Benjamin Franklin showed us the power of Moral Algebra method. We adapted the method for MBA Research and demonstrated how you could choose when it comes to two equally good MBA programs. The method works when the choices are limited, but while interacting with MBA Applicants through our MBA Admissions Consulting service, we asked the applicants to cite the reasons for shortlisting the MBA programs. Some were rational reasons, reached after extensive research while many were irrational conclusions reached through faulty assumptions. When the reasons for selecting the MBA program are flawed, Admission consultants cannot successfully strategize and guide the MBA applicant through the Admission process. Deep down, applicants know that they have selected the MBA programs based on reputation (one of the several factors that should influence your selection) and not on extensive attribute matching – a process we highly recommend.
We falsely put hope in our intuitions, or in plain English “fuzzy logic reached through biases, our limited life experiences, and exposure to Business School’s marketing.” Life-changing decisions can falter with this limiting method. Instead of relying on intuition, let us go systematically through the attributes that are important to you, and the universally acceptable performance indicators, declared by Business Schools, Alumni, Experts, and the ranking publications.
Failure of Intuition – Multiple Influencing Factors
When applicants are asked to write about the time they succeeded, many will gladly cite the one time they used their intuition to predict a disaster, plan for success, or make a strategic decision. The reality is that intuition rarely works when there are many influencing factors. Our minds do not have the capacity to deliberate through all our preferences and match it with an MBA program’s attributes. If a school is known for consulting, we evaluate our natural inclination towards consulting and then compare it with our previous work experience in Marketing, Finance, and Leadership during the formative years of our skill development. If you are a career switcher, you virtually don’t have any evidence to prove your expertise in a functional area apart from the limited experience through extra-curricular or the cross-functional exposure in your 3-5 year professional experience. Our growth during an MBA program is not accounted, and we falsely assume that our skills are deficient.
Multi-Attribute Utility Theory
A better approach is to evaluate the school on indicators that determine a great learning environment, and on data that demonstrates that the school can deliver on return on investment (increase in salary, MBA reputation, and longevity of the skills).
List Top 5 MBA programs based on specialization.
Once you have the list, the selection should be on performance and personal indicators that will influence your goals. For example, International mobility might be a decisive factor for an MBA candidate with no relationship commitments, but for a candidate, who relocated to the host country with dependents (partner/children), the percentage of job opportunities in the host country is a much more important consideration.
Performance Indicators
For multi-attribute utility theory to work, the selection of performance indicators should be precise. Without the right set of evaluation factors, assigning scores become meaningless. Broadly, the utility of an MBA program can be classified into seven factors:
1) Increase in Salary
2) Quality of the Program (Students, Faculty, Accreditation)
3) Reputation (Among Recruiters, Alumni)
4) Job Placement (% graduates with Job Offers, Effectiveness of Career Service Team, Effectiveness of Alumni Network)
5) Cost (Tuition Fee, Loans/Personal Borrowing)
6) Ranking (Overall, Alumni, By Specialization) and
7) Long-Term Value
For the experts, the evaluation factors are ranked in the order of importance with the highest value of 1.0 and the lowest value of 0.6, indicated in the brackets.
1) Increase in Salary (1.0)
2) Quality of Faculty (0.9)
3) Quality of students (0.9)
4) Accreditation (0.9)
5) Reputation of the MBA Program/Business School (Recruiters) (0.9)
6) Reputation of the MBA Program/Business School (Alumni) (0.9)
7) Percentage of graduates with Job offers (0.85)
8) Effectiveness of Career Service Team(0.85)
9) Effectiveness of Alumni Network(0.85)
10) Total tuition and fees (0.8)
11) MBA Funding (Loans/Personal Borrowing) (0.8)
12) Ranking (0.6)
Ideally, the evaluation factors should be independent of each other, but we have a few factors that are correlated. Ranking and Reputation of the MBA program, especially among alumni are correlated while MBA reputation among recruiters fluctuates.
The breadth of one factor does not multiply the utility of an MBA program. This is evident in Accreditations. For example, a triple-accredited European Business School is not necessarily better than an American school with AACSB accreditation. However, at least one accreditation from AMBA, AACSB, or EQUIS is necessary for the Business School to be considered among the elite. Don’t take the risk of shortlisting schools which have yet to receive accreditation, unless you have a non-traditional career path like Entrepreneurship, where the funding environment and specialized skills of the Faculty have a higher priority.
The beauty of multi-attribute utility theory is that you can create your list and arrange the evaluation factors according to your preference, and then average your score with the score of the ‘experts’. You can even include personal factors that have not been considered by the consultant. Let us suppose that, for you, the local reputation of the Business School/MBA program and an ecosystem for Entrepreneurship, are two additional evaluation factors.
