Analyzing the 2012 Columbia Business School Essays

Whenever a school releases new essays questions, it serves as a sort of referendum on the strategy of the prior year.  When a school moves far away from certain strategies, you realize that you don't have the DNA of the school completely wired.  When they move toward your strategies, you know you've been right on point.  Columbia's essay release fits in the latter camp, as every change from 2011 to 2012 seemed to be directly in line with the techniques we shared with our clients (much of which can be found in our How to Apply to Columbia guide).  

Let's move through the new essays as we explain why: 

Short Answer - What is your post-MBA professional goal? (Maximum 200 characters.)

We added the underline to "characters" for emphasis, because we can only imagine how many people will write 200-word responses to this question.  What Columbia wants you to do here is twofold: 1) give them a thesis for your candidacy, and 2) focus on your short-term goals.  These are two aspects of applying to Columbia that we have hammered for the past year.  Some schools favor a broad vision for your career ... Columbia wants to know what you plan to do when you graduate.  If you were a client of ours last year or even just had a consultation call, you will know that we have been espousing the viewpoint that Columbia cares most about professional potential - we've been saying it until we are blue in the face, really.  The fact that they have pulled this little exercise out of the series of essays and forced you to put it in lights underlines, highlights, and italicizes how important it is to have a short-term goal that "checks out." 

Essay 1 - Considering your post-MBA and long term professional goals, why are you* pursuing an MBA at this point in your career?  Additionally, why is Columbia Business School a good fit for you?  (Maximum of 750 words).

For Essay #1, this is basically the same as last year.  Just because you bumped out your thesis to the short answer field doesn't mean you are off the hook in defining your goals again here.  Indeed, you probably won't have properly defined your path in that short answer, so you really have to immediately pretend the SA doesn't exist.  Your Essay #1 will need to feature What, Why, How, When, and Where - the purists' career goals essay.  And, as with last year, we will be putting an emphasis on Columbia's unique desire to see an alternate career path presented, as well as really stress testing the 'how' or Proof Paragraph, to make sure that transferable skills are on display - that you leave know doubt at all that you can land that post-MBA job.  As in years past, Essay #1 will be the make-or-break Columbia essay. 

(*We took the liberty of fixing what appears to be a typo in the question prompt.)

Essay 2 - Describe a life experience that has shaped you.  The goal of this essay is to get a sense of who you are, rather than what you have achieved professionally.  (Maximum of 500 words.)

Essay #2 has been refined from last year, when a very vague prompt sent candidates scattering in a million direction.  Again, we feel validated in our approach, which was to stress one experience or interest and build a theme around it, rather than just rattle off your resume. Columbia has further zeroed us all in by asking for a "life experience," but the big takeaway here is that they want a story, not a list.  Furthermore, it should be fairly obvious, but this could from your personal life and not from work.

Essay - Choose from three options ("outrageous idea," "campaign speech," and "one-on-one session") (250 words). 

Essay #3 is a new wrinkle in that it gives three choices, much like HBS and GSB have provided options in recent years.  For us and our clients, the choice will usually be simple and will almost always be 3b.  Why?  Because we have been hammering "community building" already.  If you have read any of our thoughts on CBS over the years, you know that Columbia battles both a reality and a perception that it is a commuter school and - at times - a bit of a ghost town.  This means that each and every applicant needs to bring some community building skill to the table and they need to showcase it.  The inclusion of Essay 3b just makes it much easier to do so, rather than having to weave it into Essay 2.  

In all, it is great to see everything about the Columbia application bringing clarity to the experience.  The things we suspected are now up in lights.  This means that the application is even more straight forward, but it also means that there is less room for error as mistakes are likely to be punished even more severely than they were last year, when Columbia already loomed large as a program that had expectations for "good" essays and was fairly tough on those candidates who failed in that regard.  

If you are just starting out on your admissions journey, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com to request a free consultation.  We are currently offering some great promotions for Round 1.  Additionally, you can download our free guides for applying to HBS and Columbia.

Breaking Down the New (Class of 2014) HBS Essays

We tell clients all the time to sign up early because the process starts earlier and earlier.  There's no greater proof of that fact than HBS releasing its new essay questions during the second week of May.  One of our Round 3 clients literally just got his acceptance letter and already we're talking about next year.  

