admissions to HBS\Wharton\Stanford

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Admissions Tip: HBS Essay #2
Here are some very basic tips on how to approach one of the HBS essays.  (The following information has been taken from Clear Admit's Guide to HBS Essay Topics):

Essay 2: What are your three most substantial accomplishments, and why do you view them as such?
Spend a little time thinking about this question to find a good balance in your accomplishments.  These accomplishments can be from any part of your life - though time-wise, they should probably be from college or after.  There should be at least one professional accomplishment, and at least one personal/extracurricular accomplishment.  A good mix might be one professional accomplishment; one personal (individual) accomplishment - it could be academic, perhaps; and one extracurricular/community service accomplishment.  If you decide to use two professional accomplishments, they should ideally be from two different jobs.  
  
Be sure to choose accomplishments that fit into your positioning strategy, and are consistent with the themes of your whole application.  For instance, if you are trying to demonstrate your talent as a marketer, your professional accomplishment should be about a marketing project.  They should not be things that most of the other applicants could also write about - graduation from college, for instance - unless the circumstances surrounding the accomplishment are truly noteworthy (for example, you were the first in your family to attend college and worked full-time while attending to pay for tuition).

Because the question has a second part - "why do you view them as such?" - you should focus on accomplishments that have had an impact on you, or ones whose significance can be explained concretely.  erhaps you had to overcome significant obstacles to achievement, or perhaps you learned something new about yourself or your preferred career direction.

In essence you will be writing several mini-essays to answer this question, although some of the best 'accomplishments' essays manage to weave them all together.  Before you write a draft, work on figuring out how to state each accomplishment in 1-2 sentences; it should be completely clear what you consider to be the achievement.  After you are able to state the accomplishment briefly, describe the process of the achievement.  Finally, make sure you are explicit about what makes each one a significant accomplishment: what is personally important about it, what did you have to overcome in the process, why is it valuable to you?

snow_mountain

thanks  a  lot.

pengstone

好东东

fengyun1

太好了。不知道哪儿有有关其他essay的这么详细地分析？

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Stanford MBA Program essays from Assistant Dean and Director of MBA Admissions

Director's Corner

In last month’s Director’s Corner, I explained my sincere belief that you benefit from the business school application experience  – regardless of the outcome of the process.  Because essay writing demands so much of your focused energy and time, it can be most difficult to maintain your perspective during what is probably one of the most contemplative periods of your life.  Stanford professor Bill Damon’s most recent book, The Moral Advantage: How to Succeed in Business by Doing the Right Thing, contained a passage that might help you maintain the larger context as you delve into the essay-writing process:

We are not always aware of the forces that ultimately move us.  While focusing on the “how” questions – how to survive, how to get ahead, how to make a name for ourselves – often we forget the “why” questions that are more essential for finding and staying on the best course: Why pursue this objective? Why behave in this manner? Why aspire to this kind of life? Why become this type of person?

These “why” questions help us realize our highest aspirations and our truest interests.  To answer these questions well, we must decide what matters most to us, what we will be able to contribute to in our careers, what are the right (as opposed to the wrong) ways of behaving as we aim toward this end, and, ultimately, what kind of persons we want to become.  Because everyone, everywhere, wants to live an admirable life, a life of consequence, the “why” questions cannot be ignored for long without great peril to one’s personal stability and enduring success. It is like ignoring the rudder on a ship – no matter how much you look after all the boat’s other moving parts, you may end up lost at sea.

The two Stanford MBA Program essays provide you a structured opportunity to reflect on your own “truest interests” and “highest aspirations”.  The essays, along with the letters of reference, are a vital part of the application process.  While the letters of reference are stories about you told by others, the essays enable you to tell us who you are by articulating what matters most to you and why, as well as how you have decided you can best contribute to society. Please think of the Stanford essays as conversations on paper – each time we read a file, we feel that we meet a person, also known as our “flat friends” – and tell us your story in a straightforward, sincere way.

