My more recent post on TOEFL and IELTS requirements for Oxford can be found here.
For Fall 2010 admission, I have revised my post on the Oxford Said Business School MBA application essay questions from my previous post. The most significant changes relate to an expanded discussion of the second question. I have taken the questions from the Online Application.
Oxford has two questions.
1)Explain why you chose your current job. How do you hope to see your career developing over the next five years? How will an MBA assist you in the development of these ambitions? Maximum 1,000 words.
As the first and third parts of this question are similar to my analysis of Chicago, I would suggest you read that in addition to what I say here.
That said, Oxford Essay 1 is a completely practical question. Unlike schools like Stanford that ask about the applicant's "career aspirations" or even a school like Chicago that asks for future goals, Oxford is looking for something more grounded and more specific: A FIVE YEAR PLAN. Note the ambiguity in the question itself, the plan maybe written from the perspective of the present or from the perspective of after one finishes the MBA. I advise clients to treat it as as post-MBA five year plan as I think that is implied by the presence of the third part of the question ("How will an MBA assist you in the development of these ambitions?"), but I would not insist on that. I think most applicants should treat it as a post-MBA five year plan, but if you prefer integrating the MBA directly into the plan, that is fine.
WHAT IS A PLAN?
A plan is practical. It has details. It shows you have really thought about what you want to do. It shows you have done research about your intended future employer and/or future entrepreneurial venture. It shows you are realistic. That does not mean that it should be boring or lack ambition, but it does mean that it has to rise beyond a level of mere abstraction. Treat it as seriously as you would treat a memo to your boss on the future direction of your department, a proposal to a client on an expensive project, or a business plan. Make sure you show how Oxford fits the plan. If you can't establish a tight connection between your plan and Oxford, either apply somewhere else or change your plan. And remember as long as you can speak effectively about your plan in an interview, the second after you are admitted, you have no obligation to stick to that plan.
2) Which recent development, world event or book has most influenced your thinking and why? Maximum 2,000 words.
This is "The Oxford Question" and just as Essay 1 is highly practical, this one is the place to think great thoughts, to show your personality, and to establish you fit at a school known for centuries as one of the great centers of scholarship. Over the years, I have worked with great applicants who used this question successfully to win admission to Oxford. For Fall 2009, I had five clients admitted to Oxford. You can find testimonials from three of them here. Each told their own story. The things that were common to all, was a willingness to take on a big subject and to show their connection to it.
THE RELEVANCE TEST: A great answer here will be on something relevant to why Oxford should admit you:
- A concept or value that has influenced a major decision(s) you have made in your life
-An important aspect of the way you view an issue critical to your goals
-Your commitment to something greater than your own personal interest
-Your inner intellectual life
-Your ethical values
-Some other aspect of who you are that will compel admissions to want to interview you
A RECENT DEVELOPMENT
A number of clients have successfully written on recent development. Obviously the impact of a recent development is much more time-limited than a world event or book. Your ability to integrate such a development- technological, environmental, cultural, political, economic, academic or social most likely- into your own experience can be a great way to show Oxford how you think about the changing world around you. I have noticed that this topic seems to really easily connect to goals and can make for some of the most effective essays that I have read.
WORLD EVENT
While many recent developments are world events, not all world events are recent developments. Did some world event in the past deeply impact your thinking? If so, what was it? This topic can work extremely well if you want to focus your essay on showing how something in the past impacted you. This topic will likely make it possible for you to easily integrate your experiences into the essay.
BOOK
In many ways I consider this to be the most difficult topic to write on because it involves a question of taste. You really need to think seriously about what sort of book is appropriate. Based on working with clients, I suggest you select something that fits well with Oxford. If the previous sentence is not specific enough, you need to learn more about the academic culture of the place. Serious literature, serious non-fiction, academic texts, and classics are likely to be more effective than popular fiction, popular business, self-help, or other popular non-fiction. If I sound like I am being a snob, it is because, at least based on what I can determine from working with a variety of clients, it is in your interest to follow my snob advice! Know your audience and act accordingly. This is not supposed to be a book report, so focus on directly connecting specific aspect(s) of a book to your thinking and most likely your actions.
The thing that has influenced you is less important then how it is has influenced you. A good answer will focus less on the recent development, world event, or book and more on its impact on you. Focus on those aspects of the development, world event, or book that specifically impacted you. Show how it has done so.
Make certain that your explanation of the recent development, world event, or book is very clear as Oxford is using this question to determine your ability to analyze something. Be precise in your explanation and do not assume the reader has extensive knowledge of the subject. Even if the subject is well known, say "9/11" in the US, it would still be critical that you explain the exact impact of particular aspects of that event had on you.
Finally, effective answers are always personal. Given the limited space in Essay 1 to discuss accomplishments, you may very well find that you can do so in Essay 2, but if you have a great topic for Essay 2 and it is not necessarily focused on your accomplishments, don't worry as long as it clearly helps Oxford understand why they should interview you.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
オックスフォード大学のビジネススクール MBA留学
September 24, 2009
September 23, 2009
The 100th Post of 2009: An interview with me
To celebrate the 100th of 2009, I have decided to engage in a self-indulgent interview with myself. Hopefully some of my readers will find this interesting as my objective is answer a number of questions I am frequently asked.
ON CONSULTING AND CLIENTS
Question: How long have you been a graduate admissions consultant and how much experience do you have?
Answer: I started working as graduate admissions consultant in November 2001. From 2001 to 2007, I worked for one of Japan's largest test preparation and admissions consulting companies and then, in September 2007, I started my consulting service and this blog. From 2004-2007, I managed the one-to-one consulting at my former employer while simultaneously doing admissions consulting full-time, which was a great opportunity to learn about how much I preferred the latter.
Question: So you like admissions consulting?
Answer: No, I am passionate about it. Which means that I tend to work best with highly focused clients who take the process at as seriously as I do. My passion comes from belief in the value of education, my desire to help others find fit in their own lives, and because I love learning about other people.
Question: Are you good?
Answer: I think so. For me, my client's testimonials, results, and referrals serve as an effective feedback mechanism for me to think so.
Question: Can you get better?
Answer: I hope so. I believe in the value of learning. Part of the way I learn is by thinking about the admissions process and then writing about it. Sometimes, like with my recent Chicago Booth Essay 1 post, I revise my ideas and advice to account for such new insights. New inputs generally results in new observations, so getting such stimulation is the key. The most direct way I learn more is through working with different people.
Question: So who do you work with?
Answer: Well, actually that has changed. From 2001-2007, most of my clients were Japanese. Once I launched my blog in 2007, this began to change. By 2009, 50% of my clients are Japanese and 50% are not Japanese. My clients located in Japan are both Japanese and, like myself, resident foreigners. My clients outside of Japan are from all over the world with the majority in the US and East Asia. I have also worked with a number of clients from the Middle East, various parts of the former Soviet Union, India, Turkey, and Western Europe. I intentionally try to work with a wide range of clients, which is a great way for me to leverage my schedule as well as continually increase my ability to learn from a really diverse and a remarkable range of individuals.
Question: Do you only work with applicants applying to Top 10 MBA programs?
Answer: No. While the majority of my MBA clients are certainly focused on such programs, I work with applicants applying to all kinds of graduate programs. For me, the real issue is not what the school's ranking is, but whether I see a good fit between myself and the client.
Question: Why does fit matter? Don't you just work with anyone? After all, they have the money and you...
Answer: No, I don't work with everyone who contacts me. The reason I do initial free intake sessions is that both the potential client and I can judge fit. From 2001-2007, when I worked for a company with a sales department, I had no control over who I worked with. This was great training for me because it required me to work with a huge range of people, but at the same time, I thought it was an awful way to run a one-to-one service. I believe that effective admissions consulting is a highly individualized counseling service and that fit between the client and consultant is critical. Since I believe in the value of individual choice, I know that not everyone will choose me. I think that is fine because like anyone I am unique and hence not to everyone's taste.
Question: So you don't mind being rejected?
Answer: No way! I think picking the right admissions consultant is important, that chemistry between people is variable enough, and that my own methods are unique enough that they are not to everyone's taste.
Question: So what kind of applicant do you work with?
Answer: My clients are focused on their futures. They are passionate about improving themselves. They understand that the admissions process is hard. They want to win and they are looking for a coach who will work hard to get them to perform to their highest level.
Question: You use the word "coach." Why? Don't you just edit?
Answer: My primary role is to be a coach. Like any successful athletic coach, I know what the nature of the competition is, can assess the strength of my athlete, work to enhance their performance, and generate a win. My methods involve dialogue, feedback on what they write (or what they say in an interview), and, as a very secondary consideration, editing. I don't do rewriting, so my editing tends to take the form of helping with word count or page length issues, eliminating obvious problems, and/or making suggestions for moving the text around to maximize its impact. Sometimes I have to act as a censor when a client writes about a topic that is, for a variety of reasons, damaging. Keep in mind that many of my clients don't need me to edit anything. They need me to make sure that they are presenting the best possible case through both analytical writing (goals essays) and interpretative storytelling (most other essays) that they can. My objective, like any coach, is to teach them a set of skills that they can employ. I am always looking to create a learning curve so that my client is continually improving as he/she moves from essay set to essay set and/or interview to interview.
Question: What is a damaging topic?
Answer: Well that varies from client to client, but basically anything that has the potential to undermine an application. Beyond just being too confessional (Yes, there are limits to what you should tell an admissions committee!), mostly damaging topics are those that could be easily misinterpreted so as to suggest that the applicant is dishonest, sexist, racist, mentally unbalanced(very rare), immature, or mentally challenged. We all write things that have unintended meaning. I am a very good reader and one of the ways I read is to make sure that my client is not potentially sending a fatally bad message. I would consider this as an important, but actually very small part of my work. I spend the vast part of my time talking with and writing to clients about ways to enhance their content.
BLOG NOMENCLATURE, BRANDING, AND READERSHIP
Question: Why do you use the URL's http://adammarkus.com/ and http://adam-markus.blogspot.com/ and not something more directly related to admissions consulting?
Answer: For a very simple reason, I am my own brand. When I decided to go into business for myself, I thought deeply about this issue. It seemed intuitive that there was no reason to hide behind the myth of an organization that I would never build. Based on my past experience, I could easily hire, train, and manage counselors, but the good ones would become competitors and the bad ones would damage my brand. I rejected an organizational option from the very beginning. Since I had no passion to build such an organization, I knew that if I offered quality content and consulting, I would get readers and clients.
Question: So, did it work?
Answer: Yes, much better than I had anticipated it would. Within a few months of launching my blog, I had attracted a solid group of readers. At the moment, the blog receives an average of 435 visitor per day. This varies throughout the year from about 200 to 700 hits a day.
Question: How does this make you feel?
Answer: Grateful to my readers! I am happy to know that my blog posts, especially my essay question analysis, are valued. Based on the feedback I receive both from readers and potential clients, I know that I putting time and effort into something that others find value in.
APPLICANT PROFILING
Question: You know, I was looking at some other admissions consultants sites and noticed that they were quite willing to analyze an applicant's profile based on relatively short written description, but you don't do this. Why not?
Answer: There are a few reasons. First, I don't have the time. My blog is a free resource, but counseling individuals is my sole income source, so I am not giving that away. Second, I think it is totally unprofessional to assess an applicant based on limited information without engaging them in a conversation to determine what their actual situation is. Some people look good or bad on paper, but are otherwise in reality. It is the consultant's job to figure that out. Of course certain realities are easily handled. For example, if someone tells you that they are 33 and want to go to HBS, it is easy to say very objectively that their chances are almost non-existent. Beyond, commenting on the merely obvious, I think profiling without actually consulting is professional malpractice.
