Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompts 2025–2026
Maybe you’ve been picturing yourself at Harvard since 4th grade. Back then, it might have been your parents’ vision or simply a passing daydream. Now that you’re in high school, the picture feels sharper: the red-brick yard dusted in snow, the bell tower rising over the Charles, the hum of debate spilling out of Sanders Theatre. You’re closer to that dream than you realize.
Harvard’s supplement is where the dream meets detail. With five required short answers, each capped at 150 words, you don’t have room for filler. They’re not looking for the postcard version of you — they’re looking for lived insight, reflection, and contribution. They want to see how your experiences, habits, and outlook will add something distinct to their community. Here’s how to approach each prompt with clarity and authenticity:
1. Diversity and Contribution
Prompt: 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?
Don’t just describe where you’re from — show how that context shaped the way you think. A student who grew up switching between Spanish at home and English at school might write about becoming the “translator” at family appointments, learning that leadership can mean listening first. Another might describe building a neighborhood tutoring circle where equations were worked out alongside shared snacks and stories, realizing that knowledge spreads fastest when it’s rooted in trust. Harvard isn’t interested in demographics alone — they want to see the habits you’ve built through those experiences and how they’ll ripple into classrooms, Houses, and late-night debates.
2. Disagreement and Dialogue
Prompt: Describe a time when you strongly disagreed with someone about an idea or issue. How did you communicate or engage with this person? What did you learn from this experience?
This isn’t about winning an argument; it’s about how you handle difference. Imagine leading a Model UN team where debates on climate policy grew heated. Instead of pushing harder, you paused, created space for quieter delegates, and reframed the debate around shared priorities. The resolution wasn’t perfect, but it was durable. That moment shows you can transform disagreement into dialogue — not by avoiding conflict, but by elevating it. Harvard values students who bring rigor and humility into disagreement, because that’s where ideas sharpen and communities grow stronger.
3. Shaping Influences
Prompt: Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are.
The best answers go deep, not wide. A student who spent summers running a family food truck might describe how waking at dawn to prep onions and rolling home after midnight fostered endurance and respect for invisible work. Another might highlight research at a local lab — not for prestige, but for the countless failed trials that taught resilience. Harvard isn’t just scanning for what you’ve done; they’re reading for how those experiences formed habits of mind: perseverance, curiosity, empathy. Pick the one story that shaped you most, and let it breathe.
4. Future Goals
Prompt: How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future?
Avoid vague promises about “changing the world.” Ground your vision in lived experience. For instance, maybe you saw neighbors displaced when zoning laws shifted and now want to study government to understand housing policy. Or perhaps you designed low-cost prosthetics with a clinic and want to pursue biomedical engineering to refine that work. The strongest answers create a through-line: your past insight, your present curiosity, and the way Harvard’s resources — whether it’s the Kennedy School’s policy labs, the Wyss Institute’s research, or the culture of Socratic debate — will give structure to your future.
5. Roommate Introduction
Prompt: Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.
This is where personality matters. Skip the clichés and aim for quirks that make you unforgettable:
You journal every morning because it keeps you grounded, and your stack of notebooks could fill a shelf.
You’re an amateur oud player who can turn quiet evenings into impromptu concerts.
You’ve memorized Mesopotamian myths because they remind you that even ancient civilizations wrestled with identity, justice, and power.
What makes this work is the balance: light enough to imagine dorm life, layered enough to show depth. Harvard readers don’t want a résumé here — they want a roommate they can hear, laugh with, and remember.
The essays that resonate most aren’t polished speeches; they’re lived reflections. Every short answer is a window into how you think, how you listen, and how you’ve turned experience into perspective. Harvard isn’t asking you to have life figured out — they’re asking you to show who you are becoming.
At Ivy Link, we help students refine that window — transforming raw stories into essays that are sharp, specific, and compelling. Founded by Adam Nguyen, a Columbia graduate and former admissions reader, our team of advisors draw on the Ivy Link Method, a blend of strategy, research, and mentoring, to guide students from early drafts to essays that reflect genuine insight and intellectual vitality.
If Harvard is your dream — or if you’re applying across multiple Ivies — we’re here to help you approach the process with confidence and clarity. Contact Ivy Link to learn more.