The most important piece of advice on the essays is extremely simple: answer the questions - each component of each question. An additional suggestion for writing essays is equally straightforward: think – a lot; then write. We ask about your values, passions, ideas, experiences, and aspirations – and what kind of person you wish the Stanford MBA Program to help you become. Reflective, insightful essays help us envision the individual behind all of the experiences and accomplishments that we read about elsewhere in your application. Your essays are not the entirety of your application: we are reading them with all the information contained in your application as part of a holistic process. Please remember that the admission process for the Stanford MBA Program focuses on intangibles: character and competence, with an emphasis on character. Our goal is to understand what motivates you and how you have become the person you are today.

In the first essay, tell a story – and tell a story that only you can tell. This essay should be descriptive and told in a straightforward and sincere way. This probably sounds strange, given that these are essays for business school, but we don’t necessarily expect to hear about your business experience in this essay (though, of course, you are free to write about whatever you would like). Remember that we have your entire application – work history, letters of reference, etc. – to learn what you have accomplished and the type of impact you have made. Your task is to connect the people, situations, and events in your life with the values you adhere to and the choices you have made – and then to communicate that through your essay. In other words, the essays give you a terrific opportunity to learn about yourself!  While many good essays describe the "what", great essays move to the next order and describe how and why these things have influenced your life. The most common mistake applicants make is spending too much time describing the what and not enough time describing how and why these guiding forces have shaped your behavior, attitudes, and objectives in your personal and professional lives. We do appreciate and reward thoughtful self-assessment and appropriate levels of self-disclosure.

In the second essay, please remember that there are three distinct parts to this question (you do not need to answer them separately as long as all three are addressed within your essay). First, we ask you to provide us with a sense of your passions and your focused interests – what you hope to contribute in your career in the short term and in the long term. You don't need to have your entire life planned, but applicants often find it difficult to address why an MBA is required to achieve your goals if the goals themselves are ill-defined. You should be honest, with yourself and with us, in explaining what you aspire to achieve. Then, please explain why, of all the choices in your life at this time, pursuing an MBA is the best way for you to achieve your personal and professional aspirations. Describe why an MBA is the right way for you to progress toward your professional aim and to develop into the person you seek to become. Finally, explain why you believe that Stanford is the right MBA program to help you reach your goals.

I’d like to address a couple of myths. First, one of the most good-spirited but misguided pieces of advice is "Tell the admissions committee what makes you unique" in your essays. This often leads applicants to believe that you need to have accomplishments or feats that are unusual or different than your peers (e.g., traveling to an exotic place or talking about a tragic situation in your life). How are you to know which of your experiences are unique when you know neither the backgrounds of the other applicants nor the topics they have chosen? What makes you unique is not that you have had these life-altering experiences, but rather how and why your perspective has changed or been reinforced as a result of those and other everyday experiences. That is a story that only you can tell. If you concentrate your efforts on telling us who you are, differentiation will occur naturally; if your goal is to appear unique, you may achieve the opposite effect. Please remember that most Stanford MBAs have excelled by doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Second, there is a widespread myth that if you have stupendous essays, you can compensate for an otherwise unconvincing application; and that if you don’t have amazing essays, you won’t be admitted even if you are a compelling applicant. Please be assured that we try to give the benefit of the doubt to the applicant rather than to the application. This means that we will admit someone despite the application essays if we feel we’ve gotten a good sense of the person overall. And the corollary is true: even the best essays will not result in admission for an uncompelling applicant.  Yes, the essays are important. But they are neither our only avenue of understanding you, nor are they disproportionately influential in the admission process.

Alumnus Leo Linbeck, MBA ’94 told me on an alumni panel in Houston a couple of years ago something that I have since appropriated. Leo said that, in management terms, the Stanford essays are not a marketing exercise – they are an accounting exercise. This is not an undertaking in which you look at an audience/customer (i.e., the Admissions Committee) and then write what you believe we want to hear. It is quite the opposite. This is a process in which you look inside yourself and try to express most clearly what is there. We are trying to get a good sense of your perspectives, your passion for leadership, and how Stanford can help you realize your goals. As professor Damon would say, we are helping you ensure that your rudder steers you to the right port.

