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CBS has released its essays and…. nothing has changed. Our analysis of their essays follows:

What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA goals? How will Columbia Business School help you achieve these goals? (Recommended 750 word limit) : *

Because Personal Statements are similar from one application to the next, we have produced the “MBA Mission Personal Statement Guide.” We offer this guide to candidates free of charge, via our online store.  Please feel free to download your copy today.

For additional information on the Columbia Business School experience, please consult the MBA Mission Insider’s Guide series.

Master Classes are the epitome of bridging the gap between theory and practice at Columbia Business School. View link below. Please provide an example from your own life in which practical experience taught you more than theory alone. (Recommended 500 word limit) :

View with Real Player: http://merlin.gsb.columbia.edu:8080/ramgen/video1/faculty/MasterClass-promo.rm

View via Google: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4698876883776961370&hl=en

CBS asks the reader to go online and learn about a facet of the Columbia experience, the Master Class, that is gaining prominence in its curriculum. While the video itself is entertaining and educational, it is only tangentially related to the core question, which requires you to describe a time when practice trumped theory. Candidates should resist the temptation to fawn on CBS and laud the Master Class and should instead focus on providing an example of such a case.An obvious starting point for candidates is to consider times when they have learned something theoretically. However, you need not only think of times when you were in a college classroom or some sort of corporate training event. You should expand your concept of theory to include all times when you were presented with or considered ideas. Indeed, a commentator on TV or the fellow who owns the breakfast shop that you frequent (not to forget your own times of reflection and imagination) can all present valid theories that you have actually put into practice.

You should certainly show that you were/are open to ideas and that you are willing to test them. However, it is the process of testing that you, like CBS, should emphasize. So, if the first part of your essay is an explanation of how you were captivated by an idea, the second part should be the testing and learning. Clearly, we need to understand a contrast between these two phases in order to validate the argument that CBS presents. In this essay question, CBS does not explicitly ask for your key learnings, but it is appropriate for you to offer them nonetheless. By reflecting on your experience, you will emphasize the power of practice, in teaching/learning enduring lessons.

Please provide an example of a team failure of which you’ve been a part. If given a second chance, what would you do differently? (Recommended 500 word limit) :

The crucial word in this essay question is “team.” Indeed, this is not a question about an individual failure. So, you should not attempt to stretch an essay about an individual failure to fit this question. You should, instead, attempt to identify a time when a team did not achieve its desired results (it will be important to “show” this time through a narrative structure) and analyze how and where the breakdown occurred, generally being diplomatic about assessing responsibility and sharing some of the “blame” yourself.

It is important to note that a team failure does not need to be the story of a chaotic breakdown with people throwing chairs at each other. A failure can occur due to a passive approach to a problem – for example, the team does not understand its responsibilities and those senior to the team are not empowering the team to make choices. Regardless of the nature of the failure itself, it will be important for you to show that you have a nuanced understanding of the dynamics and that you are able to reflect and present a compelling theory (yes, theory!) for how you would have otherwise approached this situation.

After connecting with the Tuck admissions office, we can confirm that their essays will not change this year. Our essay analysis follows…

1. Why is an MBA a critical next step toward your short- and long-term career goals? Why is Tuck the best MBA program for you? (If you are applying for a joint or dual degree, please explain how the additional degree will contribute to those goals.)

Because Personal Statements are similar from one application to the next, we have produced the “MBA Mission Personal Statement Guide.” We offer this guide to candidates free of charge, via our online store.  Please feel free to download your copy today.

For additional information on the Tuck experience, please consult the MBA Mission Insider’s Guide series.

2. Tuck defines leadership as “inspiring others to strive and enabling them to accomplish great things.” We believe great things and great leadership can be accomplished in pursuit of business and societal goals. Describe a time when you exercised such leadership. Discuss the challenges you faced and the results you achieved. What characteristics helped you to be effective, and what areas do you feel you need to develop in order to be a better leader?

