Applicant Strategy, Application Process, Application Strategy, Drew Hoff, Essay Guidance, Essay Strategy, Essay Writing, Essays, Yale SOM
Andrew Hoff
How to Approach Yale SOM's Main Essay 2025-2026
How to Approach Yale SOM's Main Essay 2025-2026
MBA Admissions Strategy, Application Tips, Essay Guidance
Andrew Hoff
Why Now May Be a Golden Moment for ...

As political tension rattles the U.S. visa system and high-profile schools like Harvard face international admissions delays, panic is setting in among global MBA applicants. But with 15 years in the field, I see this moment differently: not as a crisis, but as a strategic window. The fear is thinning out competitive applicant pools, creating rare opportunities for those willing to act decisively.

Why Now May Be a Golden Moment for International MBA Applicants
MBA Admissions, Essay Strategy, School-Specific Insights, MBA Admissions Consulting
Andrew Hoff
Columbia MBA Essays and Deadlines: Why CBS ...

Columbia Business School has revised its 2025 MBA Essay 2 prompt, removing direct references to DEI and inclusive leadership frameworks. While the language is now broader, focusing on collaboration, inclusion, and community, the underlying goal remains the same: Columbia wants applicants who can lead with empathy and build effective teams across differences. Here’s why the change likely happened and how to approach the new essay with strategy and authenticity.

Columbia MBA Essays and Deadlines: Why CBS Changed Its Inclusion Essay and What It Still Wants from Applicants
Application Advice
Andrew Hoff
OWNING YOUR CAREER GOALS IN FIVE STEPS
OWNING YOUR CAREER GOALS IN FIVE STEPS
MBA Essays, Leadership, Application Strategy
Andrew Hoff
How to Showcase Leadership in your MBA Essays ...

Learn how to define leadership for your MBA leadership essay using Stephen Covey’s principles. Stand out by writing compelling, values-driven stories.

How to Showcase Leadership in your MBA Essays (Using Stephen Covey’s Framework)
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3 Key Thoughts on the HBS Essay

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3 Key Thoughts on the HBS Essay

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Despite HBS featuring the most publicized changing of the guard in admissions that I can remember, they are basically keeping their "open-ended" question style intact.  In fact, more than keeping it intact, they have reverted to the more straight forward version they used in 2013 and 2014, rather than the more clever (but probably ultimately less effective) "introduction" prompt from last year.  

And because they are staying in this lane, it means that my three thoughts need to stay in the same lane they have been in for years - because understanding the psychology behind this essay goes a long way to explaining how you might solve it.  

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3 Key Thoughts About Columbia Business School's 2016 Essays

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3 Key Thoughts About Columbia Business School's 2016 Essays

Like last year, we are going to use a little running device of "three key thoughts" for each essay release.  If you want to get a deep dive into these essay sets, of course, the answer is probably obvious: sign up for our services and become a client, at which point we can guide you every step of the way.  

Now, on to some thoughts from the new Columbia essays! 

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Recommend Reading for MBA Applicants: "The Obstacle is the Way" by Ryan Holiday

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Recommend Reading for MBA Applicants: "The Obstacle is the Way" by Ryan Holiday

Partly because I've been reading some great books lately and partly because I want a break from writing about essays, I am starting something new - offering "recommended reading" to MBA applicants.

Now, please understand that I know you are busy.  You are working, applying, and trying to live your life - possibly even still wrestling the GMAT to the ground.  It's probably not the ideal time to be picking up books, right?  On the contrary!  You are at a unique point in your life right now - shifting between what was previous and what is next.  You are probably still fully engaged with work (as you should be, as the typical upcoming Round 1 applicant still has a full year of work to go), but there is part of you that is stepping outside the day-to-day rat race and thinking about the big picture.  "Now" is one big incubation period.  If you are taking your apps seriously and working with a great consultant/coach, you are going to be thinking stuff in a way that might start to become pretty illuminating.  I've long felt that applying to graduate school *should* be an arduous process - not just in terms of nuts and bolts, but in terms of personal introspection.  It's a golden opportunity to learn something about yourself and to improve as a person. 

