Tips For Conquering The New Columbia Business School Essay

Columbia Business School has released its 2023–2024 application and has replaced one of its essay topics — or, rather, reverted back to one in use a few years ago. 

CBS is once again asking applicants to describe a time when they were challenged around one of five skills essential to becoming an inclusive and ethical leader. The full text of the essay prompt of the new Essay 2 is:

The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL) is a co-curricular program designed to ensure that every CBS student develops the skills to become an ethical and inclusive leader. Through PPIL, students attend programming focused on five essential diversity, equity, and inclusion skills: Creating an Inclusive Environment, Mitigating Bias and Prejudice, Managing Intercultural Dialogue, Addressing Systemic Inequity, and Understanding Identity and Perspective Taking.

Tell us about a time when you were challenged around one of these five skills. Describe the situation, the actions you took, and the outcome. (250 words)

This essay replaces a more general question: “Tell us about your favorite book, movie, or song and why it resonates with you?”

The switch seems to reflect the importance CBS places on its values of diversity, inclusion, and equity and the school’s focus explicitly on cultivating ethical, inclusive leaders with these skills. 

Tips for Responding. 

There is considerable flexibility in this question. After all, there are five specific skills to choose from, and you can, of course, address several. That offers many ways to highlight ways you’ve engaged in one of five themes and how it impacted you and others. Your response should identify one meaningful example from your career or experiences, and then extract lessons learned that showcase the kind of person you are — and the leader you hope to be. 

Implicit in this prompt is a question about your knowledge of and your commitment to CBS. Your answer should also communicate how you will develop and practice these skills at CBS, and how you will engage with and add value to the very diverse and global community there. 

Channel your authenticity and courage to show how you have already engaged this capacity — and then make clear where you hope to let it shine at CBS. 

I repeat: Show, don’t tell. Give us the scene, then tie the story to what the implications are for your future. Self-reflection is essential here: Remember that diversity and inclusion can be about race and ethnicity, but also gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age — and, importantly, different viewpoints, ideas, and experiences. How are you questioning the status quo, inviting diverse perspectives, and cultivating awareness of the less visible forces that shape decision-making and group dynamics?

For advice on how to tackle all three CBS required essays and the short answer question, view my related blog, How To Tackle The Columbia Business School MBA Essays.

Karen Hamou is a Senior Expert Coach at MBA admissions coaching firm Fortuna Admissions as well as a Columbia Business School alum and former Deloitte Consulting recruiting lead. For a candid assessment of your chances of admission success at a top MBA program, sign up for a free consultation.