Tuck puts its own spin on leadership in that it asks for a time when you not only led, but “inspired.” Further, Tuck adds to this question, which in essence appeared last year, by asking you to identify an example where you had broader “business and societal goals” in mind.  So, you may be concerned that you need to discuss a very specific experience, but you should keep in mind that virtually any successful leadership experience satisfies these demands.

Inspiration need not be found only in rousing speeches. It is entirely possible to inspire others through action, creative thought, persistence, etc. So, as long as you were leading others and they were motivated to follow, you have inspired. What is most important is that you capture how you inspired others and show evidence that they were indeed inspired.

With respect to “business and societal goals,” most accomplishments have broad implications. If you helped a firm sustain itself or grow, then it serves both the firm and society. Candidates need not be concerned that they must address a social issue directly; your actions can have indirect benefits – benefits that will require creativity to express.

3. Discuss the most difficult constructive criticism or feedback you have received. How did you address it? What have you learned from it?

As you consider the criticism that you have received, you should be cautious and ensure that you are not inadvertently displaying behavior that is inconsistent with Tuck’s values. An embellished example of what not to do follows: “My boss criticized my laziness….” By displaying laziness, you are undermining your candidacy, because Tuck tries to recruit highly motivated students. Another misguided approach would be to offer a false critique — a negative that is actually a positive: “My boss told me that I work too hard and need to relax and take a vacation; it was hard to hear that…” These answers are transparent and only annoy the Admissions Committees.

When dealing with a critique of your abilities or character, it is important to approach the matter at hand in a straightforward way. The emphasis should be on accepting and remedying the problem. Clearly, with the word “constructive” in the question, you are asked to identify a time when someone took care and sought to help you improve; you need to show that you responded with the effort and thought necessary to “correct” the problem.

4. Tuck seeks candidates of various backgrounds who can bring new perspectives to our community. How will your unique personal history, values, and/or life experiences contribute to the culture at Tuck?

Essay four is quite broad; within “personal history, values, and/or life experiences,” there is a great deal of range. So, it is permissible for you to develop one or two significant themes, drawing from your life experiences, and then relate them back to the Tuck experience. This is an opportunity for you not only to display your unique attributes but also to thoughtfully and subtly imply just how well you know the school. By showing true awareness of your connection with Tuck, you will complete the essay portion of your application on a very compelling note.

Candidates often struggle with the demands of the Haas application. Our advice to you? Don’t just start writing. You should instead brainstorm extensively and map out your strategy, so that you avoid redundancies and give a complete picture of who you are as candidate.

Short Answer:
1. What are you most passionate about? Why? (250 word maximum)

This question really challenges candidates to think about and be philosophical about themselves. Once you have determined what you are indeed most passionate about, you should stop to consider the manifestation of that passion. You need to show how you are passionate and not just explain that you are passionate.

Example 1 (Bad): I love cooking and cook frequently for friends and family, often experimenting with new ingredients.
Example 2 (Good): After three hours of wandering through Chinatown, I finally found fresh Daikon and ran home to add this final ingredient to my soup.

While cooking may not be the most ideal/serious passion (unless it becomes a metaphor for a broader theme of spontaneity, creativity etc.) our point is that your passion needs to come through via your actions.

2. Tell us about your most significant accomplishment. (250 word maximum)

Your most significant accomplishment can be from any sphere –professional, community, academic, personal– but you should try to maintain a balance and represent as many dimensions of your candidacy as possible through these short answers – meaning that you will have to exercise judgment. Even in 250 words, you can tell the reader a brief story. The key to this essay is to choose an experience that is simple but powerful – one that speaks for itself and draws the reader in, allowing the reader to come to a clear conclusion about your capabilities.

3. At Haas, we value innovation and creativity. Describe a time when you created positive change in a group or an organization. (250 word maximum)

If you have not yet offered a professional experience at this point, now is the time – for the sake of balance. Your example of innovation need not be earth-shattering, but can simply be the story of you thinking differently or making a unique choice. When telling a story, even in 250 words, you still need to provide a discernible beginning, middle and end, which in this case probably will be your discovery of the idea, actions you took to implement and clear results brought forth by your actions.

