Lauren Johnston: Only two essays and then a PowerPoint? What exactly are they looking for?

Dilini Fernando: Welcome to MBA PodTV. I’m your host Dilini Fernando. I’m a second year student at the
University of Chicago Booth School of Business and it wasn’t that long ago when
I was in your shoes, tried to put together an application, remembering full
well what the competition was like. So today, I’m going to take you behind the
scenes to find out what it takes to put together a solid application.

Today, you’ll get application advice from Graham Richmond,
CEO and co-founder of Clear Admit, an MBA admissions consulting company. You’ll
also hear from Deputy Dean Stacey Kole and you’ll meet several of my
classmates. So stay with us as we show you how to get into Chicago Booth.

Stacey Kole: At Chicago, we select students because of the talent and experience that they have
and then we ask them to leverage that experience and talent in choosing their
courses, in picking their extracurriculars and in charting their path through
their MBA. I would argue there’s no other MBA program that gives students the
degree of flexibility that our students have. So it’s this ultimate flexibility
supported by a philosophy we have here that tells students that they should
think big, dream big and count on us to be there for support.

Graham Richmond: The thing that stands out to me the most is the sort of self-directed curriculum so
students there really get to design their own curriculum. It’s an incredibly
flexible program. There are some requirements so I don’t think – sometimes,
people imagine that you show up and you just pick whatever you want. It’s not
quite that. There are requirements in kind of core areas but even within that,
you get to choose how you want to satisfy those requirements. So it’s an
incredibly sort of self-directed flexible program.

Lauren Johnston: Say you come in with a really strong finance background. You’re not stuck in an
intro to finance class wasting time and money on things that you already know
whereas if you come in with a strong marketing background, you don’t have to
take Marketing 101 first thing. I came in and I haven’t even taken a marketing
class yet but I came in and I took Intro to Finance, Operations, Managerial
Accounting, things that I needed to learn in order to help me recruit for what
I wanted to do for the summer.

So I find that the flexible program, it helps you shape the
experience that you want to have but it also, I think, reflects the respect
that Booth has for us as adults to make our own choices and shape our own
experience and that’s one of the sort of qualitative aspects of Booth that
really drew me in.

Camilo Varela: What I found interesting at Booth was the fact that it has an interestingly
challenging culture and by that, I mean it’s – you’re here doing work but you’re not supposed to follow the book or follow a script.
You’re supposed to have a constant debate and a constant discussion of ideas
and that sounds really cheesy but it’s actually what happens here. So when I
saw the culture when I was visiting and I was doing my diligence process, it
clicked with me.

Graham Richmond: Another thing that stands out for Chicago is the fact
that they’re very good at placing people in the Midwest.
Obviously, they’re good at placing people everywhere but they place a fair
number of their graduates in the Midwest. So
for students looking in that region in particular, it’s obviously a winner and
so there is a quantitative rigor in that program and they have a great finance
department. They place a lot of people in finance positions. They also have,
you know, over the years developed a track record of placing people across many
disciplines but finance is a strength for them.

Dilini Fernando: When I was putting together my application, I spent a lot of time trying to explain
how my unique background in music, entrepreneurship and radio would add to the
diversity of a classroom and then many of you are looking at your own extraordinary
accomplishments and wondering, “How can you make those stand out?” Let’s hear
more from Deputy Dean Stacey Kole on how to distinguish yourself and make that
application stand out.

Stacey Kole: I have this not very technical term I’ll call sparkle which is something that I look
for when I read an application. We’re really trying to identify individuals who
have a tremendous passion and follow that passion where it will take them. When
a candidate really sparkles, it’s that you want to sit down and talk to this
person. You want to meet this person. You want to know more about them and so,
it’s not having everything buttoned down so much so that you have a 30-second
elevator pitch on where you’ll be in 10 years. We really don’t believe you know
the answer to that fully because life will take you in different ways but that
you’ve demonstrated that you can lead and take an idea and bring it to life,
that you can work well with others and it’s that type of evidence that leads a
candidate to bubble up to the top.

Dilini Fernando: Business school can be an intense experience both academically and socially. People are
passionate and they want to get involved. Now one thing that an admissions
committee is going to look for is what you do outside of your work to get a
better picture of who you are. When I was putting together my application, I
made it a point to talk about the things that I did, both on a local level and
the global issues that matter to me. Let’s hear more about how important
extracurriculars are from Graham Richmond.

Graham Richmond: There’s a misperception in the applicant pool that in order to get in to a top MBA
program, you have to spend your Sundays in a soup kitchen or that it has to be
community service when the reality is is that – you know, why do they care
these outside activities? Well, the reality is they care about them for two
reasons.

One is that they want to admit students who are going to
contribute to the day to day life on campus and so if you’re into theatre, there’s
a way for you to contribute. Most schools have kind of cabaret style, you know,
theatre groups or they do kind of skits and things and so that could be a hobby
and a natural way for you to contribute.

I would say the other thing that they’re curious about is
they’re looking for evidence that you’re well-rounded and the reason for that
is that they think that global leaders or, you know, kind of really talented
leaders are capable of navigating in many different arenas and that you have to
be well-rounded to do that. And so, you’ve got to show that you’re doing
something with your spare time, you know, because it’s just not enough to be
working but it doesn’t have to be volunteer work necessarily. I mean, there’s
nothing wrong with volunteer work. It’s fantastic but I think that, you know,
it’s just one way.

