For more information on the defining characteristics of the MBA program at Chicago Booth or one of 15 other top business schools, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

In 2005, Kevin Murphy (“Advanced Microeconomic Policy”), who has a joint appointment in the department of economics at the University of Chicago, where he teaches PhD-level courses, became the first business school professor to win the MacArthur Genius Grant, which he received for his groundbreaking economic research. Murphy’s course, “Advanced Microeconomic Policy,” is affectionately called “Turbo Micro” because of its enormous workload. One recent graduate told mbaMission that a typical Chicago Booth course is supposed to be complemented by five hours of homework per week, but that Murphy’s course demands about 20 hours of work per week outside class. So, why take the class? The student raved that it was taught at the PhD level and that Murphy is deserving of his “genius” title, pushing students to think about their opinions in profoundly different ways.

For more information about Chicago Booth and 15 other top-ranked business schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Candidates who decide to attend Chicago Booth can look forward—with about 500 of their closest friends in the community (partners are invited as well)—to the school’s annual ski trip, which takes place over winter break. The trip shifts locations each year, but in 2010, more than 200 Chicago Booth students and partners practically took over Sun Valley, Idaho. Said a student ambassador in a January 2011 Chicago Booth student blog post, “The winter trip was, as it always is, a big deal at Booth, and the co-chairs went above and beyond in ensuring that the trip this year was something no one would forget.” Also, members of the Chicago Booth Ski and Snowboard Club participate in the annual Tuck Winter Carnival (at Dartmouth), for which many of the country’s top business schools send teams to compete in a ski race—though we learned the event tends to be more about beer than competition.

For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Chicago Booth and 14 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Chicago Booth’s practical academic programs extend into the field of entrepreneurship with the school’s “New Venture and Small Enterprise Lab.” Herein, students work for up to ten hours per week for an entire quarter within a host firm or take on a dedicated project in a class designed to train those who intend to ultimately join start-ups or consult to them. In addition, the Polsky Center sponsors the New Venture Challenge (NVC), a business plan competition that in 2010 awarded $75,000 to students as seed money for winning bids. Up to four winners of the NVC are invited to join the ARCH Venture Partners New Business Incubator for one year (or until they receive funding to launch their businesses), where they benefit from faculty support and office resources. The center has launched more than 50 companies that, in turn, have raised $100M in capital in spaces as diverse as payment solutions, flexible solar panels, food preparation and children’s toys. Further, entrepreneurially minded Chicago Booth students can apply for funding from the Hyde Park Angels (HPA), a group of Booth EMBAs who make investments of up to $1M in start-ups. Although the HPA is an arms-length organization and does not exclusively source investments from Chicago Booth, it maintains a connection to the Polsky Center, which supports the HPA’s mission. The HPA offers students the opportunity to intern as associates and gain venture capital experience while at the school. In 2009–2010, seven Chicago Booth students served as HPA Associates.

We are just scratching the surface—again, Chicago is most definitely not “just a finance school.”

For more information on Chicago-Booth and 14 other leading MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, factors such as class size, time/day of the week, topic and professor can affect the price of a course. But students are not just blindly bidding up courses—they are researching historical prices for courses, talking to former students and checking teacher ratings. This bidding system “pushes faculty to work harder on their teaching,” according to Stacey Kole, deputy dean at Chicago Booth and, in most cases, students who truly value classes are the ones who will find their way in.

If one were to say that a star marketing professor could be found in the city of Chicago, one would likely guess that he/she would be found at Kellogg. However, Chicago Booth is working hard to develop its marketing program, and the school can boast that it can claim the professor who wrote what the Journal of Marketing Research deemed its best article of 2008 and who has received several other awards and citations, including being recognized as an outstanding faculty member in three Bloomberg Businessweek guides to the best business schools: Sanjay Dhar (“Marketing Strategy,” “Marketing Workshop”). In a March 2010 Chicago Booth admissions chat, Dhar was described as one of the school’s “amazing marketing professors.” In addition, students told mbaMission they are pleased that Dhar is teaching more and researching less. He keeps the energy high in his classroom by constantly walking up and down the aisles during discussions and then literally running to the board to write down salient points.

