EssaySnark

2018 MBA Essay Questions: Wharton

 

So many BSers deserve congrats on admissions to Wharton for Round 1! If you’ve applied in Round 2: GOOD LUCK!

 


Wharton’s Class of 2019 profile looks daunting. No change to average GMAT (730) however they’re now publishing averages on GRE scores, which is a clear sign that a) it’s fine to apply with one, and b) your scores must be decent if you do! Average GRE quant is 163 (85th percentile) and average verbal is 162 (90th). We expect these GRE averages to go UP this year.

 

2018 Wharton MBA Essay Questions – Class of 2021

The 2018 Wharton questions are:

  1. What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
  2. Describe an impactful experience or accomplishment that is not reflected elsewhere in your application. How will you use what you learned through that experience to contribute to the Wharton community? (500 words maximum)

Well this is positive! Wharton changed their Essay 2 to essentially exactly fit the advice that we’ve been giving BSers on how to do their previously-phrased version of that essay!! Nice! They also corrected their website in late July to reflect another applicant-friendly change: The length has increased from the 400 words allowed last year to a very generous 500 words. It’s so refreshing to see these schools loosening up the essays again!

Our Wharton MBA application guide is available with the 2018 updates to guide you through a workable strategy. This post on “outside-in stories” is also very relevant for Wharton Essay 2.

They also have a 250-word Optional Essay which is required for reapplicants to use, to explain how they’ve improved since their original application, and it’s also for new applicants if there’s other critical details that are important for the adcom to know, that you can’t fit into the main essays.

Based on these changes this year, Wharton’s essays aren’t that bad as a first school to tackle among all of your applications. (Pro Tip: You would never want to start with Harvard as your first school!! That’s beginning on the steepest part of the learning curve, and is definitely not the way to go.)

What can help you with these essays?

Well, we have the Accomplishments & Achievements App Accelerator which is excellent in helping you to sort through your past experiences and coming up with the best ones that an adcom may respond to, with personalized feedback from EssaySnark on how you’ve focused in on the core statement. And we have the Essay Ideas App Accelerator which includes lots of instructions on how to structure your stories and the way to focus the essay framework to make sure you’re hitting on the right points in the right way. Or you can just go whole-hog and dive in with the Complete Essay Package, which includes both of those and lots more, to get you from start to finish on these Wharton essays in the most efficient way possible!

Be sure to also read the many posts on the EssaySnark blahg about “show don’t tell” and also check out this key post on the “how will you contribute” Wharton essay question.

Wharton’s essays aren’t bad to do as your first project, though it might be better to choose a lower-stakes school instead. Then do Wharton second. Our Wharton 2018 Application guide can help!
 




EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2018 Wharton App
The SnarkStrategies Guide for Wharton walks you through background info and guidelines for creating a strong strategy, including pages and pages on what to write about for the new Essay 2 “impactful” question. We also cover reapplicant concerns, the Team Based Discussion, the Lauder joint degree program, and the letters of recommendation that Wharton launched in 2017. This will be your best resource with insights on the 2018 Wharton MBA application!


 

Wharton MBA recommendations

Wharton has totally unique recommender questions! In 2017 they went in a whole new direction compared to other schools. We expect this to stay the same in 2018 (to be confirmed).

Two free-form questions:

Question 1: Please provide example(s) that illustrate why you believe this candidate will find success in the Wharton MBA classroom. (Word count: 300)

Question 2: Please provide example(s) that illustrate why you believe this candidate will find success throughout their career. (Word count: 300)

This is definitely a situation where our Recommenders Instructions Sets can be valuable!
 

Wharton 2018-’19 Dates and Deadlines

Wharton MBA Application Deadlines
The deadlines are out for the Class of 2021; these are quite similar to what Harvard uses.

  • Round 1: September 18, 2018 You’re encouraged to apply in the first round at such a competitive school. Round 1 interview invites expected to come around 11/1.
  • Round 2: January 3, 2019 – ouch. This is one of the earlier Round 2 deadlines and you will not be a happy camper after New Year’s because of it. Round 2 at Wharton is still viable for a competitive candidate, though they get a lot more apps then, which is why Round 1 is really really preferable if you can pull it off. Round 2 interview invites will likely happen in the first half of February.



 

Interviews at Wharton

Wharton’s interview process is quite unique compared to most other American bschools (though Michigan Ross also does things in a similar way). Wharton has what’s called the Team-Based Discussion which is basically a simulation of how you will experience academic life at this school. It’s designed to help the admissions team see candidates in action. You will also have a (short!) one-on-one interview, usually with a second-year student.

