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A business school’s essay prompts can provide clues about what it values. That is certainly the case for Harvard Business School (HBS). Each of HBS’s three application essay questions tie to one of the school’s admissions criteria. As HBS states on its site, the business school seeks individuals who are Business-Minded, Leadership-Focused, and Growth-Oriented.

The written application is a funnel that helps HBS decide which applicants to interview. The onus is therefore on you to showcase how you are qualified to be both a student and a teacher in the classroom and beyond in the HBS community. We encourage you to engage in holistic brainstorming to identify the three to five things you most want HBS to know about you and your candidacy. Then, before you start determining your essay topics, spend some time reviewing HBS’s online application. The questions in the online application are wide-ranging, giving you more room to present who you are. Doing this prep work will position you well to leverage all the components of HBS’s application to communicate your candidacy. Lastly, remember that there is no “right” way to construct these essays; HBS’s application is in part a test in strategic communication and judgment.

In this post, we break down each of the school’s prompts.

Business-Minded Essay

Please reflect on how your choices have influenced your career path and aspirations. (300 words)

Harvard wants to understand where your professional drive is calling you to go in the future and how that calling relates to where you have been. These two aspects—where you are heading and where you have been—are core components of a standard career statement, though the third core component—how HBS fits into the equation—is conspicuously missing. Given that HBS does not request this information, you should focus your 300 words strictly on what it does ask for instead.

When articulating your goals, go beyond your desired title or position and explain the impact you want to have. For example, perhaps your long-term goal is “running your own company.” This statement fails to address the subsequent impact you hope to have in doing so. For some applicants, identifying their desired impact will be easy. However, if you are stuck, consider the problem you want to solve or why you believe your skills and passions are needed. Also consider your future stakeholders and how your actions might support them.

To determine which experiences you should showcase in this essay, reflect on the pivotal moments that have defined your career thus far, ones that have primed you with skills or meaningful perspective and ones that have helped crystalize your path forward. Remember that the admissions committee has your resume, so listing accomplishments that are highlighted there will not add anything new to the picture of you that the school already has. Instead, share your motivations and explain how your drive has manifested into action. The maxim “show, don’t tell” will prove valuable here, even in such a short essay.

Leadership-Focused Essay

What experiences have shaped how you invest in others and how you lead? (250 words)

It is no surprise that HBS asks you to reflect on what kind of leader you are—the school’s stated mission is to “educate leaders who make a difference in the world.” But know that HBS does not have a set expectation of what leadership is or what kind of leader you should be. Instead of worrying about how HBS will evaluate your response, be authentic about the leader you are and how that came to be.

As you identify potential stories to share, consider impressionable moments from your younger years, times when you prevailed through challenges, and opportunities you took and ran with. Keep in mind that you want the admissions committee to learn more about you with each essay. So, if you discuss mostly professional experiences in your other essays, perhaps showcase non-work experiences here (or vice versa). Whatever you choose, reflect on and convey the “so what?” aspect—how have these things helped shape you as a leader and influenced how you invest in others?

And on the topic of investing in others, do not assume that HBS wants to see stories of mentorship above all others. There are many ways you can invest in others! Perhaps you championed a new process that saved you and your teammates hours of work. Perhaps you are an effective facilitator of open, honest communication, and through such facilitation, you have mended broken relationships. Brainstorming holistically before jumping into writing will help prevent you from overlooking your best potential responses to this prompt.

(And writing a compelling essay of just 250 words will be a battle in itself! Keeping our guidance above to 250 words certainly was. But this way, you have an idea of just how short your submission needs to be.)

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)

This third HBS essay prompt is the favorite among Gatehouse Consultants. The topic is refreshingly novel (we have not seen another essay question about curiosity in the various business schools’ applications). Moreover, everyone enjoys a good story. A useful framework for storytelling is the STARR format: Situation, Task, Actions, Results, and Reflection. Breaking down your story into these components will help ensure that it is logical and builds from a beginning to an ending.

Although a framework is available to help you construct your essay, no framework exists to help you choose which story of curiosity to showcase. It could be a topic you have researched—for fun, for work, for school. But it could also be a time when you wanted to test your limits (perhaps you were curious about whether you could get over your fear of public speaking or manage the implementation of a new technology at work). It might be a person you wanted to better understand—a colleague you struggled to connect with or a mentee whose background was very different from yours. Remember to share both your actions and the motivations and learnings surrounding them. And while vivid, specific details will help ensure that all of your essays are ones that only you could write, they are especially important in a story-based essay like this one. The more the admissions reader can “see” your world, the more likely that world is to stay in their mind long after they have finished reading your essay.

(And yes, the above guidance is 250 words long, to a tee!)

Looking for more guidance? Learn the basics of good writing in our two free, video-based essay workshops, The Importance of Business School Application Essays (and How to Write Them) and Your Career Statement – Fact, Fiction, and How to Build One, hosted by Liza Weale, founder of Gatehouse Admissions.