By Louise Engohang MPP 2027
When you grow up in a small town, attend a small high school, and go to a small college, you can’t help but start to feel small yourself. Places like Harvard seem legendary and impossibly far away. You convince yourself that you wouldn’t like a big school anyway—that you wouldn’t belong. So when it’s finally time to open the application, you freeze. It feels like there must be some “cheat code” that well-connected students pass around that unlocks a world you’ve never had access to. And the online, pay-to-play, application coaches don’t help. Everywhere you look, there are people selling “secrets” on how to get into Harvard, feeding into our insecurities and promising that if you pay them, they’ll give you what you’re missing.
In an effort to save you both time and unnecessary subscriptions to “advising” programs, I’m here to tell you what no one told me: three things you deserve to know about applying to Harvard Kennedy School.
HKS really does evaluate applications holistically
I know—it sounds like a cliché. When you see the word “holistic” on an admissions website, it’s easy to assume it’s just a comforting line for students who “aren’t good enough.” But it isn’t. It’s real.
HKS seeks brilliant, ambitious people and admits applicants who have already achieved incredible things. But here’s what I didn’t understand until I enrolled: sometimes the brightest minds come from places where opportunities simply didn’t exist. Intelligence, potential, and drive don’t only belong to people with a stacked résumé. Harvard Kennedy School understands that.
Additionally, a perfect transcript or a perfect GRE score is not the end-all-be-all. They are not prerequisites for belonging here. Do not count yourself out because you think you don’t “fit the mold” of what someone on Reddit told you a Harvard student is supposed to be.
“HKS seeks brilliant, ambitious people and admits applicants who have already achieved incredible things. But here’s what I didn’t understand until I enrolled: sometimes the brightest minds come from places where opportunities simply didn’t exist.”
Do your research and ask real questions
This takes time, but it matters. You need to genuinely understand why you want to attend
HKS in the first place. Ask yourself:
- Are there professors whose work resonates with you?
- Are there research centers, institutes, or fellowships that align with your goals?
- How is the curriculum uniquely suited to support someone with your background?
- What will this degree allow you to do, and why here, specifically?
Application reviewers want to know more than just your lifelong dream of attending Harvard. They want to understand your purpose. Students who thrive here are students who want to be here because they know exactly what this place can do for them. So remember: Why Harvard? Why this degree? Why now?
Harvard students are not mythical creatures
A huge part of the mystery around Harvard comes from how we imagine the students who attend. From the outside, it’s easy to believe that everyone here was born and raised in a “genius factory” somewhere, trained from birth to end up at an Ivy League institution. It’s simply not true.
The thing I appreciate most about HKS is its diversity in life experience. Many of us come from ordinary backgrounds. Many are first-generation college students or first-generation Ivy Leaguers. Many of us questioned at one point whether we even belonged here at all.
We aren’t robots. Things don’t always come easily to us. And because of that, the last thing you should do is build an application that sounds robotic. Application reviewers want to see you: your voice, your personality, your flaws, your growth, and your hopes. They want to understand what matters to you and who you want to become. Do not write an essay trying to mimic who you think Harvard wants when real, honest vulnerability might be the thing that sets you apart.
When I applied last year, HKS felt so far out of reach. So, in order to protect myself from the pain of rejection I made a promise: I would pour everything I had into each page so that no matter what happened, I could say I tried with all my heart. The application process is more intimate than we like to admit. It is terrifying to put your story into the hands of strangers who will only ever see a small part of who you are. Especially when you’ve always existed on the outside of the Ivy League loop.
But here is the truth I wish I had known sooner:
There is no mystery.
There is no secret.
There is only you.
And you are enough.
