Here is a series of essays from a successful applicant to Columbia Business School in New York City. As you read these essays, think about the points we’ve raised. What makes this candidate’s essays stand out? Note how this candidate successfully makes his real-life experiences—in his career, in his personal life, and in his academic life—relevant to his desire to attend business school.
Sample Business School Essay Topics
• Describe the progression of your career to date. Why are you seeking a business degree at this point?
• What are your career goals? How will an advanced degree in business help you achieve these goals?
• Why do you want to obtain your degree from our particular program?
• How has your background, experiences, and education influenced the person you are today?
• In reviewing the last five years, describe one or two accomplishments in which you demonstrated leadership.
• Discuss a nonacademic personal failure. In what way were you disappointed in yourself? What did you learn from the experience?
• Discuss your involvement in a community or extracurricular organization. Include an explanation of how you became involved in the organization and how you help(ed) the organization meet its goals.
Question #1 asked the candidate to describe his career goals, how an advanced business degree would help him achieve these goals, and his reasons for applying to Columbia Business School (limit 1000 words).
One such goal is the ability to manage people effectively and efficiently. I believe that in any line of work, the key to a successful business is how well that business is managed from a personal development perspective. Employees of any company must be given pertinent direction, sound training, and proper feedback from their managers to be more productive in their defined job roles and responsibilities. In order to provide employees with this development, job experience supplemented with a further academic education is extremely important. I feel that an advanced business degree will help me to attain this vital mix and provide me with the essentials of being a successful manager in the various engagements I encounter throughout my career at Ernst & Young.
A second career goal is to further expand my horizons and take a look at the whole picture. When I first began working in the “real world” as an auditor for Ernst & Young, I was placed on the Morgan Stanley engagement, which was one of the largest and most complex financial service engagements in our office. I was given job responsibilities that focused on such a small part of the ultimate goal. I was not privy to many of the other components that allowed my team to meet the client’s demands and expectations. This was due to the fact that I lacked any prior experience in the financial service industry and that I was new to the engagement. As I continued on the engagement for the next three years, I was given more responsibilities and began to see more of the big picture. I began to develop a greater interest in financial services and wanted to see more aspects of the business. Thus far, I have been given the opportunity to see a vast array of areas at Morgan Stanley and at my current client, Lehman Brothers. These areas include front office trading operations on the fixed income and financing desks, middle office functions in fixed income cash and derivative instruments, back office operations on various trading desks, and multiple SEC filings. As I continue along in my career endeavors at Ernst & Young, I want to learn more about the financial industry and be able to look at the business from a much broader realm rather than from the individual components for which I have been responsible. As I have much more to learn, I believe an advanced business degree will provide me with a window to see various new ideas and avenues from both a domestic as well as a global perspective. This will allow me to communicate more effectively to my clients and indicate to them specific inefficiencies in their business processes for which I may be able to provide recommendations and assistance in improving.
Another goal is to continue developing my own experience and knowledge with the help of others. While experience in the work place is extremely important in attaining this goal, I believe it can only be enhanced in an academic arena where professors and other students can share their own work experiences with each other. This would provide me with different perspectives in looking at my own experiences and current job responsibilities. Also, the ability to work with these people in an academic setting (e.g., through various class assignments that require group participation) would allow me to bounce my own ideas off others, while at the same time provide me with the opportunity to listen to what others have to say. The wealth of knowledge and personal resources available in the process of obtaining an advanced business degree is an endeavor I feel is too worthwhile to forgo.
The goals I have established above in furthering my career can be accomplished at most business schools. However, one of the distinguishing attributes of obtaining my advanced business degree at Columbia University is the New York element. As mentioned previously, for the last three years I have been working as an auditor for Ernst & Young in New York City, primarily on financial service companies, including Morgan Stanley Group and Lehman Brothers, both highly reputable and profitable companies centralized in New York. The experience I have received from working on these engagements has made me realize the advantage of being in New York, as I truly believe I would not have obtained as unique an experience anywhere else. Columbia, itself a highly reputable and professional business school, has that same advantage, which would allow me to strengthen the New York business experience while at the same time bring people from many different business backgrounds to the New York arena. The contacts I would make at Columbia, from the versatile faculty to my educated peers, would help me develop into a more knowledgeable member of the domestic and global business communities.
Question #2 asked the applicant to describe an accomplishment in which he demonstrated leadership (limit 500 words).
