Oh hey look here! You can view all EssaySnark blahg posts tagged for Wharton in one place!
Good luck to everyone who got their Wharton app in for Round 2! Interview info and the Team Based Discussion are below!
Our Wharton MBA Application Guide is chockfull of practical, actionable insights gained from yet another successful season of working with BSers who got in.
2021 Wharton MBA Essay Questions – Class of 2024
Wharton Round 2 deadline was on January 5.
The 2021 Wharton MBA essay questions are:
- How do you plan to use the Wharton MBA program to help you achieve your future professional goals? You might consider your past experience, short and long-term goals, and resources available at Wharton. (500 words maximum)
- Taking into consideration your background – personal, professional, and/or academic – how do you plan to make specific, meaningful contributions to the Wharton community? (400 words maximum)
These are classic Wharton questions — and we have actually presented a whole bunch of posts on questions just like these! The one that trips most BSers up is Wharton essay 2. It’s really easy to write a full 400-word essay for that prompt that literally never answers the question! However, the adcom is crystal clear on what they are looking for. It requires a tremendous amount of school research to really know what you can do there. Plus, you have to KNOW YOURSELF in order to present ideas for how you would contribute. Fluffy hand-wavy statements are not going to cut it! This needs to be an integrated whole. You’re essentially pitching the adcom on why you!
Essay 1 is no joke either. Here’s a 2021 post on “what will you gain professionally at Wharton.” We’ve also got this gem for you: a critique of Wharton essay 1 on “what will you gain” which is an actual applicant’s early draft submitted last year for public snarky discussion (we’re still accepting drafts for that freebie opportunity, if you’re feeling brave and want to see what we say about your work! yes, publicly!! you just need to be a blahg member and you can send it on in!).
Reapplicants must submit both of these essays — which can be challenging from a strategy perspective, since you answered very similar ones last year! — plus there’s an additional reapplicant essay. This is a fairly standard prompt requesting to be updated on changes in your profile, with the specific Wharton spin asking for “how you have reflected and grown” which can sometimes introduce challenges for candidates. It really does require introspection to do this one well!
They also have a 250-word Optional Essay which any applicant can use if there’s a particular case to explain or circumstances to shed light upon within the fact set of your application. Please only use the optional essay when it’s actually needed! And, it’s always important to be brief. Wharton’s optional should be a real essay, not bullet points (and actually, the bullet-point optional should be avoided wherever possible).
Jump down this page to a list of EssaySnark posts on Wharton essay questions. Includes real essays we’ve reviewed for actual real-life BSers!
Our advice in the SnarkStrategies Guide for Wharton walks you through a methodology to tackle all of it! We’ve long been coaching the BSers who come to us for help on Wharton that they need to be specific on what they say. Think of it like a proposal: You’re going to come to Wharton to do what?? Perhaps this post from the ‘snarchives (and a long-ago era in American politics and culture!!) may assist?
How do you answer them?
Succinctly!!
Both of these essays are challenging but they’re not gawdawful horrible in terms of what types of anguish you’ll go through in getting a good answer on the page. Wharton’s essays could be tackled as your first application — not 100% ideal because it is SO competitive and you’ll need your essays to be outstanding (which first-project essays are not always) but in terms of difficulty level, it might be feasible to use them as your training wheels for figuring out how to present yourself and construct solid answers to essay questions. (Pro Tip: Harvard is not in this same category! Don’t do HBS first.)
Along with our in-depth guide, we can also point you towards this post on “outside-in stories” that can be especially relevant as you sort through what to do with Wharton Essay 2.
EssaySnark’s 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. 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.
What else can help you with prepare for a Wharton application?
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 which we refer our BSer-clients working on Wharton to all the time.
As we’ve been saying: The essay guide for Wharton will help you unpack these questions and present your best self! The strategies we have established for BSers going back through time are tried and true, and 100% relevant for today’s application. Every year we see lots of successes from the BSers we work with on Wharton!