Derrick Bolton
Assistant Dean and Director of MBA Admissions

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HBS Essays for 2004-2005
1. Describe a significant change that you brought about in an organization and its impact on your development as a leader. (400-word limit)

2. What are your three most substantial accomplishments, and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)

3. Provide a candid assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. (400-word limit)

4. How do you define success? (400-word limit)

5. What are your career aspirations, and how can an MBA help you reach them? Why now? (400-word limit)

6. What do you wish the MBA Admissions Board had asked you? (400-word limit)

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Wharton Essays for 2004-2005
Required Essays for All New Applicants*
1.       Required: Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect an MBA from Wharton to help you achieve these goals and why now? (1,000 words)

2.       Required: Describe an impact you’ve had on an individual, group or organization. How has this experience been valuable to you or others? (500 words)

Required: Please complete two of the following three questions (500 words):

Describe when you were part of a team where the group process and/or intended outcome failed. What did you learn?

Describe a situation where your values, ethics, or morals were challenged. How did you handle the situation?

o        Describe a personal characteristic or something in your background that will help the Admissions Committee to know you better.

Optional: If you feel there are extenuating circumstances of which the Committee should be aware, please explain them here (e.g., unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, inconsistent or questionable academic performance, significant weaknesses in your application). (250 words)

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最新全球顶尖商学院申请截止日期（2004-2005）
1. Harvard Business School*

Deadline                                Round I                   Round II                  Round III

Application deadline                Oct 13                     Jan 5                     March 9

Decisions mailed                    Jan 19                   March 30                   May 4

2. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)*

Deadline                          Round I                 Round II                       Round III

Application deadline          Oct 14                  Jan 6                             Mar 17

* The deadlines are 5 p.m. EST and for the 2004-2005 application season.

3. UC Berkeley (Haas)*

Deadline                          Round I         Round II         Round III               Round IV

Application deadline*        Oct 29          Dec 10            Jan 21                   Mar 4

Decisions mailed              Jan 31          Mar 18            May 2                   May 31

* The GMAT and TOEFL must be taken by the application deadline

4. Columbia (GSB)*

Deadline                  Early Decision    January Admission**   U.S. Citizens*    International*

Application deadline    Oct 11                       Oct 1                   April 20             March 1

Columbia notifies applicants of the admissions decisions within 4 to 12 weeks of receipt of the completed application.

* Admission for September 2005 entrance.

** International student deadline for January admission and priority deadline is Oct 1. The deadline for U.S. citizens and permanent residents is Oct 11.

5. Virginia (Darden)*

Deadline                      Early Action         Round I            Round II              Round III

Application deadline*     Oct 27                  Dec 1             Jan 12                 Mar 1

Decisions mailed          Dec 24                 Feb 11             Mar 25                Apr 29

* Interview must be completed by the application deadline.

6. Duke University (Fuqua)*

Deadline                    Round I                    Round II             Round III             Round IV

Application deadline    Nov 1                      Jan 3                    Feb 1                Mar 15

Decisions made         Dec 16                     Feb 17                Mar 24                May 12

Deposit due               May 2                      May 2                  May 2                 June 1

7. Stanford University (GSB)*

Deadline                        Round I                   Round II                      Round III

Application deadline        Oct 28                     Jan 6                         Mar 17

Interviews             early Nov - mid Jan         mid Jan - late Mar     late Mar - mid May

Decisions mailed*           Jan 18                     Mar 31                       May 12

* Most of the time, Stanford's notifications are made before the published deadline.

8. NYU (Stern)*

Deadline                                      Round I*                 Round II                   Round III

Application deadline                        Dec 1                  Jan 15                       Mar 15

GMAT/TOEFL taken by                 Feb 15                   Apr 1                         June 1

Notification by                              Feb 15                   Apr 1                         June 1

* Priority deadline for merit scholarships and/or off-campus interviews

9. MIT (Sloan)*      

Deadline                                                Round I*             Round II                 LFM/BEP**

Mail in transcripts and other materials     Oct 20                Jan 12                     Dec 10

Complete online application***                Oct 27                Jan 19                      Dec 17

Decisions mailed                                  Jan 18                 Apr 4                    Mar 4/Apr 4

* Re applicants must apply in the first round.

** Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

*** Online application must be received by 12 noon Pacific Standard Time (2000 GMT).

10. UNC Chapel Hill (Kenan Flagler)*

Deadline                     Early Action            Round I                  Round II              Round III

Application deadline        Oct 28                Dec 2                     Jan 13                 Mar 5

Decisions mailed            Dec 13                Feb 7                    Mar 23                May 16

11. Dartmouth (Tuck)*

Deadline                  Early Action*          Round 1          Round 2             Round 3

Application deadline     Oct 18                 Dec 1            Jan 17                 Apr 18

* Last year, Tuck's early action admitted applicants had to submit a nonrefundable deposit of $2,500 by January 9, 2004. We have not yet seen the deposit date for this coming year.

12. INSEAD*

January 2005 intake

Deadline                                   Round I                    Round II                      Round III

Application deadline                  March 24                   May 19                        July 7

GMAT taken by                        March 19                    May 7                         July 2

TOEFL taken by                         Feb 27                     May 23                      June 11

Interview decision by                   May 7                       July 9                      August 27

Final decision by                        July 2                       Sept 10                      Oct 15

September 2005 intake

Deadline                                    Round I                      Round II                     Round III

Application deadline                      Oct 6                         Dec 1                       Jan 19

GMAT taken by                            Oct 1                         Nov 26                      Jan 14

TOEFL taken by                          Sept 10                       Nov 5                        Mar 18

Interview decision by                    Nov 19                        Jan 21                        Mar 4

Final decision by                         Jan 14                         Mar 18                       Apr 22

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MBA申请—哈佛商学院长回答本校MBA申请短文问题

Harvard Business School

Q: Recognizing that successful leaders are able to learn from failure, discuss a situation in which you failed and what you learned.

A: When they admit a class at Harvard, they pick from all these unbelievable people. I wasn't one of them. I was a regular guy who had worked in a migrant labor camp and who got a shot at Harvard because somebody said, "Bet on this kid." I was accepted mostly because of an influential alum's recommendation.

I came to Harvard in August 1967 and had a total disaster of a year. I was on financial aid, and I spent my first month cleaning dorms. It was not fun, nor was the rest of the year. I was completely adrift, culturally and socially. I didn't fail any courses, but my best grade was a B in chemistry. There wasn't a failure of effort; I worked my tail off, but I just didn't get it.

I left Harvard, and I didn't know if I wanted to go back. For two years, I served as a Mormon missionary in Germany. Then I spent a year at Brigham Young University. Both experiences helped rebuild my confidence.

In 1971, I returned to Harvard. This time, I was a lot more focused, and it showed. I graduated magna cum laude with highest honors in economics.

My freshman year taught me a lot about my own limitations. The diagnosis was twofold: I probably was taking the wrong classes -- chemistry, for one -- and I didn't have my life together. I also learned that failure is about what you do with it. You may not be able to control the situation, but you can choose how you react.

Today, I apply that insight to my work. How you deal with failure determines part of your success as a leader -- not only in your own life, but in the lives of people around you. As dean, I work hard to find ways to help our faculty, staff, and students be successful. Sometimes it doesn't work. People get into jobs that don't quite suit them. But people who work hard and who don't succeed deserve our best effort to help them find a place where they can be successful.

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哈佛商学院招办主任访谈 -怎么进哈佛

Brit Dewey, along with second-year student Deana Menkes, with advice on how to present yourself in the application process

Q: Harvard Business School applicants must submit their applications online. When you receive an application, how is it evaluated? What gets looked at first, and by whom?
Dewey: The application has several components -- transcripts, recommendations, essays, the résumé, the description of work experience, outside activities. All of that is in the application, so it's reviewed by a member of the admissions board.

It gets reviewed again by another member of the admissions board. Then, for the strongest candidates, the evaluation process can include an interview. We take [the interview] into account and make the final decision based upon all the information that we have from each of the reviews.