For more information about Chicago Booth and 14 other top-ranked business schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

A November 2010 Chicago Booth Student Perspectives Blog post called “Fun Times at Booth” notes, “At least twice a week there are two major events that all students are always invited to”—and one of these is Thursday Night Drinking Club, or TNDC. This event is organized by six second-year students (“chairs”) who are hand chosen by the previous year’s chairs and who select a new location each week where students and their partners/families can gather in downtown Chicago. A member of the Dean’s Student Admissions Committee told mbaMission that TNDC is “just one part of the vibrant city-based social environment of Booth.” Noting that attendance regularly numbers 200–400, a first-year student with whom we spoke remarked that “Booth frequently takes over the venue.” In a June 2009 student blog entry, a first year wrote of TNDC, “It is usually an open event, where friends and family are invited. People come, relax and chat. You need not drink. You can just turn up. … You can meet other first years, second years, older years, part-time program students, weekend program students and non-students.”

For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Chicago Booth and 14 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Because Personal Statements are similar from one application to the next, we have produced the mbaMission Personal Statement Guide, which helps applicants write this style of essay for any school. We offer this guide to candidates free of charge, via our online store. Please feel free to download your copy today.

For more information on the defining characteristics of the MBA program at Chicago Booth (or one of 14 other top business schools), please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

1a. Reapplicants only: Upon reflection, how has your thinking regarding your future, Chicago Booth, and/or getting an MBA changed since the time of your last application? (300 words)

Whether you have improved your academic record, received a promotion, begun a new and exciting project, increased your community involvement or taken on a personal challenge of sorts, the key to success with this essay is conveying a very deliberate path of achievement. The school wants to know that you have been actively striving to improve and that you have seized opportunities during the previous year to do so because a Chicago Booth MBA is vital to you. The responses to this essay question will vary greatly from one candidate to the next, because each person’s needs and experiences differ. We are more than happy to provide one-on-one assistance with this highly personal essay to ensure that your efforts over the past year are presented in the best light possible.

2. At Chicago Booth, we believe each individual has his or her own leadership style. How has your family, culture, and/or environment influenced you as a leader? (750 words)

In your response to this question, you can freely provide more personal background information than most MBA application essays typically allow. Understanding just how much of your personal life is appropriate to share can sometimes be challenging, but a simple test is to ask yourself whether you would feel comfortable sharing the information you are considering putting into your essay with a stranger the first time you met him/her. If so, you should feel confident proceeding as planned; if not, you will need to put more thought into your topic before continuing.

If you discuss your family background, you do not need to present an idyllic or Rockwellian picture, but should focus on illustrating the cause-and-effect relationships between the values you learned from your family and your subsequent leadership style. Conversely, if your developmental years were arduous and marked by negative input, you can reveal how you have become inspired to create a better atmosphere for others. Of course, as the question states, you can also (or instead) discuss the effect culture —which can include religion and ethnic background, or the broader environment, meaning quite literally the nature and values of the society in which your personality was formed — has had on you and particularly on your view and embodiment of leadership. For this essay to be effective, you will need to be introspective, showing self-awareness about both the past and its impact on the present and future.

3. Considering what you’ve already included in the application, what else should we know about you? In a maximum of four slides, tell us about yourself.

At mbaMission, we really welcome this creative approach to self-expression. Chicago Booth’s unique PowerPoint/PDF presentation question truly offers candidates a blank slate and thus presents an incredible opportunity for applicants to differentiate themselves by creating an entirely distinct concept. What is great about this option is that in a traditional essay, your task is to set yourself apart from other applicants using only your content, but in this presentation, you can showcase your unique attributes through your content while also captivating your audience with your creativity, represented through your chosen design/format. (We are not suggesting that the slide presentation is an artistic competition, but we do believe it has the potential to engage and hold the reader/viewer in a unique way and is therefore an opportunity that should be seized to maximum effect.)

Because the slide presentation leaves so much room for creative interpretation, rather than offering advice on how to approach this for all candidates indiscriminately, we would need to collaborate directly with applicants to devise a personal strategy for each one individually. As a general rule, however, we recommend starting with a thorough brainstorming session and fully considering the range of content available—after all, this is a unique opportunity to tell the admissions committee what you feel is most important about you. Then, devise a design that will allow you to communicate this information in the most unique and compelling way. Take care to give equal thought to both your content and your approach so that both are optimized. You do not want to make the mistake of choosing a presentation method that is distinct and captivating but that limits your ability to fully tell your story, nor do you want to include so much “weak” information about yourself (or worse, repeat information already provided elsewhere in your application!) that your otherwise compelling presentation approach is rendered clunky and ineffective. Fully understanding and crafting your content first will prevent either of these scenarios from happening and will start you on the right track.

For more information on Chicago Booth or 14 other leading MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.