from the University of Pennsylvania.

How to Respond to the 2023/2024 Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts

Chances are, you have heard of Harvard University, a private Ivy League research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Known as the oldest university in the United States, Harvard attracts students from all over the world. With an acceptance rate of around 4% , your application needs to stand out. One of the best ways to show who you are is through your very own writing. Keep reading our guide for how to ace the Harvard supplemental essay questions!

Before answering the essay questions

All Harvard University applicants are required to respond to five 200 word supplemental Harvard essay questions.

All of the Harvard supplemental essay questions have a 200 word limit. Remember, 200 words is not a lot of words to express yourself. Therefore, you will need to be short, sweet, and direct with your answers. The goal is to share your unique personality on the page–do not drag on or use filler words! Just remember to be yourself in your response.

Essay question #1

“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 max)

Ultimately, this question wants to hear about what makes you unique and diverse. Try to brainstorm main aspects of your identity that you want to be highlighted to Harvard. Some examples could include your ethnicity, your hometown, a club you are a part of and more. Most importantly, you should be thinking about life experiences you have had that have shaped you.

For example, if your Asian heritage is an important part of your identity you should detail a time in which you attended an Asian festival as a child and realized how proud you are to be Asian. Telling a narrative and life experience you have had rather than just stating a piece of your identity will give you a leg up on the competition.

Once you have told a story about the life experience you have chosen to talk about, now you have to detail how you will contribute to Harvard. Remember, Harvard prides itself on having a diverse student body, so use this to your advantage! Discuss how this important part of your identity and life experience can be brought to the Harvard community. Perhaps you want to join or even start a club on campus or you hope to do something in your dorm related to your identity. Whatever you hope to bring to the Harvard community, make sure you are discussing it in this response! Make sure that it connects back to the life experience you wrote about earlier in the essay.

Questions to consider

What is an important part of your identity?
What experiences have you had that have shaped you?
How will you help contribute to the Harvard community? What hopes do you have for attending Harvard?

Essay question #2

“Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.” (200 words max)

Harvard wants to admit applicants that are intellectually curious and driven. These engagements do not need to fit into any structure. For example, you can write about an online French class you took, an art camp you attended, or a research project you worked on. All are relevant as long as you write about what has special meaning to you.

Ultimately, in your response you should be revealing to the Harvard admissions officers how you critically think. Begin by detailing a narrative about this intellectual experience, make sure you are describing rather than just simply stating. Next, you should reflect on this experience. What did you learn from this experience? Would you do anything differently next time? Then, you should connect back to Harvard. Discuss what characteristics you now possess from this experience that would make you a great addition to the Harvard community.

What is an intellectual experience you have had?
How does this experience make you prepared for Harvard?
What reflections do you have regarding this intellectual experience?

Essay question #3

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

This is such a great place to expand on the activities you described on your Common App activity list. Once you’ve picked an extracurricular activity or a few that you are heavily involved in, be sure to then mention specifics.

Be sure to provide context and valuable information regarding your extracurricular activities/work experience. Whoever is reading your response should gain a better understanding of the activities and work experience you have.

Lastly, connect to how these experiences have shaped who you are today. Think about any life lessons or characteristics you have gained from these activities.

Questions to consider:

What do you do during your involvement?
What is your role in this activity or place of work?
Why did you choose to participate in this activity or work?

Essay question #4

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

This is your opportunity to describe your long-term goals! Make sure you are not only describing your future goals but also how Harvard will help you reach them.

To begin, describe any future aspirations you may have. This could include your intended major, career and life goals. In fact, both small and large goals can be described in this response. However, you should be extremely specific about these goals as something like “I want world peace” may cause your Harvard essay to become muddied.

Then, connect back to Harvard! What specific student organizations, classes, professors and extracurricular activities that Harvard offers will help you achieve your goals? You need to be emphasizing how Harvard will be able to help you better reach your goals than any other education offered.

Questions to consider:

What life goals do you have for yourself?
How will Harvard help you achieve your goals?
Why do you want a degree from Harvard?

Essay question #5

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

This last prompt is a lighter response! It’s a chance for you to take a more casual approach on a Harvard essay.

To begin you should brainstorm some ideas! Try to think about hobbies, music taste, extracurriculars, siblings or any fun facts you may have! You can also discuss your living habits and maybe some unique things about your bedtime routine.

Whatever three things you choose, make sure your list has some variety to it! It should not be 3 things you do every morning after you wake up but rather an assortment of fun facts about yourself.

Additionally, you can play around with the formatting of this essay! Since it is asking you to list the top three things your roommates might like to know about you, you can make a bulleted list. Or, you can even format it as a text or letter to your future roommate. Whatever format you choose, just be creative and authentic!

What are some unique fun facts about yourself?
How are you as a roommate?
What activities would you like to do with your roommate?

Next steps after applying to Harvard University

Congratulations! It is time to submit your perfect application to Harvard. Take a breather and acknowledge all the hard work you just completed! Continue to show interest in Harvard so they know you are committed and prioritizing their school.

This can be done by:

following their social media accounts
reaching out to admissions officers
scheduling an in-person or virtual tour
reading up on what you want to get involved in on campus

Additional resources

For students applying to colleges, there are an abundance of things to consider during the process. The most important thing is understanding what colleges to apply for to ensure you have good options to choose from. Check out our guides on how to find safety, reach, and match schools .

In addition, check out our guide on whether to send test scores to test-optional schools . Make sure that you are putting your best “you” on the page!

Lastly, funding college can be a challenge. So, check out our t o help fund your education!

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How to Write the Harvard Supplemental Essays for 2023-2024

Harvard College needs no introduction—its name is synonymous with prestige in higher education. This alone can account for the extremely low acceptance rate, which was just 5.2% (out of 39,000 applicants) for the Class of 2021. But there is a way that applicants can improve their chances of getting into Harvard, and that is to write a stellar personal essay.

What are the Harvard Supplemental Essays?

When applying to Harvard, you are given the opportunity to include supplemental essays to showcase anything you feel was not adequately conveyed through your Common Application Essay . While Harvard’s admissions website indicates that including this essay is “optional,” almost all advisors will strongly encourage you to submit as much information about yourself as you can. Perhaps the fact that over 85% of the Harvard Class of 2019 wrote a supplemental essay might convince you just how important it can be.

Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts for the 2023-2024 School Year

Each year, applicants find themselves struggling with exactly what they should put in their essays to impress the admissions committee. The Harvard supplemental essay prompts for 2023-2024 are no different. But because Harvard seeks students who are independent, creative, and self-motivated, this open-ended quality makes perfect sense. This essay is essentially a blank canvas on which you can paint some fascinating aspects about yourself in vivid color.

Here are the Prompts for the Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-2024

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

Activity essays like this one allow you to say everything you couldn’t fit on your Common App activity list. Make sure to pick an activity that has meaning and one which you haven’t already written about. It’s usually a good strategy to pick something that you’ve been doing for a long time, where you can showcase key qualities like commitment, perseverance, and leadership. If you prefer to write about a job or hobby you just got started on, however, you can still write a compelling essay about why you started, what made you interested in it, and what you have learned in your journal thus far. You should contribute additional context to what the Harvard admissions officers know about you, and you only have a small space to do it in, so use it wisely.

Your intellectual life may extend beyond the academic requirements of your particular school. Please use the space below to list additional intellectual activities that you have not mentioned or detailed elsewhere in your application. These could include, but are not limited to, supervised or self-directed projects not done as school work, training experiences, online courses not run by your school, or summer academic or research programs not described elsewhere. (150 words)

This prompt is pretty easy to understand. Harvard is asking you to list any of your intellectual activities that you have not already included in your application materials. Did you try to build a computer game or app in the last few months? Maybe you interned somewhere that made you interested in a certain industry or line of work. Or perhaps you took an online Chinese course to get ready for an extended trip to China over the summer. Harvard wants to understand what you are getting up to, so let them know and don’t spare any important and exciting details!

You may wish to include an additional essay if you feel that the college application forms do not provide sufficient opportunity to convey important information about yourself or your accomplishments. You may write on a topic of your choice, or you may choose from one of the following topics (No word limit; max file size is 2000 KB) .

An unusual circumstance in your life
Travel, living, or working experiences in your own or other communities
What you would want your future college roommate to know about you?
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
How you hope to use your college education
A list of books you have read during the past twelve months
The Harvard College Honor code declares that we “hold honesty as the foundation of our community.” As you consider entering this community that is committed to honesty, please reflect on a time when you or someone you observed had to make a choice about whether to act with integrity and honesty.
The mission of Harvard College is to educate our students to be citizens and citizen-leaders for society. What would you do to contribute to the lives of your classmates in advancing this mission?
Each year a substantial number of students admitted to Harvard defer their admission for one year or take time off during college. If you decided in the future to choose either option, what would you like to do?
Harvard has long recognized the importance of student body diversity of all kinds. We welcome you to write about distinctive aspects of your background, personal development, or the intellectual interests you might bring to your Harvard classmates.

As you can see, applicants have a LOT of choices in terms of the direction they take when writing their Harvard supplemental essay. Read on for tips on how to approach ANY of these prompts in a meaningful and productive way to get the most out of this important essay and impress the admissions officers.

How Long Should the Harvard Supplemental Essays Be?

Although Harvard gives no explicit word or character limit for the supplemental essay, most accepted students will write between 500 and 700 words (or about a page when written in Times New Roman 12-point font). This doesn’t provide you a lot of room to ruminate at length on your experiences or to write about multiple topics. Therefore, you need to focus on one aspect of yourself (or what the prompt is asking you to write about) and drive it home. But don’t worry about getting it right on your first draft—write as freely as you can and work on re-drafting and revising your essay once all of the important elements have come to the surface. The more time you spend on the essay, the more polished and powerful it will be. Visit Harvard’s admissions website for comprehensive guidelines on writing this essay.

Paint a Picture of Yourself as a Unique Student and Graduate Candidate

When looking over the prompts, consider which one will allow you to write about an aspect of yourself that you didn’t portray in other essays you have submitted. Do not choose the same event, experience, passion, ability, interest, or talent that you used for the Common Application. For instance, if in the Common App Essay you wrote about your love of reading and described some of the books you have read, do NOT choose the Harvard essay about “A List Of Books You Have Read During The Past Twelve Months.” Similarly, if you already wrote about your experience backpacking around Asia last year, choose a different Harvard prompt than “Traveling Or Living Experiences In Other Countries.” No matter how profound or life-changing your experience was, writing about the exact same topic or experience is redundant and will not add to the depth of character you need to convey.

Zooming out, not only should you choose a separate topic for your supplemental essay, you should consider choosing an entirely different perspective as well. If your Common App Essay is about a past experience, choose the Harvard essay that asks about your future plans. If the first essay is about your impressive abilities, focus the second on how you overcame a challenge or deficit. If in the Common App Essay you have discussed your love of organic chemistry, write in the Harvard essay about your weekly volunteering at the local homeless shelter. In other words, deepen the picture you present of yourself. Show how you live (and flourish) in many dimensions!

When writing a Harvard essay, applicants must also stand out from the crowd . Do not think of it as a chance to merely remind the admissions committee about what you have accomplished, to list more details about your stellar academic record, or to brag about some outstanding marker on your resume. You have to dig deeper and WOW them in order for you to stand out in their minds.

Present Yourself Sincerely to Harvard Admissions Officials

Remember to always SHOW your sincerity, your attitude, and your excellence in your admissions essays—do not merely TELL about it. You can achieve this by focusing on actions, using lots of verbs, and by including a great number of details and examples as you describe your experiences. If playing the piano profoundly affected your sense of what “work” means to you, do not merely write, “Practicing all the time made me realize how working hard pays off.” Show this correlation between effort and understanding of work via anecdotes and details.

Here is what showing looks like (versus telling ):

“Three hours of straight practice a day in our windowless basement, six days a week perched upon a hard wooden bench, aching fingers on the keys, nothing between myself and Chopin but willpower and concentration, the haunting sounds of the hammer on the strings my instant reward for uncountable days and years of effort—all of this flashed through my mind on Jun 19, 2019, as I took the stage for my first Tanglewood recital.”

A detailed anecdote full of action makes it much easier for a reader to accept your assertion that playing piano profoundly affected your life. Readers can trust the feelings and positions you explicitly state only once you have proved them with examples and details.

Show How You Fit Into Harvard’s Unique Culture and Mission

When approaching this essay, it is important to understand that Harvard places special importance on the development of passions and community involvement over pure academic excellence. They also are deeply committed to diversity of experiences and views, and this means that they value curiosity in their students: intellectual, philosophical, social, etc. These values are included in their mission statement, which is “to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society” via “exposure to new ideas, new ways of understanding, and new ways of knowing,” which is designed to set students on a “journey of intellectual transformation.”

With these institutional objectives in mind, you should focus on how you can best illustrate your curiosity, and your potential for growth and greatness, in your essay. Do this by conveying your passion and showing how your passion drives your potential to contribute to worthwhile advances in society. One way to accomplish this in the essay is to choose a prompt that emphasizes your ambitions or even your plans to use your education. Consider responding to a prompt that explicitly mentions Harvard, or to one that asks “how you hope to use your college education” and become a “citizen-leader.” These provide a great opportunity to showcase those personal attributes that fit the mold of the desired Harvard student.

Explain Why You Deserve to Attend Harvard College

Another aspect to keep in mind is that Harvard is interested in enrolling people who are genuinely good , in addition to being intelligent, talented, or ambitious. The final line of their mission statement reads: “From this we hope that students will begin to fashion their lives by gaining a sense of what they want to do with their gifts and talents, assessing their values and interests, and learning how they can best serve the world.” The last phrase indicates a person who demonstrates true concern about the world in which they live.

Thus showing strong regard for other people or animals or expressing a sense of duty and honor is a definite plus for the Harvard admissions committee. This is another perspective from which you might portray yourself in your essay—the hardworking, dutiful, kind, compassionate citizen-leader that they want and deserve to have, and the one that wants to be part of a like-minded community. But only focus on this aspect of yourself if you can do so authentically and honestly. The worst thing possible would be to lie or come off as disingenuous to the admissions committee. So just be yourself, your whole self, and nothing but yourself.

And before submitting your essay, be sure to get English editing and proofreading services from Wordvice–the best admissions editing service in the business. We offer supplemental essay editing services , as well as a host of revision services for admissions documents, including cover letter editing , personal statement editing , CV editing , and recommendation letter editing .

And try the new free AI Text Editor at Wordvice AI, which features a suite of revision tools including an AI Proofreading Tool and AI Paraphrasing Tool , among others. Best of luck writing this important admissions essay!

How to Write the Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-2024

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Harvard University, the nation’s oldest college, is recognized worldwide as one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning, with centuries of history and an extensive alumni network ranging from Conan O’Brien to Sheryl Sandberg and beyond. With faculty who are leading experts in their fields and a diverse and motivated student body, Harvard is the worthy dream school of many college applicants.

