Kellogg Essay Questions 2011 - 2012 - Tips and Common Mistakes

Kellogg's Round 1 (Part 1) Deadline is on September 22nd!  Don't forget to send in Part I of your application before then.  You can view our Deadlines page to save this and other deadlines directly to your Gmail calendar. 


Briefly assess your career progress to date. Elaborate on your future career plans and your motivation for pursuing an MBA. (600 word limit)

• Not only describe your career progression so far, but also assess it - what went right, what not quite?  This should just naturally lead the reader into thinking - "of course this candidate needs an MBA!"
• Candidates who try to answer the "Why Kellogg" question won't have enough words to fit in the real answer for this essay - keep it simple, answer what is asked - why an MBA? 

Describe your key leadership experiences and evaluate what leadership areas you hope to develop through your MBA experiences (600 word limit). 

• What are leadership experiences?  Situations that you've been in that you've been tested in, where a lot has been at stake, and you have led the way.  They can be personal or professional, but you should cite at least one professional experience
• Limit to three experiences at most
• What are leadership areas?   The most obvious one here is the one that Kellogg touts the most - "team leadership" or "community leadership".  But to write a truly compelling essay, think beyond -- what specific leadership areas are you looking to develop, that will tie in to the first part of your essay?   Motivating and empowering large groups of people, leadership in the community, product leadership in an industry, executive communication skills, etc. 

Assume you are evaluating your application from the perspective of a student member of the Kellogg Admissions Committee. Why would you and your peers select you for admission, and what impact would you make as a member of the Kellogg community? (600 word limit). 

• This is your "why Kellogg" and "why you" question - go all out and present yourself as the package that brings a mix of professional, personal and community based leadership experiences to the table
• Make it fun - describe yourself in a way that others would truly want to learn more about you!

Complete one of the following three questions or statements. (400 word limit) 
a) Describe a time you had to inspire a reluctant individual or group. 
b) People may be surprised to learn that I….. 
c) The riskiest personal or professional decision I ever made was….. 

• This is a wide-open essay, use it to demonstrate a part of your personality that may not have come through in your application thus far - you want the reader to feel pleasantly surprised about you after this - i,e., "Wow, he / she did x, y AND z?!  That's pretty awesome."

Get your Kellogg Essays reviewed by our reviewers!   Email us at essaycritique@gmail.com

HBS Essay Questions 2011 - 2012 - Tips and Analysis

Essay tips for the new HBS essays from our HBS alum...

Tell us about three of your accomplishments. (600 words)

• This continues to be the centerpiece essay - best advice I got for this essay was to first write it as though it were three separate accomplishment essays (in as many words as you need) and then edit it down to approximately 200 words each - it becomes much less daunting this way  
• A lot of applicants will have a central theme woven into the three accomplishments - this is great if there is a legitimate theme that applies to the three accomplishments, but it's better to have no theme than to force one into your essay
• This one is obvious, but try to showcase accomplishments that highlight different aspects of your experiences - the template most suggest and use is one professional, personal and community - but these could easily be two professional accomplishments, if in fact, they are different enough from each other
• If you have to get one essay reviewed by someone else (another alum, or us!), get this one.  It's your best chance at knocking the socks off the AdCom reader and you don't want to miss it. 

Tell us three setbacks you have faced. (600 words)

• This is so much better than the "what have you learned from a mistake?" question!   The most strong applicants have invariably been through a number of high-stakes setbacks in their lives, so this is a great question to ask of everyone
• Setbacks don't have to be mistakes or failures - a setback could be not getting selected for an opportunity that you wanted, or not being recognized for something as you expected - it is, in most cases, a deviation from your expectations of an outcome
• Describe how you dealt with the setback - show your mental strength and how you recovered from it.
• This can often be the most painful essay to read and edit - why?  Because 80% of candidates try to mask achievements or strengths as setbacks - PLEASE DON'T DO THIS.   Remember: it's not as important that you lost in the major leagues as much as that you played in them!   