I attended Boston College in the fall of the following year. I discovered a group called the Boston College Chorale, which was a highly talented choral group of approximately 150 men and women. The big attraction to the group was that it traveled abroad for a week in the spring to perform, which included Italy, where the group attended a papal audience to sing. I found this intriguing, and I decided to try out during my first semester. I was accepted into the group and met many diverse and interesting people during my first year.
In my second year, I became more and more involved with the group. An interesting facet of the group was that students led it. There were eight officers, comprised of college juniors and seniors, who had various group responsibilities. Toward the end of my second year in the group, the annual elections for new officers were held. Because of my increased interest in and commitment to the group, I decided to run and became one of four officers elected. The officer positions were two-year commitments, and each year the officers would vote on new titles for each officer.
At the end of my first year as an officer, the internal elections for the officer titles were held again. I was voted president of the group for my senior year. I knew this role would be quite challenging and time consuming, but I accepted it gladly and was ready to face the numerous responsibilities for the upcoming year.
I had to make various decisions for the group with the efforts of the other officers. I was ultimately responsible for ensuring that the concerts were planned and advertised in a timely manner, the university funding provided to our group was properly utilized, the annual trip abroad was in order from the accommodations to the performances, and the social events were organized. I felt the year went smoothly and that the group of officers worked well together. I was able to demonstrate my leadership role to the best of my abilities. Members of the group showed their appreciation to me and to the other officers at the end of the year. I had an overwhelming sense of accomplishment at the end of the year as I graduated from Boston College, ready to face further challenges that would require my leadership abilities.
Question #3 asked the applicant to discuss a nonacademic personal failure, describing how he was disappointed in himself and what he learned from the experience (limit 500 words).
As I began my part of the drive, I was attempting to make a left-hand turn to get back on the highway. I did not see the car coming from the opposite direction until I had already started to make the turn, and our car was struck on the passenger’s side. The sound was chilling. My fiancée’s window had completely shattered, and I noticed that there was blood on her forehead. She said she was all right, except that her lower body was in pain. Medical help seemed to come instantaneously. The paramedics slowly removed her from the vehicle, and she was sent to the nearest hospital.
The whole experience put me in shock. I had this horrid sense of guilt and failure. I felt I had let her down tremendously with my mistake. After the doctors examined her, the final diagnosis was that she needed a few stitches on her forehead and that she had fractured her pelvis, which would require several weeks of bed rest until it healed on its own. She was going to be fine, which relieved me. The feelings of remorse, however, were still overwhelming. I sat down by her side after the doctors had left for the night and looked into her eyes and told her that I was so sorry for doing this to her. She grabbed me and told me that there was no reason to apologize. This was an accident, and the experience made her realize that she could not wait to spend the rest of her life with someone who cared so much for her.
I was in disbelief. How could she stay so calm after all I had done to her? I did not understand why she was not angrier with me. Over the next few months the scenes from the accident would play over and over again in my head. “If only” would be said in my thoughts repeatedly. I was angry with myself, and I felt that I was incapable of protecting my future wife.
My fiancée recovered fully, and we continued with our wedding plans for the next summer. I began to realize that since the accident, our faith in one another strengthened. The bond between us dispelled any doubts in the trust we had for one another. My feelings of guilt began to dissipate. When I realized how much she trusted me after the accident, I knew that any feelings of failure I would have in the future would be comforted with this trust.
Question #4 asked the applicant to discuss his involvement in a community or extracurricular organization, including an explanation of how he became involved in the organization and how he helped the organization meet its goals (limit 250 words).
These students do not have much direction, nor do they have an abundance of opportunities. Many of them come from single-family homes with very little money. The program is voluntary on their end as well as ours, which makes the relationship one of choice from the very beginning. As present members of the working community, we are to share our experiences with the students and try to motivate them to continue on in their education. In addition, we are to be a friend who will listen to any of their problems or concern.
My current mentee is a sophomore who is bright but lacks motivation. I try to stress to him the importance of doing other activities after school, where he can make new friends and strive for additional goals. I also explain to him how important it is to complete his education. I use my own experiences in high school to help make him realize the importance of achieving goals. His grades have begun to improve, and he has started to look for part-time employment after school. In this respect I believe I have helped in meeting certain goals of the organization as our mentor/mentee relationship continues to strengthen.
