Essays Questions with a difference

In the last few weeks many schools have released their essays essays for 2009 intake. Most of the essays questions are similar. They include a few variations and combinations of the following question:
1. Describe your career progress to date.
2. Briefly describe your short-term and long-term career goals
3. Why MBA?
4. Why now?
5. Why our school?
6. Describe your most significant accomplishment.
7. Describe an innovative solution you have created to address a specific challenge
8. Describe your key leadership experiences
9. Describe a setback or failure and what you learned from it.
10. What are your background, values, academics, activities and/or leadership skills?
11. Tell us about a time when you went beyond what was defined, established, or expected


Apart from the above regular question, some questions could trigger the creativity of the applicants. For example, one question for University of Michigan, Ross school of business is “If you were not pursuing the career goals you described in Question 1, what profession would you pursue instead? (For example, teacher, musician athlete, architect, etc.) How will this alternate interest contribute to your effectiveness in solving multidisciplinary problems?”.

University of California at Berkeley, Haas School of business has the question, “If you could change one thing you've done in your life, what would it be, and how would you do it differently?”

Stanford has stuck to its usual off-beat question of “What matters most to you, and why?”

Of all the essay topics I have seen so far, 2 were totally different including the format requested. University of Chicago has requested a PowerPoint presentation. “We have asked for a great deal of information throughout this application and now invite you tell us about yourself. Using four slides or less, please provide readers with content that captures who you are.”

MIT has requested a cover letter. “Prepare a cover letter (up to 500 words) seeking a place in the MIT Sloan MBA Program. Describe your accomplishments and include an example of how you had an impact on a group or organization. Your letter should conform to standard business correspondence and be addressed to Mr. Rod Garcia, Director of MBA Admissions”.

The difference in format of the essays will stretch the imagination of the applicants and provide the reader with a variety in response instead of the old styled essay responses.

Early Announcement of application Essays

Every year the business schools publish their application essays at the end of summer or beginning of fall for the next year’s fall intake. This year, it is just the beginning of summer and many schools have already published their essay and admission deadlines.
Harvard started this trend by publishing the essays first (http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/writtenapplication.html). Kellogg (http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/admissions/admissions/index.htm), Haas (http://mba.haas.berkeley.edu/fall2009.html), Stanford (http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/admission/essays_activities.html) and Wharton (http://adcomblog.wharton.upenn.edu/admissions/2008/07/fall-2009-appli.html) have also published their essays.

Many other schools such as Columbia, Chicago, MIT, Ross, etc have published their deadlines for applicants to plan their application cycle.

The rush by the schools to publish their essays early could be seen as a sign of possible increase in number of applications for the 2009 intake. The schools want to attract more students to apply for their schools, which would reduce their yield (and hence better ranking) and increase revenue from application fee. I could hardly take a breath after my last application season and not the 2009 application season has begun. Good luck for your applications.