Admissions officers at Harvard receive tens of thousands of applications each year, and the College boasted a record low acceptance rate of 3.41% for the 2022-2023 admissions cycle. Many applicants display academic excellence and extracurricular involvement across the board, so the supplemental essays provide applicants with a valuable opportunity to stand out among their peers.

Approaching these essays can seem like a daunting task, but with a methodical approach and careful execution, they can elevate an application to the next level. In this article, we will provide you with a number of strategies and tips for how to write the Harvard supplemental essays.

General Tips

In addition to your Common or Coalition Application essay, Harvard College has five supplemental essay prompts, all short responses of 200 words. Unlike previous years, all five supplemental essays are required. Don’t let this intimidate you! More essays mean more opportunities to tell admissions officials about yourself, and the short word limits won’t stack up to too much writing overall. On the flipside, you’ll need to be prepared to make good use of those short word limits— so get ready to brainstorm and plan out each response carefully!

As with any application, remember to think of your supplemental essays and your Common or Coalition Application materials as a portfolio designed to represent you as wholly as possible. In practice, this means using each of your essays to their fullest advantage by discussing different aspects of yourself in each one. It is important to avoid redundancy in your essays and in your application overall. Instead, think of each essay as a new opportunity to present a unique side of yourself!

Also, as you compose these essays, be true to yourself . If the prompt asks for a discussion of an activity or experience that was important to you, then really dig into the effects it had on your goals, your mindset, your everyday life. If you decide to respond with a description of something that brings you joy, choose a topic that truly inspires you, instead of trying to conform to what you believe the admissions officers want to see. Genuine and honest writing is compelling, and, on the flip side, forced or unenthusiastic writing appears as just that. Allow yourself to come shining through in your words!

And with that, let’s get into a more detailed look at each prompt.

Harvard’s 2023-2024 Prompts

Short response (200 words).

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?
Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.
Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are.
How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future?
Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.

Harvard’s Short Responses

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).

This prompt gives you an opportunity to discuss something important about your background outside your school experiences. Admissions officials are specifically looking for unique perspectives that you’re willing to bring to the table as a prospective student. As you brainstorm your response, try writing out a list of words that describe you—whether your identity, your aspirations, or your place in your community. Do any of these descriptors point to important experiences that shape who you are? If so, think about why they shaped you, and how you would use those life-shaping qualities to impact the Harvard community.

Some examples of experiences that might make a good response to this prompt follow here:

You’re an older sibling who looked after the baby in the family, fortifying your compassion and work ethic
You’re an aspiring musician who learned teamwork and conflict-solving after joining a band
You were the only girl on your school’s math team, inspiring you to encourage others

Once you know which experience to write about, don’t forget to answer the second part of the prompt: how will these experiences help you contribute to Harvard’s community? If you’re the older sibling we mentioned above, maybe you’ll use that compassion and work ethic to organize study groups in each of your classes. Maybe you’ll use the teamwork and conflict-solving you learned from your band to mediate disagreements that come up in intellectual conversations—or maybe you’re looking to draw on your math team experiences by mentoring through Harvard’s Women in STEM Mentorship program.

Whatever you choose, keep your short word limit in mind. Consider jumping straight into an anecdote that explains your experiences so you can answer the second part of the prompt in your essay’s back half. On the line level, don’t forget to use colons, semicolons, and em dashes to connect sentences as concisely as possible.

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

This second short-answer response is a modification on last year’s Prompt 1, which asked applicants to describe an intellectual activity beyond their listed extracurriculars. While this prompt is more open-ended, the spirit behind the question still applies. Try to discuss an experience outside the extracurriculars you’ve already listed, or, if you can’t think of one, go into anecdotal depth on an activity elsewhere in your application. Above all, admissions officials want to see how you grow intellectually, carry an open mind, and seek out challenges in your academic life.

Specificity is vital for this short response. If you stay vague—by, for example, stating that you learned conversation skills through your internship in a newsroom—your reader won’t learn anything new that they couldn’t have gleaned from your extracurricular list. Pick an anecdote, and try to put your reader in your shoes. Going with the example above, you might launch into your essay by describing the question you prepared for your first journalistic interview, only for your interviewee to blow your mind with an answer you didn’t expect. By the end of your essay, admissions officials should understand why this experience was so important to you, and know a little more about your personality to boot.

Cast your net wide when considering responses to this prompt, and don’t confine yourself to the classroom. Anything that changed your perspective, challenged your thinking, or deepened your understanding of a topic might qualify as a valid answer here.

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

Like Prompt 2, this prompt strongly resembles Harvard’s extracurricular question from last year—but this time, you have a wider scope to work with. Again, you’re free to go into detail on an activity you’ve already listed elsewhere. And again, we recommend instead picking an experience you haven’t already described, because this gives you more opportunities to show off your strengths and well-roundedness.

Use the categories the prompt lists as a jumping-off point to decide on your essay topic. Are there any extracurricular experiences you didn’t list with your other activities? Where have you worked, and how did your work affect you? Have you traveled anywhere that changed your perspective? Is your role in your family an essential part of who you are?

Again, be as specific as you can. For example:

Instead of stating how passionate you were about writing your fiction book, explain how facing your fifth rejection email taught you to persevere until you landed the publication
Instead of saying your retail job taught you to keep a level head in a fast-paced environment, describe how defusing a conflict with an angry customer opened your eyes to new conflict-resolution strategies
Instead of expressing that you loved your trip to Los Angeles, go into detail about your visit to the California Science Museum’s space exhibits
Instead of saying that your family’s business gave you a unique work ethic, explain how learning a difficult secret recipe from the family restaurant gave you a sense of pride in your background

Pay attention to the prompt’s wording—this shouldn’t be a superficial experience, but something that shaped who you are . Think carefully about the anecdote you choose to avoid coming across as shallow or generic.

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

With this prompt, we’re switching gears from your past experiences into the future. Here, admissions officials want to know what drives you. What are your aspirations, and why do you think a Harvard education in particular would best suit your vision? What impact will you have on your community after you graduate? Try to give a sense of your long-term plans, and don’t just blandly describe your intended career field. If you plan to go into data science, for example, explain how you hope to improve the process of peer review by analyzing its availability in past research.

Consider two aspects to your response: how you envision your Harvard education, and how you plan to use it. Connect your intended major—and minors—to your aspirations post-graduation. If you’re dead-set on any specific student organizations or programs, consider focusing on those only if they’re essential to your plans. Remember, you’ve only got 200 words to describe your entire future!

You might also still be undecided about your post-graduation plans, or even your intended major. Be honest about this. Many students switch majors or career choices halfway through college, but even so, you still have a reason you want to go to Harvard. Maybe you know you want to help your community through some kind of leadership role, and you want to decide between a couple of majors provided at Harvard to determine what that leadership role will be. Whatever your reason is, you wouldn’t be applying if you didn’t have one—so think deeply about that reason, and express it genuinely through your essay!

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

This last prompt is a classic “roommate” college essay prompt— it’s a chance to adopt a more casual voice, and show admissions officials a side of yourself they haven’t gotten with your other responses. Consider describing things like your hobbies, music taste, decoration sensibilities, or interesting facts about your living habits. Maybe it’s not your first time living in a dorm, or maybe you’re used to sharing your room with a sibling.

Whatever you choose, try to list three things that give some insight into who you are as a person, and give the list some variety. Instead of listing three hobbies, you might mention one hobby, one tidbit about your background that will play into your living habits, and one hope you have for activities you can do with your future roommate.

You might also consider playing around with your essay’s format to make it stand out. While 200 words is a bit long for a simple bullet-point format, you can still separate your essay out into numbered items—or maybe you’d like to try out a letter format addressed directly to your roommate. If a format along these lines helps you get into the casual headspace the prompt is asking for, then go for it!

If you need help polishing up your Harvard supplemental essays, check out our College Essay Review service. You can receive detailed feedback from Ivy League consultants in as little as 24 hours.

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How to Answer the Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts (2023-2024)

How to write the harvard supplemental essays (2023-2024).

Bonus Material: PrepMaven’s 50+ Real Supplemental Essays for Ivy+ Schools

Last year, Harvard admitted just 3.2% of applicants, meaning that if you want a shot at an admission for the 2023-2024 cycle, your application has to be just about perfect.

One element of the Harvard application that many students struggle with is the Harvard writing supplement. It’s tricky to know exactly how to approach these supplemental essays: what can you write to stand out from the thousands of other applicants? What exactly are Harvard admissions officers looking for?

Fortunately, at PrepMaven, we’ve helped thousands of students craft compelling college application essays. It doesn’t hurt that many of our expert tutors have been admitted to Harvard themselves, and so they know exactly what works.

In this guide, we’ll break down the 2023-2024 Harvard writing supplement, explaining exactly what you need to do to maximize your chances at a Harvard acceptance. To check out our overall guide that covers everything you need to do to get into Harvard in 2024, click here.

As you read on, check out our free resource linked below: it contains real, successful examples of supplemental essays written for Harvard and other top schools.

Download 50+ Real Supplemental Essays for Ivy+ Schools

Jump to section:

Harvard 2023-2024 supplemental essay prompts
How to write Harvard’s first essay
How to write Harvard’s second essay
How to write Harvard’s third essay
How to write Harvard’s fourth essay
How to write Harvard’s fifth essay

Harvard’s 2023-2024 supplemental essays

This year, Harvard has a fairly intense set of supplemental essays: you’ll have to write 5 essays, each with a maximum word count of 200 words.

The supplemental essays prompts are below:

Prompt 1 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? Prompt 2 Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. Prompt 3 Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are. Prompt 4 How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future? Prompt 5 Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.

The first thing to notice is that several of these essays fall into well-known categories of the college essay.

How to write Harvard’s first essay: Diversity/Community

If you haven’t already, you’ll soon come to recognize this essay prompt. At heart, this kind of prompt is asking you to discuss how–based on specific elements of your life–you view your role as a potential member of Harvard’s diverse community.

We call this the Diversity/community essay, because those are really always two sides of the same coin.

With the Harvard Diversity/community essay, there are 2 basic options for structuring your response:

Discuss community through the lens of your identity.
Discuss community through the lens of other events/activities/pursuits in your life.

Which path you take will actually be easy to decide:

If your identity (racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, etc.) has significantly influenced your worldview or experiences, go with option 1.

In other words, if you know you have something meaningful to say about how your identity has shaped you, that should structure your response. This might mean writing an essay about how discrimination or systemic biases have affected you or your family; it could just as well, however, mean writing about specific experiences you’ve cherished as a member of a particular culture.

A few great examples from recent essays we’ve worked on:

An essay that focuses on a student’s biracial background and how she learned to use others’ ignorant/racist comments as opportunities for starting difficult conversations.
An essay exploring how a first-generation immigrant served as a translator for his parents.
An essay from a young woman exploring how she navigated the contradictions between her feminist views and the emphasis on tradition within her religion.

If your identity has not significantly experienced how you view the world, go with option 2.

If you don’t feel particularly connected to a specific identity, or if you can’t think of specific ways that your identity has affected you, you should instead focus on other elements of your life that have shaped your view of community.

Think about what you want out of a community: then, think about what aspect of your life (an extracurricular, a hobby, a social circle) has shaped that desire. Tell that story. It may sound a bit tough to thread that needle, but it really isn’t so bad: here are a few really successful topics from recent students in response to this kind of prompt:

An essay about how a student’s participation in yearly music recitals with strangers shaped how he views community as a place for everyone to share their gifts/talents.
An essay from an avid hiker about how his experiences maintaining hiking trails taught him to think of community as a shared, daily effort in the service of others.
An essay from a student who moved countries multiple times reflecting on what in each place contributed to creating a cohesive community.

All the examples are different, but share one thing in common: using your personal experiences to reflect on your role in a diverse community.

For successful examples of Diversity/community essays, check out the first Princeton essay and the first three UMich essays in the free collection below!

How to write Harvard’s second essay: Intellectual Experience

Here’s the second supplemental prompt:

Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.

You can really think of this question as being a simpler version of the “Why Major?” question that colleges often ask (and on which we’ve written a guide here ).

With a simple “Intellectual experience” prompt, you don’t have to go into the nitty-gritty of how Harvard’s programs will help you pursue your interests. Instead, you’ll just tell the Harvard admissions committee how a particular experience you’ve had sharpened your curiosity, raised new questions, or affected your academic goals.

Think of the “Intellectual Experience” essay as having two parts:

Describe the experience itself
Show how it affected you or what you learned

What kinds of things count as intellectual experiences? Well, it really is a very broad category, and you’re likely the best judge. Particularly good ideas include things like:

Independent research
Internships with professors or universities
Advanced summer programs at universities
Academically-focused extracurriculars

If you don’t have any of the above to talk about, you can also make this essay about:

A provocative book, article, etc. that you’ve engaged with
A particularly memorable moment in class (a specific lab, assignment, or lecture)
Any other learning experience, formal or not, that had a profound effect on you

The key is that, regardless of what the topic of your essay is, you do the following:

Describe it in vivid, specific detail
Convey your passion for whatever you’re describing
Explore its effect on you

Never underestimate the power of simply showing Harvard admissions officers that you’re the kind of person who spends time thinking about your interests. That’s really all they want here, and that’s why it’s so important that you’re specific and passionate.

At the same time, Harvard admissions committees want to see that this intellectual experience has shaped you in some way, that you’ve meaningfully engaged with it. That’s why it’s crucial that you spend some time discussing what new ideas or questions arose out of this experience.

And that’s it! Do all of the above, and you’ll have the second of Harvard’s supplemental essays locked down tight–plus, you’ll have a great template for any other schools that ask the same question.

Ready to get started? A great resource to begin with is our collection of real, successful supplemental essays, many of which answer similar prompts. For stellar examples of essays that discuss intellectual experiences, check out the last supplemental essay for Princeton, as well as the first sample essay for UPenn.

How to write Harvard’s third essay: Extracurricular

Harvard’s third supplemental essay is a classic one: the Extracurricular essay. You’re pretty much guaranteed to see a version of this prompt for a few of your schools. For reference, the exact wording of Harvard’s is below:

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

These essays usually come quite naturally to students, since the Extracurricular prompt lets you get into more detail about something on your resume/activities sheet.

Although you may be tempted to simply write about the most “impressive” thing on your resume, we’d encourage you to think a little bit differently: the question here, as with every essay, is about what the best story you can tell is.

You should especially think about how much more your essay can add on to what the activities list already shows. For example, if your team won first place at a national Quizbowl competition, that’s definitely impressive. But is there a story there? More to the point: is the story you tell going to add something meaningful beyond the fact that you took home the first place trophy?

If not, then Quizbowl can stay on your activities list: the Harvard admissions committee will still know you got first place, and you’ll be able to use this supplemental essay to instead provide added detail and color to an activity that might otherwise seem less impressive.

We’ve included a sample below from an essay in response to one of Princeton’s previous prompts.

