Essay Analysis
Important Dates

Round 1

09/18/2023

Round 2

10/18/2023

Round 3

01/18/2024

Round 4

04/18/2024

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June 20, 2022

NYU Stern School Of Business MBA Essay 2

Personal Expression (A.K.A. "Pick Six")

Describe yourself to the Admissions Committee and to your future classmates using six images and corresponding captions. Your uploaded PDF should contain all of the following elements:

  • A brief introduction or overview of your “Pick Six” (no more than 3 sentences).
  • Six images that help illustrate who you are.
  • A one-sentence caption for each of the six images that helps explain why they were selected and are significant to you.

Note: Your visuals may include photos, infographics, drawings, or any other images that best describe you. Your document must be uploaded as a single PDF. The essay cannot be sent in physical form or be linked to a website.

It’s three sentences to tee the whole thing up and then a single sentence for each picture to help explain and bring them to life. Let’s figure out what they’re looking for here.

“Describe yourself.” To succeed at this exercise, one should be able to GLANCE at your six images (without ANY accompanying words) and be able to make some accurate predictions about who you are as a person. The closer that viewer’s “guess” is to what you’re actually like in real life, the better the execution. In fact, imagine that’s the challenge in itself. An adcom member reviews your six pictures and then says, “Okay, when I meet this person they’re going come across THIS way; they’ll be the kind of person who in THIS situation or would make THAT choice; it’s the kind of person who probably has THIS kind of story; if he were among the Game of Thrones cast, he’d be the ABC character” … Then when you meet, the Adcom member says “Wow, s/he’s exactly as I imagined.” All that means is that whatever you communicated in those six picks was unbelievably efficient and effective in conveying something about who you are, and what you’re all about.

What stuff are we conveying then? It includes hints of your:

  • Personality
  • Character
  • Quirks

Everything else BEYOND that? Is gravy. If you give us other stuff but neglect those things, then you’ve probably shanked it. This is not your resume. This is not a 6-page PowerPoint of your “Billion-Dollar Idea.” It’s six images that allow us to CAST you in the perfect movie role “because we understand who you are so well from the pictures.”

One quick word about drawings and infographics: don’t pack so much stuff INTO a single image that it defeats the point of the exercise. The whole point is to try to reduce you to your essence through an ECONOMY of expression. Otherwise, you could write an essay in really small font, take a picture of that essay, and include it here. See how that’s missing the point? It would be like watching a movie where it was just a continuous scroll of the screenplay, rather than a picturization OF the screenplay. Embrace the medium here folks. Understand the intention behind limiting it to (A) images, and (B) only six of them, total. It’s about high yield. That’s where the creativity comes into play.

What series of six images SUM to complete the most complete (and compelling) HINT about who you are? They don’t all need to interconnect on an individual level. Meaning, if Picture #1 is a photograph you once took of a SCENE IN NATURE that you really love, it doesn’t mean that Pictures #2–6 all need to conform to that general rule. The key is that they need to “sum” to something coherent. Even if the conclusion is that you’re a completely chaotic and random person, it’s possible for your six pictures to tell THAT story. Whatever it is, it needs to “work” though. If multiple people walk away with multiple impressions, chances are, it is weak. There are no points for the “everyone’s opinion is equally valid” nature of admiring abstract art. If anything, it’s the exact opposite challenge here. Your task is to make it so that multiple people are forced toward a very similar conclusion about who and what you are. Now, it’s possible that some may LIKE what that is, and others may not… the key is that they can at least all agree on what it IS.

Lots of ways to approach this so we’re just going to give you a taste of a few, but truly, there are many many many solid ways to go about it:

[1] A narrative. If you want to tell us about an evolution of sorts that shows us who/what you are TODAY compared to who/what you were “six iterations” ago, that could be cool. Six shades of YOU, where Slide 1 is You.0, then Slide 2 is You.1, etc. The idea here is that we learn something about you through the CHANGES over time. And the images don’t have to be of YOU, per se. It’s possible we can learn something about you through the evolution of your hobbies, or some other means. Lots of room for creativity here.

[2] Or, it can be a recipe for how to create “you.” Slide 1 is ingredient #1. (Imagine the possibilities, they are endless for what could go here.)

[3] You are what you eat. Six slides of foods that somehow represent every aspect of who you are: Slide 1 – Thai Green Chile Peppers (fresh, hot, unafraid to be scalding when need be). Slide 2 – XXXXX ?

The possibilities really are endless. It could be a hand-drawn comic strip that stitches together a simple story that tells us everything we need to know about who you are through a comical tale. It could be six things you’d spend money to acquire if you won the lottery. See how it’s endless? The trick is, with ANY of these ideas, it needs to convey something very clear about who you are, such that we could make some predictions about you based on those six images (and the accompanying theme/captions).

