MBA Application Information: Cornell Johnson

The essays were the same in the 2020 cycle so please check out the content above for the discussion there!

The advice we gave then was:

With most schools we suggest targeting any round through a January deadline and that applies here, too, except that they have four rounds which gives you more milestones to try for. There typically are more options with Cornell – in fact, they’ll even keep accepting applications after their final round in April — but it’s certainly better to stick with Rounds 1, 2 or 3. Can a last round app work though? Yes! This could be one to try if you’re scrambling for options that might be accessible, and allow you to begin your MBA in 2020. If you’re an international applicant, visa issues can complicate things, but it’s still doable.

Just be sure to help them understand why you’re applying so late! And start putting a reapp strategy together simultaneously for the next-up Round 1, in case your Hail Mary doesn’t work out. Applying to any school in the March/April timeframe is always a risk, especially given how competitive things are across the board these days; it’s getting into the trickier stages to be applying to any school at that point on the calendar. Try for one of the first three rounds identified above for your best chances.

[End 2018 questions section.]

Cornell has unique questions and they definitely care about a) your career goals (be specific!) and b) evidence of outreach and school fit. Plus, they want to know about YOU!

Here are the Class of 2021 Full-Time essays for Johnson.

A goals statement including a “how are you prepared” question, plus two formal essays and an optional essay:

1. At Cornell, we value students who create impact. Please indicate the opportunities for impact that you’ve identified through engagement with our community and describe how what you learned has influenced your decision to apply to Johnson. 500 words
2. The front page of your resume has given us a sense of your professional experience and accomplishments as well as your academic summary and extracurricular involvement. If the back page reflects “the rest of your story,” please help us get to know you better by sharing the experiences that will give us insight into your character, values, and interests.

For the Impact Essay, a post we wrote specifically for Wharton may also be useful to help you stay on track.

The “back of the resume” phrasing is not very clear. What they’re really asking for is something along the lines of the NYU “Personal Expression Pick 6” or even something like what you might do for Stanford (if you do a good job with Stanford!!) where you’re exploring your background. Or like Tuck Essay 1 that asks about your individuality.

In the case of Johnson, they want to get a sense of you as a person, which you can answer in a way similar to how you construct your persona or image for the world on your Facebook. You can use photos, multimedia, text, whatever you want, which means it should be fun! You’re not being graded on creativity or panache; they just want to get a sense for who you are beyond the basics of a standard written essay (though a written essay also could be okay if that’s what you feel most comfortable with!).

The other questions on goals and also the Impact question are opportunities to go well beyond the surface. Most people give these questions short shrift. We invite you to dig deeper into what they are asking!

The Cornell optional essay is a standard optional essay — meaning, it’s truly optional and only should be submitted if you have important information to explain such as gaps in employment or low GPA (where you have a REASON and not an EXCUSE) — provided you haven’t found a way to already cover that elsewhere in the other application components. Reapplicants who tried last year also need to use the optional essay to explain how they have improved since last time. (We have a Reapplicant Guide if you’re in that boat!).

[End 2018 questions section.]

Cornell has unique questions and they definitely care about a) your career goals (be specific!) and b) evidence of outreach and school fit. Plus, they want to know about YOU! The “Life Story” essay is fun, and challenging at the same time.

Here are the Class of 2020 Full-Time essays for Johnson.

A goals statement, plus two formal essays and an optional essay:

1. At Cornell, we value students who create impact. Please indicate the opportunities for impact that you’ve identified through engagement with our community and describe how what you learned has influenced your decision to apply to Johnson. 500 words
2. You are the author of your Life Story. Please create the Table of Contents for the book in the space provided or upload it as an attachment. We value creativity and authenticity and encourage you to approach this essay with your unique style. Alternative submission formats may include a slide presentation, links to pre-existing media (personal website, digital portfolio, YouTube etc.), as well as visually enhanced written submissions. 500 words or under 5 minutes for a multimedia (audio/video).

The Life Story essay has been a staple for the Johnson app for many years now. It’s different enough that you won’t be able to re-use what you produce for Booth or MIT or NYU, but similar chunks of content may work across some of those others.

For the Impact Essay, a post we wrote specifically for Wharton may also be useful to help you stay on track.

[End 2017 questions section.]

1. At Cornell, we value students who create impact. Please indicate the opportunities for impact that you have identified through engagement with our community and describe how these interactions have influenced your decision to apply to Johnson. 500 words
2. You are the author of your Life Story. Please create the Table of Contents for the book in the space provided or upload it as an attachment. We value creativity and authenticity and encourage you to approach this essay with your unique style. Alternative submission formats may include a slide presentation, links to pre-existing media (personal website, digital portfolio, YouTube etc.), as well as visually enhanced written submissions.

They haven’t had a formal written essay in some time, so that first question is new in 2016. It’s reminiscent of what Wharton is asking, with their “contribution” essay (we issued some warnings on writing for that before).

Our Cornell essay guide is the best way to put together a strong strategy!

Additional random comments:

6/29/16 They’re not numbering their rounds anymore; they’ve gone back to October Round, November Round, etc. Not sure if that makes things more confusing, or less!

7/31/16 It appears that Cornell is adopting the newly-standardized 4-question Letters of Recommendation requirements that other schools are using.
[End 2016 questions section.]

7/24/15 It appears that Johnson is using the identical essays to last year, they’ve just been very kind to you and increased the limits.

