CS @ HBS

2. What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)

Yeah, that’s a tough one. Maybe even the toughest. When I visited the US couple of months before applying, I went to one of those huge US book stores and amusingly surveyed the University Admissions Help section. I was less amused when I picked up “65 Successful Harvard Business School Application Essays: With Analysis by the Staff of the Harbus, The Harvard Business School Newspaper”. The first essay I read was this one, and the guy’s accomplishments were the following (quoting from memory…): 1. broke his leg/arm/some combination of them in a horrible accident, was told he’d never walk again, and was able to walk within 4 months, 2. after that, managed to graduate with honors and start his own company, which was incredibly successful blah-blah, 3. also founded and a was a member of an extremely valued jazz band, which had concerts in fancy clubs and was featured in several magazine articles.

“Wow!”, was my first thought after reading that, “I stand NO chance at HBS!”. See, I’m not a superstar. Haven’t founded any company (yet?), don’t have a band, and (fortunately!) didn’t have any accidents. What will I write about? My own accomplishments, which I thought were pretty decent up until this point, seemed to turn pale in comparison.

Well apparently, they were just enough for HBS. I can tell you roughly what they were:

1. Overcoming a major professional hurdle at work and managing to come out of it in a very good way, including a prestigious award.
2. Launching a significant initiative at work, that was completely ‘mine’ from the conception of the idea to its successful implementation, which involved guiding other team members. In the long run, this initiative also led the way to my career progress from my first position to the current one.
3. Successfully combining a demanding full-time job and demanding full-time undergraduate studies.

See? In my opinion, these are quite impressive achievements, but they’re certainly not ’superman’ ones. I definitely view them as my substantial achievements and I’m proud of each and every one of them, but I don’t think they’re ‘extraordinary’ or ’superhuman’. I think HBS is aware of the fact that not many of us would have ’superman’ achievements, at least not at this point in time.

After writing a draft for this essay, I showed it to someone whose opinion I highly valued. Her feedback was – “That’s it? I think you should come up with something more impressive!”. Naturally, I was upset. But after thinking it through, I just realized that this is me, these are my achievements, I’m proud of them, and I’m not going to embellish or make up anything. And apparently I was right.

A few technical comments:

• Start off with this essay, even though it might be the hardest – or at least start with an outline or decide what are the accomplishments you’re going to write about. After that, the accomplishments or key strengths that were ‘left out’ would need to be mentioned, somehow, in the other essays (like the first or the third).
• 600 words isn’t much. Unless one of the achievements is clearly more significant than the others, make a deliberate effort to devote 1/3 (200 words) for each one. Otherwise one will look more important, just because of the length.
• I gave a short ‘title’ for each accomplishment: “Accomplishment 1“ etc. It makes it clearer and easily shows the reader that there are three distinct ones.
• Don’t forget to answer the second part of the question: “and why do you view them as such”. Sometimes, especially when the accomplishment isn’t that “bright”, the explanation can give you an extra “wow factor”. Of course here you can also explicitly bind the accomplishment to the values and qualities you want to convey in the application:

“The ability to juggle between responsibilities and requirements in different fields, and to successfully perform under time constraints for a long period, make me view this achievement as a significant one.”

Summary

Though the essay is undoubtedly one of the hardest to write, I think you should view it as an excellent opportunity to showcase your best strengths and achievements to date, without the risk of sounding arrogant or vain. After all, that’s exactly what they want to hear, and this is your chance to impress, point-blank!