Ross EMBA Essay Questions for 2013

While applying to executive MBA programs is significantly different from applying to tradition two-year MBA programs, many top schools can still be challenging to get into, and most of them do have essay requirements. Today we take a look at the U. of Michigan (Ross) EMBA essays for 2013:

1. What has been your most significant professional achievement? What has been your toughest professional challenge and how did you address it? (500 words)
2. What are your long-term professional goals? How will a Ross Executive MBA help you achieve your goals? (500 words)
3. Describe how your professional and personal experiences will contribute to the Executive MBA class and teams. (500 words)
4. (Optional) Is there anything else you think the Admissions Committee should know about you to evaluate your candidacy? (500 words)

Notice the heavy emphasis on professional stories. Yes, the admissions committee does want to know about you overall as a person, and does invite some personal stories in Question 3, but overall this is about the professional you and how a Ross EMBA can help accelerate your career. In discussing your career goals, be as clear and specific as possible, but know that you don’t need to have the next 30 years of your career perfectly mapped out. More than anything, the admissions committee wants to know that you have a realistic vision for your career and where a Ross executive MBA program can fit into those plans.

Regarding the optional essay prompt, only use this essay if you feel that you need to. No need to harp on a minor weakness and sound like you are making excuses when you don’t need to. If you have nothing else to tell the admissions committee after answering the first three questions, it is entirely okay to skip this essay!

For more advice, take a look at our book, Your MBA Game Plan, now in its 3rd edition. And, be sure to find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

Financial Times MBA Rankings for 2013

The Financial Times recently released its new global business school rankings for 2013. For the first time since 2005, Harvard Business School holds the top spot, passing last year’s #1, Stanford GSB. This is teh fourth time that HBS has topped the FT rankings.

Many credit Harvard’s push to improve its diversity with the school’s return to #1 in the FT rankings. One criterion on which FT ranks business schools is diversity, and in this area HBS has made some big strides in just the past year. While 34% of Harvard’s Class of 2013 comes from overseas, 43% of the Class of 2014 are international.

Here are the Financial Times’ top 20 global MBA programs for 2013:

1. Harvard Business School
2. Stanford GSB
3. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
4. London Business School
5. Columbia Business School
6. INSEAD
7. IESE Business School
8. Hong Kong UST
9. MIT Sloan
10. Chicago Booth
11. IE Business School
12. UC Berkeley (Haas)
13. Northwestern (Kellogg)
14. Yale SOM
15. CEIBS
16. Dartmouth (Tuck)
16. Cambridge (Judge)
18. Duke (Fuqua)
19. IMD
19. NYU (Stern)

For more business school admissions advice, take a look at our book, Your MBA Game Plan, now in its 3rd edition. And, be sure to find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

Michigan’s Ross School of Business to Pilot Group Interviews… in China?

Recently Soojin Kwon, Director of Admissions of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, announced that the school will pilot its first ever group admissions interviews for Round 2 applicants. This is not too surprising in and of itself… For the past year Wharton has been slowly but surely rolling out its own MBA group interview process, and the early feedback has been mostly positive. We figured that other top MBA programs would announce similar new initiatives to “break out of the essay box” and get to know applicants in new ways.

What surprised us was the fact that the school’s first group interviews won’t be in Ann Arbor, or anywhere else in the United States, for that matter. Ross will pilot its first group interviews with some Round 2 applicants in… in Beijing and Shanghai! Why would Ross fly halfway across the globe to conduct such an important experiment that could dramatically impact its MBA admissions process?

This is what Soojin Kwon had to say in her blog post:

The group interview, while not a requirement for admission, is highly recommended. Candidates who are invited to interview in those cities will still be required to conduct a standard, one-on-one interview with an alumni or current student interviewer.

Adding to the intrigue, knowing that this is so new and experimental (not to mention that Ross announced it after Round 2 applications had already been submitted), why would Ross make the new interview process “highly recommended?” Normally, when a business school introduces a pilot such as this, the school will go out of its way to let applicants know that it’s optional, and that participating or not participating will not have a significant impact on their admissions chances.

So what gives? The most likely explanation is that the Ross admissions team is looking for a new, better way to evaluate China-based applicants’ English skills. Some MBA programs rely on local alumni interviewers, and others rely on Skype for overseas applicants. These all work well for the most part, but what better way to evaluate these applicants’ communication skills and English fluency than to go to where they are, sit in a room with them, and hear how well they can participate in a discussion that could go in any number of directions?

The Ross admissions team has not made much of a point about Chinese applicants’ English skills being tested in these group interviews, we can’t help but think that this is a big reason (if not THE reason) why Ross will pilot this process starting in China. It will be interesting to see if this process expands to cover more Ross applicants next year.

For more business school admissions advice, get yourself a copy of our book, Your MBA Game Plan, now in its 3rd edition. And, be sure to find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!