Harvard MBA Forward Fellowship – Financial Need Award ($30,000)

Harvard Business School

The John C. Phelan (MBA 90) Forward Fellowship was established in 2018 at Harvard Business School to encourage candidates from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds to target prestigious institutions like Harvard.

The support is not just for candidates with challenging financial circumstances growing up. The need is also determined by the current challenges, most noticeably the support the candidate offers to parents or extended families.

To be eligible for the Forward Fellowship, admitted students must complete both the HBS Financial Aid application and a complementary fellowship application that offers details into parents and family.

Amount: $30,000 ($15,000 each year)

Number of Awards: Variable

Criteria/Eligibility: Applicants who have considerable financial commitments including but not limited to:
•    Grew up in a low-income family and helped household with paying bills
•    Currently offering financial assistance to parents and/or plan to during and after the MBA program

Essays: Not required

Deadline: Apply after receiving an allocation letter from HBS

Reference: Forward Fellowship

Related Service: Scholarship/Fellowship Essay Editing Service (1 Fund)

F1GMAT's Harvard MBA Essay Guide

 

• 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 

Atul Jose

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.