ESSAY EXAMPLES
Question: Adam, your analysis lacks any specific essay examples. Why?
Answer: Well, I see no value in doing so. There are books that provide such examples. The HBS one being the most notable. I think it is useful to see such examples so that you can see that successful applicants approach the process in their own unique ways. Since I know that the unique voice of an applicant can make a huge difference to the ultimate admissions outcome, I want each of my clients and/or readers to find their own way. They can certainly find formulaic template content elsewhere, so I don't think I would be adding any value by including it.
Question: But your analysis can be so abstract...
Answer: Yes, exactly. Given the possibility of great answers being expressed in manifold ways, my analysis is necessarily abstract. At the same time, I hope that I am providing conceptual road maps that enable effective understanding of the question being asked and help to elicit effective answers.
FIT
Question: What is at the core of your strategy as an admissions consultant?
Answer: Fit.
Question: Fit?
Answer: I am principally concerned with two types of fit: (1) The identification by applicant of schools that they think they fit with (school selection) and (2)The fit of an applicant and their application for a specific school. The vast majority of my clients for MBA, Masters of Law, and other graduate programs have been focused on admission to top US and European graduate programs. Without both kinds of fit present, there is no point in making an application. If you can't both find and demonstrate fit, don't apply. My objective is always to help my clients find both kinds of fit, but sometimes in the very process of counseling, a client realizes a particular school is not for them. I think that is a fine outcome because it allows the client to focus on schools where they can find fit with. Fit thus functions not only as a core rhetorical structure in an essay or interview, but as way for clients to best utilize their own resources.
Question: Is fit that important?
Answer: Yes. One of my strengths as an admissions consultant is that I am not necessarily a believer in the inherent necessity of graduate education. In fact my method for helping clients formulate goals is very much based on the assumption that they have no reason to obtain a graduate degree unless they can demonstrate otherwise. Assuming they have demonstrated why they want a graduate degree in a particular field, I next assume that they have no specific reason to attend a particular school unless they can show that they can. Thus helping my clients find fit is at the core of what I do. I work to help my clients articulate goals and find fit so that when they actually submit an application or do an interview, the admissions reader or interview can easily see the fit.
Question: I assume your strategy relates to why so many admissions officers emphasize fit.
Answer: That is correct. Fit is at the core of my strategy because it is at the core of any selective applicant admissions process. Fit is also at the core of my strategy because I want applicants to make good decisions about school selection.
Question: What do you mean by good decisions?
Answer: I mean that those considering graduate school need to think and research deeply about where to apply. Sometimes they make the wrong choices because they don't actually focus on fit. Instead applicants focus on brand name or ranking without a real sense of what their needs are and/or their own relative chances for admission. Fit also means defining a minimally acceptable anticipated ROI. Unless an applicant must simply get into school, say because of company sponsorship, I see no point in going to a school which does not fit an applicant's minimal ROI. The cost of graduate education is usually so high that if an applicant cannot clearly identify why they will benefit from attending a particular school, that is a good indicator not to apply there.
Question: So no should apply to safety schools?
Answer: No, it is simply a question of definition. A school where an applicant can see the fit for their future is always worth considering. A school where they can't see the fit is not. Sometimes I work with applicants who were previously admitted to a "safety school," but actually the school is below their own sense of fit, so it is not really an effective solution. I have noticed that when they apply to a new group of schools, they are far more selective. Sometimes I initiate such a change in strategy, but just as often it is the client who initially comes to me with a better thought out list of options. I think of a safety or backup as one's bottom line acceptable choice. For some applicants that might mean only applying to one school, while for others, it might mean applying to ten or more. Whatever the number of schools applied to, the applicant's objective should be to find fit with all of them.
Question: Anything else you would like to tell us?
Answer: Keep reading my blog. Thank you for doing so. My objective is get another 30-40 posts up by the end of the year, but if it ends up being only another 20, please forgive me. I am getting rather busy. Finally, I hope you enjoyed this post.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my recent post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 エッセイ MBA留学
ON CONSULTING AND CLIENTS
Question: How long have you been a graduate admissions consultant and how much experience do you have?
Answer: I started working as graduate admissions consultant in November 2001. From 2001 to 2007, I worked for one of Japan's largest test preparation and admissions consulting companies and then, in September 2007, I started my consulting service and this blog. From 2004-2007, I managed the one-to-one consulting at my former employer while simultaneously doing admissions consulting full-time, which was a great opportunity to learn about how much I preferred the latter.
Question: So you like admissions consulting?
Answer: No, I am passionate about it. Which means that I tend to work best with highly focused clients who take the process at as seriously as I do. My passion comes from belief in the value of education, my desire to help others find fit in their own lives, and because I love learning about other people.
Question: Are you good?
Answer: I think so. For me, my client's testimonials, results, and referrals serve as an effective feedback mechanism for me to think so.
Question: Can you get better?
Answer: I hope so. I believe in the value of learning. Part of the way I learn is by thinking about the admissions process and then writing about it. Sometimes, like with my recent Chicago Booth Essay 1 post, I revise my ideas and advice to account for such new insights. New inputs generally results in new observations, so getting such stimulation is the key. The most direct way I learn more is through working with different people.
Question: So who do you work with?
Answer: Well, actually that has changed. From 2001-2007, most of my clients were Japanese. Once I launched my blog in 2007, this began to change. By 2009, 50% of my clients are Japanese and 50% are not Japanese. My clients located in Japan are both Japanese and, like myself, resident foreigners. My clients outside of Japan are from all over the world with the majority in the US and East Asia. I have also worked with a number of clients from the Middle East, various parts of the former Soviet Union, India, Turkey, and Western Europe. I intentionally try to work with a wide range of clients, which is a great way for me to leverage my schedule as well as continually increase my ability to learn from a really diverse and a remarkable range of individuals.
Question: Do you only work with applicants applying to Top 10 MBA programs?
Answer: No. While the majority of my MBA clients are certainly focused on such programs, I work with applicants applying to all kinds of graduate programs. For me, the real issue is not what the school's ranking is, but whether I see a good fit between myself and the client.
Question: Why does fit matter? Don't you just work with anyone? After all, they have the money and you...
Answer: No, I don't work with everyone who contacts me. The reason I do initial free intake sessions is that both the potential client and I can judge fit. From 2001-2007, when I worked for a company with a sales department, I had no control over who I worked with. This was great training for me because it required me to work with a huge range of people, but at the same time, I thought it was an awful way to run a one-to-one service. I believe that effective admissions consulting is a highly individualized counseling service and that fit between the client and consultant is critical. Since I believe in the value of individual choice, I know that not everyone will choose me. I think that is fine because like anyone I am unique and hence not to everyone's taste.
Question: So you don't mind being rejected?
Answer: No way! I think picking the right admissions consultant is important, that chemistry between people is variable enough, and that my own methods are unique enough that they are not to everyone's taste.
Question: So what kind of applicant do you work with?
Answer: My clients are focused on their futures. They are passionate about improving themselves. They understand that the admissions process is hard. They want to win and they are looking for a coach who will work hard to get them to perform to their highest level.
Question: You use the word "coach." Why? Don't you just edit?
Answer: My primary role is to be a coach. Like any successful athletic coach, I know what the nature of the competition is, can assess the strength of my athlete, work to enhance their performance, and generate a win. My methods involve dialogue, feedback on what they write (or what they say in an interview), and, as a very secondary consideration, editing. I don't do rewriting, so my editing tends to take the form of helping with word count or page length issues, eliminating obvious problems, and/or making suggestions for moving the text around to maximize its impact. Sometimes I have to act as a censor when a client writes about a topic that is, for a variety of reasons, damaging. Keep in mind that many of my clients don't need me to edit anything. They need me to make sure that they are presenting the best possible case through both analytical writing (goals essays) and interpretative storytelling (most other essays) that they can. My objective, like any coach, is to teach them a set of skills that they can employ. I am always looking to create a learning curve so that my client is continually improving as he/she moves from essay set to essay set and/or interview to interview.
Question: What is a damaging topic?
Answer: Well that varies from client to client, but basically anything that has the potential to undermine an application. Beyond just being too confessional (Yes, there are limits to what you should tell an admissions committee!), mostly damaging topics are those that could be easily misinterpreted so as to suggest that the applicant is dishonest, sexist, racist, mentally unbalanced(very rare), immature, or mentally challenged. We all write things that have unintended meaning. I am a very good reader and one of the ways I read is to make sure that my client is not potentially sending a fatally bad message. I would consider this as an important, but actually very small part of my work. I spend the vast part of my time talking with and writing to clients about ways to enhance their content.
BLOG NOMENCLATURE, BRANDING, AND READERSHIP
Question: Why do you use the URL's http://adammarkus.com/ and http://adam-markus.blogspot.com/ and not something more directly related to admissions consulting?
Answer: For a very simple reason, I am my own brand. When I decided to go into business for myself, I thought deeply about this issue. It seemed intuitive that there was no reason to hide behind the myth of an organization that I would never build. Based on my past experience, I could easily hire, train, and manage counselors, but the good ones would become competitors and the bad ones would damage my brand. I rejected an organizational option from the very beginning. Since I had no passion to build such an organization, I knew that if I offered quality content and consulting, I would get readers and clients.
Question: So, did it work?
Answer: Yes, much better than I had anticipated it would. Within a few months of launching my blog, I had attracted a solid group of readers. At the moment, the blog receives an average of 435 visitor per day. This varies throughout the year from about 200 to 700 hits a day.
Question: How does this make you feel?
Answer: Grateful to my readers! I am happy to know that my blog posts, especially my essay question analysis, are valued. Based on the feedback I receive both from readers and potential clients, I know that I putting time and effort into something that others find value in.
APPLICANT PROFILING
Question: You know, I was looking at some other admissions consultants sites and noticed that they were quite willing to analyze an applicant's profile based on relatively short written description, but you don't do this. Why not?
Answer: There are a few reasons. First, I don't have the time. My blog is a free resource, but counseling individuals is my sole income source, so I am not giving that away. Second, I think it is totally unprofessional to assess an applicant based on limited information without engaging them in a conversation to determine what their actual situation is. Some people look good or bad on paper, but are otherwise in reality. It is the consultant's job to figure that out. Of course certain realities are easily handled. For example, if someone tells you that they are 33 and want to go to HBS, it is easy to say very objectively that their chances are almost non-existent. Beyond, commenting on the merely obvious, I think profiling without actually consulting is professional malpractice.
ESSAY EXAMPLES
Question: Adam, your analysis lacks any specific essay examples. Why?
Answer: Well, I see no value in doing so. There are books that provide such examples. The HBS one being the most notable. I think it is useful to see such examples so that you can see that successful applicants approach the process in their own unique ways. Since I know that the unique voice of an applicant can make a huge difference to the ultimate admissions outcome, I want each of my clients and/or readers to find their own way. They can certainly find formulaic template content elsewhere, so I don't think I would be adding any value by including it.
Question: But your analysis can be so abstract...
Answer: Yes, exactly. Given the possibility of great answers being expressed in manifold ways, my analysis is necessarily abstract. At the same time, I hope that I am providing conceptual road maps that enable effective understanding of the question being asked and help to elicit effective answers.
FIT
Question: What is at the core of your strategy as an admissions consultant?
Answer: Fit.
Question: Fit?
