The question has been asked for what seems like forever.
“What matters most to you, and why?”
Most Challenging MBA Applications Of 2020-2021
Among the toughest were the MBA applications at Harvard Business School, INSEAD, MIT Sloan and UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business.
| School | Challenging | Essays | Word Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stanford GSB | 1 | ‘What matters most to you, & why’ & ‘Why Stanford?’ | 1,050 words |
| Harvard Business School | 2 | ‘What more would you like us to know?’ | No word limit |
| INSEAD | 3 | Seven essays on applicant’s job, career & motivation | 2,000 words |
| MIT (Sloan) | 4 | ‘Submit a cover letter’ & one-minute video introducing yourself | 300 words |
| UC-Berkeley (Haas) | 5 | ‘What makes you feel alive when you are doing it, & why?’ & ‘What do you need to develop to become a successful leader?’ | 600 words |
London Business School Could Require Writing Somewhere between 4,000 and 4,500 Words
Sometimes, schools were singled out for having highly challenging applications. That was true of the London Business School. “Beyond LBS’s essays, the program poses an exhaustive array of in-application questions related to academic readiness (400 words), interests and activities (400 words), pre-MBA discussions with friends and family (300 words), LBS connections (300 words), international experience (100 words), and English-language readiness (300 words, where appropriate).
LBS applicants are facing 1,000 words via the main essays should they choose to answer the optional essay, 1,500 to 1,800 words via the non-job-related short-answer questions depending on whether they need to answer the English language question, and then up to 580 words for each job entry.
“An LBS applicant who has had three roles could therefore end up writing somewhere in the range of 4,000 and 4,500 words. Compare that to the other end of the application spectrum where from a ‘written’ perspective, Michigan Ross requires 400 words worth of essays and has a very lean application, and MIT Sloan requires a 300-word cover letter and also has a very lean application. Rather than becoming excited to channel their stories into a couple of focused essays, most LBS applicants we encounter become downtrodden when they find out how many de facto mini-essays are hiding within LBS’s online application.”
The Least Challenging MBA Applications?
Of course, applying to any highly selective MBA program is never really easy.
Wharton requires two essay questions: “What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA?” and “How do you plan to make specific, meaningful contributions to the Wharton community?” it is noted that those generic questions, similar to what is asked of applicants at Chicago Booth, are “the most easily repurposable and standard.” “It’s what can you GIVE to our school and what can you GET from our school.”
Michigan Ross Praised for its “Lean Application”
All told, Ross is looking for no more than 400 words. One consultant views this in a positive light. “If an applicant is deep into the broader process, they will almost certainly have a couple of already well-developed anecdotes to deliver in Ross’s short answers section and a well-developed “short-term goal / why” statement, which is all Ross really requests.”
Not surprisingly, perhaps, some see it differently. “Ross’ reduction from three essays down to two has also been a little stressful because there’s less room in which to really shine,”
Also making the least challenging list are Columbia Business School, Chicago Booth, and UCLA’s Anderson School of Management (see below table). “Columbia, Booth, and Wharton all have similarities and rather generic ‘goals’ essays,”
Least Challenging MBA Applications Of 2020-2021
Applicants are finding Wharton’s two essay questions the easiest to answer this year. Also on the easy list are the essay requirements at Michigan Ross, Columbia, Chicago Booth and UCLA Anderson
| School | Least Challenging | Essays | Word Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pennsylvania (Wharton) | 1 | ‘What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA?’ & ‘How do you plan to make specific, meaningful contributions to the Wharton community?’ | 900 words |
| Michigan (Ross) | 2 | Complete two of six sentences, ranging from ‘I want people to know that I…’ to ‘I was out of my comfort zone when…’ & ’What is your short-term career goal & why?’ | 400 words |
| Columbia Business School | 3 | ‘What are your career goals over the next 3-5 years & what would be your long-term dream job?’ & ‘Why do you feel CBS is a good fit for you?’ & ‘Tell us about your favorite book, movie, or song & why it resonates with you? | 1,000 words |
| Chicago (Booth) | 4 | ‘How will the Booth MBA help you achieve your immediate and long-term post-MBA career goals?’ & ‘Use this opportunity to tell us something about who you are’ | 500-word minimum |
| UCLA (Anderson) | 5 | How have events of the past year influenced the impact you would like to make in your community, career, or both?’ | 250 words |
How to interpret this data and plan your application strategy
For what it’s worth, let’s see what this data tells us first. While there are several parameters that are already done (e.g. GPA/Employer’s brand etc), a whopping 56% is still within your immediate controls (GMAT, Essays, Interview and Recommenders).
Of course, some of them are partly under your control – you cannot really change what you’ve done on essays for instance, but you can articulate and present them in the best possible way. Of these, less than half is GMAT which means there is huge merit in doing a lot of soul searching for the applications.
The academic aspects viz. GMAT, GPA, Majors etc form a decent chunk of your profile at 25%.
For the endless debate on the chasm between academia and industry, if you cannot do well on your academics, chances still are that you may not get good value out of your MBA experience. This is however only partly true as unlike several undergrad schools, MBA programs put a lot of focus on experiential learning, class discussions, case studies and the likes.
Several candidates who work with us are nervous that they don’t have anything on the extracurricular side. If you see, that that isn’t really a substantial point in the overall scheme of things. But it does start to get important when all the other parameters bunch up – which tends to happen more often for the top schools.
Apart from these, one can always think of additional parameters such as quality of experience, leadership exposure blah blah and blah. But the above constitutes a good set to begin with.
If you are applying this year, the only thing you can do is to understand what each parameter means rather than breaking your head over a parameter’s relative importance.
P.S., Get started early on your Applications! Start working now with your consultant on your career goals, school research/selection, professional and community involvement, and everything else you’ll need to put your best application forward this year!
At any point in time, if you find the process getting a bit out of hand, send us an email (info@theleapquest.com). We will get you back on track.
