EssaySnark

MBA Essay Questions by Business School

The EssaySnark blahg is a veritable treasure trove for learning to write MBA essays. We have essay critiques for you to study, and dos and don’ts on how to approach this task. This directory of all the top U.S. business schools links to their dedicated page of essay questions and discussions which also includes the examples we’ve collected over the years. And the snark. Definitely the snark.

= using one or another version of standardized recommender questions in 2020
= using semi-standardized recommender questions in 2020
= doing their own thing with recommender questions in 2020
= a 2020 SnarkStrategies Guide has been released for this school

  1. Harvard Business School •
  2. Stanford GSB •
  3. University of Pennsylvania Wharton •
  4. Chicago Booth •
  5. Northwestern Kellogg •
  6. Dartmouth Tuck •
  7. MIT Sloan •
  8. Columbia Business School •
  9. NYU Stern •
  10. UC-Berkeley Haas •
  11. Yale SOM •
  12. University of Virginia Darden •
  13. Duke Fuqua • ]
  14. University of Michigan Ross •
  15. Cornell Johnson •
  16. UCLA Anderson •

All guides are now prior-season versions only. If you subscribe to the online version of a guide here on essaysnark.com, you get a 90-day subscription, and if the 2021 version is released during that subscription period then you will get free access to the update at no additional charge. Cornell, Darden, and Ross are 2019 versions; all others are 2020 versions (the pandemic changes to bschool processes resulted in much more extensive updating on these guides and we focused on the ones that are most in-demand for our audience; we’ll be updating all schools in 2021). Updates are tackled in order of popularity, and we rely on the schools releasing their app information in order to schedule the updates. Even the 2019 versions are still useful though, and you will find plenty of actionable advice in guides that are not current-season. We appreciate your patience as we work to get you the best information possible for your 2021 applications!

We also have an application guide for European MBA programs that covers strategies for INSEAD, LBS, HEC-Paris, and more. This guide was updated in 2019 which seems like a long time ago, but it’s actually still very relevant. It does not go in-depth on all of these schools’ specific essay questions, with the exception of INSEAD which is covered in greater detail. You’ll get a full discussion of what’s different with the European schools as a category, since they do many aspects of admissions differently than U.S. schools do, and their trending is not identical. You’ll learn how to angle your strategy to show these schools the aspects they’re looking for you, so you can better put together a winning pitch.

EssaySnark’s Top 19
Our ranking of schools based on how “easy” it was to get in as of 2017 (yes dated, but still directionally accurate!).


Also a note that the MBA essay materials we post throughout this site are not “samples.” We don’t publish samples. It’s because reading sample essays won’t help you be authentic in your pitch to the schools. We only publish essays that are flawed… then we tell you why. These pages list out the schools’ questions, and we provide guidance on how to tackle them. Our essay reviews are of drafts that people tried earnestly at, but came up short. Navigate these waters carefully, Brave Supplicant.