($) essay critique: HBS “What more would you like us to know?” (military candidate)

We have gotten a few more submissions recently for consideration for freebie discussion here on the blahg and we hope to get to all of them in the next week or two! This one came in for Harvard accompanied by this message:

ES, I’m looking for a reality check on my HBS essay! I’m most wondering if the stories I wrote about actually support my thesis in a way that is understandable. My introduction and conclusion are still not where I want them to be as far as grabbing the reader’s attention and summing everything up, but the thesis is solid in there.

Thanks for all the help you’ve been especially answering all my other questions in the comments and via email promptly!! Your resources and blahg have been a huge help and are almost the entirety of sources I trust as I’m going through this application process.

The Harvard essay question, as you likely already have memorized, is this:

“As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA Program?”

It’s true that the opening in this essay is shaky. Openings and endings often need to be rewritten again and again once the essay itself is locked down. In this case, the BSer is asserting to us that the thesis is sound, so let’s start there. Here’s the opening paragraph:

I’ve been consistently successful in my career in the Navy. One things that sets me apart from other candidates, however, is that I have a developed ability to succeed in uncertain environments. Whether this is a scenario where I’m operating with a lack of information or a scenario where the metrics of success are ambiguous to nonexistent, I’ve been successful.

It may feel lame and unhelpful when we start by talking about seemingly insignificant issues, but unfortunately, that’s where we have to start. If you don’t have the basics down, then there’s no way that the messaging is being maximized. In this case, we invite you to notice:

Two sentences after that, we get “successfully completed” as well.

Repeating a single word or derivative of that word not only makes the writing seem unpolished, but in this case, there’s actual confusion being introduced. (Plus: Typo. “One things”? The phrase “I have a developed ability” is also suspect.) Weknowweknowweknow it’s a draft, you’re still working on it, but we get all flummoxed and bamboozled by stuff like that.

Let’s look at that last sentence and the claim: “I’ve been successful in a scenario where the metrics of success are nonexistent.”

Say wha’?

Then how do you know you’ve been successful?

Or was this one of the scenarios of ambiguous success?

(Do you see the issue here?)

Let’s back up.

Is the thesis that “I’ve been consistently successful in my career in the Navy”?

Well…. we would hope that you’ve been consistently successful. After all, you’re applying to Harvard.

But are you trying to say that you’re CONSISTENT in your being successful? Or what specifically is the point?

Here’s a post about the use of the word “successful” which semi-applies here (not entirely, but sorta): Oh, you did it SUCCESSFULLY?

Then we get to the sentence that is perhaps more a subjective comment — as in, there is no rule not to do it this way, but EssaySnark strongly suggests that you don’t. The one where you’re saying you’re better than others.

Yeah, don’t do that.

It’s an innocent claim, and on its own it does not sound arrogant or bad. But it’s just not necessary… and anyway, HOW DO YOU KNOW?

How do you know what others are presenting to Harvard?

You do not have access to the records and the “consistent successes” even of all the other Navy candidates trying for a top school this year. And it just does not do you any favor to make claims about how you’re better than them.

You don’t need to do a compare/contrast. Instead, just present the strengths that you offer, based on examples of your accomplishments and where you’ve done rad things in your life.

Let the adcom decide.

Here’s another semi-related discussion: You can’t declare yourself exceptional.

Your job with the essays is to show how you’re awesome — so do that, and let the reader decide how awesome you actually are. Don’t TELL them you are. Let them figure it out when they see you in action.

Alrightythen, we get to the actual thesis statement and it was….hmmm, don’t really know.

What we can say is, having read the next three paragraphs which are nearly 300 words telling a story about having to step up into a role of a more senior person unexpectedly: Sure, there might be some potential with what you wrote, BSer, but the execution is not what it needs to be. It sounds like you did a project that you had not been trained on, and you had to learn it on the fly. Okay…. but…. What is your takeaway message intended to be? What skills or strengths are you trying to highlight? What BIG IMPACT WOWZER evidence of contribution or massively incredibly achievement is this revealing?

