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标题: Top MBA Essay Analysis from Jon Frank---P11: THE MOST IMPORTANT THING MBA APPLIC [打印本页]

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2010-8-11 02:12
标题: Top MBA Essay Analysis from Jon Frank---P11: THE MOST IMPORTANT THING MBA APPLIC

Ready to rock your MBA application essays? The essays are your golden opportunity to differentiate yourself from the competition and show the admissions committee a unique, lustrous version of you. But MBA essay questions are often tricky, cryptic, and more complicated than they seem. Game plan is everything. In our essay analyses, our MBA experts break down each question and divulge the best strategies for attack.

作者: ladyjb0607 时间: 2010-8-27 09:53
好贴必须要顶一下！

作者: narcisuss 时间: 2010-8-28 02:15
CBS's Christina, assistant director, addressed in Beijing information session, that they do not want another essay for the optional essay.

作者: yizyang 时间: 2010-8-28 10:13
If I have sub-par GPA, should I address it in the optional essay? Or should I just avoid mentioning it?

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2010-8-30 00:17

If I have sub-par GPA, should I address it in the optional essay? Or should I just avoid mentioning it?

-- by 会员 yizyang (2010/8/28 10:13:20)

Hey there! It would be my pleasure to answer this question for you. The answer is that it depends on how low your GPA is! If it is below a 3.0 (on US-based scales) then yes, you will need to address it in the Optional Essay. If it is not—a 3.3 for example—then you are just fine! Just make sure that your GMAT score is strong, and you wont even need to bring it up. If you were applying to a law school in the US then it would be a big problem—but business schools don’t care. So long as youre above a 3.0 you don’t need to address it. And if you are below a 3.0, a well-crafted Optional Essay will solve the problem. Hope this helps!

Jon Frank
HBS Class of 2005
Co-Founder, Precision Essay
HBS, Class of 2005

作者: yoshimihoku 时间: 2010-10-1 21:07
Do you mean it is better to write another real essay instead of explanation of weakness and concerns when applying for Johnson Cornell?

作者: samwzhang 时间: 2010-10-1 21:48
Jon,

great advise! But I thought the Chicago application is pretty short too. Can I ram one or two stories into the Chicago optional essay as well? If so, how long?

Thanks!

作者: DeltaDawn 时间: 2010-10-2 13:38

Do you mean it is better to write another real essay instead of explanation of weakness and concerns when applying for Johnson Cornell?

-- by 会员 yoshimihoku (2010/10/1 21:07:31)

yah Jon, same question for CBS. But the post above says that CBS doesn't want 'another essay' so I guess that means the optional one should be used to explain rather than demonstrate another dimension of you?

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2010-10-2 17:20

Do you mean it is better to write another real essay instead of explanation of weakness and concerns when applying for Johnson Cornell?

-- by 会员 yoshimihoku (2010/10/1 21:07:31)

Nope—if you do have weaknesses to address, then you should use the optional essay to address them.

eriod. It only gets interesting if you DON’T have any weaknesses, but you are interested in perhaps a veeery short additional snippet from your life. But if you do have a low gmat, work gap etc., then for sure—THIS is where you should address that.

Hope this helps everyone—Good luck!

Jon Frank

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2010-10-2 17:23

Jon,

great advise! But I thought the Chicago application is pretty short too. Can I ram one or two stories into the Chicago optional essay as well? If so, how long?

Thanks!

-- by 会员 samwzhang (2010/10/1 21:48:12)

Honestly…we would not recommend it. What you might want to do with Chicago is “ram” those stories into your PPT! I saw one interesting PPT this year—the client had actually written veeery short essays. Maybe 75 words or so. but he put the essays against a pretty picture. It was kind of like a free flowing stream of consciousness. So if I were you, trying to squeeze something into Booth, I would use the PPT.

But that’s just me! J

Good luck!

Jon Frank

作者: samwzhang 时间: 2010-10-2 20:10
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you, Jon!

Jon,

great advise! But I thought the Chicago application is pretty short too. Can I ram one or two stories into the Chicago optional essay as well? If so, how long?

Thanks!

-- by 会员 samwzhang (2010/10/1 21:48:12)

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2010/10/2 17:23:51)

作者: yoshimihoku 时间: 2010-10-2 20:40
Jon, many thanks!

Another question, Essay 1 of Cornell, professional achievement, do I have to write an achievement related to my job? or i can write one out of job?

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2010-10-3 17:18

Jon, many thanks!

Another question, Essay 1 of Cornell, professional achievement, do I have to write an achievement related to my job? or i can write one out of job?

-- by 会员 yoshimihoku (2010/10/2 20:40:19)

Well, lets think this through—the word “professional” means “job-related.” J So yes, unless I’m missing something, you will need to talk about something within your job! Here, Im afraid there isn’t a whole lot of room for opinions.
Hope this helps, and good luck!

Jon Frank

作者: johnyanlei 时间: 2010-10-3 20:09
There in no doubt that Jon have already been professional enough in applying for degree of b-school.

作者: idle_lie 时间: 2010-10-3 21:43
another question Jon, if the school requires only one career goal essay and the word limit is only 500 (like simon...), do i need to write the optional essays about sth. that I failed to mention in the first essay, like why MBA at this time, etc.
Thanks.

作者: zhuzhu2010 时间: 2010-10-4 10:53
same question here, better to have an optional essay for CBS or no bother?

作者: DeeGao 时间: 2010-10-4 14:36
klk

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2010-10-4 15:06

another question Jon, if the school requires only one career goal essay and the word limit is only 500 (like simon...), do i need to write the optional essays about sth. that I failed to mention in the first essay, like why MBA at this time, etc.
Thanks.

-- by 会员 idle_lie (2010/10/3 21:43:56)

Hey there! The answer is that no, you don’t need to reiterate the career vision elsewhere if they don’t ask the question specifically. Only use the optional essay if there is something in your application that you need to speak to. If theres an employment gap, low grades, etc. that is the only thing to talk about. If Simon wanted more about careers, they would have asked!
Good luck—and by the way Simon is a FABULOUS school, whose reputation has been improving every year. Good job, in applying there!

Jon Frank

作者: idle_lie 时间: 2010-10-7 11:28

-- by 会员 idle_lie (2010/10/3 21:43:56)

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2010/10/4 15:06:48)

Thanks! Would be very appreciated if you could share sth. about Simon!

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2010-10-8 15:32

-- by 会员 idle_lie (2010/10/3 21:43:56)

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2010/10/4 15:06:48)

Thanks! Would be very appreciated if you could share sth. about Simon!

-- by 会员 idle_lie (2010/10/7 11:28:40)

Sure, happy to share some thoughts here. Every year, certain schools rise in the rankings, and certain schools fall. Now, of course there is more to the world than “rankings,” but they do play an important role in business school admissions especially. Simon has been on the rise in recent years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it cracks the top 25 or 20 this upcoming year, from what our contacts at UsNews have told us. Also, in finance especially, it is known to have one of the best programs in the world. Top five, depending on whom you ask. It is also quite affordable, which is why it has a reputation for having a very good return on investment. So if you can put up with its location (which isn’t for me if you know what i mean J ) it has a lot going for it. Great decision!
Jon Frank

作者: meimei0222 时间: 2010-10-9 14:06
Hi Jon, do I need to write an optional essay if I changed my jobs just few weeks before the application deadline? i.e. same function but better company brand names.

Also, can you give us some suggestions on how to address the employment gaps during the financial crisis? Thanks a lot!

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2010-10-10 14:17

Hi Jon, do I need to write an optional essay if I changed my jobs just few weeks before the application deadline? i.e. same function but better company brand names.

Also, can you give us some suggestions on how to address the employment gaps during the financial crisis? Thanks a lot!

-- by 会员 meimei0222 (2010/10/9 14:06:56)

Hey there! Honestly, if the change occurred just a week or two prior to submitting your application, you might want to simply…ignore it. Just say that you did your app a couple weeks earlier, and don’t even mention it. J That might be your best bet. Otherwise, yes, you will need to address it in the optional essay. And you will need to do the same as you describe any other gaps as well—the good news is that adcoms wont hold the work gaps against you this year as they would in years with stronger economies.

erhaps tho, you can find a way to address the gap, elsewhere in the essays. As a “risk” you took for example, or even in your career goals essay. You do need to address gaps, but you DONT need to do it in the optional essay, if you can get creative…
Hope this helps!

Jon Frank

作者: summertang 时间: 2010-11-27 15:12
Hi Jone. I am wondering whether I need to write an optional essay for my grade inconsistency. I have gpa around 3.8 in my first year, but the second year I got into business school, which is very competitive, and I got 3.2 for that year. Do you think that its good for me to write a optional essay on that? Around 200 words sould be enough?

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2010-11-28 14:33

Hi Jone. I am wondering whether I need to write an optional essay for my grade inconsistency. I have gpa around 3.8 in my first year, but the second year I got into business school, which is very competitive, and I got 3.2 for that year. Do you think that its good for me to write a optional essay on that? Around 200 words sould be enough?

-- by 会员 summertang (2010/11/27 15:12:04)

Hey there! This is a great question—but no, you don’t need to write anything here. Even at 3.2, your GPA is juuust fine. Leave it alone—your grades are just fine. Don’t stress it—not in your Optional Essay anyway. J Good luck!

Jon Frank

作者: summertang 时间: 2010-11-29 13:45
Thank you Jon.

作者: kolinlian1988 时间: 2011-3-2 11:25
Hi Jon, when the school is require to write an essay to address your strengths and weakness, should I mention that my GPA below 3.0 here? And how should I address it appropriately to make it not sounds so bad.....

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-3-3 08:56

Hi Jon, when the school is require to write an essay to address your strengths and weakness, should I mention that my GPA below 3.0 here? And how should I address it appropriately to make it not sounds so bad.....

-- by 会员 kolinlian1988 (2011/3/2 11:25:15)

Hello my friend. I would be honored to answer your questions here of course. If your GPA is lower than 3.0, then yes you should address it in the optional essay. That is the easy part. The harder part is doing it in a way that is convincing. J Here are some ideas—focus on aspects of your job that show your INTELLECT. “Yes I did badly in finance classes at school, but today I work in advanced finance at a bank every day; clearly, I can handle the workload.” You can also point to your GMAT as proof that you have what it takes to succeed. Also, perhaps there is a good reason as to why you did poorly in school. Did you…work full time? Was there a death in the family? Can we see a nicely positive trend in your grades over time? Have you taken any additional courses since graduating? All of these things are worth bringing up. But remember, don’t whine—just get in there, make your argument concisely, and get out. Hope this helps!

Jon Frank
Precision Essay

作者: poa0101 时间: 2011-9-22 12:29
标题: GMAT 640 (M49,V28) , do I need write optional essay for that?
Jon:

Thanks for the optional essay info.
My GMAT 640 (M49,V28) is pretty low in CD , do I have to write optional essay to address that?

tnx

Danny

作者: ianianpk 时间: 2011-9-23 17:00
Jon, my gpa is around 3.2, but I did get a D in this very important class of mine. Do you think I should devote the optional essay in writing about why I poorly performed(and I do have a reason for it: family issues) in this one class or should I just totally skip this optioanl essay? Thank you so much for your help in advance!

作者: bbs139 时间: 2011-9-23 17:46
hi, Jon, my undergraduate GPA is 3.03, not very high. But actually I was top 10% student in my class, and the score was mainly lowered by some courses other than major course(accounting) such as Physical Eduation and Military theory.

Should I write additional essay for this? and what's the best way to express that?

Thank you for your long-term volunteer help for the applicants. Really thanks.

作者: JASO 时间: 2011-9-24 07:59
Hey Jon,
I hope you are doing well.
My concern is not about optional essay but CV.
I am a transfer student. I got 73/100 average when I was in China and 3.9/4.0 in my last two years in US.
Is it necessary to put 73/100 into my education background?

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-9-25 15:15

Hey Jon,
I hope you are doing well.
My concern is not about optional essay but CV.
I am a transfer student. I got 73/100 average when I was in China and 3.9/4.0 in my last two years in US.
Is it necessary to put 73/100 into my education background?

-- by 会员 JASO (2011/9/24 7:59:37)

The challenge dude is that youre gonna include your transcripts in your application. Right? So no matter what you write about on the CV, they will see your scores. Now, we tell all our clients only to include GPA on the resume if your grades are reeeally good. It sounds to me like maybe you shouldn’t include the bad grades on your CV, only the good ones. Or NONE of em. But you cant hide from those grades, schools will see em for sure…

Jon Frank
HBS 2005

作者: anomalocaris 时间: 2011-9-25 16:08

-- by 会员 JASO (2011/9/24 7:59:37)

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2011/9/25 15:15:05)

Dear Jon,

I have GPA 3.2/4.0 but ranked top 10% in class in undergraduate, and GPA 3.4/4.0 in graduate. Should I need to mention them in CV?

Best Regards,

作者: JASO 时间: 2011-9-26 11:21

-- by 会员 JASO (2011/9/24 7:59:37)

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2011/9/25 15:15:05)

Dear Jon,

I have GPA 3.2/4.0 but ranked top 10% in class in undergraduate, and GPA 3.4/4.0 in graduate. Should I need to mention them in CV?

Best Regards,

-- by 会员 anomalocaris (2011/9/25 16:08:03)

i m not Jon but i think yes. also mention the ranking of course.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-9-28 12:32

-- by 会员 JASO (2011/9/24 7:59:37)

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2011/9/25 15:15:05)

Dear Jon,

I have GPA 3.2/4.0 but ranked top 10% in class in undergraduate, and GPA 3.4/4.0 in graduate. Should I need to mention them in CV?

Best Regards,

-- by 会员 anomalocaris (2011/9/25 16:08:03)

No my friend—only talk about your overall GPA (if it was good) or perhaps the GPA in your Major (again, if it was good.) Otherwise, just leave it out. Schools don’t need to see GPA, especially if you don’t have a great general GPA to brag about…

Jon Frank
HBS 2005

作者: 潜寒 时间: 2011-10-9 11:47
Hello Jon,

Can I ask you a question?
BC requires an essay as I presented below:
Optional Essay: Please introduce yourself to the BC community. Feel free to be creative in expressing your message.

For an essay like this, do I need to address any weakness, or simply focus on strength?

Besides, I got 670 in GMAT. Does this score count for a weakness to address?

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-10-11 13:07

Hello Jon,

Can I ask you a question?
BC requires an essay as I presented below:
Optional Essay: Please introduce yourself to the BC community. Feel free to be creative in expressing your message.

For an essay like this, do I need to address any weakness, or simply focus on strength?

Besides, I got 670 in GMAT. Does this score count for a weakness to address?

-- by 会员潜寒 (2011/10/9 11:47:15)

Hello my friend—here you should not focus on any weaknesses. Besides, your GMAT is just fine, by BC standards. So instead, take the question more LITERALLY. Tell them about yourself—who are you, what makes you feel good, what makes you sad. Open up a bit, and get personal! But no need to talk about your weaknesses here, if they haven’t asked for them specifically. This is not a typical “optional” essay, where you should cover weaknesses, this is a different type of question. “Introduce yourself.” So, for example, you may start with something like, “Hello class, my name is YYY.” Follow instructions, and don’t mention your GMAT…

Jon Frank
HBS 2005

作者: linjingyuan 时间: 2011-10-14 16:34
Dear Jon,

I find your advise very helpful. But I am not very sure my understanding as follows is all correct.

