Columbia Business School Essays, Prompt by Prompt

If you’re applying for August entry (the January 2027 application is already closed, so that’s most of you this cycle), Short Answer 2 is about your summer:

How do you plan to spend the summer after the first year of the MBA? If in an internship, please include target industry (industries) and/or function (functions). If you plan to work on your own venture, please indicate a focus of business. (50 characters maximum)

Examples of possible responses:

• “Product management internship in fintech.”
• “Summer associate, healthcare private equity.”
• “Building my edtech venture full time.”

Same 50 characters as Short Answer 1, so the same rules apply: no throat-clearing, no “This summer, I plan to…” Give them the industry and function (or your venture’s focus), as cleanly as you can say it.

The real test is fit. Your summer should look like a logical step toward the goal you gave in Short Answer 1. Goal: brand management at a consumer company. Summer: “Brand marketing intern at a beverage company.” Clean. If the two point in different directions, the reader will wonder which one is real.

If you’re applying for January entry:

Why do you prefer the January-entry term? (50 characters maximum)

First of all, see our response to Short Answer 1 for a sense of what 50 characters is. ‘Not much’ is what we’re dealing with. 

We love ‘deltas’ as a way of locating salient points. In this case, what are your alternatives for matriculation? Now CBS nudges you along by choosing the word ‘prefer’ to imply that those other choices are available to you, and are perfectly viable choices for someone else with different needs. Why then is the January-entry term your preferred option? It should be evident from your response that your reason draws a sharp contrast to those alternatives. 50 characters. Get it.

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)

This is mostly a standard goals essay, with a few subtle tweaks.

First of all, they’ve made a point to steer you away from rehashing your résumé here. “Because we can read, and have your résumé and recommendation in front of us… We have a clear sense of your professional path to date. So please don’t waste our time by repeating that stuff here, because you’ll be revealing just how much you don’t get that simple concept…” That’s kind of what the folks at Columbia Business School are really saying there. Now, there IS a reason to slip in some of your achievements, but only to the extent that doing so further CLARIFIES your goals and/or CONVINCES the reader that you have a shot at succeeding AT achieving those goals (we’ll come back to that).

Okay, so how to crush Essay #1 for CBS? Well, this may require some re-wiring of your brain, so strap in.

You want the readers to be utterly impressed, okay, we’ll grant you that. But HOW you go about impressing them is where it gets tricky. Your instinct might be to impress through pitching the coolest-SOUNDING job/plan. In other words, you may want to tantalize these folks with a killer tech idea; or something revolutionary; or something so creative and unique, it stops them in their tracks. Nope. Don’t try to impress through the plan. Instead, impress through the INEVITABILITY OF that plan. If your background (and therefore your skill set, prior achievements, general career arc, etc.) maps perfectly to the plan you’ve laid out for the next 3-5 years, you’re going to be thought of as “bankable.”

Think about it… business schools allow for your career goals to shift. In fact, they fully expect them to. That’s often the whole point of business school: to prime “future successes” to be as mighty as possible. What they want are SURE THINGS.

This should be a game-changer as you approach your essays. The thing you’re selling “the buyer” on is your ability to pull that plan off (the quality of the plan itself comes second), because your background and your skill set, and your interests, and your future aspirations, and your dedication to success are all in perfect alignment.

To put a fine point on it, the reader of the perfect CBS Essay #1 won’t say, “Wow, what an impressive 3-5 year plan. I hope this kid succeeds!” The perfect essay elicits THIS response: “Wow, this kid is gonna pull that plan off. Or any other plan they commit to. Let’s go get them before someone else does.” See the difference?

