Essay Analysis
Important Dates

Round 1

09/21/2023

Round 2

01/04/2024

Round 3

04/04/2024

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June 22, 2021

Chicago Booth MBA Essay 2

An MBA is as much about personal growth as it is about professional development. In addition to sharing your experience and goals in terms of career, we’d like to learn more about you outside of the office. Use this opportunity to tell us something about who you are… (Minimum 250 words, no maximum.) Length: There is no maximum length, only a 250-word minimum. We trust that you will use your best judgment in determining how long your submission should be, but we recommend that you think strategically about how to best allocate the space. Acceptable Formats: Submissions must be entered into the text box provided in the application.

This is a classic MBA application question, one you’ll probably see on other applications as well. Start by thinking about what makes your extraprofessional life exciting and interesting. What do you do that most people around you don’t? What extraprofessional activity do you do better than most of your peers in your company, industry, or country? Make a list of those exceptional activities.

Note the emphasis on things you DO. Statements of fact “I am Indian-American” or opinion “I like to watch golf” are not what the adcom is looking for here. The strongest versions of this essay will show the adcom “who you are” by portraying your actions, rather than just listing a series of traits that you have.

To illustrate the power of this approach, imagine the adcom asked a friend of yours this same question. The friend could reply “He’s an avid hiker and skilled outdoorsman.” Or they could say “Oh, her? Let me tell you about her. There was this one time when we were stranded in the Rocky Mountains, and she jury-rigged a sled from branches, and saved all of our lives…” That second version is MUCH more compelling evidence of the applicant’s wilderness survival ability, because it provides evidence in the form of an example.

In this spirit, take your list of exceptional activities from earlier, and identify one or two specific examples or achievements for each activity. So “I play chess” becomes “I won the U.S. Chess Championship in 2018… while wearing a blindfold.” Then think about what each achievement says about you and how that relates to your MBA admissions argument.

Your post-MBA goals matter here! Say you’re getting a Booth MBA in order to create a tech startup. What skills or personality traits will you need to be successful? Persistence? Curiosity? We’ll want to emphasize those particular traits in our essay, even though we’re not talking directly about your current or future work. Pick the 2-3 extraprofessional achievements from your list that you feel most exemplify the traits needed in your target industry.

Once you’ve identified the stories you want to tell, it’s just a matter of putting it all together. This could be done a number of different ways. For example, the entire essay could be built around one trait (“determination”, “resourcefulness”, etc.), with each story showing a different time you relied on that trait. Alternatively, you could tell the story chronologically, showing how each interest led to the next, and an ever-greater amount of extraprofessional achievement. The strongest versions of this essay often do both of these things at the same time, creating a narrative where the candidate’s extraprofessional achievements build on one another and leave the adcom facing the unavoidable conclusion that this candidate has the “right stuff” for whatever career path they have chosen.

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June 22, 2021

How will the Booth MBA help you achieve your immediate and long-term post-MBA career goals? (250 word minimum)

Response Guidelines:

  • Length: There is no maximum length, only a 250-word minimum. We trust that you will use your best judgment in determining how long your submission should be, but we recommend that you think strategically about how to best allocate the space.
  • Acceptable Formats: Submissions must be entered into the text box provided in the application.

Check out our suggested offline exercise for this Wharton question. Essentially, the idea is to plan out your next five years of growth WITH and WITHOUT the Booth MBA, and then examine the delta between the two paths. This will be useful here as well. In fact, regardless of your interest in Wharton or Booth, you should go through the process of imagining this exact same timeline for MULTIPLE schools, with the intention of “ending up slightly different” five years from now in EVERY VERSION because the experience(s) at each particular school will alter your trajectory, somewhat.

250-word MINIMUM is also an interesting signal. Generally, when no strict word limit is given, we recommend landing somewhere around 500-600 words. Why? Cuz that’s the amount of space most “M7 MBAs” need to make their case.

Try this format, and what you SHOULD end up with is a QUALITY first draft that’s well on its way to being dissected and remolded into Rodin-esque mastery:

  1. Sell us on the OPPORTUNITY or PROBLEM you wanna solve. What is it you’re trying to achieve? Why? What will the impact be? Why should anyone care? Convince us this is a cool idea or problem to fix, and convince us that your vision is sensible and achievable. [75-100 words]
  2. Great idea, but what business do YOU have attacking it? Convince us. Walk us through a few KEY highlights of your past that put your credibility here on full display. Focus on only the stuff that allows us to say “Yah, this is the kind of person and these are the kinds of skills that translate PERFECTLY to solving the problem you’ve identified.” At the end of this section, explain what things you are MISSING that prevent you from attacking these goals today. There have to be SOME, otherwise, why bother wasting two years? Describe the stuff you need IN GENERAL, as if from “any MBA.” [125-150 words]
  3. Now, map specific things at Booth to those deficits in your skill set. Don’t point out things that exist at Booth that are theoretically valuable. Create “proofs” for how those “things” AFFECT you in a way that results in “skill set boostage” … aka, “improved ability to achieve goals.” Show us how specific aspects of Booth will TRANSFORM you from “guy who can’t quite achieve ST and LT goals” into “guy who can.” Until you make that “chemical reaction” clear, you haven’t quite nailed this section yet. And this is hard, so there’s a 97% chance you’ll get close on your first draft but won’t quite nail it. Don’t be discouraged. It’ll get there! [100-125 words]
  4. Finally, lay out the BLUEPRINT of specific things you plan on doing in the short term toward your long-term goals, once you’re equipped with that Booth MBA. Prove to us that you’re likely to achieve all those steps, and make sure the logic and sequence of it is all plain as day. We need to prove that your short-term goals are the BEST POSSIBLE stepping stones between the MBA and your long-term ambitions. Then segue seamlessly into a more far-off look at the horizon: Where it’s all headed longer-term, and what it all means, why this is meaningful to you, why these ambitions are not a flame that’s gonna burn out anytime soon. [125-150 words]

Depending on your individual case, [3] and [4] can sometimes flip.

June 24, 2019

Upon reflection, how has your perspective regarding your future, Chicago Booth, and/or getting an MBA changed since the time of your last application? (300 word maximum)

This is a typical re-applicant essay – a nice, specific question about updates on short-term and long-term career goals. It’s important to keep in mind when addressing this piece that it’s not just about the matter-of-fact update itself… we also need to assess the IMPROVEMENT you’ve pulled off.

In other words, one year later, your career plan has to become sharper or more plausible, or more exciting in some way. We need to understand HOW. And WHY. That’s the key: a crystal clear explanation of how your candidacy has improved and what it means given your (new and improved) reasons for getting an MBA. Take a deeper dive into our analysis below:

The Re-applicant Essay


Read more and explore each step of the Chicago Booth MBA application process here

You can also read through our team’s analysis of the rest of Booth’s application essays.

June 24, 2019

Additional Information (Optional Essay)

Is there any unclear information in your application that needs further explanation? (300 word maximum)

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.

You can also read through our team’s analysis of the rest of Booth’s application essays.


Read more and explore each step of the Chicago Booth MBA application process here.

View more essay analyses.

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