Wharton 2013 - Calling All Applicants

Guys can I include 'networking' as something as something I'd like to do in that 'work-free hours essay?

I would say no - I'd use the essay to talk about something unique that you are passionate about. But, I was not a fan of that essay prompt so I didn't answer it.

Well, here's the deal - I'm stuck.

I've written the Essay 1 and I've prepared the material and story for the 'Knowledge for action' essay. I'm going to illustrate a professional success here.

Now I have to choose between 'pick one wharton course/activity' and '3 work-free hours' essays and I'm simply clueless.

Here are my questions:

1. Apropos the 'pick one wharton course/activity' essay - It's 500 words! Even if I zeroed in on one particular activity or club that I'd be interested in, there's still way too less info available on internet about it. How am I gonna fill the space?

2. Apropos the '3 work-free hours' essay - I'd honestly use those 3 hours for networking, are you sure I can't show that?

Regards

Up to you- if you can make it compelling, go for it. Networking just seems like a pretty weak/uninteresting use of your unexpected free time IMO.

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finmaster, regarding the course/activity essay, while it is true that it doesn't take too much space to specify one particular activity or course, you also have to talk about why it matters to you. Talking about the course and explaining the reason(s) for selecting that course should easily get you to 500 words.

In the course/activity essay, this is where you can shine. Show Wharton that you've taken the time to really research the school, come up with what it is exactly that you're looking to get out of it, why its important, and how will you do it. Not sure if you have had a chance to speak with current students, or even better, visit campus/a Wharton event? But if you have, this would be a great place to weave it in. From my 3 essays (I choose the course/activity and the Knowledge for Action topics), this is probably my most powerful because I:
1) Show that I've done a lot of homework on the school
2) Talk about my visit to the campus; name people I met who are part of the club I am interested in
3) Discuss how and why this particular event/club is important to me and my future career
4) Demonstrate how I could contribute to Wharton in a unique way through this club

Hopefully you can follow that guideline. Good luck.

Also, I agree with the posters above: networking is probably not the best topic, unless you can make it VERY powerful...I'm not sure how you would do that.

What was the Lauder interview like? Also, did you end up filling 1,000 words for both essays?

agreed. 500 words is nothing. i wrote about an extracurricular i was involved in. one paragraph about your involvement. one paragraph about what you would do. one paragraph with some tie-in to wharton. BOOM. finished.

I did not find any requirement about the essay's format on Wharton's website. I want to check with you whether there is any requirement, such as the font, the space?

Guys,

I am in a dilemma here. I am a re-applicant and so I obviously need to use the optional essay to address the re-applicant specific requirements. That can be done in 250 words. It is not a lot but can make it work.The problem is that I also need to discuss an extenuating circumstance as well.
Trying to fit all this in one essay of 250 words is turning out to be a nightmare. I had an email conversation with Victor Lee, the most knowledgeable and most helpful guy on Wharton's S2S forum, and he suggested that going upto 350 words might be OK in this case.

Does anyone have any views on how to deal with this issue ? I was wondering if any of you faced a similar problem and have anything from adcoms on this issue. I did send an email to adcom as well and haven't received a response yet.

Thanks !

I'm in the exact same situation as you. I don't get why Wharton is not allowing re-applicants to submit both the normal re-applicant essay and the optional one. I understand that they want to cut down on the number of essays they have to read, but they're not giving us a lot of breathing room here. I think victor is right that going up to around 300 should be ok. Not sure about 350; that's really pushing it. Have you e-mailed the admissions office about this?

The word counts are definitely flexible and are primarily intended to prevent people from endlessly opining on topics. I used the opt essay to explain an extenuating circumstance and was able to spin it into a strength, but doing so meant that I used extra words.

The best advice I can offer is - if you feel that abiding by the word count will absolutely prevent you from being able to explain something that will otherwise prevent you from moving forward, then it is better to use extra words and give yourself a shot.

Yeah, I don't understand the logic behind asking to put everything in 250 words. Reapp AND extenuating circumstance = very few students
I know Wharton has a larger number of re-applicants than most of the other schools but I don't assume every re-applicant has an extenuating circumstance to discuss

I did email the adcom, but, haven't heard anything back from them. I sent my email a day or two before Christmas, so its possible that the office is closed now and will re-open tomorrow. Not sure if they will be able to get back to me before the deadline. Anyways, if I hear anything from them, I will let you know.

Best Wishes,

I agree 100 % with you.

In my humble opinion, I would write an essay about an extracurricular activity. Wharton has a bunch of clubs, all of which can be viewed at WGAWORLD.COM. Choosing to write about an extra curricular give you the opportunity to discuss a passion, a sport that you played, a way that you like to interact with others etc. This avenue is so flexible if you use it appropriately and it will give you an incredible platform to wow the reader. For instance, if you competed in crew, you could talk about joining the rowing club at Wharton because you spent X years rowing and learned how to work with, motivate, and lead others to victory etc.

If you write about networking you will sound like a plain vanilla person who is only interested in getting to know people for professional gain... that won't go over well and will probably push you in the direction of a likely rejection.

If you applied within the past 2 years, adcom can simply dig up your previous app to look at the optional essay. So if the extenuating circumstance was discussed in the last app, then perhaps it's redundant to bring it up again.

The problem is that I didn't discuss it last time.
Even if I had discussed it last time, I think that needs to be repeated here. Its entirely upto adcom to decide what parts of your previous year's application they would look at. The new application has to stand on its own merit. Sometimes they just look at the comments last year's reviewer left on your application. That being said, if the extenuating circumstance is something that might raise an eyebrow, we will be better off explaining it and not leaving it on luck