Participation in the Team-Based Discussion is by invitation only. Invites start going out about a month after the round deadline; in past years, they issued them on just one day a week, every week for four weeks (or so) – but last year (2014) in Round 1 they did a big-bang approach, where on one single day they announced the invites, and the early rejects for that round. See the Wharton adcom’s blog to understand the process as described for Round 2 two years ago. We also go into great detail on how this works in the essay guide.

 

Wharton Useful Links

8/10/12: If you’re interested in the Lauder program, then check out this interview with their admissions director . Very helpful! The Lauder application is also covered in our essay guide.

9/22/13: We offered advice to someone considering the Wharton Health Care Management track.

 

EssaySnark blahg posts on Wharton and their app

 

EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2018 Wharton MBA Application
The 2018 Wharton Application Guide offers a discussion of the focus and emphasis in the admissions process at this school and how that might affect you as an applicant, with almost ten pages devoted to the new version of Wharton essay 2 this year that asks for “impactful experience or accomplishment.” It also discusses the Lauder MBA/MA program, and as always, we go into great detail on the Team-Based Interview experience — and everything else you need to know to construct the strongest set of essays possible.

 
Got the essays done? Get them reviewed!


 

For Reference: Wharton’s Past-Season Questions

Included for historical purposes, in case you want to study what they’ve asked — and what we said about it — in the past.

Click to view last year's questions

2017 Wharton MBA Essay Questions

Same questions as in 2016 – but the recommendations changed radically!!

Essay Questions:

  1. What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
  2. Teamwork is at the core of the Wharton MBA experience with each student contributing unique elements to our collaborative culture. How will you contribute to the Wharton community? (400 words maximum)

They also have a 250-word Optional Essay which is required for reapplicants to use, to explain how they’ve improved since their original application, and it’s also for new applicants if there’s other critical details that are important for the adcom to know, which you can’t fit into the main essays.

Our Wharton guide has even more content and strategic advice for crafting great essays, based on the direct experience we had in working with lots of BSers who made it in last year!!

The Wharton Class Profile show the Class of 2018 stats which are largely the same as previously: Average GMAT is 730, 80% range is (gulp) 700 to 770. The worst news out of that is the fact that applications increased by 1.4% yet they REDUCED the class size by ten students, to 851. That could’ve been due only to factors of yield; it’s possible that it wasn’t an intentional class size reduction. Still, doesn’t bode well. Things were sooooo competitive last year and we do not expect it to be any different for the Class of 2019 when that data comes out this summer.

Wharton MBA recommendations

[End 2017 question section.]


Click to view 2016 questions

2016 Wharton MBA Essay Questions

As announced on the Wharton blog in June , they changed the questions based on feedback from applicants (yes we thought they were bad – so thank you Wharton!). Here’s what you get to deal with now:

  1. What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
  2. Teamwork is at the core of the Wharton MBA experience with each student contributing unique elements to our collaborative culture. How will you contribute to the Wharton community? (400 words maximum)

IMPORTANT: THERE IS NO 400-WORD “ESSAY 3”!! Their website was wrong through most of the summer.

They also have a 250-word Optional Essay — ALSO IMPORTANT: IT’S **NOT** 400 WORDS; THEIR APPLICATION SAYS 250 WORDS ONLY as of app open on 8/1/16.

The Optional Essay is required for reapplicants to use, to explain how they’ve improved since their original application, and it’s also for new applicants if there’s other critical details that are important for the adcom to know, which you can’t fit into the main essays.

(Except for the word count confusion) this is definitely an improvement! Hopefully they are also fixing the confusing bits of their application instructions along the way (haven’t seen it happen yet but we are optimists).

We have covered all of this to the best of our ability in the Wharton Application Guide, which went through a quick refresh on 8/1/16 to capture these $!#&* inconsistencies.

Wharton MBA recommendations

Wharton did NOT have standardized recommender questions in 2016.

For history: In 2014 Wharton went along with the party and had the same questions as Stanford and Harvard had. We’ve since seen more and more schools diverge from that. Having sort of standard questions is actually WORSE than having completely non-standard ones! What are your recommenders supposed to do with THAT!?

Here’s what the 2016 situation was:

  • Two recommendations, one of which should be from your current supervisor if possible
  • Three questions for your recommenders to answer which are slightly different from the “standard” questions that other schools ask – (review them here )

 
Other schools had two questions or four questions but no, Wharton had to have three!!

Lots of resources for choosing your recommenders 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. All of this will be updated once we know firm facts on requirements.

[End 2016 question section.]


