This is the second post in a 4-part series that examines INSEAD MBA’s 4 admission criteria. Sure, international experience is a big plus for an INSEAD applicant. But the website says that they seek candidates with international motivation which, in their eyes, means having “perceptive insights into the complexities of business in an international setting.”…
Yale SOM EMBA Application Tips & Deadlines
Yale SOM’s Executive MBA is relatively new, but it fully reflects the character of the SOM and more broadly of Yale University: intensive community, holistic perspective, intellectual vigor, and real-world engagement and impact. Carefully review the website, read the blog, and, if possible, interact with the adcom by visiting the school, and/or attending an info…
INSEAD MBA Criterion #1: Ability To Contribute
This is the first post in a 4-part series that examines INSEAD MBA’s 4 admission criteria. The adcom gives, as its first admission criterion, “ability to contribute.” I take the liberty to add: ability to contribute as a person of quality and substance. All the criteria involve factors such as insight, growth, connection with people…
London Business School 2017 MiF Essay Questions, Tips & Deadlines
The LBS MiF essay questions, together, convey strong interest in two inter-related points: (1) how you envision and plan your future career and (2) your knowledge of and interest in the LBS Masters in Finance program (2 of the 3 questions ask specifically about LBS). It’s particularly important because it’s a rare MiF program that…
USC Marshall MBA Application Essay Tips & Deadlines
Along with academic excellence, the USC Marshall MBA program is characterized by a powerful global network with special emphasis on the Pacific Rim, a close-knit and passionate community, and a strong regional presence. Together, your essays should address these qualities directly or indirectly, and the questions provide interesting opportunities to do so. In answering these…
London Business School MiM Essay Questions, Tips & Deadlines
The London Business School Masters in Management application essay questions indicate that the adcom values and seeks applicants who have self-understanding and the ability to reflect, self-reflect, and self-critique. For people who are just starting their careers and don’t yet have a lot of real-world experience to draw from, these qualities will facilitate their gaining…
Kellogg Executive MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines
Kellogg’s EMBA application essay questions may seem deceptively simple. They’re short – but complex, and together they draw out a holistic view of you as a person and as a professional, including both what you’ve done and how you think and perceive. To the extent possible, ground your essays in detail and concrete experience, and…
Where’s the Poetry? The Secret Ingredient in Your Graduate Application Essays
Strategy will necessarily guide your selection of essay topics, anecdotes/examples, and structure. Yet an essay built on calculation alone, even if the strategy is spot on, will often disappoint. Logically it all makes sense. But it doesn’t take flight. Poetry can be the secret ingredient to make your application essay sing – right into the heart of its readers….
With the “Chicago Approach,” Who Gets into Booth?
This is part 2 in a series about the “Chicago Approach.” If you missed part 1, check it out here. Introducing 4 Chicago Booth Students: Qi: A female Chinese investment banker (who is also a fashion blogger). Goals: A leadership role in Chinese PE or VC focusing on consumer goods following a stint in private equity…
The “Chicago (Booth) Approach”: The Three I’s
Inquiry, Insight, Impact – Booth’s MBA adcom uses those “three I’s” to express Booth’s approach and culture. Taken together, in that order, they also represent a process: • from inquiry, • one gains insight, • and applies this insight to achieve impact. To put it another way, insight is the bridge, connecting the intellectual dimension,…
UVA Darden Executive MBA Application Tips and Deadlines
Given that the Darden EMBA application presents only one essay question to answer, the balance of your application – the online form, the resume, the recommendations, the interview – all carry more weight than they do in most EMBA applications that contain several questions (usually including one pertaining to your goals). The Darden EMBA application,…
NYU Stern Langone MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines
The two Stern Langone part-time MBA essays, together, cover “the whole you” – your professional side and your non-work side. And they require you to address both highly structured, specific questions (essay 1) and very open, “free form” questions (essay 2). The applicants who can best handle this duality are confident, mature applicants; they know…
MIT Sloan Executive MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines
These essay questions show that MIT seeks applicants who have the judgment and practical skills to take on the challenges that will fly at them as they re-define industries and functions. It admits applicants who push the boundary of what’s possible and exercise “principled leadership” in a torrent of change. The essays (including Statement of…
University of Michigan Ross Executive MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines
The Ross EMBA essay questions are straightforward and succinct. Your essays should embody these qualities – and indeed they’ll have to be succinct, given the 400-word length limits. Taken together, they provide both a forest-level (essay 2, goals) and tree-level (professional achievement) view of your career. Both also reflect you as a person and an…
Final Miscellany – Plan B, Research, Professional Support
I will wrap up this series with a few miscellaneous points. Plan B Think you’re done with MBA goals? Think again… In the current global economic volatility, having a Plan B for your immediate post-MBA goal can be not only good planning for you, but also enhance your goal essay’s credibility. It’s particularly important if…
The Goals Essay: Writing Nitty-Gritty
Short- and long-term goals Before you start drafting your MBA goals essays, work out three levels of goals: short-term, intermediate, and long-term. It helps to have this whole picture in your mind regardless of where you’ll “zoom in” for a particular essay. Short-term is immediately post MBA to about two years later; intermediate is about…
UCLA Anderson Executive MBA Application Essay Tips & Deadlines
For its essay questions, the UCLA EMBA adcom is bucking the “less is more” trend in terms of length. The two main essays are both a hefty 750 words, long enough to allow – indeed to require – some in-depth exposition, reflection, analysis, and description. These two questions together cover past, present, and future, in…
Write an MBA Goals Essays that Turns the Adcom into Your Cheerleaders!
By following the advice in the previous post you can create goals that are clear, credible, and convincing, but they won’t necessarily be exciting. They won’t make the adcom reader think as she reads, “Wow, it would be great if he could do that!” And this latter reaction is really what the goals essay should…
Exactly What Are Goals?
“I want to move from the buy side to the sell side.” “I want to shift from technology consulting to investment banking.” Not goals. An engineer once really said to me, “I want to go into either finance or consulting.” Not goals. A goal isn’t something you want, it’s something you do, something you want…
Why Write a Series About MBA Goals?
A few years ago, in the good old days when Wharton still offered feedback to rejected applicants, I talked with a potential client who happened to be reapplying to Wharton. I asked him whether he’d obtained feedback on his application, and he said yes. Well? “Actually they said they really liked my application. They said I…
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- …
- 13
- Next Page »