Why do you want an MBA? (400 words)

• Keep the answer as simple as the question
• Briefly cover where you are now, and why it makes sense for you to get an MBA for where you are going (goals)
• The "Why HBS" piece is less important than the "why MBA" - don't litter the essay with name drops and internet research on classes at HBS - use these prudently only where it aligns with your goals 

Answer a question you wish we'd asked. (400 words)

• My favorite question, because applicants usually have something they want to discuss through their application that they usually try to stick in through the other questions :-)
• The open nature of this does make it difficult - there are two routes to consider: 
• Use a question that other business schools ask - What means the most to you and why?  What will you bring to the HBS Community?  What are you most passionate about and why?  You get the idea.
• Be creative and come up with your own question - use this...
• When you know you have an experience that you want to discuss that you haven't covered in another question
• When you have some explaining to do - something that looks weird on your resume  / application
• Avoid being overly specific on this question - "e.g., why did you decide to run three marathons in 2010?" or "why did you go to africa to help the poor" - I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean. 

MBA Class of 2014, are you ready?!

Hi folks!

Our administrator and reviewers are all meeting this week to get our act together for our third year together as a team!  We're excited to kick off the 2011 season and look forward to working with many of you this year.

Any questions?  Email us at essaycritique@gmail.com.

Thanks,
Tim

P.S.:  We are now on Facebook!   

Phew! Almost there...

Over the past few weeks, we've been busily reviewing Wharton, Ross, Tepper, Sloan, Booth, Darden, Ross, and UCLA Essays.  PHEW!

Now, time to focus on the rest.  Hang in there, we're almost through Round 2.  If you're working on HBS essays, don't forget to peruse our initial pointers.  We're going to keep reviewing until all the deadlines are up, and we'll be posting a "Mistakes to Avoid" post shortly as well.

Stay tuned...

Wharton Essays - Mistakes To Avoid

So, it's panic week - the last week to add those finishing touches to your essays before you package them and send them off.  We've been busily reviewing essays for all of the top schools, and wanted to share a few quick pointers before the Round 2 deadline.  This one's for Wharton, but we'll try and post a few more this week, so stay tuned.

Before we get into these, a quick plug, we are actively reviewing essays during this holiday week, if you are interested in working with us, please let us know as soon as possible, so we can get your essays scheduled.

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)

• This is a tough question to answer; a lot of essays we read fail to answer the question correctly.  They describe a tough decision they made, or a situation in which they chose one among several opportunities, but the question is not asking for either of these.
• It's specifically asking for a time you turned down an opportunity - don't feel pressured to think of this as an "options analysis" process - the opportunity could have been turned down even if no alternatives existed!
• A lot of essays also tend to become achievement essays dressed up as opportunity essays.  If you don't have a good response or situation to describe, don't use this question.  Don't "force fit" a general leadership experience into this response.

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)

• If there's only one essay you get reviewed of your application by a consultant / third party, get this one looked at (our services start at $50)!  It's important because it's very hard for people to discuss failures, and we've read many applications where this essay comes off completely awkward, partly discussing a situation, partly discussing your reaction, and then very quickly move on to self-glorification since the mistake was made
• If you think your failure essay sounds a little awkward, it probably sounds a LOT more awkward to the reader
• Don't forget to answer the last part of the question - the key is to explain how this experience changed what you thought of as failure - compare before and after to explain the change articulately.

Remember to get your essays reviewed, whether its by us or others.  We can't stress enough how important it is to get an independent, unbiased view from someone who doesn't know you at all, because remember, AdCom doesn't!

Good luck with the final push this week :) 

Answering your Questions!

Are we reviewing essays over the holidays?

• Yes, absolutely!  We will continue to review over the holidays and right up to the Round 2 deadlines in Jan - March.

Can I get my essays back within 24 or 48 hours?

• Depends on our workload.  We will absolutely make it happen if we can, but you may have to shell out a few extra bucks for this.