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*Please note: You are viewing an essay analysis from the 2019-2020 admissions cycle. Click here to view our collection of essay analyses for the current admissions season.  

In announcing the school’s application essay prompts for this season, Soojin Kwon, the director of full-time admissions at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, acknowledges that the questions posed last season were effective in coaxing information from applicants that proved useful in the evaluation process. Understandably, then, the prompts remain almost exactly the same, except for a slight tweak in one of the short-answer options. Rather than the intro phrase “I find it challenging when people,” candidates can now choose “I was challenged when,” which would indeed change the potential content and angle of their responses. Discussing a personal experience with difficulty or setback is very different from pinpointing an aspect of others’ behavior that is troublesome to deal with. Ross’s longer “official” essay again asks applicants to share and explain their short-term professional aspirations, thereby showing that they have a plan in mind and have given serious thought to why they need an MBA to achieve their goal. Our full analysis of Ross’s 2019–2020 essay prompts follows.

Interested in learning how to tackle this year’s Michigan Ross application essay? Watch the short video below before you continue reading the full analysis!

Part 1: Short Answer Questions

Select one prompt from each group of the three groups below. Respond to each selected prompt in 100 words or fewer (<100 words each; 300 words total).

Group 1

I want people to know that I:
I made a difference when I:

Group 2

I was humbled when:
I am out of my comfort zone when:

Group 3

I was aware that I was different when:
I was challenged when:

In a past blog post about the school’s short-answer prompts (which were new at the time), Kwon asserted, “[We want to] get to know more about you than we would in a traditional essay where you’d talk at length about one topic.” And this week, she noted, “We encourage you to share personal examples in these short answers to allow us to learn more about who you are as a person.” Clearly, the admissions committee is hoping these short answers—which we tend to think of more as mini essays—will reveal distinctive facets of applicants’ personalities in a straightforward manner, unencumbered by extraneous text. Given the mere 100-word maximum, you might be tempted to just jump in and start writing, but thinking strategically about who you are as an applicant is critical here.

We encourage you to first consider very carefully which option of each pair feels more authentic to and revelatory of who you are as an individual. Then, thoroughly and thoughtfully brainstorm to identify your strongest possible responses. You want to be able to “own” your answer—as we like to say—meaning that no other applicant could write the same thing as you do. Using the second prompt of the first group as an example (“I made a difference when I…”), writing something like “gave back to my community by volunteering with the local homeless shelter” would be far too general a response and could likely be stated by multiple applicants. Instead, something much more specific like “dedicated every Saturday morning for three years to helping cook and serve breakfast at the local homeless shelter, where I also instituted a bulk-shopping plan that saved hundreds of dollars each year on supplies” would stand out for its originality and paint a clearer picture of the candidate who wrote it with respect to their values, dedication, and fiscal creativity. We suggest that in treating this as a mini essay, you consider using a narrative approach to paint a dynamic picture of how you conduct yourself and to engage your reader with a compelling story that has a clear beginning, middle, and end. If you choose to simply discuss a trait without a narrative, you could risk bragging, and you will certainly waste an opportunity for the admissions reader to get to know you in more depth.

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*Please note: You are viewing an essay analysis from the 2019-2020 admissions cycle. Click here to view our collection of essay analyses for the current admissions season.  

One of the first top programs to release its essay questions for this season, Columbia Business School (CBS) is again hitting candidates with a mix of old and new prompts. Its goal statement from 2018 has been relabeled as a short-answer question but has changed in no other way, while its first essay prompt—also about applicants’ career aspirations—has likewise remained the same. The school’s second essay question has been tweaked slightly to concentrate less overtly on the value of CBS’s Manhattan location and more on the program in general, though we would argue that in the end, the new prompt is intended to elicit much of the same information as last year’s. As for the third essay, applicants may be glad to learn they do not need to discuss and reimagine a past team failure (who wants to dwell on a defeat, right?), but they will instead need to look inward and reveal their values. Read on for our more detailed analysis of the program’s 2019–2020 questions.

Interested in learning how to tackle this year’s CBS application essays? Watch the short video below before you continue reading the full analysis!

