{"id":24029,"date":"2014-05-23T11:01:37","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T18:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/stanford-gsb-mba-essay-analysis-your-2015-application\/"},"modified":"2014-05-23T11:01:37","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T18:01:37","slug":"stanford-gsb-mba-essay-analysis-your-2015-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/stanford-gsb-mba-essay-analysis-your-2015-application\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanford GSB MBA Essay Analysis, Your 2015 Application"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you ready to dig into your essays? Application essays are specifically and cleverly designed to get into your head. We like to turn the tables on the admissions committees and get inside their<\/i> heads. Why are they asking these questions? What are they looking for? Read on as our experts break down application essay questions to help YOU plan the attack.<\/h3>\n

Stanford GSB has been asking pretty much the same questions for years without much tinkering, which means one important thing… they KNOW what they’re looking for. <\/p>\n

This year, for the Stanford GSB MBA Essay, they cut the total word allotment from 1600 to 1100 words for two personal essays. They suggest 750 words for the first essay and 350 for the second, but remember, these are just suggestions. These numbers tell you about how much they’re expecting for each essay, but their directions give you some leeway. <\/p>\n

Okay, now let\u2019s examine each of these suckers:<\/p>\n

Essay One<\/a>
\nEssay Two<\/a><\/p>\n
\nAight, I’m pumped! Where to next?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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CHECK OUT OUR MBA ESSAY WRITING GUIDE \u279d <\/div>\n

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Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why?<\/h5>\n

Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This may be the hardest of all b-school essays to write, and to write well. Why? Because it\u2019s so open-ended. They haven\u2019t just given you a hunk of clay and asked you to mold it. They\u2019ve given you canvas, paint, wood, sheet metal, circuit boards, copper wire, and a hundred other elements and have asked you to \u201cgenerate something awe-inspiring.\u201d While you\u2019re painting a blue sky on your canvas paper, the guy in the station next to you is creating a computer that can communicate with aliens. Intimidating. What are others writing about!? What are the guys who are GETTING IN<\/a> writing about?<\/p>\n

Well, let\u2019s start there\u2014if that\u2019s plaguing you, you\u2019re asking the wrong question. It has absolutely nothing to with WHAT others are writing about, but HOW they\u2019re writing. Don\u2019t misunderstand us here; this isn\u2019t about writing skill. B-school essays are never about mastery of prose. The \u201chow\u201d here refers to the manner in which the successful candidates are able to introspect, and walk around an experience, and assess and interpret different points of view, and offer new and intriguing points of view, and reveal deeply personal tales that offer key insights into what they\u2019re MADE of\u2014it\u2019s any number of those things. It\u2019s not the story itself.<\/p>\n

Gonna lift some words from Stanford\u2019s bullet points. Values, experiences, lessons. Written from the heart. Influence.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve talked about this Stanford essay a bunch before<\/a>, so this time around, we wanna focus on these concepts above.<\/p>\n

Especially that word influence<\/strong>. What has shaped you? Who are you today, and what process has brought that forward? If you\u2019re the grand canyon, don\u2019t tell us the specs of how big you are, and how deep your canyons are. Instead, focus on the way WATER and WIND eroded and molded you. It\u2019s the shaping, the influencing, the MOLDING we wanna know about. This is more revealing than \u201cthe result.\u201d \u201cThe thing.\u201d It\u2019s all in the shaping.<\/p>\n

Consider the following statement. \u201cI just landed a commercial jet containing 300 passengers.\u201d Impressive? Maybe. Let\u2019s consider two authors of that statement. Author 1\u2014a 58-year-old veteran pilot with military experience, and 20 years of experience as a professional pilot. Author 1 has flown hundreds of flights every year for the past 20 years. Let\u2019s consider the same statement, but introduce a new author, Author 2. Author 2 is 13 years old, scared of heights, and has a crippling fear of flying. He needs to be sedated every time he flies, in fact. One day, he wakes up mid-flight, due to his sedation unintentionally wearing off. He notices all of the passengers beside him unconscious, the captains of the plane incapacitated, and he turns out to be the only person on board who can communicate with air traffic control. The kid puts on the headset, now fueled by a will to survive that trumps all of his phobias, is guided by folks on the ground, and successfully lands the plane, saving the lives of hundreds on board.<\/p>\n

Now ask yourself, which \u201clanding of the commercial jet\u201d feels cooler, more revealing about THE PERSON WHO PERFORMED THE FEAT? The answer is obvious, and the example was purposely absurd to demonstrate a point. The stuff Stanford wants to know about isn\u2019t the \u201clanding of the aircraft.\u201d They wanna know about the phobia. The decision to walk into the cockpit in spite of the phobia. They wanna know how someone with these fears, with zero experience, etc. etc., could pull this thing off. They wanna know about the WATER and WIND folks\u2026 that shaped the grand canyon. Not the canyon itself.<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s bring this back down to Earth. When you\u2019re figuring out what matters most to you, think about polarities in your development. The strongest stories are the ones that have the most intense and compelling \u201carcs\u201d where your starting point is here at point A and then somehow, things, people, circumstances, experiences, etc. SHAPED you\u2026 MOLDED YOU (like water and air) to travel to point B where you ended up\u2014essentially\u2014a different person. We need to understand all that CONTEXT. If you\u2019re talking about an experience that \u201cchanged\u201d you, or that \u201cmade you who you are,\u201d it\u2019s only as effective as our understanding of who you were BEFORE that experience so we can contextualize the change. If a person affected you significantly, same deal\u2014we need to know who you were BEFORE that person affected you.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore & After\u201d is an incredibly powerful tool for MOST b-school essays, and never more powerful than here for Stanford\u2019s famous essay.<\/p>\n

Grand Canyon, ladies and gentlemen. But not the canyon itself\u2014water and air. Water. And air.<\/p>\n

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Ready to Start your MBA?<\/pre>\n
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Essay 2: Enlighten us on how earning your MBA at Stanford will enable you to realize your ambitions.<\/h5>\n
Essay 2: Enlighten us on how earning your MBA at Stanford will enable you to realize your ambitions.A strong response to this essay question will:<\/p>\n