Essays
What does Harvard look for in a personal essay?
What former Harvard readers said about essays on choices, growth and values, and how to choose a personal essay story that adds to your activities list.
SourceBased on what we at Aristo learned from Harvard admissions files that students requested, and from former Harvard admissions officers.
Harvard's admissions readers wrote far more about one student's essay than about her course load, according to the file she later requested and described in the campus newspaper. Her APs and her activities got a cursory mention, while the officers spent most of their words on one essay about a single moment from her own life. That essay was where the readers decided who she was.
Families pour their effort into everything else: the course load, the honors, the summer program, and often a personal statement that summarizes all three. This file suggests the readers were looking somewhere else, at something no transcript records. What that moment was, and why it carried the file, is worth understanding before a student chooses a topic.
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