Over the pandemic, I tutored two middle school boys. Now, I love kids, but middle schoolers are not my number one favorites. They are often dismissive of authority and it’s very hard to hold their attention for longer than two minutes. So working with them on Zoom for an hour became my new challenge. I tried many tactics. When fun warm-ups, writing prompts, and Zoom games all failed, I was officially stumped. I couldn’t understand why they found me so uninteresting. I decided to pay closer attention to the passions they mentioned. Instead of imposing my own ideas, I listened to what they had to say. It turned out Lucian loved running. Getting him to read was like pulling teeth, but I found a Jason Reynolds book called Ghost, part of a series about a track team. We would spend ten or fifteen minutes at the beginning of each session reading it aloud to each other, and while he seemed to be engaged, I couldn’t tell exactly how much he was enjoying it. But when we finally finished, he asked me shyly, “What did you say the next one was called?” Sajiah proved to be tougher to please. He wasn’t swayed by any books I suggested to him, no matter the topic. He often hummed or rapped while working, which I found to be endlessly annoying, until I started listening to the actual words. I Googled the lyrics and noticed that he particularly enjoyed Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa. So we began a project investigating the origins of hip hop, and created a website as the final product. He loved finding out more about the music he listened to every day, and I loved seeing him so happy with his work. I don’t pretend I saved the world by helping these boys, but I am proud of the creative way I found projects and topics they genuinely enjoyed investigating. I hope to continue working with children as a form of civic engagement throughout college and beyond; if I can help students like Sajiah and Lucian, it’ll be well worth it.

Notice that the extracurricular itself (tutoring two young students) isn’t inherently impressive, but the story is. If the author just left this on their activities sheet, it probably wouldn’t have caught admissions officers’ attention.

But, because this applicant was able to tell a meaningful, reflective story about this extracurricular activity, it added a new depth and perspective to their application as a whole.

The third Harvard supplemental essay doesn’t have to be difficult: stay honest, stay direct, and tell your story.

To read other responses to this very prompt (and many other sample supplemental essays), download our collection below. And if you’d like the guidance of one of our expert tutors (some of whom wrote the very essays in that packet), just contact us .

How to write Harvard’s fourth essay: Putting your education to use

Although this question may feel oddly specific, it’s really just another version of a commonly asked question: what are you going to do with what you learn? Most frequently, this is a question asked by religious universities, or universities with a particular focus on service.

While the answer doesn’t have to present you as somebody who will spend their whole life volunteering, it’s a good idea to reflect a bit on what the purpose of education is for you, and how you might be able to present that in a socially-minded, positive way.

Below, check out the prompt and some advice on what Harvard admissions officers are looking for.

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

There are probably some obvious answers you could give here that (even if they’re true) should probably stay off the page. Saying you want to use your Harvard education to make a ton of money on Wall Street or make elite political connections isn’t likely to win you any admiration from the admissions officers.

That being said, don’t try too hard to pass yourself off as someone you’re not. If you really do have a passion for service or politics and plan to pursue a major related to those ideas, then this essay will be quite straightforward for you. Describe what drives you and how the tools Harvard provides will help you achieve those socially-minded goals.

For example, if you’re motivated to address systemic inequities in education and plan to study something like sociology, you could simply discuss where this motivation comes from and how a Harvard sociology degree would help you in your goals. The strongest essays will always come from these kinds of stories.

If, on the other hand, you don’t have those kinds of motivations or background, you’ll likely want to focus this essay more broadly on how you plan to pursue your post-grad life. Ideally, you’ll find some way to thread in ideas about community, giving back, and service into this essay.

This can be a big-picture, or not. You might talk about how a Harvard education will help you support your family, or how it can help you give back to the local community you come from. As long as you keep your essay specific and honest without trying to overdo your charitable intentions, you’ll be fine.

How to write Harvard’s fifth essay: Roommates

Ah, a classic roommate essay! Although this might seem like an offbeat or wacky question, you’ll find there’s a few colleges that ask you to share something with your future roommates. Why?

Well, basically because they want to make sure you’re a fairly sociable person who’ll get along with people.

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

You can and should have fun with these essays, and can even frame them as letters to your roommate. It’s an opportunity for you to share fun facts or quirks about yourself, sure, but more than anything these essays are a chance for you to show that you’re mindful of others.

Whatever specific facts you include here, be sure to make some of them about you as a community member. For example, if you’re an engineering whiz, you can definitely talk about how you like to tinker and take stuff apart. But, to really make this land with Harvard’s admissions committee, you could also mention how that means you’ll always be ready to help your roommate fix a broken laptop.

The key idea is to show that your quirks, whatever they are, will have some positive impact on the people around you.

Be humble, be playful, but don’t forget what this is all about: you’re trying to convince Harvard you’d be a good person to have around for four years. First and foremost that means showing them that you’d be a conscientious roommate who’s mindful of others’ needs.

If you’re applying to Harvard, the place to start is our comprehensive guide to the Harvard application for the 2023-2024 cycle, which you can find here. That guide doesn’t just cover what Harvard’s application requires of you: it uses the latest statistics and insights from our own Harvard undergraduate tutors to walk you through exactly what you’ll need to do to have a shot at Harvard.

Once you’re ready to start writing supplemental essays for Harvard and your other schools, we have two main pieces of advice.

First: read real, successful sample supplemental essays that helped get students into Harvard and other hyper-selective schools. Most people don’t really know what schools like Harvard actually want from the supplemental essays, and the best solution is to spend lots of time reviewing sample essays. We’ve collected dozens of these essays in the free resource below.

Second: get expert help. Whether you’re a brilliant writer or just an okay one, you’ll benefit tremendously from the advice of someone who’s already successfully navigated the college application process. Our college essay coaches aren’t just writing experts who can make your essay shine: they’re trained to know exactly what schools like Harvard expect to see .

Check out the free sample essays below, and, when you’re ready to start writing, contact us to get paired with a college essay expert.

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Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-24

Harvard supplemental essays 2023-2024.

If you’re applying to Harvard , you might be wondering how to approach the Harvard supplemental essays. Harvard is one of the most prestigious schools in the United States and the world, and as such is ultra-competitive. As an applicant, you’ll want to take every opportunity to distinguish yourself, starting with the Harvard essay prompts. This may feel daunting, but writing stellar Harvard application essays is guaranteed to make your application shine.

In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about writing your Harvard supplemental essays. This includes understanding the Harvard essay requirements and showing you where to find Harvard essay examples. We’ll also go over general Harvard application requirements that you should know, including the Harvard acceptance rate and application deadline.

Want some advice on how to get into Harvard? You’ve come to the right place. Now, let’s go over some quick facts about the Harvard supplemental essays.

Harvard Supplemental Essays: Quick Facts

Harvard university essay quick facts.

Harvard acceptance rate: 4% – U.S. News rates Harvard a highly competitive school.
5 short-answer questions (200-word limit)
Restrictive Early Action: November 1st
Regular Decision: January 1st
Harvard application note: The Harvard supplemental essays for the 2023-2024 cycle have changed from past years. All five Harvard supplemental essays are required for all applicants.
#1 Harvard Essay Tip: Your essays are your opportunity to show Harvard how you’ve interacted with the world. This includes how your experiences have shaped you into who you are and the kind of impact you hope to make.

Please note that essay requirements are subject to change each admissions cycle, and portions of this article may have been written before the final publication of the most recent guidelines. For the most up-to-date information on essay requirements, check the university’s admissions website.

Now that you know the basics about the Harvard application, let’s dive into more information about the Harvard supplemental essays.

What are the Harvard Essay Prompts?

The Harvard essay prompts for the 2023-2024 have changed dramatically from past years. Previously , Harvard only required a short extracurricular essay. Students then had the opportunity to write an additional essay, choosing between a few Harvard application essay questions. These included topics such as how you hope to use your college education and unusual circumstances in your life.

Now the Harvard supplemental essays are different. According to the latest information for first-year applicants, Harvard requires 5 short-answer essays of 200 words or less.

Here are the Harvard essay prompts for this year :

Harvard University Essay Prompts

1. 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, 2. briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. , 3. briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are., 4. how do you hope to use your harvard education in the future, 5. top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you. .

If you’ve read the Harvard supplemental essay prompts for their optional essay in years past, these questions may look familiar. Before, students might write one long Harvard application essay that only touched on one of these questions. Now, Harvard is requiring their applicants to succinctly respond to multiple prompts.

You might find writing multiple Harvard application essays is more intimidating than writing just one. And that’s okay! Even though this is the first year the Harvard supplemental essays are structured this way, these prompts are nothing new. We’ve still got all the information you need to successfully tackle the Harvard supplemental essays..

But before we dive into the Harvard supplemental essay prompts, let’s first talk about your Harvard personal statement.

Harvard Personal Statement

When you apply to Harvard, your Harvard application must include a personal statement. Both the Common App and Coalition App require you to write a personal statement, choosing from a selection of prompts. This essay is also what the Harvard admissions committee considers your Harvard personal statement. Unlike your Harvard supplemental essays, your personal statement is not school-specific. That means it can be submitted to any school you are applying to.

The 2023-24 Common App prompts are broad, and intentionally so! The prompts are meant to give students the space and opportunity to write about something they care about.

You can write about:

Your background
A lesson you have learned
A time that you challenged a belief
Something you’re grateful for
An accomplishment, a topic that fascinates you
Any topic of your choosing!

Harvard encourages students to write about something they’re passionate about, not something they think would impress the Harvard admissions committee. According to this list of tips about the Harvard personal statement, “The point of the personal statement is for you to have the chance to share whatever you would like with us. Remember, your topic does not have to be exotic to be compelling.”

Whatever you write your personal statement about, it should stand apart from your Harvard supplemental essays. Each one of your Harvard application essays should tell the Harvard admissions committee something new about you. Or, it should elaborate and build upon something that you haven’t had enough time to discuss elsewhere in your application.

What should I write my Harvard essay about?

There is no one perfect essay topic that will automatically earn you admission to Harvard. The best Harvard supplemental essays will communicate something unique about you, giving the admissions committee a window into who you are.

One way to come up with ideas for your Harvard supplemental essays is to read successful application essays! In this list of Ivy League essays that worked, you’ll see essays about everything. From AP Biology to Adventure Time to a family member’s hospitalization for schizophrenia. The quality of your writing, and whether the topic is important to you, is more important than the topic itself.

Harvard personal statement examples

In this guide to past Harvard personal statement examples, you can read essays from previous years. These essays answered many of the same questions Harvard asks today—except using far more words. Not all of these Harvard personal statement examples align with the current Harvard prompts, but they’re still examples of great writing.

Additionally, these Harvard personal statement examples still show the diversity of topics, as well as styles, that Harvard looks for. Though the Harvard essay requirements are different this year, there are many overlapping topics covered in the Harvard personal statement examples.

Choosing a topic

If you’re still stuck coming up with a topic for your Harvard application essay questions, try a brainstorm! Brainstorming or free writing about the different short answer questions is a great way to generate potential essay ideas.

Strong essays often focus around moments of change or personal growth. Think about an experience you grew from, or maybe one that demonstrates your values and what matters to you. You can also look to your application for inspiration. What aspects of who you are do you feel like your extracurriculars, grades, or potentially test scores leave out?

Harvard Short Answer Questions

In the next sections, we’ll go over each of the Harvard supplemental essays individually. For each of the Harvard essay prompts, we’ll discuss what the prompt is asking for and how you might approach it. And we’ll give you tips on what to include in your Harvard supplemental essays to make them stand out.

This year, the Harvard supplemental essays consist of 5 separate short-answer questions. The Harvard supplemental essays are called “short-answer” because of the word limit. You only have 200 words to provide a strong, detailed, and specific answer to the Harvard essay prompts. Limiting your Harvard supplemental essays to only 200 words can be tricky. So, it’s important you choose your topic wisely, consider the important details, and make every word count.

You can look up the Harvard supplemental essays with the Common App’s search tool . By searching for Harvard, or any other college, you can go over their school-specific writing requirements for that college. On Harvard’s website you can find guidelines for your Harvard application, including requirements for the Harvard supplemental essays.

Now, let’s go over each of the Harvard essay prompts in more detail.

Harvard Essay #1 – Contributing to Harvard

The first of the Harvard supplemental essays is about contributing to Harvard.

Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard?

This question is a bit misleading. Although it’s phrased as a single sentence, there are really two parts to this prompt. What in your life has shaped you into the person you are today? Then, how does that affect what you’ll contribute to Harvard’s community?

For the first of your Harvard supplemental essays, think about what “diversity” means to you. Maybe it’s where you grew up, your race, your gender or sexuality. Or maybe you’ve had a unique upbringing that falls outside of those identity categories. Once you have identified the piece of your upbringing you would like to share, think about how it’s shaped you. What value has that brought into your life, and how can that part of you enrich Harvard’s community?

For example, maybe you went to school in a really homogeneous suburb. Think of a place where everyone was the same race and from the same socioeconomic class. Once you recognized that, you tried to do everything you could to learn about different perspectives. Maybe you volunteered outside your community to try and understand the experiences of people outside of that bubble. This intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness is a product of your upbringing that impacts how you’d interact with others at Harvard.

Harvard Short Essay #2 – Intellectual Experience

For the second of your Harvard supplemental essays, you’re asked to focus on the intellectual.

Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.

This Harvard application essay should speak to your academic interests and your intended concentration— Harvard’s version of a major . Even if you don’t know what you want to concentrate in, that’s okay! You don’t have to worry about your Harvard supplemental essays defining what you will eventually go on to study. All you need to do is focus on a moment in your education, or in your life, that stimulated you intellectually.

Each of the Harvard supplemental essays are trying to learn something specific about you. In this one, Harvard is trying to see if you are intellectually curious and passionate about learning. As a prestigious university, Harvard puts a huge value on its students having a desire to learn. If you are applying to Harvard, this should be a pretty easy question to answer!

If something doesn’t immediately come to mind, try asking yourself these questions. What moment made you love English, or Math, or Science? Was it inside or outside of the classroom? Was it a political debate, or a conversation with a family member? An essay topic you didn’t expect to enjoy but ended up adoring? As long as you explain an intellectual passion, there’s no wrong answer.

Harvard Essay Prompt #3 – Extracurricular Activities Essay

If the first two Harvard supplemental essays focused on identity and curiosity, you can think of the third as focusing on action. The next of our Harvard supplemental essays centers around the things you do outside of the classroom.

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

You may have already gone into detail about one of your extracurricular activities or other experiences in your Common App. If so, you should consider selecting a different one to speak about here. Having all of these individual Harvard supplemental essays allows you to share so many facets of who you are. Don’t limit yourself by describing the same thing multiple times!

This question is very open-ended. Since you only have 200 words, focus on answering this question succinctly and honestly. Don’t overthink it — simply pick one of these experiences and describe how it has shaped who you are.

You could talk about grocery shopping with your mom, working at a summer camp, or being the captain of the swim team. What matters most is that you pick an experience that really impacted you. This could be something that inspired a change in your perspective, or helped you develop a new skill. The most important part of question 3 of your Harvard supplemental essays is not which activity you pick. It’s in showing how it has shaped you.

