Difficulty Deciphering Wharton's Letter of Recommendation Questions?
Are you applying to the Wharton MBA program this year? Are you having difficulty deciphering your recommendation letter questions? More importantly, why is Wharton requiring your recommender to answer these (newer) questions?
Wharton changed the letter of recommendation questions for the 2017 candidates. Why? To make them different to what other business schools usually ask for. This article will help shed some light on significant pointers to make your MBA application package as competitive as possible. From the Wharton’s admissions committee:
“We have made significant changes to our Letter of Recommendation in an effort to get a deeper understanding of a candidate’s personal characteristics and their impact on others throughout their career.
We surveyed over 1,200 Letter of Recommendation writers about their experience with the process. Utilizing their valuable feedback, in conjunction with conversations with writers at a variety of companies and Wharton stakeholders, we have revised and improved how recommenders provide information on who a candidate is both personally and within an organization.
The new Letter of Recommendation component of our application will be broken into two sections:
A selection of positive personality characteristics. Recommenders will be asked to choose three characteristics from a list of ten that best describe the candidate they are recommending.
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)”
The section that is bolded is bolded for a reason. Most applicants (and recommenders) go straight for the two main questions. This would be premature. Before attempting the questions, read this article Wharton published in 2009. This could arguably be the basis for the change in the 2017 letter of recommendation questions.
The most relevant information from the article?
“... we understand psychological capital to be “how you are.”
“Especially in times like these, it is clear that those people who have a large measure of resilience and realistic optimism will be more prepared to deal with uncertainty and adversity.”
“The combination of such traits as will and self-confidence increases the tenacity to achieve goals.”
Another important leadership characteristic is (quite simply) having a positive attitude and outlook. Especially, when it comes to working in teams. Just like the learning teams you will be a part of in the Wharton classroom.
“Given the skills that leaders have for exemplifying attitudes and behaviors for their teams, the development of these skills [among managers] can lead to a general improvement in the psychological capital of the entire organization.”
What can you conclude from above? Leaders set the tone and temperature. Good or bad. Hot or cold.
“As in other sorts of competition, the combinations of these traits in different people who collaborate to achieve a common goal can result in teams that are especially efficient, but which also maintain healthy patterns of social interaction. To some extent, psychological capital can have a multiplier effect when a group of people collaborate.”
“... during a crisis [psychological capital] helps people overcome their troubles in a more satisfying way.”
“…view crisis situations with a greater measure of realistic optimism, and with attitudes that are more flexible and more resistant to frustration and depression.”
What should you take from this? When “trash hits the fan” — i.e., when a crisis occurs — if you don’t have enough “esprit de corps,” you might think the sky is falling (went it actually isn’t) and focus your energy on that. Your time is better spent thinking clearly on more productive exploits.
“... adopting an optimistic view of conditions — and I am not referring to an illusion about a rosy horizon — can help to improve someone’s personal situation over the long term. The way we perceive the world, and our environment is a basic component in our process for making decisions, and we use it to build our future, day by day. The popular saying, “The bottle is half full or half empty,” is a marvelous example of this. When we are aware that we have access to only half a bottle, our vision of what lies ahead — so that we can fill and enjoy the other half of the bottle — is fundamental for guiding our decisions, in both our personal life and at work.
So, what’s the bottom line? Good vibes and positive people feed off of each other, which is important especially when trash hits the fan. And knowing what we know about life, work, and school — ahem, Wharton — it will again at some point in the future.
Now, let’s focus on the two main letter of recommendation questions. What’s the deal with Wharton’s unique — oddball — questions? Well, we know where they are coming from — we can see the psychology behind it. However, there’s something more here.
We can conclude that Wharton is going against the grain intentionally. For example, having their own recommendation questions vs. what most business schools ask is evidence of that. Why? The reason being, they want applicants to show that extra effort. And thus, signal their genuine interest in attending their program. Without getting into it, Wharton really needs to know you want to go there. That you prefer Wharton over any other business school, let’s say Harvard or Stanford. This means Wharton does not want “cut-and-paste” answers meant for the other programs you are applying to - the kind of programs that share similar, if not the exact same questions.
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