mba essay plagiarism

How business schools tackle plagiarism in MBA applications

Earlier, in 2010, plagiarism in admissions essays had attracted renewed public attention when the admissions office for the MBA program at Smeal detected the crime in a big way. One of the topics for application essays was how the b-school used the concept of “principled leadership.” The admissions office found that not only had some 30 applicants copied some passages from an article on the topic but some of them had not bothered to change the font of the original article, not to mention its voice.

Penn State turned to Turnitin.com, which had developed a software to detect plagiarism in work submitted by college students, and announced its new initiative. The admissions offices of other schools also started using Turnitin’s software. Today, a few thousand schools use the software and more than millions of essays and papers have been processed by it.

What is plagiarism? Simply put, it is trying to pass off someone else’s work as your own, that is, without attribution. Absence of attribution by itself may not be seen as plagiarism. For example, an applicant may use a famous quote without attribution and come to no harm. However, when he copies a sentence or a whole paragraph, he will come under the eagle eye of essay evaluators.

Even in the late 1990s, schools were using online resources to catch plagiarists. Harvard University used Turnitin.com, and the website had already screened 27,000 admission essays by 2007 and found that 11 percent of the essays contained at least a quarter each of unoriginal material.  

In a frozen state

Although business schools are aware of the prevalence of plagiarism in application and student essays, not many schools have managed to take strong measures against it.

According to research published in 2016 by Kira, a Toronto-based online admissions interview video platform, only 17 percent of over 50 northern American b-schools surveyed reported that they used plagiarism-detection software. A Fortune article in 2015 reported that only about 40 b-schools were using plagiarism detection software.

Kira found that 84 percent of the schools believed that plagiarism in school admissions was a problem, but only 30 percent had a system to prevent it. Of the 70 percent of colleges without a system, only five percent even planned to install a detection process. Only 24 percent had a definition of what constituted plagiarism.  

What does Turnitin do?

Schools that use Turnitin, as well as the company, believe that the software has helped reduce instances of admissions plagiarism significantly. The Turnitin software checks an applicant’s essay with millions of web pages, old and archived student essays, journals, and books. It highlights suspect portions of the essay and provides possible sources.

It is, of course, up to the school to decide whether flagging by the software is a false positive, or a major or minor instance, and decide on the applicant’s status accordingly.

According to Turnitin, small instances of similarities could be coincidental, but the chances of a 16-word sentence fully matching a sentence in another source is one in a trillion.  

Applicants from East Asia, mainly China, are a big source of worry for admissions officials fighting plagiarism. A New York Times article in 2011 claimed that 90 percent of Chinese applications to US universities admitted to submitting false recommendations.

Seventy percent of them admitted that they didn’t write their essays themselves (in some countries, it is not considered a crime to copy from a published source), and 50 percent admitted that they falsified school transcripts. In one year, 10 out of 18 cases of plagiarism at Smeal involved Indians, according to a web resource.

A number of free essays are available online. Many websites offer “editing assistance” to college applicants, and others provide examples of “essays that worked.” Websites have put up disclaimers that their staff don’t actually write the essays but only provide inspiration to applications.

A Poets and Quants article quotes Kira’s Andrew Hastings as saying that figures for Chinese applicants have to be seen in the light of the fact that enrolment from China is growing and that only about one in six schools are using plagiarism software. It is a serious problem.

Interestingly, Chinese applicants who use essay-writing services are not the only worry for admissions offices. Nor are applicants with low GMAT scores or poor communication talent who depend on essay writers. Among plagiarists are top applicants vying for acceptance in elite schools, who want their essays to be polished to a shine before dispatch.

Kira found that 62 percent of respondents to its research believed admissions consultants were to blame for plagiarism. Many consultants either write applicants’ personal essays or edit them substantively for a fee. Some of them also plagiarize, and not many applicants check whether the consultant has indulged in plagiarism.  

Greater use of plagiarism detection software likely

Poets and Quants reports that more schools will be implementing advanced plagiarism detection software. Of these tools is Slate, which was being considered for implementation by Sloan, Tuck, and Columbia Business School.

According to the company behind Slate, the software could detect “statistically significant metadata similarities.” For example, if an applicant wrote her personal essay and also her own recommendation letters to be signed by her recommenders and forwarded to a school, Slate would detect “statistical similarities” between the essays and the letters.  

The human element

Hastings says schools could use interviews with applicants to find out whether those neat little essays were actually written by these persons. An applicant may be able to get others to write his essay for him, but he certainly will not be able to commit deception at an interview, whether it is conducted in person or on phone, Hastings feels.

Although software may be a sharp weapon for admissions officials, they need to continue to summon their own expertise in evaluating essays and detecting plagiarism, feel admissions experts. Essay evaluators need to study reports put out by software, and holistically consider the merits and demerits of the applicant.

For example, at Smeal, when software flags an essay, the school officials review the case and detect whether Penn State’s guidelines on plagiarism have been violated.

The Harvard Crimson quotes the Dean of Admission, Harvard College, as saying that admissions officials’ intuition can helps catch plagiarists. The essays that applicants buy from private agencies cannot be labeled as unoriginal, since it may be an original work by a professional writer.

However, when the quality of an essay far exceeds the expectations from an applicant, given her profile, grades, or test scores, officials smell a rat. The applicant is called and asked to give an explanation and, if unsatisfactory, the application is rejected.  

For and against software

However, some admissions offices are worried about “due process,” according to an article in Insidehighered.com. They fear some applicants may be rejected on the basis of incorrect reports thrown up by software, and since applicants are not informed the reason for their rejection, they won’t know about the plagiarism accusation against them.

But due process is possible. Of the 30 applicants suspected of plagiarism at Penn State in one instance, 27 were clear cases of plagiarism and were rejected. Three applicants were asked to submit new essays. One of them was admitted. These 30 applicants came from a batch of 700 applicants, out of whom 200 were admitted. Penn State evolved a system where applicants flagged by Turnitin were not rejected but were further evaluated by essay experts.

Some professors on the other hand are happy that software has empowered them. They say that before the introduction of software, they used to feel helpless against plagiarism. Not anymore.

An expert in college admissions points out that hired writers or even parents themselves can write essays for applicants. These essays will appear original and software may not be able to detect that they are unoriginal.

Although Turnitin has said that a substantial number of applicants plagiarize essays—about 40 percent of essays, it says, have some matching text—some admissions officials wonder if the problem is as bad as portrayed, though they too feel that “more than one or two applicants” submit plagiarized essays.  

Plagiarism by students after admission

Plagiarism continues to thrive after applicants are admitted as students. In 2006, A Rutgers professor, Donald McCabe, found in a survey of 5,000 students in 32 schools in the US and Canada that 56 percent of graduate business students engaged in fraud—plagiarism or using hidden notes during tests. This was 9 percent higher than graduates from other disciplines. Although ethics is part of b-school programs, these programs have obviously not been able to wipe out cheating.

There’s also a culture of collusion and apathy among students that stops them from reporting any academic dishonesty, according to Prof. McCabe quoted by P&Q. When students see that few professors do anything against plagiarism, they ask themselves why they should report their peers. McCabe’s solutions? Stronger enforcement of the honor code and multiple versions of question papers at examinations.

Going after plagiarism is a tender area for most b-schools, as schools, which are already facing funds crunch, would require even more money for a new system.  Moreover, any publicity would affect them negatively. If students or applicants accused of plagiarism decided to take their cases to court, schools would have to find the time and resources to fight these cases.

Universities have also started to think what kind of managers those students who indulge in plagiarism would turn out to be. In business there are countless situations where the question of integrity is going to come up. How would managers with flexible morals behave in those situations? Would poor ethics continue to guide their principles and judgment?