You Really Should Watch This Harvard Business School Video - Inside the HBS Case Method

You Really Should Watch This Harvard Business School Video - Inside the HBS Case Method

No matter the year - if you're applying to HBS, you really should watch the video the HBS admissions committee once referenced in their essay instructions way back in 2015. Why? Because the Case Method is often referenced as HBS's primary differentiator. 

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How to Survive the Inevitable "Bad Part" of an MBA Admissions Interview

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How to Survive the Inevitable "Bad Part" of an MBA Admissions Interview

This article is about a harsh reality of the MBA interview process, which is that every interview is going to take a dip, or hit a rough patch, at some point ... through no fault of anyone involved. Why is this? And how can you address it?

Let's dive into it.

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Soliciting Letters of Recommendation: Remember the Rule of 10%

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Soliciting Letters of Recommendation: Remember the Rule of 10%

When it comes to recommendations, the first thing that any applicant needs to understand is how they work and, therefore, how they should handle them as part of the process.  We sum up this analysis with something we call “The Rule of 10%”: they count for about 10% of a decision, they should be about 10% of your focus during application season, and you should contribute about 10% of the work that goes into their outcome.

Obviously, these are all gross estimates and generalizations, but it shakes out to about right and its easier to use 10% than “a percentage that is a LOT less than you think it is.”  The bottom line is that most applicants assume a much higher level of importance, they spend far more time thinking and worrying about them, and they get far too involved in their production (the biggest issue of all).  Let’s work through all three:

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Always Waive Your Right to View Your MBA Recommendation

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Always Waive Your Right to View Your MBA Recommendation

I tell my clients up front that they have to waive their right and that it is not really an option to not do so. Not waiving your right could tell the adcom that you don’t trust your recommenders.  It  could tell them that you are paranoid or overly anxious.

It could tell them that this applicant is a liability.  What happens if he doesn’t get in?  Is he going to go after his recommenders for throwing him under the bus?  Is he going to create more headaches for all involved?  Is the applicant going to create reputational risk for the school?

The adcom would rather just not deal with it.

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Why You Just Got Dinged (Probably) from Business School

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Why You Just Got Dinged (Probably) from Business School

Other than "bad luck" or "well, this school is one of the hardest in the world to get into" or "you never should have applied to this school," these are the three most common reasons that people get dinged.  Put differently, they are the three reasons you could have avoided:

One Easy Way to Personalize your MBA Essay Content

One Easy Way to Personalize your MBA Essay Content

This is a post I write basically every year because it comes from what I'm seeing each round, every day, on basically every application.  That drum beat is really rigid, hard-to-read Why School X sections on essays.  

I give the same note to every single client so now I'm giving it to everybody: the simplest and most important thing you can do to improve your Why School X portion of career goals essay is to personalize any and all content.   This is a great way to avoid writing something off-putting, as well as a quick and easy method for making your essays warmer, more personal, and easier to connect with. 

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Linking Your Chicago Booth Presentation Essay to the School's Introduction Content

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Linking Your Chicago Booth Presentation Essay to the School's Introduction Content

I have received the following question a lot lately: "Should my presentation reflect the ideas that Booth espouses when introducing the presentation question?"  The short answer is "yes," but the long answer is more complicated than that and is worthy of discussion here in this space.  Not just for the way it will help Booth applicants, but because of the way it speaks to the whole idea of "School DNA" and how to assess fit with a program. 

What an Aspiring MBA Can Learn from Daily Fantasy Sports

What an Aspiring MBA Can Learn from Daily Fantasy Sports

I've been around DFS to know that many "MBA types" do really well as players, due to comfort with quantitative analysis, modeling skills, and even the ability to build robust and sophisticated trading algorithms.  But even if you are not a finance wizard and/or a sports fanatic, can you learn something from Daily Fantasy Sports as an MBA applicant?  Oh let us count the ways: 

Reacting to the Stanford GSB Dean Saloner Controversy

Reacting to the Stanford GSB Dean Saloner Controversy

It's never easy to wade into troubled waters such as those present at Stanford GSB right now.  And truly, we're not here to report any detail on the unfortunate scandal involving the faculty and administration of the world's most selective business school.  If you want the down and dirty on exiting Dean Garth Saloner and professors Deborah Gruenfeld and Jim Phills, be sure to read the initial reporting by Poets and Quants and then the deep dive by David Margolick of Vanity Fair.  Needless to say, it's a sad story that doesn't appear to be getting happier anytime soon.  And it certainly leaves a bad taste in your mouth and invites all sorts of questions about GSB.  But what should you actually worry about here?  That's what we want to tackle.   

