HBS Essay #1

I know it's a little easy, but this year, I'm going to start preparing for my HBS application NOW! And guess what, I've decided that I'm going to rope in all you readers to helping me write my essay.

So feedback please on how I could improve my essay, this is Essay 1: What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)

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My Big Payoff

There comes a time in life when you’re challenged by seemingly insurmountable circumstances – and I faced that moment exactly 9 years, 4 days ago. Striding into the office, I walked up to my investment desk and gave my orders.

“Take no prisoners.” I said as I locked in my buy orders. That day was my personal Normandy. I had spent months, looking at the risks, weighing the ROI and planning for this day. With each passing day, I knew that I had to be patient, I had only one opportunity to make it and my time would come. And so I waited.

Truth be told, the odds were against me, stacked as high as they could go. My friends and family told me not to do it, but on that day, I knew it was time. It was time to make or break, it was time for change: my moment had come. It’s brilliant moments like that, that I know I have what it takes to succeed at Harvard – performance under pressure, tick, risk taking, tick and last but not least? I have balls.

As I waited for the results of my investment, memories came back to me. The first day I learn probability, the first time I profited from an investment and the dreams that I had. But I had to set my thoughts aside as I loaded up the results…. And there it was, my investment had paid off – I had struck the multi-million dollar jackpot on the Super Lottery Pick 6 – my life was about to change.


Pushing the Limit

I have a tradition that I keep with my boys. Once a month, we meet over drinks to catch up with the happenings, sometimes it’s a coffee, other times it’s a whiskey coke. I believe that a person’s network is the single most important factor to success and it will be that network that I will develop further when I’m at Harvard.

But routine gets boring, and to keep things fresh, we’re always willing to try new things. Sometimes we bring in some new faces to our network, at other times we develop a greater network, it usually encourages us when the new member is 5’6, petite, cute with dimples and 34-26-34.

However, once in a while, we decide to push the limits. Whiskey cokes are out. Bottles are in. And that's 1 bottle per person, 75cl minimum baby. Extra points for anybody who can finish the leftovers. That’s called pushing the limit, and that culture is what I will bring to Harvard. Not only will I push myself harder, but I’ll push her hard too, real hard. As for the men, I’ll let them push themselves.

In today’s world, we all need to push ourselves a little harder, to get that new Ferrari, or maybe to hook up with that chick. After a century of excellence, I fear that Harvard has lost its edge, but, with me, I’ll bring it back and kick it up a notch.


Baller

2 girls, 10 grams of coke, some e and a bottle of vodka. Edison Chen has nothing on me.