Also read: – UCLA Anderson rejects applicants for unethical MBA essay writing practices   – How using sample MBA essays can hurt you – Sample Harvard Stanford MBA essays using ChatGPT – Impact and implications of ChatGPT on higher education – How do professors know if you copied essays? – Chinese students caught cheating in college admissions   Resources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 | Image credit: uik.eus

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How B-Schools Detect Plagiarism? And How You May Unknowingly Plagiarise?

You’re working on essays of your target MBA programs for the last three weeks, often struggling for good, punchy lines. Sometimes, you face blank laptop screen, when you can barely write two sentences in thirty minutes. You struggle for words, impactful lines, and, sometimes, even ideas.

Then you come across a sample essay on the internet which has stuff similar to what you want to write. It has great, articulate lines too, and you think your essays will get a touch of class if you use a sentence or two from this essay.

Or it could be just a sentence or two from the school’s website itself.

“That’s OK. It’s just few sentences. I’m not taking big chunks, paragraphs,” You may think.

But, it may not be OK.

This seemingly innocuous copy-paste may be treated plagiarism and land you in trouble as it has to several applicants, and sometimes to admitted applicants, in the past.

(Note: Admission policies of schools and guidelines for standardized tests can change. Refer to their website for the most updated information.)

Prominent cases of plagiarism in B-school applications

In 2010, Penn State detected 29 cases of plagiarism ranging from few sentences to full paragraphs from different online sources, including, ironically , a 2009 essay titled Principled Leaders: A Model for the ‘Reset’ Economy . And this was despite signing an honor code before submitting the application. Subsequently, only four were considered to be borderline cases and were asked to rewrite a particular essay; remaining 25 were dropped from the application process, with one after getting admitted.

That’s not an isolated case, though.

In 2011-12, UCLA Anderson rejected 52 applicants in the first two rounds. And in 2012-13 admission cycle, Penn State rejected 48 and UCLA Anderson, 15. And this happened despite a disclosure, at least by Penn State, that essays will be reviewed for plagiarism.

To quote , Craig Hubbell, Director of Operations for MBA admissions at Anderson:

Most of the plagiarism this year involved passages lifted from essay websites, but some items were poached from Wikipedia and Bloomberg Businessweek – and even Anderson’s own website [emphasis added]

And in the same article, Carrie Marcinkevage, MBA Managing Director at Penn State, says:

10 percent of the 481 applications received in the first and second rounds had plagiarized essays, up from 8 percent for the full admissions cycle last year. Many of the new cases are international applicants from East Asian countries, where borrowing from published sources without attribution is not considered wrong.

Thus, sometimes you may be unintentionally plagiarizing because of lack of awareness about what constitutes plagiarism.

What constitutes plagiarism?

Not every instance of lack of attribution, though, may lead to rejection of your application. For example, if you’ve used a quote in your essays without attribution, it’s unlikely to be treated as plagiarism. But if you’ve lifted sentences or paragraphs, then it may be.

“If somebody uses a famous quote in an essay, we’re not going to highlight it,” says Ainslie, senior Associate Dean at UCLA Anderson. “When it does occur, it’s because they took a big chunk.”

An example :

This admission essay (on persevering in the business world) for Boston University’s MBA program had this sentence: “I have worked for organizations in which the culture has been open and nurturing, and for others that have been elitist. In the latter case, arrogance becomes pervasive, straining external partnerships.” And this admission essay (about the applicant’s father) for UCLA Anderson MBA program had this: “He worked for organizations in which the culture has been open and nurturing, and for others that have been elitist. In the latter case, arrogance becomes pervasive, straining external partnerships.”

This wasn’t a coincidence: Boston University essay was published earlier and posted in businessweek.com. As a result, the UCLA applicant was rejected for plagiarism.

Even one sentence can land you in trouble!

What B-schools are doing to check plagiarism?

Plagiarism, though not rampant, exists in some levels. UCLA has found that 2% of its MBA applicants indulge in plagiarism, whereas Penn State reports 8%.

But, given zero tolerance of B-schools toward unethical behavior, they’ve increasingly adopted Turnitin’s anti-plagiarism software to check the menace of plagiarism as it’s impossible to do it manually. Turnitin’s software checks an applicant’s essays with billions of web pages, hundreds of millions of archived student papers including essays submitted by students in the past, and hundreds of millions of journals, periodicals, and books. On finding a match, it flags off the particular section of the essay next to the possible source. And it’s then left to the discretion of the school to decide whether the plagiarism was a false positive, minor, or major, and take decision accordingly.

(Zero tolerance toward plagiarism has had an added advantage for both UCLA and Penn State: cases of plagiarism on even class assignments dropped from few a year to none after they started using Turnitin.)

How you can avoid plagiarism?

1 . Massive amount of free material on the internet makes it tempting for applicants to lift few sentences or paragraphs from here and there, believing that such small indiscretion will not be noticed. But, with Turnitin’s massive web and non-web database, it can be.

So, if you plan to take help from free or paid model essays available on the web or in physical form, then use them strictly for inspiration. Don’t use text from there verbatim in your essays. In fact, this is the most common source of plagiarism: According to Craig Hubbell , Director of Operations for MBA admissions at Anderson, most of the plagiarism they came across involved lifting of passages from essay websites.

2 . Don’t lift sentences or parts thereof from the school’s website. Even that is noticed.

3 . Don’t use anything from your friend’s essays who applied to B-schools three years back even if the schools he applied to are different from yours and the essays are not in public domain. Read this :

… One of the great things Turnitin does is that once you put a document in, it becomes part of its database.

In all likelihood, your friend’s essays will be part of Turnitin’s database.

4 . Don’t be tempted to get your essays written or edited through unscrupulous admission consultants, who may copy-paste some of the portions from essays of their clients applying to the same school (some of the school-specific stuff could be overlapping). In the end, you may never know why you were dinged.

Read this from UCLA:

We’ve had a concern for a while that there has been an increasing use of these so-called consultants who help applicants with their applications. Many of these consultants are ethical and do the right thing. But quite a few of them either write the essays themselves or pull them out of catalogs [emphasis added].

You’ll be fine working with most of them. Nevertheless, be upfront about this issue if you are working with one.

5 . In case your essays have been edited by someone, copy-paste paragraphs or the entire essay onto Google and search it. You can detect possible plagiarism this way at least if the stuff has been lifted from the web. Though it’ll not work if access is restricted (for example, if it’s paid) to such material.

6 . If you can’t help using some portions of someone else’s work, then attribute it, preferably, in the footer.

7 . Avoid writing immediately after reading something that has inspired you. Take a break of at least few hours before you start writing. This way, you are much less likely to repeat what you read.

Time for some fun now

To quote Craig Hubbell, director of operations for MBA admissions at Anderson:

Last year, one applicant plagiarized 85 percent of an essay, without changing the gender of the pronouns [emphasis added].

Come on, make Turnitin work harder.

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How to Write a Killer MBA Essay

Introduction.

Writing a great MBA essay is a crucial component of applying to business school . According to Lisa Koengeter , the Director of Admissions at Booth School of Business , your essay provides them with “a better understanding of you, your self-assessment and your aspirations.” 

This article will outline what MBA admissions committees look for in your essays, show you how to write a killer MBA essay, and tell you what mistakes to avoid.

Types of MBA Essays

There are a few different types of MBA essay questions you will answer as part of your MBA application. The type of essay can be determined through the keywords used in the essay question. Each type of essay will have its own length requirements, depending on the business school.

This type of essay asks you to detail your personal and professional goals and how attending business school will help you achieve them. An essay question that asks about your aspirations or what you hope to gain from an MBA program is classified as a goal essay.

