2020 MBA Essay Questions: UC-Berkeley Haas

2019 Essays – EssaySnark’s Analysis

Here’s what we said when last year’s questions came out…

Many top schools have not gotten markedly less competitive, despite a decrease in application volumes — but for certain candidate pools, Berkeley may be an exception. Berkeley actually may be getting a little easier to break into. If you’re an engineer trying to go into product management, this won’t likely be true for you here, but for other profiles, Berkeley’s admissions standards appear to have softened somewhat.

Berkeley had new essay questions again — and nothing directly asking about goals! This was a surprise indeed. Berkeley-Haas has traditionally been a school that really does want to know what’s driving your interest in the MBA, and they have geared much of their application evaluation on the career goals you lay out. We have not yet seen the entirety of their actual application, and it’s very possible that they have some direct career goals questions buried there, but as to formal essays, this is the first year we’ve ever seen Haas not have an explicit question asking you about goals. Of course, their second essay does ask you why you want an MBA, couched in the much more useful phrasing around why you want to gain leadership skills from Haas – so it’s sophisticated, and kinda sneaky too! You’ll need to be sophisticated in how you answer it, for sure.

In terms of calling these “essays” well we kind of take issue with that label. a 300-word assignment is hardly an essay. These will be challenging to write!

[end discussion of last year’s questions]

2018 Essays – EssaySnark’s Analysis

Berkeley has streamlined its application requirements even further this year — only two required essays! Although we strongly encourage you to consider answering Optional Information #1 about family background!!

What if you don’t have anything unique or different about your background?

THINK MORE ABOUT IT!

We really believe that the Optional Information #1 essay is a major opportunity for EVERYONE.

Why?

Because Haas is signalling clearly that WHO YOU ARE — based on where you came from and your unique formative years and childhood or early adult experiences — are very indicative of the type of fit you may be to their culture and environment. We applaud this question! It also makes sense that it’s optional (sort of) but we do wish that there was one more standardized question for everyone to answer such as they’ve had in the past, about impact or achievements or challenges or professional and teamwork wins that you’ve had. They’re not asking for that, and we understand why, and they’ve also simplified the main two essays as well which is applicant-friendly… but…. We just can’t help feeling that something was lost in ditching out on a more standard required essay such as they had before.

Here are the 2018 MBA essay questions for Berkeley Haas full-time MBA:

1. Tell us a six-word story that reflects a memorable experience in your life-to-date. Elaborate on why it is meaningful to you. (300 words)
    
   The six-word story is a Haas innovation and it should be fun! Thankfully they’ve expanded the length to give you 50 more words than they allowed last year, but it’s still a very short essay, and it is going to be HARD. Because of this, you should not try Haas as your very first application. Get your essays to a school like Columbia or Wharton under your belt first; you will struggle with this first question if you don’t have some essay development experience and skills built up already. This post discusses the six-word story, and this one on branding from way back in 2011 also may be useful as a starting point.
    
2. Briefly describe your immediate post-MBA career goal, and discuss how it will put you on a path to a meaningful and rewarding career. (300 words maximum)
    
   Yay! They fixed the problems that we had identified with the structure of their career goals question last year, and we’re not surprised that they modified the prompt since Berkeley tends to change things up every year. The risk with this year’s version? That applicants end up talking too much in hypotheticals. Our advice for your Haas Essay 2 is to express your enthusiasm for this new direction in life by tying your future plans into your strengths and skills from your past — in a demonstrable way, through use of a concrete example. This same essay should generally serve you well for other schools this year, too, including Ross and Darden! That will certainly be an efficiency-maximizer in your applications if you’re looking at those other very awesome schools as part of your application strategy.
    
3. Optional Information #1 (300 words): Haas also has a series of questions about your family background and upbringing which does not need to be presented as a formal essay, but which should certainly be explored in the context of showing who you are and how your background has influenced you. You can either go through and offer short-answer responses to each of the 5 questions as applicable, OR, you can write an essay that talks about challenges, hardships, and how you’ve overcome.

   Here are the questions:

   1. What is the highest level of education completed by your parent(s) or guardian(s)?
   2. What is the most recent occupation of your parent(s) or guardian(s)?
   3. If you were raised in one of the following household types, please indicate. [Perhaps the most interesting question of all!!! If one of these applies to you, be sure to be descriptive and explain. If not, no problem, it’s fine to answer “N/A” and move to the next question in the list.]
   4. What was the primary language spoken in your childhood home?
   5. If you have you ever been responsible for providing significant and continuing financial or supervisory support for someone else, please indicate.
   6. Please elaborate on any of your above responses. Alternatively, you may use this opportunity to expand on other hardships or unusual life circumstances that may help us understand the context of your opportunities, achievements, and impact.

