Wharton
Wharton Essay Question Analyses and Deadlines 2010-11
Please find below the deadlines for the regular 2-year MBA program and my comments/tips (beside the vertical orange bars) on the essay questions. (For deadline and essay question information for the MBA/MA Lauder program please refer to the Wharton website.) Wharton has changed its essay questions dramatically, and has done away with its traditionally long essay about goals and “Why Wharton.” They ask several specific questions to get at the qualities that they are looking for, and this essay set requires you to tailor your stories to Wharton.
All deadlines are 5:00 p.m. EST.
| Deadline | Decision Notification | |
| Round 1 | Oct. 4, 2010 | December 17, 2010 |
| Round 2 | January 4, 2011 | March 24, 2011 |
| Round 3 | March 3, 2011 | May 12, 2011 |
Fall 2010 Essay Questions
The Admissions Committee is interested in getting to know you on both a professional and personal level. We encourage you to be introspective, candid, and succinct. Most importantly, we suggest you be yourself.
Required Question:
What are your professional objectives? (300 words)
This is a shortened version of their traditionally long goals essay question. In 300 words or fewer, you are to state your future career goals. You can go ahead and explain briefly why you wish to attend Wharton as well. My sense here is that they are more interested in finding out about you, and can make their own determination as to whether or not you are the right fit based on the three longer essays below.
Respond to 3 of the following 4 questions:
- Student and alumni engagement has at times led to the creation of innovative classes. For example, through extraordinary efforts, a small group of current students partnered with faculty to create a timely course entitled, “Disaster Response: Haiti and Beyond,” empowering students to leverage the talented Wharton community to improve the lives of the Haiti earthquake victims. Similarly, Wharton students and alumni helped to create the “Innovation and the Indian Healthcare Industry” which took students to India where they studied the full range of healthcare issues in India. If you were able to create a Wharton course on any topic, what would it be? (700 words)
This is an essay in which you can demonstrate your creativity, awareness of current and pressing societal issues, professional skills and experiences, personal qualities, future vision and potential to contribute to the Wharton community and beyond. A strong and credible essay would include your vision for a relevant course rooted in your own experience and expertise. Let’s say that you’d like to create a course to address the topic of microfinance. (And, by the way, you are not restricted to writing about topics related to developing countries.) Why would you be the right person to develop this course? What experiences, skills and knowledge do you have that will enable you to do this? Why is this course important and why would it be relevant (or be of interest) to Wharton students? What would be your mission in the course? When writing this essay, make sure that you focus not just on the future and the hypothetical but also on your own strengths and expertise. Ultimately, this essay is a way for them to learn more about you as a candidate.
2. Reflect on a time when you turned down an opportunity. What was the thought process behind your decision? Would you make the same decision today? (600 words)
There is no right or wrong answer to this question, as some applicants will talk about a lost opportunity that they do not regret, while others may talk about having done things differently. Again, the admissions committee wants to get better insight into you as a person, and is more interested in understanding how you go about making decisions. The key question here is “What was the thought process behind your decision?” They are asking for an honest, reflective and thoughtful response. In business and especially in high level management, executives are asked to make significant decisions on a regular basis. Sometimes they must do so with limited time and limited information. Wharton wants to know how you go about making decisions. Are you thoughtful? Do you weigh carefully the different options available? What risks do you take? If you do regret a decision, what have you learned from it?
3. Describe a failure that you have experienced. What role did you play, and what did you learn about yourself? How did this experience help to create your definition of failure? (600 words)
This is a standard question with a slight challenge at the end. It is important for business schools to understand how you respond to failure. No person will go through a career without making mistakes, and here it is not the mistake that the admissions committee cares about but your follow up and lessons. They want to know if you have taken the time to reflect on what you did and, if so, what you had gained from it. They want to see honesty, maturity and growth. In choosing an appropriate topic, don’t be afraid to go with a fairly big failure. The important thing is telling them what you learned as a result.
As for your own definition of failure as a result of this experience, think about what failure means to you. How would you define it? Is it a terrible? Is it a reflection of your character, or something else? What does it tell you about yourself? Think about what “failure” means to you now that you have experienced it.
4. Discuss a time when you navigated a challenging experience in either a personal or professional relationship. (600 words)
Wharton wants to know how you handle conflict and difficulty, since this is something that you will inevitably go through in your future career, and how successful you are at managing relationships will be key in determining how successful you will be in your work. The word to pay attention to here is “navigated.” Show the process, how you dealt with with this person and evolved the relationship. And though they say “personal” here, I would limit the use of personal topics – e.g., no discussion of romantic relationships or other relationships that involve issues not relevant to business school.
Wharton 2009-10 Essay Question Analyses and Deadlines
With a new admissions director, Wharton has basically changed all of its essay questions. Please see below for my analyses and comments.
http://engage.wharton.upenn.edu/MBA/blogs/mbaadmissions_blog/default.aspx
Deadlines
Round 1: October 1, 2009
Round 2: January 5, 2010
Round 3: March 9, 2010
From the Wharton admissions blog:
2009-10 WHARTON MBA APPLICANT ESSAY QUESTIONS
2009-2010 Questions – First-Time Applicants
Essay 1 – (750-1000 words)
As a leader in global business, Wharton is committed to sustaining “a truly global presence through its engagement in the world.” What goals are you committed to and why? How do you envision the Wharton MBA contributing to the attainment of those goals?
