<p>The supplental essay must be well-thought out, relevant and succinct. Writing a 700 word essay on a very random topic will only hurt the applicant. But all students who apply to Harvard have several interesting and relevant topics to write about. So, chosing one such topic and writing a 300-500 word essay on it will definitely enhance one’s application. The key words to remember when writing the supplemental essay:</p>
<p>1) Relevant
2) Well thought-out
3) Succinct</p>
<p>This said, asking for admit rates of applicants who chose to write the supplemental essay vs applicants who didn’t is pointless since Harvard does not release this sort of data and nobody outside the university has access to enough cases to make an educated study on the subject.</p>