Harvard, Stanford & Wharton: Three MBA Essays That Got Candidates Admitted

The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia n photo

Wharton School Prompt: How do you plan to use the Wharton MBA program to help you achieve your future professional goals? You might consider your past experience, short and long-term goals, and resources available at Wharton. (500 words)

After transitioning from banking to private equity, I first found the faster pace and expanded scope startling, but ultimately invigorating. Shifting from agent to principal, I leapt into formulating a go-forward strategy for rewardify.com’s rapidly growing consumer data analytics business and explored a complex carveout for the payments division of a Dutch online bank. I had absolutely no experience with either industry, but all that really mattered was that I could quickly learn, adapt and contribute. Over the past two years, I have learned to appreciate the “messiness” of investing and the vast opportunities it offers to create value via ingenuity, collaboration and old-fashioned elbow grease. I plan to return to technology investing after I graduate, focusing on later-stage venture or growth equity in Seoul or Shanghai, where wired populaces are driving innovations in consumer tech. Meantime, I aspire to use my Wharton experience to “accelerate my acceleration” both personally and professionally, refining the hard and soft skills I need to thrive in my chosen industry.

As I assess my long-term needs, I recognize that to be a “full stack” partner to management teams, I must grow beyond the financial plain and develop my operations and marketing tool kit. Wharton’s Marketing and Operations Management Major is therefore ideal for me. Having an undergraduate degree in mathematics, I find myself guided largely by intuition in these areas and would take foundational classes like “Operations Strategy” and “Dynamic Marketing Strategy” to then extract the most from uniquely applicable advanced courses like “Contagious: How Products, Ideas, and Behaviors Catch On” and “Online Business Models and the Information-Based Firm.” Beyond Wharton’s vast course options, I find the opportunities to unify theory and practice to be incredibly compelling. The Startup Challenge would allow me to partner with an entrepreneur and engage in the entrepreneurial process, thereby making me a more operationally oriented and thoughtful investor. And a Global Modular Course, like “Global Supply Chain in China,” will provide invaluable insight into the world’s most vexing business issues, while enabling me to expand my industry-related network and form closer bonds with classmates.

I feel fortunate to have already witnessed firsthand the role my diverse and dynamic classmates will play in my education; I visited my cousin Tarek Masoud (W ’19) on campus just before the pandemic, and while there, I observed his “Managerial Decision Making” class and attended that week’s Pub. Both revealed a community that truly comes together to share ideas—and even laugh sometimes at the intensity of the past week. Being a part of this warm yet fervent community greatly appeals to me. An intensive Leadership Venture will allow me to work with peers to actively reflect on and hone my leadership style, and I look forward to the awesome commitment and teamwork that characterize the Learning Team experience. I will enter Wharton with an open mind, ready to listen, absorb, and share, knowing that by bringing the entirety of my energy to the experience, I can confidently embark on the next phase of my career.

Liza Weale, founder of Gatehouse Admissions

Expert Commentary By Liza Weale, founder of Gatehouse Admissions

In just 500 words, you must discuss your career aspirations—giving sufficient context for why they are realistic for you—and illustrate how Wharton will help you pursue these goals by demonstrating a thorough understanding of what the school offers and a well-thought-out game plan for availing yourself of particular resources. To effectively do this and write a reasoned, nuanced essay, you must first familiarize yourself with Wharton’s various offerings, events, and extracurriculars and pinpoint those that truly pertain to you and the direction in which you hope to move. Go the extra mile in learning about the school—connect with multiple students and alumni, attend admissions events in your area, participate in the school’s webinars and other online/virtual offerings, read recent press releases from the program and any news stories about it published elsewhere, check out the Wharton School YouTube channel, and especially, visit the campus if at all possible. This will provide the kind of in-depth insight that you can use to show the admissions committee you are really serious about Wharton and are confident you belong there. Simply presenting a list of classes and clubs you think sound interesting will not suffice, and you must absolutely avoid vague, pandering statements about how great the school is. Your goal is to reveal clear connections between your aspirations, what you need to achieve them (e.g., skills, experience[s], connections, exposure), and what Wharton in particular can provide that will enable you to fill those gaps.

That said, take care to not talk exclusively about the Wharton side of this equation. The admissions committee wants to more fully understand the vision you have for your future career, how you have developed this vision, and why you believe it is feasible and fitting for you (with respect to your interests, work style, strengths, values, and/or other such factors). In a post from 2021 about the essay prompts (the same ones the program is using this season), Blair Mannix, Wharton’s director of admissions, noted, “We made slight revisions to Essay 1 to ensure that the question remained applicant-centered while still requiring applicants to think carefully and specifically about how they can maximize two years at Wharton to prepare for their future career goals” (emphasis ours). Connect the dots, so to speak, between what you are bringing to Wharton yourself as a student and what you feel Wharton will provide to complement and strengthen that to set you on the path to success.

Note that Wharton asks you to address only the professional aspect—not the professional and personal aspect—of your business school goals. This means you should focus solely on sharing your career-related stories and ambitions here and then use the other essay(s) to discuss non-work aspects of your life, thereby providing a more complete and well-rounded picture of yourself for the admissions committee.

ORDER: WHAT MATTERS? WHAT MORE? 50 SUCCESSFUL MBA ESSAYS TO HARVARD & STANFORD