Answer: I am principally concerned with two types of fit: (1) The identification by applicant of schools that they think they fit with (school selection) and (2)The fit of an applicant and their application for a specific school. The vast majority of my clients for MBA, Masters of Law, and other graduate programs have been focused on admission to top US and European graduate programs. Without both kinds of fit present, there is no point in making an application. If you can't both find and demonstrate fit, don't apply. My objective is always to help my clients find both kinds of fit, but sometimes in the very process of counseling, a client realizes a particular school is not for them. I think that is a fine outcome because it allows the client to focus on schools where they can find fit with. Fit thus functions not only as a core rhetorical structure in an essay or interview, but as way for clients to best utilize their own resources.
Question: Is fit that important?
Answer: Yes. One of my strengths as an admissions consultant is that I am not necessarily a believer in the inherent necessity of graduate education. In fact my method for helping clients formulate goals is very much based on the assumption that they have no reason to obtain a graduate degree unless they can demonstrate otherwise. Assuming they have demonstrated why they want a graduate degree in a particular field, I next assume that they have no specific reason to attend a particular school unless they can show that they can. Thus helping my clients find fit is at the core of what I do. I work to help my clients articulate goals and find fit so that when they actually submit an application or do an interview, the admissions reader or interview can easily see the fit.
Question: I assume your strategy relates to why so many admissions officers emphasize fit.
Answer: That is correct. Fit is at the core of my strategy because it is at the core of any selective applicant admissions process. Fit is also at the core of my strategy because I want applicants to make good decisions about school selection.
Question: What do you mean by good decisions?
Answer: I mean that those considering graduate school need to think and research deeply about where to apply. Sometimes they make the wrong choices because they don't actually focus on fit. Instead applicants focus on brand name or ranking without a real sense of what their needs are and/or their own relative chances for admission. Fit also means defining a minimally acceptable anticipated ROI. Unless an applicant must simply get into school, say because of company sponsorship, I see no point in going to a school which does not fit an applicant's minimal ROI. The cost of graduate education is usually so high that if an applicant cannot clearly identify why they will benefit from attending a particular school, that is a good indicator not to apply there.
Question: So no should apply to safety schools?
Answer: No, it is simply a question of definition. A school where an applicant can see the fit for their future is always worth considering. A school where they can't see the fit is not. Sometimes I work with applicants who were previously admitted to a "safety school," but actually the school is below their own sense of fit, so it is not really an effective solution. I have noticed that when they apply to a new group of schools, they are far more selective. Sometimes I initiate such a change in strategy, but just as often it is the client who initially comes to me with a better thought out list of options. I think of a safety or backup as one's bottom line acceptable choice. For some applicants that might mean only applying to one school, while for others, it might mean applying to ten or more. Whatever the number of schools applied to, the applicant's objective should be to find fit with all of them.
Question: Anything else you would like to tell us?
Answer: Keep reading my blog. Thank you for doing so. My objective is get another 30-40 posts up by the end of the year, but if it ends up being only another 20, please forgive me. I am getting rather busy. Finally, I hope you enjoyed this post.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my recent post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 エッセイ MBA留学
NYU Stern MBA Essays for Fall 2010 Admission
In this post I analyze NYU Stern MBA program's essay questions for Fall 2010 Admission.
New York University Stern School of Business MBA essay questions' web page also includes great tips which you can find here.
Every year, I have seen some potential applicants to Stern look at the above questions and simply decide it is better to apply elsewhere. Actually, I have found myself frequently advocating application to Stern as part of a school selection strategy as a result. While Stern's questions are unique, especially Essay 3, they maybe significantly less daunting than what you initially think.
Stern admissions does a very good job of explaining their application. As is written above, listen to their podcasts. If you can attend a presentation at Stern or at least attend an admissions event, that is most helpful because getting into Stern is all about fit. For my colleague Steve Green's report on one such event, please see here.
Consider that in the three required questions above, the one constant feature is Stern. If you look at other top schools essay sets you will not find another one where a 100% of the questions require you to discuss the school. Even Kellogg has one question that is not focused on it. While Essay 1 only refers to Stern in the context of what you will do after it, clearly the assumption here is not that you just need any MBA, but one from Stern. Essay 2 actually consists of three questions about your relationship to Stern. Finally Essay 3 is about how you would introduce yourself to your classmates at Stern.
Attending Stern's Admission Event in Tokyo last year only further convinced me of this focus on fit. Steve's report this year is an excellent discussion of why fit matters at Stern.
Essay 1. Professional Aspirations
(750 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)
Think about the decisions you have made in your life. Answer the following:
What I really like about this essay is that Stern is doing all the organizational work for you. While Chicago Booth's question includes the why Booth component directly in it, my analysis of Chicago Essay 1 actually applies to Stern Essay 1. I suggest reviewing that analysis before reading the rest of my analysis of Stern Essay 1.
(a) What choices have you made that led you to your current position?
Basically you need to provide an explanation for your career to the present with an emphasis on your current position. Given the space limitations, I don't suggest using more than 1/3 of your word count for this part of the essay. Focus on providing an explanation that would not be clear from simply reviewing your resume. Your motivations should be made clear. Don't write a career summary here! Instead help admissions understand you, not just what you have done.
(b) Why pursue an MBA at this point in your life?
Clearly you need to show why given your present position and future goals, now is the right time to get an MBA. And since you need an MBA, you had better state that you want one from Stern. You could certainly avoid including Stern here, but frankly I think that would be rather foolish. Considering that you have align what you say about wanting an MBA with exactly what Stern can offer you, there is absolutely no value to treating this as a generic answer, make it Stern specific!
(c) What is your career goal upon graduation from NYU Stern? What is your long-term career goal?
Use at least 1/3 of your essay to explain both your post-MBA career goal and your long-term career goals. The goals you outline should connect very directly with what you intend to gain from Stern as discussed in (b) above as well as in Essay 2.
Essay 2. Your Stern Experience
(500 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)
We take great care to shape the Stern community with individuals who possess both intellectual and interpersonal strengths. We seek individuals who are highly intelligent, collaborative and committed to flourishing as Stern leaders. Please answer the following questions:
(a) What is your personal experience with the Stern community? Tell us what actions you have taken to learn about us.
(b) Describe what most excites you about Stern from both an academic and extracurricular perspective.
(c) How do you anticipate making your mark on the Stern community? Be specific about the roles you will take on and the impact you hope to achieve.
Given that this total Stern Love Festival Question requires you to (a) explain how you learned about Stern, (b) what excites about you about Stern, and (c) how specifically you are going to contribute to it, only a total moron would fail to realize that they want a VERY DIRECT ANSWER TO EACH PART OF THEIR QUESTION. You might ask why Stern asks this question. My assumption is that they want to find applicants who really want to go to their program. Consider their numbers for Fall 2008 admission (taken from US News and World Report):
Acceptance Rate: 13.6%
Number Accepted: 648
Total first-year enrollment: 351
Yield (Calculated by me): 54%
Stern is very hard to get into, but almost half of those who are admitted go elsewhere. Stern like Berkeley Haas is school that is very picky about who they accept, but they don't have very much relative control about who they actually get in their class. Questions like Essay 2 and Essay 3 allow Stern to really see who potentially loves them. They know they will be rejected much of the time by those the offer admission to, so at least they have to try and find students who seem to really want to go there. Finding applicants that fit is always a core consideration, but so much more when you know that you are often a Top MBA bound applicant's secondary or possibly safety choice.
To be honest, I have had so few clients attend this school because the ones that get in almost always have gone elsewhere.You can find a testimonial from one of them here.
If you were a Stern admissions officer, you probably would ask the same questions they do unless you wanted to read even more applications and have an even lower yield.
(a) What is your personal experience with the Stern community? What actions have you taken to learn more about us?
Here you need to clearly indicate how you have become informed about the program. Visiting is obviously best, attending their admissions event is also good, and so is making an effort to communicate with students and alumni. Obviously reading their website is important, but that is not enough. Make sure you listened to their podcasts. Making a connection to alumni is always a good idea. Be specific about the steps you have taken. Feel free to use names of admissions officers, alumni, and students that you met. I would try to limit this section to 50-100 words to save room for the more substantial components of the questions.
(b) Describe what most excites you about Stern from both an academic and extracurricular perspective.
It is here that you should devote most of your energy. You need to establish fit between yourself and Stern by highlighting those aspects of the program that you truly love. Don't just state them and don't discuss too many things. Instead focus on 2-4 aspects of the program that you can relate to your goals, learning style, personality, or life style. My suggestion is to highlight a specific aspect of the program and explain your connection to it so that admissions really learns about you through your discussion of Stern.
(c) How do you anticipate making your mark on the Stern community? Be specific about the roles you will take on and the impact you hope to achieve.
This question is quite similar to LBS Q4. This question is asking you about what you will specifically contribute to the Stern community on an organizational basis, not an abstract one. Think about organizations that you will lead and your role in specific aspects of the academic program. In order to answer this question effectively you need to know in great detail about Stern. For each role, explain why you think you would be effective at it and how you would add value. This is another way for you to help Stern learn about you while you show them how much you love them.
Question 3
Essay 3. Personal Expression:
Please describe yourself to your MBA classmates. You may use almost any method to convey your message (e.g. words, illustrations). Feel free to be creative.
This is the NYU question. It is the one that seems to stop many applicants from applying to Stern. In my experience, I have found that strong applicants who are willing to put the time into this question are often well rewarded (invited for interviews, admitted), but those who slap something together are often rejected.
To be honest, I have found a creative essay to be as effective as an "arts and crafts project." If you think you can answer the question most effectively by writing an essay, just do that. I have had clients admitted to NYU who have done both and all can say is that the key factor to their success was providing a response that really answered the question.
In past years, I have had clients who have done slide presentations for NYU, but given that Chicago Booth now requires one, if you are applying to Chicago GSB and Stern and state that on your NYU application, don't do a PowerPoint for Stern because the NYU admissions people will assume you are trying to cut corners. After all, one reason NYU asks this question is because they want you to show your commitment to NYU by putting time into it.
In general, anytime a school has a non-standard question, you should really keep in mind that they are looking for answers that demonstrate an applicant's willingness to put time into it.
Regarding time, try to give yourself at least three weeks before the deadline to write/create this essay. In my experience, most successful versions of this essay take more time and drafts than most other essays. Of course, some applicants can do it right quickly, but since you are trying to be creative and also to effectively introduce yourself to your classmates, you may need more time.
One very common initial error with this essay is to focus on being creative at the exclusion of thinking about the purpose: to introduce yourself to your classmates. Keep in mind that your objective is to create a positive image of yourself that would make an excellent first impression on your classmates. It may be creative, but make sure that it also leaves admissions with a clear understanding of what positive impression of yourself you are communicating. It is your job to provide a sufficiently clear message regardless of the way you creatively present yourself.
Some Questions to get you brainstorming:
1. What do you want Stern Admissions to know about you that would positively impact your chances for admission?
2. What major positive aspects of your life have not been effectively INTERPRETED to the admissions committee in other parts of the application?
3. If you were meeting people that would you be working closely with for two years and that you might want as a part of your lifetime professional network, what would you tell them about yourself to create a strong first impression?
4. Why do people like you?
5. If there was one story about yourself that you think would really help admissions understand you and want to admit you, what is it?
6. Do you have a personal interest (painting and poetry for example) that would work effectively?
Finally, keep in mind that what you write here should not duplicate the content of Essay 2 or anything else in the application, instead it should really provide admissions with a new perspective on why you belong at Stern.
