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Applicants to Harvard’s 2+2 program have just about one month to go before the deadline. For those considering applying to this program, here are a few words of advice regarding the essays:

Required Essay Questions

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

This essay gets at your self-awareness and character. What you will find is that successful candidates all have very different things that they have identified as significant achievements. What matters are two things: what you achieved (impact on a product, process, person or group) and why it matters to you (what you discovered about yourself). Most applicants tackle this essay by addressing the substantial achievements but leave out the second part of the question: THE SELF AWARENESS: “Why do you view them as such”? You need to do some serious soul-searching to arrive at what you consider your most substantial accomplishments. There isn’t a one size fits all response or formula of internship-check, academics-check, and personal- check. Having said that, successful accomplishment essays are those that show you are multidimensional and a strong leader.

What would you like us to know about your undergraduate academic experience? (400-word limit)

This question is trying to understand your academic decisions and the forethought that went into them. They obviously have your transcript and can see the impressive grades. What is more telling is revealing something about your character that drove the decision. Why did you take the two advanced masters courses? What was it about the subject matter that motivated you to pursue the coursework? How did you decide on what subjects to focus on for your major? Why did you pursue a triple major? What does that reveal about you besides the fact that you are smart and can handle different subjects and a challenging curricular? Are you someone who has always had a path mapped out for him and you are basically staying on cue or are you willing to steer your own boat? Do you explore other things and are you curious? Are you willing to try something new? Did you help get a new class introduced at your school? What was it like to teach the freshman seminar class and overcome your initial fears of X? If there are hiccups in the academic experience you should own up to it without excuses and without fixating on it. Simply address it and spend the rest of the essay presenting all the other positive aspects of your educational experience. It’s the self-awareness plus helping the admissions board to connect the dots about your experiences that could make this essay a hit.

What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)

This question can really reveal a candidate’s maturity level. Stay away from simplistic mistakes of “I procrastinated and ended up bumming my Physics final”. Equally troubling are mistakes that raise questions about your character. For example, rudeness towards a boss can never be excused. There is no turning back by putting a spin on the story about the important lesson you learned from the experience. I read an application of someone who wrote about how she went over her bosses head to get a project done because she had gotten buy-in from her bosses’ boss. What that showed about her is that she was insensitive and a solo player. Not the best example to convince Harvard to take a bet on you. Meaningful mistake examples go below the surface and reveal something about you as a person.