We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2013-2014 application season. Here is their analysis for University of London (London Business School).

London Business School follows in the steps of a number of top MBA programs this year in streamlining and downscaling its application essay requirements, going from six questions and 1,750 allotted words to three questions and 1,200 words. Two of the current prompts are reminiscent of several questions from last year—asking about applicants’ future plans and potential contributions to the school—but LBS throws candidates a curve with its unique third query, which takes a new angle on the relationship between MBA students and their school. Overall, LBS’s questions are much broader than ever before (and than most other schools’ prompts), which may be daunting to some applicants, but we encourage you to see this wide canvas as an opportunity rather than something intimidating. One of the school’s admissions officers explains on the department’s blog that the change in the scope and style of the questions was meant “to allow you more freedom in the way you go about constructing your essays.” We hope our analysis of LBS’s essay prompts will help you use this leeway to your advantage.

The essays form a major part of your application so we recommend that you spend a significant amount of time reflecting on the questions below and preparing your replies.

The essay questions for the class of MBA 2016 are:

What will your future look like after completing your MBA? (500 words)
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We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2013-2014 application season. Here is their analysis for INSEAD. 

We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2013-2014 application season. Here is their analysis for University of Texas, Austin (McCombs). 

By asking candidates to submit three essays of 250 words each, the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, Austin, has drastically streamlined its essay questions this year compared with last year—and in concert with what many other MBA programs are doing this season. Then, the length requirement for Essay 1 alone was 800 words, and applicants had roughly 600 words for the school’s three-part Essay 2.  Overall, McCombs’s questions appear to have taken a more personal tone, asking candidates to introduce themselves to the student community, explain what they can contribute to the program other than professional qualities and describe how they expect to develop during their two years in the MBA program. Gone are any explicit references to short- or long-term goals and one’s career history, so the applicant’s more internal aspects and soft skills are highlighted instead.

 1. Imagine that you are at the Texas MBA Orientation for the Class of 2016. Please introduce yourself to your new classmates, and include any personal and/or professional aspects that you believe to be significant. Select only one communication method that you would like to use for your response.
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Here are the free GMAT events we’re holding this week. All times are local unless otherwise specified.

8/19/13– Santa Monica, CA – Free Trial Class- 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/19/13– New York, NY- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/19/13– San Francisco, CA- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/19/13–  Toronto, ON- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/19/13– New York, NY – The Last Minute MBA Application presented by mbaMission– 7:00PM-8:30PM

8/19/13– Online- Live Online GMAT Preview– 9:00PM- 10:30PM

8/20/13–  Atlanta, GA- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/20/13– Boston, MA- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/21/13– Online- MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed presented by mbaMission– 9:30AM- 10:30PM (EDT)

8/21/13– San Diego, CA – Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/21/13– Santa Clara, CA – Essay Writing Workshop Presented by mbaMission– 7:00PM- 8:30PM

8/21/13– Irvine, CA- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/21/13– Online – Essay Writing Workshop Presented by mbaMission– 4:00PM- 5:30PM (EDT)

8/22/13– Chicago, IL- Free Trial Class – 6:30PM- 9:30PM
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We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2013-2014 application season. Here is their analysis for UC-Berkeley Haas. 

The Haas School of Business at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, offers you more opportunity to tell your story than most business schools do these days—its three short essays favor those whose candidacies include a variety of dimensions and accomplishments. Your job is to ensure that the reader is constantly learning about you as he/she reads on. Ask yourself, “Am I offering a new skill or a new experience in each essay?” If your answer is not “yes!” then you must go back to brainstorming to ensure you are providing a broad and compelling picture of yourself. If you want the admissions committee to stay interested, you must keep providing new information throughout your essays.

1. If you could choose one song that expresses who you are, what is it and why? (250 word maximum)

As absurd as this prompt may seem, you of course want to take it seriously. Rather than trying to identify what might be an impressive or interesting song in and of itself, stop, think about the various facets of your character and then back into your choice. Ask yourself what defines who you are and then work to find an appropriate song that reflects and reveals these elements—preferably one that you are sincerely connected to or that triggers a strong response in you. To add another level of creativity, consider different versions of the same song and the different singers who have performed or recorded it. (For example, the famed song “New York, New York” has been recorded by a number of artists over the years and in different languages—not that we are suggesting this song!) If the lyrics of a particular song seem to match well with your personality, you may also be able to identify a version of that song with a certain style, tempo or featured instrument, and these elements can further illustrate your personality. There is no “right” song in the eyes of the admissions committee. Your task is to find one that serves as an avenue for discussing your character and to clearly explain how and why it does so, using examples.

