Ace the New Michigan Ross MBA Essay Questions [Bonus Episode]

Show Summary

Andrea McHale, the Director of the Michigan Ross Full-time MBA and Global MBA Admissions, returns to Admissions Straight Talk to discuss the newly released essay prompts for the Michigan Ross MBA program. Andrea shares an overview of each of the four questions and gives an inside look at exactly what the admissions committee hopes to learn from applicants. Andrea emphasizes the importance of impact and motivation in the application process. She also discusses the potential use of AI in the admissions process.

Show Notes

Welcome to this bonus episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for tuning in. Before I introduce our guest, I want to introduce you to a free resource that can really help you with your MBA application essays: Five Fatal Flaws to Avoid in your MBA application Essays. It can help you eliminate mistakes, errors, and misguided responses to application questions. You can download your free copy at www.accepted.com/5FFMBA.

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk, Andrea McHale, Director of the Michigan Ross Full-time MBA and Global MBA Admissions. Andrea was our guest just a few weeks ago, but at that point, the essay questions were not out for this year and she told me that Ross would be changing their essay prompts. However, at that point she couldn’t go into any details. So she has kindly agreed to come back on Admissions Straight Talk for a special bonus episode to discuss Michigan Ross’s new MBA essay questions.

Andrea, welcome back to Admissions Straight Talk. Thank you again for coming back so quickly for this bonus episode. [2:20]

Linda, thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here to share the refresh of our essay prompts.

What are the new questions? [2:33]

Question 1: At Michigan Ross, we believe the best way to learn is by doing. In our Full-Time MBA Program, you will put your skills and knowledge to the test in real-world situations with real stakes. How will this learning environment benefit you, and how do you plan to contribute to the action-based learning experience? (300 words)

Question 2: Michigan Ross is proud to support a community of leaders and impact makers. As a future member of this community, we want to know more about who you are and what drives you. Please choose 1 of the following prompts to tell us more about what makes you stand out beyond your academic and work experience. List the prompt you are answering at the top of your response. (200 words)

What makes you unique?
Can you provide a specific example of how you’ve overcome a personal challenge?
What makes you excited to get up each morning?
Describe a time when you made a difference in your community or with an individual.

Question 3: What is your short-term career goal, and how will Ross help you achieve it? (200 words)

Optional Essay: Is there something in your resume or application that needs a brief explanation? Appropriate uses of this essay would be the explanation of an employment gap, academic outliers, choice of recommender, completion of supplemental coursework, etc. You may use bullet points where appropriate. (250 words)

Before we dive into the specific questions, what is the purpose of the change? [5:33]

Really, it’s two points. One, we had our former essays for four consecutive cycles. So I think that impacts both our prospective student applicant base as well as our readers who are reading similar responses year-over-year. And then our program is evolving, so our prospective students, the market, that all evolves and our admissions process needs to evolve with it. So we created these new essay prompts really to gather more informative and insightful responses from the applicants. The updated prompts that we just shared are really to better understand you as an applicant, what your abilities are, your motivation, and then ultimately cultural fit within the Ross community. So those are really the two main drivers of why we chose to update our prompts.

We’re interested in understanding from our applicants, how do you handle real world challenges within their past experience? How do you bring that forward into the action-based learning principles we have here at Ross. It’s to gauge your problem-solving skills, leadership experience, and how you’ve applied your knowledge previously in practical situations. So it assesses again that fit because ultimately every applicant we move to admit we want to make sure that there’s a mutual fit, that you’re going to thrive in the Ross environment, that we provide the right skillset development, the tools and the resources for you to be successful with your goals. But then also too, there are values and competencies that we’re looking for that we know allow you to succeed in this type of environment.

Essay two really has two questions. One is the how will you make an impact at Michigan Ross, which is kind of similar to the second part of essay one. And then the actual prompt that they’re going to be responding to. Are you more interested in motivation or impact or both? [8:04]

It is both, but we really look for impact. People who are willing to put themselves out there to make a difference. So we’re equally interested in both your motivation and your interest, but the prompts that we’ve provided are really to provide a choice on how you want to showcase you as an applicant, what drives you to have quantifiable impact in the actions that you’ve had within your communities. Understanding both the motivation drivers as well as the impact provides us as an admissions committee an understanding of the applicants to know how their actions have led to meaningful outcomes, because we want that same type of motivation leading to meaningful outcomes within our program.