Harvard Essay #4 – Education and the future

For #4 of your Harvard supplemental essays, Harvard tasks you with envisioning your future.

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

A Harvard education can get you a lot of places. Harvard knows that it’s a renowned institution—there’s a reason that the Harvard acceptance rate is so low. However, you don’t need to inflate its ego by discussing Harvard’s prestige. Instead, think about how a Harvard education will prepare you to make a positive impact in the world.

Also be wary of writing your Harvard supplemental essays in a way that inflates your own ego. Don’t just say you think you’ll be the next Elon Musk or the President of the U.S. Focus less on who you’ll be and more on what you’ll do. Think about what technology you could create to make peoples’ lives easier or policies you could enact to reduce poverty. Many Harvard students go on to achieve amazing things. However, make sure you’re focused on why those things are important and not the achievement itself.

You can also use the 4th of your Harvard supplemental essays to sneak in some “why Harvard” details. Consider mentioning a specific Harvard class or professor that you wish to study under. Maybe five years after graduating, you want to be writing a book with Professor X. And five years after that, you want to be teaching at Harvard on the same topic.

Harvard Essay #5 – Roommate Essay

This final question for the Harvard supplemental essays gives you an opportunity to chat with an imaginary future roommate.

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

In the last of your Harvard supplemental essays, you can get a little creative. Since this question gives you complete freedom over what you include, it can be helpful to save it for last. Then you can look back at your other Harvard supplemental essays and brainstorm what the admissions committee hasn’t heard yet. If you could only describe three things about yourself, in 200 words, what would you say?

Since you’re hypothetically talking to a roommate, don’t be afraid to be more joking or casual—let your personality shine through! But, keep in mind that an admissions officer will still be reading your essay. So long as you’re being appropriate and true to yourself, you get to decide what to share and how to share it!

That being said, don’t mention only things that are superficial. Remember, this is still part of your application, and your reader is deciding whether you belong at Harvard. “I leave my clothes all over my bedroom floor, but I promise to never leave them in the common room,” may be the truth. However, opt for the personal over the mundane! What do you geek out about? How do you like to spend your free time? What Harvard experiences are you most looking forward to?

How to write the Harvard supplemental essays

So, we’ve gone over the individual Harvard application essays. Now let’s talk about some general tips that you could use to answer any of the Harvard essays.

Be specific

Whether you’re writing about your extracurriculars, your upbringing, or Harvard itself, be specific. Generalizations can feel like they let you say more in fewer words. But, they don’t say as much about who you are or your experiences.

Instead of saying “I’ve always been passionate about history,” get specific! There are lots of people who like history—what exactly about history interests you? A specific time period? A social movement? Is it something about the discipline itself? Did you always feel this way about this subject? The more specific you are, the more the Harvard Admissions team can learn from your Harvard supplemental essays.

This tip also applies to when you’re talking about Harvard. At some point in your Harvard application essays, you’ll want to mention something about why you want to attend Harvard. There are a whopping five Harvard essay prompts, after all! Avoid the obvious, like that Harvard has good academics and is prestigious. Be specific — you can list clubs, professors, majors like Sociology or Economics , or anything else that’s specific to the school. This shows that you’ve done your research and you want to come for a reason, not just the Harvard degree.

Be yourself

At the end of the day, your Harvard application essays are for Admissions to get to know you better. The more introspective you can be before writing them, the more you can use the essays to demonstrate your values. Since the Harvard acceptance rate is so low, you’re competing against many incredibly qualified applicants. Sure, you might have stellar grades—but so does the average Harvard applicant. Your answers to the Harvard essay prompts are a way to set yourself apart. And the best way to do that is by being yourself.

When you’re writing your Harvard application essays, it can feel intimidating to try and be “unique.” It can feel like you’ve never had a truly unique experience. But no one is exactly like you, so the more true to yourself you can be, the better! In your Harvard application essays, you don’t need to perform anything that you think Harvard wants to hear. Just be honest and speak about yourself and your experiences.

Show, don’t tell

This tip on perfecting your Harvard application essays is a classic: show, don’t tell. Instead of simply stating the facts or your feelings, you put the reader into the experience using dialogue, imagery, and storytelling.

For example, you might start your Harvard application essay by saying, “I was the most excited I had ever been.” Instead, could you describe how that excitement felt? Were your palms sweaty? Was your heart racing? Paint the reader a picture so they can imagine what it must have felt like to be there with you.

We know you do only have 200 words for these Harvard essay prompts. However, that leaves more than enough room for an evocative anecdote. Many students place this type of anecdote at the beginning of their Harvard application essays as a “hook.” A hook is something that grabs the reader’s attention, and pulls them into the essay. It makes them want to keep reading. Since the admissions committee will be reading so many essays, using a hook like this can make your essay stand out.

Grammar and spelling

It’s not super exciting, but it is non-negotiable: your Harvard application essays must have perfect grammar and spelling. The Harvard acceptance rate is 4%. You don’t want to let a typo or a run-on sentence be the distinguishing factor between you and another applicant.

Use spell check, use an online grammar checker, or give your Harvard application essay to a parent or friend. Reading the essay out loud is also a great way to catch typos and grammatical errors. If something sounds wrong when it’s read out loud, you know that you have to go in and fix it. Reading out loud also forces you to look at each word. So, it’s less likely that a copy-paste error like having two “and’s” in a row would slip by.

Get creative

Don’t be afraid to have fun with your Harvard application essays! The Harvard essay prompts might seem pretty straightforward. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take them in a more fun direction.

One way to stand out is to get a little creative. Sure, there’s probably such a thing as being too creative. You don’t want to be so quirky that you forget to answer the question, or come off smug. But adding a little natural humor or excitement into your essays is a totally acceptable way to get the admissions committee’s attention.

If after reading these tips you’re still in doubt, consider reading some Harvard personal statement examples. Keep in mind our Harvard personal statement examples are from before changes were made to the Harvard essay requirements. However, they cover many similar topics as the current Harvard essays. Even though the Harvard essay prompts aren’t exactly the same, and the word count is certainly different, they’re still valuable. Our Harvard personal statement examples can show you how many different ways there are to answer the same questions. And how to write an essay that stands out.

Does Harvard like risky essays?

Judging from personal experience, yes! When I wrote my Harvard application essay in 2015, they were still asking for the optional extended personal essay. I chose to answer the prompt that asks what your roommate should know about you—similar to the current prompt.

Instead of writing an essay, I wrote a play/screenplay where I meet my roommate for the first time. It was formatted like a play, with dialogue and stage directions, and set in the Harvard dorms. I researched specific things about Harvard and Harvard Square, and incorporated different places in the dialogue to make it feel more specific. I also shared a lot about myself: my values, quirks, extracurriculars, and more. And I guess they liked it, since I was admitted in the class of 2020!

In general, Harvard is looking for students who aren’t afraid to stand out. This includes students who are intellectually curious and passionate about what they believe in. It might feel harder to get creative in only 200 words. But, since you have five questions, you can always pick one of them and take a risk! Write a poem, use a quote or song lyrics, write with a specific audience in mind. As long as you’re using correct spelling and grammar, and you’re answering the question, the world is your oyster!

What does Harvard look for in applicants?

So what does Harvard look for in applicants? If you want to know how to get into Harvard, you’ll need some idea of what Harvard is looking for.

First and foremost, you need to make sure you’re answering all of the Harvard essay prompts. And, be sure you’ve fulfilled all of the Harvard application requirements. That means:

Including your Harvard personal statement
Answering the Harvard application essay questions
Meeting all of the Harvard essay requirements
Submitting all of the required materials.

You also need to carefully observe the Harvard application deadlines, and pick which deadline works best for you.

Outside of these Harvard application requirements, what else do you need to think about to know how to get into Harvard? Start by thinking about why you want to go to Harvard. It can seem like a simple question, but why Harvard specifically? Why are you a good fit? Why would you excel there? And why do you need to be there, specifically, to reach your highest potential?

Looking for more concrete answers to how to get into Harvard? On Harvard’s website, they provide admissions criteria . Stellar academics are understandably important, but Harvard also considers factors like leadership, character, and community involvement. One way to show Harvard that you embody these factors is through your answers to the Harvard application essay questions.

When is my Harvard application due?

There are two Harvard application deadlines. Regardless of which deadline you choose to submit by, you’ll need to submit a complete application. This includes:

Your answers to the Harvard application essay questions
Your (optional) SAT scores
Letters of recommendation
Extracurricular list
Any other Harvard essay requirements or supplements

One Harvard application deadline is Restrictive Early Action, and the other Harvard application deadline is Regular Decision.

Harvard Restrictive Early Action

The Harvard application deadline for Restrictive Early Action is November 1 . Restrive Early Action means that you can only submit your application early to one institution. Unlike Early Decision, it’s not a binding acceptance. So if you get into Harvard early, you can still apply to other schools Regular Decision.

You should only apply to Harvard early if you’re confident that you’ve satisfied the Harvard essay requirements. You’ll also want to make sure you’ve answered all of the Harvard application essay questions to the best of your ability. When writing your answers to the Harvard supplemental essays, give yourself enough time to draft and brainstorm. Don’t write your answers the night before the deadline. If you haven’t filled the Harvard essay requirements or answered the Harvard application essay questions, don’t rush! Rather than hurry to submit Early Action, give yourself until the Regular Decision deadline.

Harvard Regular Decision

The Regular Decision deadline is January 1 . This gives you plenty of time to fulfill the Harvard essay requirements, including answers to all five Harvard essay prompts. This might make for a busy Winter Break, but it’s worth it to make sure that you’ve confidently satisfied all of the Harvard application requirements.

Additional Harvard Resources from CollegeAdvisor

Hopefully by this point you’re feeling more confident about answering the Harvard essay prompts. Although the Harvard application essay questions are different this cycle, you’ve still got plenty of resources to depend on.

If you’re still looking for advice on how to get into Harvard, check out our guide that covers every step of the Harvard admissions process. We also have webinars like this one where you can hear from Harvard students about their college journeys.

Don’t forget that if you’re still struggling with answering the Harvard essay questions, you can read these Harvard essay examples: Harvard personal statement examples from years past. Even though these Harvard essay examples are a little out of date, Harvard personal statement examples can give you a feeling for what kind of essay Harvard is looking for—regardless of the Harvard application essay questions.

Harvard Essays – Takeaways

Now that you’ve reached the end of our guide to the Harvard supplemental essays, you’re ready to write your own. Here are some key takeaways to keep in mind:

Harvard University Essay Key Takeaways

The Harvard application essay questions are different this year. Be sure to check Harvard’s website for the most up to date Harvard application requirements.
This year, there are 5 Harvard supplemental essays. Each essay has a word limit of 200 words.
When writing your essays: Be specific. Be true to yourself. Show and not tell. Always check your spelling and grammar. Don’t be afraid to get creative!
Be mindful of the two Harvard deadlines: November 1st (Restrictive Early Action) and January 1st (Regular Decision).
Wherever you are in your college journey, CollegeAdvisor is here to support you. From guides to Harvard’s extracurriculars , to Harvard personal statement examples and what to expect after you apply, we’ve got you covered. Even though the Harvard personal statement examples aren’t answering the same prompts as this year, they can still be educational. Give them a read and see for yourself!

Thanks for reading our guide to Harvard’s supplemental essays—now go forth and write!

This essay guide was written by advisor, Rachel Kahn . Looking for more admissions support? Click here to schedule a free meeting with one of our Admissions Specialists. During your meeting, our team will discuss your profile and help you find targeted ways to increase your admissions odds at top schools. We’ll also answer any questions and discuss how CollegeAdvisor.com can support you in the college application process.

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How to Write the Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-2024

August 24, 2023

Harvard University is undeniably recognized as one of the most prestigious academic institutions. With a mere 3.2% acceptance rate, securing an acceptance letter requires facing fierce competition. Therefore, it is essential to utilize the Harvard supplemental essays 2023-2024 effectively because these essays can be your ticket to impressing the admissions officers and securing a spot at this elite institution.

To guide you through the prompts for this year, I have outlined each question and elaborated on the approaches you should take, along with my recommended strategies and tips. This guide will help maximize the potential of your Harvard supplemental essays 2023-2024 and increase your chances of a successful application.

Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-2024: Required Short Answers

1. 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 (min: 10 / max: 200).

This is one of the most open-ended prompts among the Harvard supplemental essays. There can be many different parts of your identity to choose from—your cultural background, your gender identity or sexual orientation, your socioeconomic class, or even an activity that you participate in that is unusual. Whether it’s learning languages or playing a little-known instrument, your essay should focus on one or two things that make you different so that you can dedicate more words to each of these qualities.

Remember, don’t repeat anything you’ve already mentioned in your personal statement. Each component of your application is meant to add an extra layer to your profile. Tell admissions officers about an aspect(s) of your identity that you find valuable and can add to the diversity of the Harvard campus. Do you feel like you’re a part of a bigger community? How has your perspective been shaped by these components of yourself? Have you faced any challenges because of them?

2. Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. (Min: 10 / Max: 200)

Think about the many different books that you’ve enjoyed, courses that you’d take again, or discussions that you’ve participated in that you always play over in your head. Which of these have been the most meaningful and of course, why? Guide the reader through your journey of discovery of the material, any anecdotes associated with the impact it has had on you, or how it might have influenced what you’re passionate about. Name the experience, but mainly dedicate your essay to the “why.”

On another note, the topic doesn’t have to relate directly to your primary academic interest and can instead show that you are multifaceted. If there’s a deeper connection between your interests, that would also be interesting to write about here. Avoid common answers—dedicating your Harvard supplemental essays to common books like A Brief History of Time or the topic of Einstein’s theory will not help you stand out. When writing this essay, think about whether admissions officers will be convinced why the paper or book means more to you than any other.

3. Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are. (Min: 10 / Max: 200)

This prompt is the perfect opportunity for you to explore how you’ve chosen to interact with different communities around you. Carefully think about whether you want to write about the “travel,” “living” or “working” aspect. Or, you could have done all three during a study abroad experience that fits right into the theme as well.

However, be very careful if you want to write about a community service experience or service trip abroad. This is an activity many students participate in, and will not reflect very uniquely on your part. In fact, it could actually end up seeming more like a display of your privilege if your essay solely talks about how you might have helped people in a third-world country. Instead, focus either on your own community, or a work experience that might have been more humbling. If you had an experience that helped solidify your interest in a culture or selecting your college major, that could also be a good angle.

Regardless of your topic, make sure you connect the experience back to yourself. How did the activity shape you? How has the event influenced your perspective? Are there lessons or values it taught you that you’ll carry with you throughout college?

Additionally, Harvard admissions want to know whether you’ve fully taken advantage of your extracurricular opportunities. They want to gauge how you might contribute to the Harvard community, so it would also be wise to choose an activity that you’re genuinely passionate about and can see yourself continuing after high school. Write about an activity that you haven’t mentioned in your personal statement, preferably one where you’ve demonstrated leadership and can highlight tangible achievements and quantitative progress. Talk about why the activity appeals to you, what it has taught you or if it has inspired growth in you in some way. Since you don’t have a lot of space, make sure to use your words carefully and elaborate on how your commitments have shaped who you are today.

