Columbia MBA Essay 1 Tips (We have a clear sense of your professional path)

Through your resume and recommendations, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals over the next 3-5 years and what, in your imagination, would be your long-term dream job? (500 words)

Columbia MBA Essay 1 Tips

The Essay is a rephrased short-term and long-term goal essay. Unlike last year, the admission team has reduced the word count from 750 to 500. You have to be judicious with the use of phrases. Dive straight into the core of the narrative.

The core curriculum covers Finance, Accounting, Statistics, Economics, Strategy, Operations, and Analytics with the managerial role as the focus. The only additional course is the Global Economic Environment that demonstrates how productivity, growth, competition, and exchange rate influences policies.

Electives give you the opportunity to customize your curriculum.

MBA students have the option to choose 14 specializations from over 200+ electives.

Based on the demand and post-MBA trends in recent years, Columbia Business School has structured the courses based on

• Division (Accounting, Business, Decision, Risk and Operations, Economics, Finance, Management, Marketing and Other)
• Center  (Chazen)
• Program (Decision Making and Negotiations CDA,  Entrepreneurship,  Healthcare International Business, Media & Technology, Private Equity, Program for Financial Studies, Program on Social Intelligence, Real Estate, Social Enterprise, Strategy CDA and Value Investing)

The school has recommended a combination of elective courses based on your post-MBA goals. Mention at least three courses and explain how you will find value from them collectively.

The value has to be direct.

For a complete description of the courses, visit the elective course description page.

Is the Plan feasible?

Once you have defined the objective, offered context and quoted the electives, it is time to read the short-term goal again.

Is it feasible?

The answer to this question is perhaps the deal breaker for your Columbia MBA Application.

Answer the following Questions:

1) Is your post-MBA career path too unique and never been attempted before?



Is both your target post-MBA job function and industry, represented as a single digit percentage in the latest Employment report?

Example: Marketing + Manufacturing

Marketing: 8.4% + Manufacturing: 7.8%

If the answer to the two questions is a YES, then you have to rephrase your post-MBA goal by picking a secondary goal that is in alignment with the Columbia MBA program.

Another example that you shouldn’t mention is Entrepreneurship

The latest Employment report shows that only 29 candidates from a class of 748 students chose the career path. They would have ventured on their own even without the Columbia MBA program.

Read Essay #1 Tips with F1GMAT’s Columbia MBA Essay Guide