How can you write essays that grab the attention of MBA admissions committees? With this thorough NYU Stern essay analysis, our friends at mbaMission help you conceptualize your essay ideas and understand how to execute, so that your experiences truly stand out.

New York University’s Stern School of Business has simplified its application essays this season, dropping last year’s “Program Preferences” prompt, which asked candidates to choose which of the school’s MBA programs they would attend. We imagine this deletion may have been so the admissions committee can focus more fully on the information it is getting from its other, more revealing essay prompts and its intriguing EQ (emotional intelligence) endorsements, which Associate Dean of MBA Admission Isser Gallogly told Poets&Quants have delivered “some very interesting and useful information about people—things that people don’t necessarily talk about themselves.” At NYU Stern, you have a mix of the old and the new. The admissions committee has kept the somewhat classic personal statement and maintained the somewhat forward-looking “Pick Six,” which is truly an “essay” for the Instagram era. In your application, you should have a broad opportunity to offer the best of your professional and personal self. Our NYU Stern essay analysis follows… Read more

How many GMAT practice tests have you taken so far? Are you satisfied—or frustrated—with your progress? Read more

“Life hacks” is a weird term that’s only been around for the last decade, brought to us by purveyors of clickbait. Most life hacks involve some resourceful repurposing of something (e.g. Got a tomato? Hollow it out and now you have a perfect ashtray!) The term itself mystifies me—how are these clever, janky solutions anything like hacking into a computer? I’ve never tried to penetrate the NSA’s mainframe, but I’m assuming it doesn’t involve saving up all your bottle tops in order to make a lower water usage toilet. Read more

What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs, and forums, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant’s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” of candidate and expect certain GMAT scores and GPAs, for example. Others are led to believe that they need to know alumni from their target schools and/or get a letter of reference from the CEO of their firm in order to get in. In this series, mbaMission debunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process.

You look around your office and think to yourself: “I wish my coworker were not applying to the same school as I am. They can’t take two people who sit at the same desk. Also, his GPA is 0.15 higher!” On the surface, this reasoning may seem logical, and it can thus cause anxiety for some candidates—especially for those who are in positions for which an MBA is virtually a “must have” to move forward, such as in consulting and banking.

However—not to worry—this thinking has two significant flaws: Read more

Welcome to the third installment of Fast Math for the Executive Assessment! If you’re just joining us now, you might want to go back to the first part and work your way back here. Read more

When you think about studying for the GMAT, how do you feel? Determined, excited, and curious? Or anxious, exhausted, and resentful? Do you avoid studying, then beat yourself up over it later? Are you getting less and less out of each study session? Are your practice test scores in a downwards spiral? You might be struggling with GMAT burnout. Read more

Consider the following two sentences, adapted from a GMAT Sentence Correction example I use in my classes: Read more

“Just tell us the answer!” a student demanded of me in a recent class. She wasn’t rude, but she definitely wasn’t happy. And I understand—I wasn’t being an easy teacher. I try not to be. I don’t want to be an explanation parrot, because my explanations don’t really transform into my students’ learning. Learning is harder than that. It requires active thought and wrestling with difficult concepts. So even when my students give a right answer, I ask them the often-feared question, “Why do you think that?” Read more

Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.

As any good journalist will tell you, the key to writing a good newspaper story or opinion piece is to make sure the very first line grabs the reader’s attention. Many authors employ this tactic when writing books. Perhaps few of us have actually read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, but many know that the novel begins with three famous words: “Call me Ishmael.” A powerful first line can stick with readers long after they have finished reading—and sometimes even when they have not read something firsthand. For example, we all likely recognize the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night,” but few of us may know that it is the opening line of a book by an obscure writer (Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton). Read more

This is your chance to meet Columbia, MIT Sloan, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Chicago Booth, Kellogg, Stanford, and more top business programs. Connect in person to ask MBA questions, learn about program offerings, and discover how a graduate business degree can boost your career. Read more