2019 MBA Essay Questions: Michigan Ross

Wow, Ross was quite selective last year – must’ve seen lots of high-quality apps! If you’re looking at Michigan for the Class of 2022, it’s time to get started!

As a first step in considering your approach for Ross, you may want to check out the Class of 2020 Profile for the full-time Ross MBA , which is really quite strong. It looks similar to what Columbia’s did only a few years ago. Yes, Ross is on the upswing! Has been for awhile. It’s also notable that they accepted nearly a quarter of their class on GRE scores. And, as would be expected, those GRE averages are much lower than what we’re seeing at places like Harvard and Wharton. It will be very interesting to see if this holds for the Class of 2021 profile when it comes out later this summer! (Our bet is that these numbers may be further softening, which is good news indeed for all of you hopefuls.)
 

2018 Michigan Ross Two-Year MBA Essay Questions:
Class of 2022

Ross Round 1 is in 3 months, 0 weeks (September 30).

Ross has retained its prompts almost unchanged for this admissions season, which tells you that they think they are eliciting good responses! Our Ross MBA Application Guide will help you navigate through to a solid set of answers that presents who you are authentically, with detail and resonance.
 

How do you answer them?

Several short-answer questions with multiple options each, plus a standard career goals essay — and notably, they say, “The tight word count is intentional to force you to focus” — yup, that’s what you will have to do here!

Your main pitch is in the formal goals essay:

• Michigan Ross is a place where people from all backgrounds with different career goals can thrive. Please share your short-term career goal. Why is this career goal right for you? (300 words)

If you’re struggling to articulate your goals clearly and succinctly: EssaySnark’s Career Goals App Accelerator will help!

The potentially more interesting — and more challenging, if you haven’t yet begun to appreciate the importance of being authentic in your MBA essays — are the short-answer questions. You get choices here! You’ll be choosing one from each group of two prompts:

• Group 1
  • I want people to know that I:
  • I made a difference when I:
• Group 2
  • I was humbled when:
  • I am out of my comfort zone when:
• Group 3
  • I was aware that I was different when:
  • I was challenged when:

These questions will require extensive BRAINSTORMING and even more STRATEGY – and we lay out the dos and don’ts in our Michigan Ross MBA guide, including how dated your stories can be, what topics maybe won’t serve you so well in these individual prompts, and other tips based on what we’ve seen from others who tackled these questions before you.

Ross’ Admissions Director Soojin Kwon has a great blog which you should be following. To get you started, Her post from two years ago explained the rationale behind their innovative short-answer prompts, and this one from last year explains some of those recent simplifications (here’s her 2019 announcement of questions which doesn’t actually share much of significance but is included for the sake of completeness).

Ross has an optional essay too (though they encourage you to use bullets if you can!).

We cover essential interviewing info for Michigan Ross below

How competitive is it?

Even though application volumes have gone done, they’re still at high levels compared to where Ross historically was, and that means the admissions team can afford to be selective. The average GMAT score for the Ross Class of 2020 went up again and now is at ***720*** (up from 712, which was up from 708 the prior year) though they’re also accepting a much larger number of applicants with GRE scores too (24% of students), which can skew the GMAT average higher. This is because only those who do well on the GMAT submit a GMAT score, so the set of scores that make up that class average is comprised of higher GMAT scores than it used to be, when the set was larger (does that make any sense??).

A lot of the increasing interest in Ross has come from the international candidate pool, which we understand to be softening somewhat recently. Whether you’re a U.S. candidate or trying from a more congested pool like China or India, Ross will want to get an application from you! They are reapplicant-friendly and are looking for ways to make their process more transparent and less stressful, while also letting you share more of who you are through the requirements that they present. They remain more flexible on GRE vs GMAT and on accepting a range of scores.

Learn how to construct a strong app to this school with our Michigan Ross Essay Guide! Now updated for the Class of 2022 requirements.
 

Full-Time MBA 2019 App Deadlines for Michigan Ross

Michigan Ross MBA Application Deadlines

• Round 1: September 30, 2019
  In the past, they have required any international Rd 1 applicants who want to participate in the Team Exercise to travel to Ann Arbor — but these days they’re more accommodating and have been traveling to places like India for the Team Based Exercise for Round 1 applicants. They travel more extensively in Round 2 so that may still be a better option for some international applicants.

  The trend for Ross in recent seasons is for interview invites to be issued towards the end of October on a single day. If you’re not invited, then there is still a possibility of being offered a spot on the waitlist when final decisions come out in December. This means that Ross does not release anybody in Round 1 midcycle, as happens at other schools.

• Round 2: January 6, 2020 Thankfully they’ve kept the deadline after that first weekend of the New Year.
  Expect Round 2 interviews to go out in two waves starting in late January or the first of February 2020, with the interviews / team exercise happening in February (if you do not get the interview invitation in the second wave, you’re either going to be waitlisted or denied. For Round 2 they typically travel to places like Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Tokyo and Delhi to conduct interviews and the Team Exercise — or you can do it in Ann Arbor too, of course, or you have the option of interviewing locally with an alum, pretty much anywhere you are in the world. Even though you have options, EssaySnark always recommends hat you plan to attend one of these locations so that you can participate in the Team Exercise.

