MBA Essay Tracker: 2026-2027

Please reflect on how your choices have influenced your career path and aspirations.

What experiences have shaped how you invest in others and how you lead?

Curiosity can be seen in many ways. Please share an example of how you have demonstrated curiosity and how that has influenced your growth.

Please share additional information here if you need to clarify any information provided in the other sections of your application. This is not meant to be used as an additional essay.

What matters most to you, and why?

Why Stanford? Describe your aspirations and how your Stanford GSB experience will help you realize them. If you are applying to both the MBA and MSx programs, use this essay to address your interest in both programs.

What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal?

Describe your medium- and long-term professional goals after your Wharton MBA.

Taking into consideration your background — personal, professional, and/or academic — how do you plan to add meaningful value to the Wharton community?

Please use this space to share with the Admissions Committee how you have reflected and grown since your previous application and discuss any relevant updates to your candidacy (e.g., changes in your professional life, additional coursework, and extracurricular/volunteer engagements).

Use this space to share additional information about yourself that cannot be found elsewhere in your application, or to address extenuating circumstances.

What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal?

How do you plan to spend the summer after the first year of the MBA? If in an internship, please include target industry(ies) and/or function(s). If you plan to work on your own venture, please indicate a focus of business.

Through your résumé and recommendations, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals over the next three to five years and what is your long term dream job?

Please share a specific example of how you made a team more collaborative, more inclusive or fostered a greater sense of community within an organization.

We believe Columbia Business School is a special place with a collaborative learning environment in which students feel a sense of belonging, agency, and partnership — academically, culturally, and professionally. How would you co-create your optimal MBA experience at CBS? Please be specific.

If you wish to provide further information or additional context around your application to the Admissions Committee, please upload a brief explanation of any areas of concern in your academic record or personal history. This does not need to be a formal essay. You may submit bullet points.

Part I: An MBA is a significant investment of time, energy and resources, and the decision to pursue one deserves serious reflection. Tell us about the pivotal experiences and decisions that have brought you to this moment in your career, how they have shaped your ambitions, and why now is the right time to take this next step.

Part II: Now turn the lens outward: beyond what you hope to gain, what do you hope to contribute to the students who will learn alongside you?

Video essays are due 96 hours after the application deadline. You will answer 5 questions designed to showcase your personality. Practice questions available. Up to 1 minute per response.

How have you grown or changed personally and professionally since you previously applied and what steps have you taken to become the strongest candidate you can be?

We know that life is full of extenuating circumstances. Whether you want to explain gaps in work experience, your choice of recommenders, inconsistent or questionable academic performance or something else, you can use this section to briefly tell us anything we need to know about your application.

Briefly introduce yourself, then tell us what makes you feel alive when you are doing it, and why? Please share something about yourself that may not be evident in other parts of your application. We are looking for an authentic and introspective response that demonstrates how you will contribute to the MBA class and culture at UC Berkeley Haas.

What are your post-MBA career goals, and how will the resources at UC Berkeley Haas help you achieve them? How do you plan to remain adaptable as your career evolves?

At Berkeley Haas, we consider "distance traveled" as the contextual information that helps us understand the unique circumstances, challenges, or influences that have shaped your personal and professional journey. We invite you to share aspects of your background, personal circumstances, or significant experiences that have meaningfully impacted who you are today and how you've reached this point. Please tell us how these experiences have influenced your perspectives, decisions, and aspirations, and how they contribute to the person you are becoming.

This section should only be used to convey relevant information not addressed elsewhere in your application. This may include explanation of employment gaps, academic aberrations, supplemental coursework, etc. You are encouraged to use bullet points where appropriate.

What are your post-MBA career goals? Share with us your first-choice career plan and your alternate plan.

The 'Team Fuqua' spirit and community is one of the things that sets the MBA experience apart, and it is a concept that extends beyond the student body to include faculty, staff, and administration. Please share with us "25 Random Things" about you. The Admissions Committee wants to get to know YOU — beyond the professional and academic achievements listed in your resume and transcript. Share with us important life experiences, your hobbies, achievements, fun facts, or anything that helps us understand what makes you who you are. Please present your response in list form, numbered 1 to 25.

Fuqua prides itself on cultivating a culture of engagement. Our students enjoy a wide range of student-led organizations that provide opportunities for leadership development and personal fulfillment, as well as an outlet for contributing to society. Based on your understanding of the Fuqua culture, what are 3 ways you expect to contribute at Fuqua?

If you feel there are circumstances of which the admissions committee should be aware, please explain them here (e.g. unexplained gaps in work, choice of recommenders, inconsistent or questionable academic performance).