Ask Jason@沃顿 (my essays inside!) Free essay advice again~

cannedpineapple

There's something wrong with the first thread- it doesn't show up. So I'm starting a new one.

Original thread is here.

http://forum.chasedream.com/North_American_MBA/thread-373667-1-1.html

Update: the rest of the first page has some posts that I spent quite a lot of time writing out. I paste them here because

1) they provide a view into the life of a business school student, including both the positives but also the negatives. I'm sure many people know of the former (all the great reasons to do business school), but to truly understand "why MBA", I believe you also need to understand "why NOT MBA".

2) they serve as an example of the depth of introspection, self-awareness, and self-honesty you need to have- and that you need to reflect in your essays- in order to be successful in your applications. In this sense, you can consider them examples of business school essays.

Feel free to continue asking me any questions- about Wharton, Chicago, business school in general, etc. I prefer to take all questions here, since that way, everyone can benefit from the advice. This not only saves me time; more importantly, there is a reason why the case method is useful. We often learn well from the examples of others. (After all, that's why many of you are on CD, trying to understand what others are doing, right?) Hence, posting your own examples provides a case from which others can refer to, and learn.

Lastly, I have another thread for me to help you on your essays, if anyone is interested. Thread is here:
http://forum.chasedream.com/North_American_MBA/thread-398126-1-1.html

PS, feel free to email me at jason.teo.wg10@wharton.upenn.edu. I'm also happy to look at your essays to give you some tips.

Page 3: sample "why Chicago" essay
Page 5: NYTimes article: Are MBA students 'students' or 'customers'?
Page 5: NYTimes article: Dialectical thinking at business schools, led by Rotman.
Page 6: How to write "why" a school
Page 7: My Wharton failure essay
Page 10: My comments on Wharton's new essay questions
Page 13: Why you shouldn't discuss your age in your essays
Page 14: Tips on Wharton's new behavioural interview
Page 15: How to write clearly and concisely- lessons from uchicago
Page 16: Reflections on Wharton's interview
Page 16: Don't blindly go to the best school you can
Page 17: B-sch vs life- or, learning to say no
Page 17: How to ask for cash/ scholarships
Page 17: Why your relationships will be just fine
Page 18: Wharton stops alumni interviewsPage 19: I'll look at your essays for free
Page 20: Which business school?
Page 21: Case Study of two candidates
Page 22: My Wharton Failure Essay
Page 23: My Wharton Cross-Cultural Essay
Page 23: An 8 point framework on how to select (and explain) 'which school'Page 25: Interview Advice
Page 27: I attempt Ross Essay 1
Jason

cannedpineapple

The next two posts, I'm pasting from another thread. They explain my views about having gone to business school without work experience, and enjoying every moment of it.

One can only say what made the most sense to them. For almost everyonethinking of business school, that has tended to be, "let's wait a fewyears". For the majority, that is the right decision for them. However,there are some who also say, "let's wait a few years", simply because"everyone says we should wait a few years", as opposed to, "I havereflected about my own situation, know why for some people it may makesense to go straight after school, but for me it doesn't."

Forexample, both of you, and many of the other posters before, raise VERYGOOD points about recruiting. When I applied for internships inconsulting, I did not get a single interview offer. My resume is reallynothing to shout about. However, I did not come to business school justto look for a job, so while perhaps I got what I deserved, this wasn'ta big deal to me at all. When I talk to alumni, I frequently ask them,what's the #1 thing you wish you had done differently while you were inbusiness school- and 95% of them tell me, "I wish I didn't spend thatmuch time looking for a job." In the class that graduated 2008, almosthalf have already quit the job that they had coming out of school. Whenthese alumni think back about how they spent almost two years lookingfor a job that they only did for less than two years, they findthemselves regretting a lot.