For example, Wharton is one of many schools that ask for a goal essay from applicants using the question: “What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA?” Columbia , NYU Stern , Darden , Dartmouth Tuck , and McCombs are some of the many other schools that ask about your goals.

Self-Reflection

A self-reflection essay is an opportunity for you to showcase the values and characteristics that make up your personal identity. It also requires you to discuss how you handled a failure at some point in your life or how you would approach an ethical dilemma.

Yale School of Management is one business school that uses self-reflection questions in its MBA essays . They want to know what the biggest commitment you have ever made is, including why you chose it and how you went about making it. 

Answering this question will require you to do some deep reflection in order to answer it thoroughly. 

Contribution

The objective of this type of essay is to show an admissions committee how you will add value and contribute to their MBA program. 

Booth School of Business poses this question: “An MBA is as much about personal growth as it is about professional development. In addition to sharing your experience and goals in terms of career, we’d like to learn more about you outside of the office. Use this opportunity to tell us something about who you are.” 

Booth clearly wants you to elaborate on who you are, what you value, and how you live those values in your everyday life.

Some business schools want to know about the impact you will have on their program and pose a question that asks you to describe a time when you demonstrated leadership. This will involve discussing why you took on the leadership role in your chosen situation and your leadership impact.

Darden School of Business poses essay questions designed to gauge your leadership capabilities and the impact you’ll have on the program. As Dean of Admissions Dawna Clarke states, they are interested in “cultivating high impact leaders.” 

It’s no surprise that one of their essay questions from a recent application cycle was, “Darden strives to identify and cultivate responsible leaders who follow their purpose. Please provide an example of a situation in which you have made a meaningful impact.”

Instead of writing a traditional essay, some business schools ask you to submit a video essay. The types of questions asked for a video essay can range from a short introduction to longer, multi-component questions.

Kellogg is one business school that uses video essays . They will ask you three questions. First up is an introduction, and the second is about your career goals and how Kellogg will help get you there. 

The third question varies annually and is generally more randomized, so you and all the other applicants won’t necessarily respond to the same question. 

How to Write a Great Business School Essay

Successfully writing business school essays is tricky. Many factors go into constructing a successful one. However, the top tips we’ve provided below outline how to write an MBA application essay that stands out from the crowd. 

Pay Attention to Your Essay Structure

Blair Mannix , the Admissions Director at Wharton, noticed successful essays all had the same structure: the setup, the pivot point, and the future. 

The setup is the opening of your essay, where you tell the admissions committee about who you are, what you do, and what you have learned so far. 

The pivot point is where you shift from discussing what you already know and do to talking about what you would like to learn and how that will help you succeed. Mannix also describes this as a lightbulb moment, where something clicks, and you realize that if you had more education in one or two areas, you would be better at your job. 

The final section of your essay is your opportunity to describe how gaining knowledge and skills in the area(s) you identified in the pivot point will help your career and why that specific MBA program will make this possible.

For essays that ask you to describe how you will contribute to the institution’s MBA community, Mannix states successful essays are personal, set up as a story, and show how your experiences resonate with the community.

Consider the Tone You Use While Writing Your Essay

It’s important to be genuine in your essay. Admissions committees want to know about you as a person and know if you’re being insincere or simply writing what you think they want to hear. 

As Laurel Grodman from Yale School of Management states, your essay is an “opportunity to speak in your own voice about something meaningful and distinctive in your life.” Don’t waste this opportunity by writing about something you think will make you look better. 

Write something that actually matters to you.

Authenticity is another key element to incorporate in your essay. Clarke recommends integrating aspects of your personality into your essay. For example, she suggests showcasing your creativity, humor, or any other attributes you possess. This allows admission committees to get to know you even better.

The Best MBA Essays Are School-Specific 

At first, this seems like an obvious one; of course, writing a business school essay means writing about the business school itself. However, this is a great opportunity to show off your research and explain why you specifically want to attend this institution. 

Have you looked into the school’s curriculum? Have you found which extracurricular opportunities you want to pursue if you are admitted? Are there any research centers that you want to become involved in? 

Show how this school is the ideal stepping stone to help you achieve your future ambitions. The University of Cambridge Judge Business School provides two MBA application essay examples that highlight the importance of this: 

Example 1 - “The programme will equip me with an entrepreneurial toolkit, allowing me to efficiently evaluate and capitalise on future business opportunities, further bolstering my credibility with future stakeholders.”

Example 2 - “Upon completion of the MBA programme at Cambridge Judge Business School I want to be a decisive and successful business professional.”

The first example is far more compelling; it explains what the student will gain from the program and how they will use it to achieve future success. 

Pick an Event or Situation That Matters to You

When you select your topic to write about in your MBA essay, you need to make sure it is something that had a significant impact on your life and resonates with you personally. This will help ensure your authenticity shows through.

Kellogg Director of Admissions Jennifer Hayes , says that “the best essays [she has] read have heart, are not over-edited, and let the applicant’s personality emerge.” This is best done when you do not force yourself to write something you think admissions directors want to read, but rather tell an organic story that carries significant personal meaning.

The Importance of Storytelling in MBA Essays

Business school admissions officers want to see how you approach traits like leadership and commitment in your MBA application essay. Yet, if you describe an experience and don’t reflect upon it, you will not highlight your mindset, dedication, and motivation. 

The best writers outline the traits that business schools want to see by telling personal stories and anecdotes. But how can you do that? It’s simple — show how your experiences impacted you. Don’t just tell us about it. 

Indeed, to use the idea of commitment as an example, Yale’s admissions committee “cares less about the commitment you choose and more about the behaviors surrounding the commitment.” They want to “come away learning something new about you as a person that helps us understand your values and motivations.”

Illustrating how your experiences affect your values and motivations is difficult; this process requires a lot of introspection and self-reflection. The trick is to use plenty of real-life examples and explain how they embody your values. 

One way to successfully do this is to use the STAR technique . The STAR technique is split into four distinct steps: 

• Situation - Describe the situation and when it took place.
• Task - Explain the task and what was the goal.
• Action - Provide details about the action you took to attain this.
• Result - Conclude with the result of your action.

Using the four steps outlined above, you can create concise, compelling answers to your essay prompts. Let’s use one of the Berkeley Haas essay prompts as an example for an MBA essay outline:

What makes you feel alive when you are doing it, and why? (300 words maximum) . 

We can split this prompt into two sections: 

• Describe an activity, hobby, or anything that makes you “feel alive” when you do it. 
• Explain why you find so much enjoyment in this one thing. 

Storytelling is key here, and the STAR technique can help you break down exactly what you want to say. Remember, it is important to reflect upon your experiences and, in this case, show why you enjoy something. 

If you manage to do this in your essays and show how you achieved results along the way, you will submit a strong MBA application essay. 

Plagiarizing Your MBA Essay 

Plagiarism is a big deal. 

Even if a student doesn’t intend to plagiarize someone’s work, colleges can and will detect it. If colleges detect plagiarism, they will likely reject the application outright; UCLA’s Anderson School of Management rejected 52 MBA hopefuls for application plagiarism. 

Applicants can easily and accidentally plagiarize someone else’s work by following MBA essay examples too closely. Essay examples are useful, as they can inspire you and give you an idea of how you can reflect upon your experiences. However, someone has written that example about their own experience in their own words, and you can’t copy it. 

If you are worried about plagiarism, the simple fix is to be original. After all, admissions committees want to hear about your experiences, motivations, and opinions. 

Authenticity is also an extremely important part of writing well; you will come across as more genuine writing about your genuine thoughts and experiences. If you want to check your work, you can use reliable and low-cost plagiarism checker tools like PrePostSEO and Copyscape .  

MBA Essay Examples

US News wrote an article on what makes for a successful MBA essay. They provided the following MBA entrance essay sample essays written by applicants recently admitted into highly reputable business schools.