Essay 4. Additional Information: (optional)
Please provide any additional information that you would like to bring to the attention of the Admissions Committee. This may include current or past gaps in employment, your undergraduate record, plans to retake the GMAT and/or TOEFL or any other relevant information.
If you are unable to submit a recommendation from a current supervisor, you must explain your reason in this essay.
If you are a re-applicant from last year, please explain how your candidacy has improved since your last application.
If you are applying to a dual degree program, please explain your decision to pursue a dual degree.
Steve Green's report on the Tokyo NYU Event specifically addresses this question:
Optional Essay #4 is not really optional (Just as I tell my clients every year!) This was actually highly useful advice that will save applicants time otherwise spent fretting about whether or not to write this essay. Chris urged everyone to write something here that could not be included in the rest of the set, including explanations of any weak spots (e.g. bad grades in university) or why a supervisor would not write a recommendation letter. He pointed out the this essay does not have to be as long as the other ones and said, in fact, that something as curt as 3 sentences or bullet points would be acceptable.
If you are a re-applicant, this is where your reapplication essay goes and clearly this should be a very positive and wonderful essay that states clearly how you are much stronger candidate.
Under no circumstances include an essay clearly written for another school. NYU did not ask you write a whole essay about an important leadership experience you had, and since they did not ask for it, we can assume that is not what they need.
Unless you are perfect there is a reasonable likelihood that you will have something to write about here. If you don't think you have anything, just ask yourself the following questions:
1. What is the weakest thing about my application content? Do I have anything that I should say about that? Would it be obvious to a reader or something only I could know? If you can identify something that you think would likely be obvious to a reader, write about it.
2. What is the weakest thing about me as an applicant? Do I have anything that I should say about that? Would it be obvious to a reader or something only I could know? If you can identify something that you think would likely be obvious to a reader, write about it.
3. Is there anything at all that I did not have space in my essays to clarify? If so, write about it.
4. What else do I really want to highlight about myself? There has to be something. Actually even if you write about something negative, you might also want to answer this question. Anyone should be able to answer this question.
Best of luck with your application to join the Class of 2012!
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my recent post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 合格対策 エッセイ MBA留学
New York University Stern School of Business MBA essay questions' web page also includes great tips which you can find here.
Every year, I have seen some potential applicants to Stern look at the above questions and simply decide it is better to apply elsewhere. Actually, I have found myself frequently advocating application to Stern as part of a school selection strategy as a result. While Stern's questions are unique, especially Essay 3, they maybe significantly less daunting than what you initially think.
Stern admissions does a very good job of explaining their application. As is written above, listen to their podcasts. If you can attend a presentation at Stern or at least attend an admissions event, that is most helpful because getting into Stern is all about fit. For my colleague Steve Green's report on one such event, please see here.
Consider that in the three required questions above, the one constant feature is Stern. If you look at other top schools essay sets you will not find another one where a 100% of the questions require you to discuss the school. Even Kellogg has one question that is not focused on it. While Essay 1 only refers to Stern in the context of what you will do after it, clearly the assumption here is not that you just need any MBA, but one from Stern. Essay 2 actually consists of three questions about your relationship to Stern. Finally Essay 3 is about how you would introduce yourself to your classmates at Stern.
Attending Stern's Admission Event in Tokyo last year only further convinced me of this focus on fit. Steve's report this year is an excellent discussion of why fit matters at Stern.
Essay 1. Professional Aspirations
(750 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)
Think about the decisions you have made in your life. Answer the following:
What I really like about this essay is that Stern is doing all the organizational work for you. While Chicago Booth's question includes the why Booth component directly in it, my analysis of Chicago Essay 1 actually applies to Stern Essay 1. I suggest reviewing that analysis before reading the rest of my analysis of Stern Essay 1.
(a) What choices have you made that led you to your current position?
Basically you need to provide an explanation for your career to the present with an emphasis on your current position. Given the space limitations, I don't suggest using more than 1/3 of your word count for this part of the essay. Focus on providing an explanation that would not be clear from simply reviewing your resume. Your motivations should be made clear. Don't write a career summary here! Instead help admissions understand you, not just what you have done.
(b) Why pursue an MBA at this point in your life?
Clearly you need to show why given your present position and future goals, now is the right time to get an MBA. And since you need an MBA, you had better state that you want one from Stern. You could certainly avoid including Stern here, but frankly I think that would be rather foolish. Considering that you have align what you say about wanting an MBA with exactly what Stern can offer you, there is absolutely no value to treating this as a generic answer, make it Stern specific!
(c) What is your career goal upon graduation from NYU Stern? What is your long-term career goal?
Use at least 1/3 of your essay to explain both your post-MBA career goal and your long-term career goals. The goals you outline should connect very directly with what you intend to gain from Stern as discussed in (b) above as well as in Essay 2.
Essay 2. Your Stern Experience
(500 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)
We take great care to shape the Stern community with individuals who possess both intellectual and interpersonal strengths. We seek individuals who are highly intelligent, collaborative and committed to flourishing as Stern leaders. Please answer the following questions:
(a) What is your personal experience with the Stern community? Tell us what actions you have taken to learn about us.
(b) Describe what most excites you about Stern from both an academic and extracurricular perspective.
(c) How do you anticipate making your mark on the Stern community? Be specific about the roles you will take on and the impact you hope to achieve.
Given that this total Stern Love Festival Question requires you to (a) explain how you learned about Stern, (b) what excites about you about Stern, and (c) how specifically you are going to contribute to it, only a total moron would fail to realize that they want a VERY DIRECT ANSWER TO EACH PART OF THEIR QUESTION. You might ask why Stern asks this question. My assumption is that they want to find applicants who really want to go to their program. Consider their numbers for Fall 2008 admission (taken from US News and World Report):
Acceptance Rate: 13.6%
Number Accepted: 648
Total first-year enrollment: 351
Yield (Calculated by me): 54%
Stern is very hard to get into, but almost half of those who are admitted go elsewhere. Stern like Berkeley Haas is school that is very picky about who they accept, but they don't have very much relative control about who they actually get in their class. Questions like Essay 2 and Essay 3 allow Stern to really see who potentially loves them. They know they will be rejected much of the time by those the offer admission to, so at least they have to try and find students who seem to really want to go there. Finding applicants that fit is always a core consideration, but so much more when you know that you are often a Top MBA bound applicant's secondary or possibly safety choice.
To be honest, I have had so few clients attend this school because the ones that get in almost always have gone elsewhere.You can find a testimonial from one of them here.
If you were a Stern admissions officer, you probably would ask the same questions they do unless you wanted to read even more applications and have an even lower yield.
(a) What is your personal experience with the Stern community? What actions have you taken to learn more about us?
Here you need to clearly indicate how you have become informed about the program. Visiting is obviously best, attending their admissions event is also good, and so is making an effort to communicate with students and alumni. Obviously reading their website is important, but that is not enough. Make sure you listened to their podcasts. Making a connection to alumni is always a good idea. Be specific about the steps you have taken. Feel free to use names of admissions officers, alumni, and students that you met. I would try to limit this section to 50-100 words to save room for the more substantial components of the questions.
(b) Describe what most excites you about Stern from both an academic and extracurricular perspective.
It is here that you should devote most of your energy. You need to establish fit between yourself and Stern by highlighting those aspects of the program that you truly love. Don't just state them and don't discuss too many things. Instead focus on 2-4 aspects of the program that you can relate to your goals, learning style, personality, or life style. My suggestion is to highlight a specific aspect of the program and explain your connection to it so that admissions really learns about you through your discussion of Stern.
(c) How do you anticipate making your mark on the Stern community? Be specific about the roles you will take on and the impact you hope to achieve.
This question is quite similar to LBS Q4. This question is asking you about what you will specifically contribute to the Stern community on an organizational basis, not an abstract one. Think about organizations that you will lead and your role in specific aspects of the academic program. In order to answer this question effectively you need to know in great detail about Stern. For each role, explain why you think you would be effective at it and how you would add value. This is another way for you to help Stern learn about you while you show them how much you love them.
Question 3
Essay 3. Personal Expression:
Please describe yourself to your MBA classmates. You may use almost any method to convey your message (e.g. words, illustrations). Feel free to be creative.
This is the NYU question. It is the one that seems to stop many applicants from applying to Stern. In my experience, I have found that strong applicants who are willing to put the time into this question are often well rewarded (invited for interviews, admitted), but those who slap something together are often rejected.
To be honest, I have found a creative essay to be as effective as an "arts and crafts project." If you think you can answer the question most effectively by writing an essay, just do that. I have had clients admitted to NYU who have done both and all can say is that the key factor to their success was providing a response that really answered the question.
In past years, I have had clients who have done slide presentations for NYU, but given that Chicago Booth now requires one, if you are applying to Chicago GSB and Stern and state that on your NYU application, don't do a PowerPoint for Stern because the NYU admissions people will assume you are trying to cut corners. After all, one reason NYU asks this question is because they want you to show your commitment to NYU by putting time into it.
In general, anytime a school has a non-standard question, you should really keep in mind that they are looking for answers that demonstrate an applicant's willingness to put time into it.
Regarding time, try to give yourself at least three weeks before the deadline to write/create this essay. In my experience, most successful versions of this essay take more time and drafts than most other essays. Of course, some applicants can do it right quickly, but since you are trying to be creative and also to effectively introduce yourself to your classmates, you may need more time.
One very common initial error with this essay is to focus on being creative at the exclusion of thinking about the purpose: to introduce yourself to your classmates. Keep in mind that your objective is to create a positive image of yourself that would make an excellent first impression on your classmates. It may be creative, but make sure that it also leaves admissions with a clear understanding of what positive impression of yourself you are communicating. It is your job to provide a sufficiently clear message regardless of the way you creatively present yourself.
Some Questions to get you brainstorming:
1. What do you want Stern Admissions to know about you that would positively impact your chances for admission?
2. What major positive aspects of your life have not been effectively INTERPRETED to the admissions committee in other parts of the application?
3. If you were meeting people that would you be working closely with for two years and that you might want as a part of your lifetime professional network, what would you tell them about yourself to create a strong first impression?
4. Why do people like you?
5. If there was one story about yourself that you think would really help admissions understand you and want to admit you, what is it?
6. Do you have a personal interest (painting and poetry for example) that would work effectively?
Finally, keep in mind that what you write here should not duplicate the content of Essay 2 or anything else in the application, instead it should really provide admissions with a new perspective on why you belong at Stern.
Essay 4. Additional Information: (optional)
Please provide any additional information that you would like to bring to the attention of the Admissions Committee. This may include current or past gaps in employment, your undergraduate record, plans to retake the GMAT and/or TOEFL or any other relevant information.
If you are unable to submit a recommendation from a current supervisor, you must explain your reason in this essay.
If you are a re-applicant from last year, please explain how your candidacy has improved since your last application.
If you are applying to a dual degree program, please explain your decision to pursue a dual degree.
Steve Green's report on the Tokyo NYU Event specifically addresses this question:
Optional Essay #4 is not really optional (Just as I tell my clients every year!) This was actually highly useful advice that will save applicants time otherwise spent fretting about whether or not to write this essay. Chris urged everyone to write something here that could not be included in the rest of the set, including explanations of any weak spots (e.g. bad grades in university) or why a supervisor would not write a recommendation letter. He pointed out the this essay does not have to be as long as the other ones and said, in fact, that something as curt as 3 sentences or bullet points would be acceptable.
