EssaySnark

2023 MBA Essay Questions: Columbia Business School

EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2022 Columbia MBA Application
Columbia’s rolling application process, setting your essay strategy, your single recommendation, and more — it’s all in our Columbia MBA essay guide!



 
 

Columbia 2023 Full-Time MBA essay questions:
Class of 2026

Columbia’s non-binding J-Term deadline is September 13 though but submitting early is highly recommended! Dates for August Start including Early Decision and Regular Decision TBD.

 

The Columbia MBA app has three essays plus a short-answer question.

How do you answer them?

What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal? (50 characters)

Please note! Those are characters – not words!! You have very limited space to work with. This is intended to be literally a statement of what job what you will be recruiting for when you are ready to graduate. You’ll use this as the centerpiece of Essay 1.

  • Essay 1: Through your resume and recommendation, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals over the next three to five years and what, in your imagination, is your long-term dream job? (500 words)
     
    Note the cross-out: They used to ask “in your imagination” and applicants often quite carried away with that! Columbia generally rewards those who are pragmatic and grounded in what they share about their plans for their future career. This is now a pretty traditional short-term/long-term goals prompt, which is nearly identical to the main career goals question that Columbia has asked for like, dunno, maybe 20 years now.

    Stay concrete! Be practical and realistic! Show that you have given some thought to this and actually have come up with a plan – at least, a back-of-the-envelope plan, but one that actually is feasible. You could run into trouble, for example, if you say your short-term goal is to become a consultant and your long-term goal is to open a restaurant. You can play that card if you like, but thar be dragons!!! Despite Columbia’suse of the word “dream” we still advise BSers to be reasonable in what they define as a L/T goal.

    Also, don’t overlook the importance of restating the short-term goal that you used as your answer for the short-answer question! That should be pretty much the first thing in this essay. Build from there. The entirety of your S/T goal / 3-5 years out dream job should not get you much past the year 2030! And it could even be much more compressed of a plan. Our Columbia guide explains.

  • Essay 2:The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL) is a co-curricular program designed to ensure that every CBS student develops the skills to become an ethical and inclusive leader. Through PPIL, students attend programming focused on five essential diversity, equity, and inclusion skills: Creating an Inclusive Environment, Mitigating Bias and Prejudice, Managing Intercultural Dialogue, Addressing Systemic Inequity, and Understanding Identity and Perspective Taking.

    Tell us about a time when you were challenged around one of these five skills. Describe the situation, the actions you took, and the outcome.     (250 words)
     
    Thankfully they ditched the “favorite movie or song” essay – this question is much, much more practical in terms of giving a chance to share yourself in ways that matter. This isn’t about making up some sound-good answer by picking a film that will impress them. Instead, it’s about introspection and finding an actual example of a time you did something meaningful to bring change or advocate. Stanford has had questions that similarly challenge applicants to identify how they have worked to “create an inclusive environment” and other such inquiries, and many many applicants have a tough time with this. The way to handle this is to present a specific example where you DID SOMETHING. If you hold identities that are often in the minority and you have experienced bias and oppression yourself, you maybe could make the essay about that, but again, the “actions you took” is really key as part of this opportunity to share with the adcom.

    Also, it’s possible to do a good job in just 250 words, but it’s also unfortunate that this is an essay with the tightest word count restriction.

  • Essay 3: We believe Columbia Business School is a special place. CBS proudly fosters a collaborative learning environment through curricular experiences like our clusters and learning teams, co-curricular initiatives like the Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership, which aims to equip students with the skills and strategies necessary to lead in an inclusive and ethical manner, and career mentorship opportunities like our Executives-in-Residence program.

    Why do you feel Columbia Business School is a good fit for you academically, culturally, and professionally? (250 words)
     
    It’s great that they’ve preserved a standard, straightforward prompt (they just renumbered the questions this time). This is a classic “why Columbia” question, and you can sprinkle in some “why MBA” and even some “why me” content along the way. This is a good essay that should be fairly easy to write.

    If this essay ends up being flat and run-of-the-mill with the same answers everyone gives for why they want to go to Columbia, then it’s not helping you. At the same time, the “why Columbia” question is almost definitely going to come up in your interview, so knowing why you are choosing them is super important! Whether you do it now or later on, you’ll need to do some real research on Columbia — figure out why you want to go there! This post can help as a start!

You can review these Columbia essay questions on the Columbia application website .

The Columbia MBA Application Guide is your best tool for presenting a strong set of essays to this school! It has been updated for this year’s questions and is here to help you get ready with the information strategy you will need for success.

