Resultados y análisis del diseño de experimentos

tone for your entire application. Let's start by examining the kinds of questions most goals essays ask.

WHAT THE SCHOOLS ASK

Though virtually all business schools pose the goals question in some form, the wording they use, the range of topics they include, and the length they require vary widely. The vast majority of schools assign a broader length limit to the goals essay than to any other essay. Though Stanford's seven-page suggested maximum and Darden's discretionary "you decide" represent the most generous length instructions, the typical limit is roughly two pages (about eight hundred plus words) or one thousand words.

As a general rule, goals essays have three parts: a backward-looking career progress section, a forward-looking career goals section, and a "why our school" section. Wharton's essay 1 is the classic goals essay formulation: "Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect an MBA from Wharton to help you achieve these goals and why now?" Many variations are played on this theme, however. Some schools ask only generally what your career goals are, a larger number ask you to break them down further into short- and long-term goals, and a handful even ask for a specific time line: "What are your career goals (immediately after graduation, five years out, ten years out)?" (Maryland).

Though most schools let you decide how detailed your goals description will be, others won't let you off the hook: "Please be as specific as possible, including job title/description, industry, and if possible firm" (Fordham). MIT (Sloan) adds another twist by asking for a business-formatted cover letter in which your dis- cussion of goals must be integrated into an "executive summary" or "elevator speech" that encompasses your entire application.

But the greatest variation among schools' goals essays lies in the retrospective "career progress" or career influences section-where you explicitly connect your goals and school selection to your past. Many more programs let you decide what "career progress" means. Schools like New York University (Stern) and Illinois help you by asking you about the choices that led to your career path, and MBA programs such as Georgetown's invite you to expand this backward-looking section to include the "prior academic, personal, and professional experiences [that] influenced your career plans." To encourage you to use the goals essay to introduce your total candidacy, other schools welcome a discussion of everything from your"skills,competencies,andexperiences"toyour "background, experience, interests, and values:' All these permutations, however, really come down to the same question: why do you have the goals you do?

25

26 Great Application Essays for Business School

In the Schools' Words-

We want students to be their own career counselors before they get to the program. [We want applicants to}make the connection or create the bridge: Here is where I am, this is how the MBA is going to assist me, and this is where I would like to be.

-SABRINA WHITE,

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND (SMITH)

A description of your potential contribution to the program is an explicit addi- tional topic posed by a small number of schools. They ask this to get a bead on the diversity you'll bring to your class and to see how much you know about their program. As we'll see in Chapter 3, schools define diversity broadly here to include "uniqueness factors"-the distinctive combination of professional, community, and personal experiences and characteristics that could enhance the variety of your class. Since you should be communicating the uniqueness of your potential contribution throughout your application, even if a school offers a separate diver- sity or uniqueness essay, you should try to briefly discuss what you'll bring to the program in the goals essay. After all, it's the first essay adcoms will read, and you want to get as many of your themes and uniqueness factors on the table as possible. The most explicit way to do this is to link what you can contribute-for example, "experience leading international teams"-with specific related resources at the school: "I look forward to sharing this through the International Students Club, my classes on global strategy and marketing, and the Chicago Asian Forum."

Because the range of topics you may encounter in the goals essay is so broad, one of your biggest challenges will simply be answering everything the school asks in one coherent, readable essay. The remainder of this chapter focuses on how to do just that.

CHAPTER 2: Scoring the GoalsEssay

WRITING THE GOALS ESSAY

The specific focus of your post-MBA goals will and should color almost every aspect of your application-from school selection, to the guidelines you provide recommenders, to interview preparation and the classes you sit in on during school visits. For this reason, you should begin work on a basic goals essay very early in your application process, perhaps after you take the GMAT, but, in any case, before you begin work on your application proper.

Writing effectively about your goals starts with thinking about them. Many applicants begin the application process believing that sufficient reasons for seeking the MBA are:

■ They have the numbers (GMAT,GPA) and work experience to get into a good business school.

■ Their peers are in business school.

■ The organization they work for expects them to earn an MBA. ■ It's the next impressive credential for the superachieving applicant to

acquire.

■ Post-MBA starting salaries are high.

■ Theywerejustdownsizedorhitacareerplateau and have nowhere else to go. Though these are certainly common reasons for applying to business school, they all share the same drawback: they aren't goals. Your task is to move beyond these obvious or uninspiring career objectives to goals that fall within business schools' acceptable range.

SO, WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOUR GOALS?

This book is not a resource for a crash course in career counseling. But if you really don't know why you need an MBA, abandon the application process until you do. Alternatively, consult such sources as your university's career services board or CareerLeader, an online career development tool for business school students, and begin doing some serious informational interviewing with alumni or industry elders who might be willing to guide you. If you do have a vague inkling about your career track, flesh it out by performing some due diligence. Read industry magazines, for example, or cruise the Web sites of organizations you'd like to join, noting the career paths of their top managers. Integrate your new knowledge into your post-MBA career story.

