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16 Aug 2017, 22:50
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Hey there future Tepperites!
Many B-Schools have slimmed their required essay sections over the years. Tepper is the latest to attempt to essentialize a candidate through a single, short essay. Makes things tough. Soooo few words, yet you probably have sooo much to say! Well, we wanted to jump in and get y'all started. throw around a few ideas and suggestions to help you crack open that nut.
Let’s have a look…
Tell us about yourself! There are no right or wrong answers. Be authentic and tell us what we won’t learn about you in the rest of your application.
Imagine that you meet up with a member of the admission committee at an airport while on a layover. You have an opportunity to make a memorable impression. Use this essay to introduce yourself. Include any information that you believe is important for the committee member to know about you both professionally and personally. (Maximum 300-350 words, 12-point font, double-spaced)
First thing you need to do is develop a sense of what’s interesting about you… not just to yourself, but to others as well. This is more art than science. But we have (an admittedly crude) method for at least kickstarting that private investigation.
Here’s how it works:
1. Write down your most impressive features (list of 10). Think of features as any of the following: achievements in general, talents, unique personal traits, interesting life experiences, key professional achievements, unbelievably innovative “big idea,” cool skills, etc. Some examples: Top marks at an Ivy or IIT or Tsinghua; GMAT damn near 800; worked in a leadership role at a place like Google, Tesla, BP, huge family enterprises; from some place other than America, India, or China (Moldova, Uruguay, anywhere in Africa, etc.); consistent and strong leadership role in a volunteer capacity at a place like Red Cross, Amnesty International, etc.; speak five languages; you decided one day to become a contortionist and became famous for it… at Goldman Sachs; and so on.
2. Rank this list. How? In terms of which one is most meaningful to YOU PERSONALLY. This requires discipline and a heaping teaspoon of honesty. Think of this as a private admission to yourself… which one of these are you most proud of? Do you care most about? Is your greatest achievement? Or the hobby you are most passionate about? What defines you the most? It is somehow – impossibly – a combination of all those things. Take a swing, and rank them 1 through 10 (1 being the MOST).
3. Weight this list. Use the following scale and place this number NEXT to your updated (ranked) list:
◦ 1 point – No one else on Earth can lay claim to this.
◦ 5 points – Very few applicants have achieved/done/experienced this.
◦ 10 points – Many other applicants are likely to have achieved/done/experienced this.
◦ 15 points – Virtually every competitive applicant will have some version of this.
4. Multiply. Multiply the initial rank and the weight to general a Final Number. (To illustrate, let’s say a leadership story from McKinsey ranked 6th on your list and it was somewhat unique but not all that unique, and you weighted it a “5” (very few students have achieved this), you’d end up with a Final Score of 30 for the McKinsey item (6 x 5).
5. Reorder Your List. Lowest Number FIRST. Look at it. See what it tells you. (This is not a perfect methodology by any means, and sometimes it won’t reveal much… but in most cases it can be a useful tool to at least nudge you in the right direction.)
Here’s why we went through all that. Given a ONE-SHOT-TO-LEAVE-AN-IMPRESSION scenario, you will probably be best served focusing on the items that end up at the TOP of your final list, and leaving aside the stuff at the bottom. In weighting these items, this exercise should expose traits and achievements you may be accustomed to regarding as impressive, but that are, in fact, not as impressive as some other stuff in your arsenal. THOSE are the items (your “greatest hits”) that you need to bring to THIS kind of impression.
Once you zero in on your top two or three items that combine well to paint a strong but also interesting/crackling portrait of who you are, what makes you tick, and why you should remain STUCK in this admission committee’s head, now it’s time to draft this sucker. 300-350 words is going to be two to three paragraphs max. Our recommendation is to waste NO time ramping up. Dive in. If you’re the guy/gal with the game changing idea, open with it:
“What if we’re looking at energy capture through solar panels incorrectly? What if we could achieve 2x the projected energy capture through existing automobiles instead within 8 months?”
Or, lead with the problem that bumps and sets your idea: “Companies today with over 500 employees spend X on Y, instead of Z. The problem? ABC. Here’s how we can solve it.”
If you’re a born leader (and that’s high on your list from our exercise), lead with that: “The battlefield looks different from a TV screen at an airport than it does from the inside of a tank.”
You get the idea. No soft introductions. There’s simply no time. Get to the thing you need to talk about. And go through one or two or three things off your list. Use maybe 200-250 words of your total on that. “The stuff.” For your final 100-150 words, make a case for why that stuff was necessary to communicate. Convey (somehow) that that information should motivate ANYONE listening to want to offer this guy/gal a seat at their school because it foretells success in the future. As long as you have those two pieces (communicating succinctly your TOP traits/qualities as well as some context for why that makes you fierce as an MBA candidate), your first draft will be headed in a solid direction.
And that's that. Helpful, eh? If you have any questions on it or Tepper or anything, just reply here or shoot us a PM. And if you want more Essay Analysis Goodness, check out more schools here. We're updating 'em daily as new prompts are released, so keep checking back.