And you obviously want this question to be different. They should be complimentary. You don’t want repetition, otherwise the applicant is wasting their time and they’re wasting your time as well. [9:26]

Yes. And this part two of the essay is really to understand the applicant a little bit more holistically on a more personal basis to really share based on their choice of the prompt, how you’ve made impact within a community or within an individual and how that has enhanced how you see kind of next steps or future. And really how that impact you’ve had within a community or individual drives you to be futurely motivated to pursue the next ambition or the next path. But it’s really ultimately emphasizing an applicant’s personal growth, resiliency. And once again, I mean I’ve probably used impact 10 times already, but impact that you’ve had with the community.

I mean, that’s the title of the question. It makes sense. Do you anticipate that many applicants will use professional experience in responding to part one and a non-professional experience in responding to part two? Do you care? [10:37]

I do care about the impact one. I really would like that to be outside of the professional experience. But ultimately in part one, it is up to you. These are each individualized and there will be a unique response for every applicant. But the action-based learning principles really does lend itself well in terms of impact you’ve had within a project or an experience and then the pedagogy or the curriculum structure of Ross, how you feel you would thrive in that type of environment. The second essay with the prompts, it’s really about your resiliency, your ambition, your motivation, supporting community members, whether it’s on an individualized basis or a community basis.

Going to question three, it asks about short-term goals and how will Ross help you achieve them. I’m a little surprised you didn’t ask about long-term goals. [11:37]

I know. You even pointed out in the video that we talk about that. It is important for us. While the essay does not explicitly ask about long-term goals, we really do want and encourage applicants to understand what are their short-term career goals, how that lends itself into their long-term trajectory. But ultimately, again, we’re looking for does this applicant fit within the culture and can they thrive in our environment because we want them to be successful with those short-term career goals. We also want them to be motivated to understand what that path may look like for them. You’re not tied to the short-term goal either as an applicant.

You’re going to be exposed to so many different opportunities. You’re going to meet with alumni. You’re going to learn new careers and industries that you may not have heard of that are going to be really engaging and motivating for you. So your short-term career goal, your long-term career goal may shift as you grow as an individual, but having the foresight and the motivation to drive your own trajectory is really ultimately what we’re looking for.

That really clarifies it. I mentioned that essay one is partially about what you are going to get and what are you going to give, but I also zoomed out a little bit and it seemed to me like one and three are more about how an applicant hopes to benefit from the Ross experience, and two is more about what they hope to contribute, impact. Impact at Ross and beyond. Is that a fair description? [13:03]

It is interesting. I was part of this task force team that was looking at the essays, and we were really intentional about that. And that’s not an insight that we initially drew. It’s a very insightful observation, I would say. Let’s see, yes, probably possibly. And I think again, we want it to be able to have the applicant be as authentic as possible in these responses. But again, trying to get to those motivation factors of why Ross, why the short-term career goals and what do you want to achieve as an individual in these objectives? So just to focus on essay one, we wanted to understand as an applicant what your values are and then again, how you will thrive in the action-based learning environment. Going to that essay three prompt with your short-term career goals, we want to make sure you’re making an informed decision about why an MBA is going to help you achieve those short-term career goals and specifically why Ross MBA is going to help you. And then essay two, I might bring up impact again, but this centers on how you would contribute into Ross and you as an applicant get to highlight your unique attributes and again, the impact that you’ve been able to accomplish.

Is the optional essay really optional? [15:03]

Yes, it is truly optional. We give a guideline around parameters. So again, if there are gaps in your employment, if you have an anomaly in your GPA or your transcripts, I think anything that you can share to build your story rather than an evaluator from the admission side having to make assumptions or trying to understand what those gaps are, you fill in the blank. So my advice always to applicants, if you feel we did not capture who you are as an applicant within the criteria that we’ve asked for, share it in this optional essay. Do you have missing information that wasn’t covered? Definitely use it to share. Do you have that opportunity to tell more of your story as to why some of the application criteria may be the way that it is? Share.

