Columbia MBA Essay Analysis, Essay 1

JonFrank

Hey Guys, today I want to share the essay analysis of Columbia (Essay 1). Later I will also post the essay analysis for other essay topics of Columbia and also for other schools As always, if you have a question about your application, feel free to leave a comment here or send me a private message here or on Wechat. I'm happy to help!

Through your resume and recommendations, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals going forward, and how will the Columbia MBA help you achieve them? (100-750 words)  

Same question as last year, only instead of a 500 word maximum, you’ve got anywhere between 100-750 words to work with.

This is mostly a standard goals and school fit essay. But they make an effort to try to keep you off of the resume dump approach. Now, there IS a way to slip in some of your achievements, but only because the good version of this will strengthen the “how CBS will help” piece.

In order to explain where you fall short, and therefore why you need CBS to help fill the gaps, we need to know where you excel. So, in THAT context, you can explain what you’re great at, and how it relates to your goals. But it’s all in service of the moment when you reveal that there are key gaps in your skill set.

Be specific here. The more specific you are about the thing you’re missing, the better able you’ll be to tie CBS specifically to addressing those gaps best.

orange_wm

Thx for sharing!

Alicexxl

Hi Jon,
Thanks for sharing!
I have had similar PS questions here. A program asks me to include in a PS "career objections, skills I have already had, and what do I hope to gain from the program and why it helps". Do I need to point out gaps in my knowledge and skills specifically in this case?
For example:
gaps--what the program provides--why it helps

As I try not to emphasize too much on my weaknesses, I use structure as follow:
I want to gain improvements in xxx(a simple sentence)---what the program provides--why it helps

JonFrank

Alicexxl 发表于 2017-12-12 15:49
Hi Jon,
Thanks for sharing!
I have had similar PS questions here. A program asks me to include in a  ...

Hey there,
Yes! I definitely helps to lay our specific knowledge and skills you NEED that are related to your goals. As for your example, it seems like a good start, but it is a bit brief for me to exactly that that would be an outline you should go with. But I do think you have the general idea.

Don’t forget to also give your BEST achievements when you write about your career past.

Best,
Jon Frank