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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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 Harvard Business School.

Harvard Business School (HBS) is taking a bold new approach to its application essays this year by offering just one question”and one that is much more open to interpretation than many applicants would probably like:

You’re applying to Harvard Business School. We can see your resume, school transcripts, extracurricular activities, awards, post-MBA career goals, test scores and what your recommenders have to say about you. What else would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy?

There is no word limit for this question. We think you know what guidance we’re going to give here. Don’t overthink, overcraft and overwrite. Just answer the question in clear language that those of us who don’t know your world can understand.

Few things strike more fear into an MBA candidate’s heart than vague essay directions. Because of HBS’s lack of guidance with respect to word limits and its extremely open-ended question, knowing whether you are truly responding with information that the admissions committee wants and needs will be difficult. The committee further complicates things by specifically noting the information it will already have”transcripts, extracurricular activities, awards, etc. This may make you wonder if mentioning such information is a complete no-no and would weaken your chances for admission.

First, we would like to allay your fears to some degree and help you reframe your view of this question. Think of it as an opportunity to round out your candidacy in the admissions committee’s eyes the way you want, not within the parameters of a narrowly focused topic someone else has chosen. This is your chance to tell the school what you really feel it should know about you”what you believe makes you a worthy  candidate, deserving of a spot in HBS’s next incoming class.

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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 Stanford Graduate School of Business.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) is apparently content with its essay questions, because it has made no changes to them or to the allowed word count this season. Having made slight tweaks to its prompts in recent years, the GSB’s MBA admissions committee seems to have found an approach that elicits the information it wants.

With respect to word count, Stanford is unique in that it asks you to limit yourself to 1,600 words total but allows you to determine how you would like to distribute them among the various questions. Stanford does offer some guidance”recommending 750 words for Essay 1, 450 words for Essay 2 and 400 words for Essay 3”but you can take the school at its word (small pun intended!) and use a different distribution if you feel that you can better reveal yourself through, for example, a 650-word Essay 1 and 500-word Essay 3.

Stanford’s admissions committee offers some great advice on how to write its application essays here://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/admission/dir_essays-p.html. We feel that the committee’s most important guidance is the following:

Because we want to discover who you are, resist the urge to package yourself in order to come across in a way you think Stanford wants. Such attempts simply blur our understanding of who you are and what you can accomplish. We want to hear your genuine voice throughout the essays that you write and this is the time to think carefully about your values, your passions, your hopes and dreams.

In truth, this is good advice not just for Stanford’s essays, but for all business schools’ essays. Rather than trying to portray yourself as something in particular (which you may or may not in fact be), focus on showcasing who you actually are and give the admissions committee the information and picture of you it needs to make its decision. Stanford is not interested in classifying its applicants as certain types but in discovering individuals and what they have to offer.  And now, on to the essays

Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why?

When candidates ask us, What should I write for what matters most to me?, we offer a pretty simple tip”start brainstorming for this essay by asking yourself that very question: What matters most to me? This might seem like obvious advice, of course, but many applicants get flustered by the question, often believing that an actual right answer exists that they must identify, and never pause to actually consider their sincere responses, which are typically the most compelling.

So, we advise that you brainstorm in depth and push yourself to explore the psychological and philosophical motivations behind your goals and achievements”behind who you are today. We cannot emphasize this enough: do not make a snap decision about the content of this essay. Once you have identified what you believe is an appropriate theme, discuss your idea(s) with those with whom you are closest and whose input you respect. Doing so can help validate deeply personal and authentic themes, leading to an essay that truly stands out.

Once you have fully examined your options and identified your main themes, do not simply provide a handful of supporting anecdotes”or worse, recycle the stories you used in a similar essay for another school. A strong essay response to this question will involve a true exploration of the themes you have chosen and reveal a thorough analysis of decisions, motives and successes/failures, with a constant emphasis on how you conduct yourself. If you are merely telling stories and trying to tie in your preconceived conclusions, you are most likely forcing a theme on your reader rather than analyzing your experiences, and this will be transparent to any experienced admissions reader. In short, be sure to fully consider and develop your most sincere answer(s), outline your essay accordingly and then infuse your writing with your personality, thoughts, feelings and experiences.
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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 first analysis, for Columbia Business School.