The more you share your story to an admissions officer, the more that they can advocate for you in admissions committee. So again, it’s not required, but we do find a lot of success with students that may have struggled the first year of their undergraduate degree to then have to recover in their GPA or you had a family emergency where you may have an employment gap. Explaining that in those optional essays really provides a lot of clarity and builds that authenticity. I shared earlier about we want resilient individuals in this program. Those moments build resiliency. So definitely would encourage you to share in the optional essay.

By the way, I think you’re highlighting a really important point here. A lot of people are embarrassed to discuss times when grades dipped or they had a gap in employment or there was some difficulty in their lives. Well, everybody has difficulties and the real story is how you recovered from those difficulties. [16:46]

100%. We’re talking about an action-based learning principle in our curriculum, right? It’s our pedagogy. You are not able to do that effectively or optimally without failures. So having that growth mindset and being okay and overcoming that, that’s who thrives in our environment.

I have one last question on the optional essay. From the text and from your comments, it seems like it really is for providing context to information already found in the application. What if there’s something that didn’t make it into the application but the applicant feels would be important for you to know about them? [17:32]

Use that space. Anything that we did not capture within our application criteria that you feel is pertinent to your application and for us to get to know you as an applicant, use the word count to share. That’s why it exists as an optional essay.

What about using AI in the application process? [18:25]

Okay, so for us at Ross, so we’re not currently using AI or machine learning in our admissions process, but I might, okay, I’m going to get on my soapbox here because there is no official Ross policy yet or governance around how to use AI or machine learning, but I do believe from an admissions side, we will eventually be using AI and machine learning to drive decisions. I think there’s a lot of benefits to trying to be responsive to our prospective student base and making unbiased decisions when it is appropriate. So I don’t think the human element of the admission side will ever go away because we really do need to develop complex and personal relationships with each of our applicants. And so that admissions side, we’re hopefully going to at some point use AI and machine learning to elevate the experience that our applicants and our prospective students have.

And then it’ll hopefully allow us to free up some time to be really intentional with the relationships that we develop within our prospective student base. Now, if you’re planning on using AI in your application as an applicant, we do require that you just disclose, currently, that you disclose that you used a generative AI or an AI tool to provide clarity and grammatical correction to your essays, for example. So we just want you to cite the usage of that. I don’t know if that will change because it’s not a formalized policy. It’s still new to us in higher education as well. So it’s here, it’s a disruptive technology and I don’t think it’s going away. So as it evolves, I think we will evolve along with the usage of AI and machine learning.

I would caution applicants about using AI in writing their essays. That would be my perspective. I don’t think it’s there where it can write really, really good application essays. [20:29]

No, I agree. I mean, your essays should be authentic. They should be you. They should be your words. Again, as a public institution, we’re trying to figure out, okay, if someone’s going to pay for a consultant to help them with the revisions, can an AI tool also help and create that accessibility? But ultimately those initial paragraphs, the content, it should all be yours. So we are trying to figure out what that balance is. But again, I look at it from my team’s perspective and some of the initiatives I want to drive in the near future. It is incorporating some of this AI and machine learning into the process. So I don’t think it’s going away.

Do you see yourself using AI for initial reviews of applications? Is that some of the use that you’re thinking of? [21:27]

No, I’m thinking more in terms of how we’re going to do some of the data analytics on that side. How we are going to, so from a tool and connecting and providing relevant real time feedback to applicant’s questions or what they’re looking to gain out of Ross, using it there. But the evaluation, again, that human connection to another human’s application is really important and I don’t anticipate that would ever go away. It’s why admissions officers, why we do what we do. We really enjoy that part of the process and getting to know applicants. So I don’t anticipate that, at least for Ross. I mean, it could be different. I think everyone, every institution is looking at it in a slightly different lens.

What would you have liked me to ask you that I haven’t asked? [22:26]

Well, we had just connected, so I’m excited to get all of our new updates out on the new Ross application cycle. We’re super excited for the fall cycle, so fall 2025. I can’t believe we’re already recruiting, but if you’re interested in the Ross MBA program, I definitely encourage you to look on our website. We have posted most of our events through November, so you can connect with us virtually, in person, either on campus or we’re traveling a lot starting in July, really through that October timeframe.

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