Arrange the 12 + 2 factors, according to the value of importance. Since the ‘Consultant/Expert’ has not assigned any value to the additional factors, in the expert list, assign a 0 (zero) for the two.
Let us see the two lists.
Expert List
1) Increase in Salary (1.0)
2) Quality of Faculty (0.9)
3) Quality of students (0.9)
4) Accreditation (0.9)
5) Reputation of the MBA Program/Business School (Recruiters) (0.9)
6) Reputation of the MBA Program/Business School (Alumni) (0.9)
7) Percentage of graduates with Job offers (0.85)
8) Effectiveness of Career Service Team(0.85)
9) Effectiveness of Alumni Network(0.85)
10) Total tuition and fees (0.8)
11) MBA Funding (Loans/Personal Borrowing) (0.8)
12) Ranking (0.6)
13) Local Reputation (0)
14) Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (0)
Your List (For demonstration only. Change the order and value according to your preference)
1) Increase in Salary (1.0)
2) Reputation of the MBA Program/Business School (Recruiters) (1.0)
3) Quality of Faculty (0.9)
4) Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (0.9)
5) Accreditation (0.9)
6) Effectiveness of Career Service Team (0.9)
7) MBA Funding (Loans/Personal Borrowing) (0.85)
8) Local Reputation (0.85)
9) Quality of students (0.85)
10) Reputation of the MBA Program/Business School (Alumni) (0.85)
11) Percentage of graduates with Job offers (0.85)
12) Effectiveness of Alumni Network (0.85)
13) Total tuition and fees (0.8)
14) Ranking (0.7)
Now let us create a score chart with raw and scaled scores for three Business Schools – Harvard, Stanford, and MIT Sloan Full-time MBA programs. We have to score the three MBA programs on a scale of 1 to 100 for each factor. 
About the Author
I am Atul Jose - the Founding Consultant at F1GMAT.
Over the past 15 years, I have helped MBA applicants gain admissions to Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Chicago Booth, Kellogg, Columbia, Haas, Yale, NYU Stern, Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, IE, IESE, HEC Paris, McCombs, Tepper, and schools in the top 30 global MBA ranking.
I offer end-to-end Admissions Consulting and editing services – Career Planning, Application Essay Editing & Review, Recommendation Letter Editing, Interview Prep, assistance in finding funds and Scholarship Essay & Cover letter editing. See my Full Bio.
I am also the Author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, covering 16+ top MBA programs with 240+ Sample Essays that I have updated every year since 2013 (11+ years. Phew!!)
I am an Admissions consultant who writes and edits Essays every year. And it is not easy to write good essays.
Contact me for any questions about MBA or Master's application. I would be happy to answer them all
Winning MBA Essay Guide - A Complete Guide for M7 and Top 15 MBA Application Essays
F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay guide will teach you how to transform your essay into a life journey with trials and tribulations that will move the admission team.
+ Over 245 Sample Essays (Read Previews of F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay Guide Sample Essays here)
+ Top 15 MBA Programs (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Booth, MIT, Kellogg, Yale, Haas, Darden, INSEAD, LBS, NYU Stern, Tuck, Duke Fuqua, Ross)
+ The Art of Storytelling
+ Leadership Narratives
+ Review Tips
+ Persuasion Strategies
+ The Secret to "unleashing" your unique voice
+ How to prepare and present for the Video Essay
+ How to write about your Strengths
+ How to write about your Weaknesses
+ Leadership Narratives
+ Review Tips
+ Persuasion Strategies
+ The Secret to "unleashing" your unique voice
+ How to prepare and present for the Video Essay
+ How to write about your Strengths
+ How to write about your Weaknesses
Want to try the individual school Essay Guides before upgrading to the Winning MBA Essay Guide? Try below.
F1GMAT's Essay Guides
Harvard MBA Essay Guide (20 Sample Essays)
Growth-Oriented Essay: Curiosity can be seen in many ways. Please share an example of how you have demonstrated curiosity and how that has influenced your growth. (up to 250 words)Example #1: Persistence Narrative
Background Information: The applicant – a design and music talent, shares her journey through several setbacks. She attributes curiosity to her growth.
Curiosity: Philosophy
Curiosity (Explained): Curiosity as a philosophy is tough to translate into a narrative unless you are from the creative industry or your contributions had an influence on a solution or an initiative.
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to capture the humanity of the applicant and her influence in music instead of just highlighting how she overcame multiple roadblocks to gain attention as a designer.
Theme: Persistence
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Life Starts at NO (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #2: International Community Building
Background Information: The applicant, a Machine Learning (ML) entrepreneur specializing in healthcare diagnostics, shares how his curiosity to learn other ML algorithms’ evolution in diagnosing Alzheimer’s, cancer, and heart disease transformed his platform into a global community.
