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EssaySnark’s 2013 Bschool Essay Question Predictions

May 10, 2013 by EssaySnark - Discusses Harvard, LBS, Wharton, Stanford GSB, Columbia, MIT Sloan, Duke Fuqua 3 Comments

This post has been marked as OLD. EssaySnark's advice and strategies for winning MBA applications don't change from year to year, but some of the school-specific admissions policies, essay questions, or other information covered in this article may be outdated.

EssaySnark’s Predict-O-Meter: As of 6/25/13, we are 3 for 4 on what we thought would happen with this year’s MBA apps.

It’s May. Creeping up to the middle of the month. That means, bschools are gonna start releasing their new essay questions soon.

Harvard is usually the first one out of the gate with questions. Then comes Columbia. Most other schools wait till June, and then it all happens in a flurry. A few slowpokes (Stern we’re looking at you) don’t release questions till August – but then again, NYU doesn’t have its first deadline until November, so that’s actually OK. Update 6/7/13: Stern released questions, AND moved up its Round 1.

We’ve got a directory to MBA essay questions by school – you may have noticed the new menu at the top of the screen. We’re keeping that up to date with application deadlines and miscellaneous commentary too. Once a school has released their questions, they will get a little ☆ character next to their name in the index.

Here’s EssaySnark’s predictions on where we’re going to see MBA essays go this year:

1. The trend for fewer questions is here to stay. Most schools that reduced the number of essays asked last year will stick with that strategy. This includes HBS with their skimpy two-essay application. Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Wharton, Booth – we think all these schools will have the same number of questions that they did last year. Most of them will tweak the questions, at least a little, but we’re betting that all will have the same number of questions total.

[UPDATE 6-25-13: The fewer-questions thing is definitely happening again this year. Of the schools who’ve announced essays so far: Columbia has three essays (it was two last year), Harvard has just one (they had two last year as well), and Stanford’s essays are identical. Wharton slimmed down from three, to two this year.

2. Columbia will switch up its questions – a bit. One possibility? They may revert to their classic version of essay 1: What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA goals? How will Columbia Business School help you achieve these goals? We always loved that question. It’s clear and direct, and it asks exactly what the school needs to know (Columbia cares about the career goals fit a lot). For their second essay, they may get especially brave and go in the direction of a school like Duke (see below) where they try to a) show their own personality (“We’re a friendly and open school!!”) and b) let the applicant express more of hers. We think the Columbia questions will show a departure from what they’ve done before, not in essence, but in tone.

[UPDATE 5-16-13: Welp, we got that one wrong. Columbia’s questions are much closer to last year’s than we expected. See the questions and our analysis on our Columbia MBA essay page. EssaySnark Predictions count: 0 for 1. (Or 0.5 for 1 if you’re being generous – the questions are not a departure “in essence” from previous ones.)]

3. LBS will reduce its questions this year. We believe that LBS saw a drop in applications last season because of how many darned essays they wanted their applicants to write. We think they’ll still keep more essays than other schools, but we’re willing to bet that they go from six questions (or possibly EIGHT if you were a reapplicant who needed to also do the optional essay about something) to four total. They may still keep the word count comparable to what they allowed before (1750 words), perhaps dropping it down to like 1500 total.

4. Duke will keep its awesome “25 Things” essay/list thing. This is a no-brainer in terms of how predictions go. The Duke application was voted the most popular among last year’s Brave Supplicants here on the EssaySnark blahg, and for good reason. This essay rocked. It was fun for candidates, and that “fun” came through on the page. We learned more good stuff about the BSers who applied to Duke than perhaps any other school.

5. Wharton will revamp its questions completely. This is an easy prediction to make; they do this every year. They’ll have one very short career goals essay, and they’ll have an assortment of other questions, one of which will be focused on innovation. They probably won’t have one with a quote from Dean Robertson though, even though that’s been a trend for several years running now. We think they might also ditch the question around “Knowledge for Action” – though we’re divided on this (there’s argument that they’ll keep it since it’s part of their recent rebranding; but maybe they’ll ditch it because man some of those essays on this topic last year were lame).