4. How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future? (Min: 10 / Max: 200)

This is another prompt where you can insert your knowledge of Harvard University. Connect your answer to a certain major or course that can prepare you to take on greater challenges. Think about your academic passions, where you ideally see yourself in ten years, and how specific Harvard concentrations such as “Folklore and Mythology” or “Developmental and Regenerative Biology” can help you reach those levels.

Clichéd answers to avoid would be issues that are widely talked about such as finding the cure to cancer or ridding the world of poverty. While these are definitely worth the concern, you must think about issues on a more attainable scale that you hope to address in the near future. How can you use your Harvard education to make a significant impact? Your answer can be used to depict your dedication to your community, how you operate as a leader, and how you can take advantage of the resources and facilities of the prestigious Cambridge institution.

Remember, this question strictly asks about how you plan on using your Harvard education, so keep your focus narrowed. In order to impress the admissions officers, your strategy should lie in outlining a strong connection between your intended academic and extracurricular endeavors in college with the role they can play in your goals in the future.

5. Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you. (Min: 10 / Max: 200)

Even though you could take a more straightforward “I would like my roommate to know XYZ” approach with this essay, it might be better if you frame your response in the form of a letter to your future roommate. Even though they actually won’t be reading it, this could be a more creative way of letting Harvard admissions officers know facts about yourself that don’t come up anywhere else in your application.

Think about the impression you want to make on the reader. You might want to come across as someone who would be an accommodating roommate. Or you might want them to learn more about your goals, or how you spend your free time. Use your essay accordingly to talk about your hobbies, living habits, and plans for both your freshman year of college and life in general. Since there is no direct “Why Harvard” essay, you could also include what you’re most excited about the opportunity to attend the university. You could talk about a course you can’t wait to take or a club you’re planning to join to show that you’re aware of the unique opportunities Harvard offers.

This prompt is a chance for you to show admissions officers how you function in your everyday life, so it could be one of the safer options to pick if you’re afraid that writing about bigger issues could put you in more of a controversial spot.

Further Tips for Writing the Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-2024

Be as specific as possible - Not only are the Harvard supplemental essays 2023-2024 quite open-ended, there’s no strict word limit enforced either. It can be very easy for you to want to fit in as much information as you can in order to maximize your chances of admission. However, admissions officers don’t want to know every single thing about you. They’ve only got a limited amount of time to look through your essays so make sure your responses cover only what is necessary and keep the focus on yourself and how you would benefit from a Harvard education. This is not a place where you want to go off on tangents. Avoid general statements and stick to characteristics and experiences that make you unique.
Demonstrate the characteristics that Harvard is looking for - Harvard looks for students who demonstrate “maturity, character, leadership, self-confidence, sense of humor, energy, concern for others, and grace under pressure.” When choosing a topic, think about how you can bring these qualities forward in your essays. During your brainstorming process, ask yourself whether your topic depicts you as a mature individual, whether you’ve shown that you work well under pressure, and if there are any places you can sprinkle your sense of humor in without it sounding forced. Since a lot of students who apply to Harvard have strong numbers and extracurriculars, you need to further establish yourself as the perfect fit for the school when writing your supplemental essays.
Your choice of topic could make a difference - Let’s face it—you have no shortage of options when it comes to picking your topic for t he Harvard supplemental essays 2023-2024 . If you have a vague idea about what to answer for how you would use your gap year but feel much more comfortable talking about the books you’ve read in the past year, you should obviously choose the latter topic. If you feel like the essay you’ve written fits a prompt differently than the one you initially tackled, go ahead and select that prompt on the Common App. Don’t forget to adjust accordingly to specific requirements asked by the new question!

The reality is: it can be difficult to stand out among over 42,000 applicants. But if you avoid common answers in your Harvard supplemental essays 2023-2024 and show admissions officers that you possess the values that Harvard looks for, you’ll set yourself up for a chance at admission.

At InGenius Prep, we take pride in our record of helping students triple their chances of being accepted into a top 10 school. If you're seeking expert advice on how to effectively strategize your supplemental essays, sign up for a free consultation today with one of our college admissions experts.

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August 10, 2022

Tips for Answering the Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts [2022 – 2023]

It comes as no surprise that Harvard consistently ranks among the top universities in the world. Its highly regarded reputation and academic chops attract the best and brightest. The alluring Harvard brand coupled with its extraordinary education cannot be ignored.

It is important to keep in mind throughout the application process that your focus should be on finding the school that will allow you to explore and grow to your full potential while delivering what is most important to you. Identifying the best fit requires you to be thorough in your research and to consider a myriad of factors as you assess the best path to achieve your goals.

Harvard accepts the Common Application , the Universal College Application, and the Coalition Application (with no preference). All of these applications require an essay response.

Although Harvard does not require supplemental essays, you have the option of including an additional essay if you feel your application does not adequately represent you or your accomplishments. If you decide to include an additional essay, make sure to use it to tell the admissions committee something significant about yourself that is not addressed sufficiently in another portion of your application materials. The admissions committee wants a holistic picture of you as a potential student. They want to be able to identify your voice and personality in your writing. This is an opportunity to convey meaningful aspects of your character , discuss unique interests, demonstrate how you inspire those around you, and address how Harvard will help you to thrive. How will you take advantage of the opportunities offered at Harvard? How will you contribute to the Harvard educational experience?

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If Harvard is your first choice, you have the option to apply through one of its early decision programs (November 1st deadline). For details about these two programs and the exact rules governing both, please see the Harvard website .

As you consider a supplemental essay, remember that your content must be compelling . Think about Harvard’s approach to academic excellence and what that means to you. It recognizes the value of students who are not only academically exceptional but also meaningfully engaged in their world and open to new experiences. Additionally, Harvard’s collegiate atmosphere flourishes based on a dynamic synergy among and between students and faculty. It is looking for “students who will be the best educators of one another and their professors– individuals who will inspire those around them during their College years and beyond.” Harvard prides itself on its close-knit undergraduate community. This emphasis is apparent in the Harvard Houses, where teaching, learning and living go hand-in-hand. How might you contribute to this environment? Perhaps you’d like to sing in a choir? Run a certain club? Is there a research program working alongside professors that is of interest to you? The key is to demonstrate how you will live in community with others in a positive way.

Harvard University supplemental essay prompts (optional)

Unusual circumstances in your life Your goal is to discuss unusual circumstances that provide a better context to your life experience. This may be something you did not choose to share in your Common Application (or Universal College Application) Essay response but feel is essential to a deeper understanding of you. Consider what this experience(s) reflects about your personal qualities, personality, and character. How do these circumstances influence your perspective and aspirations? How might your background make Harvard a particularly good fit for you?
Travel, living, or working experiences in your own or other communities Have you traveled or lived in a place or places that made a significant impact on you? Keep in mind this includes your local community or anywhere else in the world! Here, again, is an opportunity to provide further context for your life-experience. Discuss interesting extracurricular, cultural or intellectual experiences and how they have impacted your perspectives about the world. What did you learn from these experiences and what do they reveal about you? Think about how you engage with both familiar and new environments, cultures, and activities. How will your past experiences enrich the Harvard educational environment?
What you would want your future college roommate to know about you This question asks you to share something significant about your day-to-day way of being. You can discuss just about anything here! Although you could approach this essay in a somewhat playful manner, do not be tempted to address a topic for its shock value. It’s important that your response is genuine and conveys your personality in an appropriate tone. Remember: Harvard is looking for students who will be excellent educators; think about how that might relate to the things you’d choose to tell a future roommate situation in particular and the Harvard community in general.
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 This response allows you to discuss something that is important to you and to demonstrate how you think about intellectual problems. This is an exercise in creative and critical thinking. It also provides a platform for you to convey your enthusiasm for learning. What excited you about this intellectual experience? How did the experience challenge your preconceptions? How did it impact your way of thinking? What was your reaction? How did it change your perspective? This response offers insight into your potential to thrive in the demanding academic environment at Harvard.
How you hope to use your college education With a look toward the future, this is an opportunity to discuss why Harvard is the ideal place for you to achieve your goals. It also allows you to discuss your motivations, passions , values, and perspectives on learning. Discuss what excites you about the overall experience at Harvard. Look toward the future and how the Harvard educational experience will support you. Can you articulate the value of a Harvard education? Your response will convey your aspirations, temperament, leadership, and potential to succeed at Harvard.
A list of books you have read during the past twelve months As you compile your list, think about the breadth and depth of content. You do not need to include every book you read in the last year. Select the ones that best demonstrate your interests/passions or allowed you to explore something novel. This list should include the books you are most excited about but also the ones that challenged your way of thinking. Each title is a means of interacting with the world of ideas and communicates something significant about you.

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The Harvard College Honor code declares that we “hold honesty as the foundation of our community.” As you consider entering this community that is committed to honesty, please reflect on a time when you or someone you observed had to make a choice about whether to act with integrity and honesty. This prompt is not only asking you to detail your thought process but also to consider your values and how you or others impact the world around you/them through actions. The focus here is on the fact that there is a “choice” to be made after weighing the options. What do “honesty,” “integrity” and “community” mean to you? Clearly Harvard holds honesty as the essential building block of community. Why do you believe honesty is essential to community? How important are shared values in a community? If you are writing about your own actions, think about what prompted you to act or prevented you from acting: What did you do? What was its result? If you are writing about someone you observed, discuss his or her choice. Why was it significant and what did you think about the behavior? In either case, what was at stake based on the decision and what was the impact of the choice that was made?
The mission of Harvard College is to educate our students to be citizens and citizen-leaders for society. What would you do to contribute to the lives of your classmates in advancing this mission? The heart of this prompt gets at your impact on those around you. Remember, Harvard is looking for “students who will be the best educators of one another and their professors— individuals who will inspire those around them during their College years and beyond.” This also asks you to articulate your ideas about the characteristics of a good citizen and leader. This is an opportunity to discuss your imagined role within your peer group at Harvard as well as in a broader sense as you look toward the future. You must also demonstrate your ability to reflect on society from different perspectives. Think about what you can do to contribute to the world in a meaningful way—from a school club to a larger cultural or religious community to the global society. What might you do to inspire, support, or educate others ?
Each year a substantial number of students admitted to Harvard defer their admission for one year or take time off during college. If you decided in the future to choose either option, what would you like to do? This is a good prompt to address if you are considering a gap year or if you have plans to take time off while at college to pursue a particular interest. This could be career related, a personal improvement quest, or something else. Explain what you plan to do during this time away from Harvard, your rationale, and what you hope to gain from the experience. How would you embrace this opportunity to gain some skill or explore something meaningfully? How might this experience help you achieve future goals and enhance the community at Harvard upon your return. Tip: You will want to be sure to create a realistic plan for your deferred admission year; saying you will start a business, without naming the business, any kind of business plan, and any reasonable evidence for the business’s projected success will therefore not make for a compelling essay. However, perhaps you would like a year to pursue an internship with an agency whose cause you support; work on a political campaign with which you already have a relationship; volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, etc. Be specific and make sure your plans are plausible, motivated by your values, and supported by past experiences.
Harvard has long recognized the importance of student body diversity of all kinds. We welcome you to write about distinctive aspects of your background, personal development or the intellectual interests you might bring to your Harvard classmates. How might your particular life experience add value to the diverse student body at Harvard? How might you enrich discussions or provide different perspectives? This is primarily about what unique insights and perspectives you bring to the table; consider how you might engage with your classmates differently based on your personal experiences. Think about your culture, significant experiences that shaped you, your passions, or issues of concern to your unique intellectual pursuits. Some examples might be: discussing your upbringing as a Catholic in an Evangelical area; how your particular background as an international student will diversify the Harvard class; how being a Democrat or a Republican has impacted your thinking; and countless other examples. In short, what makes YOU stand out?

Final thoughts on applying to Harvard

The Harvard admissions committee seeks not only well-rounded individuals; it also covets students who are intensely creative in some discipline or activity, reflective, passionate, artistic, compassionate, talented, and brilliant. Do not be intimidated by these characteristics. Instead, strive to convey your unique self, life experiences, aspirations, motivations, interests and perspectives in a compelling way.

Not surprisingly, the applicant pool at Harvard is extremely competitive. It received 57,786 undergraduate applications for the class of 2025. Only 2,320 were offered admission. What is the best way to standout in this outstanding applicant pool? Be you, convey your strengths, and express unique identity through your application and essay responses!

Take solace in the fact that Harvard is assessing your overall application in an effort to provide the best fit for you as a student. Stay focused and try not to get overwhelmed. Make sure to adhere to deadlines as you dedicate yourself to this process. Plan appropriately to give yourself the time you need to put forth your best self. And remember, this is a two-way street; you need to do your part to convince the admissions committee that you are the best match for Harvard, while also considering what appeals to YOU about the “big H.”

If you’re applying to Harvard University, you already know you’re up against tight competition. Don’t be overwhelmed. Get the guidance of an experienced admissions specialist who will help you stand out from the highly competitive applicant pool so you can apply with confidence and get accepted! Click here to get started!

Ivy League and Common Application Tips: How to get Accepted

Related Resources:

5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your College Application Essays , a free guide
School-Specific Supplemental Application Essay Tips
How Should I Choose Which Essay Questions to Answer When I Have Choices?

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Let’s Talk About Harvard’s Brand New College Application

The Harvard College Office of Admissions and Financial Aid is located in Radcliffe Yard.

Last month, the Common Application portal officially opened, inviting high school students across the globe to showcase themselves and their talents to admissions officers at top U.S. universities. With this application comes a variety of supplements: excitement about the potential outcomes of the process, apprehension about the mortifying ordeal of being known by admissions officers, and of course, the actual supplemental essays themselves.

These elements of the application process are as old as the Common App itself. But this year, with the end of race-based affirmative action in university admissions, applicants are facing an added uncertainty: the extent to which their diverse backgrounds can factor into their essays, and in turn, their admissions.

Recognizing this confusion, Harvard decided to change its supplemental essay questions from one optional open-ended essay and two optional short essays to a series of five required short essays, each with a 200-word limit.

While Harvard’s new prompts signify a notable effort to meet the moment, we have misgivings about the ability of these new questions to thoroughly capture the diverse array of student experiences.

Our foremost concern: How can students reasonably condense discussions about formative life experiences and their identities into 200 words or less?

Moreover, shortening the essays has a disparate impact that falls heaviest on those from marginalized backgrounds. Learning to package yourself within a shorter amount of space is a product of advanced education; longer essays more equitably allow applicants to discuss their experiences in full, particularly if they are from non-traditional backgrounds and require more space to elaborate on nuanced qualifications.

Another issue is the prompts themselves. Formerly, students picked one topic from a list of prompts, giving them maximum agency over the best way to share their own narratives; now, the new mandatory prompts force students to answer questions that may not even be relevant to their background at all.

