EssaySnark

($) Some tips on Columbia’s “imagination” question and your post-MBA career goals

by EssaySnark - Discusses ,

It may not look like it based on how they’ve phrased the question, however Columbia essay 1 is a “Why MBA?” prompt. Here’s the question: Through your resume and recommendations, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals over the next 3-5 years and what, in your…

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  1. Great post!

    One of the things that I think is also very important in this essay is talking through how your S/T goal will prepare you for your L/T goal. I feel that this thread breaks, to your point, if the L/T goal is too out there and different from the S/T goal.

    • @Jackstack, it’s a really good point! We’ll also offer this alternate take, to get to the same place:

      If you do a good enough job of explaining how you’ll get to the SHORT-TERM goal based on how you’re presenting evidence of qualifications pre-MBA, and you have a clearly stated LONG-TERM goal that’s not too fancy or crazy-sounding, then there may not be as much explanation needed for future steps. In other words, establishing a proper foundation for everything, and being really direct and concise in what you say you will do in S/T and then L/T, should take care of itself, to a good extent. If the goals need too much explanation then we’re already getting nervous about overall content, because that means the applicant does not have as much room to focus on their own current qualifications and expressions of awesomeness.

      Whenever an essay has too much future-focused material then it’s detracting from the main objective, which is to showcase how a person is an incredible candidate already, today. So it’s a balance, for sure!

      Your comment is 100% on track: If the L/T goal is too out there, then yes, the thread breaks!! Nice way of expressing it.

      EssaySnark

      • I hear what you are saying, but I wonder about the amount of essay real estate dedicated to “explaining how you’ll get to the SHORT-TERM goal based on how you’re presenting evidence of qualifications pre-MBA” in response to this specific prompt: “Through your resume and recommendations, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date.”

        Clearly, this is a career goals essay, but it seems to me (and please don’t take this as argumentative, I am would really like to know your thoughts) that it is different than most CGs in that it does not include the “Why MBA” prompt that most CG essays do. In fact, it expressly tells you that they already know that stuff. So I suppose I would worry that more than 1 – 2 sentences describing prior work may be getting away from the question being asked. So I read the prompt as asking you to begin describing your future career after you have graduated and are in your first year at S/T goal, hence “3 – 5 years”. Asking (only) why S/T Goal then how AND why L/T Goal.

        Do you read it otherwise?