We’re kinda not getting much.

Is it the right story to use? Maybe. (We kinda don’t think so, but maybe.) Is it backing up a stated thesis from the beginning of the essay? A little bit perhaps, but nothing to write home about.

We didn’t read further than that, so not sure if the rest of the essay has more high-redemption content than what we get there. The 300-word story is a little complicated, it requires some scrutiny and study, it’s not a breeze to read through. The reader has to slow down and figure it out as they go. Also, 300 words is a lot for a story that’s only conveying what that one does.

Here’s a test for all of you: Give your essay to your gramma — or in this case, just the three paragraphs / 300 word story itself. Have her read it, and then have her put it down and tell you what it says. If she cannot repeat back to you what you did in easy language, then you have a problem. She should be able to tell you the story of what you told on the page, in her own words, from her own understanding.

Or, if you want to try on the other end of the spectrum: Give it to your high school science teacher, someone you know to be highly educated who is accustomed to reading difficult material (not that your gramma is not highly educated or can’t read difficult material; we’re using stereotypes here, please excuse us, if there are any grammas reading the Snark blahg today we fully apologize!!). Get your science teacher, or math teacher, some other person who is completely outside of your field, and give it to her to read. TIME HER. How long does she take to read it? Watch her eyes on the page; does she go back and re-read sentences or even full paragraphs again? When she puts it down to rephrase the story back to you, does she keep picking it up as a reference to scan through again? These are all signs that it’s too dense and difficult.

Please note, you can write about sophisticated topics in a way that is still easy to read. We just read someone’s HBS essay this week where they were talking about how they changed the way a company evaluated loans for borrowers. That could potentially be a majorly difficult subject to cover in a short amount of space, but they were able to do it quite effectively, without losing the reader with the explanation. That other BSer has been working through the EssaySnark process all summer and this is their third set of essays to go through review, so yeah, they’ve had some practice, and lots of feedback to learn these skills from. If you have not had this practice, then we strongly suggest getting some — which usually means, getting some real feedback (like, the Essay Decimator) if you’re serious about Harvard.

Anyone applying to bschool from any branch of the military has to remember that your world is really different from the world of the adcom. Even though you are using plain English words, that does not mean that your reader fully grasps what it’s about. When the BSer applying to Harvard is talking about a “security plan” then we can sort of guess at what that is, but we honestly don’t know the extent of it. It may not be necessary to explain it to the reader, but also it might help to understand the complexity or what the deliverable was. Are we talking writing a 150 page report? Or is the “plan” something less formal than that? Even a simple definition of scope like that sometimes can help.

Also, be precise with your language. Examine EVERY SINGLE WORD and make sure it’s the right one. Check out this sentence:

There were numerous roadblocks; for example, one of the ships, a submarine, didn’t typically submit this type of security plan and was therefore even more unfamiliar with the process than I was.

OK, this may be ridiculously nitpicky, but “roadblock” tells us that you got stopped in your tracks. But it wasn’t a roadblock — it was more like a speedbump if we want to be precise on our metaphors. When we see “roadblock” we expect it to be something HUGE, like, in the middle of the project the server got infected by a virus and locked up and we could not access all the work that had been done to date. Again, yes, nitpicky; the reader is not gonna be like, “Dang, THAT’S not a ROADBLOCK! We can’t admit this one to Harvard! They don’t know proper use of the English language!!” Of course not. But, you are the one who is in control of the messaging. Words create images in the reader’s mind What images are your words creating? Make the reading of your essay a smooth experience, where every word says what you mean.

From the time we spent on this one, we can say, yeah, maybe there’s something here, but it’s not coming across as HBS-worthy material yet. More needs to be done.

Are you struggling with your HBS essay now too? First place to begin is our Harvard App Strategy Guide, and then if you REALLY want our help, go for the HBS Essay Decimator to get that essay reviewed!!