1. Table of Contents You are the author for the book of Your Life Story. In 500 words or less, please create the table of contents for the book in the space provided or upload it as an attachment. We value creativity and authenticity and encourage you to approach this essay with your unique style. Alternative submission formats may include a slide presentation, links to pre-existing media (personal website, digital portfolio, YouTube etc.), as well as visually enhanced written submissions.
2. What are your short and long term goals and how do you see the Cornell MBA enabling you to achieve both? (500 words)

There’s also a whole bunch of other questions in their online application, plus the standard optional essay (reapplicants should use that to explain how they’ve improved since originally applying). We go into these details in our new-this-year Cornell MBA Application Guide, to give you all that you need to do a bang-up job on your essays for this school.

In terms of deadlines: Cornell keeps messing with the system! 😀 They retained their three rounds this year but those dates are very different than any other school.

Some history:

Up through the 2012-’13 app season, Cornell had four rounds. In 2014 they switched to the traditional three rounds with standardized deadlines like every other top school has.

Now they’ve gone back to four rounds for 2015, and they also will accept late apps even after their final deadline in March.

[End 2015 questions section.]

From the Johnson adcom: Announcement of 2014 application

These questions are not much different from 2013 – except that “300 words” has turned into “1,000 characters” and they have categorized a bunch of short-answer responses as “essays” which is a little confusing. The first question is the only one that allows you to upload a file; the others must be entered into the text field in their form, which means you can’t submit more than they ask for.

1. Creative Submission – Required for All Applicants: You are the author for the book of Your Life Story. In 1000 characters or less, please write the table of contents for the book in the space provided or upload it as an attachment. Note: approach this essay with your unique style. We value creativity and authenticity.
2. Targeted Job Type: What is the job that you would like to have immediately upon graduating with your MBA? (1000 characters)
3. Post-Collegiate Activities: List community activities (clubs, church, civic, etc.) and professional associations you contributed to since graduation from college. Please include the organization name, your role, hours dedicated, elected offices held, and dates of participation (1000 character limit).
4. List your extracurricular activities while in college in order of importance to you. You may include details about your positions and the time commitment, honors or awards received, and dates of participation. The list may also include part-time and summer employment held while in college. Please list your employer, job title, responsibilities, hours per week, and the dates for each position (1000 character limit).
5. Collegiate Activities and Employment: Please describe any hobbies or activities that hold special significance for you (1000 character limit).
6. Optional Essay: Complete this essay if you would like to add additional details regarding your candidacy. For instance, if you believe one or more aspects of your application (e.g., undergraduate record or test scores) do not accurately reflect your potential for success at the Johnson School. (1000 character limit)

The optional essay really is optional; you should only use it to explain oddities in your profile that you’re not covering elsewhere. Don’t feel like you should tell them about this great leadership example from work as a way to fill the space. Put that example in your Book of Life if you feel it’s important enough to include, or just rely on your resume to tell the story.

The other questions are no different than what other schools ask, so again, a little strange that the app has them categorized as “essays.” They’re definitely not long enough to be considered as such. The 1,000-character limit means you get about two standard-sized paragraphs, though the fields do allow formatting and many of the questions lend themselves to a bulleted list answer instead of a block of text. Just so you can gauge it, this paragraph is just about 535 characters; the paragraph above about the optional essay is 375.

This is the first school we’ve seen to use Salesforce to deploy its MBA application. They’re touting this feature where you can pull in your LinkedIn profile to populate the employment and education sections. This is optional; you don’t have to click that button if you don’t want to. We don’t see any disadvantage in doing that, so go ahead if you’re on LinkedIn and want to save some data entry. Honestly that seems like the biggest benefit though, and even that may be a little overhyped; the system says that not all fields will be populated so you’ll still need to go through and fill in the gaps.

Still, kudos to Johnson for embracing technology – it’s certainly not something we see the bschools doing much of! They are saying that it’s their Johnson Tech MBA that provided the impetus for this (Johnson is partnering with Google on some stuff so it’s clear they’re embracing the convergence of tech and business – again, not something we see too often from MBA programs).

The strategy for putting together your Johnson essay needs to be the same as it’s always been: Communicate who you are through this structured exercise of the “story of your life” and share some of the real you in that way. And oh yeah, communicate your goals concisely, too.
[End 2014 questions section.]

Here’s the 2013 Cornell essay questions:

1. Essay 1: Who You Are. You are the author for the book of Your Life Story. In 300 words or less please write the table of contents for the book. Note: approach this essay with your unique style. We value creativity and authenticity.
2. Essay 2: Who You Turn Out to Be. (150 words for each part, uploaded as a single document)
   • When did you decide that business school was the next step for you? (Was this an epiphany or an evolutionary process? What was the catalyst that caused you to consider this next step?)
   • Johnson values people that make things happen for themselves. Give an example of how you have initiated this for yourself.
   • Please describe your immediate post MBA career goals.

On 7/26/13 Cornell updated their Deadlines page to clarify that they will still accept “late” applications through April. This basically moves them back to a 4-round admissions season all over again! It’s good to see this flexibility but it’s a little baffling why they’re doing it this way. Why not just keep four rounds? Maybe it’s because they’re trying to accommodate all their admissions under the same schedule, and the One-Year MBA starts in May so they can’t have a round hit that late in the season and still get people in there.

[End 2013 questions section.]

1. How would you characterize your career since college?
2. Tell us about your short and long term career goals.
3. Choose one:
   • You are the author for the book of Your Life Story. Please write the table of contents for the book. Note: Approach this essay with your unique style. We value creativity and authenticity.
   • Describe a situation taken from your personal or professional life where you failed and tell us what you learned.
   • What does diversity mean to you and how will you contribute to the diversity of our community at Johnson?

    

[End 2012 questions section.]