Now as far as the long-term dream job is concerned, don’t just talk about what that job is. Attack it from the angle of what changes (in the world, in others, etc.) as a result of your succeeding IN that dream job. Let’s say your dream job is to be the future CEO of a brand new game-changing telecom company. Don’t just tell us what that company does, and what you imagine your role to be as CEO of that disrupting change agent. Pitch us the DISRUPTION. Sell us on “the thing you dream will happen WHEN YOU’RE SUCCEEDING.” If we buy into THAT, then we’re gonna want to help you get to that long-term dream job…

As far as balance/structure goes, this will get you out of trouble for a decent first draft (as always, remember that no two applicant essays need look alike; this is just a general suggestion if you’re stumbling out of the cages):

• Sell us quickly on either a TEASER version of your long-term vision, or the OPPORTUNITY you’re hoping to pop, or a PROBLEM that needs fixing. (50-75 words)
• Now, quickly catch us up to speed on what you’re up to now, and how you’re hoping to push things forward in the next 3-5 years. (Important to forget business school, for a second: pretend an MBA didn’t exist for the purposes of this particular paragraph; just give us the 3-5 year plan.) But, don’t just give us the step-by-step plan. Convince us that your skill set will allow you to transition from wherever you are right now to step 1 of that plan, and then to step 2, and then step 3, etc. This is the crux of it. Remember, what counts is the inevitability of your SUCCEEDING at the plan. (2 paragraphs, 150 words apiece)
• Finally, expand the canvas to include your long term dream job, selling us on “the result of your succeeding AT your dream job.” Sell us on your passion for this thing. Sell us on your confidence for why you’ll succeed. (100 words or so)
• Somewhere along the way, wherever it makes sense, it won’t hurt to layer in the area or areas where you need some fortification (from, say, a top-notch business school), in order to really achieve your goals, fully. (2 sentences, max)

More important than nailing the structure on a first draft, is getting the foundation correct. So focus on making a convincing argument that:

1. You have assessed your strengths and weaknesses with considerable thought and insight, and
2. You have thought through your goals very carefully and have a clear sense of risk, what’s realistic/not realistic, have a back-up plan if things don’t work out exactly as you’d like, etc.

As long as you nail those two things, the rest (the rewriting process where it all starts to tighten up and get sexy) will fall into place easily.

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. (250 words)

One thing to be cautious of: don’t get so focused on these three outcomes such that you end up picking the wrong story to tell. A better approach is to identify your best stories, the ones where the features that make those stories great reveal something potent and differentiated about you, and pack the greatest punch with respect to indicating your likelihood of future success. Then, seeing how closely those features map to one of the three things CBS names, and going from there. You can go too far here, also, and pick a great story that works well with a different question but doesn’t at all connect with any of those three, only to come across like a politician with your pre-packaged sound bite that you were gonna sound off on, regardless of the question posed. That’ll just make you look unserious at best, insulting at worst.

So let’s assume you’ve organized your best stories, ranking them from most to least potent with respect to ‘application argument’ punch. Now let’s review the CBS list, and then go into each one-by-one:

• Making a team more collaborative
• Making it more inclusive
• Fostering a greater sense of community within an organization

If you have to work hard to forge a connection between the most salient points of your story with any of these three, it is likely not the right story to choose. Move to the next one on your list and try again. And so on, until you hit a situation where something YOU did clearly moved a team in one of those three directions. Now you’re ready to rock.

Notice the verbs. You “made” a team more collaborative or more inclusive; you “fostered” a greater sense of community. CBS wants a delta: a BEFORE (the team that worked in silos, the quiet voice nobody heard, the office where people barely knew each other’s names) and an AFTER, with YOU as the reason for the difference. No before-and-after, no story.

And “a specific example” means ONE example. Skip the leadership philosophy (“I always make sure everyone feels heard…”). Give us the one team, the one moment, the one thing you did, in enough detail that we can picture it.

Why does CBS care so much? Look at how it describes itself in Essay 3: “a collaborative learning environment in which students feel a sense of belonging, agency, and partnership.” This essay is a preview of whether you’ll help build that environment. Show them you already do it wherever you go.

So, with that in mind, can you locate a moment in your recent past (probably work-related, but not necessarily) where a team or an organization became more collaborative, more inclusive or more of a community because of something YOU did?

