Columbia Business School MBA Application Interviews

In this post I provide advice on how to prepare for a Columbia Business School MBA interview. You can find my post on Columbia Essays here. For general advice on interview preparation, please see here, here, and here.

Columbia Business School offers only one flavor of admissions interview: "Columbia Business School Ambassador" alumni invitation-only interviews. You will get to select from multiple interviewers, so try to figure out who they are first before contacting them. I suggest using Google searches, LinkedIn, and perhaps your own network to do so. Select someone who you think you will be compatible with.

While this interview is certainly important, it is not unheard of for admissions to admit someone the alumni did not recommend or ding someone the interviewer did recommend. The admissions office has the ultimate discretion over this issue and clearly sees the interview as only one factor for determining the ultimate result. That said, the interview is certainly quite important. In my experience, clients who report not having a great Columbia rarely are admitted, so you as an applicant should assume that like with any interview, it is very important to do well.

Columbia alumni seem to be particularly effective gatekeepers for the program. They are well known for relentlessly determining whether Columbia really is the applicant's first choice. They are clearly told to do this as it is a consistent feature of interview reports. Not only should you be able to explain why Columbia is your first choice, but you had better explain why HBS, Stanford, and/or Wharton is not. Less then clear answers to the why is CBS your first choice question can prove fatal. Beyond that, I think alum are really looking to make sure that you possess sufficient mental strength, personal drive (aggression), and career focus to become a part of their "club."

Some of the most common question topics you would encounter in a Columbia interview (Based on my colleague Steve Green's review of reports at accepted.com and clearadmit.com, which is consistent with what clients have been reporting to me):

RESUME

• Walk me through your resume.  (PICK AND PROBE CONTENT)
• Tell me about a professional achievement
• Explain your professional progression up until now and why you need an MBA?
• What is unique about you?

GOALS

• What are your career goals?
• In addition to applying for an MBA, what other steps have you taken toward your goal?
• Why an MBA?
• Why now?
• Why Columbia?
• How will you contribute to Columbia?
• What are your criteria for an MBA program?
• Where else did you apply?
• What other schools have you applied to?
• What will you do if you don't get in anywhere else?
• What makes you unique from other (financiers / salesmen / IT specialists, etc.) applying to Columbia?  
• Are there any red flags you think the adcom will find in your candidacy?

LEADERSHIP

• What is your leadership / management style?
• Tell me about a time when you took the initiative.
• Have you ever been in a leadership role?

TEAMWORK

• Tell me about a time when you had a work in a difficult team at your first job.
• Tell me about a time when you had to work with a difficult person.
• What role do you play on teams?
• Example of leading a team.
• Example of contributing to a team.
• Example of a challenging team/group situation.

SELF-AWARENESS

• Tell me about a time when you faced adversity?
• Tell me about a time when you made a major mistake at work and how you dealt with it.

ETHICS

• What
  was an ethical dilemma you've faced, and what did you do about it? (Follow up with q’s like “What would you do differently?”)
• Describea time, either professionally or academically, when you witnessed others behaving unethically--what did you do about it?

PERSONAL

• Tell me something unique about you
• Is there anything particular you’d like me to add to my report for admissions?
• What do you do in your free time?
• What do you get excited about? What turns you on?
• Why? (sports, hobbies etc.)
• What are 5 adjectives that describe your interpersonal skills and communication style?

ANALYTICAL ABILITY / CURRENT EVENTS

• Tell me about a technology trend and how it will affect business.
• What is the impact of the financial crisis on (YOUR) industry?
• Topical questions about the current financial crisis, etc.
• Anything related to interviewee’s field:  Future or real estate, health care, etc.

Either walk me through your resume or questions that amount to the same thing are always asked. Expect to be asked one way or another about how you standout professionally. Be honest, but very direct and sell your experience emphasizing your ability to make an impact. A common question is "What improvements have made in the position hold at work?"

Ethical dilemma questions, especially related to work experiences are common. So lets go over them briefly here. Ethical dilemma questions are all about decision making and learning:
1. Define the situation, such that it involves clearly identifiable options that are in conflict.
2. The options have to be real. They each have to have clear "goods" associated with them.
3. Justify the basis for the decision you made.
4. If your decision was right, focus on the result.
5. If your decision was wrong, focus on what you learned and hopefully applied to a more recent situation.