This sample was written for Fox School of Business at Temple University .

This essay was well-received by the admissions committee because it was written clearly and concisely, free of grammatical errors, and told a story. The candidate showed their personality and explained why a Fox MBA would help them achieve their career goals. 

This particular candidate was honest in their essay about their weaknesses and professional growth, which is generally well-received by admissions committees. The candidate detailed the initiative they had taken in learning about the MBA program at Fox and why they decided to apply.

This next successful essay sample was written for the Yale School of Management.

Similar to the previous example, this essay told a compelling story through a clear narrative. This particular essay began with an anecdote that demonstrated the candidate’s work ethic, initiative, leadership, and resourcefulness.

This show-don’t-tell essay displayed what was important to the applicant and offered the admission committee insight into their personality and values. It also provided as much detail as was possible, given the 500-word limit.

Don’t Rely Too Much on MBA Essay Examples 

While MBA essay examples are valuable tools to see what got applicants into business school, they all have one problem: They are not yours. Other peoples’ essay examples don’t focus on your achievements, values, motivations, or experiences. 

In their essays, originality and authenticity are two critical themes that business schools look for because your life is unique. Remember, MBA essay writing is all about getting to know you , and your essays should truly reflect who you are as a person. 

MBA essay examples are useful. They can provide you inspiration, an idea of what can work, and outline how to discuss your own experiences. However, you need to draw a line in the sand and write your own essay at some point. 

People are admitted to particular schools for a wide variety of reasons. While their essays are one of those reasons, what works for one person might not work for you. Try not to overthink it — write about your experiences, background, and, most importantly, opinion. 

Mistakes to Avoid While Writing Your MBA Essay

In addition to following the steps for writing a great MBA essay outlined above, there are also some common mistakes you’ll want to avoid while writing your essay. These mistakes are listed below, along with solutions to fix them.

Submitting an Overly Complex Essay

Admissions committees don’t want to know how many buzzwords and how much industry-related jargon you know. They’re looking to find out about you as a person, not solely as a business person. 

Committees may become frustrated if they have to decipher what you’ve written in your overly complicated essay, especially since your application isn’t the only one that needs reviewing.

The fix : Use your own words and write as if you were talking professionally to a coworker. That way, your essay will sound more straightforward and personal and allow you to make a better connection with your reader.

Not Reading the Essay Question Closely or Misunderstanding the Question

You need to know how to answer MBA essay questions. Misreading or misunderstanding the question will lead you to write an essay that completely misses what the admissions committee wants to learn about you. 

This can lead to your application being discarded.

The fix : Find the keyword(s) in the question first. This will provide you with what the admission committee hopes to learn about you in the essay. 

In the Types of MBA Essays section above, identifying terms such as “contribute,” “gain,” and “lead” shows what the admissions committee is looking for you to answer. It is also a good idea to seek clarification if you find the question confusing. 

Restating Your Resume or Letters of Recommendation

Admission committees don’t want your essay to be a restatement of what’s already outlined in your business school resume and letters of recommendation . Your MBA essay should be unique and should tell a story that can’t be found elsewhere in your application.

The fix : Take some time to think about what you want to write about that answers the essay question and isn’t detailed anywhere else in your application. But suppose the moment or experience you want to write about is already included. 

In that case, you could instead focus on a particular project and describe some of the challenges you encountered, how you overcame them, the project’s outcome, and what you learned from the experience. 

Starting Your MBA Essay Close to the Deadline 

Starting too close to the deadline means you won’t have enough time to put together a clear, concise, and expertly written narrative. If you’re rushed, you’re more likely to make simple mistakes.

The fix : Start planning your essay(s) as soon as the essay questions are made available. Take time to create an outline for each essay so you have a solid plan for when you start to write your draft. 

By starting well ahead of the application deadline, you’ll give yourself plenty of time to write and revise without being crunched for time and stressed.

Giving Half-Baked Reasons for Attending Business School  

Business school admissions committees use your essays to gauge your interest in their program and institution. So, if you are vague about your career plans and why you should get an MBA at a specific school, take the time to outline them. 

Admissions officers want to see applicants who demonstrate clear and well-defined goals. So, do your college research and explain why you want to attend their program. 

1. How Long Should My MBA Application Essay Be?

The length of your MBA essay will depend on the specific school; some schools allow up to 500 words, while others want a very short and to-the-point response of 150 words. 

The length set out by the MBA program you’re applying to is an important consideration, and it is not a good idea to go over the word limit. Admissions committees want to see that you can follow instructions and are capable of writing succinctly. It will not reflect well on you to go over the allowed word count.

2. Is the MBA Essay Less Important Than My GPA and GMAT Score?

No, your MBA essay is at least equally as important as your GPA and GMAT score . While your GPA and GMAT scores are good indicators of your academic abilities, the MBA essay is the admission committee’s first opportunity to get to know you personally. 

This is also the first impression you will make on the committee, so it’s imperative that you write a strong and compelling essay. Most business schools use a holistic approach to assessing applications, and your response to the essay question can determine whether you are a good fit for their program.

3. Is There an MBA Essay Guide for Reapplicants?

Many schools will require or suggest that reapplicants submit an additional essay. 

This will vary by school, and it is important to check with each school’s website for the exact details of what’s expected of reapplicants. If it’s optional, it is a good idea to submit one because it allows you to explain how you’ve grown personally and professionally since your previous application. 

4. Can I Use the Same Business School Essay if I’m Reapplying?

It’s unlikely you’ll be successful using the same essay since your response could have been the reason you were rejected the first time around. 

It’s best to consult with an MBA admissions expert or mentor to find out where you went wrong and what you can do to make your reapplication essay strong and stand out in the best way possible.

5. How Do I Edit My MBA Essay Draft to Make It Better?

First of all, make sure there are no errors with your spelling, grammar, and syntax. Business schools want students with superb communication skills, and having basic errors in your MBA essay does not demonstrate that you have strong communication skills. 

Then, you should go through the common mistakes outlined above and make sure those are not present in your essay; if they are, fix them. Seeking a second opinion from a friend, mentor, colleague, or MBA essay editing expert will also help locate errors or improvement areas.

6. How Can I Ensure My Business School Essay Stands Out?

Whether you are faced with the Wharton MBA essays , Harvard Business School essay , or Booth MBA essays , to name a few, there are a few things you can do to make your essay stand out. 

The event or experience you choose to write about should be something you are able to write about in a compelling narrative. It should also be something you can write about with passion, which will allow the admission committee to see your genuine and authentic voice. 

Your strengths should be woven in with the story you’re telling. These things will make your essay stand out to the admission committee and help them remember you.

Unlock Your Future with the Perfect Business School Essay

Knowing how to write a great MBA essay can be a challenging component of the business school application process. 

But, if you know where to start, make an outline for each essay, and get expert assistance, the process becomes significantly more manageable. Following these steps will help you write a killer MBA essay.

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Table of Contents

What is the mba essay.

The MBA admissions essay.

Those words alone are enough to make most MBA candidates run screaming. Writing in general is hard enough. Writing about why you want an MBA? Your short-term goals and career aspirations? What matters to you most, and why? Forget it.

Of course, you still have to write these essays.

The MBA essay is perhaps  the most important part of the business school application. (It's also getting more and more important by the day, with some business schools moving away from traditional, quantitative measuring sticks, like the GMAT and the GRE.) Every other part of the application — your GPA, your test scores, your letters of recommendation — are quantified, cut and dried, or out of your control. The essay is your chance to show up as a fully realized MBA candidate, with hopes, dreams, and vulnerabilities. Admissions committees are not simply assessing your candidacy as a future leader — they're looking to admit human beings. That's where the MBA applicant essays come in.

