Summertime is essentially MBA application prep season. While most people are jetting around the globe to sit by a lovely beach or visit a trendy city, MBA applicants are busy organizing themselves in anticipation of application release dates. Writing a personal statement is a great way to kill the time.
Out of all the profile characteristics of business school candidates, there is one which seems to consistently rise above the rest as something admissions committees look for in an ideal candidate, and no, it’s not a 750 GMAT score.
It’s leadership.
Today we are analyzing Yale's 2015 Essays ... sort of. What we are really doing is taking a look at them and using this essay set as a way to remind everyone to read the fine print when it comes to dealing with applications and even schools in general. I'm not blowing the whistle on some grand conspiracy or anything like that, but just illustrating that you can't take everything at face value. This is especially relevant at a time when applicants are killing themselves to try to hit Round 1 deadlines because an admissions officer "told them to," or when candidates make horrible errors in judgement based on the same logic. The truth of the matter is you have to keep your eyes open and use your own common sense when navigating this process.
We're going to try to get the blog up and running here in time to help people navigate these "late stage" b-schools and we'll start with NYU Stern as we pass along 5 tips that should prove helpful as you attack this MBA application.
One of my admissions consulting clients wrote me about his essays. He wanted to know what was the right way to “Grab the reader’s attention in the first few sentences with engaging content.”
My high-level advice:
