atwater wrote:
It's a tough one for sure.
To me essay 1 is more like a mix bag of the standard career goal essay and Stanford's "what matters" one. I would say focus is definitely on future plan but career progression could help explain how the goals have been shaped along the way.
Another interesting observation of this one is since it mentions Wharton's goal, are we going to align ours with Wharton too?
Any thoughts, guys?
I would not try to guess what the adcom wants to hear from you. Instead, I would decide on what I want the adcom to know about my personality, career, interests, etc. It is good to take Paul Bodine's book and follow his advice on how to approach the application. The key is in deciding on what exactly your strengths are, defining examples of such, understanding your weaknesses and finding ways to address them in your app.
It is crucial to view all (ALL!) components of your application holistically. In other words, it helps to research all the components of the application, and decide on how each of the parts will be used and what part of the overarching statement will be assigned to each of them. Simply speaking, think strategically, define the functions of the application components, maybe evaluate their weight and assign tasks to them.
In this way, depending on your plan, you may want to mention your hobbies briefly in essays 1, 2, and 3, (or in none at all) and then focus on your unique hobby that may be an illustration of something that you think will help you be ahead of the pack.
I think assigning a narrow function to an essay topic (as in "fit essay", "goals essay", etc.) is only helpful within the broader framework of your application strategy. Instead, you may want to stress your fit in several essays, each giving a new interesting angle of this "fit", same thing goes for your career goals. After all, all of your essays, recos, test scores, and all other components of your app will be viewed as your answer to "Why MBA? Why Wharton? Why now?", not just the goals essay.