This year, Harvard Business School (HBS) has retained its three concise and closely defined essay prompts, requiring applicants to submit a Business-Minded Essay, a Leadership-Focused Essay, and a Growth-Oriented Essay. With Round 2 application deadlines just around the corner, candidates are asking us what has been working for HBS applicants so far—as well as for advice on responding to the timeless and challenging prompt for the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB): “What matters most to you, and why?”
To help you write your essays for these programs, we at mbaMission have identified the top questions that applicants to these schools tend to ask us. We hope our ideas will provide food for thought and help you kick-start your HBS and Stanford GSB essays.
Although informal letters of recommendation or endorsement are not an essential part of the MBA application, if used strategically and appropriately, they can help you stand out from other candidates at your target business schools and differentiate you from similar applicants. But do not worry if you do not have an informal recommendation to submit. Again, business schools do not require them, and some even explicitly discourage them, so make sure to carefully read and follow any instructions on your target MBA programs’ websites and applications.
We believe that asking MBA candidates about their goals is plainly absurd, because so many students change their goals while they are in business school. Further, the pursuit of an MBA is supposed to be about career development and exploration, right? Regardless of how we feel regarding the subject, though, you must ensure that if a school asks about your goals in its essay questions or an interview, you have a compelling story about where you believe your MBA will take you. Several years ago, getting a banking job may have sounded compelling to you—are you really capable of making that transition today? Certainly, fewer jobs are available now in the real estate world—is this a likely next step for you during a prolonged real estate drought? Venture capital and private equity jobs are challenging to land even during the best of times—are you able to compete with the elite during a downturn?
These are just a few examples of questions you should honestly ask yourself. Keep in mind that not only are the admissions committees examining your story to determine what attributes you might bring to the next class, but if you are a borderline case, they may also send your profile to the career services office to help confirm whether your stated goals are realistic and if you will be difficult to place by or after graduation (i.e., whether you will hinder the school’s employment stats and thereby negatively affect its standing in the rankings). So, pay special attention to your goal statements and make sure that you can credibly stand behind them—and, as we have written in the past, even consider being prepared to discuss some alternate goals.
Many MBA students are preparing for job interviews right now, and we at mbaMission are noticing a number of common (yet easily correctable) mistakes our clients tend to make when responding to interview questions. In this post, we will address two in particular and give you strategies for correcting them.
Mistake #1: Taking too long to get to the main point of your story. This is problematic because you run the risk that your interviewer will stop paying attention and miss hearing how great you are and how you could help their organization.
We at mbaMission often receive questions about part-time MBA programs, so we thought we should offer a look at some of the pros and cons of this option.
As for the pros, the one that business school candidates cite most frequently is that the part-time MBA involves a limited opportunity cost. Unlike full-time MBA students, part-time ones do not miss out on two years of salary (and, in some cases, retirement savings) and can still earn raises and promotions while completing their studies. Furthermore, firm sponsorship seems to be more prevalent for part-time MBAs, so candidates who have this option can truly come out ahead, with a free education and continued earning throughout.
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