Part 6 (1/2)

5 Failing to Respond to the Questions Asked Admissions officials pose certain essay questions in order to obtain answers to questions they have about you as a candidate If you don't answer the questions asked, you will not be providing them with the answers they need, and it will appear that you can't follow instructions

SAMPLE ESSAYS

In order to give you a better idea of the different kinds of things that a B-school ad for in as essay, we asked the two admissions officers quoted above to read and critique three actual B-school application essays Each sample essay is followed by two critiques

Essay A Question: What are your career goals? Hoill an MBA help you achieve these goals? Why are you applying to ? (Lioals? Hoill an MBA help you achieve these goals? Why are you applying to ? (Lie, while other students weredefinitive decisions about their career paths, I decided to implement a five-year plan of developned to allow ht ht interest me I chose to focus pri, education, and the law Although I am currently only in year four ofwhich career path to follow After sa each of the three areas, I have discovered that the field ofprovides the most enjoyment fordefinitive decisions about their career paths, I decided to implement a five-year plan of developned to allow ht ht interest me I chose to focus pri, education, and the law Although I am currently only in year four ofwhich career path to follow After sa each of the three areas, I have discovered that the field ofprovides the most enjoyment for me and best co on another five-year plan, during which I hope to achieve a few specific career goals First, I would like to be a part of the tea Internet advertising effectiveness As computers play a more important role in people's everyday lives, corporations have begun to look for a method to analyze the effectiveness of their interactive advertising dollars To date, no one has been able to accuratelyhas on consuh there are a few systems of measurement currently in use, they are rarely comparable and therefore provide little information in terms of the effectiveness of an online advertisement The develop for television viewers, is likely to revolutionize the way corporations advertise on the Internet I hope to help develop this new metric and to consult with corporations about the metric's results The advice that I will be able to offer clients through the use of this system will be as important as the system itself After all, the system will only be as effective as the results that it drivesBeyond the five-year scope, I plan to establishtechnology sector I believe that we have only seen the beginning of the growth that the technology industry will experience in the future Personal computers have penetrated approximately 40 percent of American households, and only approximately half of those personal computers have the capacity to connect to the Internet We have only scratched the surface of the advancey, and I believe that this field will continue to groith greater acceleration as we progress through the twenty-first century My market research firm will provide support and information to coy This market has tremendous potential and I hope to provide a necessary resource that will enhance my clients' success as well as my ownI believe that an MBA is the cornerstone to achieving round necessary to successfully return to the field of h classroo professionals, I will be better suited to participate in the ever-changing globalenvironment Additionally, I believe that an MBA will provide ement skills necessary to effectively run a business on all levels Whether e corporation or as an entrepreneur, I believe that the skills garnered froer In addition, I believe that an MBA will provide ht process or a better business sense I feel that as a student, I will be continually challenged to ”think outside the box” and to analyze all available options beforean infor, learning, and challenging preconceived notions is an i tofor a number of reasons I believe thatis the best environ exposure to, and experience with, a diverse student body and faculty It is hout their lives, and one of the h interaction with others 's diversity offers an environ both inside and outside the classrooe with class of topics that are currently foreign to me I believe that no other business school provides students with the opportunity to share and learn in an environment similar to that which is fostered by

Academically,offers a comprehensive curriculu concentration through classes like Marketing Research, Marketing Planning and Product Manageh core courses such as Managerial Studies and Managing Huanizations, I will be able to learn about business fro academic reputation ofcolocation create an opportunity that is second to none

I have e in my life I believe that an education fromwill provide invaluable experiences and skills that will allow row into a successful business leader for the next century

Critiques of Essay A Admissions Official 1: Essay A asks the candidate to address career goals, the ioals, and the specific relevance of the particular prograoals A successful response should address these points in order, and culram in question is an eminently suitable choice The essay should also provide evidence of a focused career objective and exaht stand out fro exaanized and well-ordered points However, the candidate is less successful in setting herself apart froanization first, and then examine the content of this essay