This means we have to scramble the fighters and update our How to Apply to HBS Guide in the coming days, lest we send out dated advice to the world.  In the meantime, we figured we'd take a stopgap measure by posting our thoughts on the new questions here in the blog.  So here are comments and thoughts on the new HBS Essays: 

Essay 1: Tell us about three of your accomplishments (600 words). 

It's basically the same old famous Essay #1 - the "accomplishments" essay.  What is noteworthy about the phrasing this year is that they have taken out some of the "lead a horse to water" language from last year.  Gone is the requirement that you include your *most significant* accomplishments, as well as the instruction to explain why they have meaning.  

So ... do we think you should ditch last year's instructions the way HBS has?  Yes and no.  It seems as if taking away the phrase *most significant* is a pretty clear signal that HBS was getting too many down the middle answers and not enough personality.  When you see *most significant,* you tend to think "best" or "most impressive," and fail to explore personal growth.  In our professional opinion, HBS wants to see candidates be more intelligent in the way they compose responses to this question - chose accomplishments that create a thematic progression or that take us chronologically through your development.  Don't just pull the best three resume items you have and write paragraphs about them. 

On the flip side, we believe you should absolutely still explain why they have meaning.  In fact, stating any accomplishment - on any application - without including relevant meaning means that you are probably wasting an opportunity.  Here, we think HBS just wants to give more diligent applicants an advantage - those who go a level deeper and provide meaning will likely have stronger essays than those who just bang out formulaic responses. 

In all, don't fear this essay.  It's a chance to be creative, to brag about yourself, and to really show HBS what you can do.  

Essay 2: Tell us three setbacks you have faced (600 words).  HBS is going heavy on introspection!  Harvard has had a "mistake/failure" essay in place for some time, but it was shorter and basically just a diluted version of the Wharton mistake essay (which asked for more developmental insights).  The placement stays the same - right after you get done bragging, it's time to break out the humility, but the increased word count and mirroring "tell us three" device is a clear signal that Harvard wants a little less boasting and a little more thoughtfulness this time around.  

(Note: Perhaps HBS is starting to see some fallout from skewing young?  We don't feed into the hysteria that younger generations have no social intelligence/EQ, but we know that admissions officers worry about that and we also know that no school admits a younger class than Harvard.  Perhaps Aldrich Hall is just a little too full of people with a little too much confidence and this is a course correction.  Or maybe we're just fanning a flickering flame and yelling fire.  Who knows.)

Essay 3: Why do you want an MBA (400 words)?  This question is going to be maddening for applicants, we have a feeling, but in reality, it should be a pretty easy essay to handle.  If you look closely at Chicago Booth Essay #1 last year, they asked for 300 words on Why an MBA - separate from the defining of career goals and separate from Why Chicago.  In much the same why, this is not HBS boiling down the typical career goals essay ("What are your short and long-term goals and how can an MBA from School X help you achieve those goals") into 400 words, but rather HBS asking for a very specific part of a career goals analysis - why the degree itself?  Surely if you are HBS material, opportunity beckons from all corners.  So why business school?  The key to answering this question is to be heavy on vision, on personal passion, and on motivation.  Don't bog them down with specifics (Harvard, like MIT, does not seem to care much about detailed career goals) and definitely don't waste words bragging about your skills (you already did that in Essay 1!) ... this is all about WHY.  Not WHAT, now HOW, not WHERE ... WHY.  

Again, this should be an easy question, but tons of applicants will throw up a brick here, so if you are reading this blog, be happy that you are ahead of about 75% of your fellow candidates. 

Essay 4: Answer a question you wished we'd asked (400 words)?  Wow, what a wrinkle!  Okay, listen carefully:

DO NOT TREAT THIS LIKE AN "ADDITIONAL INFO" ESSAY AND APOLOGIZE FOR FLAWS IN YOUR CANDIDACY.

I can only imagine what kind of whining we are going to see people wedge into this space in the coming year.  Remember that HBS - like chance - favors the bold.  Come with swagger and confidence (save for Essay 2, of course) or don't come at all.  Please, as a favor to all consultants and HBS admissions officers, don't create a prompt like "I wish you had asked me to explain my GMAT score."  If you do, it's game over. 

Okay, so what should you do?  You can start by looking to the very recent past (last year) to cherry pick one of the "choice" essays that HBS has done away with.  Career vision is out, obviously, as Why an MBA hits close enough to that.  We always hated last year's new addition question of "introduce yourself to your classmates," so probably best to avoid that.  But "what would you like us to know about your undergraduate experience" was a cool question that was unique to HBS (again, admitting a younger class makes college a more recent and more relevant experience), and "a time you were frustrated" was very solid, as it was a great chance to take a negative prompt and turn it into a positive, "impact" essay.  So going to one of those two questions is probably a pretty safe strategy.