That being the case, rather than being intimidated by it, treat the essay like the opportunity that it is — the chance for you to highlight your unique, iridescent self; the only moment in the MBA admissions process (prior to the interview) when you can speak directly to the admissions officers; the time when you'll show them who you really are. It's not easy to write something that will do that, of course, but with the tips and tricks in this guide, and some help from one of Leland's vetted, world-class admissions coaches, we know you can do it. Give the essay the time, attention, and respect it deserves, and you'll be on your way to an offer of admission at your dream school.

Without further ado, let's dive in!

Ultimate MBA Essay Guide

See the MBA essay prompts, top tips from experts, and real examples from admits with this comprehensive guide.

How Long Will My MBA Essay Take?

First thing's first: let's talk about timing.

The MBA application is a behemoth; between exams, resumes, gathering your official transcripts, letters of recommendation, and the applications themselves, there's a lot to juggle. That being the case, we suggest you give yourself ample time to draft, write, and revise your essays. The last thing you want is to be rushed to the finish line.

So, give yourself  at least three months to write your MBA essays. That should allow you ample time to draft, write, and edit. For more information on timing your entire b-school application, click here for  A Comprehensive MBA Application Timeline--With Chart .

Now, on to the critical question:

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What Makes a Great MBA Essay?

At the highest level, the answer is the one that is truest to you. The whole point of these essays is to shine through as an authentic, vibrant human being, so the best essays are the ones that cut through the clutter, and allow you do to that.

Which begs the question — how  do you cut through the clutter and shine through as a vibrant human being? Here are four critical tips to follow as you begin thinking about your essays.

1. Answer the Question

This one sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how many applicants launch into their story, get carried away, and forget to answer the question. Follow the prompt, and answer the question the admissions committee has asked you. Those prompts can actually be very useful when writing your essays — it's a great deal harder to write when you have no guidance or guardrails. With the MBA essays, you have a very specific question you need to answer. So answer it!

2. Be Specific

Another mistake some MBA applicants make is to stay at a high level in their essays, keeping their writing abstract and therefore inaccessible to the admissions committee. If at any point, an admissions officer could replace your name with the name of another applicant, then your essay isn't getting deep enough. It's not enough, for instance, to say that you suffered adversity in high school, or that you really, really want a Wharton MBA. You need to explain, in detail, the adversity you faced, and give concrete and unique reasons why you think Wharton is the right program for you. The best essays offer hyper-specific examples and anecdotes, with details and anecdotes that no other candidate could bring to the table. To get those anecdotes, we recommend using the STAR template, as explained below:

• Situation : What was the situation you were facing? Where were you? How old were you? If you were in a professional role during this anecdote, what was the role, and how long had you been in it? If you were volunteering, at what organization? How long had you been volunteering there? Why did you start? Offer all the relevant information that the admissions readers will need to understand your story.
• Task : What was the task at hand? What went wrong? In your professional role, what was the challenge you faced? In that volunteering experience, what were the hurdles you had to overcome? You can't have a good story without conflict or tension, so after you set up the anecdote, explain what that conflict or tension was (and remember, be specific!).
• Action : What was the action you took to resolve the problem? What did you have to do to fix that issue at work? How did you clear that hurdle in your volunteer experience? Again, be specific about how you came through on the other side of that conflict/tension — and while you're doing it, highlight your leadership capabilities as much as possible! Remember that top MBA programs are looking for future leaders who can assess a situation and decisively take action. (We'll say a bit more about this below, in the Personal Statement section.
• Result : What was the result of your action? If you were facing a growth problem at work, were you able to increase sales? If so, by what percentage? If you were advocating for diversity and inclusion at your local charity, what new programs did you implement to help with that effort, and what was the enrollment like in those new programs? Detail what happened in your anecdote with as much specificity as possible — and quantify, quantify, quantify!

3. Get Vulnerable

Most MBA admissions essay prompts are written with the goal of getting to know as much about you as possible in the shortest number of words. To do that, you're going to have to share real things from your life — to get personal, intimate, and vulnerable. Do not shy away from this. If you're starting to get emotional during the reflection, drafting, and writing process, good — that means you're on the right track. Keep going. Pro tip: If it’s making you cry, it will make them cry. Another good rule of thumb is to put something real and true on the table. Admissions officers have to read literally thousands of applications from thoroughly qualified individuals, some of whom might come from similar roles to yours, with letters of recommendation from equally impressive supervisors. In order to cut through that noise, you'll have to share something honest. If you're doing it right, this can feel risky. At some point, you’ll likely think to yourself: “Can I say that?” The answer is: “Yes.” Of course, there is a line, you don’t want to be crass or offensive but err on the side of being open and authentic. The very worst thing you can do is be overly cautious, and write something you think will please the admissions committee. These poor people have to read thousands of essays. If yours is just like everyone else’s, they’ll fall asleep. Don’t let that happen. Wake them up by putting yourself —your true, bright, vibrant, quirky self—on the page.

4. Don't Exaggerate

Finally, do not exaggerate, over-inflate, or lie. This goes without saying, but admissions committees are looking for honest candidates. The surest way to get rejected is to lie about something. (Business schools do a background check on you before you're properly admitted, so they will find out.) Don't be the person who over-inflates on their essays, then has their offer letter rescinded.

The Types of MBA Essays

All right — since we've covered high-level approaches to the MBA essays, it's time to dig into the various types.

There are three general categories of MBA essays you'll see across the board.

1. Personal Statement

These questions ask you to offer up something sincere about yourself. They'll often touch on such things as your values and your character. In these, you'll want to be as authentic as possible, while also highlighting attributes like leadership, intellectual vitality, and teamwork, that business schools are looking for. Here are a few examples of personal statement essays:

• As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program? (HBS)
• What matters most to you, and why? (Stanford GSB)

2. Why an MBA/Why This School

The next category of essays is the "Why an MBA" / "Why This School" set.

In these, schools first want to hear about how an MBA will fit into your career, both short and long term. Top MBA programs are looking for candidates who will: first of all, be gainfully employed upon graduating, second of all, have an illustrious career that will make their institution look good and encourage future generations of applicants to apply, and third, be consistent and generous donors. That being the case, they want to know about your career trajectory, and how an MBA will fit into it.

Pro tip: Here, you want to be ambitious and inspiring in laying out your future career, but not naïve. Walk the line between shooting for the stars and sounding dreamlike and uninformed.

In this set of questions, you'll also encounter questions geared at figuring out why you would want to attend a specific school. MBA programs want to know that you're serious about attending their school — yield, or the percentage of admitted candidates who accept their offers of admission, is an important metric for them — but they also want to envision how you'll contribute to their admitted class. What will you uniquely bring to the table, the things that you'll do that the other candidates wouldn’t be able to offer?

We've heard former deans of business schools say that, in choosing a class, they're curating a world-class dinner party, and that each person invited to the dinner party has to bring something different. What will you bring to the dinner party?

Pro tip: To demonstrate that you've done your research, and to help the admissions committee envision you in their program, indicate which classes you might take when earning your MBA and why, which professors you might hope to study with, and in which clubs you might participate.

Here are a few examples of "why MBA / why this school" essays:

• How is a Columbia MBA going to help you? (Columbia)
• What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (Wharton)
• Why Stanford? Describe your aspirations and how your Stanford GSB experience will help you realize them. (Stanford GSB)

3. Behavioral/Other

Finally, most other essays will either be behavioral, asking you about experiences, traits, strengths, weaknesses, and achievements. There's a wide variety of topics here, but all the guidelines from above apply, with the final note to always prioritize authenticity (as mentioned in the Personal Statement section) and leadership ability (remember, business schools are choosing future leaders). Here are a few examples of behavioral/other essays:

• Describe the biggest commitment you have ever made. (Yale SOM)
• Tell us about your favorite book, movie, or song and why it resonates with you. (Columbia)
• Think about times you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic, or other settings. What was your impact? What made it significant to you or to others? (Stanford GSB)

Top MBA Program Essay Prompts (Updated 2022)

To help you get started, we've compiled the required prompts from a few top MBA programs below:

1. Harvard Business School (HBS)

As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program? (900 words)

For more information, visit A Guide to the HBS Essay .