For example, "

lease provide any additional information not previously addressed in other areas of the application that you feel would be helpful to the Admissions Committee in its assessment of your candidacy." Under such guide, I can talk about my personality or speciality, right? If so, does it have to be relevent to the application and the program?

But if the guide is "

lease use this essay to provide the admissions committee with additional information that will assist us in evaluating your candidacy (for example, an explanation for gaps in employment history or an undergraduate grade point average that is less than 3.0)". Then I should not provide one if I do not have obvious weakness on GPA or GMAT, am I right?

I am looking forward to your reply. Thank you very much for your generous help!

作者: cannedpineapple 时间: 2011-10-14 17:48

Dear Jon,

I find your advise very helpful. But I am not very sure my understanding as follows is all correct.

For example, "

-- by 会员 linjingyuan (2011/10/14 16:34:50)

Right. Not sure what you mean by 'relevant to the application and programme', though.

作者: linjingyuan 时间: 2011-10-15 17:27
It means should I bring up the features that the program may desire, for example, can I just say something about myself totally without the connection of the program.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-10-17 11:42

Dear Jon,

I find your advise very helpful. But I am not very sure my understanding as follows is all correct.

For example, "

-- by 会员 linjingyuan (2011/10/14 16:34:50)

Yes my friend, you understand what I am saying. I couldn’t have put it better myself. Yes, in your first question you have more flexibility, you can talk about other things. But in the second question, leave it BLANK unless you have gaps or a low GPA etc. You DO understand, perfectly!

Jon Frank

作者: linjingyuan 时间: 2011-10-18 10:17
Thanks for your kind help！

作者: 好想有个农场 时间: 2011-10-23 09:32
If there is any other information that you believe is important to our assessment of your candidacy, feel free to add it to your application. (500 word maximum)

Dear Jon, This is the optional essay of Umich, I'm still kind of questioned if I want to write something about my travel to Canada, could I write in this essay? or Just leave it blank? or write in my CV?

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-10-24 14:50

If there is any other information that you believe is important to our assessment of your candidacy, feel free to add it to your application. (500 word maximum)

Dear Jon, This is the optional essay of Umich, I'm still kind of questioned if I want to write something about my travel to Canada, could I write in this essay? or Just leave it blank? or write in my CV?

-- by 会员好想有个农场 (2011/10/23 9:32:22)

Typically my friend, we advise our clients not to add “extra” stuff in their optional essays, unless there is something BAD to talk about. Low GPA, low GMAT etc. So yea, lets try to leave this question out if we can. Cover the travel in your resume, but be sure to give it a LOT of space, if it is an interesting, meaningful experience…two lines, for example, in your resume is not even that much…

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

作者: 芸梦泽 时间: 2011-10-28 12:04
Hi, Jon

My undergraduate GPA is just fine, but I didn't do well in my mathematical courses, B or even C. Since I want to apply for MSF, do I need to address that in optional essay?
If yes, since My GMAT is 730 (Q51), is it appropriate to make up low grades using high Q score?

One more question:"Provide additional information you feel necessary, regarding academic and test performance or work experience."
Is this a "share information" essay or "cover weakness" one?

Many thanks!

作者: asoka123 时间: 2011-10-28 13:55
Hi Jon, my undergraduate GPA is 2.99 -- it sucks --most schools require .00 decimal in their online application.
Do you think I need to talk about the reason in optional essay? Thanks!

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-10-30 12:49

Hi Jon, my undergraduate GPA is 2.99 -- it sucks --most schools require .00 decimal in their online application.
Do you think I need to talk about the reason in optional essay? Thanks!

-- by 会员 asoka123 (2011/10/28 13:55:14)

Hello there—yes, with this GPA I would address it in an optional essay. Nothing long or boring, just 200 words or so, 250 maybe explaining what happened here. Be confident, and take responsibility for what happened. Schools will understand!

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

作者: 好想有个农场 时间: 2011-11-4 10:27
Hi，Jon
Thanks for your suggestions on my Ross essay.
Now I have another question about OSU Fisher's essay question.
It's in my mind for several days.
The essay question is like

Focusing on leadership One of Fisher College's strengths is its dedication to developing leaders. Below are ten attributes that characterize great leaders. Please select the two criteria that best describe you, your leadership style or your leadership successes to date and provide us with concrete evidence of your accomplishments. Write an essay for each of the two characteristics you select, describing situations in which you exemplified these leadership traits. Please title each of your essays with the specific attribute

-* Integrity
* Empathy
* Curiosity*
* Creativity
* Global awareness
* Passion
* Vision
* Self-awareness
* Communication and interpersonal skills

1.How to understand the aim of this question?since one experience of leadership often contains more than one characteristic of me.
2. Does it mean that I should try to find two different leading experiences, each one show one main characteristic?
or does not have to write about" leading "experience, just show the characteristic is ok

Thank you Jon

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-11-7 11:58

Hi，Jon
Thanks for your suggestions on my Ross essay.
Now I have another question about OSU Fisher's essay question.
It's in my mind for several days.
The essay question is like

-- by 会员好想有个农场 (2011/11/4 10:27:21)

Hey there, happy to help. Yes, you should tell TWO separate stories for each of the two words. Then at the end of the essay, in yoru conclusion, tie the two words together. Talk about how the two interact with one another, how successful leadership requires BOTH to be effective. But don’t let these words impact which stories you tell—always pick your BEST stories, the ones that show you at your best. Once you know which stories you need to tell in the application, from there you should be in a position to “assign” the words above to them. Tell your best two stories first—worry about what the “word” is that you select afterwards…

Jon Frank
Founder

作者: poppyatlarge 时间: 2011-11-7 12:37
Hey Jon,

My problem is that I almost have no extracurriculum activity to talk about. Neither internship nor other experience. But I finished my undergradate program in 3years instead of 4, with a gpa around 3.5. How could I explain it in my puspose of statement? Do I need to explain the situation of a B- I got from major courses? Thanks!=D

作者: poppyatlarge 时间: 2011-11-7 12:49

Hey Jon,

My problem is that I almost have no extracurriculum activity to talk about. Neither internship nor other experience. But I finished my undergradate program in 3years instead of 4, with a gpa around 3.5. How could I explain it in my puspose of statement? Do I need to explain the situation of a B- I got from major courses? Thanks!=D

-- by 会员 poppyatlarge (2011/11/7 12:37:48)

sorry I forget to mention the program I am applying for is a master program in business school. Their website said working experience is desired but not required..

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-11-8 13:21

-- by 会员 poppyatlarge (2011/11/7 12:37:48)

sorry I forget to mention the program I am applying for is a master program in business school. Their website said working experience is desired but not required..

-- by 会员 poppyatlarge (2011/11/7 12:49:43)

Hey there—there is no need to talk about a grade of B-; it sounds as though your grades all in all are just fine. So don’t call any extra attention to it, you are juuust fine here. It is a shame that you don’t have any extra-curricular activities; all schools will want this, especially if you don’t have any work experience to speak of. Can you come up with…ANYTHING? Something even informally? Since you don’t have any work experience, that is even more important, I believe…

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

作者: marystars 时间: 2011-11-8 22:55
Hi Jon,

I wonder that if I had GMAT test for 4 times, do I have to explain the reasons and tell the adcom that I am a person never give up? or should I just write down my extracurricular achievements?

Thanks!

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-11-10 11:06

Hi Jon,

I wonder that if I had GMAT test for 4 times, do I have to explain the reasons and tell the adcom that I am a person never give up? or should I just write down my extracurricular achievements?

Thanks!

-- by 会员 marystars (2011/11/8 22:55:30)

Hello my friend—there is no need for you to write an optional essay if all you want to cover is your GMAT. Now, if your GPA is a bit low, or if there is something ELSE worth mentioning, you can write it. Otherwise dude, you are just fine. Don’t call extra attention to it…

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

作者: 墨绪人 时间: 2011-11-10 18:34
Hi Jon,
One more question about optional essay...I'm majoring in finance and gonna to apply for MSF 2012 fall. My GMAT and GPA are just fine. But now I am still taking some core courses of finance , such as econometrics, international financial management and central banking, because I was in Germany last year when I should have taken these courses in my home university... It goes without saying that i cannot report my grades of these core courses to adcom before deadlines. I am afraid this gap would make my academic ground "weak".... Should I explain this to adcom in optional essay? Or there is no necessity at all, actually...

Thanks a lot!

作者: 好想有个农场 时间: 2011-11-11 09:33
Hi Jon，
Do you know the essays for USC Leventhal's MAcc well? since there is no handbooks for me to understand its program well.
I am kind of questioned about its questions
1. What is your motivation to study for a MAcc degree at USC? Describe how you believe a MAcc degree fits with your future career objectives. (Do not exceed two double-spaced pages).
What are the most important things that i should contain in this short essay? about 500words
2. Have you applied to any other graduate programs/schools? If so, please list schools and degrees.
How many should I list? and should I just simply list them or..?
3. Essay for Scholarship Consideration:
Do you believe you should be considered for scholarship? If yes, please explain why. (Do not exceed one double-spaced page)
I've never writen any essay like this. What points should I write about and how many words is suggested?

Thanks a lot, Jon

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-11-12 12:50

Hi Jon,
One more question about optional essay...I'm majoring in finance and gonna to apply for MSF 2012 fall. My GMAT and GPA are just fine. But now I am still taking some core courses of finance , such as econometrics, international financial management and central banking, because I was in Germany last year when I should have taken these courses in my home university... It goes without saying that i cannot report my grades of these core courses to adcom before deadlines. I am afraid this gap would make my academic ground "weak".... Should I explain this to adcom in optional essay? Or there is no necessity at all, actually...

Thanks a lot!

-- by 会员墨绪人 (2011/11/10 18:34:45)

Hey there—and yes, you can absolutely explain this in an optional essay. The trick will be to do it quickly, and confidently. You aren’t APOLOGIZING for anything—and you shouldn’t apologize. You are just fine here! But this situation is worth mentioning, even if only in a couple quick sentences along the way. Write it, but beware of the optional essay. It is very tricky, as you likely know…

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-11-16 01:39

Hi Jon，
Do you know the essays for USC Leventhal's MAcc well? since there is no handbooks for me to understand its program well.
I am kind of questioned about its questions
1. What is your motivation to study for a MAcc degree at USC? Describe how you believe a MAcc degree fits with your future career objectives. (Do not exceed two double-spaced pages).
What are the most important things that i should contain in this short essay? about 500words
2. Have you applied to any other graduate programs/schools? If so, please list schools and degrees.
How many should I list? and should I just simply list them or..?
3. Essay for Scholarship Consideration:
Do you believe you should be considered for scholarship? If yes, please explain why. (Do not exceed one double-spaced page)
I've never writen any essay like this. What points should I write about and how many words is suggested?

Thanks a lot, Jon

-- by 会员好想有个农场 (2011/11/11 9:33:49)

Yes my friend, our consultants have worked on many of these applications. The key to the all accounting programs is to somehow convince the adcom that you really ARE passionate about accounting. Many applicants to masters in finance/accounting programs are simply younger, and unable to get into MBA programs. NOT YOU! J You will need to explain why you LOVE accounting, and why you are such a great fit. If you can be successful, you will get in! And generally, assume that 500 words go on a page. Hope this helps my friend!

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

作者: fujyoshi 时间: 2011-12-2 13:08
Hi Jon

I plan to write both optional essays (from Pepperdine), one to talk about international background (1) and one to mention anything (2).

for 1 i understand i need to highlight my uniqueness and why i am the way i am, i.e. worldview, principals. I am a young applicant (24 years old, undergrad at canada, super low GPA though, with 2 years retail banking working experience) and i do not see my uniqueness beside 'young with enormous potential'...could you enlighten me on this?

for 2, i really struggled. re-wrote the essay and still found it was extremely difficult to put into words on addressing my super low GPA. my GMAT was ok. no quant courses done after undergrad. i did a lot of extracurricular activities during undergrad though. what approach should i take to write 2?

thx so much

SW

作者: 小甜菜的宝宝 时间: 2011-12-2 21:24
Hi Jon，
I resigned my last job in June this year in order to prepare well for the MBA apply,for I hadn't get access to English since five years ago and I needed more time to pick it up. Now I get qualified record of GMAT but I am sure the explanation of my gap year should be included in the additional essay.
The question is, how can I clarify this situation better? I am expecting for your advises.
thanks a lot!

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-12-6 22:21

Hi Jon

I plan to write both optional essays (from Pepperdine), one to talk about international background (1) and one to mention anything (2).

for 1 i understand i need to highlight my uniqueness and why i am the way i am, i.e. worldview, principals. I am a young applicant (24 years old, undergrad at canada, super low GPA though, with 2 years retail banking working experience) and i do not see my uniqueness beside 'young with enormous potential'...could you enlighten me on this?

for 2, i really struggled. re-wrote the essay and still found it was extremely difficult to put into words on addressing my super low GPA. my GMAT was ok. no quant courses done after undergrad. i did a lot of extracurricular activities during undergrad though. what approach should i take to write 2?

thx so much

SW

-- by 会员 fujyoshi (2011/12/2 13:08:23)

Hey there—without seeing the essays of course it is hard to offer up much guidance. But I will do my best. First of all, Canada is unique. Why Canada? THAT could be interesting enough to talk about. Why not the US, England, etc.? Also, retail banking IS interesting. Why not commercial banking? Why not investment banking? Retail banking is unusual; all these things COULD be worth getting into. After all, very few Chinese applicants will have experience in EITHER of these areas (Canada or retail.) As for essay 2, this one we would need to see for sure. As you are learning, the optional essay (especially where you need to address GPA) is an art form. You will need to keep it nice and short (250 words max) and not make excuses. Instead, confidently lay out what happened. Nothing is more frustrating to an adcom than a whiny, sad optional essay. They are VERY hard indeed! Let us know what more we can do to help…

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-12-6 22:27

Hi Jon，
I resigned my last job in June this year in order to prepare well for the MBA apply,for I hadn't get access to English since five years ago and I needed more time to pick it up. Now I get qualified record of GMAT but I am sure the explanation of my gap year should be included in the additional essay.
The question is, how can I clarify this situation better? I am expecting for your advises.
thanks a lot!

-- by 会员小甜菜的宝宝 (2011/12/2 21:24:04)

Hello there. Yes you are correct; you will want to come up with a DIFFERENT reason for why you took the time off. “To prepare for your apps”wont be good enough; after all, most applicants were able to continue to work at their jobs, AND apply to MBA programs. SO what ELSE did you do? You need to come up with something other than“prepare for the application”for sure. what it is that you come up with…that is up to you. J Good luck!

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

作者: pampan 时间: 2011-12-7 23:39
Hi Jon, I am wondering that should I write about my passion on some of my hobbies in the optional essay? Because I think it might make the adcom think that I am interesting and diverse. Or should I just skip it because I don't really have any BAD things in my resume to explain?

