EssaySnark

2022 MBA Essay Questions: Michigan Ross

 

EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2022 Michigan Ross MBA Application Ross has been a fave of the ‘Snark for many years running, and we have frequently recommended the Michigan MBA to BSers who come to us looking for strategy advice. They care a lot about school fit! EssaySnark’s MBA Application Guide for Michigan Ross discusses what this means in practice and how you can focus on the elements of your profile that matter.


 

Ross Round 1 is in 2 months, 2 weeks (September 19).

This is in the middle of the Round 1 deadlines — you will be busy!

 

Class of 2025 Ross Full-Time MBA essay questions

They offer multiple options for each of your short-answer writing requirements, plus there’s 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!

You’ll clearly need to be direct and concise in stating your short-term goal:

  • What is your short-term goal? (25 words)
    and
    Why is this the right short-term career goal for you? (150 words)

Dang, only 25 words for the actual goal? This is truly an exercise in brevity — and specificity! Being really clear on a particular post-MBA position will help you convey your “why MBA” most easily. The “why” part of this question is the most important part. That’s especially true if you’re hoping to go into consulting (which many folks are right now). Give it some thought! See if you can tie your background into your future in some way — again, briefly! It’s possible to say something meaningful in that amount of space but the truism is so true: Every word counts!!

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

They also want everyone to answer this specific question:

  • Pick one thing from your resume and tell us more. (100 words)

That one is a nice invitation to bring forth a key accomplishment story, or give a soundbite story of where you brought impact or innovation, or where you architected change. It obviously needs to be short, but you can get a lot across in 100 words if you are targeted and structure the story well! Our Accomplishments & Achievements App Accelerator would likely be very useful for brainstorming and structuring out your ideas.

Potentially more interesting — and more challenging, if you haven’t yet begun to appreciate the importance of being authentic in your MBA essays — are these remaining take-your-pick 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 was aware that I was different when:
    • I made a difference when I:
  • Group 2
    • I was out of my comfort zone when:
    • I was humbled 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 many years back explained the rationale behind their innovative short-answer prompts, and this one from 2018 explains some of those simplifications.

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

What about the test?
Like some other schools, Ross has expanded its list of standardized tests that can be submitted in support of an MBA app, including LSAT and MCAT, along with PCAT and DAT too. They’ll even consider a request to have your standardized test requirement waived — which we do NOT recommend most candidates try for, with only a few exceptions (which we explain in our Michigan Ross 2022 MBA Application Guide). If you’re trying for Ross and you have not tested yet, it’s fine to go for the GRE if you find it easier to do well on that one. High scores matter but they’re not the be-all/end-all at Ross. They look at the whole package that you present across the entirety of your application.

We cover essential interviewing info for Michigan Ross below.

Learn how to construct a strong app to this school with our Michigan Ross Essay Guide! Now refreshed in light of the modifications for the Ross Class of 2025 requirements.
 

Full-Time MBA 2022 App Deadlines for Michigan Ross

Michigan Ross MBA Application Deadlines

  • Round 1: September 19, 2022
    This will be smack dab in the middle of your essay-writing craziness for many other schools. Don’t forget to prioritize Ross!

    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. In the most recent cycles, Ross has not been releasing anybody midcycle in Round 1, as happens at other schools.

  • Round 2: January 8, 2023 Ross is frequently one of the earliest Round 2 deadlines, and that’s semi-true again this year.

    Round 2 interviews are likely to go out in a two-batch sequence beginning at the tail end of January or the first of February. Ross don’t waste no time! If you do not get the interview invitation in the second wave, you’re either going to be waitlisted or denied one or two months later; they hang onto everyone while they make it through the first phase of evaluations, then try to release early-ish if they know it’s a “no” in Round 2. Not sure why they don’t do that in Round 1??? Many unanswered questions on how Ross runs their process.

  • Round 3: March 17, 2023 This could possibly be viable for many candidates, too, though it’s edging close to the end of the season.

We don’t really recommend a Round 4 application to Ross, just because it’s likely their class will be pretty full already. They wouldn’t offer a Round 4 in May if they didn’t intend on admitting some from that batch, so it’s not impossible but we would prefer that most of you try to avoid it.

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

Michigan Ross MBA Recommendations

Ross uses standardized recommender questions.

  • As in recent years, just one recommendation (which which we don’t think is the best thing for applicants, but they’re sticking with it). This single 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:
 

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 for almost ten years now, 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 transparent about 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

EssaySnark stuff

We live-tweeted a Ross admissions webinar way back when (almost 10 years ago now, sheesh!) — still has some useful nuggets to offer:


Some blahg posts about Ross

EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2022 Michigan Ross MBA Application This guide covers this year’s short-answer groups of questions and the short-term goal essay!

The Ross MBA guide will help you figure out the best topics to cover, including some tips to keep in mind for a holistic strategy across essays and short-answer questions, resume, and the single recommendation. We cover the group interview format that Ross adopted several years ago too, and advice on whether or not to use the optional essay for this school.

 

Success Stories!

There’s actually A LOT of former Brave Supplicants wandering the halls in Ann Arbor every year. We are always careful to protect confidentiality, but one great guy outed himself in his guest post on the blahg. If you end up at Ross, we can tell you for sure that you’ll be surrounded by some truly amazing students.

And just to end things on a note of cuteness:

Red Pandas

[Index of essay questions by business school]