Take one of the new prompts: “Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.” This question seemingly privileges applicants from well-resourced backgrounds for whom additional academic opportunities were plentiful in high school.

And while one may argue that students without equivalent resources can compensate with the other prompts, in what world is it equitable to have one out of the five required short-answer prompts seemingly cater to those from highly privileged backgrounds?

Harvard’s restructuring of its supplemental essay questions amid the post-affirmative action turmoil also gives us an opportunity to reevaluate the role of “trauma dumping” in the application process. Despite the negative connotations of this term, we feel that oversharing past hardships can be appropriate in college admissions essays considering that evaluators are seeking to understand the sum total of applicants’ experiences and how they’ve excelled despite personal circumstances.

Given polarized conversation surrounding the imprecise phrase “trauma dumping” and its place in college applications, we need to distinguish between explaining how past life experiences have shaped who you are and voluntarily offering highly volatile and sometimes triggering life experiences in social contexts. Those who have undergone traumatic experiences should not have to fear that writing about the experiences that shaped them looks like a beg for admission.

If we have faith in the college admissions system, we can trust that evaluators will not reward students who merely provide a litany of past traumas in their applications, but instead give credit to applicants who discuss how they have grown from or coped with these experiences. If Harvard is willing to entirely restructure its supplemental essays in the aftermath of affirmative action’s fall, it ought to also provide underprivileged students with resources on how they can write about trauma productively given the new prompts.

Furthermore, Harvard needs to communicate what other steps they will take to ensure the College’s student body remains diverse. How will the University conduct outreach to underprivileged communities? Organizations like QuestBridge — a service that connects low-income students with selective universities — could play a helpful role in promoting student diversity.

As the Class of 2028 gets to writing, we mourn the loss of Harvard’s old application. However, the focus on retaining a diverse student body in the questions Harvard asks its applicants is a welcome supplement.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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Written by economists Raj Chetty , John Friedman , and David Deming , the paper highlights the role of disparities in education. These inequities follow students from the earliest years of life and education through high school and beyond. They surface in SAT/ACT college-preparatory test scores as a gap between the groups that affects who gets into the nation’s top colleges and universities — and so is best positioned for later success.

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David Deming

GAZETTE: What struck you most about the latest findings on SAT scores?

DEMING: Everybody knows that access to opportunity in America is unequal. Everybody knows that families from low- and middle-income families don’t receive the same opportunities as children from high-income families. I knew that going in and yet looking at the numbers, seeing data on the universe of SATs and ACT test-takers makes you realize the scale of the disparities. What we saw was the accumulation of unequal opportunities over 18 years of a child’s life that culminates in these differences in scores on college preparation exams. I think that’s what is new — seeing it all kind of put together and seeing the magnitude of the disparities. It’s pretty sobering.

GAZETTE: What are the factors behind the disparities?

DEMING: It starts from an early age. There’s a lot of good research suggesting that the first day that kids show up at kindergarten, there are already differences in academic preparation between children from low-income families and children from high-income families. It’s differences in vocabulary and in readiness to learn; whether kids can sit still and listen; whether they can play well with others; whether they’re in good health. All those things contribute to a young child’s ability to absorb what school has prepared for them.

Access to opportunities becomes more unequal as children age, but that’s mostly access to out-of-school opportunities. As kids grow up, children from families with means can go to summer camp or intensive summer courses, or they’re able to play on travel sports teams and get experience working in groups, etc.

Primarily, the out-of-school time is where you see the inequality emerge, and it tends to increase with time. I think American schools could be doing more, but it’s not actually about what’s happening in the classroom as much as what’s happening outside of the classroom.

GAZETTE: Let’s talk about one of the paper’s findings. What percentage of low-income children take the SAT test? What percentage score 1300 or higher?

DEMING: For children from the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, only about a quarter of them take an SAT or ACT test. Among those, only about 2.5 percent score 1300 or higher. You can see right there what we’re up against in terms of economic inequality in college admissions and success in college and in life.

GAZETTE: What about children from high-income families? What percentage of them take the SAT test and how many score 1300 or higher?

DEMING: Of course, most of them take the SAT or ACT tests — about 80 percent or more. They’re more likely to take the test, and they’re much more likely to score above 1300. Among SAT test-takers who are in the top 20 percent of the income distribution, about 17 percent score 1300 or higher, so roughly one in six.

“The reason this is news is because people didn’t realize how bad the problem was,” said economist David Deming.

Photo by Dylan Goodman

GAZETTE: Some experts say the SAT test has become a sort of “wealth test.” What’s your take on this?

DEMING: I think that’s a little bit misleading. And the reason is that everything that matters in college admissions is related to wealth, including the SATs. I think when people call it a wealth test, they mean to delegitimize it as a measure of who can succeed in school. And the reality is that the SAT test does predict success in college. The SAT does capture something about whether you’re ready to do college level work.

I would urge us to create conditions under which there are more low- and middle-income students who can do well on the test, not to get rid of the test. Getting rid of the test doesn’t make the disparity go away. It just makes it invisible in the eyes of the public. For me, that’s the wrong direction.

Also, if you get rid of the SAT, as many colleges have done, what you have left is things that are also related to wealth, probably even more so. Whether you can write a persuasive college essay, whether you can have the kinds of experiences that give you high ratings for extracurricular activities and leadership; those things are incredibly related to wealth.

My worry is that if we get rid of the SAT, you’re getting rid of the only way that a low-income student who’s academically talented has to distinguish themselves. Getting rid of the SAT means those people don’t have the opportunity to be noticed. I don’t think the SAT is perfect, but I think the problem isn’t the test. The problem is everything that happens before the test.

GAZETTE: What policy steps would you recommend to address the disparities that are reflected in your paper?

DEMING: Diagnosing the problem correctly is the first step toward finding a solution. These data are sobering and discouraging, but without being able to see the data, we wouldn’t even know the magnitude of the problem. The reason this is news is because people didn’t realize how bad the problem was. I would urge us to do more of that rather than less.

There’s been a movement away from testing in schools. One can debate whether in a well-functioning school you need regular tests, but they’re certainly needed in places with big income disparities in achievement. What I would encourage is much more focus on the problem of inequalities in academic achievement and other measures of success in schools that serve low-income students.

I would also encourage us to spend more money in schools where students are falling behind and to do it in straightforward ways, which involves more instruction time in schools, paying teachers more, hiring tutors to help students remediate deficiencies, and laser-focusing on increasing the share of low- and middle-income students who are ready to do college-level work. That involves a lot of resources and political capital. Even though I’m a researcher, I think this is an area where we don’t need more research; it’s an area where the political will and attention are needed.

GAZETTE: You have called for a Marshall Plan for education to address the achievement gaps and inequities in education. What would such a plan entail?

DEMING: My view is that in the long sweep of history, it’s generally been true that as we live longer, we become more prosperous as a society, and work becomes more complex. People need more education and not less. And even though we’re in a moment today where college is kind of unpopular, I think that’ll end up looking short-sighted.

There’s no law of nature saying that only some people are college material and others are high school material. A century ago, the high school graduation rate in this country was 14 percent. Today, it’s over 90 percent. I’m sure that 100 years ago, people said that not everyone is high school material.

In the long run, we need everyone to get more and better education to better serve our society because the knowledge that is required to be a productive employee is way higher than it used to be. It makes sense that if we’re more prosperous and living longer, we want more education, better health, and things that lead to human flourishing. I’d like for us, as a society, to prioritize education more, and to address disparities as we’ve done before in American history.

Literacy and high school graduation are now nearly universal. That didn’t happen by accident. It happened through focused investments. I think we need to do that again; investing in education to help people prepare for team-based work, become critical thinkers, and how to use tools like AI and other technologies. All of that is necessary to move society forward in the 21st century. It’s a refocusing of our society on building skills, educating people, eliminating disparities by income, and leading to more opportunity for everybody. That’s what I’d like to see.

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World Class: November 2023

In the fall of 1923, Harvard Law School enrolled its first full LL.M. class, comprised of four students from three countries. This fall, we welcomed our 100th LL.M. class , with 182 students from nearly 70 countries. Throughout the year, we will be commemorating the 100th anniversary of the LL.M. program, culminating in a celebration in Cambridge on September 27-28, 2024. For more information about the anniversary and celebration, please visit our LL.M. 100 page, and contact us with your suggestions or requests for the event. We hope to see you next September.

Student Focus

Student profiles.

Meet five students with wide-ranging backgrounds from around the world.

Nida Kadayifci – Türkiye /United Kingdom

Nida Kadayifci is a first-year SJD candidate from Kilis, Türkiye, a town on the Syrian border that was severely affected by last year’s earthquakes. She is focusing on employer size-based limitations on workplace protections and the scope of labor and employment law under the supervision of Professors Ben Sachs, Laura Weinrib, and Ken Mack. Coming from an academic family, Nida always knew she wanted to pursue an academic career, but did not discover labor and employment law until the final year of her LL.B. at University College London: “Something happened to my heart! I discovered I was passionate about the subject, and I was particularly frustrated with precarious working conditions.” Before completing her HLS LL.M. in 2023, Nida obtained a B.C.L. from Oxford, writing her dissertation on the exploitation of interns. This year, Nida is a teaching fellow in Professor Antoinette Coakley’s Business Negotiations course and for Professor Lucie White’s Law & Inequality Workshop. She’s also serving as an advisor for LL.M. students and enjoys spontaneous chats over coffee with other students.

Hafsa Ahmad – Pakistan

Hafsa Ahmad completed her B.A. at Middlebury College in Vermont before moving to Pakistan, where she worked as a Research Assistant at the Lahore University of Management Sciences and on the Women’s Mobility Project at the Centre for Economic Research. Having always wanted to be a lawyer (and ultimately a judge), she studied law at the University of London/Universal College Lahore. There, she was an avid Jessup moot competitor, working most closely with Fatima Mehmood LL.M. ‘20. Before HLS, Hafsa practiced litigation and arbitration for six years at Cornelius, Lane & Mufti in Lahore and maintained an active pro bono practice. She was a leader of the Lahore chapter of Robin Hood Army, which distributes surplus food from restaurants to those in need, and petitioned the High Court to compel increased food donations, receiving invaluable input from the HLS Food Law and Policy Clinic. This year, as president of the Harvard International Arbitration Law Students Association, Hafsa is working on organizing various panel discussions and a conference on the theme: Arbitration in the Crises.

Francis Ben Kaifala – Sierra Leone

Francis Ben Kaifala is currently on leave from his role as the head of Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission. After completing his LL.B. at the University of Sierra Leone in 2006, he practiced as a corporate lawyer, earned an LL.M. in commercial law at Queen Mary University of London, and then opened his own firm in 2014. He was appointed to lead the Anti-Corruption Commission in 2018 after completing a second LL.M. at the University of Texas at Austin focused on human rights and constitutional law. He has also served as the president of the Network of Anti-Corruption Institutions in West Africa and as a member of the African Union’s Advisory Board on Corruption. A former Fulbright Scholar, Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow, and Obama Leadership Fellow, Francis has found HLS to be “extremely enriching – you are dealing with the top students from across the world – their perspectives shape and enrich your own experience.” He has appreciated the flexibility to tailor his LL.M. curriculum to prepare him for the next steps in his government career.

Diego Quesada Nicoli – Peru

Born in Mexico and raised in Peru, Diego quickly switched from economics to law at the Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, where they encountered Carlos Zelada LL.M. ’04 in a first-semester human rights course. Inspired by Zelada’s work, Diego decided to pursue a career focusing on queer aspects of international human rights and – later – to pursue an LL.M. at HLS. Before the LL.M. program, Diego represented victims in inter-American Human Rights System cases involving discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression (SOGIE) with NGOS such as Demus – Estudio Para la Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer, and worked in international advocacy at the United Nations with the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World) and the Global Interfaith Network for People of All Sexes, Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities and Expressions (GIN-SSOGIE). At HLS, they have particularly enjoyed participating in the LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic and with HLS Advocates for Human Rights. After graduation, Diego plans to focus on strategic litigation with an NGO or an international organization.

Yuxin Zhang – China

Yuxin Zhang, from Henan Province in China, is a former judge in an appellate court in Beijing. She studied philosophy at Wuhan University before turning to law, earning her Juris Master at Peking University. Internships during her law studies solidified her passion for promoting social justice directly, leading her to pursue a career in the judiciary after law school. During her eight years as a judge, she tried nearly 1,000 civil and commercial first instance and appellate cases. Before coming to HLS, Yuxin worked as an ESG researcher with Chinese tech giant Baidu. While here, she has been heavily involved with HLS’s student practice organizations, working on a business and human rights project with HLS Advocates for Human Rights, and helping a start-up with its data privacy issues through the Harvard Law Entrepreneurship Project. During Orientation, Yuxin set a goal to jump out of her comfort zone at least once a day during her LL.M. program: “It has pushed me to my limits – every day – but I feel stronger and more confident as a result!”

A Community beyond Campus

LL.M. students deepen their cultural immersion through Harvard’s international host program.

“HLS is an amazing bubble, but it’s still a bubble, so it’s nice to have a cultural immersion beyond the LL.M. program, beyond the law school,” says Australian student Jessica Elliott LL.M. ‘24. “The Host Program has shown me another side of American culture, and given me a chance to reflect on and adjust to some unexpected cultural differences.”

This year, Jessica and about 30 other LL.M. students are participating in a decades-old Host Program administered by the Harvard International Office. The program matches area hosts, some of whom are HLS alumni and/or former international students themselves, with international students from across Harvard. Jessica’s hosts, Travis and John Woolcott, are originally from New Zealand but have lived in Cambridge for decades. They met her at the train station and helped her carry her luggage to her dorm room; since then, they’ve welcomed her to their home for cups of tea and a dinner party to meet their friends. “They’ve been so extraordinarily kind, and their enthusiasm for living in Cambridge, and for America, has given me an insight I wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Jessica notes. “I’m already absolutely certain that I will stay in touch with them well after the program has ended.”

Nancy Israel JD’79 and Lonnie Powers have been hosting students through the program since 2011. Nancy was a former international counsel at Ernst & Young and missed having an international connection. “I love meeting these young people, who are doing great and interesting things, getting some perspective on how they see the U.S., and learning a little bit about their culture.” She and Lonnie also thought that the LL.M. students would make good role models for their young daughters. “Seeing these young people who have done various things in their own countries before they come here to go to graduate school has really given our daughters a broader sense of the world, as it certainly has for me,” adds Lonnie.

One of their first host students, Gemma Mootoo Rajah LL.M. ’12, vividly recalls arriving in Cambridge for the start of her LL.M. year. Originally from Mauritius, Gemma had earned her LL.B. at the London School of Economics, but found that HLS worked differently from what she was used to in London. “It was one of the most exciting times of my life, and intellectually stimulating, as every day I was learning about a part of the world I didn’t know about,” she says. “Having someone to ask for advice about the simple things was invaluable.” Now a counsel in the capital markets practice of Latham & Watkins LLP in New York, Gemma is still in touch with her hosts, and Nancy and her daughters have even traveled to Mauritius to meet Gemma’s family.

