Wharton MBA Application Essay Tips 2024

Wharton MBA Essay One: How do you plan to use the Wharton MBA program to help you achieve your future professional goals? You might consider your past experience, short and long-term goals, and resources available at Wharton. (500 words)

What the question basically means is this: what are the things that, professionally, you can’t do now that you will be able to do once you have attended the Wharton MBA program? What knowledge and specific skills – both soft and hard – will it equip you with? How will a Wharton MBA – the brand, the credential, the education, and the experience – help you accomplish your career aspirations?

Please note that Wharton is not asking your professional background or your key accomplishments. You might add color to this essay by highlighting certain aspects of your professional background where it is relevant to your goals. You can talk about the key moments of your professional life that crystallized your careers goals. Anything unique about your background is always worth highlighting.

To do justice with this question, you must possess a detailed familiarity with Wharton’s rich curriculum and community life. Which of its elements will help you achieve your dreams? For instance, past records show that the largest percentage of Wharton MBA’s go for investment banking, followed by management consulting. If your goals relate to any of these, the school obviously has something special to offer. What, according to you, are these special offerings? You can talk about Wharton’s immense focus on Quant based curriculum and its world famous faculty members of Finance.

Even if your desired industry is different, your choice of Wharton must have been dictated by the advantages it will provide you. What advantages are you looking for? Are you a risk-taking entrepreneur? Do you harbor ambitions of spearheading a non-profit? How will the elective courses, the networking opportunities, the consulting projects, etc., assist you in realizing your goals? For instance, if you aspire to launch a biotech company in China, show Wharton how the Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship will offer you the ideal ecosystem to grow your nascent business idea and the Global Modular Courses will offer you the perspectives to know your target market. Moreover, narrate how the Global Immersion Program will help you understand the geo-political drivers and cross cultural issues in China. Finally, elaborate how you are going to leverage the Penn Wharton China Center in Beijing to get cutting-edge ideas and build alliance with various Chinese institutions.

With more than 100 clubs in its campus, Wharton offers an incredible opportunity to students to network with peers and alumni. If you dream to launch your wind power firm post MBA, then show how the Energy club will help you to network with future business partners and Wharton Energy Conference will help you to rub shoulders with senior leaders in the Energy industry. Moreover, narrate how you are impressed by the knowledge sharing at the Wharton Entrepreneurship Summit and are eager to meet some prominent VCs in the next summit.

If you dream to join hands with a top notch consulting firm, then narrate how the Wharton-INSEAD alliance will be a dream come true for you. Being one of the best schools in the world, INSEAD is the mecca for consulting. You can showcase how studying in INSEAD will help you to network with top consulting companies in Europe.

As you can see, the possibilities are truly infinite. All you need to do is a thorough research on Wharton. Talk to students, alumni, or the admissions team. You can talk to us as well as we have helped hundreds of Wharton applicants to finally sit in the Wharton classroom!

Wharton MBA Essay Two: 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. (250 words)

First and foremost, Wharton puts a lot of emphasis on collaborative leadership and team work. Hence, you may select a team based experience that will help you to describe various facets of your leadership experience. Or, you may choose an experience in which you pushed things to new heights, did something to ruffle the status quo, changed the game, shifted things, or did something unexpected to create a substantial impact on your organization or any other non-profit.

Wharton MBA Essay Three: 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, cocurricular initiatives like the Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership, which aims to equip students with the skills and strategies necessary to lead in an inclusive and ethical manner, 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? (250 words)(250 words)

First and foremost, Wharton puts a lot of emphasis on collaborative leadership and team work. Hence, you may select a team based experience that will help you to describe various facets of your leadership experience. Or, you may choose an experience in which you pushed things to new heights, did something to ruffle the status quo, changed the game, shifted things, or did something unexpected to create a substantial impact on your organization or any other non-profit.

For instance, have you spearheaded any strategic project that significantly improved your company’s bottom-line? Have you led an initiative to launch new products in emerging markets? Have you led your company’s social initiatives? Have you championed any Six Sigma initiative and reduced defects across the product lines? Tell admissions committee all the crucial aspects of the story. Narrate the whole experience with a masterful mix of personal anecdotes, sparks of insight and applicable pieces of wisdom.

The crux of the essay is what you learnt from this experience. Keep in mind that all the applicants are going to write their best leadership experience in this essay. In order to differentiate yourself from others, you need to articulate all the crucial lessons on leadership and management that you have obtained from this chapter of your life.

Finally, show Wharton how the lessons learned through this experience will help you to contribute. How will you add value to your peers both inside and outside the classroom? Are you going to share some of the major challenges of teamwork? Or, are you going to elaborate how to handle a sudden crisis in a team? Or, how to influence others? Such information will certainly make the admissions team feel like exploring your leadership potential more in an interview.

Review our Sample MBA Application Essay on “Contribution to Wharton“ to explore more ideas.

Wharton MBA Additional Essay Question:

(Required for all reapplicants)

Explain how you have reflected on the previous decision about your application, and discuss any updates to your candidacy (e.g., changes in your professional life, additional coursework, extracurricular/volunteer engagements). (250 words)*

*First-time applicants may also use this section to address any extenuating circumstances. (250 words)

Please review my tips on optional application essays in the following blog posts:

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Sandip Bhattacharya MBA Admissions Consultant

Sandip Bhattacharya, General Management Program (Harvard), Master's in Creative Writing (Oxford)

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