As a person going to school withoutwork experience, I had very different goals. To me, business schoolwasn't just about finding a job, an internship, and so on. I am here tobuild a career. I am here to equip myself with the necessaryintellectual, emotional and soft-skill resources to do well- theintellectual comes from the classes; emotional from learning how tolisten to myself and understand what I really want, as well as to bebrave enough to tell others that I have failed to look for aninternship that they may have found impressive; and soft-skills fromworking with other impressive professionals, in my club involvement.

I'vefound that two types of people tend to think like me- those withoutmuch experience (although not all of them. Some think that they need tocompensate, and work doubly or triply hard to get that internship), andthose with a lot, >10 years of work experience. I've found that manymore experienced people have the same goals as me- they're here not tolook for a job, but to build a career. We agree that it doesn't matteras much whether recruiters want to look for us right now- what mattersmost is whether, in another ten or twenty years, we are in theposition, and have the skills, to succeed in the career that we choose.

Becauseof this, I have had a wonderful, wonderful experience at businessschool, and am well on the way to meeting all my goals. When I reflectback on my experience, I fear that a few years of working experiencewould have changed me in a negative way, because I would be veryfocused on a choice of a job, rather than a career, and I would alsouse a different set of priorities to choose a job, too. Looking at myclassmates, it's stunning how quickly (within one month) they enteredWharton, and immediately abandoned all their diverse dreams of workingin non-profit, in sports, in media, in clean-tech, and so on. Instead,95% of people recruit only for one of the four industries, whether ornot they had wanted to do this before business school- Banking,Consulting, PE, VC.

I would say, out of my >800 classmates,I am probably one of less than a hundred, who is pursuing the exactshort-term career goal that I had written I would pursue in myapplication. And that's been the most important thing to me. I stronglybelieve that if I can't even be honest to myself, I can never expect tobe happy. If it comes with needing to tell others, "I'm not doing thejobs you want to do. It's okay if I'm a failure in your eyes", thenthat's what I have to do. Fact is, I can't please everyone- and given achoice, I'll choose to please myself.

stellaecon> Exactly asyou say, "MBA只能读一次，所以有的时候读了还不如不读。" If I had come here with a few yearsof work experience, and acted exactly like many of my classmates (oreven that friend of yours who had gone straight to Wharton and worriedonly about his job after school) then that to me would have been acomplete waste of time and money. I am thankful for the opportunityI've been given to not worry about competing for a job, and insteadbeing able to focus on the fantastic resources both at Wharton, butalso at UPenn, and I believe this has been the perfect business schoolexperience for myself. I have learnt so much about myself, about life,and about others in the process, and I wouldn't trade this for theworld.

I hope this helps explain why I so passionately persuadeothers to think clearly for themselves. I think it is obvious whywaiting a few years is good for many people- because maturity does tendto increase over time. However, there are inherent advantages toattending business school as a person out of college, who has adifferent set of priorities. Most people don't understand the case forattending straight out of school, because they've never tried it. Ifeel fortunate to have done so.

Jason

cannedpineapple

For all of us, we study partly because we want to find a better job. But there is nothing magically different about you just because you got into and graduated from a business school. If business school is first and foremost about finding a better job, and therefore you spend as much time as you can recruiting, then have you really improved as a professional by the end of it? Debatable. This is what I mean by 'we have different goals'.

That piece of paper- MBA- does indeed give you more options. But some people take those job options as the chief and primary goal of business school, because you learn most at a workplace, while some people think that business school is still 'school', and you learn most at 'school'. I fall into the latter camp.

I am going to do sales, in a media company, selling advertisements, after business school. I wanted to work in the media pre-business school, and I want to do sales to learn the economics of the media business. This is extremely realistic for anyone- anyone on this chasedream forum can go and do this right now. You certainly don't need an MBA to do what I am going to do. This is what I wanted to do, so in my second year, I did not even bother looking for another job. I was presented with the option I wanted, and so I took it. It just so happened mine was an easy option, because most people don't want it. All the better for me

But like I said, the MBA has been more than finding a job, which is why perhaps my choice of job may sound strange. I have a specific plan in mind, and that plan lasts for the next 10 years, at least. So I'm not bothered. I got into the MBA programme with the aim to learn, and that's exactly what I've done. At the same time, I realise that part of that may be because of my own naivety, having not worked before, that I think that you can still learn certain things about business from a school environment- be it working with others, classes, and so on. Some people might think this makes me green behind the ears, that I will learn the 'truth' when I start working. They are no doubt right. There is much for me to learn. But at this point, what they see as my curse, my inexperience, I see as a blessing. I think that work experience, too, blinds people to the value of certain types of learning. Inexperience works both ways. I am inexperienced in knowing how to function in a work environment; they are inexperienced in knowing how to learn in a school.