2. What is your most significant accomplishment? (250 word maximum)

Your most significant accomplishment can be from any sphere—professional, community, academic, personal. As mentioned in our introduction, be sure to represent different dimensions of your candidacy as you respond to these short-essay prompts. In other words, whichever aspect of your profile you choose to highlight here, it should be one that is not represented elsewhere in your application. (Note: you can tell two stories from the same “venue,” but they need to represent your skills/talents in different ways. Mentorship is a different skill than business development, for example, but both can occur in the workplace.) The key to this essay is choosing an experience that is simple but powerful—one that speaks for itself and draws the reader in, allowing him/her to draw a clear conclusion about your capabilities. Even with just 250 words, you can sufficiently recount a story that accomplishes this goal.
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We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2013-2014 application season. Here is their analysis for University of Virginia (Darden).

Darden has tweaked its single essay question ever so slightly, changing the second part of the prompt  from How did this experience change your perspective? to What did you learn about yourself? Although the phrasing is a little bit different, the spirit is largely the same. Because Darden offers you such little leeway in revealing the breadth of your experiences, we strongly advise you to make the most of your resume and short-answer responses within your application to ensure that the school learns as much as possible about you. In particular, you will need to rely on your resume to reveal important accomplishments, but you will have to be careful not to overstuff it. Do not mistake quantity for quality.

Our analysis of Darden’s sole question follows

Share your thought process as you encountered a challenging work situation or complex problem. What did you learn about yourself?  (500 words maximum)

Choosing a situation to discuss that required clear and measured consideration on your part is imperative, given that Darden asks explicitly for you to detail your thought process. Simply describing the nature of the situation and how it played out is not enough for this essay”you must reveal the process of contemplation that ultimately led you to action in your efforts to resolve the issue. Interestingly, you do not necessarily need to show that you achieved your desired results, and the type of challenge you describe is not of primary importance. The key to a successful essay here is not only showing that you invested an appropriate amount of thought for the problem or situation at hand, but also the progression and development of your thinking. The other crucial element of this essay is demonstrating that you learned from the experience”and specifically, learned something about yourself. So, claiming that you gained a new skill, for example, would not constitute an appropriate response. You will need to delve more deeply into how your understanding of yourself differed after the situation and clearly explain what the experience brought out in you that you had not known about yourself before.

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

We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2013-2014 application season. Here is their analysis for University of Pennsylvania (Wharton).

Wharton’s essay prompts for this application season may seem a bit perplexing. At first glance, the two questions seem rather similar. However, the first is basically a question about what you hope to get from your MBA experience at the school, and the second is mostly about what you can give to the Wharton program. With only 500 words for Essay 2 to give the school a sense of your personality and experiences, you will need to think especially carefully about what you want to say. At other schools, an interview will give you the opportunity to share these parts of your profile, but Wharton’s group interview will not be the place for you to talk about yourself, so this essay is your opportunity instead. Proceed thoughtfully

Essay 1: What do you aspire to achieve, personally and professionally, through the Wharton MBA? (500 words)

This essay prompt has the markings of the classic personal statement question, though it differs slightly in that it includes your personal aspirations in addition to your professional aspirations. With respect to your personal aspirations (note that the phrasing is through Wharton’s program), your goals can be anything from advancing your intellectual development while at the school to experiencing new cultures and personalities after graduating with your degree. The goal you claim is not as important as truly owning it and connecting it directly to what Wharton offers, revealing a very clear understanding of the school’s strengths and resources and of how you will use them. Avoid vague statements about how great the school is and focus on demonstrating a clear connection between your aspirations, what you need to achieve them and what Wharton in particular offers that will enable you to fulfill those needs.

Because Personal Statements are generally 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. Please feel free to download your copy today.

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

Essay 2: Academic engagement is an important element of the Wharton MBA experience. How do you see yourself contributing to our learning community? (500 words)

Here, Wharton gives you a chance to discuss how your past activities, professional experiences and, in some cases, even personal adventures could be harnessed for the benefit of others at the school. Consider identifying and exploring one or two specific instances in your life that were extraordinary or formative and allowed you to claim specific knowledge or expertise. Then connect them to specific elements of the school’s MBA program, revealing that you have a thorough understanding not only of the school itself but also of how your personal strengths could enhance the experience for your fellow students.

Your experiences need not be totally unique, but they must be conveyed in a way that paints them as specifically yours, and they need to be capable of being leveraged academically.  Note that the school’s question specifies a contribution to the learning community. However, this does not mean that you must have some sort of strictly academicknowledge. In fact, most essays written from that angle would end up being quite boring: I worked on discounted cash flows modeling, so I can help others with such models would be an almost sure loser. Unless you can claim a truly exceptional academic achievement that has direct application in class (My PhD in nanotechnology would advance discussions on the topic of emerging technologies), you would be better off delving into how you developed particular skills or traits and then explaining how they could be applied. For example, if you have experience managing flexible teams, you would be well equipped to facilitate discussions on your learning team and thereby add value in that capacity.