    

Interesting, huh? There’s no other school that we know of that has surfaced these types of personal background questions to the level of an actual essay! Many other schools do ask biographical questions and want to know about your family of origin within the application, so these aren’t unique. It’s just that they’ve elevated them to indicate their importance. ALL the schools do care about these things, and if you come from unusual circumstances, then it may be worth conveying some further details about them to all of the other schools you’re applying to, too (e.g., if you were adopted, or raised in a foster home, etc.).

Their Optional Information #2 is the classic “optional essay” that we cover in multiple posts here on the blahg, where you can talk about issues during college that resulted in a low GPA, or gaps in employment, that sort of thing. We do not suggest writing the Optional Information #2 unless you have a specific reason to do so, that cannot be fully covered anywhere else in the application.

But only two required essays from Haas? Wow! Is that good or bad? And why did they cut down their application? What can be learned from this?

Well, there’s this idea among admissions directors that too many essays discourages you BSers from applying. But the thing is, when the applicant is invited to present more information, and they are so interested in a school like Berkeley which we know so many of you are, then they actually appreciate the opportunity to share more of themselves with the school.

We hope that Berkeley will reintroduce either a lengthier allowance for their goals essay so that an applicant can share something more meaningful, or even better, go back to a three-essay app. Even though it may seem like more work for you applicants, most people who finish the process don’t see it as significantly more effort (two essays compared to three really is only a marginal difference in the amount of THINKING required), and notably, applicants tend to feel that they had more of a chance to share something meaningful about themselves when they’re given more essays and more space to do it in. So they feel more satisfied with the overall process of applying, regardless of how it ends up. Presumably application volumes went down at Haas last year but anecdotally we’ve heard that that’s the case everywhere so it wasn’t necessary for Haas to reduce their application requirements in order to stay competitive.

Just our two cents.

Anyway, your task now is to tackle that application! For Haas essay 1, start here. Then, if you’re looking for guidance on constructing a watertight career goal for Haas Essay 2, EssaySnark’s Career Goals App Accelerator defines the essence of what you need to cover and gives you feedback on what you come up with. And while career goals are indeed important, it’s also wise to start your research process by diving in to the Haas Defining Principles – understanding those can be so helpful!

You may want to consider getting our Haas MBA application guide. Pro Tip: Be careful about buying used hardcopy versions on the Internet; they are ALL outdated. We have not published to hardcopy in many years. The only current versions of school-specific guides are available right here on essaysnark.com.

You can see the archive of essay questions down below for insights that we offered in previous years, many of which are still relevant today. You can also see our Haas essay reviews for a discussion of BSers attempts to answer past years’ incarnations of these questions.

The class size is increasing at Berkeley, to the 300 level, which is a dramatic change from where they have traditionally held it (they’d been around 240 students for a long time). Given how much app volumes have been up, this is a good thing!

 
Like other schools, Berkeley had been seeing an increase in apps – up 12% in one year, even! We believe that volumes may have stabilized somewhat this past season, which is good, but it’s still a remarkably popular place. Average GMAT is now 726 for the Class of 2020 — 726!! From 717 just two years before. As you can see, the competition is turning up!

[end discussion of 2018 questions]

2017 Essays – EssaySnark’s Analysis

Like other schools, Berkeley has been seeing an increase in apps – up 12% last year, which was almost 500 more apps. Average GMAT is 717. The competition is turning up!

The essay questions for the Berkeley-Haas full-time MBA app were:

1. Tell us a six-word story that reflects a memorable experience in your life-to-date. Elaborate on why it is meaningful to you. (250 words)
    
   This is going to be HARD. You should not try Haas as your very first application! Get your essays to a school like Columbia under your belt first; you will struggle with this first question if you don’t have some essay development experience under your belt. This post discusses the six-word story, and this one on branding from way back in 2011 also may be useful.
    
2. Choose one: (250 words)
   • Describe a significant obstacle you have encountered and how it has impacted you.
   • Describe how you have cultivated a diverse and inclusive culture.
   • Describe a leadership experience and how you made a positive and lasting impact.