Thanks.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2011-12-11 00:19

Hi Jon, I am wondering that should I write about my passion on some of my hobbies in the optional essay? Because I think it might make the adcom think that I am interesting and diverse. Or should I just skip it because I don't really have any BAD things in my resume to explain?

Thanks.

-- by 会员 pampan (2011/12/7 23:39:45)

Hey there—sadly, you should NOT use the optional essay as you have described. If you haven’t talked about your hobbies or extra-curriculars in your application…you are doing it wrong. L But it should NOT be in the optional essay; it should be elsewhere in the application. Even if you have it in the resume, that is better than nothing. But do NOT use the optional essay that way—schools HATE that! Hope this helps…

Jon Frank
PrecisionEssay

作者: 萝卜7号 时间: 2012-1-9 12:57
Hi Jon:I 'm applying for the Msf program of UMD and there is an optional essay. My GMAT is 700 , because I did too much intership I spend little time on preparing for the exam.Do i need to explain why i got such a low score .The requirement of this program is above 650, but my score is lower than other Chinese student.So I'm a little confused.Can you give me some advise? Thank you!

作者: JASO 时间: 2012-1-9 14:47
This helped me a lot. THANK YOU VERY MUCH JON!!!!! For master application, The adcom doesnt really care much about the grade from first two years of college. So I guess for MBA application, grade from the first two years doesn't matter that much either.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2012-1-23 19:08

Hi Jon:I 'm applying for the Msf program of UMD and there is an optional essay. My GMAT is 700 , because I did too much intership I spend little time on preparing for the exam.Do i need to explain why i got such a low score .The requirement of this program is above 650, but my score is lower than other Chinese student.So I'm a little confused.Can you give me some advise? Thank you!

-- by 会员萝卜7号 (2012/1/9 12:57:22)

Hey there,Happy new year

—And no, with a 700 your score is just fine. No need to write an essay about it—just make sure that the REST of your app is going to be in GREAT shape, and that 700 will be good enough. Not great, but good enough. Lets not bring any more attention to that score…

Jon Frank
Founder PrecisionEssay

作者: 萝卜7号 时间: 2012-2-1 07:00

-- by 会员萝卜7号 (2012/1/9 12:57:22)

Hey there,Happy new year

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2012/1/23 19:08:43)

Thank you so much!!! Happy new year! I'll prepare my essay and resume carefully~

作者: 易北北北北北 时间: 2013-1-30 12:20
Hi Jon! I really hope you could give me some advice on my situation. I'm applying Washington University, Master in Business. Recently I retook GMAT and got a score of 720, whereas the score of IR section is just 2 ,12%... I really didn't have enough time to prepare IR so I just skipped the practice before the test, and then I got panic during the IR test and performed badly. (what a disaster...) So should I write an optional essay to explain the low IR score? Or just ignore it?

Thanks a lot! Hoping to get your advice soon!

作者: luftwaffe 时间: 2013-7-9 17:01
Jon, do I need to address in optional essay that I took five months off between two employments?

作者: Owendreamer 时间: 2013-8-3 15:59
Thank you for sharing!

作者: 小甲gg 时间: 2014-1-4 01:45
thanks so much!!!!

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-4-4 11:45
2013-2014 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MCCOMBS ESSAY ANALYSIS
Essay 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:

(a) Write an essay (250 words)
(b) Share a video introduction (one minute)
(c) Share your about.me profile

Introductions can take place in a variety of ways. Standing in a circle of a few at a cocktail party. In a one-on-one interview. First day on the job.

The version we’re after here is much different. McCombs just handed you a mic, dimmed the house lights, and threw a spotlight onto you. This is your time not just to introduce yourself, but to perform. A performance is artful. And requires a special type of messaging. Your challenge isn’t to hold the attention of the guy sitting across the desk who is usually forced to tune in. Your challenge is to capture and sustain the attention of a room full of people, whose magnitude (by itself) tends to make it an uphill battle from minute 1.

Golden Rule: Dullness is deadly.

Don’t be dull. Don’t be quiet. Don’t be average. Don’t be monotone. Don’t be… safe.

Now’s your chance to tap your inner James Bond. Your inner MLK. Your inner Seth Macfarlane. Charm. Wit. Risk. Energy. A deviating from that safe, straight, center pathway.

Whether it’s an essay, or a video, or an about.me profile, the very first thing you need to do is grab your audience’s attention. There’s no real room for a slow burn here. If this were a two hour movie, and you had a proven track record, maybe an audience would spot you an unceremonious beginning, trusting in a future payoff. You have no such luxury here, my friend. Your cohort doesn’t know you. You need to be spectacular and attention-worthy from second 1.

What makes for a good opener? Well, practically speaking, “it” can be absolutely anything, which is to say it can take the FORM of just about anything. But what most great opening moments have in common is this: they knock the reader/audience off balance. For most of you, that may sound great, but it still may not mean much. “How the hell am I supposed to throw the reader off balance?” Well, one way to think about it is to leave some stuff OUT. The more buttoned up your opening is, the more likely your audience will feel secure. And secure—for now—is lethal. Bad.

“My name is Craig Blodgitsnick. I am 27 years old. And I’m a banker.” Great. Super clear. And therefore… too clear? It’s all buttoned up. The audience needs a reason to hear more. With an opening like that, however, we’re left with no such desire. Here’s an alternative.

“I make people cry for a living.”

Um, say what? What the hell does that mean. Did he just say that? I have no idea who this guy is, I have no idea how I feel about him, I have no sense of whether that’s a good or bad thing. What I do know… is that I’m dying to hear more. Success. This speaker has the audience in the palms of his hands.

“Pond. Cigarette. Abandoned BMW. These three things almost got me arrested, led me to my future wife, and ultimately set me on a path of world domination.”

Hunh? I mean, I couldn’t be more in. Who the hell says that? How on Earth are those three things connected? After everyone gives their boring standard speech, I can bet you money I’m gonna remember the guy who said THAT.

Throw your reader off balance. Give them a reason to want to read more. Now, not to scare you, but this isn’t easy. It is a touch risky, and it requires some finesse. But it is absolutely worth working toward. But just for a moment, let’s talk about the downside…

If you can’t quite pull it off, and it seems forced and inauthentic, then you run the risk of seeming like you’re trying too hard. And that’s a liability. So, get a gut check from a second set of eyes (doesn’t have to be a pro, could be anyone—see if they buy it). If it’s just not passing muster, there is recourse. Which is to tell a very honest, earnest story. Your story, a personal story. But, it’s gotta be a cool story. If it’s a straightforward, you are toast. There’s gotta be some GRIT in there, some adversity, some uniqueness. That can be equally compelling.

“Hi, my name is Goran Crevitz and I became an adult when I was five years old when I was separated from my parents and grandparents. My first job was…”

Yah, I’d listen to that guy. (But did you notice how even here, the author has thrown the audience off balance? This is not happenstance.)

Whichever medium suits you best, take advantage of it. Don’t choose the video if all you do is read an essay. If you use video, it has to be because there’s something about your look and body language and visible energy that communicates something a written essay can’t quite capture. If you choose an essay over video, it’s gotta be because there are certain things you’re able to do with the written word that would be MORE effective than a video version.

Keep your audience on the edge of their seat, though, by throwing them off balance.

Hope this helps folks and keep in touch!

Jon Frank

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-4-11 11:08
Hello,guys,How are you doing?

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-7-15 22:55
HAAS MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS, YOUR 2015 APPLICATION

Haas MBA Essay Analysis: Essay One
Describe an experience that has fundamentally changed the way you see the world. How did this transform you? (400-500 word maximum)
95% of applicants will potentially have great stories to tell here, but the mistake they usually make is focusing on the CHANGED or slightly ALTERED worldview. The most effective response here contrasts the ORIGINAL worldview with… the CHANGED world view. This is a BEFORE & AFTER essay. This is what I used to think about X. Then this THING happened that changed my outlook. And my outlook went from X to…….. Y. Here’s why it changed, and this is how I changed as a result. I went from A to B.
Unless we know the “before,” NONE of it is interesting. At the end of Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader emotionally embraces his son, Luke Skywalker. Big deal. A father being nice to his kid? What’s interesting about that?
Well, only that “fifteen minutes prior, the same-said father tried to turn his son into an agent of evil, or… eviscerate him.” That’s a bit of a twist wouldn’t you say? Kinda need to know about THAT before you can be impressed about what happens after the change. Also, we are now begging to find out how did the guy go from wanting to “kill his son” to “saving him”?
The starker the contrast between the BEFORE and AFTER, the stronger the essay. We need to know the following elements:
• I used to think THIS about XXX.
• Then this THING happened—an event, a person who influenced you, some agent of change, doesn’t matter what form it takes.
• I then went from thinking XXX to thinking YYY, on account of that agent of change.
• Personally, I changed from being AAA to being BBB, and this is why this is worth writing about.
Haas MBA Essay Analysis: Essay Two
What is your most significant professional accomplishment? (200-300 word maximum)
Your CHOICE of accomplishment here will say something. The admissions committee will have access to the full slate of your biggest achievements through your resume. The one that is “most significant” will reveal something the resume is not likely to convey. For example, perhaps you talk about a small achievement during your very first job that inspired you to embrace RISK. Or you can talk about a virtually consequence-less accomplishment of turning a company adversary into your greatest ally through some kind of tactical brilliance. The most significant accomplishment may not have anything to do with “the bottom line.” Consider the accomplishments that make us the most excited about your future ability to succeed.

Haas MBA Essay Analysis: Essay Three
What is your desired post-MBA role and at what company or organization? In your response, please specifically address sub-questions a., b., and c. (500-600 word maximum for 3a, 3b, and 3c combined)
The breakdown here implies a clear desire for sharper responses. Not surprising at all. We see thousands of first instincts here of addressing short-term goals that suffer from nebulous plans, supported by dubious assumptions. That’s the headline here: be super specific and super well researched. Let’s go line by line:
a. How is your background compelling to this company?
Great question. One we’ve been secretly dying for schools to ask, because it cuts straight to the question future employers will ask and base much of their hiring decisions on. You simply have to be able to articulate a crystal clear connection between your past experiences and the job you’re claiming to deserve. What is it about your background that virtually guarantees your ability to succeed in this new role you’re applying for? This requires some research into the company and role you’re hoping to win over. Tap your network, reach out to people who knows the industry and this particular company and role extremely well. Get your facts straight. THEN, draw show how key aspects of your background align with whatever is needed to succeed at the new job. At the end of these arguments, the reader must be able to say, “well, it’s clear that—on paper—you’re a perfect fit for us.” The only thing that remains is “what is this guy like in person”? But to get that interview, those connections can’t be speculative, or ambiguous.
The clearest version of this involves no industry switch. You’re applying for a role in an industry in which you’re already proven, competent, expert, etc. It gets a little tougher when your background doesn’t quite match. (Talk to folks about this if this describes you—this argument will require considerable thought and finesse.) But if this the argument you need to articulate, your aim is to eliminate RISK from the mind of the future employer. If they are left worrying about your ability to handle the job, it means that you have somehow not demonstrated a strong enough connection between what you know, what you’ve seen and done, and what skills are required to succeed in this future role.
b. What is something you would do better for this company than any other employee?
The biggest danger here is to highlight something that most others will ALSO talk about—thereby eliminating its value. This forces you to dig deep and isolate something very UNIQUE to your skill set that is hard to find in “just anybody.” Alternatively, if there is something common that you do uncommonly well, and have a long track record to prove it, you can talk about it—but it had better be a truly exceptional version of what others are already doing well enough! Something that would be meaningful to the company.
In terms of the structure, a great way to approach this is first to articulate very clearly what the company needs, not at large per se, you should focus this however you need to support what comes next. Step 2 is to then prove why your attempt at addressing that objective will surpass someone else’s. This must be as evidence-based as possible, as opposed to just speculative. It can’t be “no seriously, I promise I’ll be better than the next guy.” It would be more like “the typical X employee has Y years of experience. I, on the other hand, have only Z years of additional experience, but additionally, I’ve seen this and done that, which will enhance my ability to blbalbalbal.”
c. Why is an MBA necessary and how will Haas specifically help you succeed at this company?
You don’t just want an MBA, you need one. Why? What happens if you don’t get one? How does that affect your plan? How will an MBA accelerate your plans? How will it improve your ability to achieve your goals? How… specifically?
The “why Haas” part is something we have talked about—nothing has really changed here… your argument must end up being true for Haas, and FALSE for just about every other program. If your response here can work just as well for another school, time to set that response on fire and rework! That’s a good test—after you’ve taken a crack at it, try to replace HAAS with another school. See if it works. (It you’ve done it correctly, it should collapse with EVERY other MBA program out there, because your argument is SO delightfully Haas-specific.)

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-7-21 21:09
WHARTON MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS, YOUR 2015 APPLICATION

Are you ready to dig into your essays? Application essays are specifically and cleverly designed to get into your head. We like to turn the tables on the admissions committees and get inside their heads. Why are they asking these questions? What are they looking for? Read on as our experts break down application essay questions to help YOU plan the attack.

This year, Wharton cut down it’s MBA Essays to just one question. So the message is obvious – be clear, concise, compelling, and under 500 words. They know what they’re looking for and they’re not wasting any time to find it.

Let’s get into it.

Aight, I’m pumped! Where to next?
CHECK OUT OUR MBA ESSAY WRITING GUIDE ➝ SIGN UP FOR A FREE PROFILE EVALUATION ➝

Wharton MBA Essay Question 1

Essay 1: What do you hope to gain both personally and professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words)

A slight twist on the typical goals essay. To misquote Ferris Bueller, if you don’t stop and think about it carefully, you could miss it.

It’s all about that word “personally.” Kind of a head-scratcher, and good for Wharton. Have you ever thought about it that way? Typically, we are conditioned to define success in every way EXCEPT for how it affects us personally. Kudos to the folks here for getting y’all to think this through now. They may have just done you a huge favor simply by READING this question.

The “what you hope to gain professionally” is a touch easier, isn’t it? Maybe it comes in the form of a position, THROUGH WHICH you’re achieving something cool (remember, a position by itself isn’t an end—it’s a means to an end). It’s not that you want to be the CEO of Apple just to be the CEO of Apple. It should be more like this: AS THE CEO OF APPLE, I would like to change the way people… XXX YYY and ZZZ. The professional goal here is the XXX YYY and ZZZ piece, not “being the CEO of Apple.” See the difference? Fair enough, you’re all probably comfortable with that distinction by now. Let’s get to that tougher piece, the personal aspect of the goal. It’s a doozy.

What does it mean for you… personally? Let’s get inside it. What does it even mean to have a personal goal? Try this on—what if at the end of the day, you were operating from inside a sensory deprivation tank, and had NO IDEA whether your efforts were succeeding or failing. {It’s a strange conceit, try to go with it for a second.} Imagine it. You’re slaving day in and day out, pushing, grinding, with a very clear objective in mind, and you believe you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing to make it all happen, but… somehow, there are NO clues available to you to indicate whether it’s actually working or not.