Be ready to ask questions to the alum. Prepare them ahead of time. Assume that unless the alum is a very recent graduate, they should not be asked about recent developments on the campus. This is a good opportunity to ask them about their Columbia experience and about the alumni network.

If there is anything you wanted to mention that was not covered in your application that you want to bring to the admission committee's attention, you will possibly have the opportunity to do so because interviewers frequently ask about this.


You probably will not be asked any weird hypothetical questions, but rather expect to cover some variation of the above questions in a great deal of depth.


Reported interview length is typically 60-75 minutes, but some interviews are shorter and some go for 90 minutes.


Brief Telephone Follow-up Interviews with an Admissions Officer: A number of my clients, especially,but exclusively non-native English speakers, have had short 5-15 minute interviews with the admissions office after the alumni interview.  More of my Japanese and Chinese clients have experienced this for purposes of an English language check, but I have also had clients from the US and Canada who received such calls. Sometimes the admissions office simply as a point of fact in the application that they want to clarify. From what I can gather, getting such a call is neither positive or negative in terms of the final result.


-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

Harvard Law School LL.M. Essay Questions for Fall 2013

Harvard Law School has "updated" their Master of Law application page for Fall 2010 admission, so I am updating my post Harvard LL.M. program as well.  Actually the application has not changed significantly for years and this is my first major update in about four years. The deadlines: For the LL.M. class beginning in September 2013, the application deadline is December 1, 2012. (We strongly encourage all application materials be delivered by November 15, 2012.)

While almost all my clients are applying to MBA programs,  I have extensive past experience working with applicants applying to LL.M. programs, but generally only work with a small number of applicants per year. For Fall 2012 admission, I worked with 5 clients with 1 accepted at HLS, another accepted at Yale,  2 each admitted to Columbia and NYU, three admitted to Georgetown, and one each to Chicago Cornell, Berkeley and UCLA. For Fall 2011, I worked with only 1 LL.M. client who applied only to Columbia and was admitted. I worked with no LL.M. applicants for Fall 2010. For Fall 2009 admission, I worked with three LL.M. clients, two of whom were admitted to Harvard. You can find their results here.  For me, working with very high caliber LL.M. clients is quite interesting.  Before establishing my own consulting service in 2007, about 30% of my clients between 2001-2006 were LL.M. applicants, but these days, it is a rather limited aspect of my work.  

WHY SHOULD CARE ABOUT HLS EVEN IF YOU DON'T APPLY THERE
I think everyone who applies to top LL.M. programs should think about the Harvard Law School essay questions even if they don't intend to apply to Harvard: 

1. Harvard Law School is the top general LL.M. program. Yale and Stanford are harder to get into, but they are small specialized programs. Harvard has the best name brand reputation of any American university in the world and so does its law school.

2. Not a single one of the LL.M. admits to Harvard I worked with or know about ever rejected it to attend Columbia, Chicago, or other top general LL.M. programs.

3. For applicants who apply to Harvard, it is the hardest application they will likely have to complete. The only other exception might be UC Berkeley because of the need to have a very detailed plan of study, but that is arguable and highly variable.

4. Most importantly, those who apply to Harvard are also applying to the other top programs and many will most likely be utilizing their Harvard content to prepare essays for other schools. The rigorous analytical and legal thinking that makes for great Harvard essays will thus impact not only their chances for admissions at other schools, but all other applicants' chances as well.

5. Therefore even if you don't apply to Harvard's LL.M. you need to apply the same level of intellectual rigor to your essays that a successful Harvard admit would be applying to his or her essays. Since you are competing with those who apply to Harvard, you need to write essays at the same level as required by Harvard.

In summary, Harvard has a more difficult set of essay questions than other LL.M. programs ask and most who apply to Harvard will be utilizing their content for other schools. So, even if you don't apply to Harvard, you should be aware of what some of your strongest competition will be doing. Harvard has four essay questions (Taken from the online application) and gives a total of 1900 words.

The Personal Statement questions (taken from the online application):

Please read parts a. and b. below carefully and write an essay addressing both questions, with part a. constituting at least half of the total length. Footnotes do not count towards the overall word limit as long as they are limited to providing sources and citations. Your entire statement should be no more than 1,500 words—anything exceeding the word limit will be disallowed. Please type or word-process your statement, with your full name on the top of each page and your signature at the end, and attach it to your application.

