Columbia MBA Essay #2: We believe Columbia Business School is a special place. CBS proudly fosters a collaborative learning environment through curricular experiences like our clusters and learning teams, an extremely active co-curricular and student life environment, and career mentorship opportunities like our Executives-in-Residence program.
Why do you feel Columbia Business School is a good fit for you academically, culturally, and professionally? Please be specific. (Maximum 250 Words)
How to combine EIR and Learning Clusters into a Columbia MBA Fit narrative?
#1. Diversity Narrative
Although the school has clearly highlighted two aspects – collaborative learning teams through clusters and Executives-in-Residence respectively, there is a common thread driving the three features – diversity.
The Executive in Residence program offers students the opportunity to receive mentorship from leaders from diverse industries, functions, and expertise.
Diversity is the common hook for this narrative. If you were a person who had learned and grew under such a diverse perspective, strategically mention a mentorship experience, a lesson that you implemented professionally and connect it all with the unique learning opportunities you had in a multicultural environment (professionally and volunteering).
#2. Collaborative learning and Career Mentorship Narrative
The second narrative aligns with the school’s expectations. One approach that connects with the admissions team is a story that demonstrates that you had a similar experience in school – undergraduate and graduate.
If you are a global citizen, mention how each tenure improved cultural sensitivity and your ability to cross communication barriers.
Highlight the diversity of the class and your peer group.
On career mentorship, the experience in volunteering where you had the privilege of mentorship from a diverse group of board members, CXO or leaders are all good examples to connect with the mentorship.
#3. Academic, Culture and Professional Narrative
The ideal narrative is a clear separation of the three aspects of your personality – academic, culture and professional.
The academic can connect with the learning teams and cluster at Columbia MBA.
The Cultural one at work, home, volunteering or extra-curricular can connect with the inclusive ethos of New York and Columbia.
The professional narrative can connect with the personalized mentorship that you might have received at work.
Before Writing the Good Fit Essay – Understand Theme vs. USP
The approach that we are suggesting is based on profiles of clients who received admission to the Columbia MBA program. The most obvious way to answer the essay is to write 3-4 unique selling points of the program and say that you would be a good fit based on your post-MBA job function/industry and the goals. But since in the goal’s essay, we have mentioned at least 2-3 values from Columbia MBA, the fit essay should capture one unique advantage of the program. The uniqueness should be obvious. It can’t be general statements about experiential learning, global immersion programs, or curriculum - three areas that are quoted the most.
We would suggest that you reverse the question and answer it.
Why do you feel that you would be a good fit for Columbia Business School?
This is for two reasons.
Experience: Columbia Business School doesn’t accept one type of candidate. The entry criteria are stringent, but that doesn’t mean the admissions team is not seeking diversity within the highly academic candidate pool. The experience becomes the uniqueness through which the academic and experienced profiles are separated. Narrating an event that is tied closely to your biggest achievement and connecting it to one of the unique advantages of the Columbia MBA program is a template that works for the ‘fit’ essay.
The Quality: It could be the confidence with which the applicant summarizes their career or the clear post-MBA goal; there is always that quality of attentive listening, creative thinking, high-energy and persistence that is on display during the initial interaction that gives us the confidence that the candidate has the ‘quality’ to cross the numerous roadblocks for Columbia Business School. Translating the quality into a narrative is a challenge, but by reading out loud the ‘thoughts’ that you had while solving a problem, you could share the unique approach that made the achievement possible.
What should be the theme of the essay?
Theme in your essay should capture your values and exposure. No matter what you choose, you must highlight 3 of the 5 traits. Working in a multicultural/multinational environment that a city offers is mandatory.
#1. Working in a City/Multinational/Multicultural Environment
The Country vs. City Mouse might have been a familiar bedtime story for you as a kid. The City Mouse, while visiting his cousin in the country, found the simple cuisine on which they thrived to be appalling. To show the good life, the city mouse takes the cousin to an exquisite restaurant and feeds him the finest cheese. The Chef, seeing a couple of mice, quickly chases them away. Each indulgent meal in the city is followed by a threat to their life. Tired of the city life, the country mouse concludes, "I'd rather gnaw a bean than be gnawed by continual fear.”
If you haven’t worked in a city like NYC, your life could very well be like the country mouse, unable to focus on the daily learning tasks. The admissions team is skeptical of candidates with no international experience or experience working in a ‘chaotic’ environment.
A project experience in NYC or a city similar to NYC (Hong Kong, Mumbai, London, Chicago, Toronto, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore) would immediately address the admission team’s doubts about your ability to adapt.
Even better would be a narrative that captures the value NYC offers to find new deals, build partnerships through random events, or the ease of access to ‘influencers.’
Columbia Business school team has shared several accounts of how they met a Finance Minister/International policymaker/sportsperson in a fund-raising event or a casual dinner and invited them for a speaker series. Such casual conversations have translated to visits. You won’t find such interactions in a ‘college’ town where access to influencers is not commonplace.
Columbia Business School has this unique networking advantage.
Your history of leveraging events for networking would immediately convey ‘fit’ and hint that you would use similar opportunities at Columbia Business School for organizing events, finding internship opportunities, or converting a casual conversation to an interview.
Read Sample Fit, Goals and PPIL Essays with F1GMAT's Columbia MBA Essay Guide