This candidate presents her points in a very well-organized eneral career interest The following paragraphs define short- and long-ter a research with the ulti research company The candidate then indicates that an MBA is useful in the pursuit of these objectives because courseill provide a deeper understanding ofthe reasons why the prograht choice It is easy for the reader to follow these points, and the supporting information clearly addresses the major points

Unfortunately, the points themselves vary in terraph, for example, the candidate asserts that she embarked on a five-year plan of unbridled exploration This rings hollow-and suggests that some abortive forays into careers were in fact part of an intentional strategy That's not much of a plan It would be more credible simply to state that after so was a good fit, and that the Internet provided an interesting opportunity to explore

In addition, the reasons the candidate provides for choosing the school are very generic, and could apply equally to ra, but probably untrue Admissions officers expect that smart candidates will apply to multiple schools In this particular case, the candidate missed an opportunity to incorporate the Internet-related or entrepreneurial goals in the reason for selecting the school in question This ht have helped set her apart from other applicants

On a similar note, candidates are well advised to avoid cliches and buzzwords and to not parrot brochure copy No admissions committee member will miss talk of ”five-year plans” (fine for Stalin or Star Trek Star Trek), being a ”lobal environy possible won't set a candidate apart from anyone

Admissions Official 2: There is no one answer to the issue of addressing career goals A variety of participants with a range of personalities and skill sets are required to ensure a functioning world MBA classes are no different And beyond the crafting of a class, an institution is choosing a set of aluardless of what the applicant writes about her career goals, it ently divides a cooals However, the respondent conveys a naive and superficial understanding of her chosen field The goals of being involved in an initiative that breaks new ground, ofpart of a team are admirable But it is essential, in all cases, to identify the skills, expertise, and/or abilities that would enable you to accooals Unfortunately, in this case, I see plans without strategies

This point is also applicable as we move to the question, ”Why an MBA?” What is it about an MBA that will enable the author to accoical manner Just because questions are asked sequentially, the responses do not have to be given sequentially

There are subtexts to these questions It is important to provide a sense of who you are, what you will bring, and e should feel confident that you will contribute to your fellow students and class interaction The author does understand that the class is co does coained no sense of who the author is as a person from this essay Thus an opportunity has been lost

And finally, as to the question of why the author has selected the specific institution in question, I don't see that she has taken the argu of courses doesn't do anything for me Are the cited courses distinctive? In this case, they aren't What is ”diverse” about this progra city important? The components of this section aren't bad; they just don't provide insight into why they are iraic, and focus Make it easy to understand; don't force complicated leaps and assumptions The author didn't capitalize on the opportunity to make a case for admission and to differentiate herself fro the last five years, describe one or two accomplishments of which you arethe last five years, describe one or two accomplishments of which you are most proud (Lianization and order As a child, every toy had its place and every book had its nook I have consistently worked towards certain goals and implemented the appropriate plan to achieve them Therefore, it was no surprise when I decided to develop a plan for iate success in which I would sa on which to focus The manner in which I would execute this plan, however, was a challenge I have always had a sense of organization and order As a child, every toy had its place and every book had its nook I have consistently worked towards certain goals and implemented the appropriate plan to achieve them Therefore, it was no surprise when I decided to develop a plan for iate success in which I would sa on which to focus The manner in which I would execute this plan, however, was a challengeIn order for it to be a success, my plan necessitated that I switch co a creature of habit, this was at first a very difficult notion for me to accept At the time, I would have preferred to have taken a job with one company and worked there for my entire career However, that plan of action would never result in the full realization of oal In order for me to be successful, it was necessary for me to break out of my coressed, I began to realize that I had created an opportunity fornew insights into er daunted by its unfaan to relish the unknown as a chance to learn oals As a result, I now understand that my plan was more than a quest for a career but also a journey of discovery and growthI consider the completion of my plan to be a major accomplishment The pursuit of new positions and opportunities required a great deal of hard work and dedication I ae and for seeing my plan to its fruition More ied oalIn a different light, but also important to me, is my chili I know that this sounds bizarre, but I ao I decided that it was tiinning with the ”Appetizers” I decided, however, to refocus my efforts when I unsuccessfully assembled a crudite platter Instead, I planned to master one recipe I chose chili because it is not overly cohout the entire winter, I toiled overthe spices and the exact quantity of vegetables Finally, when spring had arrived, I had done it: I had created the perfect chili Although my chili has yet to win any accolades, I aoal, and I married a man who can cook!