1. Briefly describe either an important issue in your field of interest or a current legal problem facing a particular country, region, or the world, and then propose a theoretical framework or a legal analysis or strategy to address this issue.
2. Please tell us something about yourself—in particular, why you wish to pursue an LL.M. degree at Harvard and how doing so connects with what you have done in the past and what you plan to do in the future.

Important: Your personal statement must address the above questions specifically, and must be solely the product of your own efforts. We reserve the right to disqualify a statement written by, or with the help of, someone other than the applicant. 

Note: There is a word limit of 1,500 words; please provide a word count at the end of your essay. Please be sure to type or word-process your statement in 12-point font, with at least one-inch (2.5 cm.) margins on each side.

Now while (a) and (b) are the main questions, there are actually two other "essay" questions (taken from the online application):

Please do NOT use ALL CAPS when completing your form. 13. ACADEMIC INTERESTS Please indicate at least two areas of your academic interests by selecting from the options below (a) a general category and (b) within that category, a specific topic. Interest 1: Category:   Business / Commercial Law Civil Rights / Race Relations Constitutional Law Criminal Law & Procedure Employment / Labor Law Environmental Law Family, Gender, Children's Law Finance Govt Structure & Function Health Law Human Rights Intellectual Prop & Cyberlaw Internat'l & Comparative Law Interdisciplinary Perspectives Legal & Political Theory Private Law Procedure & Practice Regulatory Law Taxation  Topic:  Find Topics | Clear Topic Interest 2: Category:   Business / Commercial Law Civil Rights / Race Relations Constitutional Law Criminal Law & Procedure Employment / Labor Law Environmental Law Family, Gender, Children's Law Finance Govt Structure & Function Health Law Human Rights Intellectual Prop & Cyberlaw Internat'l & Comparative Law Interdisciplinary Perspectives Legal & Political Theory Private Law Procedure & Practice Regulatory Law Taxation  Topic:  Find Topics | Clear Topic Interest 3: Category:   Business / Commercial Law Civil Rights / Race Relations Constitutional Law Criminal Law & Procedure Employment / Labor Law Environmental Law Family, Gender, Children's Law Finance Govt Structure & Function Health Law Human Rights Intellectual Prop & Cyberlaw Internat'l & Comparative Law Interdisciplinary Perspectives Legal & Political Theory Private Law Procedure & Practice Regulatory Law Taxation  Topic:  Find Topics | Clear Topic Please tell us why you are interested in these areas and how they relate to your career goals. (Note: Please limit your response to no more than 1500 characters.) 14. CAREER PLANS What are your career plans after you complete your graduate law studies? (Please choose one option from each box) Year 1-3  Law Firm/Solicitor Barrister/Advocate In-House (Corporate Counsel) Law Teaching Research Elected Office Judiciary  Prosecutor Other Government Service International Organization Non-Governmental Organization Business (non-law) Other Non-Law  Year 4-6  Law Firm/Solicitor Barrister/Advocate In-House (Corporate Counsel) Law Teaching Research Elected Office Judiciary  Prosecutor Other Government Service International Organization Non-Governmental Organization Business (non-law) Other Non-Law  Year 7 and beyond  Law Firm/Solicitor Barrister/Advocate In-House (Corporate Counsel) Law Teaching Research Elected Office Judiciary  Prosecutor Other Government Service International Organization Non-Governmental Organization Business (non-law) Other Non-Law  Please elaborate on your plans. In which country (or countries) do you intend to pursue your career? (Note: Please limit your response to no more than 1500 characters.)

Clearly no applicant should duplicate the content they write in essay (b) and in these two shorter questions, yet I believe many applicants do because they treat these two shorter questions as simply application questions and not essay questions. If you think of them as essay questions, you see that, in fact, Harvard gives approximately 2000 words maximum to each LL.M. applicant. This is more than you are likely to write for any law school with the possible exception of schools that don't specify essay length.

Is This One Essay or Two?
Since the two questions are actually divided and you need to have at least 750 words for (a), I have always advised my clients to write each as a separate essay and not a single essay. While the instructions don't absolutely specify that, it would surely make it easier to determine if part a. is at least 750 words if the two parts are separated.  Of course, there should be a connection between the two parts in as much as what you are interested in (a) should relate to what you discuss in (b) as well in terms of your academic interests and career plans.

