EssaySnark

2022 MBA Essay Questions: Stanford GSB

Oh hey look here! You can view all EssaySnark blahg posts tagged for Stanford in one place!

 

Stanford needs to know you as a unique individual — but don’t overthink it!

EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2021 Stanford MBA ApplicationThe 2021 Stanford MBA essay questions are likely going to be among the hardest that you’ll write. Our Stanford MBA Application Guide can help you every step of the way!


 
Your presentation across all components of your GSB application will need to be authentic, personal, and real — and yeah, we get it, nobody sets out to write essays that aren’t all of those things. It’s just that actually executing on that set of instructions is more difficult than you might currently expect. Stanford’s essays always require significant effort in introspection. It’s almost guaranteed that the first drafts you try won’t be very good.

Here’s a good starting point: REFLECTION AND INTROSPECTION AS MANDATORY FIRST STEPS!

 

2022 Stanford MBA Essay Questions & Recommendations
Class of 2023 Stanford GSB MBA Application

Stanford Round 1 is in 1 month, 0 weeks (September 13).

This is right in the middle of the craziness that will be Round 1 for you. Thankfully, you will have had some practice in writing essays by the time this deadline hits.

 

Two essays, 1,050 words total, allocated any way you wish:

  1. What matters most to you, and why? (650 words suggested)
  2. Why Stanford? (400 words suggested)

 

You really need to spend time on both of these, most especially that first one. Here’s a post from November 2021 on non-traditional approaches to Stanford Essay B.

There are also two “optional” questions — which we really don’t think you should consider as “optional”!

Think about times you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic, or other settings. What was your impact? What made it significant to you or to others?

You get to share up to three stories, approx 200 words each. Oh hey! We blahgged about Stanford’s optional “impact” stories here!

At least as important is the second opportunity:

Tell us about a time within the last three years when your background influenced your participation at work or school.

They’re asking about how you might bring an element of diversity to their class! And, they’re asking how that differentiation in your background has made you into the person you are today. Lots to work with here! And, not much space. This one only permits up to ~180 words (which is ridic, given that it’s got two questions bound up in there! ugh!)

Jump down this page to a list of EssaySnark posts on these Stanford essay questions! Includes real essays we’ve reviewed for actual real-life BSers!

 

How do you answer them?

Given the highly competitive nature of this school, and the uniqueness of their questions, then (apologies for the upsell but) we really encourage you to pick up our full application guide for Stanford – it’s got gobs and gobs of advice, and exercises, and brainstorming ideas. We can’t toss out a pithy set of bullets here and have that be sufficient for how to answer these questions.

We will offer this, though: That first essay needs to be PERSONAL and you need to back up your answer with ideally two STORIES that prove why the answer is true. An essay is an argument, and nowhere is that more true than Stanford Essay A! The perennial Stanford essay question has been “what matters most” and so yeah, you need to go deep! And prove it! And don’t write you think will impress them. Write what you really care about in your guts.

The caution on Stanford Essay B: Gosh it’s hard to do this well. You may end up writing an essay that is technically sound, that answers the question, that includes references to Stanford stuff — which doesn’t even make the admissions folks take a second look at your application. The quality of a “why MBA/why this school” essay that could get you in almost anywhere else is unlikely to move the needle at Stanford. Here’s a trick: Everything that you say about Stanford in Essay B? Go one level deeper. Ask yourself “Why?” on each and every one. If you can capture that, then you may be operating in the right dimension for this to be a success.

Then for the short-answer questions, Stanford is inviting you to back up your claims about the big things you’re setting out as goals for yourself in Essay B, by sharing more details than you could elsewhere in the app on your achievements and the important ways you’ve added value in other contexts of your life. Pro Tip: Focus on the last three years. There might be exceptions to this (but they would be rare). The best way to advocate for a spot in the next entering class at Stanford is to show how you’ve made big stuff happen in the recent past. (Here’s a secret: The items you carve out in these three short examples could work awesomely great in a Harvard essay! And Wharton as well. Lots of opportunity for repurposing your big stories across these three schools.)

Our Accomplishments & Achievements App Accelerator can help you identify your best stories and learn the right structure to present them — you’ll end up with five polished nuggets of goodness that you can potentially use in all of these apps!!!

 

 



EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2021 Stanford MBA Application
Our Stanford MBA essay guide has lots of insights around this school and the thinking that needs to go into this application.


 

2022 Stanford MBA recommendations (or “Letters of Reference” in their lingo)

Stanford has been using mostly the same recommenders’ questions as other schools ask. In recent years, how they required the info be entered in their system was not exactly the same as other schools.

The Stanford info is here — the basics are:

  • Two Letters of Reference
  • Both from a direct supervisor; current manager strongly preferred, plus another one from the past or some other person who’s had access to your work product. They both can be from one company or from different companies.
  • Two main questions plus one optional for your recommenders to answer; note that Question 1 is not identical to the phrasing used by other schools, and they’ve designated different word limits:
    1. How does the applicant’s performance compare to that of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? Please provide specific examples. (E.g. what are the applicant’s principal strengths?) (500 words)
    2. Describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. (500 words)

Definitely get a recommendation from your actual boss if you can — and if you think you can’t, reconsider. The recommender’s title does not matter to the adcom; it adds no value to have your CEO write about you if the first time he met you was when you asked him to write your recommendation. You want someone who knows you well and can speak in detail about the questions they’re asking. You have a lot of leeway in who to choose for both of these but it’s definitely quite easy to make a strategic misstep. Pro Tip: Coach them to be DETAILED yet CONCISE. Longer recommendation letters are not better!

There are lots of resources for choosing your recommenders available through posts on the blahg; if you want more help, our Letters of Recommendation App Accelerator walks through the specifics of various scenarios and tricky situations and lets you submit your recommenders’ strategy for feedback from EssaySnark.


 

Stanford 2022-2023 Dates and Deadlines for the MBA Class of 2025

See Stanford MBA Admissions Deadlines

  • Rd 1 2022: September 13

    INTERVIEWS: The general pattern at Stanford has been that interview invites will go out for a one-month period from about the end of October through end of November, when they have Round 1 release day and set the no-luck applicants free into the wild. You can expect a similar sequence this year. Final decision is mid-December.

  • Rd 2 2023: January 5 This is unfortunately one of the very earliest Round 2 deadlines, coming straight after the New Year’s holiday. Truly unfortunate, given how hard this application is. 🙁 You’ll want to start working on Stanford by mid-December at the latest, in order to have a quality app done by this date!

    INTERVIEWS: Round 2 interview invites are typically released in a one-month window, expected to begin somewhere around the first of February. In early March, they usually have a “release”, at which time anyone not moving forward says bye-bye. Final decision is end of March.

 

The best help for the Stanford app?
Our SnarkStrategies MBA Guide for Stanford GSB,
available in an easy access online version.

 
 

EssaySnark Stanford MBA Essay Reviews and Advice!

Study these – but please don’t try to copy what someone else wrote about in a ‘matters most’ essay! We hope the reason for this caution is obvious. The reviews we post on the blahg for essays are much more limited than what you get with the full (and private!) Essay Decimator!
 

A selection from the ‘snarchive…

You might also want to check out:

 

The EssaySnark Stanford MBA guide for the 2021 application is packed with useful insights and actionable tips for how (and how NOT!) to approach your task. Brave Supplicants this year have even more help in understanding how to build a compelling set of essays and impact statements for the GSB!
 

[Index of essay questions by business school]