    
   These are very very short, but they’re nicely focused and clearly worded, and you should not have trouble sharing something important with your reader — once you cut through your own fluff! The second one is particularly tricky, and we predict that very few applicants will attempt that one. Want to stand out? Try for option 2 (if you can pull it off with a story of substance that truly answers the question!). The adcom will be impressed by BSers who do that well.
    

3. Answer both:
   1. Briefly describe your immediate post-MBA career goals (50 words maximum) 50 words? Dang.
   2. How have prior experiences motivated and prepared you to pursue these goals? (250 words maximum) Not much space here either. 🙁

    

We’re not crazy AT ALL about these changes. Sorry, Haas, these are not Haasome; actually, you’re making it ha-ha-ha-HARD on your applicants. Sorry but 50 words is just not enough to present a robust career goal. It’s enough to state the very essence of it, which apparently is the point, but then all they get is 250 words to provide foundation for it? We get it, that part is super important, but there’s JUST NOT ENOUGH ROOM!!! When other schools have squeezed essays this small – Duke, Wharton did so in the past, and they expanded them again the year after. Haas, we encourage you to be more generous! You always were before!!!!

For question 1, start here.

The whole “authenticity” thing is paramount on question 2 also.

EssaySnark’s Career Goals App Accelerator will help you define the essence of what you need to cover. Career goals has always been one of the most important parts of the Haas application, though certainly not the only one. Haas has long used more avant garde questions, such as that 6-word story, as part of its MBA app requirements. All told, this is an opportunity for you to show who you are — though you only have 800 words total to do it! Aaaaargh!

Be sure to study the tips that the adcom has offered on their instructions page.

And while career goals are indeed important, it’s also wise to start your research process by diving in to their Defining Principles – understanding those is critical!

Each of those three Essay 2 options is asking you to share a difficult situation that you overcame – and each is also an opportunity to highlight a success. There’s definitely a chance to show how you’ve worked with others in a productive way. Stories can be personal or professional, though generally speaking, we suggest that Essay 2 lean in the professional direction, depending on what else you’re able to cover in the other essays. You need a balance.

You will certainly want to get our Haas application guide.

You can see the archive of essay questions down below for insights (and criticisms) that we offered in previous years, some of which are still relevant today. You can also see our Haas essay reviews for a discussion of BSers attempts to answer past years’ incarnations of these questions.

The class size is increasing at Berkeley, to the 300 level, which is a dramatic change from where they have traditionally held it (they’d been around 240 students for a long time). Given how much app volumes have been up, this is a good thing!

[end discussion of 2017 questions]

2016 Essays – EssaySnark’s Analysis

They maintained nearly the same essay requirements for 2016 as they had the year before, but they added clarifications to the questions on their instructions page. A lot of those clarifications were already covered in our Haas Essay Guide in past years so that’s more validation that the ‘Snark will steer you in the right direction!

The essays for the 2016 Berkeley-Haas full-time MBA app were:

1. If you could choose one song that expresses who you are, what is it and why? (250 words)
    
   Your song can be in any language, from any culture, and does not need to contain lyrics. The strongest responses will focus on answering why this song expresses who you are.
    
2. Choose one: (250 words)
   • Describe an experience that has fundamentally changed the way you see the world and how it transformed you.
   • Describe a time when you were challenged by perspectives different from your own and how you responded.
   • Describe a difficult decision you have made and why it was challenging.
      
     In your response, clearly indicate to which prompt (1, 2, or 3) you are responding. We do not have a preference among the prompts and suggest that you select the one for which you can share a specific experience, professional or personal.
      
3. Tell us about your career plans. How have your past experiences prepared you to achieve these goals? How will Berkeley-Haas help you? (500 words maximum)
    
   You are encouraged to reflect on what it is you want to do after business school, including the types of roles, responsibilities, and organizations that are of interest. Through this essay we hope to learn about your professional journey to date and how an MBA will facilitate your success – broadly defined – in the future.

Phew! They fixed the problems with essay 3! Last year’s version was not our favorite; it made it tough for BSers to focus on the elements that we know are important to Haas. It’s great that Berkeley has gone back to a more productively-phrased prompt for all of you. EssaySnark’s Career Goals App Accelerator can guide you towards a rock solid pitch that covers the elements they’re asking for.

And while career goals are indeed important, be sure you start out by diving in to their Defining Principles – they’re critical!