Introductory Note: Typically, Harvard Business School launches the MBA application season and then other business schools quickly follow suit. Earlier this week, HBS admissions director, Dee Leopold, announced that HBS would be releasing its essays during the final week of May. Meanwhile, Columbia Business School’s Admissions Director, Amanda Carlson, sent a message that she waits for no one. CBS officially released its essay questions today “ you will find the questions and our analysis below.

This year, Columbia Business School (CBS) continues a trend that has developed over the past three seasons, once again reducing the number of words applicants can use to tell their story. Last year, CBS allowed applicants 200 characters with which to respond to its short-answer question and 1,250 words total for its three essays”not much room to showcase one’s strongest attributes and set oneself apart from the pack. Now, CBS candidates have a mere 100 characters for the short-answer question and 1,000 words for the three essays.

Unfortunately, this reduced word count does not make your task as an applicant any easier”especially when you have only one essay (Essay 3) in which to discuss something outside the professional/academic realm and reveal your more personal side. Hopefully, our essay analysis can help you strategize

Short Answer Question: What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal? (100 characters maximum)

Do not pretend to be anything you are not. Reveal honest, ambitious goals that are also realistic.

These two sentences are 98 characters long. You can now see just how brief you need to be with CBS’s short-answer question. Yet you must still demonstrate that you can convey a point within such strict limits. So, we are sticking with the advice in our example. Do not misguidedly believe that admissions officers have a preference for specific professions or industries”they do not. Think about what you truly want to do with your career and state it directly. Then, be sure that the rest of your application provides evidence that this goal connects to your existing skills and profound interests, making your professed goal achievable and lending credibility to your statement here. If you can do this in 100 characters”and remember that we are talking about characters, not words”you will have answered this question quite well.

Essay 1: Given your individual background, why are you pursuing a Columbia MBA at this time? (Maximum 500 words)

Because the CBS admissions committee is asking why you have chosen to pursue an MBA, you can justifiably delve into your professional career and explain how you identified your need for this particular advanced degree. However, take care not to overwhelm the admissions committee with an unnecessary level of detail about your career history. We cannot emphasize this strongly enough”the admissions committee does not want a recap of your entire resume”moreover, such detail would use up valuable word count. Approximately 100“150 words on your past should be enough to provide appropriate context.

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Our good friends at mbaMission have released their 2012 Essay Analyses for MIT’s Sloan School of Business, the Johnson School of Management at Cornell, the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. We’ve compiled these five analyses into one handy 2012 Essay Analysis Resource for you. Enjoy!

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) Essay Analysis, 2012“2013

The MIT Sloan School of Management has tweaked all of its essay questions this year and has dropped one question entirely, going with what appears to be a trend this application season toward giving business school candidates less opportunity to provide qualitative information about themselves. Many applicants will be disappointed to see that Sloan’s quirky cover letter essay prompt remains. We will start our analysis there

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Our good friends at mbaMission have released their 2012 Essay Analyses for Columbia Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Wharton, Stern School of Business, Yale School of Management, and the Ross School of Business. We’ve compiled these six analyses into one handy 2012 Essay Analysis Resource for you. Enjoy!

Columbia Business School Essay Analysis, 2012-2013

Applicants to Columbia Business School (CBS) this year must complete one short-answer question and two essays. Perhaps CBS is returning to the mind-set that less is more by getting rid of the third full essay from last year and adding a 200-character, career goal mini essay instead.

Stanford Graduate School of Business Essay Analysis, 2012-2013

The Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) has tweaked its essay questions and word limits this year, moving from an 1,800 word count across four essays to a 1,600 word count across three. Some quick math will reveal that you have more words per essay now”maybe the admissions committee felt it was not getting the true depth of candidate experiences previously? The most important broad advice we can give you is to be sure that you keep the reader learning. Keep your audience in mind”your admissions reader will be going through hundreds of essays this application season. If he/she gets to your essay three and has to read about the same theme yet again, he/she will be bored or frustrated or both. So as you write, be sure that you are introducing new experiences and dimensions of your profile. This will greatly improve the likelihood that you will be able to hold your reader’s attention throughout.