You can also look to other programs.  See a 400-word essay out there that you love?  Use that and tell HBS "I love this question that Tuck asks" and then answer it.  Trust us, HBS will love that you have the guts to do that and, frankly, it helps them hone in on good questions for the future.  Because clearly, they are at a bit of a loss on this last question.  They've tried all kinds of cannon fodder at the end of the app and the "invent a question" strategy is an admission that they are getting crap in return.  I mean, sure, you could look at it as HBS changing the game and encouraging creative expression, but I guess we're just too cynical to buy that one.  No, this is more test balloon than evolve the process, we suspect.  

But the main thing here is don't get cute and try to show how you smart you are with the question.  Above and beyond everything else, make sure you create a prompt that actually funnels toward an answer of strength.  It doesn't have to be so on the nose as to be embarrassing (you are a conflict resolution master so you write "Tell us about a time you resolved a conflict" - that's a bit obvious), but there are no points for esoterica either.  

(If you are really stretched, go with "What was the last great book you read?"  This is pretty much the most enjoyable answer to read in an essay and can be surprisingly informative as well.  So if you are in a panic, feel free to use that one!)

Overall, good luck on your HBS applications this year!

If you are interested in a free initial consultation, please email mba@amerasiaconsulting.com. Our boutique approach pairs you with one of the principals of our company, meaning you will be working with someone capable of walking you through the above steps and perfecting your application. Finally, make sure to download our free How to Apply to HBS guide.

The row about Wharton's new behavioral interview questions ...

The row about Wharton's new behavioral interview questions is mostly bullshit.

Yes, I know my opinion is a little late on this one, but I just wanted to provide an alternative POV to what I am reading online.  Whether or not Wharton denied they were out in the wild or rogue admissions consultants gamed the system or 2010 round one Wharton applicants were adversely affected - is basically smoke and mirrors.  If some consultants went to the darkside, that is not cool.  I'm not condoning it.  However, it really has no effect on the point of the interview process - to see if you present yourself in a manner that tells the interviewer you won't embarrass yourself or the school should you enter the pearly gates of Wharton or any other top program.  In layman's terms - do you have all your teeth, form complete sentences and chew with your mouth closed? 

Why is this?

Beyond face value, the new questions are not any different from the old questions that Wharton put forth.  Seriously, they really are not.

Let's not pretend interview prep is some black art.  The only difference is that each question will provide the opportunity for each applicant to include or leave out an "appropriate" amount of information.  That is, the new format is slightly more of an exercise in evaluating when an interviewee knows when to shut up.

Let's get real, if an applicant prepares correctly, they will have no problem answering the following questions - at Wharton or at any other top MBA program.  Keep in mind, all schools pretty much as the same questions.

The "new" "behavioral" interview questions at Wharton: 

1. Tell me about a time when you worked in a group to complete a task, which required you to consider the opinions or feelings of others.
   • This is what I tell my clients.
   • This is a leadership question that asks you to detail a story.
   • Story answers always follow this (trademarked) format - SCARA - Situation, Complication, Actions, Results, Applicability
   • Hint: Leadership action means that you are leading other people - so you are in a team - being a good team leader requires considering and reconciling opposing opinions.
   • Results are both quantitative and qualitative.
   • See if you can take your answer and loop it back to the school.
   • If you can't answer a question like this, with 3 to 4 examples, well then, we wouldn't have applied to Wharton ...
2. Describe a time when you contributed to a team that didn't have a clear or appointed leader.
   • This is what I tell my clients. See the above. Just tweak to cover a power vacuum where you stepped up.
   • Every decent applicant should have an answer to this for every school.  Think about it, chances are that you already answered this question (correctly) in your essays. It's not rocket science.
3. Explain a time when your ideas were challenged, when you had to defend your opinion and/or approach.
   • This is what I tell my clients. See question number one above.
   • Mix this one up and provide an outside of work example - if you have not done so already.

