Calling all NYU Fall '09 applicants!

sonibubu-

You are right. I still don't have the stats from last years class.

BTW - for all the 2008 applicants, couple of questions from last year-

1. What's up with Essay 3? I am contenmplating writing an essay for it as I feel I can best express myself, but is this forwned upon?

2. Which essay do you write about what classes you will take? Essay 1 or Essay 2? I guess what I am trying to ask is how did you break up your Why Stern? content between Essay 1 and Essay 2?

Any thoughts?

One school I am most certainly applying to. By far the most enthusiastic alumni of any school I have met so far.

Round 1 deadline released as November 15th.

Good luck everyone! I'll try to check back here often to answer questions and give pointers. Don't worry about essay 3 too much. I HATED it at first, but in the end, it was the only fun essay I had for schools. Although, I didn't write a regular essay, I made a game in powerpoint.

Writing an essay for question 3 is fine, but a bit of a wasted opportunity. Essay 3 famously seems to swing some candidacy. I will find out a lot more as the application process goes on given my role in the class of 2009. It should be an exciting fall.

Good Luck! I will post back after my 10 week sentence of hard work is over.

Do you really think that's the case?

75% of candidates write something for essay 3. big thing is you need to tell adcom about yourself so make sure your creativity does that if you choose not to write in prose.

I'm in for the part time program starting in the fall and Essay 3 definitely gave me the creeps as well. I am about as A-type as they come and I was really scared that anything creative would be too gimmicky, and an essay would be too vanilla. I ended up comprimising and wrote an essay, but it had a creative theme that still reinforced my best professional traits (and traits that were not necessarily evident in other parts of the application).

I think that the most important thing to do is think about your whole candidacy and career goals from the rest of the application and think - whats missing? what will their doubts be about accepting me?

For me this was 2 things -
a) I will only have 3 yrs of experience at matriculation and I have been at 2 different companies. How do I show that I'm a leader and add value through project management even though I am a lower title and am young.
b) I am an accountant by training, IT project management is my career. BORING. How do I show that I'm more than a super a-type nerd with the soft skills to succeed in my career goal (finance-focused IT consulting in my own business).

Like I said, my essay had a creative theme and I was able to demonstrate communication skills and other "softer" traits and tie it in with my the quantitative skills that were evident in my major, grades, gmat etc to show the whole picture. Additionally, I used this essay to talk in more detail about my role as the leader and initiator of my projects. (Kind of hard to talk about this in such general terms without giving away the whole specific topic, I guess you could PM me if this seems confusing). I wouldn't underestimate the fact that this essay is such a blank canvas. Use it to fill in the holes that will "make or break" your application. I personally decided not to go too creative for creative's sake, and send in some painting or something when that is SO not me and I had those critical points to address. Just my 2 cents!

I am thinking of using essay 3 to write about a non-professional community and extra-curricular activity that I take part in to show my leadership skills outside of work as well some of my passion and interests..

I consider these activities an integral part of my story and therefore am a little worried that if I go too creative and "make" something it might dilute the message and story I am trying to get across..and shift the focus to "what has he made?" vs "what has he done?"

From my visit there, they told me it was closer to 50%. Either way, a good number of applicants write essays.

For all the 2008 applications who applied last year, how did you break the Why Stern portion between Essay 1 and Essay 2?

Essay 1-
(a) What choices have you made that led you to your current position?
(b) Why pursue an MBA at this point in your life?
(c) What is your career goal upon graduation from NYU Stern? What is your long-term career goal?

Essay 2-
The NYU Stern community is one of our strongest assets. Please answer the following questions about our community:

(a) What is your personal experience with the Stern community? What actions have you taken to learn more about us?
(b) How would you contribute to our community as a student?
(c) How will you benefit personally and professionally from the Stern community?

So my question is where do you talk about the following?
- Classes that you plan to take
- Alumni's you have spoken to
- Clubs
- Other Stern community specific activities.

I am thinking of including my classes and a few sentences of Why Stern in Essay 1 but not talk about the clubs and other activities there. In Essay 2 is where I talk about my research, the clubs and initiatives I will take part in.

Would be interested to know what past applicants did.

P.S - These are last year's essays so before you jump on me, no, I don't know what the essay this year will be - I am just assuming them to be the same.

I interpreted it like this...

Essay 1
choices = career progress
why pursue MBA = why now? why do you need an MBA?
goals = short-term & long-term

Essay 2
stern experience = info sessions, class visits, talk with students, etc
contribute to community = what do you want to get involved in...hopefully unique NYU
benefit personally/professinally = why stern? (give 'um love here)

Exactly.

Essay 2 is simply, "Why Stern?"

I think some people get their interview off the back of it. It makes a lot of sense to me that it would - it gives a good tie to the character of a lot of people there I think. I think it is a big opportunity for fun, and a lot of my friends did really quite crazy essay 3's.

I will know a lot more as I get in next year, but I think it is important, especially given the other essays are now 250 words. Plus, you see how wrapped up Chicago are in the powerpoint and what it gave them.

Hey 3underscore,

What's with the lack of gmatclub love from Stern? You gotta go straighten out those admissions people

How's the internship going?

I may apply to Stern, but I'm not sure how strong MC recruiting is at the school (McK, BCG, Bain, Monitor). I'll talk to the prez of consulting club when I visit in the fall. Can't beat the location but why go if I can't get the job I want coming out of school?

I think I may get killed by current students at Stern for saying this, but I don't consider Stern a choice for big 3 consulting companies. As much as it hates being called a finance powerhouse, that is what it is - and it sure is one of the very best in that!

Not to say that Stern does NOT have consulting, yes it does, but the hiring by big3 is substantially lower than its peers.

Chew on this - I just checked 2007's employment report and Stern has a 12% placement in consulting, compared to the "peer" schools such as Ross (31%) and Cornell (17%). I would be willing to say even Duke has a higher placement in consulting. As for banking placement Stern sits nicely at 50% - higher than even Wharton's!

I have also spoken to a past student who was interested in big3 consulting and attended Stern and he mentioned that if you are a career-switcher it is all the more harder to get into big3 at Stern..he ended up at a Capgemini, a good consulting company but I wouldn't classify it as core strategy consulting. It is "considerably" easier for a career-switcher into banking than into big3 consulting at Stern IMHO.

I can see 3underscore gunning for me now

EDIT - Also I think Columbia takes some of the shine off Stern when it comes to consulting recruiting in NYC. Just like I think how Stern takes some of it when it comes to finance..