There’s not really a “wrong” way to approach this, other than the one which looks like a glorified resume, or an attempt to impress us somehow. It says more about your self-confidence, in fact, if there’s a conspicuous LACK of that instinct…

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June 20, 2022

Additional Information (Optional) Essay

Please provide any additional information that you would like to bring to the attention of the Admissions Committee. This may include current or past gaps in employment, further explanation of your undergraduate record or self-reported academic transcript(s), plans to retake the GMAT, GRE, IELTS or TOEFL or any other relevant information. (250 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

Lots of room here to spill something VITAL that hasn’t been captured anywhere else. Bring the lumber! What assets of yours are needle-movers in your candidacy, those that you feel haven’t had a chance to LEAP off the page anywhere else in your application? Whatever the biggest item is, drop it here. Maybe it’s a case you need to make about how COMPETENT your quant skills are despite what your test scores (or background) suggest. Maybe it’s a leadership story that is best served here, so as to allow your creative side to come alive in the “pick six” essay. Maybe it’s a walk-through of a compelling

Whatever the biggest item is, drop it here. Maybe it’s a case you need to make about how COMPETENT your quant skills are despite what your test scores (or background) suggest. Maybe it’s a leadership story that is best served here, so as to allow your creative side to come alive in the “pick six” essay. Maybe it’s a walk-through of a compelling

Maybe it’s a case you need to make about how COMPETENT your quant skills are despite what your test scores (or background) suggest. Maybe it’s a leadership story that is best served here so as to allow your creative side to come alive in the “pick six” essay. Maybe it’s a walk-through of a compelling backup plan you’ve formulated in case your main plan hits a snag. Depending on the quality of any of these, it may deserve some airtime here. Not all will, by the way. Just because this space is open, doesn’t mean you absolutely MUST fill it, in case the thing you fill it with doesn’t actually advance your case somehow. Just be mindful of that.

Depending on the quality of any of these, it may deserve some airtime here. Not all will, by the way. Just because this space is open, doesn’t mean you absolutely MUST fill it, especially in the case that the thing you fill it with doesn’t actually advance your case somehow. Just be mindful of that.

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

June 20, 2022

Essay 1: Change: _____ it (350 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

In today’s global business environment, the only constant is change. Using NYU Stern’s brand call to action, we want to know how you view change. Change: _____ it. Fill in the blank with a word of your choice. Why does this

word resonate with you? How will you embrace your own personal tagline while at Stern? Examples:

  • Change: Dare it.
  • Change: Dream it.
  • Change: Drive it.
  • Change: Empower it.
  • Change: Manifest it.
  • Change: [Any word of your choice.]

Stern has gone in an interesting new direction this year, and let’s get the obvious out of the way… when someone writes “____ it,” there is one word in the English language that fits very easily in that slot. That’s not what they’re looking for here!
Despite the unconventional format, the underlying logic here is not that far off the very straightforward goals essay that used to be in this place: prove to the adcom that you have the vision and skills to succeed post-MBA. The adcom is looking for visionaries, not functionaries. They don’t want folks who just want to take on XYZ cool

role and do well in it–they want people who will shake up their entire industry, revolutionize their market, build something new out of nothing, and otherwise reflect well on Stern as alumni. In short, they want people who will make a CHANGE in the world around them.
Don’t worry about the word you’re going to put in that blank quite yet. Start by identifying the change you hope to make, then work backward to the tagline. There are many ways to approach this, but we like to consider what you’re going to do differently from your peers and predecessors in your post-MBA career.

For example, if you’re planning on creating a novel startup, or have already identified a weakness in your industry and developed a business plan for how to shake it up, then you already likely have a “change” in mind. Take some time to brainstorm what will make your company unique, and how it will stand out from existing competitors. Write down a quick summary, including whatever context someone unfamiliar with your industry (like the adcom!) would need to understand what makes your idea NEW.

If you’re following a more traditional path–for example, pursuing a career at a large management consulting or finance firm–identifying the change you plan to make may be harder. Maybe the difference is more cultural or

internal: changing the way work is done, how decisions are made, or ways of doing business. How will you influence your team or department within the larger organization? What new perspective can you offer that is currently not represented in the industry?

Once you’ve identified the change you hope to make post-MBA, consider what specific steps you’ll take at Stern to prepare yourself for that effort. That’s “How [you will] embrace your own personal tagline while at Stern” from the prompt. Do your research, and identify a few groups or people you’d like to work with and changes you’d like to

make on campus. These activities should fit with your longer-term goals, and be logical stepping stones to that larger ambition.
Now, as our last step before writing the actual essay, let’s consider what our word should be. Look at the plan you have constructed above: the steps you plan to take on campus and thereafter. What verb fits the arc you’ve laid out? Don’t worry about picking something too esoteric or unique–with a prompt like this the word in the blank is unlikely to be the thing that makes your application stand out. Instead, focus on picking a word that fits well with your ambitions.

Then let’s stitch it all together:

  1. Explain the change you hope to make post-MBA, and your vision for changing your industry. HOW will you go about this? What makes your approach new and exciting? Why is this the change you plan to devote your life to?
  2. Show how you will prepare for that visionary career on campus, both changing Stern for the better and learning the skills that will allow you to change your future workplaces and (dare we say) the world!

Your actual “Change: _____ it.” should come near the beginning of the essay, or possibly at the end. Do make sure to include your tagline–the prompt requires it!

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