Resources

Columbia Business School (CBS) requires three essays and two short answers as part of its application. Through your essays, the school hopes to better understand your experiences and career goals, as well as your rationale for wanting to pursue your MBA at CBS specifically. We at Gatehouse appreciate the program’s range of essay topics, because the variety allows applicants to communicate a broad picture of their candidacy.

Essay 1: 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)

Columbia has been asking this question for several years now, so we at Gatehouse have considerable experience coaching candidates on how to effectively respond to this prompt. We know what makes a good essay response, and even better, we know where applicants are likely to stumble.

Our first piece of advice is to make sure that you are answering the school’s entire question. CBS wants to learn two distinct things: what your career goals are for the three to five years after you graduate with your MBA, and what your long-term dream job is. Too often, candidates combine these two elements into one when crafting their essay. Instead, follow the prompt and address each one distinctly! Also, make sure that your short-term goals flow logically into your dream job. Achieving your short-term objectives should ideally prepare and position you to later achieve your dream job.

For both your short- and long-term goals, focus on what you will be doing (role, industry, and/or function), as well as the kind of impact you want to have—the problems you want to solve, the products you want to create, the team you want to lead. This is especially important when you are describing your “dream job.” Your dream job likely inspires you, and the admissions committee wants to know why.

The essay prompt does not explicitly ask how your goals relate to where you are now, but that does not mean you should ignore the connection. Although the admissions committee is all but telling you not to rehash your resume here (which would make for a poor MBA application essay for most schools, anyway), we encourage you to refer to specific accomplishments and/or experiences if doing so provides context that will help the admissions committee better understand your goals or assess your likelihood of reaching them.

Lastly, consider this essay a goal statement essay. The core components of a goal statement essay are (1) your vision for the future, (2) an explanation of how that vision relates to where you are today, and (3) the reasons you need to attend business school to make your vision a reality. Although you will also discuss (3) in CBS’s Essay 3, you can nonetheless make a clear case for needing an MBA in this essay as well.

For additional guidance on how to craft a compelling goal statement essay, watch our video workshop Your Career Statement – Fact, Fiction, and How to Build One.

Essay 2: 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)

This second essay prompt gives candidates a chance to share a specific experience related to collaboration, community, and/or inclusion. When executed well, this essay can reveal much about your motivations, unique candidacy, and ability to observe, learn, and grow.

We suggest you use the STARR (Situation, Task, Actions, Results, and Reflection) approach in crafting your response. Each of these elements is important in storytelling.

• The Situation helps your reader “see” your world.
• The Task conveys the challenge or goal at hand.
• The Actions illustrate who you are as a doer. We often see applicants shortchange their actions in their responses. Instead, take the necessary time to identify the discrete actions you took, and then consider and share both the rationale and the “how” behind them. These specifics will ensure that your story is one that only you could tell.
• The Results are, of course, the outcome of your efforts and experience (the “so what” of your story!).
• The Reflection element covers how the experience affected and shaped you. Why was it meaningful to you?

Applicants often assume that because they are applying to business school, they should share only professional stories in their applications. You could absolutely choose to share a professional story (lots of applicants will and will find success in doing so), but we encourage you to brainstorm expansively before committing to a particular anecdote. College, community, and extracurricular experiences can often provide meaningful growth opportunities; sometimes, candidates find that their most impressive team or leadership experiences occurred outside of work—simply because the applicants are too junior in their career to necessarily have formalized leadership roles. Select and share the story that best fits the prompt and complements the information in the rest of your application. 

If you would like more tips on crafting a story essay, watch our video The Importance of Business School Application Essays (and How to Write Them).

Essay 3: 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)

Although this essay prompt is similar to ones CBS has used in the past, the wording has been tweaked considerably. Rather than asking candidates to simply explain how they “fit” with CBS, the school is now demanding a much more involved response. (We suspect that CBS changed the prompt this year because too many applicants were simply listing various advantages of the CBS program, without showcasing their expected role in the school’s community.)

A well-executed essay response will present clear connections between you, the aspects of the CBS program that you find compelling, and the contribution you hope to make while a member of the school’s community. Consider each of the areas the prompt mentions (academics, culture, and career) vis-à-vis why you are pursuing an MBA (i.e., the experiences, skills, knowledge, and/or connections you are lacking), and then prove to the admissions committee that you know how CBS specifically can fulfill those needs. Note the resources and offerings (whether well-known or somewhat obscure; they do not have to be arcane to make a strong case!) that resonate with you and will help you advance toward your career goals. Also, reflect on what you anticipate getting involved in and what your contribution will be. The verb “co-create” in the prompt is important! How do you envision working alongside your peers and professors to make the CBS experience what you need it to be?

We strongly caution you against empty pandering! Simply describing CBS in glowing terms and praising its resources does nothing to advance your candidacy. By telling the admissions officers what they already know about the school they represent, rather than what they want to know about you, you run the risk of losing their attention—and worse, their support.

Short Answer Question 1 (required for both August-Entry and January-Entry applicants): What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal? (50 characters maximum)

With this straightforward question, CBS prompts candidates to clearly articulate their short-term career goals. Just 50 characters means you have limited space, but if you use those characters strategically, you can give the school confidence that you have a plan in mind for your future. Here are a few 50-character (or fewer) responses for you to consider. Which one do you find most convincing, and why? 

I aim to be a tech product manager at a start-up. (49 characters) 

Product mgmt. at fem health venture (e.g., Maven). (50 characters)

I would like to be a management consultant. (43 characters)

Mgmt consultant at firm w/deep healthcare focus. (48 characters)

Specificity matters. Of course, any goal you write will need to make sense in tandem with your response to CBS’s first essay question, but additional details—even if you need to use shorthand or abbreviations to fit them in—can make your application more compelling.

Short Answer Question 2 for August-Entry applicants: How do you plan to spend the summer after the first year of the MBA? If in an internship, please include target industry(ies) and/or function(s). If you plan to work on your own venture, please indicate a focus of business. (50 characters maximum)

With these career-focused questions, CBS aims to assess how well you have connected the dots between where you are today and where you want to end up. Recruiting at business school starts shortly after new students arrive on campus. Having a target in mind for not only your post-MBA role but also your summer internship will help position you to take advantage of the school’s career resources without becoming overwhelmed by all the options. CBS knows this, and by prompting you to articulate your goals so far in advance, they are doing you a favor. In evaluating your response, the admissions committee will consider whether CBS can help you reach your internship goals. An obvious example to illustrate this point: securing a spot at an investment bank feels like a reasonable goal for a  CBS student; securing a professorship at a university does not. 

Short Answer Question 2 for January-Entry applicants: Why do you prefer the January-entry term? (50 characters maximum)

Columbia’s “J-Term”—the nickname for its January-Entry program—is unique in the world of business schools. Students begin taking courses as a cohort in January, continuing through both the spring and summer semesters. Then in the fall, they join up with the second-year MBA students who began classes in August of the previous year, and everyone graduates together the following May. The January-Entry cohort is smaller than the August-Entry cohort, but the bigger difference is that students spend their summer in the MBA classroom rather than pursuing an internship. The January-Entry program is therefore ideal for students who do not need a summer internship—such as entrepreneurs, candidates sponsored by their companies, and applicants who plan to join a family business after graduation. When answering this question, clarify how and why you will reach your post-MBA goals without a summer internship.