2. Stanford Graduate School of Business

What matters to you most, and why? (650 words)

Why Stanford? (400 words)

Read What Matters Most When Writing the GSB Essays.

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)

Taking into consideration your background – personal, professional, and/or academic – how do you plan to make specific, meaningful contributions to the Wharton community? (400 words)

For Wharton-specific advice, visit A Guide to the Wharton Essays .

4. Columbia Business School

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, in your imagination, would be your long-term dream job? (500 words)

Essay 2: The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL) is a new 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, Communicating Across Identities, Addressing Systemic Inequity, and Managing Difficult Conversations. Tell us about a time you were challenged around one of these five skills. Describe the situation, the actions you took, and the outcome. (250 words)

Essay 3: We believe Columbia Business School is a special place. CBS proudly fosters a collaborative learning environment through curricular experiences like our clusters and learning teams , an extremely active co-curricular and student life environment, and career mentorship opportunities like our Executives-in-Residence program .Why do you feel Columbia Business School is a good fit for you academically, culturally, and professionally? Please be specific. (250 words)

5. Chicago Booth

How will the Booth MBA help you achieve your immediate and long-term post-MBA career goals? (250-word minimum)

An MBA is as much about personal growth as it is about professional development. In addition to sharing your experience and goals in terms of your career, we’d like to learn more about you outside of the office. Use this opportunity to tell us something about who you are… (250-word minimum)

Read more at A Guide to the Booth Essays .

6. Kellogg Northwestern

Kellogg’s purpose is to educate, equip and inspire brave leaders who create lasting value. Provide a recent example where you have demonstrated leadership and created value. What challenges did you face and what did you learn? (450 words)

Values are what guide you in your life and work. What values are important to you and how have they influenced you? (450 words)

Read How to Nail Your Kellogg MBA Application Essays

7. MIT Sloan

MIT Sloan seeks students whose personal characteristics demonstrate that they will make the most of the incredible opportunities at MIT, both academic and non-academic. We are on a quest to find those whose presence will enhance the experience of other students. We seek thoughtful leaders with exceptional intellectual abilities and the drive and determination to put their stamp on the world. We welcome people who are independent, authentic, and fearlessly creative — true doers. We want people who can redefine solutions to conventional problems, and strive to preempt unconventional dilemmas with cutting-edge ideas. We demand integrity, respect, and passion.

Taking the above into consideration, please submit a cover letter seeking a place in the MIT Sloan MBA program. Your letter should conform to standard business correspondence, include one or more professional examples that illustrate why you meet the desired criteria above, and be addressed to the Admissions Committee (300 words or fewer, excluding address and salutation)

Applicants are required to upload a 1 minute (60 seconds) video as part of their application. In your video, you should introduce yourself to your future classmates, tell us about your past experiences, and touch on why MIT Sloan is the best place for you to pursue your degree.

How to Start Your MBA Essay

So you've read about the types of essays, and seen some of the prompts from top MBA programs. Now it's time to actually start diving into the essay.

The very first thing to do, before putting pen to paper, is to look inward.

Why do  you want an MBA? What role will this degree play in your professional growth? How do you imagine it will shape your life? What do you want out of your career? What is the most important thing in the world to you?

Yes, these are life’s deep-end questions, but you’ll need to tackle them in these essays, so before you start writing, take the time to think through them. Go for a run, swim some laps, bake a cake—however you get into the flow — and start a dialogue with yourself. Put down your work, turn your phone off, and give your mind permission to go to the places it usually avoids. That’s a good place to start. That’s where the answers are.

Pro tip: The first sentence is the hardest one to write. When you're starting out if it can intimidating and anxiety-producing. The trick is to simply put  anything  down — and don't look back. Keep putting one sentence after the other. You can edit later: let whatever comes to you out onto the page. If you’re struggling with self-critique, dim your computer screen until you can’t even see the words you’re typing. Then keep going.

Additional Tips & Tricks

Once you've started your essay, it's a matter of persistence: keep writing, then keep drafting and editing until you have something you're really proud of.

To help you with that process, here are a few more tips and tricks:

• Take Breaks

When you hit the wall — you will hit the wall — stop. This is your brain telling you it needs to do something else. Walk your dog. Take a lap around your room. Eat some cheese. Your body needs sleep every night to function; your mind is the same way. That next leap of inspiration will come exactly at the moment when you’re least expecting it.

• Read it Out Loud

When you finally have a draft, print it and read it out loud to yourself. Your ear will catch things your eyes miss. Reading out loud is the best way to pick up on spelling errors, clunky transitions, and paragraphs that still need ironing out. It’s also a good way to envision how the admissions committee will experience your essay.

Don’t be precious with your essay. Send it to anyone willing to read it. Solicit as much feedback as you can. If you don’t like what people have to say, you don’t have to incorporate it, but you need an impartial third party to give notes on what they’re seeing, thinking, and feeling. (You’re too close to things to do it for yourself.) This is where a Leland coach comes very much in handy!

• Complete Everything Early

This is more of a timing consideration, but you do not want to trip at the finish line because your internet went down the night before the deadline, or your credit card was denied when paying your application fee (it's happened before). Don't let that be you!

Here is another article to get you started, written by an expert essays coach: 7 MBA Essay Tips to Make You Stand Out in 2022 .

Example MBA Essays

Finally, here are two essays to help inspire you. The first, a personal statement essay, was submitted by an admit to Berkeley Haas' Executive MBA program; the second, a career goals / why MBA essay, was submitted by an admit to Chicago Booth's deferred MBA program.

Haas Admit:

A person’s identity is shaped by many different aspects, including family, culture, personal interests, and surrounding environments. Please share a facet of your identity or story that is essential to who you are. (300 words) My upbringing in India, filled with countless myths and legends, had a profound influence on me. The most formative tale was about a sage who prays for years to the goddess of knowledge, but in vain. In the end, the goddess didn’t appear for the sage because he was turning his prayer beads the wrong way! As a child, this story upset me: the sage worked so hard and had the right intentions. As an adult, though, I’ve come to realize that the goddess of knowledge was right: you can’t succeed unless you do things the right way. Seven years ago, two friends and I started a company, XXXX: a digital health platform that would allow patients to store medical records online and consult doctors remotely. We had early success—we brought on 2,000 patients at XXXX, a gynecology clinic in XXXX—but ultimately we didn’t have the resources to properly scale, and had to shut the company down. Among the many lessons I learned, the most valuable was that ideas and hard work are common; businesses succeed or fail based on execution—on doing things the right way. Two years ago, I relearned this lesson in the most painful way possible: when my marriage ended. My wife and I loved each other, but we weren’t there for each other when it mattered most. Our feelings weren’t enough—we had to back them up with the right actions. It’s disheartening when you have good intentions but still fall short. When this happens, though, you have to keep trying—because eventually you will do things the right way. I carry the story of the sage with me always, not as a harsh lesson, but as a motivating goal: one that keeps me striving towards doing things the right way.