Now let's analyze the questions:
(a)Briefly describe either an important issue in your field of interest or a current legal problem facing a particular country, region, or the world, and then propose a theoretical framework or a legal analysis or strategy to address this issue.
Question (a) is what makes Harvard's essay different from most other LL.M. applications. It is a real test of your analytical and legal thinking. It is also test of your ability to communicate something important in 750-1000 words. You will probably need at least 500 for (b) and (a) must be at least 750 words long. From my experience the most effective way to write (a) is to:

1. Identify a legal issue that you know really well and can provide a nuanced perspective on. Ideally it should also relate to what you intend to study at Harvard, but at minimum should be a reflection of your best legal thinking.

2. Write a long first draft, say 1000-2000 words.

3. Expect to go through at least four more drafts before it is close to being finished.

4. Show it to a lawyer or other legal expert who can assess whether what you say is actually accurate and impressive. With my clients, I always tell them to do this. Even if I am very familiar with the legal issue my client is analyzing, I ask them to try to get expert advice. If expert advice is not available, find the next best thing, a fellow legal practitioner whose opinion you trust.

5. If you use an admissions consultant, you should ask him or her to assess this essay within the context of your entire application and in comparison to other applicants who were admitted to Harvard. If you are interested in learning more about my services, please see my website.


(b)Please tell us something about yourself—in particular, why you wish to pursue an LL.M. degree at Harvard and how doing so connects with what you have done in the past and what you plan to do in the future.

This is actually a standard question though somewhat different from the standard catchall questions that most other schools ask. The real task is to think what you don't need to include here, which requires looking at the next two essays first, so we will come back to this question.

Academic interests
For most other schools, this would be a standard part of the main question, but Harvard does it a little differently. This means that in (b) you don't have to discuss your academic interests in detail because you will doing it here. In the context of your answer, provide the list they ask for. You can only focusing on two or three areas of legal interest in the application form.  I suggest you come across as someone with a very focused academic plan. Your academic plan at Harvard should be consistent with your future career plans.

Please elaborate on your plans. 
You should use this space to provide a specific career plan. You will have already talked about your future in (b), but at a more conceptual level. Here you should provide details of your future plans.

One thing to keep in mind: HARVARD IS FOR LEADERS. It does not matter if your leadership is as a judge, a prosecutor, a leading attorney in your field, a government expert, a scholar, or an in-house legal counsel, Harvard is looking for people who will make a difference. Your career plan is the place to show how you will use the legal knowledge you acquire at Harvard to become a credit to the legal profession. In (b) you will focus on "why?"

Now back to (b):
(b)Please tell us something about yourself—in particular, why you wish to pursue an LL.M. degree at Harvard and how doing so connects with what you have done in the past and what you plan to do in the future.
Given that you don't need to provide the details of either your academic plan at Harvard or your career plans, there is plenty of room in (b) to focus on what Harvard wants to know:

1.Why do you want an LL.M. at Harvard? Explain clearly the reason(s) for obtaining an LL.M. and at Harvard in particular.

2. Connect to the past: You need to reveal something about yourself, in particular your motivations for pursuing a legal career and need to trace that motivation to your desire to pursue an LL.M. Tell a story that reveals something about you. If you are having difficulty understanding how to do that, I suggest taking a look at my earlier posts on law school essays.

3. Connect to the future: You need to explain why an LL.M. will help you achieve your future goals. The details for that plan will be discussed in your career plan essay. If you are having difficulty formulating goals, please click here.

A great (b) answer should effectively provide the conceptual backbone that connects all four essays because essay (b) is about your past and future motivations as a legal professional. Those motivations should certainly impact what legal issue you write about in (a) as well as your academic plan at Harvard and your future career plans.

