What Successful HBS Candidates Write About In Their MBA Essays - A Statistical Analysis

We recently published a statistical analysis of successful HBS MBA essays. In summary this was the breakdown:

 
What HBS MBA Essays Focus On - ChartThe full analysis is on our website, Beacon.Community/blog


 

We think it provides some broad guidance on how to approach the essay. For example certain schools explicitly ask for a candidate's short-term goals. This analysis shows that HBS isn't interested in that.

Others ask for details about community involvement and, again, HBS is less interested in that.

Instead HBS wants mostly a narrative description of key professional/personal/academic experiences. The question itself leaves that unclear.

 

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