If you are a re-applicant, this is where your reapplication essay goes and clearly this should be a very positive and wonderful essay that states clearly how you are much stronger candidate.
Under no circumstances include an essay clearly written for another school. NYU did not ask you write a whole essay about an important leadership experience you had, and since they did not ask for it, we can assume that is not what they need.
Unless you are perfect there is a reasonable likelihood that you will have something to write about here. If you don't think you have anything, just ask yourself the following questions:
1. What is the weakest thing about my application content? Do I have anything that I should say about that? Would it be obvious to a reader or something only I could know? If you can identify something that you think would likely be obvious to a reader, write about it.
2. What is the weakest thing about me as an applicant? Do I have anything that I should say about that? Would it be obvious to a reader or something only I could know? If you can identify something that you think would likely be obvious to a reader, write about it.
3. Is there anything at all that I did not have space in my essays to clarify? If so, write about it.
4. What else do I really want to highlight about myself? There has to be something. Actually even if you write about something negative, you might also want to answer this question. Anyone should be able to answer this question.
Best of luck with your application to join the Class of 2012!
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my recent post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 合格対策 エッセイ MBA留学
September 22, 2009
Chicago Booth Fall 2010 MBA Overall Plan
This is the fifth in a series of five posts on the University of Chicago Booth's MBA application essays for Fall 2010 admission. The parts are Essay 1, Essay 2, Slide Presentation, Optional Essay, and Overall Plan.
Start with Question One
You need to effectively segment your content. Question 1 has a clear focus, so it is best to start there. In general, for any application, starting with the goals essay always makes sense because what you say in it will impact what you say elsewhere. After all you want to show how other aspects of who you are will support your goals.
Next
This is really up to you. Some applicants will find it easier to start with Essay 2 and others will find it easier to start with the Slide presentation. I think given the fact that Essay 2 is partially focused on why Booth, many applicants will find it easier to write Essay 2 in tandem with Essay 1.
Next
Write the Optional Essay if you need to. Just remember what I wrote before about it.
Finally
After you have written everything, make sure it works as part of your entire application strategy. Review your entire application and think about whether you have presented all aspects of yourself as clearly as possible. Specifically think about your application meets Chicago Booth's three central evaluation criteria: curriculum, community, and career.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. To learn more about my services, see here. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
シカゴ、ビジネススクール, MBA留学
Start with Question One
You need to effectively segment your content. Question 1 has a clear focus, so it is best to start there. In general, for any application, starting with the goals essay always makes sense because what you say in it will impact what you say elsewhere. After all you want to show how other aspects of who you are will support your goals.
Next
This is really up to you. Some applicants will find it easier to start with Essay 2 and others will find it easier to start with the Slide presentation. I think given the fact that Essay 2 is partially focused on why Booth, many applicants will find it easier to write Essay 2 in tandem with Essay 1.
Next
Write the Optional Essay if you need to. Just remember what I wrote before about it.
Finally
After you have written everything, make sure it works as part of your entire application strategy. Review your entire application and think about whether you have presented all aspects of yourself as clearly as possible. Specifically think about your application meets Chicago Booth's three central evaluation criteria: curriculum, community, and career.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. To learn more about my services, see here. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
シカゴ、ビジネススクール, MBA留学
September 21, 2009
Chicago Booth Fall 2010 Essay 2
This is the second in a series of five posts on the University of Chicago Booth's MBA application essays for Fall 2010 admission. The parts are Essay 1, Essay 2, Slide Presentation, Optional Essay, and Overall Plan.
In this post, I will analyze the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Fall 2010 MBA Question 2:
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. To learn more about my services, see here. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
シカゴ、ビジネススクール, MBA留学
In this post, I will analyze the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Fall 2010 MBA Question 2:
2. Please choose one of the following (500 - 750 words):
Describe a time when you wish you could have retracted something you said or did. When did you realize your mistake and how did you handle the situation?
or
Describe a time when you were surprised by feedback that you received. What was the feedback and why were you surprised?
Whichever question you write on, chances are great that your first impulse will be to write on a professional topic. Given the constrained nature of the Booth essay set and the fact that the slide presentation is clearly focused on the personal, I think a professional topic here is a very reasonable choice. Still, I would say if you have a great non-professional topic, it is certainly fine to write on that here. The core consideration is always what topic will best enable admissions to learn about you and see why you possess the self-awareness and maturity to become a part of the Booth community.
The official tip for this is worth keeping in mind:
This essay is about self awareness. At Booth, you'll constantly be asked to evaluate and re-evaluate your personal development. Both questions give us a sense of your life experiences; specifically, how you handle feedback and how you bounce back in those not so positive situations. What did you learn from the experience and how will it impact your future actions? In order to be powerful, we often find that situational essay questions command authentic stories.
Therefore, you must make certain that your explanation is not a mere description, but also provides a strong analysis of how you would speak or act differently. The tip above relates the self awareness aspect of the question to the Booth curriculum. Actually the question specifically relates to the only required course in the MBA Program, LEAD, which involves the ability to both give and receive extensive feedback.
Whichever question you write on, chances are great that your first impulse will be to write on a professional topic. Given the constrained nature of the Booth essay set and the fact that the slide presentation is clearly focused on the personal, I think a professional topic here is a very reasonable choice. Still, I would say if you have a great non-professional topic, it is certainly fine to write on that here. The core consideration is always what topic will best enable admissions to learn about you and see why you possess the self-awareness and maturity to become a part of the Booth community.
The official tip for this is worth keeping in mind:
This essay is about self awareness. At Booth, you'll constantly be asked to evaluate and re-evaluate your personal development. Both questions give us a sense of your life experiences; specifically, how you handle feedback and how you bounce back in those not so positive situations. What did you learn from the experience and how will it impact your future actions? In order to be powerful, we often find that situational essay questions command authentic stories.
Therefore, you must make certain that your explanation is not a mere description, but also provides a strong analysis of how you would speak or act differently. The tip above relates the self awareness aspect of the question to the Booth curriculum. Actually the question specifically relates to the only required course in the MBA Program, LEAD, which involves the ability to both give and receive extensive feedback.
Describe a time when you wish you could have retracted something you said or did. When did you realize your mistake and how did you handle the situation?
A core consideration here is to have a clear theme that reveals an important insight into your values and the way you handle failure, setbacks, mistakes, and/or awkward situations. The structure of this essay might very well resemble Wharton 3 or HBS 2, but make sure that you provide an answer that really addresses what Chicago is asking. The answer should contain the following elements:
-Your action that you would change completely or your statement that you wish you would disavow
- An explanation of why you would want to retract your statement or action
-State clearly when you realized that you should have retracted the statement or action
-If you realized that you should have retracted the statement or action after the situation had ended, explain what you learned and how you applied it to a new situation
-If you realized that you should have retracted the statement or action during the situation, explain what you learned and what you did to fix the situation
By the way, if you think this question is so odd, you can easily find its origins in the previously mentioned Wharton and HBS questions as well as a question that Haas asked last year (See short answer 1).
Describe a time when you were surprised by feedback that you received. What was the feedback and why were you surprised?
It is possible to write this based on the topic used for a standard failure essay (see links to HBS and Wharton above), but that is only one possibility. The basic structure for this essay is clear enough:
1. Briefly describe the situation where you received feedback.
2. Who did you receive it from and why?
3. Why were you surprised by it?
4. Specifically state your response to the feedback. This might take the form of a brief summary of your action steps or description of your change in attitude.
5. Explain what you learned. Often the best way to help your reader understand this is to provide them with a different situation where you applied what you learned.
Those also applying to Tuck will see a great similarity between this question and the Tuck 3, but the surprise aspect of Booth's question makes it different.
In the abstract, what is surprise about? Why that aspect of the question? To be surprised by something is to gain a new sudden insight and/or to be shocked and/or to realize that one's assumptions are not accurate. How do you handle such experiences? Some realizations come slowly, but in this situation the feedback you received produced an immediate impact upon you. Why did it to do so? By answering the question Booth admissions will not only gain insight into how you react to feedback, but to what you consider to be surprising. You will be revealing not only how you react to feedback, but to the kind of feedback you had previously never considered that you would be receiving.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. To learn more about my services, see here. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
シカゴ、ビジネススクール, MBA留学
September 17, 2009
Chicago Booth Fall 2010 MBA Essay 1
This is the first in a series of five posts on the University of Chicago Booth's MBA application essays for Fall 2010 admission. The parts are Essay 1, Essay 2, Slide Presentation, Optional Essay, and Overall Plan.
As is usual, Chicago Booth has again changed Questions 1 and 2. I have taken the questions from the Booth website. I suggest reviewing the tips from the Booth website before reading my analysis. You might also want to read the first part of my Kellogg analysis where I discuss why location matters as it is a comparison between Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago is a very intellectually serious place. Booth reflects that culture. Not everyone who goes there is an intellectual, but most are quite smart. Your objective is show you understand yourself, understand what you want to do in the future, and understand why Booth is right for the fight school for you now. If you can do so, it is quite possible that you will part of the Class of 2012.
The question:
1. How did you choose your most recent job/internship and how did this experience influence your future goals? What about the Chicago Booth MBA makes you feel it is the next best step in your career at this time? (750-1000 words)
The question actually breaks intro three parts, so we will look at each piece. (Note: If you have been reading my analysis of other schools' questions, while you see some parts of this analysis are not unique to it, I have fully modified my entire analysis to fit this question. That is why it took me quite while to write it.)
"How did you choose your most recent job/internship?"
I think without being explicit about it, Booth is engaging in a bit of behavioral questioning here. Behavioral questions (See my analysis of MIT for more about this topic) are based on the idea that past behavior is the best guide to future behavior. By understanding your rationale for taking your most recent job/internship, Chicago can gain some insight into how you make choices. If they can understand how you make choices about jobs and internships, they gain some insight into how you make other kinds of choices; About your career goals, why you want an MBA, and why you want one from Booth. To provide an effective answer you need to explain what motivated you to take your current position. Multiple motivations are fine. The important thing is that you provide an explanation for your decision, not a summary of all your professional experiences.
Bad answers to this part of Booth's question will either take the form of general summaries of past professional experience or even an overall interpretation of one's past experience (see for example, Kellogg 1). Booth wants an analysis of your decision, not an analysis of all of the wonderful things you have learned from your past work. Of course you will likely need to refer to a position (or positions) prior to the most recent one, but that does not mean that you should summarize those positions. You would discuss such experience(s) only in order to explain why you chose your most recent position.
How did this experience[your most recent bob/internship] influence your future goals?
Last year, Booth asked "Why are you pursuing an MBA at this point in your career?" That rather general question has been replaced with something that provides the applicant with significantly more structure. The "Why now" aspect of the question is not explicit, but consider that Booth's tip for this question is to answer "How have your decisions made you ready to apply to an MBA program?" Clearly doing that requires knowing why you want an MBA now.
In this part of the question you need to think about about the relationship between your most recent job/internship experience and your goals.
To answer this section effectively you need to know what your goals are. Lets address that issue at some length.
The advantage of the following method is that it will make you systematically think about how your goals relate to your recent experience. I suggest using my GAP, SWOT, AND ROI TABLE FOR FORMULATING GRADUATE DEGREE GOALS for this purpose (see below). . I think Gap, SWOT, and ROI analysis are great ways for understanding what your goals are, why you want a degree, and how you will use it. (Click here for the Forbes Business School Calculator. Click here for a GMAC report on MBA ROI. )
(To best view the following table, click on it. )
How to use this table:Step 1. Begin by analyzing your "Present Situation." What job(s) have you held? What was/is your functional role(s)? What was/are your responsibilities?