Are you sated? Is there something about the work itself that fulfills something… personal? You’ll know when you’ve dialed into the perfect career here when even the belief/hope that you’re succeeding fills you with some kind of internal satisfaction. Otherwise, you may be pinning your prospects of “happiness” on purely external forces which is… dangerous. And Wharton is wise to wanna look into this and catch it early.

So then, what gets you internally fulfilled? What is it that you wanna be doing—regardless of the outcome—that will deliver a sense of “achievement”? Identifying that is gonna be a huge battle won.

After that, shaping this sucker shouldn’t be too hard. Maybe it can go something like this:

Walk us through the vision, same as you normally would. Quickly invite us in, show us the opportunity that you see, the problem you wanna fix, the thing that spurs you on. Then, with broad brush strokes (high-level), a glimpse into what you wanna do. (75 words or so)
Now give us the professional goals. Walk us through the plan—perhaps first in the short term. (100 words or so).
Part II of the goals, but longer term, where it’s headed. What you wanna achieve (not just in job title, but what happens because of it). (100 words or so)
And now, dip into the forgotten child of “personal” fulfillment. (100 words or so)
How does Wharton give you BOTH those things? Focus on the how, and use specifics. Make an argument here, not in the abstract—treat it like a mathematical proof. (75 words)
In a neat twist, it may be strong to CLOSE with a solid, assertive justification of why you need an MBA. Restate your personal and professional goals, and explain why this is a must for you at this time. (50-75 words)
There are a few ways this essay can take shape. This is just one example to get you going if you’re stuck.

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Wharton MBA Essay – Optional

Optional: Please use the space below to highlight any additional information that you would like the Admissions Committee to know about your candidacy. (400 words)
Here’s everything you need to know about writing the Optional Essay… the right way.

Reapplicant Essay:
All reapplicants to Wharton are required to complete the Optional Essay. Explain how you have reflected on the previous decision about your application, and discuss any updates to your candidacy (e.g., changes in your professional life, additional coursework, extracurricular/volunteer engagements). You may also use this section to address any extenuating circumstances. (250 words)

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-7-24 22:57
STANFORD GSB MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS, YOUR 2014-2015 APPLICATION

Are you ready to dig into your essays? Application essays are specifically and cleverly designed to get into your head. We like to turn the tables on the admissions committees and get inside their heads. Why are they asking these questions? What are they looking for? Read on as our experts break down application essay questions to help YOU plan the attack.

Stanford GSB has been asking pretty much the same questions for years without much tinkering, which means one important thing… they KNOW what they’re looking for.

This year, for the Stanford GSB MBA Essay, they cut the total word allotment from 1600 to 1100 words for two personal essays. They suggest 750 words for the first essay and 350 for the second, but remember, these are just suggestions. These numbers tell you about how much they’re expecting for each essay, but their directions give you some leeway.

Okay, now let’s examine each of these suckers:

Aight, I’m pumped! Where to next?
CHECK OUT OUR MBA ESSAY WRITING GUIDE ➝ SIGN UP FOR A FREE PROFILE EVALUATION ➝

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

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

This may be the hardest of all b-school essays to write, and to write well. Why? Because it’s so open-ended. They haven’t just given you a hunk of clay and asked you to mold it. They’ve given you canvas, paint, wood, sheet metal, circuit boards, copper wire, and a hundred other elements and have asked you to “generate something awe-inspiring.” While you’re painting a blue sky on your canvas paper, the guy in the station next to you is creating a computer that can communicate with aliens. Intimidating. What are others writing about!? What are the guys who are GETTING IN writing about?

Well, let’s start there—if that’s plaguing you, you’re asking the wrong question. It has absolutely nothing to with WHAT others are writing about, but HOW they’re writing. Don’t misunderstand us here; this isn’t about writing skill. B-school essays are never about mastery of prose. The “how” here refers to the manner in which the successful candidates are able to introspect, and walk around an experience, and assess and interpret different points of view, and offer new and intriguing points of view, and reveal deeply personal tales that offer key insights into what they’re MADE of—it’s any number of those things. It’s not the story itself.

Gonna lift some words from Stanford’s bullet points. Values, experiences, lessons. Written from the heart. Influence.

We’ve talked about this Stanford essay a bunch before, so this time around, we wanna focus on these concepts above.

Especially that word influence. What has shaped you? Who are you today, and what process has brought that forward? If you’re the grand canyon, don’t tell us the specs of how big you are, and how deep your canyons are. Instead, focus on the way WATER and WIND eroded and molded you. It’s the shaping, the influencing, the MOLDING we wanna know about. This is more revealing than “the result.” “The thing.” It’s all in the shaping.

Consider the following statement. “I just landed a commercial jet containing 300 passengers.” Impressive? Maybe. Let’s consider two authors of that statement. Author 1—a 58-year-old veteran pilot with military experience, and 20 years of experience as a professional pilot. Author 1 has flown hundreds of flights every year for the past 20 years. Let’s consider the same statement, but introduce a new author, Author 2. Author 2 is 13 years old, scared of heights, and has a crippling fear of flying. He needs to be sedated every time he flies, in fact. One day, he wakes up mid-flight, due to his sedation unintentionally wearing off. He notices all of the passengers beside him unconscious, the captains of the plane incapacitated, and he turns out to be the only person on board who can communicate with air traffic control. The kid puts on the headset, now fueled by a will to survive that trumps all of his phobias, is guided by folks on the ground, and successfully lands the plane, saving the lives of hundreds on board.

Now ask yourself, which “landing of the commercial jet” feels cooler, more revealing about THE PERSON WHO PERFORMED THE FEAT? The answer is obvious, and the example was purposely absurd to demonstrate a point. The stuff Stanford wants to know about isn’t the “landing of the aircraft.” They wanna know about the phobia. The decision to walk into the cockpit in spite of the phobia. They wanna know how someone with these fears, with zero experience, etc. etc., could pull this thing off. They wanna know about the WATER and WIND folks… that shaped the grand canyon. Not the canyon itself.

So, let’s bring this back down to Earth. When you’re figuring out what matters most to you, think about polarities in your development. The strongest stories are the ones that have the most intense and compelling “arcs” where your starting point is here at point A and then somehow, things, people, circumstances, experiences, etc. SHAPED you… MOLDED YOU (like water and air) to travel to point B where you ended up—essentially—a different person. We need to understand all that CONTEXT. If you’re talking about an experience that “changed” you, or that “made you who you are,” it’s only as effective as our understanding of who you were BEFORE that experience so we can contextualize the change. If a person affected you significantly, same deal—we need to know who you were BEFORE that person affected you.

“Before & After” is an incredibly powerful tool for MOST b-school essays, and never more powerful than here for Stanford’s famous essay.

Grand Canyon, ladies and gentlemen. But not the canyon itself—water and air. Water. And air.

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Essay 2: Enlighten us on how earning your MBA at Stanford will enable you to realize your ambitions.

Essay 2: Enlighten us on how earning your MBA at Stanford will enable you to realize your ambitions.A strong response to this essay question will:

Explain your decision to pursue graduate education in management.
Explain the distinctive opportunities you will pursue at Stanford.

Same deal, gonna borrow some KEY words from Stanford. Your decision. Distinctive opportunities. Stanford.

This is what I want to do—and here is why YOU should be excited about it. (This doesn’t require a ton of backstory or setup—some setup, yes—you need our buy-in. If your idea is uninspired, guess what, so too are “you.” Sell it. Give us just enough background and then in simple terms, walk us through your aspirations. With surgical efficiency.)
I’m confident I’m gonna succeed because I’m good at it, I know what it takes to succeed, and I frickin LOVE the thing to death. Lemme show you what I mean, this is how it’s all gonna look, step by step. Notice how each step as I’ve laid it out SNAPS into place perfectly. I understand the logic behind all of it because I “get” it, I “get” my vision, only people who get it so keenly are likely to succeed.
This confidence comes from careful consideration of how it’s all gonna go down, which has led me to recognize the importance of not just why an MBA is key, but why Stanford in particular supports my vision the BEST—I am, in effect, turning down Harvard, Wharton, Booth, etc., you name it, because none of these places can do XX YY and ZZ to catapult me toward my vision like Stanford can.
That’s the essay. In a nutshell. That’s what we call “the subtext.” Underneath the actual stuff you write, this should be communicated.

In order to NAIL this essay, you must understand Stanford and what they’re all about. This may take some research on your end, and this is what Stanford is hoping—that after a TON of research, you have determined that THIS place, unlike any other, is your best fit. Articulate THAT not just when you address the “why Stanford” piece, but even as you articulate your goal. The folks who get into Stanford demonstrate a synergy with the school in every fiber of their application. It’s gotta come through everywhere. Evvvvverywhere.

But so, after you’ve walked us through points 1 and 2 above, let’s dig in a bit to point 3.

How to understand Stanford well enough to approach this? Spend time on the website. Read about the school elsewhere—articles, anything written by current or former students. Talk to former students. Talk to current students. Visit the campus. Los of ways to engage—where there’s a will, there’s a way. Read stuff by current or former professors. Notice the trends of what kinds of professors came from Stanford. Notice what kinds of companies were started at Stanford. Get a sense.

Now, whatever you do, please don’t think that there is a magical phrase or a set of classes you can name drop that will trigger a successful outcome. The demonstration of “fit” here is a wildly organic one. It’s in between the lines, never the lines themselves. Stanford’s assets have to match YOU in a way that won’t necessarily apply to the guy sitting next to you. This is the whole point about “individuality” and “uniqueness.” Stanford is curious to see how aspects of its program and culture uniquely affect your appetite for an MBA, or for your career goals. It’s not “mentioning a class,” folks. Or “a club.” Or “a professor’s name.” It’s much much much more than that.

It’s an argument.

An argument that PROVES connectivity. Proves that there is something about Stanford that not even a place like Harvard or LBS or Wharton or Top School X can quite satisfy in the same way. That’s a great conceit to adopt here. You have a free ride to HBS. Why would you PAY to go to Stanford instead? Convince me, as though I’m your spouse, why this is not an insane decision. A great essay here can be between 400-500 words, no need for it to live outside that range.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-7-29 23:01
CHICAGO BOOTH MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS, YOUR 2014-2015 APPLICATION
Presentation/Essay: Chicago Booth values adventurous inquiry, diverse perspectives, and a collaborative exchange of ideas. This is us. Who are you?

Presentation/Essay Guidelines

Be reflective. We’ve learned a lot about you throughout the application, but what more should we know?
Interpret broadly. “Who are you?” can be interpreted in many different ways. We encourage you to think critically and broadly about who you are, and how your values, passions and experiences have influenced you.
Determine your own length. There is no prescribed minimum or maximum length. We trust that you will use your best judgment in determining how long your submission should be, but we recommend that you think strategically about how to best allocate the space.
Choose the format that works for you. You can design your presentation or compose your essay in the format that you feel best captures your response. However, please consider the specific technical restrictions noted below.
Think about you, not us. Rather than focusing on what you think we want to hear, focus on what is essential for us to know about you. Simply put, be genuine.
Technical Guidelines

File Size: Maximum file size is 16 MB.
Accepted Upload Formats: Acceptable formats are PDF, Word and Powerpoint.
Multimedia Restrictions: We will be viewing your submission electronically and in full color, but all submissions will be converted to PDF files, so animation, video, music, etc. will not translate over.
Preserve Your Formatting: We strongly recommend converting your piece to a PDF file prior to submitting to ensure that everything you see matches what we see.

The famous Chicago Booth Presentation. The Booth essay that has confounded many, and brought out the best in others. What it is… is a golden opportunity to make Al Pacino in Heat very happy, and “Give em all you got.”

It used to be a three to four page Powerpoint presentation. Today, it has become a touch more open-ended. Present yourself, however you want. This can be as frustratingly directionless as it is liberating.

Let’s help it to be a liberator…

Be reflective. We’ve learned a lot about you throughout the application, but what more should we know?

Hint: don’t tell us stuff we already know. Why would you? If there are pieces you can fill in, stuff that you couldn’t possibly lace into a resume, then maybe. But, it can’t just be “the fifth bullet point that I left off because I ran out of space and had to fit it all to one page.” Instead, it has to be the “human” moment that changed your perspective, or somehow defines something fundamental about you. Something NEW. Folks, take this suggestion very seriously. To repeat something isn’t to reinforce it, it’s to not only reveal that you’re not really embracing Booth’s recommendation, but also to suggest that you’re… kinda unimaginative, and boring.

Interpret broadly. “Who are you?” can be interpreted in many different ways. We encourage you to think critically and broadly about who you are, and how your values, passions and experiences have influenced you.

Here’s a strange test you guys can administer yourself, as a potential gauge for how well you’re hitting THIS piece. If you show this to a bunch of people who know you, they can respond in one of a few ways.

Response #1 – “Wow, this is AWESOME. You did an AMAZING job.”

Contrary to what you might think, this isn’t particularly great feedback. (It may be, but it’s not NECESSARILY great feedback.)

Response #2 – “Wow, this presentation is SO YOU!”

THIS is a very good sign. If your presentation has captured something uniquely YOU, you have struck some kind of emotional chord with someone who knows you well—and that just means that the chances are great that will reveal that thing to someone who doesn’t know you (aka, the adcom).

So, it’s not about “doing a great job at creating a presentation.” It’s about doing an amazing job as distilling what’s YOU about you… IN the presentation.

Here’s another potentially amazing response:

Response #3 – “Hunh, I never knew that about you!”

Amazing. Why? Because the person’s focus was on YOU as the subject, AND presumably knows you well and managed to learn something. All amazing feats.

Determine your own length. There is no prescribed minimum or maximum length. We trust that you will use your best judgment in determining how long your submission should be, but we recommend that you think strategically about how to best allocate the space.

Bold, Chicago Booth! Bold. This may almost be a trap (haha). Folks who take this “no maximum length” concept and OVERSTAY their welcome may be signaling that they “don’t have great judgment.” So, please seek feedback here from trusted sources on what’s too much. Economy of words, pictures, whatever is a signal of EXCELLENT judgment, and clarity in communication skills. Do, um, that. In fact, once you get your concept nailed down, don’t communicate that story in “however long it takes,” Communicate it as QUICKLY as you’re able to communicate it.

Choose the format that works for you. You can design your presentation or compose your essay in the format that you feel best captures your response. However, please consider the specific technical restrictions noted below.

How to pick a winning format? Well, this is actually a fascinating question. Think of your presentation as an experience… that can be viewed as a presentation or PDF, or read as a Word doc. Doing it one way over another must present an ADVANTAGE to you. Are you able to articulate what that advantage is? Your choice of medium here must correspond to an advantage that makes the other version inherently LESS SUCCESSFUL at “capturing you.” For some, who have an unusually strong voice that POPS through with their writing, an essay or some type of prose piece in MS Word may nail this best. For others, who are artists, have graphic design chops, excellent presentation skills, or have pictures of them or that they have taken, or some other variation that a presentation format allows you to take advantage of… the PDF or PPT is the obvious choice.

