This is how I wrote my Wharton essays...

Perhaps R2 applicants might find this post useful (or amusing for that matter).

I am still an applicant, as I have only been invited to interview with Wharton. And, as far as I know, I am still living in the moments of uncertainty and anxiety like many of applicants are. But nonetheless, I wanted to share with you fellow applicants what I learned through the past excruciating four months of writing elusive “personal and compelling” essays for Wharton. So here we go.


1. Career goal

I would say that how you articulate your career goal based on your past professional experience should be the single most important agenda in writing successful essays.

Articulating your short-term goal should take you considerable amount of time as you should definitely think it over carefully. Ideally, you want to provide a name or two of the companies you are targeting immediately upon graduation from MBA. But make sure that you don’t limit yourself to a single company by saying, “I would like to pursue an associate position with Blackstone …” It would be better if you could provide an industry and the name of your preferred company, thus ensuring that the reader of your essay doesn't think that you are interested in working for only one particular company. MBA is not a vocational school; rather it is a medium, an instrument to help you achieve your long-term career goal. So just make sure that you are targeting a certain industry, but show that you are flexible enough to consider a few companies within the industry.

One important thing to keep in mind is that many of us stop here, content with just listing the names of industry and company. You need to articulate your short-term career plan by explaining 1) what you hope to do there, 2) what you would like to learn from the job, and 3) how you will utilize the skills and experiences you will gain torealize your long-term career goal.

As far as your long-term career goal is concerned, there is a little bit of room for ambiguity. It is hard, realistically, to describe what you will be doing in 10, 15 years down the line in a detailed fashion. With this said, you should give a fairly solid picture of what you wish to do in the long term.

You can do this by prefacing your long-term career goal by providing 1) the nature of issues you would likely face in achieving your long-term goal (thus, naturally leading yourself to “why MBA”), 2) the keen understanding of short-term and long-term opportunities in the industry you are targeting (thus, naturally showing your keen managerial outlook and initiative), and 3) how the skills and experiences you will learn in short-term position would help you achieve your long-term goals (thus, showing that you have seriously considered your career in depth).

2. Why MBA

The key to successfully articulating your personal reason for this question lies in the degree of honesty you are willing to share with school's admission committee in your essay. Obviously, you have a tough road ahead to reaching your goal without MBA, and you should be honest in addressing what skills (and/or perspectives) you are lacking here.

In other words, you should not be afraid of sharing your weakness or lack of skills in certain area. I believe that the combination of professional weaknesses (e.g. lack of exposure to finance and/or marketing) and personal weaknesses (e.g. lack of global perspective, time-management) could create a very compelling set of personal reasons for "why MBA" question. The catch here is, again, how far you are willing to be honest in addressing your weakness in your essay (most people assume that essays are a marketing pitch with a aggressive, assertive, and confident tone, but you should also be honest with your weaknesses.)

I must confess that as soon as I submitted my Wharton application last month, I have been basically kicking myself for not being totally genuine with myself and my situation in this context (I was being honest, but not “genuine enough”). I should have mentioned a couple of personal weaknesses to make my essays more compelling, but at the last minute, I decided not to do so for whatever the mood I was in. Perhaps I should use this lesson to better prepare myself for my upcoming Wharton interview.

3. Why Now

There are various ways you can (implicitly) mention that you need MBA at this very juncture. I honestly believe that you don’t necessarily have to state, explicitly, that you want your MBA right now. I am sure there are many worthy candidates who have been successful in answering this question by stating their reason very explicitly, but I feel that bringing up your personal reason for "Why Now" in a very natural, subtle way is the best way to go.

Many, including myself, have used what I define as “the issue-trigger approach” in answering this question. Beside money, fame, and prestige factors, you should search for some sort of “issue” or certain period of time that you have decided to pursue MBA at this time. Try to articulate the nature of such issue (promotion, exposure to organizational structuring, a certain project, etc) and state how this issue has prompted you to decide to go for MBA right now.

A couple years ago when I was watching SportsCenter on ESPN, I saw a very inspirational catch-slogan displayed during break, “There are certain moments that put you on a certain path in your life.”

I am sure you do have your own moments (read: issue) that triggered your decision, and it is up to you to highlight this issue in the context of answering this question.

4. Why XYZ school

First, research, research, and do some more research. Once you have done enough research on your school by going to its website, try to talk to some alumni about their unique experiences at school. When I was preparing for this answer in my Wharton essay, I tried to contact more than four alumni to gain some insights to their experiences. And all of them were willing to lend me some time to talk to me about their experiences (yes, it shows you the kind of school Wharton is).

Ideally, you should have your personal reasons in the following three areas.

1. Academic: Make sure that you go beyond simply listing the areas of your academic focus, the names of classes you want to take, and the names of certain programs/facilities at school. You should articulate why you want to focus on what you want to focus on and how knowledge gained from studying in this area would help you to achieve your short-term and long-term goal. Connecting the values of academic curriculum provided by your school to achieving your career goals is the key here. In my case, I basically stated that what I would learn through ABC class will immensely help me prepare the stiff competition I would face in XYZ situation I anticipate in DEF industry.

2. Community: Again, refrain yourself from listing a bunch of activities, clubs, and/or community service organizations. The best way to sound sincere in illustrating your desire to get involved at your school is to highlight the continuous progression of what you have been doing outside your professional realm. Or you can simply reiterate the areas of your interest/hobby/professional ambition here.

One major point – as much as articulating your passion for joining these activities and highlighting immense benefits are important, you should also note how you would add values to these organizations by sharing your unique personal traits or professional achievements. You would be shocked to learn how many people forget to address how they would add to the community. Most people seem to bypass this “value-adding” point for some strange reason.

3. Personal Reason: This could be anything from your wife’s older sister having graduated from your target school to professors you had a previous contact with teaching currently at school.