It’s also nice to see the clarifications on the song essay, but we actually suggest that you stick with an English song with lyrics. It’s much easier to talk about why the song is important if you can easily describe the song, which is what lyrics (in English) will do. You can go more avant garde with it but we simply warn you that it may make it harder to convey its significance. Don’t get too creative. Stay grounded in the realities of WHY this song is so important as a descriptor of who you are. (And a special tip from the ‘Snark: You may want to rethink that idea to use the U2 song “A Beautiful Day” for your answer. You’re not the first BSer to have thought of that one.)

Update August 2016: We wrote a post about the most common problem we see with answers to this question!

Each of those three Essay 2 options is asking you to share a difficult situation that you overcame – and each is also an opportunity to highlight a success. There’s definitely a chance to show how you’ve worked with others in a productive way. Stories can be personal or professional, though generally speaking, we suggest that Essay 2 lean in the professional direction.

Even though the questions appear largely the same, you will still want to get our Haas application guide for the current year – which, good news, is now available! (Please be careful about buying used hardcopy versions on the Internet; they are ALL outdated. We have not published to hardcopy in several years. The only current versions of school-specific guides are available right here on essaysnark.com.)

And, good news: We’ve heard that Berkeley is increasing the size of the Class of 2019. It’s been around 240 students for a long time and we believe they’re edging up to maybe 250 or 260 (unconfirmed numbers) in the coming admissions season. Given how much app volumes have been up across most of the schools, this is a good thing!

[end discussion of 2016 questions]

2015 Essays – EssaySnark’s Analysis

Once again they had three essays, including Essay 2 where they’ve re-instituted a take-your-pick construction, where you can choose among several prompts to answer. Those used to be really common but many schools have abandoned them in recent years as they scrambled to reduce the number of questions in their apps. While it’s nice to have choices, to allow you to answer the question for which you have the strongest possible story, mostly we believe that this is designed to prevent adcom boredom. It means that more applications will be varied, which is always nice when you’re on the receiving end of them! You will note, though, that each of those three Essay 2 options are basically asking you to brag a little. What are you proud of? What’s been significant in your life? Tell a quick story, and then explain why. Keep the focus on YOU throughout.

All of these Haas questions are similar to what Haas has asked in past years – in some cases, as with Essay 1 on the song, re-instituting a question they had for a few seasons running but then had ditched. (It was in the 2013 app too – see below.)

Basically this set of questions are new in the combination that they’re asking for, but none are really new for Haas.

That being said, you will want to get our Haas application guide. There are some specific nuances to this year’s questions and you’ll want to take advantage of the most up-to-date advice we can offer.

Here are this year’s full-time MBA essays from Berkeley-Haas:

1. If you could choose one song that expresses who you are, what is it and why? (250 words)
2. Choose one: (250 words)
   • Describe an experience that has fundamentally changed the way you see the world and how it transformed you.
   • Describe a significant accomplishment and why it makes you proud.
   • Describe a difficult decision you have made and why it was challenging.
3. Tell us about your path to business school and your future plans. How will the Berkeley-Haas experience help you along this journey? (500 words)

Unfortunately they’ve radically reduced the word count for Essay 2 and that is not so great. As comparison, the first option for Essay 2, about an experience that “transformed” you, allowed up to 500 words last year. It’s going to be VERY difficult for most BSers to cover the transformation needed in so short a space. The same is true for either of the two alternates, as well.

Also unfortunately, last year they had an amazing part a-b-c structure to their career goals question, which really helped people because it guided them in what to say. This year’s question is much more loosely formed. Haas still wants you to tell them the same stuff, but there’s plenty more opportunity for you to go sideways with what you say this year, based on how broad-seeming the actual prompt is. You need to be very focused and structured in how you present yourself. Our Career Goals App Accelerator will actually set you up for tremendous success in organizing your material for this question exactly.

The essay on a song? It’s fine but it’s gimmicky. It may be fun for you to come up with your response (please see the archive of past questions below where they’ve asked this question before). Some people do great things with this essay. Lots of people are very predictable on it though. (Hint: Please do not use the U2 song “A Beautiful Day” for your answer. It’s been done before.) Check out our Haas essay reviews for a discussion of BSers attempts to answer past years’ incarnations of these questions.

While we were ga-ga over the Haas questions last year, this year, in 2015, we’re feeling much less excited. They took a great thing and made it harder on you people, with the shorter essays, and the more vaguely-worded career goals question. Essay 2 also does not excite us. Having choices of what to answer doesn’t make for a more applicant-friendly app. Having sufficient space to present yourself does.