Q: Is there a specific process, or are members of the admission board able to vary the ways in which they review people?
Dewey: People have different styles. But what we're trying to do is look at all the information in the application in order to get a strong sense of who the candidate is and the strength of that candidate on three things.

The first is academic ability. We look at transcripts, the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT), rigor of work experience, and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), if applicable.

Second, we try to assess the strength of a candidate's leadership experience. That can be from outside of work, in informal or formal roles.

The third criterion is your personal qualities and characteristics.

Q: And that comes out in the interview?
Dewey: From essays, recommendations, through the applicant's voice, perspective, and insights. Also from the interview, if we do one.

Q: HBS interviews all admitted candidates, with the help of about 80 alumni interviewers. Do you have sense of how much of your applicant pool gets interviewed?
Dewey: We don't have a target for how many people to interview each year. So it really depends on the quality of the applications. As we review the applications, we determine who are the strongest candidates, and interview them.

Q: So last year, what percentage of applicants got an interview?
Dewey: I don't know off the top of my head. But of those who were interviewed, I'd say at least half were offered admission.

Q: Leadership gets a distinctive emphasis at Harvard Business School. What qualities does a leader have in the admission committee's eyes?
Dewey: We could talk at length about this. I don't think there's one set definition of a leader or of leadership. But certainly I think that there's an element of initiative -- desire to have an impact on the communities that you're involved in. Motivation. Empathy. Sense of humor.

Q: Deana, what stands out to you about the leadership qualities that you see in some of your classmates?
Menkes: Leadership isn't something that's always exhibited in a professional environment. I've been able to interact with folks who have experience in leading hikes up the major mountains of the world or have taken active roles in nonprofit organizations or even started them up. The application of leadership skills is not always just in the workplace.

Q: Many applicants to Harvard Business School come from consulting and banking, where it's typical to enroll for the MBA as early as two years after undergrad. How can these types of applicants demonstrate leadership?Dewey: People often think that leadership equates to having had a formal leadership, such as managing a division, managing a team, having had direct reports. I think of leadership as much broader than that.

I see and read and talk to people about great examples [of leadership] in a context where they aren't leading the deal, the case team, or the project. But when they're faced with challenges, and have to work with other people and be strong individual contributors, they do it very effectively. They have some tremendous insights about why they've been successful and how they could be more effective.

They also have been in situations where they've had role models who were both successful and less successful leaders. Those have been great learning experiences for them and have helped them develop their capabilities.

Q: Another element you stress on your application is essays, seven of which are required. You ask applicants to describe an ethical dilemma they've faced. How long has HBS been asking that question?
Dewey: We have asked that question many times in the history of Harvard Business School. We ask people to talk about these dilemmas to get a sense of their values.

We also want to hear from recommenders about a candidate's ethics and behavior in the community. That's new for us -- specifically asking a question to a recommender: "Please comment on this person's character, conduct, and how they are as a member of your community."

Q: Has anything you've heard from recommenders surprised you?
Dewey: One of the things that has pleasantly surprised me is that recommenders say they're happy we've asked that question and flagged ethics as something that's important to us.

Q: Given that we've seen so many examples of ethical lapses in the business world of late, are applicants reacting differently to this question than they did in years past?
Dewey: I certainly think that given recent experiences, there might be more for people to think about. But each candidate answers differently. Ethical dilemmas can exist one-to-one, or on a one-to-very-many, organizational level.

We're really not looking for a right answer. We want to learn about how people think about the question.
Q: Deana, some B-school students say they're interested in learning about ethics as an important part of the MBA degree but that when they get out into the real world, it's hard to apply those lessons. Do you and your classmates get the sense that ethical values will be hard to implement practically?
Menkes: As for implementation, I don't think the dilemma confronts an MBA any differently than it confronted us before we joined business school. From that perspective, [ethics instruction in B-school] maybe gives us some additional insight into handling ethical dilemmas and hopefully some additional tools for managing situations.

