EssaySnark

2021 MBA Essay Questions: Yale SOM

A quick link to view all EssaySnark blahg posts tagged for Yale including a recent review of a real BSer’s SOM essay!

 

The Class of 2024 essay for Yale SOM will challenge you!

 
 

EssaySnark's Strategies for the Yale MBA ApplicationThe Yale MBA Application Guide (currently the 2020 version, but still totally relevant and viable since the app requirements haven’t changed!) will teach you the best ways to handle the “biggest commitment” essay, which is unique to the SOM and is just one of their many application requirements. Usually, you’ll want to steer clear of professional or “achievement” type content for the SOM essay, though there may be exceptions! This guide lays out ways to evaluate your ideas and what is likely to make for the most compelling essay for your SOM reviewer. The keyword is authenticity! Yale’s question about “commitment” is not an easy one! The thinking you do on this question will likely serve you well for certain other schools, too.

 

2021 Yale MBA Essay Question – Class of 2024

Yale Round 1 is in 1 month, 1 week (September 14).

This is right in the middle of the Round 1 deadlines; it is a week after schools like HBS and Wharton. and smack dab in the mad rush of all the rest.

 
 

Here’s what the SOM is having applicants to write about again for the Class of 2024 — which is the same question they’ve used for many years now:

Describe the biggest commitment you have ever made. (500 words maximum)

Woo-hoo! This is a great question, though it’s certainly not a simple one. For the 2021 admissions cycle, you’re going to be at an advantage if you’re applying to Yale, and Kellogg, and Tuck, and Stanford, and a few other schools that place a similar emphasis on values.

Because that’s the essence of this question, isn’t it?

They’re looking for evidence of your behaviors that reflect your priorities – which will, either implicitly or explicitly, allow you to discuss your values.

As a place to begin: All the posts we offered in our previous series on Authenticity will totally and completely apply to crafting your SOM application strategy this year.

And, in 2018, a brave Brave Supplicant submitted a draft of their Yale SOM “commitment” essay for us to discuss on the blahg! If you’re also brave enough to send in yours we’d love to take a look!

 

For international students: The TOEFL is never required at Yale. A few other schools now also don’t require the TOEFL.

So how competitive is it?

The median GMAT for the Class of 2021 at Yale SOM was 720 — and they are now accepting a very large proportion of GRE test-takers. Only a few years ago (Class of 2019) the mean GMAT was 727 at SOM which was an all-time high for them. That upward trajectory appears to have stabilized and that peak is not likely to be seen again in GMAT scores at this school for a little while at least. It appears that Yale may not be quite the favorite that it had started to become for several years; we’re seeing slight shifts in which schools are deemed “the best” in terms of BSers’ preferences and priorities. That’s not to say that it’s a cakewalk to get an offer at Yale — it truly is not. They are VERY selective. It’s just that they also don’t care quite that much what your test scores are.

 

 

 
 

One to watch: Yale made our list of 5 favorite business schools in 2014 — yes that was a long time ago, but they’ve only gotten better since then!

 

EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2020 Yale MBA Application
The 2020 Yale MBA Application Guide is chock-full of info about applying to the SOM, with plenty of tips, exercises, dos and don’ts. Since the essay question is again the same for 2021 then the current version of this guide should serve you well! We’ll update it when we can but there’s no reason not to subscribe to this resource right now today, if you’re ready to get started with your SOM app.

 
 

Yale 2021 Deadlines

Yale SOM MBA Application Deadlines

  • Round 1: September 14, 2021 The Yale Round 1 date is right when a slew of other top schools are due. You will be busy! Interview invites from SOM in past years have been done in trickle-mode; they don’t have the batch / release process that some schools do, though they do start issuing invitations fairly quickly after deadline. However, be prepared for a wait! It might be awhile before you hear something.
  • Round 2: January 6, 2022 which is again right when a whole bunch of other schools also set their deadlines, too.

Like with other top schools, Round 3 is not recommended by EssaySnark for Yale.
 

Yale 2021 MBA Recommendations

Yale uses similar standard recommender questions to some other schools – but they are not totally the same.