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to show the applicant’s contributions in diagnostic from 2020 to 2024 by citing two events. Such examples build credibility instead of engagements that were recent. The evolution of the platform from an AI development community to a community for discussing the application of AI in diagnostics is captured through a ‘curiosity’ angle.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Growth through Collaboration (AI in Healthcare) (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #3: Culture
Background Information: The applicant, an Entrepreneur from India narrates his first entrepreneurial experience – facilitating exchange of stamps in the late 1990s.
Theme: Culture
MBA Essay Strategy: Instead of addressing the biases in the investor community that could turn preachy, I wanted to focus on the applicant and his entrepreneurial journey by citing two entrepreneurial experiences – a platform(club) for stamp collection and his Grocery delivery App.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – The American Dream (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #4: Addiction
Background Information: The applicant – a beneficiary of the foster home system, captures the sacrifice his adopted grandparents made to save him from a path of addiction. Paying it back through early intervention among teenagers and community engagement is the curiosity narrative.
Theme: Addiction
MBA Essay Strategy: My strategy is to capture a gratitude narrative in the first one-third of the essay to demonstrate motivation for starting the venture and dedicate the latter part of the essay to the unique solution
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Drug Addiction and Gaming (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #5: Scarcity
Background Information: The applicant, an education major, recognizes that 70% of all students in Kenya don’t have a computer. The curiosity that drives him to pivot from one solution to another is the growth narrative.
Theme: Innovation
MBA Essay Strategy: Often, innovation is captured with a ‘hero’ narrative where the applicant is the sole originator of an idea. I wanted to break that cliché and include a person from whom the applicant learned to use a concept called ‘scaffolding.’
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Scarcity (Growth-Oriented HBS Essay Example)Example #6: FinTech
Background Information: The applicant captures a vulnerable moment of a beneficiary to compare his journey of side hustle before a technology giant noticed his talent. Although cryptocurrency is not a flavor for the year, capture niches where innovation is still happening.
Theme: Education, Child Welfare
MBA Essay Strategy: Empathizing with a techno solution is tough without a strong backstory around the beneficiary. For the essay, I wanted to clearly establish the beneficiary – Rami, before the applicant narrates the similarities to his journey and finally shares the solution that emerged from his curiosity.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – FinTech as a Tool for Good (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #7: Learning from the best
Background Information: The applicant – a Remote Engineer in the Oil and Gas industry, reflects on a value that has helped her learn from the best regardless of her geographical limitations.
Theme: Learning
MBA Essay Strategy: The effectiveness of the case-study method depends on the assumption that peers in a Harvard MBA class will help elevate your learning experience. For the essay, I have highlighted the applicant’s recognition of this value proposition with three examples.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Learning from the Best (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #8: Military & Search for IMPACT
Background Information: The most common narrative for US military applicants is to quote 9/11 and the reaction your immediate family had while watching the events unfold. The horrifying moment is captured as a motivation to join the Military. On digging deeper, most applicants would share that their motivations were diverse.
Theme: Career Choice
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to quickly highlight that the applicant had the choice of entering any industry. One achievement to demonstrate his curiosity that I shared in the first half is the invention of a game. Since the game is mentioned in the resume and verifiable through search, I didn’t quote the name. By clearly highlighting the person’s curiosity and career options, the family legacy is used as a factor in joining the military.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Career Choice after a Military Career (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Leadership-Focused Essay: What experiences have shaped who you are, how you invest in others, and what kind of leader you want to become? (up to 250 words)Example #9: Small Business Values
Background Information: The applicant - a second-generation Asian American, is familiar with the values of fiscal conservatism, building relationships, and understanding the daily struggles of the community through his family’s department store.
Theme: Customer-Centric
MBA Essay Strategy: The applicant’s role in developing an App for the store is highlighted in the essay at a crucial part of the narrative so that the essay is not all about his father. I have also humanized the journey – by sharing how upset the father was when the revenues fell by 40%. The essay is about the transformation in the applicant’s value from a person chasing productivity and optimization technique to someone who is truly thinking about the customers.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Small Business Values (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #10: Breaking Away from Family Business
Background Information: A unique challenge that applicants whose parents are public figures or CXOs of businesses or entrepreneurs are the pressure to live up to the parent’s standards or milestones. For the leadership narrative, the burden of legacy is established before the narrative addresses his leadership principles.
Theme: Authenticity
MBA Essay Strategy: For the essay, I want to capture an entrepreneur’s journey to rise above his entrepreneur father’s image. But I didn’t want to make the entire essay about this complex dynamics. The narrative is around the applicant’s focus on customers and surrounding with teams who keeps him grounded.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Breaking Away from Family Business(Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #11: Creativity and Communication
Background Information: When the overall percentage of users with internet access is 62% in South Africa and the inequality accentuated by the rural and urban divide, the applicant endured the lack of digital infrastructure, and spending close to 22% of the family income on gaining relevant information on schools, global exams, and financial assistance.