There are also a whole slew of other programs including Lauder and lots of other joint degree opportunities at Wharton. One of the most popular remains the Wharton Health Care Management track which we discussed for a candidate way back long ago here in the ‘snarchives.
The SnarkStrategies Guide for Wharton offers a thorough discussion of the two essay questions, and also walks you through the qualities that Wharton has long sought in its applicants. We cover reapplicant concerns, the Team Based Discussion, the Lauder joint degree program, and the letters of recommendation that are unique to Wharton. This guide will be your best resource with insights on the Wharton MBA application!
If you want to see what they’ve asked in past years (primarily focusing on career goals/why Wharton type of prompts) you can see our historical questions section at the bottom of this page. This can sometimes give applicants some insights into what the school cares about most (which may shift from season to season but rarely changes completely).
Wharton MBA recommendations
Wharton has totally unique recommender questions!Two free-form questions:
Question 1: Please provide example(s) that illustrate why you believe this candidate will contribute meaningfully to the Wharton MBA community. (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 a situation where our Recommenders Instructions Sets can be valuable!
Wharton MBA 2021-’22 Dates and Deadlines
Wharton MBA Application Deadlines
The deadlines for applying to the Wharton Class of 2024 are fairly similar to those at Harvard and Stanford
- Round 1:
September 8, 2021This year, both Round 1 and Round 2 at Wharton are expected to be equally competitive. Round 1 is better for your emotional wellbeing (you really really don’t want this to extend all the way out till Spring 2022) so for that reason alone, we would suggest getting your app in early in the season if you can. Round 1 interview invites expected to come out from Wharton at the tail end of October. - Round 2:
January 5, 2022Round 2 at Wharton may still viable for a competitive candidate, though traditionally they get a lot more apps then, so there’s more of a crowd to have to stand out against. Apply when your app is strongest; if that means pushing to January in order to improve your GMAT or GRE, or have a significant accomplishment from your job to include on the resume, that could be a worthwhile strategy. Round 2 interview invites will likely happen in the first half of February.
Interviews at Wharton
Wharton’s interview process is different from many 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.
A loooooong time ago, Admissions Director Maryellen Lamb talked about the Team Based Discussion
Also a long time ago, a successful BSer shared his story with us about getting into Wharton which includes some comments on the Team Based Discussion
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 now they have more often been doing a big-bang approach, where on one single day they announce the invites, and the early rejects for that round. We go into more detail on how this works in the essay guide.
EssaySnark Wharton MBA Essay Reviews and Advice!
- What will you gain professionally at Wharton? (August 2021)
- essay critique! Wharton essay 1 “What do you hope to gain professionally?” (August 2020)
- How do you figure out what major to choose on the MBA app? (with stuff on Wharton essay strategy) (September 2019)
- When an essay prompt does not ask for something but you include it anyway – Wharton essay 1 (September 2017)
- Wharton essay 2: What will you contribute? (September 2017 but still valid and oh so important)
- The lemming effect (September 2016)
- A warning about tone on contribution essays (a la Wharton) (August 2016)
- How to prepare for your Wharton Team Based Interview (November 2015)
- essay critique: Wharton “what do you hope to gain?” (September 2015)
- Wharton’s 2015 App Changes (June 2015)
- Applying to H/S/W? Why “Is my GMAT good enough?” is not the right question (November 2014)
- Wharton’s new app is beautiful and it sucks in multiple major ways. Plus typos. (August 2014)
- Stanford Essay 2 and Wharton Essay 1: Are they the same or not? (July 2014)
- A discussion of the changes to the Wharton 2014 essay questions (June 2014)
- ($) If scholarship money is important to you, don’t apply to Wharton. (May 2014)
- essay critique: Wharton’s “discuss a time when you were innovative” (2011)
- essay critique part II: “a time you were innovative” (2011)
- Wharton’s new (at the time) essay questions (2010)
- Wharton essay questions reviewed – 1 of 2 (2010)
- Wharton essay questions reviewed – 2 of 2 (2010)
- Wharton “design a course” question (2010)
Got those Wharton 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
Wharton’s Class of 2021 profile remains daunting:
Average GMAT is steady-state at 732.