The SOM has:

  • Two Letters of Recommendation
  • Four main questions plus one optional one for your recommenders to answer

 

Yale School of Management General Info

Here’s previous MBA class profile data for comparison.
 

We’ve discussed quite a few Yale SOM essays from former BSers on the blahg, too:

In addition, these posts on other schools’ questions about “impact” might also be useful for some BSers — because if you’re making a commitment to something, then it’s because you care about it, and are determined, and it’s because you’re going to work towards that thing in some way, right? (Not every “commitment” answer will have an “impact” angle in this way, but some most certainly will.)

These other essays from schools like Haas and Duke might also give you some good ideas for how to present yourself to Yale (hint hint interview):

The Yale MBA application guide is a great resource too of course!

 


The Yale SOM Video Essay Questions

Yale also has a video essay component which in the past has worked like this: A couple days after the app deadline, they’ll send out instructions to everyone who submitted in that round. You have about a week to log onto the application and do your video, which is recorded through your browser.

See Yale’s June 2013 blog post announcing the 2013 essays and video questions and their post in October 2013 that further explains the video essay process .

The video essay came up in the Yale webinar we live-tweeted on 10/29/14:


And finally, some reassurance:

What to wear for your video essay

Yale has given conflicting information on this. In 2013 they suggested business casual attire for your video. However as you saw above, in a webinar in October 2014 they mentioned that you should wear a suit jacket.

How to prepare for your video essay

Some people have reported technical challenges both with Yale’s video interviews and with Kellogg’s too.

From a Yale webinar in October 2014:

Leave yourself plenty of time to go through the whole process. It would not help if you get frustrated during your recording!

Also, be sure to clean up your desk! You don’t want them to see how messy your space is normally. 🙂

If you want more help preparing, our Automated Interview Prep offers a similar computer-driven audio interview experience to these video essay questions in a practice environment.

 

For Reference: Yale SOM Past-Season Questions

Included in case anyone wants to see what Yale asked before.

Click to view 2016-2020 questions

2016-2020 Essays – EssaySnark’s Analysis

Yale SOM has used the same prompt for many years running, so this section covers all of those years.

The average GMAT for the Class of 2019 at Yale SOM was 727 (it was only 721 two years prior). This appears to be an all-time high for them, which is more reinforcement that they’ve become an in-demand and highly selective MBA program. For the Class of 2020, they chose to report median GMAT and not mean, which is a hint that things softened somewhat then.

Yale’s essay question is interesting! And challenging! To help you out, our Yale SnarkStrategies Guide is available!

Describe the biggest commitment you have ever made. (500 words maximum)

Woo-hoo! This is a great question, though it’s certainly not a simple one.

In 2018, a brave Brave Supplicant submitted a draft of their Yale SOM “commitment” essay for us to discuss on the blahg! If you’re also brave enough to send in yours we’d love to take a look!

One big hint we can offer: We strongly suggest that you don’t talk about getting married to your spouse as your “biggest commitment.” Instead, you should honor Yale’s interest in sharing its values with you, by taking this opportunity to share your values with them.

Here’s the May 2017 announcement on the Yale MBA blog about last year’s app (still relevant) where they explained the origins of the commitment question. You may also want to check out our section on the 2017 (and prior) application at the bottom of this page, which offers commentary into the Yale SOM mindset and what’s going on with their essay prompts.

Pro Tip: We do recommend that you please don’t talk about getting married to your spouse. Instead, you should honor Yale’s interest in sharing its values with you, by taking this opportunity to share your values with them.

Here’s their June 2016 announcement on their MBA blog about this year’s app .

For Round 2 Class of 2021: Thankfully they adjusted the deadline out into January! The prior year, the Yale Rd 2 date was painful for BSers. We’ve complained about it for years on behalf of BSers.

A smattering of historical Yale information and insights (and some snark) from the EssaySnark blahg:

 



[end discussion of recent years’ questions]



Click to view 2015 questions

2015 Essays – EssaySnark’s Analysis

They maintained the same question again that year:

“The Yale School of Management educates individuals who will have deep and lasting impact on the organizations they lead. Describe how you have positively influenced an organization as an employee, a member, or an outside constituent. (500 words maximum)

This is actually a good question. It allows you to talk about some actual event in your life where you did something important. Yale is a school that traditionally changes essays every year, but we can understand why they’ve not done so this time. Here’s their announcement on their MBA blog about this year’s app .