I'm glad we agree that an MBA w/o WE can benefit some, though not all. The same can perhaps be said of any applicant to an MBA programme. Which, interestingly enough, coincides with a key question that all schools ask. Why do you want an MBA, why now, and why at our particular school?

Lastly, to answer your question directly- since I realise that my options are not what most people are looking for. My fellow classmates with no work experience are going to be doing the following things after graduation: PE, Real Estate, Banking, Consulting, General Management, Entrepreneurship. There aren't that many of us, which may explain why other industries (eg. non-profit) are less represented. We have found that the industries that traditionally have high turnover (consulting, banking) are much less open to hiring students with no work experience, since in effect they merely want to 'rent' your services for two years. On the other hand, we have had much better success finding employment in industries like PE, General Management, Entrepreneurship, where they look out for loyalty, for someone to stay a long time- these tend to be more willing to look past our obvious lack of skill-sets and look to our learning ability.

Having said that, some have still been successful in something like consulting. But not me. I think I truly got what I deserved, because I really wasn't spending as much time as these other guys were doing recruiting. But everybody knows that we only have 24 hours a day... and everyone has to make trade-offs. You can't have it all, and what matters most is that you're happy with what you do have, and what you've had to give up.

BTW, the need to make trade-offs in business school is perhaps something most who haven't pursued an MBA don't understand. When you apply, you look out for, I want to do 'x, y and z'. But the moment you go into business school, you realise the choice becomes, 'I am willing to give up a, b and c'. Everyone starts out thinking they can do 'a, b AND c'. But soon you realise- say in recruiting, you wish you only had to spend one hour a day doing it, but there are people around you spending five hours, ten hours- every free moment, even, networking and doing more. So you realise you gotta do more if you really want to get the job, and you do, and eventually all you're doing is that. I didn't do this, which is why I said, I probably get what I deserve.

Anyway, to link this to my experience, I have chosen to give up something which a lot of my classmates, with more experience, haven't chosen to do- perhaps because they value the learning you can glean at the workplace more than I do. This is where my inexperience comes into play. Nonetheless, as I've mentioned above, I think inexperience works both ways, and it's interesting to me that it is the youngest (most experienced with school) and oldest (most experienced with work) guys at business school who have tended to make similar choices as I have.

Jason

topmba2009

顶！

cannedpineapple

On using essay editing services:

I've talked to the adcom of both Chicago Booth and Wharton, and they say the number 1 problem is that applicants like to use editing services, particularly those from overseas- and they can tell straight away. One issue is, it is often difficult to understand where the lines between 'grammar' and 'structure' and 'story' and 'motivation' are drawn- PARTICULARLY if you are not a native speaker. Some use track changes and then make their own decisions what changes to keep- this is better, but even then, how will track changes help, if you don't know what changes to keep and what to throw out in the first place (which was why you needed help, no?).

Another variation of using editors is this: I've also seen a lot of people not use 'editors', but instead get alumni to help them edit the essays.. While these are not paid services, you end up with the same problem. Your voice gets lost, and a lot of these applicants end up with very poor results. They think that they've "利用现有的资源把眼前的事情做到最好", and are completely shocked when they don't even get an interview.