Critiques of Essay B Admissions Official 1: Essay B asks the candidate to provide succinct accounts of one or two personal acco the accoraph The body of the essay should then describe each of the acconificance A concluding paragraph is probably not necessary, unless there is some common thread in the examples that the candidate wishes to underscore The response should ideally provide the adht into the candidate's values

In this example, the candidate did not lay out the forraph She instead commenced with a description of her first accomplish because she didn't indicate that her ”plan for postcollegiate success” was indeed one of her accomplishraph She spent the balance of the description saying little more than that she held jobs in a few different fields This was not an effective tactic for differentiating herself from other applicants, since row professionally Another problem with this accomplishment is that she provided no specific information or examples drawn from her experience

The second ”acco her foray into cooking was to show her ability to rise above adversity, she did so by trivializing the process

Beyond the issues of content, this essay used pronouns with unclear antecedents and preferred the passive over the active voice (ie, ”in order for it to be a success, my plan,” instead of ”In order for my plan to succeed”)

The adreatest acco a chili recipe If this essay does set the candidate apart, it does so at the expense of her candidacy relative to other candidates, ill have undoubtedly accomplished much more

Ad The author made a choice as to topics and, in the process, she provided ness to break out of a comfort zone is a trait that I value because the business world is constantly changing and change necessitates the learning of new skills The author recognizes that this is an unconized that she can handle change, and even respond in positive, growth-producing ways

Both this respondent and the previous one had a plan and experimented with different paths But in this case, the author shared her internal conflicts, those created by personal preference and reality, and what she learned from the experience The choice of this topic provided an answer to an unasked question If I have a limited number of places in the class, and the world is constantly in flux, my best students and e and grow from it The author provided evidence that she can do both I also know that she can handle uncertainty, and that attention to detail and order are ianizational structures in business school and business, the aforementioned abilities and values are ones that at least so a project to successful fruition

The author's second accomplishment provided humor and addressed other dimensions I no that she is married and that, in her choice of a partner, she found someone who has skills that she doesn't have That is the benefit of a teaanized and methodical as she assumes new tasks and responsibilities

This was, to htful As a bonus, it was a which, while not essential, can be different I do have one caution This essay does not explain what experiences she had, hohy she chose the she stayed, and what she learned from them And it doesn't reassure me that the author doesn't assume that jobs and people are expendable-that once they serve their purpose you move on The purpose of this essay was not to probe such issues However, these questions arise as one reads the essay, and thus the answers to therated into the essay or created as an addendum if they don't appear elsewhere in the credentials

Essay C Question: Describe an ethical dilemma you have faced in the workplace How did you resolve it? (Limit: 500 words) Describe an ethical dilemma you have faced in the workplace How did you resolve it? (Li for the Jewish Public School Youth Movement (JPSY) was a 16-year-old student namedhad joined our club as a freshman and participated in almost all our events When I first ood acade his sopholy disturbed, and I was infor Repeated attempts to questionabout his proble some of his friends but decided that his desire for privacy wasfor the Jewish Public School Youth Movement (JPSY) was a 16-year-old student namedhad joined our club as a freshman and participated in almost all our events When I first ood acade his sopholy disturbed, and I was infor Repeated attempts to questionabout his proble some of his friends but decided that his desire for privacy was ht I received a call for help fro around town for hours His parents had been fighting with each other consistently and had becoht horade, his mother locked him out of the house My first reaction was disbelief Aren't a mother's instincts always correct-especially a ist? Don't parents always do what they believe is best for their child? Was it right for me in my role as a friend to interfere with the way the parents were raising their son? But their son had confided infor help I could not bear to let hiht I picked upand took hiht Meanwhile, I decided that I would speak to his mother the next day I would approach her as an adviser of 's school club and offer to help hi to so too inquisitive or intrusiveWhen I contacted her the next day, she politely thanked er necessary sincewas being sent to reforh school and of various JPSY officials confir the subsequent year I heard reports of 's deteriorating behavior In the end, he ran away from the school, and has yet to be found Unfortunately, I could not control the outcoht me two lessons: how naive certain childhood assu my instincts