Before I get flamed, let's examine some old interview questions from year's past:

1. How would you describe your leadership style?
   • Oh snap, this is basically question number 1.
   • A good answer here means providing an example.  The same example you could use for question number 1 above.
   • The only tweak I would make is to use a Pyramid format, instead of SCARA format above.
2. How would your colleagues describe you if you left the room?
3. If you were the CEO of your company what would you do differently?
   • Dizzamn, questions 2 and 3 here are remarkably similar to the "new" "behavioral" Wharton question 2 above.  You can't fool me Wharton.
   • For question 2 here - your colleagues would describe you as a leader who steps up to fill a power vacuum.  Then they would provide an example - an example very, very similar to the one you would give in question 2 above.
   • For question 3 here - you would talk about stepping up as a leader to make sure there was clear organization.  Then you would provide an example - an example very, very similar to the one you would give in question 2 above.
4. Please give me an example in which you exemplified leadership?
5. Please describe a team situation that did not work?
   1. Questions 4 and 5 here can be answered by the example provided in question 3 above.

TL:DR - The bottom line is that if you prepared correctly for your interview, you know the questions are really the same.  All these "new" questions would require is adjusting your approach slightly and perhaps on the fly.  In fact, all these questions have been online for years.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Win - Wharton.

If you need help with determining your fit with Wharton – either comprehensively or just stress testing your essays to make sure they hit the mark – email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com to schedule a complimentary consultation.

Why I Created the Business School Selector

As an MBA admissions consultant, I have worked with a number of clients over the past 5 years.  Invariably, the most common question I receive is "What are my chances of getting in?" Answering this question qualitatively requires years of admissions consulting experience with dozens and dozens of clients.  Doing the question justice and providing the client with meaning insight requires several hours of examination.  Even then, as the applicant matures and the application process begins, the applicant's "chances" can change remarkably.

However, there has to be some way of getting into the analytics of how MBA admissions committees view their applicant pool.  I mean, Wharton is not going to take an applicant with a 480 GMAT, there is just no way.  There has to be a range, cut-offs and some way to statistically examine applicant pools.

I searched high and low on the WWW for such a tool.  I could find none in the GMAT/MBA space.  What I found were mostly models that analyzed a few criteria from an applicant's POV.   That is, these models looked at things like:

1. In what type of setting should the school reside?  Urban, Suburban, Rural?
2. What time of female or international representation should be present?
3. What climate should the school reside in?

While these factors are important in the decision-making process, they do not necessarily view things from the admissions committee perspective.

With this in mind, I when out and created a model that analyzes an applicant's prospects of entering the top 25 U.S. business school programs from an admissions committee view.  I developed this tool for Veritas Prep as part of my MBA admissions consulting responsibilities.

The explanation from the Veritas Prep website does a great job of explaining what function the tool serves:

"This tool was created to generate an optimal range of business schools for you. By "optimal," we mean that these are the highest-ranked schools to which you have a reasonable chance of getting accepted. While no model is perfect, especially in beta, you can use the range of schools at the bottom of this page as a way to start narrowing your choice of MBA programs."

"Please don’t take the model too seriously. Since it only utilizes a subset of data, it cannot be considered a comprehensive tool for all situations and applicant profiles. The admissions process is highly subjective, and no one model can serve as an "oracle" or "magic eight ball.""

Click here to access the Veritas Prep Business School Selector.

How to Dress Properly for a Business School Interview.

As an MBA admissions consultant I often have to take a step back with my clients.  Over the years I have learned a lot from my clients and have come to realize that the definitions of proper interview dress or attire varies by region, country and even culture.

This is the deal, and I dissuade anyone from thinking anything to the contrary:

1. Wear a dark colored suit (Grey, Black, Charcoal) with a white or light blue shirt.
2. Wear a tie that has as little design or pattern in it at possible.  Solid colored ties are good.
3. Wear shoes that are polished with dark socks.  By shoes I mean dress shoes with dark laces, not “comfort” shoes, timberlands or Uggs.  By dark I mean dark blue or black.
4. Do not wear anything that is tight-fitting or shows body parts excessively.  This is an interview not a club.
5. Cut the tags off your clothing.  Nothing says Men’s Wearhouse $199 special than tags still sewn onto the sleeve of a jacket.  Don’t laugh too much, I have seen this as an MBA admissions interviewer.  It tells me the applicant is clueless at worst or knows a good sale when he sees one at best.
6. Get a shave and a haircut……shower.

How many hours should I prepare for the GMAT?

I used to be a Kaplan tutor and instructor. Now I occasionally tutor students individually. It’s been my experience that if your aptitude is “average+” and you want to score above a 700 you need about 30 hours of instruction and then about another 50-70 hours of studying on your own. This seems like a lot but to some of my students it has been a slam dunk way of scoring 700+ by studying close to 100+ hours.

