EssayLens

Harvard  /  Essays  /  Prompt 1

Harvard: Contribution

150 words max · ~100 recommended

Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a student body with a diversity of perspectives and experiences. How will the life experiences that shaped who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard?
What it’s really asking

This is a contribution question wearing a background question's clothes. The verb that matters is 'contribute.' Your experience is the setup; what it lets you bring is the answer.

Why they ask it

Harvard builds its class like a seminar table. They are asking what you would add to the conversation, not just who you are.

Three ways in
The skill as lens

Take something you genuinely know how to do and show how it became a way of seeing people or problems.

The quiet role

A responsibility you carry that won't appear elsewhere on your application, and what it taught you to notice.

The community you'd extend

Something specific from where you're from that you'd actively bring into a Harvard space, not just reminisce about.

✕  Weak opening

“Growing up as the oldest child in an immigrant family taught me the value of hard work and responsibility.”

✓  Strong opening

“Our church organ has 1,847 pipes, and I can tell you which three are flat.”

✦ Annotated example · The repair table at the library. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →
Every Saturday I run a free phone-and-laptop repair table at our public library. Most of my regulars are seniors who are terrified of "breaking the internet." 1I have learned to fix a frozen tablet in four minutes and to never, ever sigh. Mrs. Okafor now video-calls her grandson in Lagos without my help, which she announced to the whole reading room. 2What I would bring to Harvard is this instinct: that expertise is worthless until it is patiently shared. I want to keep building rooms where the least confident person feels like the most welcome one.3
  1. 1A concrete, recurring scene with a specific population beats a vague claim about loving technology. It shows, not tells.
  2. 2Naming a real person and a measurable outcome demonstrates real impact on people, exactly what Harvard rewards.
  3. 3Closes by connecting a personal habit to a campus contribution, answering the prompt directly rather than just narrating.
Stuck? Start here
  • What can you do that most people around you can't, and how did you learn it?
  • What responsibility do you carry that isn't anywhere on your application?
  • When are you the person others come to? For what?
Before you submit
  • Does the second half name an actual contribution, not just a trait?
  • Could only you have written this, or could a classmate swap in their activity?
  • Is there one concrete, surprising detail in the first two lines?

Drafted it? Get an honest, admissions-style read, free.

Score my essay