Are you supposed to write an actual list or an essay for this Harvard essay question? Is list or essay better?
(150) Your intellectual life may extend beyond the academic requirements of your particular school. Please use the space below to list additional intellectual activities that you have not mentioned or detailed elsewhere in your application. These could include, but are not limited to, supervised or self-directed projects not done as school work, training experiences, online courses not run by your school, or summer academic or research programs not described elsewhere.
Harvard likes students that follow directions. While it may not be a big deal on the essays, it will be a big deal if you get accepted and need to deal with professors’ quirks.
While sticking to rules is often the right approach, Harvard also likes those who are creative, take intellectual risks, and are not necessarily bound by the rules. In the admissions video, Matt Damon recounts how he was assigned a one-act play, but he turned in the first act of a three act script; he received an A in the class, and the script became Good Will Hunting. When I was a student at Harvard, the English tutor in my house said that a student had answered only one of three required questions on the midterm, but he gave her an A because her writing was brilliant. Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in his dorm despite the rule against running a business from Harvard housing, and the university invited him to speak at commencement and gave him an honorary degree.
My son, Harvard 2023, wrote a short essay for the intellectual prompt. I’m sure it wasn’t brilliant, but it was good enough and it displayed his unusual interests. Listing his activity would have added little to his application. If you have something interesting to write, I don’t think it’s wrong to go beyond a list.
Could an immersion trip to the US/Mexico border be considered an appropriate activity to list for this question? The focus was on immigration/migrant justice.