  They are likely to release all no-go Rd 2 candidates towards the end of February.

See the useful decision tree they posted on their blog in February 2015 to better understand how the admissions cycle works.

Michigan Ross MBA Recommendations

• As in recent years, just one recommendation (which as we said in 2014 we don’t think is the best thing for applicants, but they’re sticking with it). This rec must be from current direct supervisor, or you need to explain why not in the optional essay.
• Three main questions for your recommender to answer

Lots of resources for choosing your recommender available here on the blahg; if you want more help, our Letters of Recommendation App Accelerator walks through the specifics and lets you submit your recommenders’ strategy for feedback from EssaySnark.

Also:
 

EXCELLENT examples of accmplshmts that show distinction. Thank you Soojin @MichiganRoss & congrats on amazing class! https://t.co/qqvNqDpMHa

— Essay Snark (@EssaySnark) December 24, 2015

Michigan Ross Interviews and Team Based Exercise

A quick note on the confusing nature of the Ross Application Requirements on its website : It seems like they’re saying that everyone gets interviewed, and everyone has the option of doing the Team Based Exercise. That’s not at all how it works. 🙁 Interviews are by invitation only, and you must interview if you’re to get an offer. Everyone invited to interview also has the opportunity to participate in their Team Based Exercise if they choose to (and can pull off the travel to one of the locations where it’s held).

So what is the Team Based Exercise?

Ross has been using this innovative interview experience since the 2012 admissions season, and you’ll actually find it’s quite fun! (probably) There is (almost) no way to prepare for this; it’s very impromptu, by design. If you’re a decent person with some manners who treats others well, not too shy and not too pushy, you should do just fine.

Here’s the Ross Admissions Director explaining this in September 2018 — she is very transparent about exactly what to expect, including a full description of the exercise itself:

It’s still important to go through the standard interview prep process, of course, so that you’re fluid and comfortable in talking about your interest in the MBA and career goals. You need to be prepared to discuss those.

You can see more information about the Team Exercise on Soojin Kwon’s blog post from September 2018 , and be sure to also check out this one from January 2015 that emphasizes the importance of this opportunity .

Michigan Ross General Info

official school pages

• Ross Admissions Director’s Blog
• “Don’t Fear the Group Interview” blog post from Ross Admissions Director in August 2013
• Great post and video about how they evaluate candidates (March 2015)

EssaySnark stuff

Some blahg posts about Ross

• Schools are discouraging use of the optional essay (May 2016)
• We’re certain that Michigan Ross is not trying to mess with your head (September 2015)
• What was Ross thinking? On letters of recommendation (August 2014)
• From our “adcoms that we love” series: Michigan Ross (December 2012) and “adcoms that we trust” (December 2010)
• A blahg discussion of multi-year app volume trends centering on Michigan Ross (February 2013)

This guide covers this year’s short-answer groups of questions and the short-term goal essay!

For reference: Past Season Ross Essays

The reason we include these past-year questions is so you get a better sense of the school. Studying what they’ve asked before helps you understand more of what they value. When they keep questions consistent, then you know they’re important; when they make changes, the deltas can give you additional perspective.
Click to view 2018 questions

Ross’ Admissions Director Soojin Kwon announced the new essays on her blog recently and here’s what you’ll be working with if you’re applying to Michigan (which BTW is one of our favorite schools!):

Several short-answer questions with multiple options each, plus a standard career goals essay:

Your main pitch is in the formal goals essay:

• Please share your short-term and long-term career goals. What skills/strengths do you have that will be relevant to your career goals? How will Ross prepare you for your goals? (300 words)

Hmmm… EssaySnark likes the clarity they’ve given here, with the separate questions — but covering FOUR SPECIFIC ANSWERS in only 300 words???? That’s a tall order. We wish they’d been more permissive on the essay length on this one.

Anyway, a solid answer to all aspects of this question is EXACTLY what you’ll end up with if you do EssaySnark’s Career Goals App Accelerator!

The potentially more interesting — and more challenging, if you haven’t yet grasped the importance of being authentic in your MBA essays — are the short-answer questions. You get choices here! You’ll be choosing one from each group of prompts:

• Group 1
  • I want people to know that I:
  • I turned an idea into action when I:
  • I made a difference when I:
• Group 2
  • I showed my resilience when I:
  • I was humbled when:
  • I am out of my comfort zone when:
• Group 3
  • I was aware that I am different when:
  • I find it challenging when people:
  • A valuable thing I have taught someone:

These questions will require extensive BRAINSTORMING and even more STRATEGY – and we lay out some dos and don’ts in our Michigan Ross MBA guide for 2017, including which pairs of questions should not be answered together, how dated your stories can be, and what other topics maybe won’t serve you so well in these individual prompts, based on what we’ve seen from others before you.

Ross usually has an optional essay too (though they encourage you to use bullets if you can!).


[end discussion of 2017 questions.]