Here’s how to tackle:

1. Bring us into the situation. What was the problem, or challenge, or task, and what was keeping the team from being as collaborative, inclusive or connected as it could be? At what point did you realize that? How might someone have read the situation who was not mindful of it? Contrast that with your reading, given that you were mindful. Make the ‘issue’ clear, such that we can picture it. (75 words)
2. Now explain what you did, and what the results were. For now, be matter of fact and give it to us straight, just what you did, and what happened. (75 words)
3. Now, get into the real meat of it. Explain why you did what you did. What were your options? What might someone else have done, and on what basis, or with what blindspots? What did your decision tree look like? What was going on in your head as you were grappling with the complexities of navigating the issue? Something must have made it challenging, otherwise it’s the wrong story. Lay out what made it hard, and why you did what you did, and why that matters to you. What are the bigger picture implications of it? Be careful not to get too preachy. Remember this is a business school. The best answers show a team that got better as a team AND delivered better results because of it. Find that angle, and slay it. (100 words)

That approach will get you to a decent starting point/first draft.

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. (250 words)

You know how in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1, the thing with the keys, and there’s two of them, but in order for this most important object that hold the keys to the world (literally), each individual key on its own is useless, but together, when merged…. cuz you know, it takes… both things to…… That.

CBS can give, and you can be a bog standard (selfish!) old school applicant and just take. But that’s not how CBS sees this partnership working. In fact, that’s an apt analogy: partnership. Imagine the MBA as a collaboration between (1) The Cohort of MBA students and (2) The Program Itself and Everything It Has to Offer. If you were tasked with drawing up ‘job descriptions’ in order to clarify the role of each ‘Managing Member,’ the role of CBS is fairly obvious. It would go something like:

• Attract the best and brightest business minds from all walks of life, and from all corners of the planet
• Attract the best teaching talent on the planet to help inspire and mentor these individuals
• Forge connections between the class and… the city of New York, the broader CBS network, top shelf companies that are ideally the most desirable landing spots for the graduating class.
• Design an experience that is so memorable and fulfilling that each graduating class becomes powerful advocates to future generations of would-be MBA seekers
• Leverage every conceivable opportunity to pave the way for unbridled success of the graduating classes such that their success itself becomes a free advertisement for future generations

That’s CBS’s part. But it’s just one key. Remember, Tom Cruise devotees, there’s two of em. What’s the other one’s role? What should the class be doing (and individuals within those classes) to add value and contribute to the ‘organization’s’ overall aims? It’s a neat question because the tendency is to understand the relationship between School and Student as Giver and Taker. CBS is inviting you to be a part of the thing. Well? Watchugot?

What is an optimal experience to begin with? There’s your first challenge. Let’s define where we’re headed, and understand the difference between a decent MBA experience and an amazing one. What does the amazing one even look like? What are the features? Without a clear sense of what that looks like, a premature dive into what and how you’ll contribute will lack critical context.

Once you’ve defined that end point, and ‘seem to get what makes for a valuable experience’ (itself a strong signal to the school that you have what it takes), your next challenge is to identify specific ways in which you believe you will add value to that effort. This will become a new type of differentiator between you and your competitors, beyond GMAT/GRE scores, promotion track record, etc. Are you able to identify a specific need at CBS that you are able to fill in a unique or impressive way? Are you able to understand what CBS is aiming to achieve, and address that need head on through your examples of where you’re able to add value?

Really, this question is a variation of: why are you pursuing an MBA? Translation: do you understand what an MBA education is meant to deliver, and how coherent are your goals such that you understand the precise value that this education might deliver? But also, do you get that part of the MBA experience is the result of ‘the class itself’? The ‘chemical interactions’ between all these enterprising, diverse, unique individuals? What do you add to that equation that contributes something positive to the overall?

Here’s how to approach:

1. First define what an optimal MBA experience even is, in your view. (‘An’ = in general = Not… CBS’s, for now.) Show us that you get why this degree exists, and what the value is. (50-75 words)
2. By example, show how that type of optimal experience will turbocharge your own personal career goals. (50-75 words)
3. Tie the ‘turbocharging’ effect on your own personal goals to the role of the class itself. And now, articulate how you will be as much a part of that, contributing to the ‘rising tide that lifts all boats (of which you are one)’ by showcasing the precise value add your candidacy represents. Be. Specific. (100-125 words)

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. (Maximum 500 Words)

Read our team’s complete take on the idea of the optional essay, including a brief (recent) history of b-schools’ relationship with it, and how our recommendations have evolved over the years, right here.