Here’s an exercise. Consider some ALTERNATE versions of the story you’re trying to tell—i.e., via the alternative media choices available to you. What does the essay version of your presentation look like? What does the pictures-only version look like? What does the hybrid some-pictures, some-text version look like? What does the graphic design-heavy version look like? Which one captures “you” best? Some should start to pull ahead very clearly when you consider all the possibilities and even map a few out if you’re having trouble imagining all of it.

One thing’s for sure, if your STORY (i.e., your MESSAGE) is compelling, the format won’t matter quite so much. Get that part right. Figure out the WHAT here. The HOW will be the easy and fun part.

Think about you, not us. Rather than focusing on what you think we want to hear, focus on what is essential for us to know about you. Simply put, be genuine.

You’re either gonna have this instinct, or not. It’s hard to convince some folks to “be honest and earnest and not overthink it” when this is in their DNA. But we will continue to fight the fight and try!

Dear “all of you out there who think it’s possible to say what the adcom wants to hear…” – if your goal is to “earn admission to Chicago Booth to earn your MBA” and you believe that you can “talk to an insider and determine the kinds of things they want to see and hear,” and you just fold that stuff into your presentation, you will burn your chances of earning admission to Chicago Booth. Trust us. It’s transparent, and it has never worked.

So, pull aside a trusted friend, sibling, etc. If they review your presentation and say “this doesn’t really sound like you” and your response is “oh that’s okay, this guy who has his MBA from Booth said that as long as I mention a few things like this, I’m golden!” – then you’re doing it wrong! Create this presentation not to impress an admissions committee member, but to wow a friend by presenting the truest and coolest and most interesting summary of who you are and what makes you INTERESTING. Do that first. No matter what.

(It is possible to take THAT rough stone, and then to sculpt it and refine it in a way that is b-school-friendly. But enlist the help of a trusted friend/mentor for that stage, if you are so inclined. Not always necessary, but do not let that friend/mentor encourage you to reverse-engineer your presentation based on your anticipation of what will work best. Start BY yourself and… FOR yourself.

Check out some thoughts we’ve had on this particular essay in previous application seasons.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-8-1 22:26
SIMPLIFY YOUR WRITING BY AVOIDING BUZZWORDS

This utilitarian manuscript will optimize your data-processing ability via enhanced legibility and optimal noise reduction.

If you didn’t quite understand that last sentence, you’re not alone. It sounded fancy, sure, but it made no sense. And this is a problem we see faaaaaar too often. There are so many applicants out there who will litter their essays with similarly useless buzzwords and needlessly complex language to sound smart, impressive, and appealing for the adcom.

We’re here to put a stop to that.

The key to successful application essays is simple, direct language. Why?

It improves your storytelling by improving your flow of words.
It ensures that the reader INSTANTLY “gets” what you’re saying.
It makes you stand out from the hordes of misguided buzzword users.
With that in mind, here are a few examples of what to avoid and how to state the same information so that your reader won’t have to reach for a thesaurus.

From: “I have to restructure my practical working experience through systematic academic education that will renovate my business perception.”

To: “I need to complement my work experience with an academic foundation in business.”

This is a relatively simple idea made needlessly complex. The only thing that needs “restructuring” here is the flowery vocabulary. “Renovate my business perception” is a particularly meaningless phrase (that the adcom will see RIGHT though) that could safely be removed entirely.

From: “This inspired me, one of the four software R&D specialists managing these ‘Construct and Render’ (C+R) projects, to create a culture and system that enabled my greater Gaming applications Global Business Unit to become Nexsoft’s open innovation leader.”

To: “This pushed me to improve my division’s corporate culture at Nexsoft, encouraging feedback and new ideas for the “Construct and Render” projects I was then managing.”

This one’s so full of buzzwords, acronyms and unproductive bragging that it’s initially hard to make heads or tails of it. By simplifying the vocabulary and sentence structure, the writer expresses the same idea in a way that a reader unfamiliar with Nexsoft can understand.

From: “To initiate and propagate a cultural change, I knew I needed to take a systematic approach—starting with understanding the key barriers to open innovation’s wide acceptance and adaption, then engaging the decision makers and influencers of the process, finally proposing a win-win solution that required minimum resources to yield maximize impact.”

To: “To shift company policy, I needed to convince management my solution was best.”

Short, sweet, simple and direct: we’ve lost practically no information but the result is infinitely more legible (and friendly to those tight word limits!)

So remember:

Simple direct language trumps corporate buzzwords any day of the week. And twice on Sundays.

作者: linda52 时间: 2014-8-5 17:36
Frank，thanks so much for sharing these!!

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-8-6 22:17
EXPERT ADVICE FROM ROUGH TO FINAL

Things that are easier than writing an MBA essay:

Getting a cavity filled
Parallel parking in Times Square
Solving this Rubik’s cube
Getting into SpaceCamp for grownups
Pretty much everything else
Writing MBA essays is NOT easy. Trying to lay out your entire career plan in 100 words or less? Might as well try to find an affordable cable provider… amirite??

Don’t worry, we’re here to help. Check out our MBA Essay Writing Guide for all new tips and strategies to help you rock out a technically perfect, emotionally charged, inspirational MBA essay and get you into HBS, Stanford, Columbia, or whatever your dream B-school may be.

Here’s a sneak peek at the gems of wisdom you’ll find in our MBA Essay Writing Guide:

On conquering writer’s block:

Write out your stories in a bulleted list of all your greatest achievements and most fun, wild stories in everything you have done, from work to academics, to community service. Two or three sentences per story; just the essence. If you get stuck, chat it over with people – a boyfriend, girlfriend, a mom, a colleague or boss, over a beer or coffee. They might remember things you have forgotten.

On the biggest essay writing mistakes to avoid:

Not having a destination for where you want the Admissions Committee reader to arrive is a recipe for mediocrity. This means you should have a conscious agenda for what you want the reader to come away with, like: “This woman can make lemon-aid out of lemons, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and she is going to make herself rich while ridding the world of disease – wow, she could make our school famous!”

On what you MUST do when writing your MBA essay:

Don’t be afraid to employ a little creativity. Too often, people respond like it’s a Q&A Interview, repeating the prompt verbatim in their answer. What better way to SHOW that you can indeed “think outside the box” than by playing around with your essay structure, employing imagery, anecdotes, and even a dash of humor. But perhaps the true lesson is: START EARLY. Hard to be creative and experiment with essay ideas when you’re under the gun.

作者: BEC2010 时间: 2014-8-7 13:56
Thank for Jon's kind sharing. Look forward to more essays from other S16 B-schools.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-8-12 22:45
AVOIDING NARRATIVE CLICHÉS
Everyone has their own unique life story, but we’d be lying if we didn’t say that MBA applicants tend to have had similar experiences. While you can’t reinvent your past, you CAN avoid emphasizing life experiences that will make you blend in and you CAN emphasize those in a way that will make you stand out.

The following are 2 cliché storylines to avoid foregrounding while writing your essays, and 2 ways around them.

1. I come from a destitute village. This rag-to-riches narrative plays on the reader’s sympathy by emphasizing the writer’s impoverished background and suggesting that the candidate wants to “make a difference” once he hits it big. Unfortunately, this ploy is utterly TRANSPARENT, since the applicant’s career goals have little to do with charity or development.

What to write instead: If your career goal truly is to get involved in an NGO or charity organization, by all means emphasize this. But if your goal is to succeed in business and make loads of money, don’t lie to the school. It’s not going to help. If anything, the adcom will see right through that story and it will only hurt your essay. The key here is to only emphasize your background if it RELATES TO YOUR GOALS. Since a sizeable number of applicants will write something similar, it won’t help you stand out unless it works in the greater context of your application.

2. I’m an engineer; get me out of here! This applicant majored in computer science, and with hard work, rose in the ranks at a tech company. Now he’s bored, underpaid and wants to, “move to the business side,” but his essays belie his technical background and lack of leadership skills.

What to write instead: Downplay your technical experience by avoiding “engineering stories.” No mention of how you fixed a major bug in 24 hours, no stories about suggesting server improvements, and absolutely NO programming descriptions. Even if these stories highlight leadership, they first and foremost scream, “I’m an engineer.” Instead, focus on stories where you led individuals and where you suggest ideas that change the overall direction of a company. You want to show the school that you are the man who will think of a game-changing concept, not the man who will implement it.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-8-16 22:14
EXPERT ADVICE FROM ROUGH TO FINAL

Things that are easier than writing an MBA essay:

Getting a cavity filled
Parallel parking in Times Square
Solving this Rubik’s cube
Getting into SpaceCamp for grownups
Pretty much everything else
Writing MBA essays is NOT easy. Trying to lay out your entire career plan in 100 words or less? Might as well try to find an affordable cable provider… amirite??

Don’t worry, we’re here to help. Check out our MBA Essay Writing Guide for all new tips and strategies to help you rock out a technically perfect, emotionally charged, inspirational MBA essay and get you into HBS, Stanford, Columbia, or whatever your dream B-school may be.

Here’s a sneak peek at the gems of wisdom you’ll find in our MBA Essay Writing Guide:

On conquering writer’s block:

Write out your stories in a bulleted list of all your greatest achievements and most fun, wild stories in everything you have done, from work to academics, to community service. Two or three sentences per story; just the essence. If you get stuck, chat it over with people – a boyfriend, girlfriend, a mom, a colleague or boss, over a beer or coffee. They might remember things you have forgotten.

On the biggest essay writing mistakes to avoid:

Not having a destination for where you want the Admissions Committee reader to arrive is a recipe for mediocrity. This means you should have a conscious agenda for what you want the reader to come away with, like: “This woman can make lemon-aid out of lemons, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and she is going to make herself rich while ridding the world of disease – wow, she could make our school famous!”

On what you MUST do when writing your MBA essay:

Don’t be afraid to employ a little creativity. Too often, people respond like it’s a Q&A Interview, repeating the prompt verbatim in their answer. What better way to SHOW that you can indeed “think outside the box” than by playing around with your essay structure, employing imagery, anecdotes, and even a dash of humor. But perhaps the true lesson is: START EARLY. Hard to be creative and experiment with essay ideas when you’re under the gun.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-8-18 21:49
STANFORD GSB MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS, YOUR 2014-2015 APPLICATION

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

This may be the hardest of all b-school essays to write, and to write well. Why? Because it’s so open-ended. They haven’t just given you a hunk of clay and asked you to mold it. They’ve given you canvas, paint, wood, sheet metal, circuit boards, copper wire, and a hundred other elements and have asked you to “generate something awe-inspiring.” While you’re painting a blue sky on your canvas paper, the guy in the station next to you is creating a computer that can communicate with aliens. Intimidating. What are others writing about!? What are the guys who are GETTING IN writing about?

Well, let’s start there—if that’s plaguing you, you’re asking the wrong question. It has absolutely nothing to with WHAT others are writing about, but HOW they’re writing. Don’t misunderstand us here; this isn’t about writing skill. B-school essays are never about mastery of prose. The “how” here refers to the manner in which the successful candidates are able to introspect, and walk around an experience, and assess and interpret different points of view, and offer new and intriguing points of view, and reveal deeply personal tales that offer key insights into what they’re MADE of—it’s any number of those things. It’s not the story itself.

Gonna lift some words from Stanford’s bullet points. Values, experiences, lessons. Written from the heart. Influence.

We’ve talked about this Stanford essay a bunch before, so this time around, we wanna focus on these concepts above.

Especially that word influence. What has shaped you? Who are you today, and what process has brought that forward? If you’re the grand canyon, don’t tell us the specs of how big you are, and how deep your canyons are. Instead, focus on the way WATER and WIND eroded and molded you. It’s the shaping, the influencing, the MOLDING we wanna know about. This is more revealing than “the result.” “The thing.” It’s all in the shaping.

Consider the following statement. “I just landed a commercial jet containing 300 passengers.” Impressive? Maybe. Let’s consider two authors of that statement. Author 1—a 58-year-old veteran pilot with military experience, and 20 years of experience as a professional pilot. Author 1 has flown hundreds of flights every year for the past 20 years. Let’s consider the same statement, but introduce a new author, Author 2. Author 2 is 13 years old, scared of heights, and has a crippling fear of flying. He needs to be sedated every time he flies, in fact. One day, he wakes up mid-flight, due to his sedation unintentionally wearing off. He notices all of the passengers beside him unconscious, the captains of the plane incapacitated, and he turns out to be the only person on board who can communicate with air traffic control. The kid puts on the headset, now fueled by a will to survive that trumps all of his phobias, is guided by folks on the ground, and successfully lands the plane, saving the lives of hundreds on board.

Now ask yourself, which “landing of the commercial jet” feels cooler, more revealing about THE PERSON WHO PERFORMED THE FEAT? The answer is obvious, and the example was purposely absurd to demonstrate a point. The stuff Stanford wants to know about isn’t the “landing of the aircraft.” They wanna know about the phobia. The decision to walk into the cockpit in spite of the phobia. They wanna know how someone with these fears, with zero experience, etc. etc., could pull this thing off. They wanna know about the WATER and WIND folks… that shaped the grand canyon. Not the canyon itself.

So, let’s bring this back down to Earth. When you’re figuring out what matters most to you, think about polarities in your development. The strongest stories are the ones that have the most intense and compelling “arcs” where your starting point is here at point A and then somehow, things, people, circumstances, experiences, etc. SHAPED you… MOLDED YOU (like water and air) to travel to point B where you ended up—essentially—a different person. We need to understand all that CONTEXT. If you’re talking about an experience that “changed” you, or that “made you who you are,” it’s only as effective as our understanding of who you were BEFORE that experience so we can contextualize the change. If a person affected you significantly, same deal—we need to know who you were BEFORE that person affected you.

“Before & After” is an incredibly powerful tool for MOST b-school essays, and never more powerful than here for Stanford’s famous essay.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-8-20 21:50
Chicago Booth MBA Essay Question 1

Presentation/Essay: Chicago Booth values adventurous inquiry, diverse perspectives, and a collaborative exchange of ideas. This is us. Who are you?

Presentation/Essay Guidelines

Be reflective. We’ve learned a lot about you throughout the application, but what more should we know?
Interpret broadly. “Who are you?” can be interpreted in many different ways. We encourage you to think critically and broadly about who you are, and how your values, passions and experiences have influenced you.
Determine your own length. There is no prescribed minimum or maximum length. We trust that you will use your best judgment in determining how long your submission should be, but we recommend that you think strategically about how to best allocate the space.
Choose the format that works for you. You can design your presentation or compose your essay in the format that you feel best captures your response. However, please consider the specific technical restrictions noted below.
Think about you, not us. Rather than focusing on what you think we want to hear, focus on what is essential for us to know about you. Simply put, be genuine.
Technical Guidelines

File Size: Maximum file size is 16 MB.
Accepted Upload Formats: Acceptable formats are PDF, Word and Powerpoint.
Multimedia Restrictions: We will be viewing your submission electronically and in full color, but all submissions will be converted to PDF files, so animation, video, music, etc. will not translate over.
Preserve Your Formatting: We strongly recommend converting your piece to a PDF file prior to submitting to ensure that everything you see matches what we see.

The famous Chicago Booth Presentation. The Booth essay that has confounded many, and brought out the best in others. What it is… is a golden opportunity to make Al Pacino in Heat very happy, and “Give em all you got.”