You still might want to review the marketing spiel that Columbia has put out in past years, such as this (but please don’t limit yourself only to such polished promotional materials!!):

 
 

Applying ahead of deadline to Columbia is always recommended! We have many posts on this blahg about this important strategy – see below for the key ones you’ll want to read.

 

 
Also take a look through the commentary we’ve offered on Columbia MBA essays of the past:

Columbia MBA Essay & Application Help

And there’s gobs more posts about Columbia!!

Lots more essay critiques of Columbia MBA essays linked from this page! Pretty much all of them relevant to your process of writing today.
 

 
 

 



Columbia 2023-2024 Dates and Deadlines

Columbia Full-Time MBA Application Deadlines – rolling admissions, so APPLY EARLY!

  • Accelerated J-Term (one round only): September 13, 2023 – this will put you into the Class of 2025, graduating with the cohort starting August 2023
  • Binding Early Decision: likely to be around September 13, 2023 but TBD – this is for the standard two-year program that graduates in May 2026. Early Decision is the recommended application option if Columbia is your #1 choice; it’s binding though, so go Regular Decision if you would not be able to commit to them 100% at time of application.
  • Regular Decision Fellowship deadline: likely to be around January 11, 2024 but TBD This is expected to be one of the later deadlines after the holidays. Columbia’s Fellowship deadline is typically a quasi “Round 2”: If you’re serious about this school and not applying Early Decision, this is your drop-dead date for when your app should be in if you want to be considered for any scholarship awards. However, this is not the ideal date to submit for Regular Decision! Getting your app in significantly earlier than this is going to be way better for you. We have a detailed discussion in our Columbia strategy guide. Their final Regular Decision deadline is usually in April, but again, that would be really late to be applying here.


 

Columbia’s confusing application options

Here’s an overview from the ‘snarchive of the Columbia MBA application options) – explains the longstanding rolling admissions process at Columbia and talks about the advantages of Early Decision.

And the perennial question: Is it easier to get in during Columbia’s Early Decision?

The below posts were written for past admissions cycles. The information is largely applicable to this season too but there have been slight changes in recent years such as with the RD open date, as noted above.

Early Decision

Yes it’s an advantage – and it’s also binding. Only do this if you’re committed to choosing Columbia if they choose you!

Regular Decision

Rolling Admissions

 

The Columbia J-Term

This is not an application option – this is a different MBA track. It’s an accelerated 16-month MBA that offers the same full-time experience, just no internship. You must demonstrate fit in order to have a shot at acceptance. There is one deadline only (no Early Decision option). J-Termers do not qualify for any fellowship awards. Essay questions are the same for J-Term and August Start. Your J-Term application is not binding.

 
 
Our Columbia MBA application guide tells you the best time to apply this season, for each of the different application options you have available — or keep reading the many posts here on the blahg on Regular Decision vs Early Decision vs J-Term.

 

Columbia & Tests: GMAT, GRE, Executive Assessment

Should you take the EA instead of the GMAT? Hmmm. This is a complicated situation, grasshopper! For most applicants, the GMAT would probably still be preferred at Columbia (even over the GRE, though take the test you’ll do best on). There are cases where the EA might work fine but we wouldn’t suggest it for the typical type of applicant trying for August Start especially. Your choice of test needs to be an integral part of your overall strategy to apply to a school of this caliber. Want our take on your specific situation? Our Comprehensive Profile Review can walk through all of the details!
 
 

Columbia MBA recommendation

The questions that Columbia asks your recommender are close to what Harvard requires.

Recommenders for Deferred Admission applicants will answer a different question.

If you want to give your recommender a resource for how to most effectively write about you for Columbia and other schools, check out our Recommenders’ Instruction Sets.

EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2022 Columbia MBA Application


Also helpful: Check out Columbia MBA essay critiques from past seasons.

 

Columbia Links, Important App Info, and More Snark

official school pages:

stuff you should know about Columbia, by EssaySnark:

Also interesting to know about the culture:

 

And just for fun:

 

Tired of clicking through posts? Want to just start writing essays? Get it all in one place! For a thorough and very detailed analysis of everything you need to grapple with for this school, pick up the SnarkStrategies Guide for Columbia – there is so much important information in there on strategy and when to apply and how does Early Decision work, that this will put you on the right path, even if you’re not planning to submit till later in the season. Setting your strategy with Columbia early can ease your burden of figuring out your approach to ALL schools! Our essay guides are written from scratch to walk you through the necessary details – they are not simply reformatted blahg posts.

Wow – you made it all the way to the bottom of the page?!?? Here’s some posts about Columbia Admissions that don’t actually have to do with your application strategy but hey, you’re clearly bored, so why not:

 

EssaySnark's Strategies for the Columbia MBA Application


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