Albert Agyepong LL.M. ‘23, from Ghana, was one of Nancy and Lonnie’s host students last year. They put him in touch with their other host student, Aashna Chawla LL.M. ’23, from India, who quickly became part of his support system at HLS. Before coming to Harvard, Albert had studied in the UK and The Gambia, and found that “to get the full benefit of the education, you need to appreciate the culture of the people, to immerse yourself and understand the values of the community you went into.” Their hosts introduced Aashna and Albert to a favorite family pastime — ice cream at J.P. Licks in Harvard Square — and took them to Concord, where the first battles of the American Revolution took place. Learning that history, “especially from Lonnie, who’s a history buff, and actually walking in those historic places, I understood the relevance of Boston and New England better than I had,” Albert observes. Lonnie, for his part, found it “quite fascinating to learn about the history and politics of Ghana from Albert.”

This year, Nancy and Lonnie are hosting André Elias Schwartz LL.M. ‘24, a corporate lawyer from Brazil, and Shasha Zhou LL.M. ‘24, who practices IP litigation in China. At their first meeting, André recalls, their hosts gave them each a bag filled with American snacks and local foods, and a card inviting them to

Thanksgiving dinner: “It was a very warm welcome!” Shasha had heard from other Chinese students who had developed close relationships with host families, and has enjoyed the “unique opportunity to develop a deeper connection with an American family.”

Both André and Shasha appreciate the special connection they’ve developed with each other, having met through their hosts before the LL.M. program started. “It was great to have a familiar face within the cohort of LL.M. students,” André notes. In thinking about next steps in his own career, he has also found it helpful to discuss legal careers with Nancy, who now focuses on renewable energy projects at one of the state’s major public utilities, and Lonnie, who recently retired after 35 years as the founding executive director of the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation.

Wanyi Yan LL.M. ’24, a corporate lawyer from China, has also enjoyed discussing the legal profession – in particular, the differences between practicing law in China and the U.S. — with her host, Renat Lumpau JD’09. A partner at Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP focusing on tax and estate planning for U.S. and international clients, Renat, who is from Belarus, was himself an international student when he arrived at Harvard College, and that experience has stayed with him. “I know it’s not the easiest thing to do, to show up in a new country where everything is brand new,” he observes. He and his family have introduced Wanyi to the annual Fluff Festival in Somerville and they recently went apple picking.

Other students and their hosts have found common interests outside the law. Maria Paziotopoulou LL.M. ’24, from Greece, was surprised to find that her host, a Radcliffe alum, also speaks Greek and was looking forward to practicing with her. Maria and her host also discovered they share an interest in literature. Brian Bustos Guajardo LL.M. ’24 is a tax lawyer from Chile who once considered becoming a professional soccer player. His host family took him to Gillette Stadium to see a New England Revolution Major League soccer game, and they’ve also found common ground in their appreciation of Chilean wines. “I think we connected even more because we have something in common,” he reflects.

Julius Chen Ma LL.M. ’24, from Singapore, has been living outside of his home country, by himself, since he was 14. He earned his prior law degrees in the UK, and has also spent time in China, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. “Everywhere I go, my very first task is to get to know as many people as I can, to build a community around me,” he explains, an effort that allows him to branch out beyond his usual friendships. His host this year is Benjamin Levy, a 1969 graduate of Harvard College and a retired schoolteacher who lives in Harvard Square and enjoys the chance to “meet young people who are doing interesting work and exploring interesting ideas; experiencing this country and our politics, society and culture for the first time.” Julius has found that “the U.S. and the UK are very similar in some ways, but there are still a lot of cultural differences. In the UK, some tutorial classes just involve the professor and two or three students. With the larger and more diverse student body here at HLS, it is easier for me to meet more people from all kinds of backgrounds.” He has also expanded his circle by taking advantage of the Graduate Program’s LL.M.-J.D. matching program. “Gradually, you get blended into this community. Having all of these connections makes it easier for LL.M. students to settle in.”

“I am immensely grateful to Harvard for its host program and even more grateful for the extraordinary individuals it introduced me to,” adds Aashna. “Their unwavering support, warmth, and friendship have made my time in the United States incredibly special.”

Alumni Spotlight

Preserving a livable planet.

LL.M. alumni on multiple continents are working to address the urgent challenges of climate change .

Record-breaking temperatures and deadly heatwaves; severe droughts, torrential rainfall and devastating floods – these disasters have occupied headlines around the globe all year. With 2023 set to become the warmest year on record, combating climate change has never been more urgent.

Lawyers have played a critical role in the efforts to avert the worst effects of global warming and preserve a livable planet, not only by helping to draft such landmark treaties as the 2015 Paris Agreement, which expressed the determination of the 196 signatory States to address climate change and launched a worldwide effort to hold the increase in global average temperature to no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, but also through their advocacy and litigation to advance the specific goals of a 43% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050.

Maxime Beaugrand LL.M. ’01, whose work for the past 15 years has focused on international and EU climate policy, likens the race to decarbonize and reach net zero by 2050 to a marathon, but notes that meeting the 2030 deadline of a 43% decrease in GGE will require an all-out sprint in order to “bend the warming curve,” thus buying the earth enough time to reach the longer-term goal of net zero.

As Director of the Paris Office of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD), Maxime has helped develop strategies to promote fast-action climate mitigation while overseeing a litigation team with a wide portfolio of cases targeting polluters and governments alike. Realizing early on that being able to communicate science-based information to policymakers was critical to her advocacy work, she took pains to study the nitty-gritty of the science behind GGE. It was through this understanding that she and her colleagues were able to take the near-incomprehensible data about, for instance, the impact of releasing gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO 2 )into the atmosphere and instead translate them into policy options based on the warming effect in terms of degrees Centigrade.

Her mastery of the science behind global warming and the communications skills she honed came into play when she was invited by President Macron’s office to address the G7 leaders in person during the 2019 G7 Summit in Biarritz. In her presentation, she underscored the importance of eliminating “super climate pollutants,” a class of short-lived greenhouse gases and aerosols (including black carbon) that have global warming potentials far greater than that of CO 2 . Among the Summit’s key outcomes was the establishment of a coalition to coordinate efforts to eliminate hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are manufactured for use in refrigeration, air-conditioning, insulating foams and similar products, and which pose an enormous threat as one of the fastest-growing “super-pollutants.”

The drive to reduce HFCs and other super-pollutants is the very focus of the work of Xiaopu Sun LL.M. ’08, who joined IGSD at around the same time as Maxime. As Senior China Counsel, Xiaopu keeps tabs on national laws, regulations and standards regarding HFCs and methane, especially those adopted by China, which have enormous significance due to China’s role as the world’s largest manufacturer, user, and exporter of room air-conditioners, a major source of HFCs. Moreover, China is also the world’s largest coal producer and biggest source of methane emissions from its coal-mining sector.

Xiaopu has conducted extensive research on and continues to monitor China’s air pollution laws and their enforcement, as well as the energy efficiency standards (EES) of its room air-conditioners, not only the ones intended for domestic consumption (which have fairly high EES) but also those that are exported (some of which have far lower EES). In addition to co-authoring many papers on topics such as fast action on super climate pollutants and nature-based solutions to help countries meet carbon-neutrality goals, Xiaopu has deployed her expertise in this area to devise a policy toolkit for smaller countries that lack the wherewithal to request higher EES in the air-conditioners they import from China and other countries. In collaboration with similarly climate-focused NGOs and research groups, she also maintains a list of best practices and provides expert counsel regarding legal and technical aspects of the ongoing implementation of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol , which has as its central target the phasedown of HFCs.

Another of Xiaopu’s duties, and one which she eagerly looks forward to every year, is interviewing and recruiting HLS students to work at IGSD. This year, in addition to Naomi Jennings J.D. ’24, who worked as a summer intern at IGSD’s headquarters in Washington, DC, two new LL.M. graduates, Selena Bateman LL.M. ’23 and Eoin Jackson LL.M. ’2 3 , have joined the DC office as Law Fellows.

Selena, who prior to beginning her LL.M. studies was Counsel Assisting the Australian Solicitor-General and had clerked at the Federal Court level as well as for incoming Chief Justice Stephen Gageler LL.M. ’87 of the High Court of Australia, has had extensive experience as a government lawyer litigating in state and federal courts. Her first major assignment has been to support IGSD’s work on the Advisory Opinion being sought from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), requesting clarification as to the foundation and scope of human rights affected by climate change in the Americas, and the extent of States’ obligations to protect those rights. So far, she has spent a busy few months working on an amicus brief and helping with the coordination and support of amici briefs by other organizations.

Eoin, whose interest in climate change law was kindled by the landmark “Friends of the Irish Environment vs. Government of Ireland” case being litigated during his student days at Trinity College Dublin, has been working closely with Selena on the IACHR Advisory Opinion by researching relevant EU, UK, and international jurisprudence. In addition, he has been assigned to a project to re-examine climate governance in the Arctic and consider how the current Arctic Council should be reformed in order to boost representation of the Global South.

Although spread out across different offices on two continents, the four LL.M. alums currently working at IGSD see each other in weekly (virtual) meetings and collaborate on projects as the occasion arises (by way of example, Maxime, Selena, and Eoin have collaborated on the work on the IAHCR Advisory Opinion). In addition, they keep in close contact through a WhatsApp group that serves as a central source of news and ideas, and as a kind of brain trust where experienced veterans – who may no longer be actively involved in the day-to-day work of IGSD – can be called upon for their perspectives and advice.

The Advisory Opinion sought from the IACHR is just one of the climate change cases in which the IGSD litigation team is involved, either directly or indirectly by providing strategic and technical support behind the scenes. Another is the Portuguese Youth Climate case ( Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 31 Other States ), in which six young people from Portugal sued 32 countries in 2020, alleging that their human rights are being violated by these countries’ failure to protect them from climate change. The case was heard by the European Court of Human Rights in September 2023 and a decision is pending.

At the heart of the Duarte case is the principle of intergenerational equity – the notion that States have an obligation to address climate change in order to protect the rights of future generations. This argument was foreshadowed in a path-breaking lawsuit filed in 1990 by Antonio (Tony) Oposa, Jr. LL.M. ’97, a trailblazing environmental lawyer and activist who during his LL.M. year initiated the class potluck dinner that has become the annual LL.M. International Party.

Protecting the environment in the interests of future generations has been the moral underpinning of Tony’s life work. In the 1990 case Minors Oposa v Factoran , he sued the government of The Philippines on behalf of 43 children from across the country (including his three children) for misappropriation of the nation’s forest resources, asserting that the rights and interests of future generations must be taken into account in decisions made today. The landmark ruling issued by the Philippine Supreme Court three years later upheld the legal standing and the right of the children to sue on their own behalf and on behalf of generations yet unborn. The concept of “intergenerational responsibility” on the environment recognized by this ruling quickly reverberated among international environmental lawyers and is now known in global environmental jurisprudence as the “Oposa Doctrine.” For his work, Tony received the highest United Nations award in the field of the environment, the UNEP Global Roll of Honor (1997).

In the course of more than three decades as an environmental activist, Tony has also collaborated with IGSD on several occasions: he put forth one of the earliest proposals to include HFCs under the Montreal Protocol at its 2009 meeting in Geneva, and continued to work on this issue – at times in collaboration with Xiaopu – at subsequent meetings until the Kigali Amendment was passed in 2016. Although no longer actively involved, he remains a member of the “brain trust” on the IGSD WhatsApp group.

Despite the far-reaching influence of the Oposa Doctrine, legal standing to sue continues to be an obstacle frequently encountered by lawyers in climate litigation. When Gönenç Gürkaynak LL.M. ’01 filed suit against the Turkish government in 2019 asking it to cancel the permission given to a mining company for operations that posed a grave danger to the local environment, which included some property owned by the plaintiff, the case was initially dismissed by the local administrative court for lack of standing, on the basis that the physical distance between the mining operations and the plaintiff’s property – without taking into account any other factors – was too great for the plaintiff to suffer any harm. The case eventually reached the Council of State, the highest administrative court in Turkey, which issued a ruling in 2022 stating that it is not reasonable to determine standing based merely on a distance calculation; instead, it ordered the lower court to perform a substantive analysis of the potential environmental impact by the mining operations in question. This ruling set a new precedent for environmental litigation in Turkey by requiring a case-by-case impact analysis, conducted through expert examination and judicial inspection, in order to determine legal standing.

Gönenç, whose expertise is in corporate and financial law and who is the founding partner of ELIG Gürkaynak Attorneys-at-Law, a leading law firm of 95 lawyers based in Istanbul, is not by training or practice an environmental lawyer as such. However, his work on the standing issue brought him to the attention of the president and founder of ClientEarth – a fast-growing global environmental NGO dedicated to protecting the interests of its sole client, the Earth – who invited him to join its Board of Trustees in 2022. While Gönenç is not involved in the organization’s day-to-day litigation work, as the only lawyer currently on the Board and as a member of its litigation review committee, he helps to set overall legal strategy and priorities in choosing which claims and initiatives to pursue. His many years of experience managing a large law firm have also come in handy when figuring out how best to deploy the organization’s staffing and other resources.

Although ClientEarth was established only in 2007 with one lawyer (and his laptop), it has now grown to encompass more than 300 people working in eight countries (soon to be nine) spread across three continents. Its activities cover the gamut of climate change litigation, access to justice initiatives, and education and training for legal professionals (including judges, government regulators, and lawyers in the private sector) engaged in climate work. Its dynamism and innovative strategy can be seen in the way it has built a team of former corporate lawyers to tackle climate change using potent corporate and financial law levers.

It is this pragmatic approach that appealed to Peter Barnett LL.M. ’15, who joined ClientEarth in 2018 after a number of years specializing in corporate and financial disputes at law firms in New Zealand and London. As Head of Energy Systems, Asia, he leads a team of more than 15 law and policy experts from across the region, working with governments, the private sector, and civil society to accelerate the transition to clean and accessible energy. Drawing on his prior practice experience and financial sector relationships, Peter has segued seamlessly to working at the intersection between climate change and corporate and financial law. For instance, his first case at ClientEarth entailed a shareholder suit challenging a planned coal-fired power plant in Poland on the basis that the project would harm the company’s economic interests. The decision by a Polish court upholding this challenge resulted in the share price of the energy company jumping 3.2 percent upon the news, and the project was later cancelled.

Peter is currently working to establish a new ClientEarth office in Japan (expected to open in 2024), with the aim of supporting Japan’s net zero transition and providing the legal framework and tools for the private sector to lead on climate action. He and his team are also working with governments and regulators in Southeast Asia to put in place the right regulatory frameworks for cheaper and faster renewable energy development and to design financing mechanisms to facilitate an accelerated transition from coal power. The team’s latest project is working with partners including the Judicial Training Centre under the Supreme Court of Indonesia, Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, and UN Environment Programme, to bring together more than 70 judges from across Asia for a one-week program in Indonesia on global legal developments in environmental and climate law adjudication. Notably, among the emerging areas of environmental law that will be covered is the interplay of corporate laws with climate change, including climate-related disclosures, fiduciary duties of directors, and “ greenwashing .”