Our biggest tip for you: “Influence” is another word for “impact” – the story you tell should not be about a subtle occurrence. It needs to be obvious how you changed things. “Influence” also carries important connotations of working with people; the best stories for this question show your soft skills. Our Yale Essay Guide covers all of this and more to help you construct a quality response.

There are also some in-app video questions, which they started in 2013 (see advice on the Yale video essay questions below). These do not replace the invitation-only interviews.

 

From Fall 2014, some discussion on changes to class size (it had increased! these comments refer to the admissions season from two years ago)

The SOM Class of 2016 is 323 students (up from prior year’s 291) [update June 2016: Oddly, only 301 of them graduated, per Yale’s commencement announcement . -ES]. SOM Admissions Director Bruce DelMonico posted a few details about the Class of 2016 profile in August 2014.

GMAT scores went up – from 714 to 719 – which is notable since they increased the class size. Things have become ever more competitive at this school in the past few years.

Yale Class of 2016 is 39% international . Dean Snyder is pushing for ‘global’ as a big theme at SOM. This Class of 2016 39% international stat is a very big jump from Class of 2015 at 32%, particularly considering the ’16 class size increased by 11% over ’15.
[end discussion of 2015 questions]



Click to view 2014 questions

2014 Essays – EssaySnark’s Analysis

The prompt:

“The Yale School of Management educates individuals who will have deep and lasting impact on the organizations they lead. Describe how you have positively influenced an organization—as an employee, a member, or an outside constituent. (500 words maximum)
 

This is pretty great; it’s clear and direct, and it will let you showcase your unique contributions. Since schools care about leadership and impact, then it makes sense that they would actually ask about that in the essay that they want you to write. So, nice job, Yale! Writing this essay should be a positive experience for you – not necessarily an easy process, but one that will be worthwhile to go through, and useful for the adcom to get.

There’s also an in-app video question, just like last year (see advice on the Yale video essay questions below).

[end discussion of 2014 questions]


Click to view 2013 questions

For reference: 2013 Yale Essays – including the new video – EssaySnark’s Analysis

These are identical to what they asked in 2012 — except that literally all they want to know about now is why do you want an MBA from Yale. This is basically the same approach as Harvard is taking, just through a different lens: Yale is relying on the evidence of leadership and achievement that will come through the rest of the application – your transcripts, your GMAT or GRE, your resume, and especially your recommendations – to tell the story of who you are. The essays are still important but they don’t need you to hype up a bunch of stories to try and prove how awesome you are; they’ll get that from the other assets (like the video!).

Here’s the 2013 Yale essay questions, including an explanation of the new in-app video essay:
Two essays:

  1. What motivates your decision to pursue an MBA? (300 words maximum)
  2. What motivates you to apply to the Yale School of Management for your MBA? What will you contribute to Yale and Yale SOM? (450 words maximum)

The video essay was new in 2013; we have a full section of video essay tips and insights below.

The other big change? Yale is joining MIT as the only top bschools who waive the TOEFL requirement for everyone.
[end discussion of 2013 questions]




Click to view 2012 questions

2012 Essays – these are REALLY OLD

Four essays:

  1. What prompted your decision to get an MBA? When did you realize that this was a step you wanted – or needed – to take?
  2. Describe a difficult professional decision you had to make. What were the consequences, and what, if anything, did you learn? Would you make the same decision again?
  3. The Yale School of Management provides a leadership education characterized by broad-minded and intellectually curious students with diverse backgrounds, a distinctive integrated curriculum, connections to one of the great research universities in the world, and the broad reach of an innovative and expanding global network of top business schools. What will you contribute to the Yale SOM community, and how will being part of it help you extend your professional vision?
  4. What do you consider to be your most significant accomplishment? Why?

[end discussion of 2012 questions]



EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2020 Yale MBA Application This SnarkStrategies Guide has the latest-greatest insights we gained from working with other BSers in past seasons which can offer you specific insights into your Class of 2023 MBA app to the SOM. Good luck on your Yale application!!

 

[Index of essay questions by business school]