When you ask others to tell you about your own voice, it is best to get it from a 'friend or family member', because they know you best. But they too have their own voice, hence Yale asks you to not have them 'edit', but merely 'give advice'. Unfortunately instead of asking people who know them best, most applicants instead ask 'editors' or 'alumni' who don't really know them very well indeed. So if you ask, you should ask for 'advice', not 'editing'; and you should ask people who know you well, rather than worry about whether they know the school well. Most people do the complete opposite, on both counts. They ask for 'editing' rather than 'advice', and they ask it of people who don't know them well at all.

It is ALWAYS true that you should "利用现有的资源把眼前的事情做到最好". The problem is you need to understand what is a 资源, and what will hurt you. Most people don't realise that this is not like applying for a job, where you try and figure out what the company is looking for. In this case, it's the opposite- you need to figure out who you are, and THAT'S what schools are looking for. What is normally a “资源” (asking 'insiders'), has, in a business school application context, quite the opposite effect. By asking someone else, you are in effect saying 'I don't know you at all, and you don't know me, but please tell me what seems to matter most to me."

The result of this process? Not surprisingly, not so good. I've seen this over and over again with many otherwise very qualified applicants.

Just my 2 cents worth.

cannedpineapple

When you should consider not doing business school:

Original thread here: http://forum.chasedream.com/North_American_MBA/thread-428991-1-2.html

"我已经快30岁了也，到了我这个年龄，已经很知道人的精力有限，只能focus在一样东西上，跳来跳去绝没有好下场。"

This is true, but also not true. As you've experienced, it's impossible to focus on one thing, when you haven't found what that one thing is. You keep having to self-justify. So yes, it is important to focus, but impossible to do so if you aren't focusing on the right thing. It does seem like you're zeroing in on something, though.

This sounds like a perfect rationale not to do business school. A lot of my classmates came here with a lot of different dreams, but quickly realise that $200K is not a small amount of debt. So once again, the "生活主题全是钱钱钱". That's what you wanted to escape, and that's what you may find yourself imprisoned by once again, when and if you go to business school.

It sounds to me like what you really want to do is the tougher road, and harder. It may look to others like you're a failure. You will earn less money. You are not as trained or as prepared to enter this. Everything about it is harder, and going to business school almost seems like the easier of two roads. Yet you know that you'll be happier doing the hard thing. You've hit on a crucial thing. A lot of people think that going to business school will be tougher- but it really isn't. It's really a lot easier for many of us to go down the road of analytical business, to say that money and status is important, because it seems important to everyone else. What's really difficult is to 'listen to your heart, what matters to you most'. Unfortunately all of us are such an ingrained part of society that we constantly worry about what matters most to society... and often never hear what our heart says. Instead, we mistake what we hear from society as being the only thing that our heart wants.

You're lucky. You're hearing that your heart says it also wants something else (not to say it doesn't want money and status- who DOESN'T want these things? But you've realised that there is also something else that you want more.). That is an incredible gift you've been bestowed. Yet it is a gift that will take great courage to continue to carry. So here I am, to give you support and courage. Go forth and try what you really want to try. It's going to be difficult, it's going to be tough. The odds will be stacked against you. But you only get one life, and if you don't do it it may be even harder to do it in future. We're also a lot quicker learners and a lot smarter than we think. So yes it'll be hard, but given your strong passion and your ability to learn, there's a good chance you'll succeed.

Edit: PS, to use an analogy, since you're from a Hedge Fund background. With higher risk (higher beta), comes higher reward (higher expected return). If you join the fashion industry, that will mean far higher risk, but higher reward will come in the form of your happiness.

Good luck.

wordance

ding!

satancn

ding

withmoon

When you should consider not doing business school:

Original thread here: http://forum.chasedream.com/North_American_MBA/thread-428991-1-2.html

"我已经快30岁了也，到了我这个年龄，已经很知道人的精力有限，只能focus在一样东西上，跳来跳去绝没有好下场。"

This is true, but also not true. As you've experienced, it's impossible to focus on one thing, when you haven't found what that one thing is. You keep having to self-justify. So yes, it is important to focus, but impossible to do so if you aren't focusing on the right thing. It does seem like you're zeroing in on something, though.