If I were applying at Booth, I would highlight my
extracurriculars in so much as they – you know, I would try to demonstrate to
the school how I’m going to bring those to bear on the community at Chicago
Booth so how they’ll translate to involvement.

Todd Garner: I think the best advice I can give to a future applicant is actually come to
Booth. For me, it was the fit and when I say come to Booth, I mean visit Booth
while you’re applying and things like that and the reason is there is so much
about Booth that for me, made it the perfect fit that you can’t necessarily
express on a Web page or on something else be it the people, the class size,
the flexible curriculum, interacting with professors. It’s things that when you
actually come here, it is so amazing to be a part of and I think they’ve got a
great program to actually orient visitors who come to Booth.

Lauren Johnston: I would say just be yourself in your application. I found that the Booth
application was different than the other applications. Only two essays and then
a PowerPoint? What exactly are they looking for? Once I got here and I got to
know the school, I found that Booth is just looking to get to know you. They’re
looking to get to know how you think and so just show them that. Let them get
to know who you are.

Dilini Fernando: One thing that’s unique to Chicago Booth’s application is essay number three where
you’re given four blank pages to do whatever you want. Exciting, right? And
yes, a little daunting. I know I spent lots of time trying to figure out how I
could get creative in four pages. Let’s get some advice on how you can tackle
essay number three.

Stacey Kole: I like to think of it as white space. So, students are given an opportunity to
express themselves in a form another than an essay. A lot of applicants do
choose to use them as PowerPoint but I can tell you we’ve seen many students
use these white – the white space as more of a canvass to show their art, to
demonstrate an aspect of them. Some people have written poetry.

Something about them that doesn’t come through in the much
more structured parts of an application and there really is no right and wrong
answer here. I think that the big key is just to be authentic to show us
something about yourself that you couldn’t put in 50 words or less or 500 words
or less or whatever the constraint might be that when you show it to a friend
or a loved one, they say that really captures who you are.

Graham Richmond: The instructions are very open-ended. You know, it’s sort of a – your chance to
kind of do what you want with four slides and that allows you to think about
what are some themes in your candidacy that you may want to convey. Maybe there
are four themes, you know, that you could put across the four slides or, you
know, maybe there’s a kind of chronology of, you know, periods in your life
that you want to share with the admissions committee and divide out over a set
of slides.

I think that the real issue and what this assignment teases
out is that a lot of candidates applying to business school have a very kind of
numbers-oriented background or maybe an engineering background and this sort of
creative assignment can be daunting and yet, being creative and showcasing an
ability to market one’s self is a pretty important criteria if you’re going to
be a leader of, you know, tomorrow.

The mistake that many candidates make is they don’t treat it
as being entirely different from an essay. They end up with just bullet point
after bullet point and lots and lots of text and they don’t think about well,
this is meant to be a presentation and if I were making a presentation to an
audience, I wouldn’t have just text. I would probably have some images or just
very kind of sparse, you know, tidbits of kind of commentary that I would then
flash out in a presentation and so, that’s the idea here.

It’s not meant to be just a writing exercise. It’s really
meant to be a kind of creative expression of sort of who you are or maybe what
you might contribute to the program or – and there are just so many angles you
could pursue with it and that’s what makes it daunting but it also – as I’ve –
you know, as I’ve stressed, it just presents a really unique opportunity for
someone to make their case.

Dilini Fernando: Well, I hope you learned a little bit more about Chicago Booth and how to put
together a competitive application. I encourage you to come visit us on campus,
meet some of my classmates and sit in on a lecture and of course, when you’re
in this great city of Chicago, you can take in the music and the food and yes,
maybe a little shopping on Magnificent Mile. That’s it for this episode of MBA
PodTV. I’m your host Dilini Fernando. Visit us at MBAPodcaster.com or you can
register for weekly audio and video shows. Join us on Facebook and Twitter to
keep up-to-date the latest insights and advice on your MBA application process.

Chicago Booth Essay Questions

Below are the essay questions for the Fall 2011 application.

1.The Admissions Committee is interested in learning more about you on both a personal and professional level. Please answer the following (maximum of 300 words for each section):

a. Why are you pursuing a full-time MBA at this point in your life?

b. Define your short and long term career goals post MBA.

c. What is it about Chicago Booth that is going to help you reach your goals?

d. RE-APPLICANTS ONLY: Upon reflection, how has your thinking regarding your future, Chicago Booth, and/or getting an MBA changed since the time of your last application?

2.Chicago Booth is a place that challenges its students to stretch and take risks that they might not take elsewhere. Tell us about a time when you took a risk and what you learned from that experience (maximum of 750 words).

3.At Chicago Booth, we teach youHOWto think rather than what to think. With this in mind, we have provided you with “blank pages” in our application. Knowing that there is not a right or even a preferred answer allows you to demonstrate to the committee your ability to navigate ambiguity and provide information that you believe will support your candidacy for Chicago Booth.

Essay Question 3 Guidelines

We have set forth the following guidelines:

• The content is completely up to you. Acceptable file formats are PowerPoint or PDF.
• There is a strict maximum of four pages, though you can provide fewer if you choose.
• The document will be printed in color and added to your file for review; therefore, flash, hyperlinks, embedded videos, music, etc. will not be viewed by the committee. You are limited to text and static images to convey your points.
• The file will be evaluated on the quality of content and ability to convey your ideas, not on technical expertise or presentation.
• Files need to be less than 9 megabytes in order to upload. If your file is too large you may save your file as a PDF and upload your essay.