A Candid Look At HBS’ New Admit Changes

P&Q: Let’s take a look at the actual questions: Tell us something you’ve done well and tell us something you wish you had done better. 

SK: There is one word to describe the tone and content of those prompts-California. The very removal of the word ‘accomplishment’ for the more touchy-feely  ‘something you’ve done well’ and the banning of the judgmental  ‘setback’ for the infantile and Little-Train-Who-Could ‘something you wish you had done better’ is a way of signaling, “We Don’t Need No Real Accomplishments or Setbacks” (well, of course, aside from getting into ace feeder colleges, getting strong grades and solid GMATs and working for traditional feeder firms), you can just riff on this.

But, of course, I am just being analytical and old school. The most important part of the new application is the naked fact that the initial essay set has been reduced, as you noted, from 2000 to 800 words.

PQ: Meaning?

SK: Words don’t count so much, or more charitably and probably more accurately, “Folks, we get the idea about you real fast. You’re a start-up, we just need the elevator pitch. We don’t need you to explain it to us. We know what we want and we know a future HBS admit when we see one.”

PQ: How do these changes impact the rest of the application? The parts of the application that applicants can control? 

SK: Well, it upgrades everything else a bit. Your resume becomes more important as a way of featuring significant accomplishments. They may start seeing more two-page resumes, with “mini” essays about extra-curriculars that somehow did not make it into the essay set. Recommendations become more important, especially recommendations which can tell your work accomplishments with some color to how you are a leader, etc.  Preparing recommenders becomes more important.

PQ: OK, all that said, let’s take what they are asking, one question at a time.  “Tell us something you’ve done well.” What is your advice?

SK: Well, one knee-jerk answer is that “I’ve done well in different environments,” and then sneak in some concise, ahem, accomplishments, and allude to how you were successful. To their credit, they are never legalistic with their instructions. So “something” does not necessarily mean one thing.  So some catalog of accomplishments in different settings is  one OK answer, and one which I suppose they will see a good deal of, especially if you don’t have the facts to support, “Something I have done well is forgive the sadists in Hell-Hole Despotic Country who tortured my parents to death while also maintaining my parents’ activist ideals about human rights here in America.”

OK, just an exaggeration to point out that an answer which deals with overcoming adversity, especially any adversity with an identity politics/PC twist is still a good answer.  Another way to deal with the question is to say LEARNING FROM OTHERS is something I’ve done well, or FINDING OUT WHAT DRIVES ME or even BEING HONEST WITH MYSELF.

Of course, all those answers gain force by the concise examples you are able to squeeze in. The question then becomes a mini version of the Stanford classic, “What matters most to you and why?”  where the answer resonates with some big words like GROWTH, LEARNING, SELF-AWARENESS and manages to screw in some compelling examples. If you are a STEM nerd, you could probably get away with, “Making stuff better” or” making products better,” or even “making my start-up better” is something I have done well, and follow it with 400 words about how, and why. If you have been deep enough into something like starting a company or designing a product, and have some tangible proof, HBS will meet you more than half-way on the actual execution of the essay (assuming you bring along a  great GPA and good GMATs). And if you screw up, the essay won’t count so much. They can tell if you are total basket case at the interview.