How to write the Harvard supplemental essays

HHarvard's supplement has in recent years asked a handful of short questions in place of a long Why Us essay: an intellectual experience, how you hope to use a Harvard education, what your roommates should know about you, how your life has shaped what you would bring. The exact questions change, so read the current ones closely before you plan.

The word limits are tight, and that is exactly why the answers matter. Each one is a small, separate chance to add something to the file, and most applicants spend it the same way, on sentences any of their classmates could have written. A former Harvard admissions officer is blunt about what to cut first.