Many B-Schools have slimmed their required essay sections over the years. Tepper is the latest to attempt to essentialize a candidate through a single, short essay. Makes things tough. Soooo few words, yet you probably have sooo much to say! Well, we wanted to jump in and get y'all started. throw around a few ideas and suggestions to help you crack open that nut.
Let’s have a look…
Question:
Tell us about yourself! There are no right or wrong answers. Be authentic and tell us what we won’t learn about you in the rest of your application.
Imagine that you meet up with a member of the admission committee at an airport while on a layover. You have an opportunity to make a memorable impression. Use this essay to introduce yourself. Include any information that you believe is important for the committee member to know about you both professionally and personally. (Maximum 300-350 words, 12-point font, double-spaced)
Analysis:
First thing you need to do is develop a sense of what’s interesting about you… not just to yourself, but to others as well. This is more art than science. But we have (an admittedly crude) method for at least kickstarting that private investigation.
Here’s how it works:
1. Write down your most impressive features (list of 10). Think of features as any of the following: achievements in general, talents, unique personal traits, interesting life experiences, key professional achievements, unbelievably innovative “big idea,” cool skills, etc. Some examples: Top marks at an Ivy or IIT or Tsinghua; GMAT damn near 800; worked in a leadership role at a place like Google, Tesla, BP, huge family enterprises; from some place other than America, India, or China (Moldova, Uruguay, anywhere in Africa, etc.); consistent and strong leadership role in a volunteer capacity at a place like Red Cross, Amnesty International, etc.; speak five languages; you decided one day to become a contortionist and became famous for it… at Goldman Sachs; and so on.
2. Rank this list. How? In terms of which one is most meaningful to YOU PERSONALLY. This requires discipline and a heaping teaspoon of honesty. Think of this as a private admission to yourself… which one of these are you most proud of? Do you care most about? Is your greatest achievement? Or the hobby you are most passionate about? What defines you the most? It is somehow – impossibly – a combination of all those things. Take a swing, and rank them 1 through 10 (1 being the MOST).
3. Weight this list. Use the following scale and place this number NEXT to your updated (ranked) list:
◦ 1 point – No one else on Earth can lay claim to this.
◦ 5 points – Very few applicants have achieved/done/experienced this.
◦ 10 points – Many other applicants are likely to have achieved/done/experienced this.
◦ 15 points – Virtually every competitive applicant will have some version of this.
4. Multiply. Multiply the initial rank and the weight to general a Final Number. (To illustrate, let’s say a leadership story from McKinsey ranked 6th on your list and it was somewhat unique but not all that unique, and you weighted it a “5” (very few students have achieved this), you’d end up with a Final Score of 30 for the McKinsey item (6 x 5).
5. Reorder Your List. Lowest Number FIRST. Look at it. See what it tells you. (This is not a perfect methodology by any means, and sometimes it won’t reveal much… but in most cases it can be a useful tool to at least nudge you in the right direction.)
Here’s why we went through all that. Given a ONE-SHOT-TO-LEAVE-AN-IMPRESSION scenario, you will probably be best served focusing on the items that end up at the TOP of your final list, and leaving aside the stuff at the bottom. In weighting these items, this exercise should expose traits and achievements you may be accustomed to regarding as impressive, but that are, in fact, not as impressive as some other stuff in your arsenal. THOSE are the items (your “greatest hits”) that you need to bring to THIS kind of impression.
Once you zero in on your top two or three items that combine well to paint a strong but also interesting/crackling portrait of who you are, what makes you tick, and why you should remain STUCK in this admission committee’s head, now it’s time to draft this sucker. 300-350 words is going to be two to three paragraphs max. Our recommendation is to waste NO time ramping up. Dive in. If you’re the guy/gal with the game changing idea, open with it:
“What if we’re looking at energy capture through solar panels incorrectly? What if we could achieve 2x the projected energy capture through existing automobiles instead within 8 months?”
Or, lead with the problem that bumps and sets your idea: “Companies today with over 500 employees spend X on Y, instead of Z. The problem? ABC. Here’s how we can solve it.”
If you’re a born leader (and that’s high on your list from our exercise), lead with that: “The battlefield looks different from a TV screen at an airport than it does from the inside of a tank.”
You get the idea. No soft introductions. There’s simply no time. Get to the thing you need to talk about. And go through one or two or three things off your list. Use maybe 200-250 words of your total on that. “The stuff.” For your final 100-150 words, make a case for why that stuff was necessary to communicate. Convey (somehow) that that information should motivate ANYONE listening to want to offer this guy/gal a seat at their school because it foretells success in the future. As long as you have those two pieces (communicating succinctly your TOP traits/qualities as well as some context for why that makes you fierce as an MBA candidate), your first draft will be headed in a solid direction.
And that's that. Helpful, eh? If you have any questions on it or Tepper or anything, just reply here or shoot us a PM. And if you want more Essay Analysis Goodness, check out more schools here. We're updating 'em daily as new prompts are released, so keep checking back.
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