Putting together a great HLS application is a time-consuming labor of love, but if approached early enough, it really is manageable.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

ハーバード 米国ロースクール 米国大学法学院 大学院入学 カウンセリング コンサルティング 合格対策 合格率 エッサイ LLM留学

Dartmouth Tuck MBA Essay Questions for Academic Year 2013-14

In this post I analyze the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth MBA Application Essay Questions for Academic Year 2013–14 (Class of 2015). Tuck is great school in a small town. This is both its strength in terms of forming a close knit community and weakness in terms of being a location that some find unattractive. Sometimes when I talk to clients and mention Tuck, I know immediately that I made a mistake. Other times, I working with someone whose second or third top choice is Tuck. To be honest, I have worked with only a few clients who ever considered Tuck their top choice.  The location seems to be the issue. That Tuck is not the applicant pool as a whole's first choice is reflected in its yield of 54% (BusinessWeek). It is important to keep this in mind as showing a strong interest in attending the program is something you should convey both in your application and interview.  Tuck allows for student initiated campus-only interviews, which I strongly recommend unless your budget and time makes doing so impossible. Please see here for my post on interviewing at Tuck.

THE IMPORTANCE OF VISITING, NETWORKING, OR AT LEAST ATTENDING A TUCK EVENT
If you are really interested in attending Tuck, I strongly suggest making a real effort to visit or at least to attend a reception. This will be a great way to meet with admissions officers in a very friendly environment. It is also an amazing way to network with the alum at the event and afterwords. At the Tokyo reception, we were actually provided with a list of alumni who would be happy to communicate with potential applicants. In "Tips on Applying," Ms. Clarke emphasizes the importance of getting in touch with Tuck alumni. She, in fact, specifically says that mentioning that you met with alumni is something you should do both in your essays and interviews. She also mentioned that she considers notes from alumni as being in an applicant's favor.  Click here for information about Tuck events.
Learning from students and alumni by networking with them is also incredibly valuable. Japanese applicants should also visit the Japanese site. See also my Q&As with former clients who are members of the Class of 2011 and Class of 2013.
One thing that is consistent is that current students, alumni, and  admissions officers emphasize that Tuck is about being part of a community. Especially in regards to the community aspect, I suggest reading the Q&A I conducted with  a member of the Class of 2011.  In particular:
Adam: What is the Tuck community like?
Tuck 2011: The Tuck community is like family. Literally for those who live on campus since they spend most of time together. Everybody is friendly and you don't need to worry about making friends here. From an academic point of view, collaboration between students is highly emphasized in Tuck and you will experience and learn to work together with others.
Anyone applying to Tuck, should most certainly watch the video series "Applying to Tuck: The Inside Scoop" with Dawna Clarke, the Director of Admissions. I will make reference to Ms. Clarke's advice below.

Essay Questions for 2013–14
Let's take a look at the essay questions. I took the questions from the Tuck blog. The general instructions have changed a bit from last year as it now the case applicants really should limit the word count to 500 words. Previously Tuck was quite flexible on this, but not now: Please respond fully but concisely to the following essay questions. Compose each of your answers offline in separate document files and upload them individually in the appropriate spaces. We encourage applicants to limit the length of their responses to 500 words for each essay. There are no right or wrong answers.
Please double-space your responses.
I don't suggest writing much more than 500 unless you really need to, but I see no reason why anyone needs to. I don't know why Tuck can't be more explicit and not use such wimpy language ("We encourage.."). I will strongly encourage my own clients to keep it to 500 words. In addition to these questions, I have also included an analysis of the international experience question from the application form.

1. Why is an MBA a critical next step toward your short- and long-term career goals? Why is Tuck the best MBA program for you, and what will you uniquely contribute to the community? (If you are applying for a joint or dual degree, please explain how the additional degree will contribute to those goals.)
Tuck has now combined the standard MBA/Goals question with a contribution question. They used to give separate essays for each question.


The first part of this question is a very standard version of the Why MBA essay question and remains unchanged from last year. See my Stanford GSB analysis as it applies here.

Regarding the second part of the question, on how you will contribute to Tuck, keep in mind that in addition to leadership, the two other common characteristics of Tuck students that Ms. Clarke mentions are teamwork skills and communication/interpersonal skills. So if you have not effectively covered those two categories in another essay, you should address them in one way or another here. You have space in Essay 2 to discuss leadership. Essay 1 is not just a way for admissions to understand some important aspects of who you are, it is also a place for them to see whether you know enough about Tuck to provide effective examples of the way you would contribute.