Worded a little uniquely, this essay question is still the standard goals essay: What are your career goals (short and long term)? Why? What resources at Wharton will you take advantage of?
In reading this question you may be asking yourself, “Do my goals have to be globally-oriented (international)?” The answer is ‘no,’ even though I can see how the wording of the question may be confusing. Wharton is talking about its own goals as a business school, its own desires to be able to educate business leaders in all parts of the world. This does not mean that your own goals need to be international in scope; if you want to work in a domestic company or organization in your home country, that is of course fine.
Essay 2 – (750-1000 words)
Tell us about a time when you had to adapt by accepting/understanding the perspective of people different from yourself.
This is a diversity question aimed at learning about your experience interacting with people who are different from you in some way (e.g., gender, culture, industry, age, religion). Furthermore, they want to know how you adapted because of these differences. This is different from some other diversity questions in that you have to talk about not only how you dealt with the situation, but how you yourself took in and accepted others’ differences. Wharton wants to see that you have the flexibility and open-mindedness to make necessary adjustments in order to try to understand and accept others who may think differently from you.
Essay 3 – (500 words)
Describe a failure that you have experienced. What role did you play, and what did you learn about yourself?
A critical quality of any leader – any human being – is the ability to recognize and learn from failure. In asking this question, Wharton wants to see that you have the self-awareness and humility to do this. When thinking of possible examples, feel free to choose a “real” failure, one where you really messed up. Doing this will not weaken your application. If you focus on being honest, and on discussing sincerely what you learned as a result of your experience, then your failure story will be seen as a success story.
Essay 4 – (500 words) Choose one of the following:
a. Give us a specific example of a time when you solved a complex problem.
Wharton wants to learn about your intellectual ability here. Have you been confronted with a difficult issue, problem or situation at work, university or in your community work? How did you go about resolving it? What issues or points did you consider? Wharton is interested in seeing your problem-solving ability, so when you write this essay focus more on the process rather than the technical details of the actual problem.
b. Tell us about something significant that you have done to improve yourself, in either your professional and/or personal endeavors.
This is a slightly open-ended question in which you are asked to talk about a time when you have done something to better yourself – e.g., learn something new, develop a new skill or perspective. Perhaps you worked hard to get into a different track at work, started your own business on the side, or moved abroad to experience a new culture. Wharton is interested in seeing how much of a self-starter you are, how interested you are in developing and improving yourself.
Essay 5 (Optional) – (250 words)
If you feel there are extenuating circumstances of which the Committee should be aware, please explain them here (e.g., unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, inconsistent or questionable academic performance, significant weaknesses in your application).
Use this space to explain anything that might be of concern to the admissions committee. It is definitely better to acknowledge and explain any unusual or negative issues rather than to not bring them up, as the admissions committee will notice them anyway and assume the worst. Given the specific wording of this optional essay question, please focus this essay on explaining extenuating circumstances, however, and do not use this space to add another essay.
2009-2010 Questions – Re-Applicants
(Please note: re-applicant essays are for those who applied during the application cycle in 2007-08 or 2008-09 only. Reapplicants from 2006-07 or earlier are to complete the first-time applicant essays).
Re-Applicant Essay 1 – (1000 words)
As a leader in global business, Wharton is committed to sustaining “a truly global presence through its engagement in the world”. What goals are you committed to and why? How do you envision the Wharton MBA contributing to the attainment of those goals? How has your candidacy improved since the last time you applied?
Please see above for my analysis of this essay question. The only difference here is that you will need to also discuss how your candidacy has improved since your last application. If you are now more focused about Wharton (through additional research), or if you have improved your test scores, received a promotion or award, accomplished a new project, etc., please talk about that here.
For the remaining Essays 2-4, please see above for my analyses as the questions are the same.
Re-Applicant Essay 2 – (500 words)
Describe a failure that you have experienced. What role did you play, and what did you learn about yourself?
Re-Applicant Essay 3 – (500 words) Choose one of the following:
a. Give us a specific example of a time when you solved a complex problem.
b. Tell us about something significant that you have done to improve yourself, in either your professional and/or personal endeavors.
Re-Applicant Essay 4 (Optional) – (250 words)
If you feel there are extenuating circumstances of which the Committee should be aware, please explain them here (e.g., unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, inconsistent or questionable academic performance, significant weaknesses in your application).
Wharton Deadlines for 2009-10
Wharton has recently announced its deadlines for the coming application season:
Round 1: October 1, 2009
Round 2: January 5, 2010
Round 3: March 9, 2010
Like HBS, the first round deadline is even earlier than it was last year. At least, with a mid(ish) December notification date, you can decide in time if you will be needing to apply to another R2 school or not.
Theywill release their essay questions in the middle of July.
Subscribe via Email
Calendar of Posts
Recent Posts
Categories
Search
Archives
Copyright (c) 2009 SORA Ltd. All Rights Reserved
Reve Counseling by http://www.revecounseling.com/blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.