It used to be a three to four page Powerpoint presentation. Today, it has become a touch more open-ended. Present yourself, however you want. This can be as frustratingly directionless as it is liberating.

Let’s help it to be a liberator…

Be reflective. We’ve learned a lot about you throughout the application, but what more should we know?

Hint: don’t tell us stuff we already know. Why would you? If there are pieces you can fill in, stuff that you couldn’t possibly lace into a resume, then maybe. But, it can’t just be “the fifth bullet point that I left off because I ran out of space and had to fit it all to one page.” Instead, it has to be the “human” moment that changed your perspective, or somehow defines something fundamental about you. Something NEW. Folks, take this suggestion very seriously. To repeat something isn’t to reinforce it, it’s to not only reveal that you’re not really embracing Booth’s recommendation, but also to suggest that you’re… kinda unimaginative, and boring.

Interpret broadly. “Who are you?” can be interpreted in many different ways. We encourage you to think critically and broadly about who you are, and how your values, passions and experiences have influenced you.

Here’s a strange test you guys can administer yourself, as a potential gauge for how well you’re hitting THIS piece. If you show this to a bunch of people who know you, they can respond in one of a few ways.

Response #1 – “Wow, this is AWESOME. You did an AMAZING job.”

Contrary to what you might think, this isn’t particularly great feedback. (It may be, but it’s not NECESSARILY great feedback.)

Response #2 – “Wow, this presentation is SO YOU!”

THIS is a very good sign. If your presentation has captured something uniquely YOU, you have struck some kind of emotional chord with someone who knows you well—and that just means that the chances are great that will reveal that thing to someone who doesn’t know you (aka, the adcom).

So, it’s not about “doing a great job at creating a presentation.” It’s about doing an amazing job as distilling what’s YOU about you… IN the presentation.

Here’s another potentially amazing response:

Response #3 – “Hunh, I never knew that about you!”

Amazing. Why? Because the person’s focus was on YOU as the subject, AND presumably knows you well and managed to learn something. All amazing feats.

Determine your own length. There is no prescribed minimum or maximum length. We trust that you will use your best judgment in determining how long your submission should be, but we recommend that you think strategically about how to best allocate the space.

Bold, Chicago Booth! Bold. This may almost be a trap (haha). Folks who take this “no maximum length” concept and OVERSTAY their welcome may be signaling that they “don’t have great judgment.” So, please seek feedback here from trusted sources on what’s too much. Economy of words, pictures, whatever is a signal of EXCELLENT judgment, and clarity in communication skills. Do, um, that. In fact, once you get your concept nailed down, don’t communicate that story in “however long it takes,” Communicate it as QUICKLY as you’re able to communicate it.

Choose the format that works for you. You can design your presentation or compose your essay in the format that you feel best captures your response. However, please consider the specific technical restrictions noted below.

How to pick a winning format? Well, this is actually a fascinating question. Think of your presentation as an experience… that can be viewed as a presentation or PDF, or read as a Word doc. Doing it one way over another must present an ADVANTAGE to you. Are you able to articulate what that advantage is? Your choice of medium here must correspond to an advantage that makes the other version inherently LESS SUCCESSFUL at “capturing you.” For some, who have an unusually strong voice that POPS through with their writing, an essay or some type of prose piece in MS Word may nail this best. For others, who are artists, have graphic design chops, excellent presentation skills, or have pictures of them or that they have taken, or some other variation that a presentation format allows you to take advantage of… the PDF or PPT is the obvious choice.

Here’s an exercise. Consider some ALTERNATE versions of the story you’re trying to tell—i.e., via the alternative media choices available to you. What does the essay version of your presentation look like? What does the pictures-only version look like? What does the hybrid some-pictures, some-text version look like? What does the graphic design-heavy version look like? Which one captures “you” best? Some should start to pull ahead very clearly when you consider all the possibilities and even map a few out if you’re having trouble imagining all of it.

One thing’s for sure, if your STORY (i.e., your MESSAGE) is compelling, the format won’t matter quite so much. Get that part right. Figure out the WHAT here. The HOW will be the easy and fun part.

Think about you, not us. Rather than focusing on what you think we want to hear, focus on what is essential for us to know about you. Simply put, be genuine.

You’re either gonna have this instinct, or not. It’s hard to convince some folks to “be honest and earnest and not overthink it” when this is in their DNA. But we will continue to fight the fight and try!

Dear “all of you out there who think it’s possible to say what the adcom wants to hear…” – if your goal is to “earn admission to Chicago Booth to earn your MBA” and you believe that you can “talk to an insider and determine the kinds of things they want to see and hear,” and you just fold that stuff into your presentation, you will burn your chances of earning admission to Chicago Booth. Trust us. It’s transparent, and it has never worked.

So, pull aside a trusted friend, sibling, etc. If they review your presentation and say “this doesn’t really sound like you” and your response is “oh that’s okay, this guy who has his MBA from Booth said that as long as I mention a few things like this, I’m golden!” – then you’re doing it wrong! Create this presentation not to impress an admissions committee member, but to wow a friend by presenting the truest and coolest and most interesting summary of who you are and what makes you INTERESTING. Do that first. No matter what.

(It is possible to take THAT rough stone, and then to sculpt it and refine it in a way that is b-school-friendly. But enlist the help of a trusted friend/mentor for that stage, if you are so inclined. Not always necessary, but do not let that friend/mentor encourage you to reverse-engineer your presentation based on your anticipation of what will work best. Start BY yourself and… FOR yourself.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-8-23 00:17
HOW DO I WRITE THE “WHY SCHOOL X” ESSAY?
Question:

How do I answer the MBA essay question, “Why Wharton?” or “Why Booth? ” or “Why School X?” How do I answer this question differently than everybody else?

Answer:

Ahhhhh! An excellent question. Think of it this way—how do you “prove” to a girl you love her? (Or to a guy you love him?) By saying “I love you”??? Nah. That only works on TV (although it does help!) But when you say it in the right way, it will be believed.

What is the right way? When you REALLY DO love the school, you know the school inside out and are really excited about the possibilities it will open up. (Kind of like real love.)

Real love ain’t surface-y. It’s not all about looks and prestige and reputation. Real love involves a deep understanding and a personal and specific connection to what makes the school special TO YOU.

So if you haven’t already, you gotta do your research. Find out everything you can about that school that is right for YOU and YOUR goals, and will HELP you achieve your goals. Keep your own personal background and pursuits in mind here. Because that school you want, it doesn’t have to be everybody’s soul mate, but in this essay it has to be yours:

What are some of the centers on campus that relate to your goals? What initiatives, events, and research happens there that will benefit you?
What are some special events the school puts together that relate to your goals? Conferences? Visiting professionals? Talks?
Are there clubs that specifically match what you’re working on?
Professors whose work you admire, classes you’re dying to take?
Something about their study abroad or other travel opportunities that speaks to your specific interests?
And then take it one step further: actually reach out to people in those groups/classes/etc. Visit the school and talk to people, sit in on a class, visit with the AdCom. Get as much specific info as you can so you can put it all in your essay and really make it convincing. If you’re writing a love poem to your sweetheart, do you write about their “brown hair” or their “hair the color of roasted chestnuts”? (Ok, both of those are cheesy and cliche, but you get the idea. One is generic, the other shows you are so into them that you not only noticed their hair was brown, but you noticed the exact shade.)

AdComs need to be wooed a little in that way. So when you get all that specific information that proves why you two are perfect together, you can gush about all of it in your application. Explain to the school how, without a doubt, this is the best school for you and you’re the best guy or gal for that school.

–Jon Frank

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-8-25 14:14
NYU Stern MBA essay analysis
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?

We love it when b-schools splinter questions into bite-sized chunks, helps you from going off the rails. Before we rip into it, let’s take a close look at the two words in the NYU Stern MBA Essay prompt above: “Professional Aspirations.” Let’s see through this to figure what they really mean here. As we’ve said countless times before, don’t get trapped by the idea that the “best” aspirations are gonna win this game. An aspiration is only as compelling as the likelihood that it will COME TO FRUITION. Here’s an exaggeration to illustrate a point:

Here’s my aspiration: solve world hunger, establish world peace, implement a perfect corruption-free form of government, make literate those who are illiterate, and lose ten pounds and get ripped, all in one day. Beat that for a goal. The problem here is obvious. While the goal may be lovely, what are anyone’s chances of actually pulling it off? Nil. Are there points for idealism? Maybe. But not in a b-school essay. We need pragmatism over idealism. Accomplishable goals. Goals that are measured, intelligent, and thought-through. This doesn’t mean safe necessarily, but the author of these goals must seem level-headed, and likely to achieve what he sets out to achieve. THAT is what we need to glean from your “personal aspirations.”

Just to hammer it home… it isn’t the aspiration, it’s the argument you make that convinces us that you’re gonna be successful—possibly at this stated goal, but more like, at ANYTHING you set your mind to. You’re gonna “be successful.” You’re gonna get the job ahead of your competitor. That’s attractive to a b-school. Bankability. With that in mind, let’s dig in.

(a) Why pursue an MBA (or dual degree) at this point in your life?

Let’s simplify the hell out of this. Why aren’t you attacking your short-term goal… RIGHT now? Why are you wasting your time with a business school application? Shouldn’t you be pursuing the thing you’re about to write about a billion times over as you lay out your grand vision for your short-term and long-term goals? Seriously, stop for a moment and consider it. There’s no rule that says in order to be successful in the world of business you MUST obtain an MBA. Plenty of people have been wildly successful without one—you know the list. Scrap the MBA for a second; why aren’t you applying for the job you’re eventually gonna talk about for your ST goal? There MUST be a reason you can’t just do it now. Or, that it doesn’t make SENSE to do it now. Articulate that sentence… and let your pen fly. The result will be a perfect starting point to the answer here.

The MBA is weaker when it’s something you think you’ll need to better your lot in life. It should instead feel like a critical means to an end. As soon as I get to the other side, I can make it to Oz. The problem is, there’s a gap between these two cliffs on the order of hundreds of feet. I can’t just run and jump and make it over there. And I can’t fly. I need a bridge to carry me from here to there. The bridge is the MBA. “The other side” is the path that takes you to the endgame. This is how we need to understand your current position: the MBA should feel like a need, not an insurance policy.

(b) What actions have you taken to determine that Stern is the best fit for your MBA experience?

Before we get to the “actions” piece, we’re gonna talk first about “fit.”

Not to sound harsh, but this is consistently the part that most people shank (especially international students who have been fed wildly misleading information that name-dropping and formulaic statements can demonstrate sincere interest in a program). Let’s dispense with that notion right away—the mention of a class, or a professor, or the listing of New York City’s well-known virtues will weigh a grand total of “zero” ounces… without context; specifically, how any of those and other things will affect YOUR ability to achieve your goals.

Think of business school as though it were… bamboo. Consider three students who claim to need/want bamboo to help them somehow. Here’s the BAD way they can explain “fit”:

“I want bamboo because it’s an incredibly cheap, fast-growing, and highly versatile resource.”

Wonderful. This statement applies to every single student on Earth, and is as hollow as the substance itself (“Boom!” as Jon Stewart might say). Let’s do it the right way:

Student 1 – I need to feed a family of four and have very little money to spend on imported foods. Bamboo is easy for me to obtain, and I can cook it and feed my family and never have to worry about what happens the next day because it grows so quickly.

Student 2 – I need to figure out a more cost effective way to provide clothing for my village. Traditional textiles have become prohibitively expensive. Bamboo provides an extremely sustainable and cost-effective solution.

Student 3 – I need to outfit an office building with new flooring, but due to massive budget cuts, are no longer able to afford traditional hard wood material. Cheaper alternatives, while affordable, are not durable. Bamboo floors are a perfect solution: durable, inexpensive, and attractive.

What’s the pattern here? The same substance (bamboo) has been served a COMPLETELY different purpose for each of these three students. The way that NYU affects you should likewise be similarly distinctly different from how it affects the NEXT applicant over. That should be your smell test—read your response here. If what you’ve stated can EASILY apply to another candidate, you can dig deeper and get more specific. Keep doing this over and over again, until it sounds like bamboo (i.e., NYU Stern) was put on this earth by ‘god’ specifically for you and you alone.

But, let’s go back to NYU’s question about “steps you’ve taken.” As you’re explaining the way Stern fits you like a glove, indicate the things you’ve done to discover these attributes and opportunities. Read through their website, sure, but hasn’t everyone? What else? Reached out to an alum, okay, but what else? How about visited the campus? How about attended an info-session? How about met someone who went there? How about studied the work of a former or current professor? What else? Are you really serious about Stern? Or do you consider it a “safety” school? We need to be convinced that you have found NYU to be something of a kindred spirit that has led to deep, earnest research into the program.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-8-27 14:29
Research your school's classes, faculty, and programs to support your goals
Convincing your dream school that you’re the right fit takes some work, but with these three tips you’ll be well on your way:
1.Be clear about YOUR goals. Do you want to go into finance or start your own business? What kind of business? Does the school you’re applying to have a track record in that field? Being specific about your own goals means you’re able to find out how a particular school can help you achieve them – something you’ll want to know for more than just letter-writing purposes.
2.Now that you know your goals, it’s time to do some research. Look into CLASSES, FACULTY, ALUMNI CLUBS, PROGRAMS, and other services the school offers that relate to those goals. You want to convince your school that you KNOW what you’re getting into, and that your time in school will contribute to your success. The more you succeed, the more likely you are to give back to your school years later (and that’s something every school loves and wants!).
3.Don’t just name-drop professors or clubs, CONNECT them to your goals. For example, if you’re looking for a job in banking and there’s a foremost economist working for a school you’re applying to, it’s easy to drop his name. The savvy applicant, however, will RESEARCH that economist’s work and show the school HOW IT RELATES to what HE is doing and wants to do down the road.

So remember:
•Be clear about YOUR goals.
•Research classes, faculty and programs that SUPPORT those goals.
•Don’t name-drop – CONNECT.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-8-29 14:20
NYU STERN MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS
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?

We love it when b-schools splinter questions into bite-sized chunks, helps you from going off the rails. Before we rip into it, let’s take a close look at the two words in the NYU Stern MBA Essay prompt above: “Professional Aspirations.” Let’s see through this to figure what they really mean here. As we’ve said countless times before, don’t get trapped by the idea that the “best” aspirations are gonna win this game. An aspiration is only as compelling as the likelihood that it will COME TO FRUITION. Here’s an exaggeration to illustrate a point:

Here’s my aspiration: solve world hunger, establish world peace, implement a perfect corruption-free form of government, make literate those who are illiterate, and lose ten pounds and get ripped, all in one day. Beat that for a goal. The problem here is obvious. While the goal may be lovely, what are anyone’s chances of actually pulling it off? Nil. Are there points for idealism? Maybe. But not in a b-school essay. We need pragmatism over idealism. Accomplishable goals. Goals that are measured, intelligent, and thought-through. This doesn’t mean safe necessarily, but the author of these goals must seem level-headed, and likely to achieve what he sets out to achieve. THAT is what we need to glean from your “personal aspirations.”