Short Answer Question: What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal? (Maximum 50 Characters)

CBS applicants accustomed to Twitter’s 280-character allowance may find CBS’s 50-character limit here more than a little challenging—especially considering that it includes spaces! To get a sense of how brief your opportunity really is, note that the school’s prompt is itself exactly 50 characters. With such limited space, this can hardly be considered a true essay, but you will need to approach it with the same level of thought and focus you give all your other written responses for CBS. During a Q&A mbaMission conducted with several top admissions officers, Assistant Dean of Admissions Amanda Carlson commented,

That 50 characters really helps people to just break it down very simply for themselves and simply for us . . . . Pursuing business education, it’s a huge investment in time, in money, in effort, in energy, and I think this 50-character exercise is as much for the candidate as it is for our team, and we want to know that people are serious, they’re focused, and they’re ready for this kind of adventure.

So, this prompt is a no-nonsense request for information that is all about getting to the point and telling the admissions committee what it needs to know—that you have a clear and achievable goal. In the past, the school has provided a few sample responses, including “Work in business development for a media company” and “Join a strategy consulting firm,” illustrating that conveying the requested information in such a tight space is definitely doable and that you do not need to worry too much about grammatical issues (in other words, you do not need to start your statement with “I want to” or something similar). We like to offer the statement “Reveal true goals, not what you think CBS wants” as both our own example of keeping things concise and our advice on how to approach and fulfill this request.

Think about what you truly want to do with your career in the short term and state this aspiration directly. Keep in mind that the rest of your application will need to provide evidence that your stated goal aligns with your existing skills and profound interests, especially once they have been augmented by an MBA education. This will show that your professed goal is achievable and lend credibility to your statement. If you can do this in 50 characters (not words!), you will have done what you need to answer the school’s question quite well.

Essay #1: Through your resume and recommendations, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals over the next 3-5 years and what, in your imagination, would be your long-term dream job? (500 words)

CBS starts this essay question by more or less telling you not to recap your career to date, so we strongly recommend that you do so (and briefly, at that) only if context is absolutely needed for your stated goals to be understood and/or believable—perhaps if you are making a fairly remarkable career change. Pay particular attention to the phrases “dream job” and “in your imagination” with respect to the long-term portion of the question. The school is prompting you to be creative and perhaps even to challenge or push yourself to think big. CBS wants individuals who do not just follow prescribed paths according to someone else’s blueprint but who are aspirational and more inclined to forge their own way. This is not to suggest that if you have a more traditional plan in mind that you are in trouble or at risk of losing the admissions committee’s attention, but you may need to take a little extra time to consider your ambitions from the perspective of “what if?” and delve more deeply into what you hope to achieve to find the more personal and inspiring elements of your goals. Showing creativity and individualism here can only be helpful.

Although this is not a request for a textbook personal statement essay, your response will certainly involve some elements of the topics covered in such a submission, such as short- and long-term goals. The mbaMission Personal Statement Guide offers advice on brainstorming and crafting such essays along with multiple illustrative examples and so may be helpful in preparing your CBS response to this prompt. You can download your free copy here.

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Recently, mbaMission joined forces with Manhattan Prep to host an online Q&A session with admissions directors from Columbia Business School, the Yale School of Management, MIT Sloan, and Northwestern Kellogg. Our thanks go out to these experienced officers, who shared their takeaways from past application seasons and their expectations for the upcoming one:

• Amanda Carlson, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Columbia Business School
• Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean for Admissions at the Yale School of Management
• Dawna Levenson, Assistant Dean of Admissions at the MIT Sloan School of Management
• Kate Smith, Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Kellogg School of Management

Each of our panelists shared details about their respective admissions processes and the different ways applicants are evaluated across programs, in addition to these other valuable insights:

• Smith and Levenson outlined ways that applicants with no existing MBA network can connect with students and alumni and learn about their programs.
• DelMonico addressed the shifts in application volume across rounds, highlighting both an increase in Round 1 applications and the school’s openness to Round 3 applicants.
• Carlson noted that applicants should not worry about competing against a pool but instead focus on revealing their strengths and fit with their target program, citing specific examples.
• All agreed (yet again!) that the GRE and GMAT exams are viewed as equal in the evaluation process.
• Each officer discussed the spectrum of financial aid available at their respective programs and the roles of need and merit-based scholarships.

