Click here for my Fall 2009 (Class of 2011) essay analysis.
UPDATE AS OF 2/8/2008: I will not change my comments below regarding the ethics of Wharton because I think it is important that readers know what I had thought. I stand by my analysis of the essay questions, but given recent events, completely renounce my statements regarding the ethics of the admissions office. Wharton is a great school, but should have been better served by that office. I hope that corrective action is taken at PENN by those who should know better.I should disclose that I have a
bias for the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, not only because of the great clients I have worked with who attend/have attended there, but because of the very open nature of Wharton's admissions process. As someone who believes strongly that the only ethical approach to admissions is one based on providing applicants with complete information about a transparent process, I consider Wharton's admissions practices a yardstick by which to measure other schools. Click
here to learn more about Wharton's admissions process.
Wharton's Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, Thomas Caleel, gave an extensive presentation in Tokyo on September 26, 2007 that was a further demonstration of the very honest and applicant friendly approach that is the hallmark of this school's process.
I mention all of this because I think with Wharton, they are not engaged in trying to stump applicants. To paraphrase what Mr.
Caleel said about his own approach to interview questions (he conducts admissions interviews including Tokyo hub interviews), "I ask easy questions that are hard to answer." I think this is equally true of Wharton's essays. They are not trick questions, but that does not make them easy to answer.
First, here is the entire set of questions:
Essay 1 (Required)
Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect a Wharton MBA to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program? (1,000 words)
Essay 2 (Required)
Describe a failure or setback that you have experienced. What role did you play and what did you learn about yourself? (500 words)
Essay 3 (Required)
Tell us about a situation in which you were an outsider. What did you learn from the experience? (500 words)
Essay 4 (Required)
Please Complete One Of The Following Two Questions:
- Where in your background would we find evidence of your leadership capacity and/or potential? (500 words)
- Is there anything about your background or experience that you feel you have not had the opportunity to share with the Admissions Committee in your application? If yes, please explain. (500 words)
Essay 5 (Optional)
If you feel there are extenuating circumstances of which the Committee should be aware, please explain them here (e.g., unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, TOEFL waiver request, inconsistent or questionable academic performance, significant weaknesses in your application). (250 words)
In total you will need to write at least 2500 words. Keep in mind that Wharton is flexible about word count:
Essay length? We often get asked about essay length, specifically whether it is OK to go over the number of words suggested. Recognize we do not count words (this would take longer than actually reading the essay), nor does our online system count words (and therefore does not truncate the essay at the specific limit etc.)
+/- 10% is going to be fine (and remain unnoticed). Any more than this and it may become an issue as writing succinctly is a skill that is useful in business and business school. You should also realize your readers are reading multiple essays from multiple applicants so writing long essays is not likely to be a positive.
The exceptions to the above may be if you have a more unusual background (by business school standards) and feel you have a little more to explain (about your less traditional goals, experience etc.) In this case you may need to explain the nature of your experiences in more detail, but this does not give you the license to write at will!
I don't think there is a case where it makes sense to write much less than the suggested word count as the essays are going to be an important component to your application and should be used as such.
Summary: Over or under by 10% is fine. In exceptional cases, more than 10% is fine. Say everything you need to say, but use good judgment.
I frequently have applicants start with Wharton because it is flexible on word count and because the essays that you write for Wharton will be helpful for other applications as well.
Essay 1 (Required)
Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect a Wharton MBA to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program? (1,000 words)At the Tokyo event, Mr.
Caleel made it very clear that applicants should answer the entire question, but it does not need to be answered in any particular order. The question breaks down into the following components:
1.
Describe your career progress to date.2.
Describe your future short-term career goals.3,
Describe your future long-term career goals.4.
How do you expect a Wharton MBA to help you achieve these goals?5.
Why is now the best time for you to join our program? I will not provide much further analysis of this question, but instead, I suggest taking look at my analysis of Chicago GSB Essay 1. If you are having difficulty formulating your goals, please see this post. Regarding learning about Wharton, there is little reason for me to discuss that as you can easily learn about by visiting the Wharton website and their truly excellent MBA Admissions Blog!
ESSAY 2: You can read my already posted analysis of Essay 2 here.
Essay 3 (Required)
Tell us about a situation in which you were an outsider. What did you learn from the experience? (500 words)This is a very open-ended question that admissions can use to understand how you relate to other people. When thinking about this essay, I suggest you focus on a positive situation where you...
(1) learned how to become an insider;
(2)maintained your status as an outsider, but learned something important about yourself;
(3) maintained your status as an outsider, but learned something important about the group you were outside of;
(4) demonstrate an understanding of group dynamics;
(5) demonstrate cultural sensitivity;
(6) demonstrate self-awareness;
(7) demonstrate the ability to integrate yourself into a new situation and have impact;
(8) demonstrate knowledge about the group/place you were outside of;
AND/OR
(9) demonstrate your
independence by embracing the status of outsider in order to have impact, preserve your own ethical standards, and/or position.
My suggestions are inherently abstract because of the many possible ways of positively writing this essay. I don't suggest writing about a failure or setback here because you will have already addressed that topic in Essay 2. As I mention in my analysis of
the HBS essays, it is possible to use the same content for Wharton 3 and HBS 3b depending on your choice of topics.
Essay 4 1. Where in your background would we find evidence of your leadership capacity and/or potential? (500 words) Please see
How to write an MBA Leadership Essay. The guidance I provide in that post applies to this question. Unlike the HBS question, you don't necessarily have to focus on a single story, but most applicants will in order to provide a fully developed example.
Essay 4. 2. Is there anything about your background or experience that you feel you have not had the opportunity to share with the Admissions Committee in your application? If yes, please explain. (500 words)This question is exactly the same as
HBS 3f. You should use this essay to focus on an important part of who you are that will help convince Wharton that you belong there. I will provide a more extensive analysis of this question in a future post.
Essay 5 (Optional)
If you feel there are extenuating circumstances of which the Committee should be aware, please explain them here (e.g., unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, TOEFL waiver request, inconsistent or questionable academic performance, significant weaknesses in your application). (250 words)See my post on
Chicago GSB's optional question as what I wrote there, applies here as well. At his Tokyo presentation, Mr. Caleel specifically encouraged applicants to use this space if they need to because it is better to tell him the reason then to make him guess. Given that he reads all the applications, I suggest doing so IF YOU NEED TO. Don't write anything if you have no concerns.
Question? Comment or write me at adammarkus@gmail.com
-Adam Markus
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