Theme: Creativity, Communication
MBA Essay Strategy: The strategy is to share why the applicant values no distraction in a child’s home for optimum education experience. Then I highlight the many roadblocks the applicant’s non-profit faced in receiving fee waiver for their cooperative run ISP.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Non-Profit (Telecom) (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #12: Mental Health
Background Information: The applicant like most didn’t pay much attention to the mental health epidemic until tragedy hit home.
Theme: Communication, Innovation
MBA Essay Strategy: A question we frequently get from applicants is whether they should cite tragedy in the family as a motivation for a venture or a non-profit initiative. As long as you don’t linger too much on the tragedy and offer a balanced narrative, there are no restrictions on leveraging unique stories from your life.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Mental Health (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #13: Trauma, Healing & Finding Authentic Self
Background Information: The applicant narrates the absurdity of war in the narrative about the duties in Kabul, and the trauma. Instead of wallowing in on the horror, the applicant takes what makes military applicants strong and guides unprivileged children build life and leadership skills.
Theme: Resilience
MBA Essay Strategy: Capturing PTSD in an essay, the healing process, and the cues that helped the applicant are too sacred to be shared in a Harvard MBA application essay. However, with the right motivation and narrative arcs, you can capture the essence of your journey without sharing the darkest secrets. That is what I did by merging two stories – the horrors of the war with a non-profit engagement.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Military & PTSD (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #14: Addiction, Setback and Leadership Mantra
Background Information: In this narrative, the applicant captures Peru’s Silver mining boom of 2006. The growth experienced in her father’s business shifted the family’s economic status to a new stratosphere. Through the changing economic and family dynamics, the applicant finds her voice in a unique way, initially to record her unheard voice but later as one of the youngest subject matter experts in mining and commodities.
Theme: Failure
MBA Essay Strategy: For the essay, the strategy is to show how life’s unpredictability is a blessing. By narrating two setback events, the essay demonstrates the applicant’s resilience and her acknowledgment of people who made a comeback possible.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Addiction, Setback and Leadership Mantra (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Example #15: War, Immigration and Starting Over Again
Background Information: Despite a raging war in Syria, the family of the applicant was unblemished by the chaos. The strategic government assets near the applicant’s house would have made the region an easy target, but it was not. The calmness of her journey is shattered in one event. From the privileges of a cocooned life, the applicant is forced to think about survival, her sister’s future, and her future in the US. The second half of the narrative captures the change that was forced on her.
Theme: Gratitude, Resilience
MBA Essay Strategy: I consciously chose not to start the essay with a dialogue or trauma. Two lines are allocated to set up the narrative before the trauma event.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – War, Immigration and Starting Over Again (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)Harvard MBA Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career choices and aspirations and the impact you will have on the businesses, organizations, and communities you plan to serve. (up to 300 words)
Example #16: Creative or Finance
Background Information: The applicant starts the narrative with the origin of her talents. The unbridled enthusiasm receives a reality check when in high school, the applicant’s father has a conversation with her about academics. While the applicant picked up her quant skills, she was reaching over 50,000 loyal fans, and her videos captured 1 million views.
Theme: Passion, Talent
MBA Essay Strategy: Capturing vulnerability is the toughest part for Harvard MBA applicants. For this essay example, I have captured the applicant’s uncertainty about career choice throughout the essay. Here the goal is to show vulnerability in the career choice essay while for leadership and growth essay, I could capture one example each from creative and PE industry respectively to balance the narrative. So don’t follow this example without a strategy.
Read: Harvard MBA Business-Minded Essay – Creative or Finance (Business-Minded HBS MBA Essay Example)- Stanford MBA Essay Guide (24 Sample Essays)
- Columbia MBA Essay Guide (21 Sample Essays)
- Wharton MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays)
- INSEAD MBA Essay Guide (19 Sample Essays)
- Darden MBA Essay Guide (21 Sample Essays)
- Yale SOM MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays)
- Tuck MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays)
- Haas MBA Essay Guide (18 Sample Essays)
- NYU Stern MBA Essay Guide (15 Sample Essays + 6 Examples - Visual Essay)
- LBS MBA Essay Guide (6 Sample Essays)
- MIT Sloan MBA Essay Guide (6 Sample Cover Letters + 3 Sample Video Statement Scripts + 3 Sample Optional Essays)
- Kellogg MBA Essay Guide (11 Sample Essays)
- Chicago Booth MBA Essay Guide (12 Sample Essays)
- Ross MBA Essay Guide (31 Sample Essays)
- Duke Fuqua MBA Essay Guide (10 Sample Essays + Two 25 Random Things Samples)
- Cambridge MBA Essay Guide (12 Sample Essays)
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