We'll assume for now that you do have a rough sense of your post-MBA path but that you just need to refine it so that it passes the high muster of a B-school admissions committee. Stating that you want to be the CEO of a Fortune 500

27

28 Great Application Essays for Business School

consumer goods corporation is a start but not nearly enough. For most schools (let alone Stanford, which gives you up to seven pages to describe your goals), you'll need much, much more. Think of your post-MBA career not as a destina- tion but as an evolving narrative, and take a hint from business schools' questions: "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?"At a minimum, use your career research and networking efforts to map out a credible short-, intermediate-, and long-term trajectory.

Concrete goals should be the foundation on which your selection of business schools is based, whether it's because of the specific study tracks and courses they offer or the number and quality of organizations in your industry that recruit there. Once your goals and school selection are defined, you can begin to sketch out your goals essay.

ORGANIZING THE GOALS ESSAY

As we discussed in Chapter 1, using an outline can minimize much of the poten- tial grief of writing admissions essays. This is particularly true of goals essays, where you're asked to discuss multiple topics, while also establishing the themes that unify your application. Fortunately, many schools' goals essays come with a built-in structure that can help you organize your material. For example, Kellogg invites you to "Briefly assess your career progress to date. Elaborate on your future career plans and your motivation for pursuing a graduate degree at the Kellogg School." There are three closely interrelated but distinct topics here:

■ Your career "progress": the trajectory, influencing factors, and themes of your career thus far (not a blow-by-blow walk-through of your resume). ■ Your career plans (short-, medium-, and long-term goals).

■ Your reasons for needing a Kellogg MBA (aka "why our school?"). It makes sense to structure your outline by addressing each of these topics in turn for the simple reason that this is the order in which you would normally discuss your career: from past to present to future. Your career experiences have shaped your goals, which in turn have shaped your reasons for needing an MBA from this particular school. You still must decide what form your introduction should take and interpret what "career progress" means-what it includes and what you should leave out. But you now have a basic organization to guide you. Don't assume that each of these three sections must be the same length. It's likely that the career progress and influences section will consume half the essay and that your goals may take no more than a paragraph or so. Also, don't assume that schools necessarily expect you to follow this past-present- future order. They only care that you do address each topic somewhere in the essay.

CHAPTER 2: Scoring the Goals Essay Many schools' goals essays won't give you such a ready-made structure, of course. But no matter how the goals essay is worded, you should structure your essay in the way that makesthemostsense for you.If you've beencertainofyour career goals since high school, you might welldiscuss your goals first and your career background second, since your goals have presumably been guid- ing your subsequent career decisions. Similarly, you could legitimately decide to open the essay with the reasons why a particular MBA program is best for you so as to highlight your enthusiasm for that school.

Whichever structure you choose, each section of your essay must be tightly integrated with the others. Your past, present, and future must be shown to logically support one another. Your career progress section must leave readers feeling that the next inevitable step for you is an MBA and a career in your chosen post-MBA field. Your goals section must describe objectives that seem to have evolved naturally from your past experiences, and your "why our school" section must demonstrate that the school is the perfect place for someone with your values, personality, and educational needs. An effectively integrated outline can help you navigate through your past, present, and future without getting lost in minutiae or turning your essay into a glorified resume.

With your outline in hand you can begin to approach the individual sections of your essay.

In the Schools' Words-

We are not expecting people to have life plans in stone, but we do expect to see clear thinking about how an MBA fits into where someone has been and where they think they are headed. The MBA is an outstanding credential, but it's more than just a relatively quick ticket to higher earnings. It's also an educational experience-and an expensive one, at that-so it's important to know why one is undertaking this. Also, this understanding/focus/passion makes for a much more successful career search.

-GWYNETH SLOCUM BAILEY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN (Ross)

THE LEAD PARAGRAPH

Given the goals essay's importance and serious purpose, many applicants are tempted to play it safe with a plain vanilla lead:

■ "My long-term goal is to become CEO of a major multinational corporation."

■ "My career goals stem directly from my professional experiences." ■ "I need an MBA so I can help benefit society."

29

30 Great Application Essays for Business School

While these gambits have the virtue of directness, they will make you sound exactly like the vast majority of other applicants. They're dull; avoid them altogether. Because goals essays focus on nitty-gritty matters like goals, skills, reasons for MBAs, and career choices, your opening paragraph is one of your few opportunities to inject a little pizzazz into this crucial essay. Creative leads can be divided into two broad types: content-focused introductions (where the emphasis is on what you say) and style-focused introductions (where the emphasis is on how you say it).

Content-Focused Leads

■ The direct statement of theme. "The choices I have made in my career have been shaped by the constant interplay of two sometimes conflicting traits: my desire to gain broad international business experience and my need to have a positive impact on my community."