Climate change poses challenges on many different fronts, and lawyers are well-positioned to play a critical role both in the short-term sprint to mitigate climate risk as well as in the marathon to achieve decarbonization and attain net zero by 2050. As John Kerry, the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, said in a 2021 address to the American Bar Association, “You are all climate lawyers now.”

Rather than being limited to those with environmental or public law backgrounds, the challenge ahead requires lawyers with expertise and new ideas from across the spectrum of legal specialties and sectors. As demonstrated by the work of these LL.M. alums, combating climate change is a collaborative, multi-generational, and multi-dimensional undertaking.

A Special Connection

Michael McCann LL.M. ’05 returns to HLS as a Visiting Professor .

Mike McCann — a professor of law and Director of the Sports and Entertainment Law Institute at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law (UNH) — has lectured at HLS on sports law and on innovations in online teaching and collaborated with Professor Jon Hanson on writing projects and programs. “I’ve really enjoyed being back on campus. It feels bigger, in a good way, than it did when I was a student, and the new buildings are beautiful,” he says.

This semester, as a Visiting Professor of Law, he is the only professor who has taught nearly every student in the LL.M. class. In August, during LL.M. Orientation, Mike taught the section of Legal Research, Writing and Analysis I designed to introduce foreign-educated LL.M. students to the foundations of the U.S. legal system and to these fundamental skills. “It was an incredible honor to be their first professor at HLS,” he notes. “It was also great to work with an impressive roster of S.J.D. teaching fellows.”

Mike has been involved with sports law since he was a J.D. student at the University of Virginia, when the NBA considered excluding high school players from its draft. As a lifelong Boston Celtics fan who followed the draft closely, he was fascinated by the issue and wrote a law review article about it from a labor and antitrust law perspective. Because of that article, he was later invited to join the legal team of Maurice Clarett, an Ohio State football player who challenged the NFL’s age-based draft limits.

After practicing antitrust, labor and employment law for a few years, Mike decided to transition into legal academia. Enrolling in Harvard’s LL.M. program offered an opportunity to work on writing, and to learn not just from outstanding professors but also his fellow students. “I think the most striking aspect was just how intelligent, thoughtful, and generous the students were in their conversations, and in their contributions in class — and I see that again now, being able to teach here. A person learns a lot in this environment — both inside and outside of class — just by having classmates with so many different backgrounds and perspectives.”

Since completing his LL.M., Mike has pursued a career bridging academia and journalism, with a primary focus on sports law. “The scope of sports law has grown tremendously, for players, leagues, and the businesses around them, like apparel, sneakers, intellectual property groups, data, television, and streaming,” he notes. He continues to focus on the relationship between professional players and leagues, and college athletes and the NCAA. He co-authored a book with Ed O’Bannon, a former college basketball and NBA player who sued the NCAA over its restrictions on endorsement deals, and has testified before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on name, image, and likeness reforms. College athletes “already have a right of publicity — we all do — but NCAA rules have prevented them from using that right,” he explains. In a forthcoming Texas A&M Law Review article, he proposes a path forward for a “new amateurism” in college sports.

Mike is also an award-winning journalist and commentator, and has written more than 1,000 legal and investigative stories for Sports Illustrated and Sportico. Among many notable stories, he was the first reporter to interview Lance Armstrong, after the cyclist confessed to doping in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2013.

As a law professor, Mike has won several awards for law teaching and is known for his curricular innovations as well. At UNH, he was involved in the development of the law school’s Hybrid JD program, and even created a course on “Deflategate,” the 2015 scandal involving New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. “The Deflategate case was fascinating – in addition to labor law and arbitration, there’s actually a lot of science involved,” he explains. He’s also recently taught a weeklong course on IP and antitrust at the headquarters of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in Las Vegas.

“Sports law has grown tremendously since I first started,” Mike observes. “Now, more students are going into the field than ever. There’s nothing more rewarding than helping a student get on a path to where they want to go, and I’m so glad to have had a chance to do this with students at both UNH and HLS.”

Welcoming our 100th Anniversary Class

In August, the Graduate Program welcomed the LL.M. Class of 2024 to campus, and seven students began their S.J.D. studies.

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Why Companies Must Recommit to the Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights

Sylvia Ann Hewlett

Despite dramatic progress in LGBTQ+ rights over the last 20 years, many of these new-won freedoms are now at risk.

Over the last 20 years, there have been dramatic gains for LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S.: gay, queer, and trans individuals fought for and won equal treatment at work, legal marriage, the freedom to raise children, and the ability to openly serve in the military, and more. But now, many of these new-won rights are at risk. Many countries (mostly in the Middle East and Africa) continue to brutally repress LGBTQ+ individuals. In the U.S., a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in State capitols in 2023. With governments and international blocs in retreat, where can LGBTQ+ employees turn to for support? Global companies. It’s in companies’ best interest for them to continue to stay committed to LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms.

When it comes to equity and inclusion, progress is rarely cumulative. LGBTQ+ rights are a case in point.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett is an economist, the CEO of Hewlett Consulting Partners, and an award-winning author whose books include Executive Presence 2.0: Leadership in an Age of Inclusion and The Sponsor Effect: How to Be a Better Leader by Investing in Others . Hewlett is also the founder and chair emeritus of the think tank Coqual, and she has taught at Columbia and Princeton universities.
Todd Sears is the founder and CEO of Out Leadership. Previously, he was a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch, where he created the first team of financial advisors on Wall Street focused on the LGBTQ+ community, and then led diversity efforts for both Merrill Lynch & Credit Suisse.

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Harvard University 2023-24 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide
Harvard University 2023-24 Application Essay Question Explanations. *Please note: the information below relates to last year's essay prompts. As soon as the 2024-25 prompts beomce available, we will be updating this guide -- stay tuned! The Requirements: Five essays of 200 words or fewer. Supplemental Essay Type (s): Diversity, Activity, Oddball.
Harvard University's 2023-24 Essay Prompts
Extracurricular Short Response. Required. 200 Words. Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are. Read our essay guide to get started. Submit your essay for free peer review to refine and perfect it. Submit or review an essay.
10 Successful Harvard Application Essays
With the top applicants from every high school applying to the best schools in the country, it's important to have an edge in your college application. Check out our list of 10 new Harvard ...
How to Write the Harvard University Essays 2023-2024
First, identify one or two goals you have for the future—with just 200 words, you won't have space to elaborate on any more than that. Ideally, these should be relatively concrete. You don't have to have your whole life mapped out, but you do need to be a lot more specific than "Make a difference in the world.".
How To Ace Harvard's '23/24 Supplemental Essay Prompts
For the 2023/24 application cycle, Harvard University has outlined specific supplemental essay prompts to understand applicants better in addition to the Common App or Coalition App questions. These questions delve into your experiences, intellectual pursuits, and personal insights. Students are required to answer each Harvard-specific question ...
Harvard University Essay Prompts
Harvard University has released its supplemental essays for the 2023-2024 college admissions cycle. The Ivy League institution, which defended the practice of Affirmative Action for all American universities and was defeated in a late June 2023 ruling of the United States Supreme Court, is arguably being watched more closely than any other university with respect to its response to the ...
Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-24
He is a co-author of the books The Enlightened College Applicant (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) and Colleges Worth Your Money (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020). We present the Harvard supplemental essays in 2023-24. The College Transitions team reviews the prompts and offers advice to applicants.
How to Respond to the 2023/2024 Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts
All Harvard University applicants are required to respond to five 200 word supplemental Harvard essay questions. All of the Harvard supplemental essay questions have a 200 word limit. Remember, 200 words is not a lot of words to express yourself. Therefore, you will need to be short, sweet, and direct with your answers. The goal is to share ...
How to Write the Harvard Supplemental Essays for 2023-2024
Here are the Prompts for the Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-2024. Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. (50-150 words) Activity essays like this one allow you to say everything you couldn't fit on your Common App activity list. Make sure to pick an activity that has meaning and one which you ...
PDF Writing Exam 2023
Question 1: Your Goals for Writing at Harvard. ... main ideas that you think would be necessary to support the essay's thesis.) Your answer for Question 3 should consist of 2-4 paragraphs. 6 . Question 4: Analysis. In the Section 2 Materials document, you will find the opening pages of a source typical of what ... 6/1/2023 3:49:35 PM ...
Harvard University Supplemental Essay 2023-24 Prompt Guide
Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-24. These supplemental essays give you a good idea of what Harvard values, such as personal development, intellectual activities, and the positive impact you have made on your community. ... You are likely to see similar supplemental essay questions for other schools, so this is an ideal one for recycling ...
How to Write the Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-2024
Our writers and consultants come from the nation's top schools, such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. Having gone through a rigorous vetting process, our team is ready to support college-bound students with personalized essay feedback and admissions advice. We've broken down the Harvard supplemental essays for the 2023-2024 admissions cycle.
How to Answer the Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts (2023-2024)
Bonus Material: PrepMaven's 50+ Real Supplemental Essays for Ivy+ Schools. Last year, Harvard admitted just 3.2% of applicants, meaning that if you want a shot at an admission for the 2023-2024 cycle, your application has to be just about perfect. One element of the Harvard application that many students struggle with is the Harvard writing ...
First-Year Applicants
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: Common Application or apply Coalition, Powered by Scoir. This includes: Subsets of questions. An activities list.
Harvard Supplemental Essays
The Harvard essay prompts for the 2023-2024 have changed dramatically from past years. Previously, Harvard only required a short extracurricular essay. Students then had the opportunity to write an additional essay, choosing between a few Harvard application essay questions.
How to Write the Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-2024
Avoid common answers—dedicating your Harvard supplemental essays to common books like A Brief History of Time or the topic of Einstein's theory will not help you stand out. When writing this essay, think about whether admissions officers will be convinced why the paper or book means more to you than any other. 3.
How to Write the Harvard Supplemental Essay
How to Write Harvard Supplemental Essay #2. Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. (10-200 words) For this short essay prompt, you'll aim to share a brief story that highlights your intellectual curiosity, growth, and maybe even a profound realization.
Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-2024
The second prompt in Harvard's supplemental essays for 2023-2024 invites applicants to describe an intellectual experience that holds significant value for them. This question is an opportunity to showcase your intellectual curiosity and passion for learning. Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you.
Tips for Answering the Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts [2022
Harvard University supplemental essay prompts (optional) You may wish to include an additional essay if you feel that the college application forms do not provide sufficient opportunity to convey important information about yourself or your accomplishments. You may write on a topic of your choice, or you may choose from one of the following topics:
Application Requirements
Complete the Harvard Questions with the Common Application or Coalition Application, Powered by Scoir*. This includes the following five required short-answer questions, each with a 200 word limit. ... Subject Tests and the essay portion of the SAT have been terminated, except in certain special circumstances. Harvard admission officers review ...
Let's Talk About Harvard's Brand New College Application
Recognizing this confusion, Harvard decided to change its supplemental essay questions from one optional open-ended essay and two optional short essays to a series of five required short essays ...
PDF FIRST YEAR APPLICATION SUPPLEMENT: Please indicate under ...
FIRST YEAR APPLICATION SUPPLEMENT: Valid for entrance in Fall 2023. Please submit this form as well as a completed application to: Harvard College . Office of Admissions and Financial Aid . 86 Brattle Street . Cambridge, MA 02138 . Please indicate under which timetable you are applying: Restrictive Early Action (Deadline: November 1)
2023-2024 Harvard
Next. Mar 17, 2023. #1. 2023-2024 Harvard Secondary Essay Prompts. 1. If you have already graduated, briefly (4000 characters maximum) summarize your activities since graduation. 2. If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity not addressed elsewhere in the application that may illuminate how you could contribute to ...
Wide gap in SAT/ACT test scores between wealthy, lower-income kids
A recent paper released by Opportunity Insights, a Harvard-based team of researchers and policy analysts, found that children of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans were 13 times likelier than the children of low-income families to score 1300 or higher on SAT/ACT tests. Written by economists Raj Chetty, John Friedman, and David Deming, the ...
Harvard grad opened ice cream shop with her mom, earns $230,000 ...
In 2022, Park earned just over $230,000 — a salary of $118,625 and, as part of the partnership with her mother, the profits from the second store, which totaled $111,677.
World Class: November 2023
In the fall of 1923, Harvard Law School enrolled its first full LL.M. class, comprised of four students from three countries. This fall, we welcomed our 100th LL.M. class, with 182 students from nearly 70 countries. Throughout the year, we will be commemorating the 100th anniversary of the LL.M. program, culminating in a celebration in ...
Why Companies Must Recommit to the Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights
Over the last 20 years, there have been dramatic gains for LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S.: gay, queer, and trans individuals fought for and won equal treatment at work, legal marriage, the freedom to ...

Harvard University 2023-24 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Harvard University 2023-24 Application Essay Question Explanations

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

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

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

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

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

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Common App Essay Prompt Guide

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Want to see your chances of admission at Harvard University?

Harvard University’s 2023-24 Essay Prompts

Intellectual Experience Short Response

Extracurricular Short Response

Future Goals Short Response

Roommate Short Response

Common App Personal Essay

What will first-time readers think of your college essay?

What are your chances of acceptance?

Your chancing factors

How to Write the Harvard University Essays 2023-2024

How to Write the Harvard University Supplemental Essays

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)

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

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

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

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

Where to Get Your Harvard Essays Edited

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

How To Answer Harvard's 2023/24 Supplemental Essays: Tips & Insights

Harvard's 2023/24 Supplemental Essay Updates: What's Changed?

What Are Harvard’s Supplemental Essay Prompts for 2023/24?

How to Answer Harvard’s Supplemental Essay Questions?

Answering Prompt 1

2. Reflect on Your Unique Experiences

3. Dive Deep into Personal Growth

4. Connect to Harvard

5. Be Concise and Authentic

Answering Prompt 2

1. Define "Intellectual Experience"

2. Choose a Meaningful Experience

3. Delve into the "Why"

4. Highlight Personal Growth

5. Be Authentic and Reflective

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Answering Prompt 3

1. Prioritize Depth Over Quantity

2. Choose a Defining Experience

3. Describe the Experience

4. Reflect on the Impact

5. Connect to the Present

Answering Prompt 4

1. Reflect on Your Goals

2. Highlight Harvard's Unique Offerings

3. Draw a Connection

4. Go Beyond the Obvious

5. Discuss the Broader Impact

6. Stay Authentic

Answering Prompt 5

1. Reflect on Your Personality

2. Balance Seriousness with Lightness

3. Be Genuine

4. Consider Your Daily Life

5. Reflect on Past Living Experiences

General Guidelines for Crafting Stellar Harvard Supplemental Essays

Final Thoughts

Key Resources & Further Reading

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Harvard Supplemental Essays 2023-24 – Prompts and Advice

2023-24 Harvard Supplemental Essays

Harvard supplemental essays Continued)

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

Harvard supplemental essays (Continued)