Just to hammer it home… it isn’t the aspiration, it’s the argument you make that convinces us that you’re gonna be successful—possibly at this stated goal, but more like, at ANYTHING you set your mind to. You’re gonna “be successful.” You’re gonna get the job ahead of your competitor. That’s attractive to a b-school. Bankability. With that in mind, let’s dig in.

(a) Why pursue an MBA (or dual degree) at this point in your life?

Let’s simplify the hell out of this. Why aren’t you attacking your short-term goal… RIGHT now? Why are you wasting your time with a business school application? Shouldn’t you be pursuing the thing you’re about to write about a billion times over as you lay out your grand vision for your short-term and long-term goals? Seriously, stop for a moment and consider it. There’s no rule that says in order to be successful in the world of business you MUST obtain an MBA. Plenty of people have been wildly successful without one—you know the list. Scrap the MBA for a second; why aren’t you applying for the job you’re eventually gonna talk about for your ST goal? There MUST be a reason you can’t just do it now. Or, that it doesn’t make SENSE to do it now. Articulate that sentence… and let your pen fly. The result will be a perfect starting point to the answer here.

The MBA is weaker when it’s something you think you’ll need to better your lot in life. It should instead feel like a critical means to an end. As soon as I get to the other side, I can make it to Oz. The problem is, there’s a gap between these two cliffs on the order of hundreds of feet. I can’t just run and jump and make it over there. And I can’t fly. I need a bridge to carry me from here to there. The bridge is the MBA. “The other side” is the path that takes you to the endgame. This is how we need to understand your current position: the MBA should feel like a need, not an insurance policy.

(b) What actions have you taken to determine that Stern is the best fit for your MBA experience?

Before we get to the “actions” piece, we’re gonna talk first about “fit.”

Not to sound harsh, but this is consistently the part that most people shank (especially international students who have been fed wildly misleading information that name-dropping and formulaic statements can demonstrate sincere interest in a program). Let’s dispense with that notion right away—the mention of a class, or a professor, or the listing of New York City’s well-known virtues will weigh a grand total of “zero” ounces… without context; specifically, how any of those and other things will affect YOUR ability to achieve your goals.

Think of business school as though it were… bamboo. Consider three students who claim to need/want bamboo to help them somehow. Here’s the BAD way they can explain “fit”:

“I want bamboo because it’s an incredibly cheap, fast-growing, and highly versatile resource.”

Wonderful. This statement applies to every single student on Earth, and is as hollow as the substance itself (“Boom!” as Jon Stewart might say). Let’s do it the right way:

Student 1 – I need to feed a family of four and have very little money to spend on imported foods. Bamboo is easy for me to obtain, and I can cook it and feed my family and never have to worry about what happens the next day because it grows so quickly.

Student 2 – I need to figure out a more cost effective way to provide clothing for my village. Traditional textiles have become prohibitively expensive. Bamboo provides an extremely sustainable and cost-effective solution.

Student 3 – I need to outfit an office building with new flooring, but due to massive budget cuts, are no longer able to afford traditional hard wood material. Cheaper alternatives, while affordable, are not durable. Bamboo floors are a perfect solution: durable, inexpensive, and attractive.

What’s the pattern here? The same substance (bamboo) has been served a COMPLETELY different purpose for each of these three students. The way that NYU affects you should likewise be similarly distinctly different from how it affects the NEXT applicant over. That should be your smell test—read your response here. If what you’ve stated can EASILY apply to another candidate, you can dig deeper and get more specific. Keep doing this over and over again, until it sounds like bamboo (i.e., NYU Stern) was put on this earth by ‘god’ specifically for you and you alone.

But, let’s go back to NYU’s question about “steps you’ve taken.” As you’re explaining the way Stern fits you like a glove, indicate the things you’ve done to discover these attributes and opportunities. Read through their website, sure, but hasn’t everyone? What else? Reached out to an alum, okay, but what else? How about visited the campus? How about attended an info-session? How about met someone who went there? How about studied the work of a former or current professor? What else? Are you really serious about Stern? Or do you consider it a “safety” school? We need to be convinced that you have found NYU to be something of a kindred spirit that has led to deep, earnest research into the program.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-9-5 10:38
3 MBA Application Mistakes that can Wreck Your Chances
You’ve spent weeks and weeks working on your MBA application. You’ve doubled the number of stress lines on your forehead, your local barista is genuinely concerned about your caffeine intake, and you might be developing carpal tunnel. But it all paid off because your essays are compelling and convincing, and your resume is formatted to perfection.

BUT WAIT.

Before you crack open that celebratory craft beer, let’s go over a few last-minute details for your MBA Application. You’ve already invested so much time (and sanity) in your application, it’d be a shame if the adcom flags your application for something small. We’ve worked with thousands of MBA applications, and we see a lot of the same careless, obvious mistakes.

Before you submit your MBA application, check for these common (and avoidable) mistakes.

1. Careless Errors

First, run through the spelling, grammar, all the standard obvious mistakes. Then, check your SCHOOL NAMES. We see this aaaallll the time. Our guy submits his Wharton application, but all his essays talk about how Duke is the right fit for him. Nothing sparks a red flag faster than having the wrong school names in your essays. Spell check will not catch this, so you’ve got to go through your essays with a fine-toothed comb.

2. Letting Your Recommenders Run the Show

Have you checked in with your recommenders? Do you have an idea of what they’re writing about you? Simply asking them to help is not enough. When it comes to LORs, the adcom isn’t only looking to see what those people say – they know you’re smart enough to choose those recommenders wisely (right?) – they’re also looking to see how you manage a project and another person. This is your chance to prove to the adcom that you’re a good manager. If you can’t get them to submit their stuff on time, it reflects badly on you. So… get out there and manage them! Also, you’ll want to give them a little bit of guidance in terms of what they should focus on in your (RICH!) work experience. Make sure those recommendations support the claims you make elsewhere in your application. The content of your recommendation should confirm what you’ve featured elsewhere in your application, while also bringing some new stuff to the table.

3. Waiting For the Last Minute to Submit

This is the most devastating mistake of them all. Through pain, sweat, and tears, you’ve birthed this beautiful application and now you’re having trouble letting go. So you’re going to wait until the verrrrryyy last minute to submit. What could happen? Well, here are some things that have gone down*:

The website servers are overloaded and can’t process your MBA application. You end up submitting late.
You think the deadline is at 5PM but really it was at 12PM… five hours earlier.
You go to submit your MBA application and your Internet cuts out. Comcast is not sympathetic; neither are adcoms.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-9-9 00:34
MIT SLOAN MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS
The mission of the MIT Sloan School of Management is to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world and generate ideas that advance management practice. Discuss how you will contribute toward advancing the mission based on examples of past work and activities. (500 words or fewer, limited to one page)

The MIT Sloan MBA essay is not a goals essay. Yes, they are asking you about what you will do “in the future” toward advancing their mission, but, they want the evidence to come from prior experiences. Now, before we get all twisted up, let’s simplify it and cut to the heart of it.

Where in your past should we look to be wowed?

What are the moments (either or both inside and outside of work) where we catch a glimpse of something SPECIAL about you? Run-of-the-mill isn’t gonna excite anyone, folks—especially not the ultra-elite like MIT. So, it’s gotta be stuff that’s frickin AWESOME. They’ve done you a favor (hopefully) by limiting your choices to something that has occurred in the past three years. If you’ve read our stuff, attended our webinars, met our guys, you’ll have heard us allude to “assembling your greatest hits.” Well, this is a perfect example of when you’ll wanna be familiar with only the COOLEST things in your personal repertoire, and figure out how to answer this question from there, rather than let this question be the driver of you.

Once you’ve selected the stuff that makes your special sauce shine the MOST (aim for two examples, maaaaybe three, but that may be stretching it), now you’ll wanna engineer this sucker to wow MIT. Don’t come out and state plainly that aspect X of your achievement shows how principled and innovative you are. Show it. How?

Here’s a “thought exercise” to help you tease out possibilities.

Consider ways in which someone ELSE in your shoes may have approached the SAME task in a way that was UN-principled, or LESS principled. And in the same vein, not-so-innovative or LESS innovative. Surely you can imagine this, otherwise your example may not be the best one.

Let’s look at it another way.

Go back to the starting point of the task/example. Imagine someone looking in on this from a distance. Imagine this person PREDICTING how one would solve this problem/approach it. Hopefully, they’d say something like “well, in this scenario, I would expect for you to do X, Y and Z in order to achieve this thing.” But then something much cooler happens. You do what you did, and it SURPRISES THAT PERSON. How? Because you did something that was remarkably “innovative.” And remarkably “principled.” And it makes that guy say “Hunh, I’m impressed by the way you handled this in such an innovative and principled way.” What did you do that would have surprised that guy?

If you look at it using either or both of these hypothetical ways, you may be able to isolate the “thing” that made your example (and therefore you) special.

Here’s how it might look:

Establish the problem, situation, status quo, etc. Establish the goals. Establish the challenges.
Rather than robotically walk us through the stuff you DID, here (for MIT), be sure to incorporate some insight into decisions you made that went above and beyond “what the other guy would have done.” Show us how you could have done X but chose to do Y. Or, that normally the approach here would have been A but YOU chose to do something innovative by doing B.
Rinse and repeat with a second example.
As a final “tag” to this essay, take a few sentences to articulate why this stuff matters to you, and how this instinct (of being principled/innovative/etc.) underscores everything you do, and is a big reason you’ve been successful in the past, and why it’s gonna make you successful in the future. Let us taste it. Connect all this past greatness to something in the future that creates in itch in us to want to share in your success.

作者: xperilla 时间: 2014-9-10 17:05
Jon, hi! I have a question here. My IR score of Gmat is super low, only 1. Do I need to write an optional essay to explain it? Do AO value IR very much now?

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-9-11 09:58
Don't use the same essays for every application. Rewrite and reuse wisely
1.Don’t “fix up” an essay for a different question. If School #1 asks you for a 500-word essay on your long-term goals and School #2 asks you for 250 words on why you want to join THEIR school, avoid the urge to “squeeze” your first essay to fit the second question. You’ll spend just as much time editing it to fit the new requirements as you would writing a new one. Furthermore, since the questions asked are different, you won’t deliver YOUR BEST work with unrelated material.
2.Never “fill in the blanks.” Likewise, if you DO have to answer two similar questions, never “fill in the blanks” by changing a school’s name. It’s a surefire road to embarrassing mistakes – you don’t want to accidentally tell Harvard that Yale is your dream school.
3.Rewrite stories. Instead, your best bet is to rewrite your story a second time – keep in mind all of the lessons you’ve learned during your previous application but start fresh. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you can tackle a topic the second, third, or fourth time—and most of the time, you’ll write an even better essay.
4.Reuse sentences. Ok, so you don’t wanna reuse entire essays, but if you’ve written a particularly brilliant turn of phrase, there’s no reason NOT to reuse it. Just stick to individual sentences instead of entire paragraphs.
5.Tired? Try something new. If you’re truly stuck, however, it may be time to find a new topic. While your short-term and long-term goals will stay the same, some essay questions are more open-ended. You don’t NEED to use the same failure story each time; if you’re suffering from writer’s block, your best bet is sometimes to try a new approach and a different story.

So remember:
•Don’t “fix up” an essay for a different question.
•Never “fill in the blanks.”
•Rewrite stories
•Reuse sentences, not entire paragraphs.
•Tired? Try something new.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-9-14 23:21
LBS MBA Essay analysis
What are your post-MBA plans and how will your past experience and the London Business School programme contribute? (500 words)

If you look at the 2014 version of this question (“What will your future look like after completing your MBA?”) and compare it to this year’s slightly tweaked version (“What are your post-MBA plans and how will your past experience and the London Business School programme contribute?”), it’s not hard to catch the vapors coming off of the LBS adcom:

“Let’s just ask the question we wanna ask a bit more directly…”

What does this mean for you as the applicant? Give them what they want: a clear, precise, well-argued case for what you hope to succeed in, and why you will be successful (based on your past experiences combined with an LBS MBA). That’s all, folks. If you accomplish those two things, everything extra (“a novel idea,” “a big goal with big upside,” “a socially-responsible and inspiring vision,” etc.) will be just that… “extra.”

Most people will miss the KEY to this essay, by packing too much stuff in. Slow down, take it one simple step at a time, and get the key stuff NAILED down first (you’ll be 98% done at that point).

Now, here’s the danger of going too far with Part I of the question (the GOAL part) without considering how Part II supports it. If you pitch an incredible idea/vision for the future, but have limited ability to back it up with evidence in your past experiences that convinces us that you have the necessary chops to execute on that idea… the idea may sound tasty, but it won’t be worth the risk for an elite MBA program. Remember, elite MBA programs rely on PLACEMENT statistics. Things like “how many students from the graduating class end up… employed” end up making XXX dollars in their first X years out of school, etc. Why? This affects their rankings, and rankings affect the caliber of student drawn to their program–which in turn affects the school’s ability to churn out success stories that juice those stats that then improve rankings and the future caliber of… you see how the cycle works.

So, MBA programs prefer SURE THINGS to high-volatility applicants. Given all that, the best chance you have of proving future success is to point to evidence in your PAST of success in a similar arena. Now, typically this means success in ROLE and INDUSTRY X and then pitching future success that is essentially an EXTENSION of those two things. If you’re a marketing maven, then you may have a hard time painting a picture of yourself as a logistics whiz. “Why should we believe that you will be successful here?” they will ask. This is why industry/career switches tend to be red flags, unless you’re able to convincingly draw a crystal clear connection between your success in the past and your future goals.

Start there: looking back at your career, what have you done? What have you achieved? What are you good at? What MAKES you good at the things you’re good at? Isolate it, sharpen in, be able to describe this to someone in ONE sentence. “I’m the guy who can mobilize a team of 50 people on ten continents.” “I’m the guy who can take ten department’s confused and contradictory initiatives, and seamlessly cohere it into a winning, universally beneficial, perfectly aligned strategy.” “I’m the guy who…” Find evidence in your past. Be messy at first, list ten chaotic forms of support. But then sharpen it, boil it down to three defining MOMENTS. Three episodes, where your actions PAINT A PICTURE of the value you brought.

Once you have that piece LOCKED, now we can cook up a “plan” that is a mouth-watering EXTENSION of it. Now we’re willing to go wherever you take us. If you’re Elon Musk, and you give us your resume, you better believe we will be interested when you tell us “I have an idea for how to revolutionize public transportation in third world countries.” If your background is in sales, however, we’re less interested in your Big Idea.

As you’re building your “post-MBA plans,” focus less on the flash of the idea, and more on the strategy behind EXECUTING it. Show us how well-thought-out the plan is. Do this with detail. Do this with evidence that walks us through how each step is necessary for the next one. Practical, pragmatic, bulletproof. This is the plan that excites MBA adcoms. You want them to say “this guy is gonna be successful.” Or “this guy has success written all over him.”

You don’t want them to say “Wow, this is an absolutely brilliant and inspired idea! … I’m just not entirely sure he’s gonna pull it off.” That reaction is potentially a death sentence.