As you approach this essay, be sure to not simply tell the admissions committee how great you are at something. Instead, use a narrative to illustrate that you have certain applicable experiences, skills and/or qualities and fully understand their value to others.

Today’s Chart of the Week comes from our friends at mbaMission:

Although quantifying a school’s profile certainly does not tell you everything, it can sometimes be helpful in simplifying the many differences between the various MBA programs. Each week, we bring you a chart to help you decide which of the schools’ strengths speak to you.

With so many factors to consider when contemplating which business school is right for you, housing may present a hidden cost that can be easily overlooked when comparing programs. The cost differential between renting in a Midwestern college town and renting near Greenwich Village, for example, can be significant”up to almost $40,000 on a cumulative basis across two years. So how does each business school fare on the issues of affordable housing?

We spoke with students and examined market prices at a variety of top programs and identified economical one-bedroom apartments (after all, the sky is the limit in New York) in locations that are either popular among students or close to campus. Our list is thus an approximation of the lower end of monthly rental costs that one might encounter when attending each program. We then calculated the cumulative price differential between the cheapest housing option (at Michigan Ross) and all others, across two-year programs. As you will see in our chart, the savings can be significant!

New York University’s (NYU’s) Stern School of Business jumps on the less is more bandwagon this application season by reducing its essay count from three to two. However, that is the only change”Stern’s essay questions are actually the same as last year’s, but for Essay 2, candidates can now choose between two prompts that were previously both mandatory.

For Essay 2, it will be interesting to see whether candidates favor Option A, taking the rather straightforward path and exploring their envisioned careers in greater depth, or the challenging creative essay in Option B, hoping to provide a far deeper personal picture for the admissions committee. Our guess is that most applicants will choose the latter”doing so will allow the candidates to differentiate themselves from many careerists in the applicant pool. We also suspect that some candidates will worry that if they choose Option A, they will be inadvertently revealing themselves to be uncreative and will therefore feel compelled to choose Option B. But do not try to guess what the admissions committee wants! If the school wanted everyone to respond to one option in particular, they would not have offered two! Let us reassure you that this is not some sort of test. Take the time to consider how you would respond to both questions,  and then select the one that you believe would offer the admissions committee the more compelling picture of you.

Essay 1:  Professional Aspirations

(750 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

• Why pursue an MBA (or dual degree) at this point in your life?
• What actions have you taken to determine that Stern is the best fit for your MBA experience?
• What do you see yourself doing professionally upon graduation?

The three points that make up Stern’s Essay 1 question this year basically constitute a Personal Statement, and 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. Please feel free to download your copy today.

And for a thorough exploration of NYU Stern’s academic program/merits, defining characteristics, important statistics, social life, academic environment and more, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guide to New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

Essay 2: Choose Option A or Option B

Option A: Your Two Paths

(500 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

The mission of the Stern School of Business is to develop people and ideas that transform the challenges of the 21st century into opportunities to create value for business and society. Given today’s ever-changing global landscape, Stern seeks and develops leaders who thrive in ambiguity, embrace a broad perspective and think creatively about the range of ways they can have impact.

• Describe two different and distinct paths you could see your career taking long term. How do you see your two paths unfolding?
• How do your paths tie to the mission of NYU Stern?
• What factors will most determine which path you will take?

Given that the school is asking about two possible paths for your long-term career, you may be wondering whether you can be vague or uncertain about your goals in this essay. Quite simply, No. In fact, you will instead need to present two feasible career options and relate your skills and experiences to them very clearly to create an effective, coherent statement and show both that you are versatile and that you know yourself well.
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Note: The following is a guest post by Liza Weale, Senior Consultant for mbaMission.

The numbers from GMAC’s 2013 Corporate Recruiters Survey are in, and the MBA continues to gain ground with employers. Of the companies surveyed, 75% plan to hire MBAs in 2013 versus the 71% that hired business school graduates in 2012. The median starting salary for MBAs at U.S. companies is also on the rise: up from $90K in 2012 to $95K in 2013. And companies in the classic fields of consulting and finance are not the only ones expecting to add MBAs to their work force (79% in 2013 over 69% in 2012 and 75% in 2013 over 70% in 2012, respectively): 86% of energy and utility companies (up 17% over 2012) and 89% of health care and pharma companies (up 12% over 2012) report plans to do so as well.

Undoubtedly, the outlook for MBAs is rosy, but being aware of this promising forecast is not enough to help an applicant gain a spot at a top program. Some deep soul searching is needed, and resources such as GMAC’s 2013 Corporate Recruiters Survey can be excellent sources of inspiration”especially as candidates contemplate what next after business school.

The following are a few things that might be helpful to consider as you think about your goals:

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