This sounds like a perfect rationale not to do business school. A lot of my classmates came here with a lot of different dreams, but quickly realise that $200K is not a small amount of debt. So once again, the "生活主题全是钱钱钱". That's what you wanted to escape, and that's what you may find yourself imprisoned by once again, when and if you go to business school.

It sounds to me like what you really want to do is the tougher road, and harder. It may look to others like you're a failure. You will earn less money. You are not as trained or as prepared to enter this. Everything about it is harder, and going to business school almost seems like the easier of two roads. Yet you know that you'll be happier doing the hard thing. You've hit on a crucial thing. A lot of people think that going to business school will be tougher- but it really isn't. It's really a lot easier for many of us to go down the road of analytical business, to say that money and status is important, because it seems important to everyone else. What's really difficult is to 'listen to your heart, what matters to you most'. Unfortunately all of us are such an ingrained part of society that we constantly worry about what matters most to society... and often never hear what our heart says. Instead, we mistake what we hear from society as being the only thing that our heart wants.

You're lucky. You're hearing that your heart says it also wants something else (not to say it doesn't want money and status- who DOESN'T want these things? But you've realised that there is also something else that you want more.). That is an incredible gift you've been bestowed. Yet it is a gift that will take great courage to continue to carry. So here I am, to give you support and courage. Go forth and try what you really want to try. It's going to be difficult, it's going to be tough. The odds will be stacked against you. But you only get one life, and if you don't do it it may be even harder to do it in future. We're also a lot quicker learners and a lot smarter than we think. So yes it'll be hard, but given your strong passion and your ability to learn, there's a good chance you'll succeed.

Edit: PS, to use an analogy, since you're from a Hedge Fund background. With higher risk (higher beta), comes higher reward (higher expected return). If you join the fashion industry, that will mean far higher risk, but higher reward will come in the form of your happiness.

Good luck.

-- by 会员 jelt2359 (2009/12/29 7:01:30)

很有见地的一篇回复，衷心谢谢Jason。受益良多。
因为不遵从社会法则（eg. mba-ib-vc/pe-startup)的代价是巨大的，你有可能工作比别人苦，社会地位比别人低，挣得比别人少，就是为了生活的意义和快乐。
但是，有没有想过还有一个办法得到快乐：就是假装。假装社会法则可以给自己带来最大的快乐，假装喜欢金融，假装很有leadership，假装喜欢DCF，假装喜欢拍客户的马屁，假装金钱是衡量一切的标尺，假装去个gs就是成功。
no judgement，哪种生活会更好呢？

cannedpineapple

When you should consider not doing business school:

Original thread here: http://forum.chasedream.com/North_American_MBA/thread-428991-1-2.html

"我已经快30岁了也，到了我这个年龄，已经很知道人的精力有限，只能focus在一样东西上，跳来跳去绝没有好下场。"

This is true, but also not true. As you've experienced, it's impossible to focus on one thing, when you haven't found what that one thing is. You keep having to self-justify. So yes, it is important to focus, but impossible to do so if you aren't focusing on the right thing. It does seem like you're zeroing in on something, though.

This sounds like a perfect rationale not to do business school. A lot of my classmates came here with a lot of different dreams, but quickly realise that $200K is not a small amount of debt. So once again, the "生活主题全是钱钱钱". That's what you wanted to escape, and that's what you may find yourself imprisoned by once again, when and if you go to business school.

It sounds to me like what you really want to do is the tougher road, and harder. It may look to others like you're a failure. You will earn less money. You are not as trained or as prepared to enter this. Everything about it is harder, and going to business school almost seems like the easier of two roads. Yet you know that you'll be happier doing the hard thing. You've hit on a crucial thing. A lot of people think that going to business school will be tougher- but it really isn't. It's really a lot easier for many of us to go down the road of analytical business, to say that money and status is important, because it seems important to everyone else. What's really difficult is to 'listen to your heart, what matters to you most'. Unfortunately all of us are such an ingrained part of society that we constantly worry about what matters most to society... and often never hear what our heart says. Instead, we mistake what we hear from society as being the only thing that our heart wants.

