Columbia MBA Essay Question
We believe Columbia Business School is a special place with a collaborative learning environment in which students feel a sense of belonging, agency, and partnership--academically, culturally, and professionally.
How would you co-create your optimal MBA experience at CBS? Please be specific. (250 words) (Common for both January and August entering class)
Background Information: The Essay is of a Business development person working in Technology.
Theme: Mentorship, Hands-on Experience
Theme (Explained): Mentorship as a theme is common, but applicants don’t spend enough words reiterating why learning from practitioners is valuable. For the theme to work, you must bring ‘specific’ values that a one-on-one mentorship from a CXO brought. In this essay, the applicant highlights coaching on pitching a product as the unique learning experience.
Profile: Business Development
Industry: Technology
MBA Essay Strategy: The narrative highlights the first-hand training she had received from the CEO and chairman as a Business Development executive. The meticulous breakdown of her sales script – the inflection and pauses felt unnecessary for the applicant. However, when the applicant joined the CEO for a presentation in London, she realized the power of the training.
CBS professors are predominantly practitioners. Even the Executive in Residence is Columbia’s way of reaffirming the USP of the MBA program. Strategically include themes of mentorship in the optimal MBA experience essay. For this essay, I have included professional and entrepreneurial experiences to reaffirm the value of mentorship. Even the contribution to the CBS community is narrated through the theme of mentorship.
Admission Consultant's Note: Can a one theme strategy be considered an overkill?
Not really. I have seen applicants lean into their predominant identity and personality traits, repeatedly in one essay. Use interesting examples and transitions to make the narrative palatable for a reader who is reading essays in the hundreds.
Opener: Starting the essay with an applicant’s unique worldview, experience and hardship is one way to immediately hook the reader. Identify your unique journeys and shortlist the one that your competitors are unlikely to have traversed.
Columbia MBA Optimal Experience: Unique Insights from Mentors (246 Words)
Getting coached by the CEO was a career-defining boot camp. Every morning, I presented three versions of the pitch. He would offer feedback on each small inflection.
When I introduced a few complex sentences, he would comment, “You are not selling to Oxford professors.” The practice was exhausting, but when executives from Ghana to Canada..
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