Given the limited word count available, I suggest doing the contribution part of the question in combination with why you want to attend Tuck. In the "Let me count the reasons I need Tuck for my goals and want to contribute to Tuck" brainstorming table I have attempted to account for everything Tuck related that you need to discuss in this essay.
Let me count the reasons I need Tuck for my goals and want to contribute to Tuck

Types of reasons that you should include in your essay	Specific things at Tuck (Classes, clubs, or aspects of the program)	How will you contribute? (You need not always mention your contribution)	Is this topic covered elsewhere in the application? (If so, why do you need to discuss it here?)
Reasons that relate to your short term goals: 1. 2.
Reasons that relate to your long-term goals: 1. 2.
Reasons that relate to your personal Personal interests (hobbies, values, experiences): 1. 2.

(You can just cut and paste this. It works)
The above table will help you outline your answer. I suggest following some variation of these 11 steps:
1. Identify specific reasons for needing an MBA that relate to your goals and personal interests
2. Identify specific things at Tuck that relate to these reasons.
3. When feasible explain how you will contribute to the reason you identified.
4. Ask yourself if the reason being discussed is covered elsewhere in your application. If so, why does need to be in this essay?
5. Go through the above steps until such time as you have a sufficient number of reasons to write about.
6. Write it up.
7. Edit it.
8. Don't look at it for a while (minutes, hours, days, weeks, all depending on your deadline situation) and read it again.
9. Edit it some more.
10. Upload it.
11. Get on with your life. Step 11 is optional, but highly recommended. :)

2.  Discuss your most meaningful leadership experience. What did you learn about your own individual strengths and weaknesses through this experience?
This question remains unchanged from last year. Keep in mind that according to Dawna Clarke in "Tuck's holistic admissions process" video, leadership ability and/or demonstrated potential is one of three key common characteristics of Tuck students. You should most certainly provide a full answer to this question, one demonstrating that you really understand your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Weak versions of this essay will focus too much on simply telling a leadership story and not enough on self-analysis of leadership ability.
most meaningful: Since the leadership experience you write about should be he the one that you consider most meaningful, you clearly explain that.  Applicants frequently assume the significance of a story without interpreting it sufficiently.  Make sure you have clearly explained why the particular leadership experience you write about is meaningful to you.  This is not just a function of explaining your strengths and weaknesses as a leader, but of actually explaining why this particular experience is so significant.


What did you learn about your own individual strengths and weaknesses through this experience? This is a test of your ability to honestly assess your own limitations, not just as a leader, but more generally.The structure of the first year program including mandatory study groups of 5-6 students in the Fall and Winter terms, the Cohen Leadership Development Program, and the intensely community-focused nature of the environment certainly requires that all students be open to receiving and issuing positive, but critical feedback. It is important that you demonstrate the self-critical capacity expected at Tuck.


For my general suggestions on writing leadership focused essays, please see my analysis of  Stanford Essay 3.  And yes, it is highly likely that you will using this same topic for Stanford 3, Wharton 3, and HBS 1(It is possible that it could be HBS 2).

3. Describe a circumstance in your life in which you faced adversity, failure, or setback. What actions did you take as a result and what did you learn from this experience?
This question is also unchanged from last year. It is critical that you learned something meaningful.  Therefore the key constraint of this question is that whatever the adversity, failure, or setback is, you have learned something important from it. While not stated, you may very well find that one way of showing what you learned is to discuss how you applied your lesson to a new situation.  
What is the difference between adversity, failure and a setback? I think the easiest thing to do is look at standard definitions of all three words (taken from Dictionary.com):
ADVERSITY: 1. adverse fortune or fate; a condition marked by misfortune, calamity, or distress: A friend will show his or her true colors in times of adversity. 2. an adverse or unfortunate event or circumstance: You will meet many adversities in life.
FAILURE: 1. an act or instance of failing  or proving unsuccessful; lack of success: His effort ended in failure. The campaign was a failure. 2. nonperformance of something due, required, or expected: a failure to do what one has promised; a failure to appear. 3. a subnormal quantity or quality; an insufficiency: the failure of crops. 4. deterioration or decay, especially of vigor, strength, etc.: The failure of her health made retirement necessary. 5. a condition of being bankrupt by reason of insolvency.
SETBACK: a check to progress; a reverse or defeat
Examples of possible topics:
Adversity: Taking care of dying relative, being in a battle field, being poor, having a physical disability, being in a disaster, having a boss who hates you, being the victim of bullying, being the victim of prejudice (because of your gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, etc)
Failure: Drawing the wrong conclusions about a situation, taking the wrong course of action, an inability to see significant problems with a project, bad personal behavior that generates a negative result, lack of empathy that leads to the ending of a professional or personal relationship
Setback: an obstacle to progress on a project, organizational resistance to your plans, changes in a situation that makes what seemed to be a manageable project a potential disaster, a loss of efficiency that must be overcome if success is to be obtained
The basic components of an answer:
1. Clearly state what the adversity, failure or setback was.  Your reader should understand easily which one you have selected.
2. Clearly state your role when you explain the situation. It should be clear how much responsibility you have for the situation.
3. Explain what actions you took. Think about what your actions reflect about your own skills and personality. Provide a sufficient number of distinct action steps to highlight the diverse ways you handled the situation.
4. Explain what you learned. If what you learned is something you applied to a subsequent situation, please explain that.
Everyone should have many examples of adversity, setbacks, and failures, but the key thing is to have one that you learned from. If you think these words bleed into one another, that is true to some extent, but the nice thing about this question is that it covers a huge variety of situations. Adverse situations are certainly not necessarily failures or setbacks, but simply really bad situations. A setback, unlike a failure, is not necessarily something that ultimately does not work.