You're lucky. You're hearing that your heart says it also wants something else (not to say it doesn't want money and status- who DOESN'T want these things? But you've realised that there is also something else that you want more.). That is an incredible gift you've been bestowed. Yet it is a gift that will take great courage to continue to carry. So here I am, to give you support and courage. Go forth and try what you really want to try. It's going to be difficult, it's going to be tough. The odds will be stacked against you. But you only get one life, and if you don't do it it may be even harder to do it in future. We're also a lot quicker learners and a lot smarter than we think. So yes it'll be hard, but given your strong passion and your ability to learn, there's a good chance you'll succeed.

Edit: PS, to use an analogy, since you're from a Hedge Fund background. With higher risk (higher beta), comes higher reward (higher expected return). If you join the fashion industry, that will mean far higher risk, but higher reward will come in the form of your happiness.

Good luck.

-- by 会员 jelt2359 (2009/12/29 7:01:30)

很有见地的一篇回复，衷心谢谢Jason。受益良多。
因为不遵从社会法则（eg. mba-ib-vc/pe-startup)的代价是巨大的，你有可能工作比别人苦，社会地位比别人低，挣得比别人少，就是为了生活的意义和快乐。
但是，有没有想过还有一个办法得到快乐：就是假装。假装社会法则可以给自己带来最大的快乐，假装喜欢金融，假装很有leadership，假装喜欢DCF，假装喜欢拍客户的马屁，假装金钱是衡量一切的标尺，假装去个gs就是成功。
no judgement，哪种生活会更好呢？

-- by 会员 withmoon (2009/12/29 10:53:29)

There are some people for whom such careers are indeed wonderful. There are others for whom career is really not as important as say, family, and so by doing what others think is important, and earning more money, you are 'doing the harder thing' by sacrificing yourself so that others may do well.

But for a lot of people, we are simply lost. We don't know what we want, but we know exactly what is expected of us. And so we do what is expected, hoping that others will tell us what it is that is important to us. We keep going down this road again and again, and are unable to give ourselves 肯定. Instead we keep looking for it in others. Not surprisingly, we never find it, because whenever we think we've achieved something that is expected, something new- something more- is expected. We are never able to find peace, because ultimately peace can only come from yourself, and not from someone else. You may decide that your 'peace' will come when someone else has peace- eg. your family, your children, your family. Sure. But I doubt 'society' matters SO MUCH to us, that we really think that we can get peace just because society gives us 肯定. "Society" is not the people we care about- we merely use it as a way to give us 肯定, because we are lost.

The truth is, everyone is unsure, and lost, to a certain extent. We will make mistakes- none of us are perfect. All we can do is try to be aware of the temptation of substituting what is important to someone else- especially when it is someone else (eg. vague notion of 'society') whom you don't really care about; for what is important to you.

Lastly, what's worst of all is that we often don't know what is truly important to someone else. We merely THINK we know. For instance, my own parents constantly tell me money is important, it is important to have a good job for a good family. True. And so I work hard to try and get there. But is money and a stable job really the most important thing to my parents? I don't think so. I believe that at the end of the day, if I tell them, "Mom, Dad, I simply cannot be a banker. I will be a lot more happy doing fashion, although I will earn less. I need your love and support. Can you support me?" I believe that, because they love me, they will. So often times, what you THINK is important to others, really isn't the case. If they care about you, what is most important to them is that you be happy- sure, they have ideas on what they think might make you happy, based on their own experiences. But at the end of the day, when you love someone, you'll want him to be the best he can be, and not merely decide what he SHOULD be, based on yourself.

PS. I didn't used to think in this way. Going to business school was the push I needed, for me to realise that it's not a 'judgment' or a 'choice' between caring for yourself and caring about others. Of course I care for others- I just choose to care about those close to me, and not 'society'; and I choose to care for them not necessarily by just listening to what they say, but by understanding why they say it.

Jason