Critiques of Essay C Admissions Official 1: This question poses two unusual problems The first is that it's badly worded: A dilemma isn't just any difficult problem By definition, a dilemma is a problem that requires a person to choose between equally undesirable alternatives A dilemma cannot, therefore, be resolved One school that uses an ”ethical dileed and resolved the attending situation, and not the dilemma itself That was probably the intent of this question as well

The second problem is that the question assumes that all applicants have faced ethical dilemmas in the workplace That ht out intentionally Author Robert Reid, who recounted his first year in a top MBA program in a recent book, noted that ”have you had your ethical dile the MBA-bound Unfortunately, candidates don't have control of the questions, just their answers

With these problems noted, a concise (approximately 500-word) response should describe the dileraph or two, explain each of the alternatives and their consequences, and conclude with a paragraph describing the choice the author has made and why that choice, while imperfect, was nevertheless preferable to other choices

Here's an exaine that you are an MBA applicant who has never encountered an ethical dile this question? You can deliberately stretch or misrepresent events to conform to the question (ie, lie-unethical), or indicate that you haven't had such an experience, potentially hurting your chances for admission Both alternatives are bad-hence, a dilemma

To his credit, the candidate in the example chose a third alternative, to do the best he could with an actual situation, even though it wasn't truly a dileh school student who is having probleht to confidentiality until the situation turns more serious, and then attempts to intervene with the parents when the advisee's welfare ht be at stake While the situation the candidate describes is certainly unfortunate and obviously difficult, it isn't a dilemma, since there isn't a forced choice between flawed alternatives Instead, the candidate has followed the highly ethical practice in counseling of honoring confidentiality until the advisee's welfareto do so

While this response isn't perfect, it is certainly preferable to lying or dis the question With any luck, the admissions committee will understand the limitations of its question

Admissions Official 2: Unfortunately, there is little that I liked about this essay I would caution the reader, however, that an adroup of people with various values and orientations, and each ly, to different issues

The author never really, or at least not clearly at the beginning of the essay, outlined what the ethical dilem of the circu point This was unfortunate, because there were real tensions inherent in this story that could have been addressed A them are:Can we ever truly understand a situation to which we are outsiders, and what role do we play e see problems? What happens when the world as you experience it is inconsistent with the world as you come to see it? What options exist to respond to the situation, and as this particular option chosen?

It is appropriate to set the stage or lay out the situation (one-quarter of the essay) and then proceed to analysis (three-quarters of the essay) Since the author neglected to do this, I am unsure as to why certain items were included and why they were included in the ways that they were There has to be logic Why, for example, did the author say that he ”pickedup and took him to another adviser's house”? What really mattered is that the student was in need and the author found him a place to stay It is a bad idea to provide opportunities for the reader to get side-tracked with other issues In this case, the question arises as to why the author didn't just take the student home with hi Even when not in control, you can learn things In the author's case, he learned that childhood assumptions could be naive and that so your instincts Unfortunately, I don't knohat his assumptions or instincts were

This was a missed opportunity I see someone who didn't kno to use resources that were there, ie, a school-connected agency, and insisted on ”going it alone” instead of being a member of a team While independence is important, at times, it is essential to knohen to use the resources of a systeht; I don't see someone who knohat is important I have no real sense of who this person is and what he values, and that is, in my opinion, part of the purpose for which this question was designed

I a that this student wasn't admitted to the schools to which he applied But for me the admission would have occurred in spite of the essay, not because of it, and in a corades, and work experience were equal and spaces limited, this student would have suffered in co Your MBA

CHAPTER 12

Planning Your Investree is to identify all the costs Whether or not your company offers to reimburse your tuition, you should have a clear idea of the expenses that will be incurred over the next few years Before accepting admission to one school over another, carefully consider whether the costs are the same, and whether you can really afford to attend the school of your choice