4. What steps have you taken to learn about the Berkeley MBA program, and what factors have influenced your decision to apply? (250 word maximum)

Quite simply, Haas wants to know that you are applying for the right reasons – for the program’s brains (academics, environment, etc.), not its beauty (rankings). You need to explain your connection with the program and show that you have engaged in a process of discovery and self-evaluation in coming to the conclusion that Haas is for you. The more personal and detailed you are in your approach, the more compelling your answer will be.

A good test of your sincerity is deleting any reference to Haas and inserting the name of another school. If your essay still makes sense with another school’s name inserted, the odds are that your response is too generic. If it your statement becomes nonsensical because you have another school’s name relating to Haas-specific resources, you have done your job (and should reinsert Haas!).
We strongly suggest that you read our interview with Peter Johnson, Admissions Director at Haas before answering this question and long essay two, below.

Required Essays:
1. Give us an example of a situation in which you displayed leadership. (500 word maximum)

You might feel relieved to find a 500 word maximum at this point. However, by now, your depth of experience might be challenged; some find it difficult to offer a strong answer to this question, after discussing their most significant accomplishment in short answer two. Clearly, you should reserve a story that is more complicated for this essay and one in which your actions are methodical. Whereas the short essay demands an impressive “blast” of experience, in this essay the AdCom is more interested in understanding your leadership style and thus your process orientation. Your results are still quite important, but the characteristics that you display on the path to these results should be revealing.

2. What are your post-MBA short-term and long-term career goals? How do your professional experiences relate to these goals? How will an MBA from Berkeley help you achieve these specific career goals? (1000 word maximum)

Haas inverts the traditional structure of this essay question, placing your goals before your career experience. You too can invert your answer or you can begin with your career context; it does not really matter, as long as you answer the question in full. Because Personal Statements are similar from one application to the next, we have produced the “MBA Mission Personal Statement Guide.” We offer our guide to candidates free of charge, via our online store.  Please feel free to download your copy today.

We are pleased to release our new mbaMission Insider’s Guides to eight top-business schools (34-40 pages each): Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Wharton, Kellogg, Chicago, Tuck and Ross. (NYU, MIT, Duke and Haas will be released shortly). Through our guides, you will gain a powerful understanding of your target schools, learning about their unique attributes:

• Defining characteristics of each school’s location, class size, curriculum, teaching methods, facilities, alumni base/involvement and rankings
• Courses, experiential opportunities, faculty and clubs related to MBAs’ most common career areas: Consulting, Finance, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital/Private Equity, InternationalBusiness, Health Care, Nonprofit/Social Entrepreneurship and Real Estate (where applicable)
• The Admissions Committee’s stance on such elements as GMAT/TOEFL scores, layoffs/unemployment, recommendations, the waitlist and more
• Notable professors, classes and social and community events
• Admission and employment statistics

Until July 28, 2009, we will be offering our guides at an introductory price of $20. Thereafter, they will be available for $25. Please take advantage of this limited time offer.

1. How did you choose your most recent job/internship and how did this experience influence your future goals? What about the Chicago Booth MBA makes you feel it is the next best step in your career at this time? (750-1,000 words)

Because Personal Statements are similar from one application to the next, we have produced the “mbaMission Personal Statement Guide.” We offer this guide to candidates free of charge, via our online store.  Please feel free to download your copy today.

For a thorough exploration of Chicago Booth’s academic program/merits, defining characteristics, crucial statistics, social life, academic environment and more, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guide to Chicago Booth .

Chicago Booth’s first essay question does warrant some additional discussion beyond the broadly applicable ideas available in our Personal Statement Guide, however. You should be sure to note that Booth asks you to focus on your most recent position, so you will need to be conscientious and not just paste in your career history section from your NYU application, for example. Further, you must also respond to the “how” question and not just tell the Admissions Committee what you accomplished in your most recent position. The Admissions Committee wants to understand that you have the ability to make reasoned professional decisions. So, your past professional choice will serve as the evidence they need to ensure that you are making the right choice in applying to Booth, that you have a sound career plan going forward (or an ability to react to changing circumstances) and that you will be thoughtful and resourceful about your career beyond Booth’s doors.