Data from GMAT, the creators of the GMAT, bolster this positioning.  700+ scoring students study 114 hours according to GMAC themselves.

I would definitely start studying 3 months out. This means taking a class course or tutoring if you have the money. After the class is done I would recommend taking one practice CD test a week (Sunday Afternoons).

During the week, stay after work for 75 additional mins and take a verbal section or a math section on CD.

The class course should teach you how to approach each problem. The tests and CDs should teach you timing.

Getting into B-School: Know the Adcom

Another good resource for the b-school applicant, is to utilize is the businessweek.com b-school forum. You have to pay for full access, but a big-timing prospective MBA (like yourself) should have no problems fronting the cash. I especially think its beneficial to read the Admissions Q&A with the Admissions Directors from the schools you are applying to. For instance, this is the one for Linda Baldwin,UCLA’s Adcom big cheese: Businessweek Interview.

For me, it’s important to understand what these people are saying so you can get a good idea of the environment they are trying to promote at their business school. If you understand your Adcom’s psychology, then you can tailor your message (during the interview or essays) to say (for lack of a better term) what they “want to hear”.

Also, some people will say “Josie, don’t write what you think the Adcom wants to hear, write from the heart,write something gutsy….” Anyone who says that should have their head examined. You want to write something that they want to hear, not something they don’t. If you don’t, you’re gonna be riding the short bus over to CUNY. Human nature says we like hearing stuff we agree with, not necessarily thought provoking.

Also, it wouldn’t hurt to Google the name of the Adcom head as well as the person who is going to be interviewing you. You might be able to find out what they like and then that becomes your new hobby….or at least a possible talking point.

What I think about the Business School Rankings

Business school rankings are an attempt by different publications to apply a methodology to the various aspects of an MBA program. This methodology then allows for a fair (subjective) comparison between all the affected b-schools. Different publications place different weights on the varying aspects of each b-school program. Often these weights change from year to year within the same publication. With the same publication, this leads to the inability to accurately compare schools from year to year. Across numerous publications, this just leads to confusion. For instance, some publications will rank Harvard “number one”, while others won’t even have it in the “top ten”. Is it possible for a b-school to change so much in one year? Not likely. As stated above, it’s most likely the publication.

So who can you rely upon? The two most consistent b-school rankings have come from “US News and World Report” and from Business Week. Business Week issues their ranking every other year, while US News issues them every year. Every other year is probably a good policy as b-schools, containing a certain amount of institutional memory, really don’t change too much from year to year. The top ten schools have very little turnover in these two polls. You can argue with their methodology but at least you know what you are going to get. These two heavy-hitters are the ones that everyone refers to and the only ones that that the business world really seems to care about with respect to bragging rights.

Other publications offer their own shot at rankings the b-schools with mixed results. Forbes gives theirs, the WSJ, the Economist and the Financial Times all have their own. These should be considered the second tier of b-schools rankings. Although these publications’ rankings may be totally legitimate with respect to methodology, they are not paid as much attention to as US News and Business Week because they are not as consistent. When these publications drop a Harvard or University of Chicago from their “top ten”, the methodologies that produced these incredulous results tend to lose, well, credibility. Question any ranking publication that has a school in the top ten one year and then in the 20s the next year. No school changes that much.

All this being, why should you even pay attention to the rankings? Why should it affect your decision to go to b-school? Simply put, perception is reality. Think about it, when you go to get that big banking or consulting job out of b-school, the big banks or consulting firms want the prestige that is associated with the top schools. They want that prestige and they are willing to pay for it. This is why recruiters also love candidate from the top 15 schools in the world. These top schools produce, maybe not the best candidates, but the most prestigious candidates. Usually, the top school’s produce the best and the most prestigious candidates. These students get paid the top dollar and their employer now has bragging rights.

Thus, the bottom line is that, love them or hate them, rankings do matter.

What do I consider to be the critical b-school admission factors?

I taught the GMAT for about 3 years. In that time, I had the pleasure of teaching over 250 students. Along the way, I also had the privilege of helping a select few craft their admissions packages. Based on my experience and in order of importance, I present the following 8 factors I consider critical to getting into a top b-school:

1. GMAT Score
2. Application Essays
3. Work Experience
4. GPA
5. Extracurricular Activities
6. Recommendations
7. Interviews
8. Applicant Submission Round