Booth Admit:

How will the Booth MBA help you achieve your immediate and long-term post-MBA career goals? (250 word minimum)

I want to start a geothermal company that will help lead the energy transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy—by targeting existing oil wells as sites for geothermal plants. Oil fields are close to electric grids and have high nearby subsurface temperatures, making them ideal sites for geothermal plants. By building geothermal infrastructure nearby, my company will produce cleaner, cheaper energy, making it more profitable for operators to switch from oil to geothermal. As oil companies decommission their wells, I’ll negotiate for their land rights, so I can use their existing wells for new geothermal vents. I want my company to prove the case for economically viable, carbon neutral energy production. After getting an MBA I want to start a geothermal company which will help me lead the energy transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. I plan to target developed oil fields in Texas, where, in many places, producing wells are flowing enough hot fluid to generate clean energy. Using this geothermal heat, the carbon footprint of oil and gas extraction will decrease as fewer fossil fuels are utilized to power surrounding infrastructure. As the wells approach their economic life, I will negotiate the lease from various operators, saving them millions in plug and abandonment costs, and retrofit the wells for direct geothermal energy production via closed loop binary fluid systems, bringing emissions to zero. To accomplish this goal, I need to shore up my knowledge of energy economics and entrepreneurial finance, develop a strong sense of leadership, and build a network of like minded individuals that will help me lead the transition and I believe I can get those things at Chicago Booth. My immediate career goal is to develop my first co-production site in Shelby County, Texas at the Blanton well site, which produces abnormally heated fluid from the flanks of an active salt dome. Before investing in capital expenditures, developing a strong sense of energy economics and broader markets is necessary to verify financial feasibility. University of Chicago, through the Graduate-Student-At-Large: Business program, is already allowing me to accomplish this goal with my enrollment in “Microeconomics” with Professor Andrew McClellan. His instruction helped me understand the impact taxes and subsidies have on market equilibrium, an important aspect of renewable energy as green energy tax incentives continue to change on a yearly basis. As my company continues to grow, having a strong finance and accounting foundation is imperative to building and sustaining a healthy company. Electives such as “Accounting for Entrepreneurship: From Start-Up through IPO” will provide the skills I need to be successful by following the life-cycle of a business that originates as a start-up, and covers topics such as building an initial accounting infrastructure. I understand that execution of the business is as important as developing the idea and proof of concept, and Booth is the best place for me to develop financial fluency. Leading the energy transition will require a strong sense of leadership. Not only will I need to lead those I get to work with over my career, but to lead the energy transition, and reverse the impact fossil fuels have had thus far, I must have the emotional intelligence to inspire others to join me in my journey. The “Interpersonal Dynamics” course at Booth will allow me to develop my communication skills and better understand the emotions and perceptions of my colleagues. These skills, synthesized with leadership development acquired in “Leadership Practicum” will prepare me to act as a relational leader, who understands the needs of others. As a relational leader I hope to foster an environment which promotes happiness, and maximizes efficiency, not only to make our efforts in changing the world more successful, but to excite other people to join our cause.

To find the greatest chance of success in leading the energy transition, I will need a network of like-minded individuals who can provide a diversity of thought. Chicago Booth provides the opportunity to develop that network through different community experiences. The Energy Club’s “Energy Forward” conference, which designates time to topics in oil and gas and renewable energy will allow me to hear from industry leaders, build meaningful relationships with peers and contribute my sector experience to the public forum as I learn from those around me. Opportunities through the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Group such as “SeedCon” will help me connect with successful entrepreneurs and early-stage investors whose ideas and funding might change the course of my venture’s trajectory. Even in the GSALB program I have had the opportunity to connect with other students in various sectors, including the energy industry. I hope to continue to strengthen those connections and continue building new ones with matriculation into the full time program.

Here are several other articles that you may find helpful as you put together your MBA application:

• The Most Frequently Asked Questions on MBA Applications
• How to Answer the "Why an MBA?" Essay Question
• My Top Piece of Advice for MBA Applicants
• How I Nailed My MBA Interview and Gained Admission to Top 10 Business Schools
• 4 Expert Tips on Paying for Business School

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MBA Essays: Everything You Need to Know

Scott Edinburgh - Personal MBA Coach

Scott Edinburgh is an mba.com Featured Contributor and the founder of Personal MBA Coach , a boutique MBA admissions consulting and tutoring firm.

Nearly all MBA hopefuls are familiar with the term “MBA essay”, but what exactly does this mean and why is the MBA essay so important? To help guide MBA hopefuls, Personal MBA Coach would like to answer some common questions about the MBA essays and share details on the most common MBA essay types.

Why do I need an MBA essay?

Beyond the obvious answer that nearly all schools require you to write one in order to be admitted, the MBA essay is your chance to show MBA admissions committee members who you are BEYOND the facts and figures. These essays are your opportunities to show what makes you unique, share your goals and discuss how you will add to the dynamic community at your target business school. 

Do I need different MBA essays for each program I apply to?

Unfortunately, YES! While there are some overlapping themes across the most common MBA essay types (more on this below), each business school has its own unique essays. Unless you are applying through an organization such as The Consortium (which has some specific requirements), you must complete a separate application for each MBA program and answer each school’s specific essay questions.

To make this daunting task more manageable, Personal MBA Coach helps clients identify common elements across essay types. Ultimately, however, you should develop a separate essay for each school you are applying to.

What should I write about in my MBA essay?

First and foremost, you should answer the question. It is surprising how often candidates write beautiful essays that do not actually answer the question. Instead of writing what you think admissions committee members want to hear, answer the question.

What are the most common MBA essay questions?

While there are countless different essay questions across MBA programs, the three most common types of essays questions are Goals Essays, Why an MBA? Essays, and Personal Story Essays. (Often one essay question will ask clients to discuss both their goals and why they want an MBA.)

Below, Personal MBA Coach shares our tips for answering each of these key essay types:

Goals Essay

When answering a question about your MBA goals , it is crucial that you are decisive . While no one will hold you to what you write in your MBA applications, you should have a specific post-MBA plan. For most schools, you will want a short-term and a long-term career goal. This goal should be logical for you. This means it should flow naturally from your passions and experience. If it doesn’t, it is crucial that you explain why this goal makes sense for you.

Finally, this goal should be attainable. You are not going to be the CFO of Pepsi two years after graduating from business school (sorry!). Do your research in terms of what position might be reasonable in your target industry.

Why an MBA? Essay

To answer a question about why you want an MBA or why you want to study at X school, you want to show that you have carefully thought through how an MBA (at your target program) will prepare you to achieve your career goals. To do so, Personal MBA Coach suggests being very specific in detailing the opportunities you plan to take advantage of on campus.

Discuss classes you are particularly interested in or perhaps professors you are looking to study with, etc. Do not include a laundry list. Instead, carefully think through how each offering will allow you to fill in your skill and/or experience gaps. Be sure to show an understanding of your target school’s culture and avoid writing vague statements and copying content from other MBA application essays.

Personal Story Essay

With a personal story essay, your objective is to show the reader how your story is unique and how you will add value and diversity to classroom discussions and on campus activities. This can be one of the hardest essays to write. To get started, Personal MBA Coach advises that you make a list of everything you have done in your life and take the time to write it all down. Then, think carefully about the decisions you have made, activities you enjoy and, most importantly, why you made those choices. Finally, look for a theme! What single idea connects these items? This is the hard part, so give it time.

How do you conclude an MBA essay?

Do not overthink the conclusion. In fact, with short word limits, Personal MBA Coach often advises clients to write just one concluding sentence or remove the conclusion altogether. Conclusions can be fluffy, generic or repetitive. You do not need (or want) to waste words here. If you have told your story well and you have addressed the question clearly and concisely, do not worry about the conclusion!

How far in advance should I start my MBA essays?

As soon as possible! It is never too early to start thinking about your MBA essays. In fact, Personal MBA Coach works with many clients 6 month – 3 years in advance through our Early Planning package, helping future applicants make the appropriate career and extracurricular decisions to ensure they have enough experience to write strong MBA essays.

