Columbia MBA Essay Guide (2024 Entering Class)

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Short Answer Question: What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal? (50 characters maximum)

Examples of possible responses:
“Work in business development for a media company.”

Essay 1: Through your resume and recommendation, 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? (500 words)

Essay 2:  The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL) is a co-curricular program designed to ensure that every CBS student develops the skills to become an ethical and inclusive leader. Through PPIL, students attend programming focused on five essential diversity, equity, and inclusion skills: Creating an Inclusive Environment, Mitigating Bias and Prejudice, Managing Intercultural Dialogue, Addressing Systemic Inequity, and Understanding Identity and Perspective Taking. Tell us about a time when you were challenged around one of these five skills. Describe the situation, the actions you took, and the outcome. (Maximum 250 words)

Essay 3: We believe Columbia Business School is a special place. CBS proudly fosters a collaborative learning environment through curricular experiences like our clusters and learning teams, an extremely active co-curricular and student life environment, and career mentorship opportunities like our Executives-in-Residence program. Why do you feel Columbia Business School is a good fit for you academically, culturally, and professionally? Please be specific. (Maximum 250 Words)

Deferred MBA applicants: Who is a leader you admire, and why? (300 words maximum)

Who Should Buy Columbia MBA Essay Guide

If you don't know how to approach the Short-term Goal essay, we list out a 5-step template to create a relevant goal.

If you want Sample Essays for Inspiration, we have included 25 Sample Essays (Including Optional Essay)

If you don't know how to approach the long-term Goal essay, we provide two alternatives - predicting the future and starting with your core strengths.

We predict the future for Consulting and Finance professionals (and for applicants interested in switching careers to the two industries). Choose the narrative that fits your profile.

For Essay 1, we have categorized the electives and interesting experiential learning modules based on industries - Finance, Consulting, Healthcare, Fashion/Luxury, Media/Advertising and Technology with context on how the courses will be valuable for your post-MBA career.

 

In addition to explaining the curriculum, we have shared six Sample Goals Essays

Sample Goals Essay 1: Enterprise Technology to Consumer Marketing (495 Words)
Sample Goals Essay 2: Healthcare (Finance to Consulting) (499 Words)    
Sample Goals Essay 3: FinTech (Product Manager to Strategy) (473 Words)    
Sample Goals Essay 4: IMPACT Investing (Accounting to IMPACT Investing) (447 Words)    
Sample Goals Essay 5: Digital Strategy – Media Technology (Journalism to Media Tech) (454 Words)    
Sample Goals Essay 6: Scaling Boutique Investment Management Firm (492 Words)    

For Essay 2 - The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL) essay, we have included five Sample Essays

Sample Columbia PPIL Essay: Onboarding a non-traditional Candidate (243 Words)    
Sample Columbia PPIL Essay: Changing Biases in the Algorithm (244 Words)    
Sample Columbia PPIL Essay: Improving Women’s Success Potential (Oil & Gas Industry) (245 Words)    
Sample Columbia PPIL Essay: Recommending Unionization (Railway Project) (250 Words)    
Sample Columbia PPIL Essay: Recommending Social Media Controls (Liberal Applicant with Conservative peers) (247 Words)   

For Essay 3 - the good fit essay, we have included five approaches to answer the essay

Sample Columbia Fit Essay: Value from NYC (246 Words)    
Sample Columbia Fit Essay: Auto Manufacturer (Family Business – Value from EIR) (249 Words)    
Sample Columbia Fit Essay: Unique Insights from Mentors (250 Words)    
Sample Columbia Fit Essay: Strategic Direction for a Once in a lifetime Opportunity (249 Words)    
Sample Columbia Fit Essay: Real Estate Development with ESG Goals and Columbia EIR’s Expertise (242 Words)    

For Deferred MBA applicants - 5 Leader you admire Sample Essays

Sample Columbia MBA Leader I admire Essay #1 (Tech Entrepreneur) (286 Words)
Sample Columbia MBA Leader I admire Essay #2 (Father) (275 Words)    
Sample Columbia MBA Leader I admire Essay #3 (Mother) (279 Words)    
Sample Columbia MBA Leader I admire Essay #4 (Math Teacher) (289 Words)    
Sample Columbia MBA Leader I admire Essay #5 (Co-Founder) (285 Words)    

If your essay looks too bland, Columbia MBA Essay Guide will show you, with examples, on how to use the elements of Storytelling like Incorporating "The Struggle," using Emotional connectors, narrating the Journey and the use of Chronology, Vividness and Active Verbs to transform your essays.

If you are stuck in the Writing process, Columbia MBA Essay Guide will show you how to silence the Analytic Mind and overcome mental blocks.

If you feel that the Essays are not persuasive, Columbia MBA Essay Guide will teach you how to use the W-Pattern narrative, Contexts, Turning Points and "The Show Don't Tell Approach" to write a Winning MBA Essay.

If you don't have enough leadership experience, Columbia MBA Essay Guide will show you how to highlight non-obvious qualities like Trust, Focus, Listening Skills, Personal Responsibility, Humility, Self-Knowledge, and other secondary traits to prove your leadership.

If you don't know how to review your essays, Columbia MBA Essay Guide will demonstrate how to improve readability with the power of iteration and maintain your original voice by removing review biases.

Author: Atul Jose, Founding Consultant (F1GMAT)

Atul Jose spent 14+ years editing, and reviewing Essays for MBA applicants. When no consultant in the market was willing to show how to write an essay that can get you a seat in the hyper-competitive M7 and T10 MBA programs, Atul went about capturing his wisdom as an Essay Specialist into an easy-to-read book format. With Sample Essays for Columbia MBA and the writing tools and frameworks, you will learn to turn life experiences into interesting stories. Although he spends most of his time writing essay guides and helping applicants gain admission to top MBA programs, he is also the Editor and lead author at F1GMAT - the highly popular MBA and Master's admissions blog.

Book Details

Page Length: 377

Entering Class: 2024

Reviews: 

“ I knew very little about many of the specific motivations behind the PPIL program and even aspects of New York that would have a direct impact on my career progression. The book is extensively researched and well-written. Good work! “ – Verified Purchase

“Tracing the courses, experiential learning, and application of each course for a post-MBA goal was an interesting exercise that I picked up from the guide. My fit and goals essay looked similar. What didn't fit the goals, I moved to the fit essay. The guide showed me how to completely rewrite the essay with specific outlines and themes that are unique to my story. “ – Verified Purchase

“In all my writing goals essays for over seven schools, I never felt that the goals required rework. My draft seriously lacked the nuance and professional tone to connect my story deeply with the new-york-driven experiential learning, networks, and club. The exhaustive value from the learning experience helped me see for the first time the deeper meaning of 'motivation' in an MBA application. The story of the profiles covered in the essay guide helped me break away from an expected narrative style that acts as filler or feels like a template. “ – Verified Purchase