■ The autobiographical or self-disclosure lead. "I was raised by a family of inveterate dreamers;' or "I'm the inventor of something you sit on every day but probably can't name."

■ Statement of belief "I believe nuclear power plants can be designed that exceed the safety records of solar and wind power sources."

■ School-specific leads."WhilesippingalatteinHuntsman Hall,Ward Dilever, Wharton class of '04, described a scene that sounded almost too good to be true;'

■ The diverse list. "An amateur organist, a lapsed millionaire, a postal clerk in Medicine Hat, a shortstop for the Beloit Bison-I've been all these things at one point or another;'

■ The imagined future. "It's March 2015, and the chairman of Iraq Wireless is admiring the scenic view from his fortieth-floor Baghdad boardroom;'

■ Vivid description of goals. "The first truly national online 'campus'-a student-managed student community provided free to every under- graduate-could have a revolutionary billion-dollar impact on industries as diverse retail fashion, media and entertainment, electronics, and distance learning."

■ The big-picture analysis. "The pet oral hygiene industry is a little-known but potentially billion-dollar market."

Style-Focused Leads

■ The vividly described image. "In the clearing stood a huge, delicately carved statue of Tawri, the Indonesian fertility god, a quizzical look etched into its red-lacquered face;'

CHAPTER 2: Scoring the Goals Essay ■ The "you-are-there" scene or anecdote. "As the Lear jet's wheels touched

down on idyllic Bekoe Island, Nordlink's CFO whispered two words that forever changed the way I viewed my career: .. :'

■ The question. "Is there such a thing as a strategy consulting gene?"

■ The direct address of the reader. "Picture yourself standing before an audi- ence that includes Jack Welch, Sam Palmisano, and Bob Nardelli, and you'll understand how I felt when ..."

■ The quotation. "If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else:-Yogi Berra"

■ The outlandish assertion. "I am the president of an invisible company:' Which of these approaches, if any, should you choose? The key question is which one meshes best with your material and themes. The goal is to engage the reader and project your individuality, so choose the lead that best helps you to do that. For example, if you suspect that adcoms will find your work experience or application confusing or aimless, consider a lead paragraph that clearly states your goals and themes. Similarly, if you think your work experience or professional profile suffers from a lack of personality, consider a lead paragraph that accentuates your diversity or highlights a distinctive story or quality. Note that although both Vassily K. (sample essay 1) and John F. (sample essay 4) choose to open their Essays with a quotation, they achieve very different effects. Vassily's "You came all the way from Israel?" raises questions that pull the reader in to find answers, while John's "The only way to really win in this world is to run your own show:' operates more as a direct statement of theme with an autobiographical twist.

Whichever type of lead you choose, include a reference to your goals and, if possible, the MBA in the opening paragraph. This signals the admissions com- mittee that your essay will, in fact, address the essay question directly, if not nec- essarily from the first sentence. Don't let adcoms think, "Where is all this going?"

31

In the Schools'Words-

One of the things we want to do as an educational provideris to help Students get from point A to point B, and you can't do that unless you know what point B is.

-HAYDEN ESTRADA, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME (MENDOZA)

THE CAREER PROGRESS AND INFLUENCES SECTION

The career progress or career influences section is really two sections in one: a highly selective narrative of your career's key decisions or turning points,

32 Great Application Essays for Business School

highlights, or career-shaping accomplishments and an explanation of how your career goals have evolved to the point where you are now seeking an MBA. These are two complementary but distinct topics. A goals essay that discusses your career path thus far without linking it to your goals will render your essay's goals section incomprehensible and your essay as a whole disjointed. No matter how superb your professional experiences are, if you can't show how they relate to your post-MBA goals, you won't come across as the focused applicant every school seeks.

In the Schools' Words-

[In goals essays], a compelling bridge from past achievement toward clear future goals helps, especially with specific details showing how features of

our school can readily help you get there.

-CRAIG HUBBELL,UCLA (ANDERSON)

Conversely, a goals essay that explains how you arrived at your career goals but fails to mention key career choices or pivotal moments will be a wasted opportunity for you to emphasize your strengths, inviting adcoms to give their own, perhaps less favorable explanations for the career choices you've left unexplained. Even if the business school you're applying to doesn't explicitly ask you to address the career progress and influences topic, try to work it in.

CHAPTER 2: Scoring the Goals Essav The biggest mistake applicants make in the career progress section is to assume that "career progress" means blandly reciting their resumes in sentence form: "Then I ... and then I ... and then:' In reality, schools want to know only about the inflection points, the key career decisions, the reasons why you moved from point A to point B. In Vassily K's essay (sample essay 1), for example, he pivots his entire goals statement around two events: an international marketing course and his discovery of the corporate responsibility philosophy of a prominent firm. Dig for such inflection points by interrogating yourself about your biggest career deci- sions: Why, after college, did you take a position as an IT consultant when security analysis firms also offered you jobs? Why did you decide to leave your IT consult-