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Reactions to HBS Admissions Decisions

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Reactions to HBS Admissions Decisions

Time for a quick blog post in the wake of HBS sending out its three waves of decisions (October 6, 8, and 14).  You can read the whole thing or you can just read this line, probably: don't take this stuff personally, understand there are a ton of great schools out there, and keep moving forward.  Need more?  Okay, let's break it down, with three Golden Rules for receiving a decision of this magnitude. 

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Ranking the Best MBA Programs for Pharmaceutical/ Biotech/ Healthcare Jobs (2015)

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Ranking the Best MBA Programs for Pharmaceutical/ Biotech/ Healthcare Jobs (2015)

Entering 2015 school year, Duke Fuqua comes out on top when it comes to sending MBA graduates (as a percentage of all graduates in 2014) into the pharmaceutical, biotech and healthcare industries - 9% of its graduating class get jobs in these industries. Dartmouth Tuck, Wharton and MIT Sloan hold their own, coming in at 2nd, 3rd and 4th best.

Ranking the Best MBA Programs for Consulting Jobs (2015)

Ranking the Best MBA Programs for Consulting Jobs (2015)

Dartmouth Tuck comes out on top when it comes to sending MBA graduates (as a percentage of all graduates in 2014) into the consulting industry - 35% of its graduating class.

Columbia Business School is a very, very close second with 34.4% of its graduating MBA class entering the consulting industry.

Video: How to Prep For Your Business School Interview

Video: How to Prep For Your Business School Interview

Paul Lanzillotti, founder of the Amerasia Consulting Group, walks you through how to handle your MBA interview. Learn how to answer representative questions; structuring your thoughts using "stories" versus the "pyramid principle" and connecting all aspects of your MBA application for your interviewer.  

This in-depth video is approximately 1 hour and 20 mins in duration.

Last Minute MBA Application Advice: Before You Hit the Submit Button

Last Minute MBA Application Advice: Before You Hit the Submit Button

I've updated Amerasia's list of best tips and best practices for submitting your MBA application online. So hopefully this prevents many of you from not getting caught with your pants down just hours to go before the application deadline! 

In fact, I always tell my clients to start their online MBA application at the very beginning of the application process because it can help you understand what you are in for.  Most people think that HBS does not have a "goals" essay. Technically, they are correct.  But they do have a 500 character goal statement on the actual online form.  They also want you to rank your extracurricular equities in order of importance.  And if you read the language on the application carefully, it seems as though they only want you to fill out activities that occur during your undergraduate career. To make it that much more difficult, Harvard only provides you a few hundred characters (not words) of precious application UI to do so.  By the way, this does include characters like spaces. Surprise!  But not a good surprise if you waited until the 11th hour to open up and start reviewing the online application. There are many other instances of these types of requirements – MBA app hoops you have to jump through – when you were least expecting.

But since this blog post is about what you can and should do before finally pressing "submit", I do not want to revisit what you should have done.  Let us focus on what you can do right now.

Infographic: comparison of MBA graduates' salary by region and gender

According the the Financial Times - An MBA is often seen as the fastest route for women to get a seat on the corporate board, but salary data collected by the Financial Times reveal that the pay premium enjoyed by women with an MBA lags behind that of their male peers. Women who studied for a full-time MBA see their salaries rise an average 87 per cent in the four to five years between starting their programme and being back in the workplace for three years, but their male counterparts see salary rises of 96 per cent.

Why do an MBA? Is it right for me?

Why do an MBA? Is it right for me?

I detailed a list in another entry that I laid out.  And it rattled off a number of items that are notable about top MBA programs.

But instead of diving into each one separately, I’m going to discuss the primary answer that you hear on actual business school campuses, from students, faculty, and alumni alike.

What is it that makes this place so special?

The answer is…. You guessed it.  The people.

Should I write my own recommendations?

Should I write my own recommendations?

OK.  I get this question all the time.

And it’s an important one.  When it comes to the app, you’ve got a few essential components, and the recommendations are one of them.

So.  How much should you help with your recommendations? 

There are two fundamental levels to this...