The New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business requires only two essays this year, but the contrast between the prompts for those essays enables candidates to cover a significant amount of ground. First, the school poses a straightforward and traditional question about applicants’ short-term professional aspirations and why Stern specifically is needed to achieve them. For the second required essay, candidates face Stern’s challenging but very revelatory “Pick Six” submission, which demands that they tap into their personality and character and convey a bit of their creative side. Together, Stern’s essay questions should allow you to present a good balance of your professional and personal sides for the admissions committee, though the optional essay is also on the table if you feel strongly that a vital part of your candidacy has not been covered by one or the other. Read on for our in-depth analysis of all of Stern’s prompts for 2026–2027.
Table of Contents
Essay 1: Professional Aspirations
What are your short-term career goals? Why is the Stern MBA the necessary next chapter in your professional story? Please be specific. (500 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)
With this rather no-nonsense query about your motivation to earn an MBA and expectations as to where you will go with it after graduation, NYU Stern wants you to spell out what you have in mind as you approach this phase of your life and career. Be detailed with your answer, which should include specifics such as your target roles and companies. With 500 words to work with, you should also have enough space to provide context showing that your stated goals align with your past experiences, existing skills, and professional interests. This will demonstrate that your objectives are achievable, thereby lending credibility to your statement.
The school also explicitly asks why you are interested in the Stern MBA specifically. This gives you a chance to illustrate that you have thoroughly researched the program. Be sure to learn about the school’s courses, clubs, resources, and events, and then describe how they relate to your career objectives. While you can (and should) gain this knowledge from the program’s website and virtual offerings, speaking directly with students and alumni will typically provide you with even deeper insight into how the program will enable you to succeed in business school and after graduation. Showing that you have genuinely engaged with the Stern community will help you stand out from other applicants who did not put in such time and effort. For a comprehensive exploration of Stern’s academic offerings, defining characteristics, crucial statistics, social life, community/environment, and other key facets of the program, please download your free copy of the mbaMission NYU Leonard N. Stern School of Business Insider’s Guide.
In general, this essay is a typical personal statement essay. And because personal statements are similar from one application to the next, we created our mbaMission Personal Statement Guide, which helps applicants write this style of essay for any school. This publication is available free of charge and provides both detailed guidance and illustrative sample essays. Be sure to download your free copy today.
Essay 2: Personal Expression (a.k.a. “Pick Six”)
Introduce yourself to the Admissions Committee and to your future classmates using six images and corresponding captions. The Pick Six is a way to share more about the qualities you will bring to the Stern community, beyond your professional and academic achievements. Your uploaded PDF should contain all of the following elements:
- A brief introduction or overview of your “Pick Six” (no more than 3 sentences).
- Six images that help illustrate your interests, values, motivations, perspective and/or personality.
- A one-sentence caption for each of the six images that helps explain why they were selected and are significant to you.
Note: Your visuals may include photos, infographics, drawings, or any other images that best describe you. Your document must be uploaded as a single PDF. The essay cannot be sent in physical form or be linked to a website.
We imagine that the initial reaction most candidates have to pretty much any prompt that does not request a traditional essay is momentary panic (though, to be fair, that is likely many applicants’ reaction to traditional essays as well), but let us reassure you a bit before we delve more deeply into how best to approach this one. We could argue that in many ways, this essay prompt is merely asking you to do something we assume you already do every day and have possibly been doing for years—curate an impression of yourself for others by sharing certain images and other media that resonate with you. Is that not what people regularly do via X (formerly Twitter), Meta/Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and any number of other social media venues by posting photos, memes, infographics, cartoons, and the like, typically along with a related comment? When you think of the task NYU Stern has presented you with this framework in mind, do you feel a little more confident about mastering it? We hope so.
In this case, rather than passing along just anything you think is funny or interesting or documenting your latest adventure or meal, you are communicating directly with a very singular audience, within a certain context, and with a very specific goal in mind. So start by carefully considering what you want the admissions committee to know about you—with the goal of sharing as many different aspects of your life and personality as possible—and what it will already be able to learn through your other essays and the rest of your application (resume, recommendations/EQ endorsement, transcript, etc.). You want the admissions “reader” to take away something new from each image they see.
Your images do not need to be sequential, nor do they need to always include you. Consider photos of meaningful locations and people (or animals, even) in your life as well as inanimate objects, such as a musical instrument, a pair of running shoes, a home-cooked meal, or a blooming flower. As long as the subject of the image is reflective of who you are as an individual—and remember that you will have the accompanying sentence for each image to clarify this connection, as needed—then you will be on the right track. Keep in mind also that not all of your images need to be actual photos, either. They can include drawings, paintings, charts, tables, emojis, and so on. And finally, although getting accepted to your target business school and earning an MBA are serious goals and undertakings, this does not mean that all your images for this essay submission need to be serious in nature, especially if your personality is naturally more lighthearted and humorous. Costumes and comical arrangements, if used judiciously, can be valid options if, again, the resulting final image is truly reflective of your character and/or life.
Your one-sentence captions are clearly an opportunity to enhance the meaning of each image you are submitting. In some cases, you might use the caption to provide a direct explanation of who or what is depicted in the image, chart, artistic expression, or other graphic you have selected. You could also use the sentences to create a narrative link between multiple images, perhaps as a way of profoundly illustrating a particularly meaningful aspect of your life or personality. Another option would be to use the caption sentence to explain your state of mind in relation to the image or to express an associated viewpoint, value, or philosophy. As you write your short explanations, keep in mind that these statements must adhere to the school’s one-sentence rule, and be sure to not simply reiterate whatever is already obvious in or from the photo but to instead use the additional content to enhance the admissions reader’s understanding of you.
This prompt from NYU Stern offers a lot of leeway, but take care not to get carried away with overly elaborate or complicated images. This is not an art contest or a battle of wits, but an opportunity to express and portray yourself to the admissions committee. Each time you consider an image to include, come back to the central question of Does this truly capture who I am? If so, then proceed, but if not, stop and reconsider your options. An increasingly complex series of images that lacks the proper heart and meaning will not elicit the response you want!
Essay 3: Additional Information (optional)
Please provide any additional information that you would like to bring to the attention of the Admissions Committee and/or give context to your application. This may include important aspects of yourself not otherwise apparent in your application, including but not limited to: hardships you have encountered, current or past gaps in employment, further explanation of your undergraduate record or self-reported academic transcript(s), plans to retake the GMAT, GRE, Executive Assessment, IELTS or TOEFL, or any other relevant information. (500 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)
NYU Stern’s long-standing optional essay prompt is broader than most, with the admissions committee even encouraging candidates to share—if they so choose, of course—their diversity (under the umbrella of “hardships you have encountered”). The prompt also allows candidates to discuss any problem areas in their candidacy, so this is your opportunity to address any lingering questions that an admissions officer might have about your profile—if you feel you need to. We caution you against simply trying to fill this space because you fear that not doing so would somehow count against you. (It will not.) And of course, however tempted you might be, this is not the place to reuse a strong essay you wrote for another school or to offer a few anecdotes you were unable to include in your other submissions. But if you are inclined to use this essay to emphasize or explain something that you feel would render your application incomplete if omitted, we encourage you to download a free copy of the mbaMission Optional Essays Guide. In it, we offer detailed advice on when and how to take advantage of the optional essay, with multiple examples, to help you mitigate any problem areas in your application.
The Next Step—Mastering Your NYU Stern Interview
Many MBA candidates find admissions interviews stressful and intimidating, but mastering this important element of the application process is definitely possible; the key is informed preparation. To help you reach this high level of preparation, we offer our free Interview Guides. Claim your complimentary copy of the NYU Stern School of Business Interview Guide today