Also: Please don’t overlook the importance of their Defining Principles.
[end discussion of 2015 questions]

2014 Essays – EssaySnark’s Analysis

These are very applicant-friendly changes; you’re going to have an easier time of it than last year’s crew did. The cool and distinctive thing that Berkeley has done is that they’ve now suggested a essay length range – this is great. This shows you what a minimum essay that would sufficiently answer the question could look like, and they give you an upper max that is very reasonable. This is an AWESOME way to handle this.

Three essays:

1. Describe an experience that has fundamentally changed the way you see the world. How did this transform you? (400-500 word maximum)
2. What is your most significant professional accomplishment? (200-300 word maximum)
3. What is your desired post-MBA role and at what company or organization? In your response, please specifically address sub-questions a., b., and c.a. How is your background compelling to this company?

   b. What is something you would do better for this company than any other employee?

   c. Why is an MBA necessary and how will Haas specifically help you succeed at this company?
   (500-600 word maximum for 3a, 3b, and 3c combined)

There’s also several Supplemental Questions for everyone to answer and a bunch of Optional Essays too (here’s the link to their site with it all laid out ).

The main change – besides the detailed subparts for the career goals question, which makes it an awesome opportunity for you to share your plans with the adcom – is that they ditched a “failure” question from last year, along with the “song” essay, and they inserted the word “professional” into the “most significant accomplishment” question.

Here’s the deal, Brave Supplicant: These questions are totally long enough, and the prompts are clear enough, that you’re going to be able to do a fabulous job of sharing who you are with the adcom. Berkeley is a school that cares about career goals and WHOA is that ever reflected in this year’s version of their career essay! The one issue we take with it is that they crammed in a third subquestion this year while simultaneously reducing your word count by 150 words. That’s not so fun. It’s still very doable – and our Haas essay guide will still help you out with this.

These are THE BEST BERKELEY QUESTIONS EVER – it’s like Goldilocks, not too many, not too cryptic, very reasonable lengths, and kind to candidates. Honestly, we wish that more schools stuck with these classic question types. Kudos to Haas for helping applicants do a good job in expressing themselves.

The main downside with Haas Round 1 in 2014, at least based on how it’s gone in past years? You may not get a final answer on your app until mid-January – well after Round 2 deadlines are past for other schools. They do often notify admits ahead of this date; it’s not quite rolling admissions, but sort of. Maybe “rolling decisions” is a better way to describe it.

The good part of this policy? Your deposit for a successful Round 1 app doesn’t need to be paid until March – and you’ll likely know outcomes at other schools by then, including even for some Round 2 apps. This ends up being to your advantage. Because of this, we recommend you apply in Round 1 if you can.

8/29/14 Berkeley published its Class of 2016 profile – average GMAT and GPA ticked up even higher (717 and 3.62), plus they went from 29% women to an impressive 43%. Apps increased slightly too.

[end discussion of 2014 questions]

2013 F/T Haas Essays – EssaySnark’s Analysis

The F/T essays are nearly the same as 2012 (see below), except that as expected, there’s fewer of them, and the questions are simplified. It’s possible that their app volumes went down last year due to how much they made the BSers write (compared to other schools’ apps, it was a little excessive). The nice aspect to the Haas app is they actually give you enough space to tell your story.

Four essays:

1. If you could choose one song that expresses who you are, what is it and why? (250 word maximum)
2. What is your most significant accomplishment? (250 word maximum)
3. Describe a time in the last three years when you overcame a failure. What specific insight from this experience has shaped your development? (250 word maximum)
4. a. What are your post-MBA short-term and long-term career goals? How have your professional experiences prepared you to achieve these goals?
   b. How will an MBA from Haas help you achieve these goals? (750 word maximum for 4a. and 4b.)

There’s also several Supplemental Questions and a bunch of Optional Essays too (here’s the link to their site with it all laid out ). And don’t overlook the importance of their Defining Principles. Buckle your seatbelt. You have to be committed to apply to Haas (which is probably the adcom’s intention…).

[end discussion of 2013 questions.]

1. If you could choose one song that expresses who you are, what is it and why?
2. What is your most significant accomplishment?
3. Describe a time when you questioned an established practice or thought within an organization. How did your actions create positive change?
4. Describe a time when you were a student of your own failure. What specific insight from this experience has shaped your development?
5. a. What are your post-MBA short-term and long-term career goals? How have your professional experiences prepared you to achieve these goals?b. How will an MBA from Haas help you achieve these goals? (750 word maximum for 5a. and 5b.)

[end discussion of 2012 questions.]