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Our partners and friends over at mbaMission have posted their annual Harvard Business School Essay Analysis. Here is is what they had to say…

Harvard Business School (HBS) kicks off the MBA application season again, and this time it is doing so with a significant overhaul of its entire application. HBS has shrunk its written requirements from four mandatory essays of 400 to 600 words to two essays of 400 words each, but has added a new post-interview 400-word write-up (for the approximately 25% of applicants who are selected to interview), giving interviewees a mere 24 hours to submit their last word to the school.

Managing Director of MBA Admissions Dee Leopold has long held that essays play too prominent a role in the business school admissions process, but does giving candidates just two essays (analyzed later in this post) truly reduce the emphasis? We suspect that having only 800 words with which to make a lasting impression on the admissions committee, candidates will worry that they do not have enough space to successfully convey a full picture of themselves. We therefore expect that applicants will fret even more than usual over their essays, debating whether the two stories they have chosen to share will be sufficiently powerful and compelling, and giving their essays an incredible amount of attention. Meanwhile, to make up for this lack of space”and thus allay their fears that they have not shared enough information about themselves in their essays to persuade the admissions committee to admit them”they will likely stuff their resumes, interview sessions and recommendations with as much crucial information as they can squeeze in. In some ways, then, HBS is just forcing candidates to play a game of whack-a-mole”the school is trying to push information out of the essays, but the information will undoubtedly pop up elsewhere!  As long as the admissions process is competitive and requires that applicants submit qualitative data, candidates will seek to gain an edge any way they can.

Here is our analysis of HBS’s essay questions for this year”we hope it will give you that edge.

To read the complete analysis, please visit mbaMission’s blog.

It’s application season, and our partners at mbaMission have been working hard to give you the best chance at your MBA applications. As essay questions come out, they have been systematically writing analyses of each question for each school. You can find more on their blog, and you can see the latest essays they have analyzed below. Just click on the name of the school for the analysis:

• University of Michigan (Ross) Essay Analysis, 2011“2012: questions include, “introduce yourself,” “what are your career goals” and “what are you most passionate about?”
• Duke University (Fuqua) Essay Analysis, 2011-2012: questions include “what inspired you to take your career path,” “how will your background and values enhance other Duke students’ experience” and “why Duke?”
• Dartmouth University (Tuck) Essay Analysis, 2011“2012: questions include “why are you getting an MBA,” “discuss a meaningful leadership experience,” and “describe a failure you have experienced.”
• University of California Los Angeles (Anderson) Essay Analysis, 2011“2012: questions include “what event/experience has shaped your character,” and “what are your career goals?”

This post orignally appeared on the mbaMission blog. Read the introduction below and find the full post here.

Columbia Business School (CBS) whittled its essay questions from four to three to two over the past five years but is now back to posing three essay questions. Maybe the school’s admissions committee felt that, with just two questions, they were not learning enough about applicants? This year, CBS is offering a variety of creative options in its final essay question, giving candidates greater flexibility”and thus greater control over what the admissions committee will learn about them.

Here are the Questions: Read more

This post orignally appeared on the mbaMission blog. Read the introduction below and find the full post here.

The 2011“2012 MBA application season is officially afoot. Harvard Business School (HBS) has just released its essay questions, maintaining its tradition of being the first school to do so each year. HBS usually strikes first in early May, and the other top 15 schools follow suit shortly after, throughout May and even into early June.

The HBS watchers among you will notice two significant changes this year, the first of which is that the school has released almost all new questions. Of the six essay prompts that HBS offered last year, only one remains”the school’s famed three accomplishments essay. The second major change is to a streamlined application that offers candidates few options. For the past few years, HBS has required MBA candidates to respond to two essay questions, allowing them to choose from among four. Now applicants face four mandatory questions, leaving them nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. So, this change could limit your ability to play to your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses. Our analysis of HBS’s essay questions can be found here.