You can watch the entire Q&A session below or on our YouTube Channel: 

Stay tuned for details on other exclusive admissions events hosted by mbaMission!

*Please note: You are viewing an essay analysis from the 2019-2020 admissions cycle. Click here to view our collection of essay analyses for the current admissions season.  

At last the 2019–2020 MBA admissions season has kicked off, with Harvard Business School (HBS) releasing (or shall we say rereleasing) its single application essay prompt. Once again, HBS has made no changes to its question. HBS Managing Director of MBA Admissions Chad Losee, now entering his fourth application season, must feel the prompt is effective in eliciting the kind of information the admissions committee finds valuable in evaluating potential students. Our analysis of the prompt and advice on the best way to approach it therefore also remain constant. (For even more targeted guidance on approaching and writing your HBS essay, download our newest free admissions guide, “What Matters?” and “What More?”: A Guide to the Stanford GSB and HBS Personal Essays.)

Interested in learning how to tackle this year’s HBS application essay? Watch the short video below before you continue reading the full analysis!

“As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA Program?” (no word limit)

Take special note of the word “more” in this straightforward question. With it, the admissions committee is subtly acknowledging that it already has a lot of information about you that it can and will use to get to know you better, including your resume, extracurricular activities, recommendations, short-answer question responses, academic transcripts, and GMAT/GRE score. You should therefore think first about what these portions of your application convey about who you are as an individual and candidate, so you can determine which parts of your profile still need presenting or could benefit from more detail. Now, some applicants may fret that this means they absolutely cannot touch on anything mentioned elsewhere in their application, for fear that the admissions committee will become annoyed and reject them. However, HBS is not asking only for fresh information—it is asking for more, and specifically, whatever “more” you believe the committee needs to evaluate you thoroughly and fairly. So, even though a bullet on your resume may inform the school of a certain fact, if a profoundly important story lurks behind that fact that you feel effectively expresses a key part of your personality or skill set, you should not feel hesitant to share that story. That said, we are not advocating for you to explore your resume in depth, just trying to convey that “more” here does not mean strictly “thus far unmentioned.”

Before we discuss a few approaches you might take in framing this essay, we must note that your goal in writing it is sincerity. The admissions committee is not staffed by robots, seeking to detect a certain “type” of applicant. These are human beings who are trying to get to know you and really want to end up liking you! With this essay, you essentially want to forge a meaningful connection with a complete stranger, and if you try to present yourself as something or someone you are not, you will fail.

You, like many other applicants, may worry that your sincere stories will sound clichéd. For example, if you want to write about making a difference, you may wince simply thinking those words: “making a difference.” But the power of your story does not lie in the theme you choose (if you choose to write thematically, that is) but in the manner in which you reveal your actions. If you have truly made a significant difference in the lives of others and can own that angle by offering powerful anecdotes and demonstrating a deep emotional connection to others and profound purpose in your acts, you can write on this topic. Although more than a few candidates will undoubtedly submit clichéd pieces on making a difference, if you can capture your admissions reader’s attention fully and make a strong enough impression, the cliché aspect will disappear, and he or she will be impressed by your actions and character.  

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Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose a business school. However, the educational experience you will have is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Today, we focus on Sharon Oster from the Yale School of Management.

A second-year student we interviewed at the Yale School of Management (SOM) remarked that Sharon Oster “loves teaching almost more than [she loved] being dean!” Oster, who served as dean from 2008 to 2011, is the Frederic D. Wolfe Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, and she taught “Basics of Economics,” part of the school’s first-year core curriculum, for several years. In recent years, Oster has taught the elective course “Strategic Management of Nonprofit Organizations,” titled after Oster’s 1995 book.

Oster’s expertise lies in economics and nonprofit management. She is the author of several widely used business school textbooks, including Modern Competitive Analysis, and has co-authored introductory economics texts such as Principles of Microeconomics and Principles of Economics (both with Karl E. Case and Ray C. Fair). As mentioned earlier, her text Strategic Management for Nonprofit Organizations: Theory and Cases is used in the “Strategic Management of Nonprofit Organizations” course.

For more information about the Yale SOM and 16 other top-ranked business schools, check out our free mbaMission Insider’s Guides.