Here’s the structure that’ll keep you very safe for your first pass:

Hit us with a high-level sense of what kind of ISSUE or PROBLEM you hope to fix. Or an OPPORTUNITY you’re hoping to take advantage of. Quickly provide this background (sentence or two, max). Explain why solving this (or executing on the opportunity) isn’t easy. Explain why this hasn’t been done a million times successfully already. Then explain (super high-level) what your idea is. What your big picture plans are.
Now take us through the story of how this all came into play. What’s the backstory? Where did you start, where did you cut your teeth? And most importantly, show us the evidence as you take us through the KEY NODES of your past, of your value. Don’t just rehash your resume. Present value-defining ACTIONS that made it very clear what made/makes you valuable.
Now that we’re sold on how credible you are in this arena, give us a more detailed walk-through of your plans, showing us exactly how you plan on achieving each step. Details, specificity, show us how much thought went into it by convincing us that there are no holes.
Last but not least, spend just a little bit of time making an argument for why LBS of all the business schools on Earth provides a few UNIQUE opportunities to propel you toward success. Don’t explain that it’s a good b-school, or that you’re interested in LBS. You need to isolate just a few idiosyncrasies of the LBS offerings/class/setup that somehow IMPROVES the probability that you will success as compared to, say, HBS, Stanford, or Wharton. The coolest test to give yourself (embrace this conceit!) is to imagine getting offer letters from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton and LBS. Make a case for why you would TURN DOWN the other three and go with LBS. All it takes is two or three bulletproof reasons and you’re home free.

作者: catcatmiao 时间: 2014-9-15 15:29
Jon Frank is professional , I love you thank you so much for sharing experiences

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-9-16 22:10
Highlight your accomplishment with simple language and hard evidence

If you’re applying to a top-ranked school, you’ll almost certainly have impressive academic and professional achievements under your belt. Unfortunately, too many applicants either brag about or undermine their achievements in their essays, doing more harm than good. Here are a couple of sentences from a prospective applicant that attempts to demonstrate his can-do attitude but doesn’t quite measure up:

In the record 70 days that it took to reorganize operations, I had to think outside the box and work within limited resources: operating out my apartment, and even sometimes, my car. Without disrupting company procedure too much, I tried to make the most of shared resources among EchoRinse companies.

Let’s begin with some questions: what did this applicant even do? We know he reorganized operations, but what does that mean in this context? Why did he have to work out of his car? Finally, what did he accomplish and can he prove it?

The first thing this needs is a point… an accomplishment that justifies even mentioning this story. By telling us what he did and what he accomplished, these sentences can go from obtuse claims covered in jargon to a powerful demonstration of the writer’s abilities. Furthermore, it can shift his bizarre aside about working out of his car into a new light.

Take a look at what he sent us back after our comments…

In the record seventy days I took to reorganize EchoRinse’s operations (20% ahead of schedule and 10% under budget), I had to find creative solutions to such problems as our lack of office space. Working from my home and even occasionally from my car, I not only set up our Indiana branch but also used company resources to ensure we’d have 7.3M$ contracts from clients such as Whaley Motors from day one.

What a difference. We now know what he did (found office space and negotiated contracts) which justifies his working out of his car. We also have hard numbers, which not only PROVE how big of an accomplishment this is but also make it seem EVEN MORE impressive. Finally, he uses simple language so we understand EXACTLY what is happening. With these quick changes, this accomplishment has gone from puzzling to perfect.

So remember:

Find the accomplishment behind the story.
Use numbers to back up your claims.
Use direct language.
Avoid using jargon to cover up a lack of clear information.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-9-18 22:16
Northwestern Kellogg MBA Essays are looking for character
Resilience. Perseverance. Grit. Call it what you will…. Challenges can build character. Describe a challenging experience you’ve had. How were you tested? What did you learn? (450 words)

What this is… is a great question. Before we dig into how to answer it, let’s soak up all the hints first. Why would Kellogg make mention of “resilience, perseverance, and grit” unless those were things they valued (and are therefore looking for specifically in would-be MBAs)? Whatever your story, whatever your challenge, if they don’t lead to the development or sharpening of those things in particular, you’ve missed the purpose of this prompt. In other words, if the conclusion of your essay is “and this is an amazing example that shows how smart and capable a leader I am,” you’ve missed it. The conclusion you want is “I was pushed well outside my comfort zone, but learned over and over that even the most awkward, unpleasant, direct lines of communication are always more effective than the alternatives.”

“Building” character. Let’s consider that word a bit. When you build a house, you don’t use a crane to drop a magically pre-assembled house onto the foundation. In other words it doesn’t from no-house to… house, with the snap of your fingers. You lay that sucker brick by brick, nail by nail. It’s a process. It’s linear. The experience you describe for this essay must show development, which means there’s a difference between the Before & After picture. Before this episode, there were certain assumptions you relied on in your approach. Or there were certain go-to leadership tactics. Or there were certain principles you had held steadfastly to. Whatever the “thing” is, it needs to have EVOLVED somehow through this experience. We wanna know what it used to be. What happened to “test” it. And how it changed.

This is important. If there wasn’t a shift in your tactical algorithm, a change in your philosophy, a renewed sense of … something, your story is gonna feel like a fleshed out resume bullet point. Instead, we need to see an EVOLUTION from how you were or behaved or viewed things BEFORE this event to how you then were or behaved or viewed things DIFFERENTLY ON ACCOUNT of this event. Identify those things before you begin, and the rest will be easy.

This is what I was like before the experience: XXX
This is the aspect of this experience that challenged that: YYY
That original approach/way of being/understanding of ABC, failed, forcing me to learn something new. That thing was: ZZZ
This is my NEW understanding, my NEW approach (if not new, modified, evolved, etc.)
Once you have that locked and loaded, now we can begin delivering this thing with some punch. (Easy, once the STORY points are solid.)

You have a few choices for how to OPEN this.

Option 1 is to present us with the BEFORE version of you. Explain how you viewed something, or how you would typically behave in Situation X. Then introduce the event/situation that tested that approach. Show how it didn’t quite work, forcing you to learn something new… and take it from there. Or,
Option 2 is to drop us directly into the SITUATION. This was the background, these were the objectives, these were the challenges, and this is what was at stake. Then you can walk us through “this is how I was accustomed to approaching it: XYZ. Well, that approach imploded. Uh oh.” And it goes from there, and you talk about how you had to “learn” whatever it is you learned.
In either case, you’ll eventually get up the point where you’re walking us through the execution of the event in real-time. (Don’t tell it with hindsight bias–one trick is to write in the present tense, as though it’s happening now. This will help you not to layer analysis in too prematurely. We want to know understand the gear-churning as it happened, We want to see how you and when you were confused, frustrated, angry, vulnerable, etc. Hindsight bias has a nasty way of whitewashing all of that stuff.)
Now we get to the analysis piece. This is the part where you walk us through what the change was in you, and grapple with what you gained from it, and why it’s significant. If the lesson doesn’t have future implications… who cares. Let’s see why this will positively affect you in the long term.
The key to this essay is to develop a clear picture in your head of Before & After. The sharper the contrast there, the more something in you was TESTED, the better. If the challenge here didn’t force you to step outside your comfort zone, walk into unchartered territories, cause you to feel anxious ever, etc. then you may not have the most appropriate example. This isn’t a question about a time you were placed in a perfect situation and were able to shine from start to finish. There need to be bumps. Times you QUESTIONED others, and most importantly YOURSELF. The more you’re able to puncture your self-confidence, and question your own sense of right and wrong, the better.
Leadership requires an ability to collaborate with and motivate others. Describe a professional experience that required you to influence people. What did this experience teach you about working with others, and how will it make you a better leader? (450 words)

Again, let’s pay attention to the hints. They could have just asked about a leadership experienced, right? Instead, they define leadership as they see it, using words like “collaborate” and “motivate” and “influence.” There’s also a hint in the word “teach” – it implies that you STRETCHED somehow through this experience to grow your sense of collaboration, teamwork, leadership, etc. What does that mean? Well, it means that if you didn’t LEARN anything on account of this experience, it’s not gonna pack as much punch. People who are able to demonstrate the way in which they learned something tend to more likely to have internalized that idea than those who have difficulty remembering what it was like “before they learned the lesson.” This requires… humility. It requires the uncomfortable exercise of traveling back in time to the moment BEFORE you “gained” something. To a time where maybe you WEREN’T quite as sharp, or talented, or effective as a leader. If you can remember that time, and you can remember the moment that changed, and if you can examine why things changed, it all adds up to a guy who has limitless potential to learn, improve, and succeed. It may surprise you to learn that MAJORITY of the essays we read do NOT initially convey this. It takes hard work to confront the way you were BEFORE you improved.

So let’s hop into our Deloreans and zip backwards in time. Now, you’ve heard us talk about choosing your stories carefully, and grabbing only from your greatest hits (as opposed to answering these questions so literally that you ill-advisedly choose the 7th most impressive story in your repertoire simply because it seems to answer the question better—don’t do this!). Once you’ve chosen your BEST leadership story, before you begin shaping your response, we need to identify a few key pieces:

What aspect of leadership and collaboration was NEW to you in this experience? There must have been a moment when one of your previously-held beliefs was called into question. Or a tactic you were comfortable with failed, or was ineffective. Or a moment where you simply didn’t know what to do. Something OTHER THAN… it all went exactly according to plan before you were perfect from the start. This won’t give Kellogg any sense that you have a bend to your learning curve potential. The capacity to stretch, and proactively seek improvement. So, dig deep here and figure out where there was a shift. An evolution. A surprise. Something.
Now, consider TWO separate scenarios: Scenario 1 is how the experience would have played out according to your PREVIOUSLY-HELD assumptions, or familiar tactics, whatever the “Before” version of you was. Extrapolate how it would have ended, what the collaboration/teamwork would have looked like, etc. Scenario 2 is how the experience ACTUALLY turned out, given that there was a slight SHIFT in your abilities as a leader, because presumably, you learned to do or try something different. This version HAS to be more compelling somehow—ON ACCOUNT OF that thing you picked up along the way. Considering these two scenarios will help you isolate exactly what the difference was in YOUR leadership tactics that led to gelling your team more successfully. We’re interested in the DELTA here folks. We wanna know that YOU know how sensitive leadership tactics can be. And that minor shifts can lead to major differences in outcome.
Once you have these two pieces licked, now you can start building a compelling narrative. Structurally, fairly straightforward:

Start with setting the scene, acquainting us with what the objective was, what the team looked like, all that table-setting stuff.
Now, acquaint us with how you were USED to handling this type of objective. In other words, what was your default approach to LEADING THIS TEAM specifically? Explain what that approach was and why you believed that it would be effective. (Don’t be afraid to be partially correct here, or even wrong!)
Finally, explain what happened along the way that caused you to call this tactic into question, or to MODIFY it, such that it forced an evolution in your understanding of what makes teamwork truly click? Initially, simply explain it in a very straightforward way, just tell us what happened, so we know.
Now, in the final section, you can analyze and dig into the “whys.” Here you’ll wanna explore what makes leaders effective, and try to sell us on why these new insights (gained from this experience) will make you even MORE effective than you had been. What are the applications of this lesson beyond this one story? What else are you eager to learn?

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-9-22 23:43
QUICK TIPS TO A BETTER STORY
When you’re writing an essay, proper structure is essential. Like the foundation of a high-rise building, your story’s structure is what keeps all of your content organized and in place, supporting it for maximum impact. That’s why we’re here with this refresher’s guide to basic story structure.

Whether you’re retelling a heartbreaking failure, an inspiring story of leadership, or the origins of your long-term goals, the secret to a great essay is storytelling. If you can hook the reader with a good story and back it up with impressive facts, you’ll have knocked the essay portion of your application out of the park. It’s harder than it looks, but with these quick tips, you’ll be well on your way to attention grabbing stories:

Hook ‘em from the start: Your first line should be your BEST line – hook the reader with an attention-grabbing introduction and he’s guaranteed to keep reading. Your first line can be funny, surprising, impressive, or all of the above – just don’t make it boring.
Introduce the problem: Once you’ve written your first line, it’s time to introduce the topic of your essay proper. The reader should know EXACTLY what your essay is about by your third or fourth sentence. Wait any longer and you risk confusing the reader…and totally losing them.
Show us your thought process: In addition to describing physical events, describe how those events made you FEEL. Imagine describing a stressful presentation: you not only need to describe the crowd, the room temperature and the bright lights, but also how those things made you FEEL. Writing about how you felt during a situation will allow your readers to relate to the situation, providing them with insight into your thought process.
Don’t make it too easy: No one likes Superman because everyone KNOWS that he’s going to win – he’s Superman! So instead of portraying yourself as an academic or corporate badass, show us YOUR STRUGGLES. A story is far more relatable if we see the protagonist’s efforts to resolve the conflict rather than seeing him solve the problem without breaking a sweat. Imagine James Cameron’s Titanic if the captain just gingerly avoided the iceberg – not much of a movie, is it?
Bring it full circle: Tie your conclusion to your introduction. This will remind the reader of your AWESOME intro AND sum up the points you made throughout your essay.
So remember:

Hook ‘em from the start.
Introduce the problem.
Show us your thought process.
Don’t make it too easy.
Bring it full circle.

作者: JonFrank 时间: 2014-9-28 10:08
Be detailed in your thought process but brief with technical jargon
Knowing when to add detail to a story and when to be brief is an art in itself. While there’s no substitute for practice and experience, there are a few key rules to keep in mind when structuring an essay to avoid wasting space on content that won’t benefit your application.

Detail is like cholesterol: there’s the good kind and the bad kind. The good kind adds depth to your story, giving the reader insight into your thought process and proving your claims. The bad kind is dry, technical material with no emotional resonance that causes the reader’s attention to drift. Follow these quick tips, however, and you’ll be certain that your essay is 100% killer and 0% filler.

DON’T get technical. TECHNICAL details should be kept to a minimum. Detailed programming or engineering specifications are meaningless to most readers and serve only to blunt the emotional impact of your story, making it seem long-winded and boring. If it sounds like dialogue on Star Trek, it’s almost definitely worth cutting out. Here’s an example of how NOT to write about a technical problem: “Because the motherboard was over-heating, it became necessary to increase our cooling system in a way that didn’t require an increase in voltage. Running a full hardware scan, it became evident that our previous attempts to patch the bug in the XR8’s software hadn’t done the job and a full recode was in order.”
Tell us what you felt at the time. On the other hand, detail that tells us “how you felt” or your “thought process” during an event is almost always worth including. This material both allows the reader to connect with you emotionally and, by detailing out the reasons for your action, you can PROVE all of the qualities you claim to have. Take this sentence for example: “Despite working on this project for 24 consecutive hours, I wasn’t ready to give up; I was determined to hand in a final build in time and when I finally rendered the last file, I knew it had all been worth it.”
Quantify your achievements. While it’s important NOT to get technical, you SHOULD use numbers when it comes to backing up your claims. Don’t just tell the reader that you “earned a bonus,” let him know that “after raising company profits 15%, you were promoted to senior management, earning a 10% raise to become the fastest rising employee in company history.”
So remember:

Don’t get technical.
Do tell us how you felt at the time.
Do quantify your achievements.

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