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The case-study method [puts us] into situations in which we've had to confront such issues head-on and think about a manager's dilemma. So I would hope that going forward, we would approach this situation by creating a new openness within our organizations.

Q: How is the application volume this year?
Dewey: We're still receiving applications, so we'll see the net results in the middle of March when we get our last round in. We've just had two consecutive years of record applications to Harvard Business School. At this point, I don't see us exceeding last year's level. But I think it's quite likely that we'll come in somewhere between two years ago and this past year.

Q: Are you seeing more applicants from any particular industries?
Dewey: It depends on the time period you look at. One of the things we're pleased about is a sharp increase in the number of folks who've applied to us from social enterprises. From consumer products, health care, and biotech companies, as well.

Also if you talk to Matt Merrick, our career-services director, we have seen, with the class that graduated, more students going into areas like health care, biotech, and marketing (see BW Online, 8/1/02, "A Tough Job in a Tough Job Market").

Q: Is that a result of efforts on your part or something that happened because of other issues, like the economy?
Dewey: Certainly economic issues always shape applicant pools. But one of the things that we've tried to stress is the breadth of application of the MBA degree to many different industries in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. [We stress] that many candidates from different industry and educational backgrounds come to Harvard Business School.

Q: Is it harder to gain acceptance in the third and final application round than it is in the first two rounds?
Dewey: There's no significant difference in applying for round one, two, or three. That said, most of our applicants apply in the first two rounds, and we take most of our admits out of the first two rounds. But there are always some fantastic candidates who apply in the third round and who are admitted.

The one thing, though, that we do say to folks who apply in the third round, is to be aware that there are logistical challenges to being admitted in third rounds.

One, if you're an international student, we need to admit you, have you line up your financing, and have your visa issued, all in order for you to get to campus in the summer. We want to make sure that we have enough time to go through that process, and sometimes it's really tight for folks who apply in the third round.

The second point is that at Harvard Business School, many folks want to live on campus. That, I think, is one of the best things about the HBS experience -- we're a residential community, and we value that. If you apply in the third round, you'll miss some deadlines for getting into dormitories or affiliated housing at HBS.

Q: Where else do HBS students or applicants apply to?
Dewey: HBS applicants apply most frequently to Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, and Columbia.

Q: HBS's yield rate was exceptionally high at 89% last year. Where did the other 11% go?
Dewey: The majority of folks who didn't come to Harvard Business School went to Stanford.

Q: What common mistakes frustrate you as an admissions officer when you read them time and again?
Dewey: First and most important, a candidate who hasn't taken the time to think about where they've been, where they want to go, and how Harvard Business School fits into that. The types of things on which we're asking you to comment on the application aren't just what your experience has been, but what are your insights?

It takes a lot of time and reflection to tell us your story. I think that there are candidates who spend too little time trying to understand themselves and why Harvard makes sense. People who haven't done their homework...aren't able to explain to us all the dimensions of who they are.

Q: You mentioned that you want to hear the applicant's voice in the application. Do you have any tips to make sure that voice comes through?
Dewey: Sure. The best way possible, by definition, is be yourself. That's what we're looking for. We want a sense of who you are. We may meet you [in person] if we invite you to interview, but when we're reading the application we're also trying to "meet" you, to really understand you.

Take the time to reflect and to write your essays in your own voice, from your own perspective, and share that with someone who knows you really well. Have them read your essays and react. They know you well. They can they say, "Yes, that's you."

Q: Deana, what unifying traits do you see among HBS students?
Menkes: There are a range of attributes. My colleagues are driven people, generally, in all aspects of their lives. I also think that they're very giving people. A lot of sharing goes on, a lot of cooperation, and teamwork.

Q: Was there anything that surprised you when you started attending classes at HBS?
Menkes: The community itself. Every place on campus is like a student union, with peers constantly milling around, chatting in the library, chatting in the beautiful facilities of the cafeteria.

On a grand scale, what probably surprised me is how willing folks were to help students like myself who maybe had a less extensive business background before coming here. They give of their time, at any time during the day, to discuss a case or help with some dilemma, or even with personal issues.