4. (Optional) Please provide any additional insight or information that you have not addressed elsewhere that may be helpful in reviewing your application (e.g., unusual choice of evaluators, weaknesses in academic performance, unexplained job gaps or changes, etc.). Complete this question only if you feel your candidacy is not fully represented by this application.
As with other school's optional questions, do not put an obvious essay for another school here. If you read the above, it should be clear enough that this is the place to explain anything negative or potentially negative in your background. If you have no explanation for something negative, don't bother writing about it. For example if your GPA is 2.9 and you have no good explanation for why it is 2.9, don't bother writing something that looks like a lame excuse. This is more likely to hurt than help you. In the same vein, don't waste the committee's time telling them that your GMAT is a much better indicator than your GPA (the opposite is also true). They have heard it before and they will look at both scores and can draw their own conclusions without you stating the obvious. That said, if you have a good explanation for a bad GPA, you should most certainly write about it.
In addition to GMAT/GRE, TOEFL, and GPA problems, other possible topics include issues related to recommendations, serious gaps in your resume, concerns related to a near total lack of extracurricular activities, and  major issues in your personal/professional life that you really think the admissions office needs to know about.You can certainly write on something positive here if you think its omission will be negative for you, but before you do, ask yourself these questions:
1. If they did not ask it, do they really need to know it?
2. Will the topic I want to discuss significantly improve my overall essay set?
3. Is the topic one that would not be covered from looking at other parts of my application?
4. Is the essay likely to be read as being a specific answer for Wharton and not an obvious essay for another school?
If you can answer "Yes!" to all four questions, it might be a good topic to write about.

5. (To be completed by all reapplicants) How have you strengthened your candidacy since you last applied? Please reflect on how you have grown personally and professionally.
An effective answer here will do the following:
1. Showcase what has changed since your last application that now makes you a better candidate.
2. Refine your goals. I think it is reasonable that they may have altered since your last application, but if the change is extreme, you had better explain why.
3. Make a better case for why Wharton is right for you.
For more about reapplication, please see "A guide to my resources for reapplicants."

International Experience Question from the online application:Briefly describe all experiences you have working, studying, living, or traveling outside your home country. Include the location, purpose, and length of stay. If relevant, reflect on how these experiences have shaped your world view. (Limit 250 words)

The usual problem many of my clients encounter is how to even minimally account for their international experience in 250 words. 

My advice is to focus on 1-3 key experiences which had a significant impact on you. You need to actually say something meaningful about these experiences in terms of the way they have effected your thinking, perspectives, choices you have made and/or beliefs. Given what you have said about yourself so far in the other essays, what other aspects of who are you and what you have done would you like to tell Tuck about?  This can be a nice way to get an additional key story or two into your application.

If you have limited experiences outside of your home country, you will need to make the most out of very little.

If you lack international experience, go get some! Just kidding, well sort of.  My suggestion to not try to answer this question, but identify international experience in the optional essay or Essay 1 as something you want to get at Tuck.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.