Next, analyze your present strengths and weaknesses for succeeding in your present career. REMEMBER:WHEN YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS DON'T ONLY THINK ABOUT WORK, THINK ABOUT OTHER ASPECTS OF YOUR LIFE. In particular, some of your greatest strengths may have been demonstrated outside of work, so make sure you are accounting for them.
Strengths: What are you good at? Where do you add value? What are you praised for? What are you proud of?
Weakness: What are you bad at? What are you criticized for? What do you try to avoid due to your own limitations? What do you fear?
Next, analyze the environment you work in right now. What opportunities exist for your growth and success? What threats could limit your career growth?
Step 2. Now, do the same thing in Step 1 for your "Post-Degree" future after you have earned your graduate degree. IF YOU CANNOT COMPLETE STEP 2, YOU HAVE NOT SUFFICIENTLY PLANNED FOR YOUR FUTURE and therefore you need to do more research and need to think more about it.
Step 3. If you could complete step 2, than you should see the "Gap" between your present and your future. What skills, knowledge, and other resources do you need to close the gap between your present and future responsibilities, strengths, and opportunities?
Step 4. After completing Step 3, you now need to determine how an MBA will add value to you. It is possible that an increased salary as a result of job change will be sufficient "ROI" for the degree to justify itself, but you should show how a degree will allow you to reach your career goals. How will the degree enhance your skills and opportunities and help you overcome your weaknesses and external threats? If you can complete Step 4 than you should be ready to explain what your goals are, why you want a degree, and the relationship between your past and future career, as well as your strengths and weaknesses. THIS STEP WILL HELP YOU ANSWER THE WHY BOOTH PART OF THE QUESTION.
The above table will also help you answer such common interview questions as: Where do you want to work after you finish your degree? Why do you want an MBA (or other degree)? What are you strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are your goals? Thinking about these issues now will help you to develop a fully worked-out strategy for how you will best present yourself both in the application and in an interview.
HAVING GOALS IS NOT ENOUGH
Simply being being able to state what your goals are is not sufficient. Even being able to explain them is not. Your goals have to justify why you want an MBA, BUT ARE YOUR GOALS HOT?
Making career goals exciting requires thinking about whether your goals are compelling. Admissions committees ask applicants to write about their goals after graduate school, but can applicants actually know what will be on the cutting-edge in two or three years? While many applicants will be able to successfully apply with relatively standard goals ("I want to be a consultant because..."), can you do better then that? I think going beyond standard goals is critical if you are trying to compete against people who are not only applying to Chicago, but also to HBS, Stanford, and Wharton.
HBS, Stanford, and Wharton Set the "Goals" Bar High
As I pointed out in my analysis of Wharton's Essay 1, "Wharton has copied the more abstract and awe-inspiring language of "HBS ("career vision") and Stanford ("career aspirations"), so now your Wharton goals need to be discussed within the language of "commitment." On the other hand, Booth uses the routine language of "goals." Words like vision, aspiration, and commitment are bigger. They are about dreaming great dreams and making them real. The best applicants to those three schools will make that happen in their essays. Many of those individuals will also be applying to Chicago (and Columbia, Kellogg, NYU, Duke, Haas, Tuck, and MIT). It is unlikely that they will be changing their visions/aspirations/commitments for Chicago. Of course, they had better use the word "goal" as to use one of the three aforementioned words is to signal that you are not customizing for Chicago (As in all things, fit is shown in both large and small ways.) Bottom line: If you have big goals, you will have advantage over those who simply have routine ones.
Be informed. Chicago admissions needs to believe you know what you are talking about. If you are changing careers, no one expects you to be an expert, but you should come across as having a clear plan based on real research into your future. If you are planning on staying in your present industry, you should be well informed not only about the companies you have worked for, but also about the industry as a whole. If you are not already doing so, read industry related publications and network.
Those who are changing fields should most certainly read industry related publications in their intended field. Additionally I suggest conducting informational interviews with at least one peer level and one senior level person in that field. Conduct a peer level interview to get a good idea of what it would be like to actually work in that industry. Conduct a senior level interview to get the perspective of someone who can see the big picture and all the little details as well.
Don't know anyone in your intended field? Network! One great way to start is through LinkedIn. Another is by making use of your undergraduate alumni network and/or career center.
LEARN WHAT IS HOT. No matter whether you are changing fields or not, learn what is hot now and try to figure out what will be hot by the time you graduate. Now, of course, this is just a plan and chances are that what is hot in your industry or field now may very well be cold in the future. The point is to come across to Rose and her colleagues as someone who is not only well informed, but has CUTTING-EDGE knowledge. Some great general sources for learning what is hot:
From the Business Schools: Feed your brain with cutting-edge ideas from the best business schools in the world. In addition to the Chicago resources I mentioned below, other great sources of information include Stanford Social Innovation Review, Harvard Working Knowledge, Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School Publishing, Knowledge @ Wharton, and MIT Sloan Management Review.
You may also want to do a search on itunes for podcasts: My favorites in addition to Chicago's podcast are Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (from the Stanford School of Engineering, but totally relevant) Net Impact, and Harvard Business IdeaCast. INSEAD, IMD, LBS, and Wharton also have podcasts.
LinkedIn Answers: I would suggest that everyone join LinkedIn and make use of LinkedIn Answers. LinkedIn Answers is a great way to tap into cutting edge expertise (including my admissions advice!). Follow LinkedIn's rules and you will often be able to obtain excellent information.
Hoovers: For information about specific companies, Hoovers is just a great way to learn about key facts including competitors (a very useful way of knowing who else you might want to work for and to learn about an industry). While primarily focused on the US, Hoovers does have listings for companies worldwide.
Vault: For scope of coverage, this site is a must. Vault includes both career and admissions information. It includes both company specific and industry-wide information.
Other sources: Read magazines, websites, and books that relate to your intended field.
What about the Chicago Booth MBA makes you feel it is the next best step in your career?
In this part of the question you need to explain why you need an MBA from Booth now. To really answer this question you need to know about Chicago . Given that Booth has great online sources available for this purpose, even if you don’t visit, you can learn about it. Start here. In particular take a good look at Chicago Booth Dean's Student Admissions Committee (DSAC) blog. To learn more about the GSB's research, see University of Chicago Booth's Working Papers and The University of Chicago's Capital Ideas. I also strongly suggest listening to the Booth podcast series. This a great series of podcasts that should help get you thinking about business at the kind of intellectual level required for success at Chicago.
10/9/09 UPDATE: I also suggest reviewing an interview I conducted with a former client who is a member of the Class of 2010.
Japanese applicants should most certainly visit the MBA J-Book. Japanese applicants should also read this post as there has never been a better time for Japanese applicants to apply to Booth!
Effective answers to this part of the question will establish deep and specific linkages between specific aspects of the Booth program and your goals in order to show fit. To do this effectively requires actually writing something meaningful about your goals. If your objective is to make this essay effective, you don't want to write something that is purely generic, something anyone could write. You need to show your specific fit. This means analyzing your needs (See my chart above) and relating them directly to Booth. It means showing Rose Martinelli and her colleagues that you know what you will do in an MBA program with only one required class (LEAD).
BOOTH'S FLEXIBLE CURRICULUM: YES, WE ALL KNOW THAT.
It is, of course, fine to mention that Booth has a flexible curriculum, but everyone knows that. The point is what you will do with it? That is always the point. I have had clients admitted into the Classes of 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 and I can say that the only thing that is consistent about them is that each had their own individual plans for how they would utilize their Chicago education. You need to have your own Booth study plan that clearly links to why you need an MBA now.
1a. FOR REAPPLICANTS ONLY: Upon reflection, how has your thinking regarding your future, Chicago Booth, and/or getting an MBA changed since the time of your last application? (250 words)
Reapplicants should read my previous post on reapplication. Use this space to specifically explain what has improved about you since you last applied. You can certainly mention improved test scores, but I would not use every much of your word count for that. Typical topics include: development of a new skill, promotions that demonstrate your potential for future success, involvement in an extracurricular activity, learning significantly more about Booth, and why your goals discussed in Essay 1 now are better than the ones you presented last time.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. To learn more about my services, see here. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. To learn more about my services, see here. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
シカゴ、ビジネススクール, MBA留学
September 16, 2009
Chicago Booth Fall 2010 Optional Essay
This is the forth in a series of five posts on the University of Chicago Booth's MBA application essays for Fall 2010 admission. The parts are Essay 1, Essay 2, Slide Presentation, Optional Essay, and Overall Plan.
The University of Chicago Booth's MBA application for the Class of 2012 also includes space for an optional essay. I have taken the tip below from the online application. The question and the tip read as follows:
Optional Essay Tip
If you read the above, it should be clear enough that this is primarily the place to explain anything negative or potentially negative in your background. Yes, you may have written a great essay for Tuck, Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, NYU, MIT, INSEAD, Columbia, or London Business School, but unless your objective is to tell that to Chicago don't include it here. Booth gives you two essays and a slide presentation to write about all the good stuff.
Unless you are perfect there is a reasonable likelihood that you will have something to write about here. If you don't think you have anything, just ask yourself the following questions:
1. What is the weakest thing about my application content? Do I have anything that I should say about that? Would it be obvious to a reader or something only I could know? If you can identify something that you think would likely be obvious to a reader, write about it.
2. What is the weakest thing about me as an applicant? Do I have anything that I should say about that? Would it be obvious to a reader or something only I could know? If you can identify something that you think would likely be obvious to a reader, write about it.
3. Is there anything at all that I did not have space in my essays to clarify? If so, write about it.
Finally, if you think there is nothing to write about, you need not do so, but I find that most applicants have something they need to discuss.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
シカゴ、ビジネススクール, MBA留学
The University of Chicago Booth's MBA application for the Class of 2012 also includes space for an optional essay. I have taken the tip below from the online application. The question and the tip read as follows:
Optional Essay
If there is any important information that is relevant for your candidacy that you were unable to address elsewhere in the application, please share that information here.Optional Essay Tip
The optional essay is provided to give you an opportunity to explain any potential anomalies or ambiguity in your application. For example, you can explain why you did not use your current employer to write your recommendation, you might provide some clarity as to why there are significant gaps in your resume, or you may help us to understand why your grades declined in your junior year.
Please note this question is very functional in its design, it is to provide clarity on aspects of the application, not to give you an opportunity to write another creative essay.
If you read the above, it should be clear enough that this is primarily the place to explain anything negative or potentially negative in your background. Yes, you may have written a great essay for Tuck, Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, NYU, MIT, INSEAD, Columbia, or London Business School, but unless your objective is to tell that to Chicago don't include it here. Booth gives you two essays and a slide presentation to write about all the good stuff.
Unless you are perfect there is a reasonable likelihood that you will have something to write about here. If you don't think you have anything, just ask yourself the following questions:
1. What is the weakest thing about my application content? Do I have anything that I should say about that? Would it be obvious to a reader or something only I could know? If you can identify something that you think would likely be obvious to a reader, write about it.
2. What is the weakest thing about me as an applicant? Do I have anything that I should say about that? Would it be obvious to a reader or something only I could know? If you can identify something that you think would likely be obvious to a reader, write about it.
3. Is there anything at all that I did not have space in my essays to clarify? If so, write about it.
Finally, if you think there is nothing to write about, you need not do so, but I find that most applicants have something they need to discuss.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
シカゴ、ビジネススクール, MBA留学
Chicago Booth Fall 2010 Slide Presentation
This is the third in a series of five posts on the University of Chicago Booth's MBA application essays for Fall 2010 admission. The parts are Essay 1, Essay 2, Slide Presentation, Optional Essay, and Overall Plan.