Click to view 2015 questions

2015 Wharton MBA Essay Questions

 

The Wharton app has some gotchas

We had hoped (especially now that we’re further into the new dean’s tenure) that Wharton admissions would make changes to their not-totally-amazing essay questions. But no! Same single-essay app, with an optional opportunity to submit other stuff. They actually made more changes to the recommender’s questions (see below and our blahg rant on the topic). More and more schools claiming to have “standardized” the recommendations are straying further and further from a “standard.” Oh well.

UPDATE: We did a last-minute essay critique on the Wharton “what do you hope to gain?” main essay.

Really?!?? They kept the same questions? THESE questions?

We explained why we’re not total fans of this in our Wharton app changes post on June 16, 2015.

These are really not the easiest to deal with. A full pitch in just 500 words? Whatever. Wharton isn’t doing you any favors with what they’re asking here.

  • What do you hope to gain personally and professionally through the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
  • (optional) Please highlight any additional information that you would like the Admissions Committee to know about your candidacy. (400 words maximum)

They are also keeping the traditional “optional essay” – which is NOT the second question above – where they allow 250 words to discuss gaps in the profile – but boy their website does not make this easy to understand. It’s included under the so-called “Additional Question for Reapplicants” section. They say you can use the reapp essay for “extenuating circumstances” – anyone can. Not just reapplicants.

Say wha’? Wharton, why can’t you make your instructions clear??? Why use that header on the page saying it’s for “Reapplicants” when ALL APPLICANTS can use that space?

Aaargh!!!

Anyway, having two “optional” questions was definitely confusing last year, particularly when most schools say, “Don’t answer the optional question unless you have a situation that warrants it!” So what are people to do with Wharton Essay 2 (optional) – answer it or not?

They also have offered no instructions whatsoever whether a reapplicant needs to answer the “required” essay – which is exactly the same from last year – or not. Or, what is a reapplicant supposed to do when they need to answer the reapplicant question AND they have “extenuating circumstances” – it’s only 250 words! That’s hardly enough for just one of those topics.

WHARTON!! You confound us. Why not HELP your peeps in applying!??

[End 2015 question section.]


Click to view 2014 questions

2014 Wharton MBA Essay Questions

They switched to just one required essay!

  • What do you aspire hope to achieve gain personally and professionally through the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)

The “achieve” -> “gain” verb change is the only difference from the prior year’s question (besides deleting a couple of commas; they also changed the word “aspire” to “hope” sometime after first publishing the essay prompt, which was a little odd to us). We discuss the implications for that main verb change with this year’s question and how you should focus your writing in the Wharton MBA essay guide.

Wharton also has two optional essays – the first question, which maybe should be answered, is:

  • Please highlight any additional information that you would like the Admissions Committee to know about your candidacy. (400 words maximum)

We recommend being exceedingly strategic in using this essay.

And, they have the traditional “optional essay” where they allow 250 words to discuss gaps in the profile.

Should you submit something there? Hmmm… That’s definitely a case-by-case assessment. Most people should not need to use that space. Our Comprehensive Profile Review can help you out if you need insight into the places where an optional essay (or optional info like this) is warranted, and the Wharton essay guide also covers both of these essays.

See section below for what Wharton asked in 2013 – the changes may seem subtle but they’re significant. You may want to study them.

The recommendation questions have also been streamlined. Here’s a post from the Wharton blog (6/2/14) that provides a bit of context on the changes.

6/3/14 We discussed the changes to the Wharton essays when they were first released.

[End 2014 question section.]



Click to view 2013 questions

2013 Wharton MBA Essay Questions

This is what we said when two-years-ago questions came out… remember this analysis is old.

Here’s the Wharton essay questions – as we predicted, there’s fewer of them, and they’re more straightforward this year (Thanks Ankur! Ankur left; Maryellen is now in charge of admissions at Wharton)

Two essays:

  1. What do you aspire to achieve, personally and professionally, through the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
  2. Academic engagement is an important element of the Wharton MBA experience. How do you see yourself contributing to our learning community? (500 words maximum)

We did a post about these essays: You lucked out: Wharton’s essays are sooooo easy this year.

[End 2013 question section.]



Click to view 2012 questions


2012 questions – these are REALLY OLD
Three essays:

One required question

  • How will Wharton MBA help you achieve your professional objectives?

Choose two more:

  • Select a Wharton MBA course, co-curricular opportunity or extra-curricular engagement that you are interested in. Tell us why you chose this activity and how it connects to your interests. (
  • Imagine your work obligations for the afternoon were cancelled and you found yourself “work free” for three hours, what would you do?
  • “Knowledge for Action draws upon the great qualities that have always been evident at Wharton: rigorous research, dynamic thinking, and thoughtful leadership.” – Thomas S. Robertson, Dean, The Wharton School. Tell us about a time when you put knowledge into action.

[End 2012 question section.]


 

[Index of essay questions by bschool]