Answering an open-ended Harvard MBA Essay question can be tricky. The Admission team has recommended that you as an applicant should not overthink or overcraft the essay. It is easier said than done. Without any outline or strategy, the free-flowing essay might not capture all the traits of your personality that would demonstrate that you are a good fit for the program.
To make it easier for you to write the essay, F1GMAT has created the 2017-18 Harvard MBA Essay Guide.
Through the Essay Guide, we demonstrate:
1) How to highlight your extroversion and passion
2) Your capability as a decision maker
3) Your active learning skills
4) Your communication skills
Explicitly demonstrating your four traits would be ineffective. You should know how to use positioning in your essays. We have included:
1) Six Positioning examples
2) Two Sample Essays
3) A detailed analysis of Harvard MBA Curriculum
Download Harvard MBA Essay Guide (2018 Entering Class)
• Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your choices have influenced your career path and aspirations. (up to 300 words)
• Growth-Oriented Essay: Curiosity can be seen in many ways. Please share an example of how you have demonstrated curiosity and how that has influenced your growth. (up to 250 words)
• Leadership-Focused Essay: What experiences have shaped how you invest in others and how you lead? (up to 250 words)
Download F1GMAT's Harvard MBA Essay Guide (20+ Essay Examples & 300+ Pages of Essay Writing Wisdom)
About the Author
I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.
For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.
My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.
I am the author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, the best-selling essay guide covering M7 MBA programs. I have written and updated the guide annually since 2013, which makes the 2026 edition the thirteenth.
The reason I still write and edit essays every cycle: a good MBA essay carries a real applicant's voice. Writing essays for F1GMAT's Books and Editing essays weekly is how I stay calibrated to what current admissions committees respond to.
Contact me for school selection, career planning, essay strategy, narrative development, essay editing, interview preparation, scholarship essay editing, or guidance documents for recommendation letters.