2. Please choose one of the following (500-750 words):

The two questions Booth offers as options for essay two will require you to be contrite and to accept your weaknesses, frailties or mistakes. Chicago Booth will be impressed by candidates’ abilities to be honest and will not look kindly on those who refuse to accept responsibility or who attempt to shift blame to others. Nevertheless, you do not need to turn your sword on yourself and engage in any savage condemnations. You will impress the Admissions Committee with honesty, rather than negatively surprise the committee with a brutal approach.

Describe a time when you wish you could have retracted something you said or did. When did you realize your mistake and how did you handle the situation?

While, again, you should strive to leave yourself exposed and reveal that you are not a perfect human being, we feel that after setting the stage for your mistake, you should focus the majority of your essay on how you resolved the issue (and as always, we emphasize the importance of conveying the “how” element).  By showing your actions, you will, ideally, reveal your self-awareness, honesty, reasoned ability to resolve problems and more, all of which will enable you to effectively convey your overall strength of character.

-or-

Describe a time when you were surprised by feedback that you received. What was the feedback and why were you surprised?

As you write this essay, you might consider leading the reader through a narrative that clearly shows that you believe you are making a series of “correct” choices. Then, you might introduce the feedback that you received, which would then indicate a very sharp contrast to your actions. Indeed, this contrast is the crux of what makes your story interesting—the conflict between your intentions and reality. (Many of these essays fail because the contrast presented is not particularly sharp, and thus, the situation does not effectively catch the reader’s interest.) Even though the question of what you learned from the feedback is not asked, we feel that it would be appropriate for you to address this aspect of the situation and, in some cases, even show that you implemented changes accordingly going forward. This final element should not be belabored, however, and candidates should be careful not to go off on a long tangent about other experiences. Stay focused on the core conflict and the reasons you were ultimately “surprised” by the feedback you received.

Slide Presentation

We have asked for a great deal of information throughout this application and now invite you to tell us about yourself. In four slides or less please answer the following question: What have you not already shared in your application that you would like your future classmates to know about you?

We have set forth the following guidelines for you to consider when creating your presentation. The content is completely up to you. There is no right or wrong approach to this essay. Feel free to use the software you are most comfortable with. Acceptable formats for upload in the online application system are PowerPoint or PDF. There is a strict maximum of four (4) slides, though you can provide fewer than four if you choose.  Slides will be printed and added to your file for review; therefore, flash, hyperlinks, embedded videos, music, etc. will not be viewed by the committee. You are limited to text and static images to convey your points. Color may be used.

Slides will be evaluated on the quality of content and ability to convey your ideas, not on technical expertise or presentation. You are welcome to attach a document containing notes if you feel a deeper explanation of your slides is necessary. However, the hope is the slide is able to stand alone and convey your ideas clearly. You will not be penalized for adding notes, but you should not construct a slide with the intention of using the notes section as a consistent means of explanation.

At mbaMission, we really welcome this creative approach to self-expression. Chicago’s unique slide presentation is truly a blank slate and thus presents an incredible opportunity for candidates to differentiate themselves by creating a concept that is entirely distinct from thousands of others. What is great about this option is that in a traditional essay, your task is to differentiate yourself using only your content, but in this presentation, you can showcase your unique attributes through your content while also captivating your audience via your creativity, made clear through your design. (This is not to suggest that the slide presentation is an artistic competition, but we do feel that the presentation has the potential to engage and hold the reader/viewer in a unique way and thus is an opportunity that should be seized to maximum effect.)

Because the slide presentation leaves so much room for creative interpretation, we would need to collaborate directly with candidates to devise personal strategies. As a general rule, however, we recommend that candidates first consider their content and then devise a design that will allow them to best communicate all of their important information in a unique and compelling way. You do not want to make the mistake of choosing a method of presentation that is distinct and captivating but that limits your ability to tell your story in its entirety. Fully understanding and crafting your content first will prevent this from happening and will start you on the right track.