Wharton changed its essay requirements slightly, and the new version of their Question 2 is much easier to deal with than in 2019.
The 2020 Wharton MBA essay questions were:
- What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
- Taking into consideration your background – personal, professional, and/or academic – how do you plan to make specific, meaningful contributions to the Wharton community? (400 words maximum)
They also have a 250-word Optional Essay which reapplicants will use for an explanation of how they’ve improved since their original app; that optional essay is also available for new applicants to cover critical explanations that you feel the adcom needs to know. Never use the optional essay unless you have to! If there’s something important, then you’ll need to be brief. Wharton’s optional should be a real essay, not bullet points.
Jump down this page to a list of EssaySnark posts on these Wharton essay questions! Includes real essays we’ve reviewed for actual real-life BSers!
The renewed emphasis on the reworded prompt for Essay 2 should make it easier to handle.
How do you answer them?
Succinctly!!
Both of these essays are challenging but they’re not gawdawful horrible in terms of what types of anguish you’ll go through in getting a good answer on the page. Wharton’s essays could be tackled as your first application — not 100% ideal because it is SO competitive and you’ll need your essays to be outstanding (which first-project essays are not always) but in terms of difficulty level, it might be feasible to use them as your training wheels for figuring out how to present yourself and construct solid answers to essay questions. (Pro Tip: Harvard is not in this same category! Don’t do HBS first.)
As we’ve been saying: The essay guide for Wharton will help you unpack these questions and present your best self! The strategies we have established for BSers going back through time are tried and true, and 100% relevant for today’s application. Every year we see lots of successes from the BSers we work with on Wharton!
Along with our in-depth guide, we can also point you towards this post on “outside-in stories” that can be relevant for Wharton Essay 2.
[End 2020 questions section.]
Click to view 2019 questions
Wharton’s Class of 2021 profile remains daunting: Average GMAT is steady-state at 732.
2019 Wharton MBA Essay Questions
Identical to the prior year – except they made essay 2 shorter!
The 2019 Wharton MBA essay questions were:
- What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
- 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? (400 words maximum)
Unfortunately on Wharton Essay 2, they have reversed the most recent trend of loosening up word limits, and taken it from 500 words down to 400. They also tweaked the language for Essay 2 (which, #humblebrag, puts it squarely in line with how we’ve been advising BSers to write their Wharton Essay 2s for years!).
Because these questions were in effect already, you will find plenty of discussion around them here on the EssaySnark blahg!
In other school news: As of Spring 2020, Wharton has a new major in Quantified Finance which is also STEM-qualified, and thus gives yet another option for international students to work in the U.S. for three years total instead of just two.
[End 2019 questions section.]
Click to view 2018 questions
2018 Wharton MBA Essay Questions
Almost the same questions as last year except that they tweaked Essay 2 to match the tips that EssaySnark has been offering BSers for a few years now!
Wharton’s Class of 2020 profile looks daunting. Average GMAT has ticked up to 732 which rivals only Stanford and Harvard.
- What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
- Describe an impactful experience or accomplishment that is not reflected elsewhere in your application. How will you contribute to the Wharton community? (500 words maximum)
The “contribute” thing is the key!
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.
[End 2018 question section.]
Click to view 2017 questions
2017 Wharton MBA Essay Questions
Same questions as in 2016 – but the recommendations changed radically!!
Essay Questions:
- What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
- 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
Wharton launched a whole-new way of asking for insights about you as a candidate from your recommenders. They have bucked the trend that other schools started with the attempt to “standardize” (which were never actually standardized) and embraced the fact that recommenders have to do some work. They are focusing on the specific traits that they feel matter most to their school and community. It’s not terribly difficult for a recommender to complete these but it is most definitely different than what they will be doing for the other schools you’ve asked them to write for you on.
[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:
- What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
- 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).
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
aspirehope toachievegain 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:
- What do you aspire to achieve, personally and professionally, through the Wharton MBA? (500 words maximum)
- 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.]