This is the third year that the University of Chicago Booth has required a slide presentation as part of their MBA application. Based on working with four clients admitted to the Class of 2011 and one admitted to the Class of 2010, I am confident that the advice I offer below is effective. Each of these client's presentations was distinct and provided admissions with interesting set of perspectives on the applicant. Some of the slides looked really professional, while others were clearly not. Some were funny, others less so. Some were high concept, others very simple and direct. All of these slides worked in their own way.
It is not often that a school’s essay question gets the attention of the press, but Booth’s Question Three did when it first came out. While the mandatory use of PowerPoint is novel, is this question so odd? See below!
After I analyze Booth's PowerPoint question, I conclude with some specific suggestions for how to brainstorm for your answer.
While Chicago Booth has proven itself to have an absolutely brilliant PR strategy by issuing press releases and otherwise making it appear that this is totally new, I think this is only partially the case, as I will discuss below. Chicago is the first school to require a PowerPoint as a part of the application, but it is not the first to allow the use of one as part of the process.
Two Prior Uses of PowerPoint in the MBA Application Process:
I think it is important to realize that Chicago is not the first school to allow for the use of PowerPoint or other presentation slide content as part of the application process.
The use of slide presentations has long been a possibility for both NYU Stern and HEC.
NYU STERN
First, it has been possible to create a short PowerPoint presentation as part of the NYU Stern process for years. The Stern question reads:
Please describe yourself to your MBA classmates. You may use almost any method to convey your message (e.g. words, illustrations). Feel free to be creative.
One such method for doing so is an actual presentation. Whether made with PowerPoint or other tools, applicants have been doing this, both successfully and unsuccessfully, for years.
HEC
HEC Paris requires presentations as part of its interview process. The relevant part of the instructions are as follows:
The interview starts with a 10-minute presentation made by the candidate on the subject of his/her choice. The main objective of this presentation is to judge the candidate's communication and presentation skills, the capability to synthesize a subject in 10 minutes while keeping the interest of the audience. The candidate may use any presentation method he or she wishes, such as transparencies, notes, slides, etc.
The presentation is then followed by 30 to 40 minutes of questions and answers, first on the presentation, then on the candidate's motivation and other elements mentioned in his/her application.
Actually, HEC candidates have to make this presentation twice to different interviewers. Now, while it is possible to not use PowerPoint to make one’s HEC presentation, I have never worked with anyone who did that.
I point out the above two examples out merely to show that while Booth's use of PowerPoint is certainly novel, it is not without precedent.
MAKING A PRESENTATION IS A PRACTICAL TEST OF BASIC BUSINESS ABILITY
Consider some of the standard parts of the application and how they reflect on the applicant's abilities:
RESUME: Ability to effectively convey one's core professional, academic, and personal experience for the purposes of getting selected for an interview.
GOALS ESSAYS: Ability to clearly articulate a plan.
INTERVIEW: Ability to effectively convince an interviewer that you are good fit for the organization (in this case as a student in B-School).
RECOMMENDATIONS: Ability to obtain powerful endorsements designed to help convince a selection committee.
Looked at from this perspective, PowerPoint is a fundamental business skill. Like MIT Sloan's cover letter and every school's resume, at some level, Chicago 3 is testing the applicant's basic business skills. Why not test for it?
Anyone who has been or wants to be a businessperson will have spent countless hours preparing and delivering presentations. If you want to go do IPO Roadshows, sell a room of people your services, convince a Board of Directors, etc, you will need slides and those slides will be made with PowerPoint. It seems totally reasonable to me to ask anyone to use it because they will have to anyway.
Especially if you don't know how to use PowerPoint, my suggestion is NOT to focus on style, but on your content. That actually is true for anyone (even those who are PowerPoint Gurus) and is clearly the message that Booth is delivering: This question is not designed to evaluate the applicants’ PowerPoint expertise, but rather to reveal how people think and communicate their ideas. This question, like the rest of the essay questions, is designed to provoke critical thought and self-reflection, not just their creativity. It is the message within the slides that is important, not the presentation.
Rose Martinelli's comments above clearly indicate that the focus is on the message, not the overall aesthetics of the presentation.
IS THIS REALLY A TEST OF PowerPoint SKILLS?
NO. I think it is a test of your ability to prepare a very simple presentation about yourself. Remember that you are preparing slides for a presentation that will only be delivered on paper and unlike a presentation that you would deliver, you are not able to take advantage of what PowerPoint can do:
Slides will be printed and added to your file for review, therefore, flash, hyperlinks, embedded videos, music, etc. will not be viewed by the committee. You are limited to text and static images to convey your points. Color may be used.
In fact, for anyone who has actually is good at PowerPoint, they may find it necessary to compromise on their aesthetics and technical skills in order to most effectively answer the question. Especially those who believe in providing a minimal amount of content per slide might find it necessary to increase the amount of content they include.
As someone who previously made the transition from text heavy slides to minimalist ones when delivering sales and marketing presentations, I know that if I had to answer this question, I would have to compromise on what I consider to be my own best practices for making PowerPoint slides.
NOT A TEST OF YOUR ABILITY TO DELIVER A PRESENTATION, BUT A TEST OF YOUR ABILITY TO PREPARE ONE
Always remember that you are being tested on your ability to prepare a presentation, not to deliver one. Hence, you should always first think of this as a text that will be read, not one that will be spoken.
If you still think you need to learn more about PowerPoint, I suggest reading Presenting to Win by Jerry Weissman, the Silicon Valley PowerPoint Guru. When I first read Chicago's question, I looked for a book focused on the story telling aspect of PowerPoint and I think this is it. You can read my mini-review and buy the book here. Visit Weissman's site here.
WHAT ABOUT THE NOTES?
Given Booth's very specific instructions about the Notes, you should think about them as an opportunity to explain something in the slide in greater depth, but not as a speech for the slides:
You are welcome to attach a document containing notes if you feel a deeper explanation of your slides is necessary. However the hope is the slide is able to stand alone and convey your ideas clearly. You will not be penalized for adding notes but you should not construct a slide with the intention of using the notes section as a consistent means of explanation.
Let's Think About Length
You will have four slides plus 200 words for the notes to communicate your message. Regarding the notes, Rose Martinelli has further stated that the notes document "should not exceed one paragraph per slide." Depending on your perspective, this might seem like a great deal of text or not very much. Given that the notes give you about 50 words to further clarify each slide, the actual total amount of content is really likely to be in the 300-600 word range depending on what you do with the slides.
IS THIS AN ESSAY IN DISGUISE?
Rose Martinelli says:
In many respects we are looking for similar things in the slides as we would in the essays. We are looking for organized thoughts, strong communication skills, and the ability to convey ideas clearly. We will also be looking at an applicant's ability to be insightful and their willingness to express themselves in a new medium. In some respects, this question adds an element of risk to the application that has not been there before.
I think it is helpful to conceive of as have exactly the same function as an essay, but you should consider...
including visual imagery AND/OR
using bullet points AND/OR
using metaphors AND/OR
being non-linear AND/OR
minimizing or eliminating introductions and conclusions.
Rose Martinelli states:
Well, as you know, the Chicago GSB [Booth] has a reputation for challenging norms. In some respects that is what the PowerPoint is doing. Traditional essays, although helpful in the application process, tend to be confining. Essay questions do not allow applicants to fully stretch beyond the question and communicate their strengths, weaknesses, passions etc. The PowerPoint slide is our way of giving applicants a blank slate on which to communicate with us. There aren't many restrictions for an applicant, and they have free reign to communicate to the committee whatever they feel is valuable for us to know. An applicant can expand upon their application or they can go beyond it and reveal something completely new. This is their opportunity to express themselves without guidance or restriction.
Thus you would best advised to not simply take an essay and divide it among the four slides. Instead, show creativity. One effective way to organize your slides is to have each slide make one key point or communicate one key idea about you. And in a real sense, this is no different from what a good paragraph should do.
Now that we have looked at the overall context for this question, let’s think about what is actually being asked.
What was the question again?
THE CORE PART OF THE QUESTION: "we invite you tell us about yourself" is very simple. I could restate it as "please help us understand who you are."
WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT WRITE ABOUT:
1. As the beginning of the question states, Chicago has already asked for "a great deal of information throughout this application." This is stated in contrast to what they want you to tell them. Therefore don't focus on facts that they can find elsewhere in the application.
2. In Essay 1, you have already discussed your goals and why you want an MBA from Chicago, so don't discuss goals and why MBA here.
SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE ABOUT?
IT IS ALL ABOUT YOU!
Some Questions to get you brainstorming:
1. What do you want Chicago to know about you that would positively impact your chances for admission?
2. What major positive aspects of your life have not been effectively INTERPRETED to the admissions committee in other parts of the application?
3. If you were going to tell admissions four things about you that would not be obvious from rest of the application, what would they be? Why should Booth care?
4. If there was one story about yourself that you think would really help admissions understand you and want to admit you, what is it?
5. Do you have a personal interest (painting and poetry for example) that would work effectively in a PowerPoint?
6. If you have a sense of humor and/or creativity, how can you express it here? I suggest doing so if you can.
As you can see, these questions would lead to very different kinds of responses. There is no one way to answer this question, but I believe there are right ways for every applicant to do so.
Previously, one of my readers asked three very good questions about the Slide Presentation. I am reprinting them in slightly altered form below.
1) In your opinion, should one use a minimalistic approach involving images to convey one's ideas?
I think this will really depend on you. The important thing is to effectively convey something important about who you are to the admissions committee. If that can be done effectively with more images that is great, if it can be done effectively with minimal or no images that is also great. The important thing is that your reader understands the significance of any images you use. Luckily, you have the notes for that purpose. Just as in "real" PowerPoints, images or any graphic element can be used effectively or badly. Always ask yourself, "Why am I using this image? Does it really help them understand me?" If it does, keep it. If it is mere decoration, think about eliminating it or replacing it with something that will have a positive impact on Chicago's ability to understand who you are.
2) Would a little bit of humor do good e.g. a cartoon?
Keeping in mind what I just wrote above, I think humor can be used effectively. You must practice extremely good judgment when using humor for any application. Don't make a joke simply to make one. Use humor if it is effective in conveying something that will compel Rose and her colleagues to want to interview you. That said, I have had a number of clients who successfully used humor in their applications for Chicago Booth.
3) Is Booth looking for an analytical assessment of one's personality in these slides?
I think they are looking for a meaningful assessment of your personality. I will not say "analytical" because that is just one possibility. If by "analytical" you mean a detailed explanation for your character making use of standard forms of argument, it is fine to do it that way, but not the only way. I use the word "meaningful" because it does not necessarily require logic or analysis to do so. For example, an image with some kind of description may provide Chicago Booth with great insight into who you are. Since Chicago is specifically being "non-traditional," you certainly can be also so long as you answer the question.
Finally, think big and be creative. To answer this one effectively will take time, but if you want to get into Chicago Booth, put in the time.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
シカゴ、ビジネススクール, MBA留学
This is the third year that the University of Chicago Booth has required a slide presentation as part of their MBA application. Based on working with four clients admitted to the Class of 2011 and one admitted to the Class of 2010, I am confident that the advice I offer below is effective. Each of these client's presentations was distinct and provided admissions with interesting set of perspectives on the applicant. Some of the slides looked really professional, while others were clearly not. Some were funny, others less so. Some were high concept, others very simple and direct. All of these slides worked in their own way.