[UPDATE 6-25-13: Nailed it. Wharton has two, supersimple questions. Bravo to EssaySnark, and bigger bravo to Wharton for focusing on the essentials. BSers, you have it easy with a Wharton app this year!)]

6. MIT will keep its cover letter. This is also a completely safe prediction for us to make. They’ve had the cover letter as part of their app for like two decades or something (really!). We are doubtful that 2013 would be the year to change it. We’re betting the remaining essay questions are also quite comparable to what they’ve had before: they’ll ask something along the lines of “Tell us about a time when…” and you’ll need to come up with a difficult situation, or a time when you were innovative, or an example of working well on a team.

7. Stanford will also maintain its classic “What matters most?” question. And, everything we just said about MIT’s questions will apply for the GSB too; they tend to be the two schools with the most similar approach (leaving off the vast differences between the Sloan cover letter and the GSB essay 1).

[UPDATE 5-24-13: And they did. Stanford questions are almost completely unchanged this year. We cover the 2013 Stanford app in our just-updated Stanford MBA Application Guide.]

Some of these predictions are very safe. Some schools are a little predictable – mostly because they are getting what they want out of the questions that they’re asking. Still, many of our predictions are just intuition and guesswork. We’ll be as interested as you to see how things play out.

Filed Under: general snark Tagged With: trends Bschools: Harvard, LBS, Wharton, Stanford GSB, Columbia, MIT Sloan, Duke Fuqua

« Previous: Why don’t all schools report median instead of mean GMAT scores?
Next: EssaySnark’s Hopes for the 2013 Bschool Essay Questions »

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Sometimes amused and often appalled by what candidates write in their MBA applications to top bschools, EssaySnark created this little blahg to share common mistakes. Learn from them and avoid making admissions directors laugh (or want to hurl) when they read your essays. If you are hoping to have your essay reviewed anonymously on the blahg for free, submit it for consideration.

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Good luck on your apps, Brave Supplicant!

Here's what others have said about this:

  1. qshdz says

    May 13, 2013 at 2:20 pm

    I really liked Stanford’s ‘what matters’ question, I felt I was given the room and asked to present my career decisions and the ups & downs in the process and how did I arrive at where I am right now. On paper, it would give none ‘best undergrad, best companies’ applicants a chance to tell their story, how they overcome their problems and what their goal is. In reality, I understand Stanford is still a very selective school with a huge percentage of applicants from a small set of elite companies. Still, it’s a much better essay than Harvards’s two essays with 400 words limits. For Harvard you really do have to have extremely strong leadership opportunities for you to execute and demonstrate to really stand out.

    Reply
    • essaysnark says

      May 13, 2013 at 2:38 pm

      Yeah qshdz, a lot of BSers felt that way last year – at least Stanford gives you a chance to share some of who you are! At the same time, Stanford essay 1 is often the very hardest question for anyone to write about. It does require a lot of introspection, and honesty – which is precisely the adcom’s intention, of course! But it’s not an easy process, typically.

      Have to correct one statement though: Stanford doesn’t only accept people from elite companies. That’s not literally what you said, but it’s how some people may interpret your words, and we just want to be very clear that you don’t need to come from any specific type of company to make it into that (or any) school.

      Similarly on your last sentence: It’s not exactly that you had to have had “strong leadership opportunities” to be successful at HBS – instead, you need to show strong leadership – this may seem very nuanced but it’s an important distinction.

      Reply
  2. qshdz says

    May 13, 2013 at 2:54 pm

    Snark, it’s amazing with all your experience in the MBA application world you are still very positive thinking! (because lots of admission consultants do not think that way, it’s all numbers and where you work matters, and that is probably true with their experience) You are not cynical and really believe in telling a great story, having well-thought career goals will make a difference in the application results. I really like your attitude, thanks for the post!

    Reply

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