It is not often that a school’s essay question gets the attention of the press, but Booth’s Question Three did when it first came out. While the mandatory use of PowerPoint is novel, is this question so odd? See below!
After I analyze Booth's PowerPoint question, I conclude with some specific suggestions for how to brainstorm for your answer.
While Chicago Booth has proven itself to have an absolutely brilliant PR strategy by issuing press releases and otherwise making it appear that this is totally new, I think this is only partially the case, as I will discuss below. Chicago is the first school to require a PowerPoint as a part of the application, but it is not the first to allow the use of one as part of the process.
- The content is completely up to you. There is no right or wrong approach this essay. Feel free to use the software you are most comfortable with. Acceptable formats for upload in the online application system are PowerPoint or PDF.
- There is a strict maximum of 4 slides, though you can provide fewer than 4 if you choose.
- Slides will be printed and added to your file for review, therefore, flash, hyperlinks, embedded videos, music, etc. will not be viewed by the committee. You are limited to text and static images to convey your points. Color may be used.
- Slides will be evaluated on the quality of content and ability to convey your ideas, not on technical expertise or presentation.
- You are welcome to attach a document containing notes if you feel a deeper explanation of your slides is necessary. However the hope is the slide is able to stand alone and convey your ideas clearly. You will not be penalized for adding notes but you should not construct a slide with the intention of using the notes section as a consistent means of explanation. (200 words maximum, see online application).
Two Prior Uses of PowerPoint in the MBA Application Process:
I think it is important to realize that Chicago is not the first school to allow for the use of PowerPoint or other presentation slide content as part of the application process.
The use of slide presentations has long been a possibility for both NYU Stern and HEC.
NYU STERN
First, it has been possible to create a short PowerPoint presentation as part of the NYU Stern process for years. The Stern question reads:
Please describe yourself to your MBA classmates. You may use almost any method to convey your message (e.g. words, illustrations). Feel free to be creative.
One such method for doing so is an actual presentation. Whether made with PowerPoint or other tools, applicants have been doing this, both successfully and unsuccessfully, for years.
HEC
HEC Paris requires presentations as part of its interview process. The relevant part of the instructions are as follows:
The interview starts with a 10-minute presentation made by the candidate on the subject of his/her choice. The main objective of this presentation is to judge the candidate's communication and presentation skills, the capability to synthesize a subject in 10 minutes while keeping the interest of the audience. The candidate may use any presentation method he or she wishes, such as transparencies, notes, slides, etc.
The presentation is then followed by 30 to 40 minutes of questions and answers, first on the presentation, then on the candidate's motivation and other elements mentioned in his/her application.
Actually, HEC candidates have to make this presentation twice to different interviewers. Now, while it is possible to not use PowerPoint to make one’s HEC presentation, I have never worked with anyone who did that.
I point out the above two examples out merely to show that while Booth's use of PowerPoint is certainly novel, it is not without precedent.
MAKING A PRESENTATION IS A PRACTICAL TEST OF BASIC BUSINESS ABILITY
Consider some of the standard parts of the application and how they reflect on the applicant's abilities:
RESUME: Ability to effectively convey one's core professional, academic, and personal experience for the purposes of getting selected for an interview.
GOALS ESSAYS: Ability to clearly articulate a plan.
INTERVIEW: Ability to effectively convince an interviewer that you are good fit for the organization (in this case as a student in B-School).
RECOMMENDATIONS: Ability to obtain powerful endorsements designed to help convince a selection committee.
Looked at from this perspective, PowerPoint is a fundamental business skill. Like MIT Sloan's cover letter and every school's resume, at some level, Chicago 3 is testing the applicant's basic business skills. Why not test for it?
Anyone who has been or wants to be a businessperson will have spent countless hours preparing and delivering presentations. If you want to go do IPO Roadshows, sell a room of people your services, convince a Board of Directors, etc, you will need slides and those slides will be made with PowerPoint. It seems totally reasonable to me to ask anyone to use it because they will have to anyway.
Especially if you don't know how to use PowerPoint, my suggestion is NOT to focus on style, but on your content. That actually is true for anyone (even those who are PowerPoint Gurus) and is clearly the message that Booth is delivering: This question is not designed to evaluate the applicants’ PowerPoint expertise, but rather to reveal how people think and communicate their ideas. This question, like the rest of the essay questions, is designed to provoke critical thought and self-reflection, not just their creativity. It is the message within the slides that is important, not the presentation.
Rose Martinelli's comments above clearly indicate that the focus is on the message, not the overall aesthetics of the presentation.
IS THIS REALLY A TEST OF PowerPoint SKILLS?
NO. I think it is a test of your ability to prepare a very simple presentation about yourself. Remember that you are preparing slides for a presentation that will only be delivered on paper and unlike a presentation that you would deliver, you are not able to take advantage of what PowerPoint can do:
Slides will be printed and added to your file for review, therefore, flash, hyperlinks, embedded videos, music, etc. will not be viewed by the committee. You are limited to text and static images to convey your points. Color may be used.
In fact, for anyone who has actually is good at PowerPoint, they may find it necessary to compromise on their aesthetics and technical skills in order to most effectively answer the question. Especially those who believe in providing a minimal amount of content per slide might find it necessary to increase the amount of content they include.
As someone who previously made the transition from text heavy slides to minimalist ones when delivering sales and marketing presentations, I know that if I had to answer this question, I would have to compromise on what I consider to be my own best practices for making PowerPoint slides.
NOT A TEST OF YOUR ABILITY TO DELIVER A PRESENTATION, BUT A TEST OF YOUR ABILITY TO PREPARE ONE
Always remember that you are being tested on your ability to prepare a presentation, not to deliver one. Hence, you should always first think of this as a text that will be read, not one that will be spoken.
If you still think you need to learn more about PowerPoint, I suggest reading Presenting to Win by Jerry Weissman, the Silicon Valley PowerPoint Guru. When I first read Chicago's question, I looked for a book focused on the story telling aspect of PowerPoint and I think this is it. You can read my mini-review and buy the book here. Visit Weissman's site here.
WHAT ABOUT THE NOTES?
Given Booth's very specific instructions about the Notes, you should think about them as an opportunity to explain something in the slide in greater depth, but not as a speech for the slides:
You are welcome to attach a document containing notes if you feel a deeper explanation of your slides is necessary. However the hope is the slide is able to stand alone and convey your ideas clearly. You will not be penalized for adding notes but you should not construct a slide with the intention of using the notes section as a consistent means of explanation.
Let's Think About Length
You will have four slides plus 200 words for the notes to communicate your message. Regarding the notes, Rose Martinelli has further stated that the notes document "should not exceed one paragraph per slide." Depending on your perspective, this might seem like a great deal of text or not very much. Given that the notes give you about 50 words to further clarify each slide, the actual total amount of content is really likely to be in the 300-600 word range depending on what you do with the slides.
IS THIS AN ESSAY IN DISGUISE?
Rose Martinelli says:
In many respects we are looking for similar things in the slides as we would in the essays. We are looking for organized thoughts, strong communication skills, and the ability to convey ideas clearly. We will also be looking at an applicant's ability to be insightful and their willingness to express themselves in a new medium. In some respects, this question adds an element of risk to the application that has not been there before.
I think it is helpful to conceive of as have exactly the same function as an essay, but you should consider...
including visual imagery AND/OR
using bullet points AND/OR
using metaphors AND/OR
being non-linear AND/OR
minimizing or eliminating introductions and conclusions.
Rose Martinelli states:
Well, as you know, the Chicago GSB [Booth] has a reputation for challenging norms. In some respects that is what the PowerPoint is doing. Traditional essays, although helpful in the application process, tend to be confining. Essay questions do not allow applicants to fully stretch beyond the question and communicate their strengths, weaknesses, passions etc. The PowerPoint slide is our way of giving applicants a blank slate on which to communicate with us. There aren't many restrictions for an applicant, and they have free reign to communicate to the committee whatever they feel is valuable for us to know. An applicant can expand upon their application or they can go beyond it and reveal something completely new. This is their opportunity to express themselves without guidance or restriction.
Thus you would best advised to not simply take an essay and divide it among the four slides. Instead, show creativity. One effective way to organize your slides is to have each slide make one key point or communicate one key idea about you. And in a real sense, this is no different from what a good paragraph should do.
Now that we have looked at the overall context for this question, let’s think about what is actually being asked.
What was the question again?
THE CORE PART OF THE QUESTION: "we invite you tell us about yourself" is very simple. I could restate it as "please help us understand who you are."
WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT WRITE ABOUT:
1. As the beginning of the question states, Chicago has already asked for "a great deal of information throughout this application." This is stated in contrast to what they want you to tell them. Therefore don't focus on facts that they can find elsewhere in the application.
2. In Essay 1, you have already discussed your goals and why you want an MBA from Chicago, so don't discuss goals and why MBA here.
SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE ABOUT?
IT IS ALL ABOUT YOU!
Some Questions to get you brainstorming:
1. What do you want Chicago to know about you that would positively impact your chances for admission?
2. What major positive aspects of your life have not been effectively INTERPRETED to the admissions committee in other parts of the application?
3. If you were going to tell admissions four things about you that would not be obvious from rest of the application, what would they be? Why should Booth care?
4. If there was one story about yourself that you think would really help admissions understand you and want to admit you, what is it?
5. Do you have a personal interest (painting and poetry for example) that would work effectively in a PowerPoint?
6. If you have a sense of humor and/or creativity, how can you express it here? I suggest doing so if you can.
As you can see, these questions would lead to very different kinds of responses. There is no one way to answer this question, but I believe there are right ways for every applicant to do so.
Previously, one of my readers asked three very good questions about the Slide Presentation. I am reprinting them in slightly altered form below.
1) In your opinion, should one use a minimalistic approach involving images to convey one's ideas?
I think this will really depend on you. The important thing is to effectively convey something important about who you are to the admissions committee. If that can be done effectively with more images that is great, if it can be done effectively with minimal or no images that is also great. The important thing is that your reader understands the significance of any images you use. Luckily, you have the notes for that purpose. Just as in "real" PowerPoints, images or any graphic element can be used effectively or badly. Always ask yourself, "Why am I using this image? Does it really help them understand me?" If it does, keep it. If it is mere decoration, think about eliminating it or replacing it with something that will have a positive impact on Chicago's ability to understand who you are.
2) Would a little bit of humor do good e.g. a cartoon?
Keeping in mind what I just wrote above, I think humor can be used effectively. You must practice extremely good judgment when using humor for any application. Don't make a joke simply to make one. Use humor if it is effective in conveying something that will compel Rose and her colleagues to want to interview you. That said, I have had a number of clients who successfully used humor in their applications for Chicago Booth.
3) Is Booth looking for an analytical assessment of one's personality in these slides?
I think they are looking for a meaningful assessment of your personality. I will not say "analytical" because that is just one possibility. If by "analytical" you mean a detailed explanation for your character making use of standard forms of argument, it is fine to do it that way, but not the only way. I use the word "meaningful" because it does not necessarily require logic or analysis to do so. For example, an image with some kind of description may provide Chicago Booth with great insight into who you are. Since Chicago is specifically being "non-traditional," you certainly can be also so long as you answer the question.
Finally, think big and be creative. To answer this one effectively will take time, but if you want to get into Chicago Booth, put in the time.
Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
シカゴ、ビジネススクール, MBA留学
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