That said, with diligence, some Personal MBA Coach clients are able to develop a compelling MBA essay within a month. (Keep in mind, this is a very compressed timeline and takes dedication to achieve!). Plus, you always want to leave time for proofreading and should avoid submitting your essays at the last minute. 

Founded by a Wharton MBA and MIT Sloan graduate who sits on the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants Board of Directors, Personal MBA Coach has been guiding clients for 14 years and is consistently ranked #1 or #2, currently holding the #1 ranking in the US on Poets&Quants.

We help clients with all aspects of the MBA application process including early planning, GMAT/GRE/EA tutoring, application strategy, school selection, essay editing and mock interviews. Our team includes a former M7 admissions director and former M7 admissions interviewers.

Last year, our clients earned more than $6M in scholarships!

MBA Programs Making Headlines: Plagiarism in MBA Admissions Essays a Growing Concern?

Written by businessdegree.

Deja vu came over Smeal College of Business MBA Managing Director Carrie Marcinkevage. There it was again – the same feeling that had been vexing her ever since the applications process three years ago. Something just wasn’t right. At that time director of the MBA admissions office, Marcinkevage felt as if she were reading the same sentences over and over again, only in different admissions essays. And according to  Penn State’s Daily Collegian , it turned out that she was on to something.

Marcinkevage and her admissions staff decided to re-read essays to test her hypothesis. What was a tedious, days-long process for the staff soon paid dividends, though. They discovered that 30 of their prospective MBA applicants had taken unattributed sentences and ideas from two key online sources. Cheating on the MBA admissions essay: now, that was a new animal.

Plagiarism Doesn’t Pay

New, but multiplying. Plagiarism in admissions essays is increasingly being tried by applicants looking to give an extra boost to their applications. Plagiarism detection technology is not lagging behind, though. Advances in the state of the art have helped to bring the issue to the forefront and are streamlining the process of catching these admissions cheaters.

So, why take the risk of cheating? And anyway, why use somebody else’s ideas and words in an admissions essay meant to show who you are as a unique individual, and why you should be awarded admittance to a prestigious MBA program? Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose?

Beware the Application Consultant

UCLA’s Anderson School of Management says that the plagiarized passages – found in rejected essays accounting for approximately two percent of their overall MBA applications – come from nonprofit organizations, websites which offer free essays, and – wait, did they say consultants? Come again?

But it’s true.  CNN Money  offers a glimpse into how consulting firms are affecting the MBA admissions process. According to author John A. Byrne, a former executive editor and editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.com, consultants have become an irresistible option for some MBA applicants hopelessly dreaming of that “perfect” admissions essay. In fact, according to most estimates, about half of the students at Stanford, Harvard and Wharton employ consultants in an attempt to upgrade their MBA essays and applications. It seems you can find a consultant for anything these days.

Senior associate dean of UCLA’s MBA program, Andrew Ainslie, says that the majority of consulting firms are providing services that can assist prospective students in improving their MBA odds. But a few of those “services” are behaving in ways that are out-and-out bad for business – for everyone involved.

For example, using plagiarism software from  Turnitin  to scan for copied passages, pilfered paragraphs, and unattributed quotes, Ainslie and his UCLA crew found large-scale segments of previously published items in ostensibly original student essays. These prospective MBA students lifted material liberally from Wikipedia, various websites, and other web-based content. In one instance of obvious cheating, Ainslie found that almost 85 percent of a student’s essay was directly taken (and yes, that is regarded as “stolen”) from an existing online source.

Shifting the Focus Away from Essays

Whether or not certain consultants can be pinned down as “assisting” prospective MBA students to cheat – either by writing the essay themselves, or by copying and pasting out of a catalog, website, or previously written work – is a question that’s hard to answer, for all kinds of reasons. And according to Soojin Kwon Koh, the admissions director at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, it’s also a challenge to ascertain when a student is using a consultant to conjure up a more highly qualified – and thus, unrealistic – image for themselves. To sidestep and protect against this potential spinning of the facts, Michigan now focuses more on the interviewing process and goes right to the heart of the matter: who are you, why do you want to enter our MBA program, what do you have to offer?

As was the case with Smeal College of Business at Penn State, it doesn’t matter how or why you cheated. The most important aspect to take away from the whole affair is that – aside from setting up a fantasy image you may find it hard to live up to – you will most likely get caught.

Using Plagiarism Detection Software is De Rigueur

Just look at what Marcinkevage did. Following the arduous task of going through essays one at a time, she realized there must be a better way to find plagiarized passages. In the end, she found her solution and Smeal became the first business school in the country to begin using the advanced Turnitin software. That means trouble for plagiarizers.

Why? Because using Turnitin’s content database, software administrators are able to match a student’s admissions essay against more than 24 billion web pages and 300-plus million student papers, as well as millions of books, publications and articles to boot. And all in the span of about 30 seconds. So, for those thinking about taking that particular passage to reach their goals, here’s an unattributed quote from over there: it’s safe to say you run a high risk of skunking your MBA admissions quest before it’s even begun.

Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business is one of the most recent MBA programs to use Turnitin’s plagiarism detection software. And according to  Bloomberg Businessweek , it’s also the highest-ranking program to let on that it’s doing so. In actuality, most of the Turnitin clientele list chooses not to publicize their use of the program; and the company itself keeps its client list private.

While Duke University is still in the process of fine-tuning their plagiarism reduction efforts, as we’ve seen, it’s not the only school seeing a lot of copied material showing up in MBA admissions essays. Penn State’s Smeal College of Business has turned down over 87 applicants since 2009; and during the more recent 2012-13 term, Smeal identified 40-plus applicants who plagiarized in their MBA admissions essays (roughly eight percent of their applying pool of candidates).

Other schools have similar stories. Since the 2011-12 school year, UCLA’s Anderson School of Management has refused entry to approximately 115 applicants for the same reason. And it’s interesting to note that UCLA’s Anderson School of Management still has their third round of MBA applications upcoming; the tally of MBA hopefuls caught plagiarizing could jump well beyond the current number.

Come As You Are—Warts and All

So, why cheat? The simplest and most direct answer: you shouldn’t. To present yourself as you are – warts and all – is to give yourself a much better chance at admission and later success. That’s the whole point of admissions essays.

If you’re still thinking of taking that route, no matter the reasons, be aware that you’ll be putting yourself at risk of nullifying all the hard work and dedication that got you this far. Detection rates are now reaching the point where cheating is tantamount to requesting a rejection letter delivered to your mailbox. As we’re seeing more and more, plagiarism – in MBA admissions essays or beyond – doesn’t end well.

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MBA Admission Essay Samples

Featured Expert: Anand Singh, MBA

Are you looking for some MBA admission essay samples? Look no further. In this blog, we share four outstanding MBA admission essay samples that will definitely inspire you to write your own. 

Most business schools will give you specific essay prompts that you will need to answer with your essay, but ultimately, you will either be writing an  MBA personal statement , an  MBA statement of purpose , or an  MBA diversity essay . These are the three most common types of admission essays, and they can all be challenging to write. Reviewing examples, giving yourself enough time to write and edit, and working with an expert such as an  MBA essay consultant  can really improve the quality of your admissions essay. To help you get started, we’ve put together a few examples with prompts from some of the top business schools.

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free strategy call here . <<

Article Contents 8 min read

Mba admission essays: sample #1.

Prompt from Wharton Business School : Considering your background – personal, professional, and/or academic – how do you plan to make specific, meaningful contributions to the Wharton community? (400 words).

Fifteen years ago, after graduating from high school, I left Tanzania and moved to the United States because I wanted to study multimedia marketing, and my research told me there was no better place to learn. I moved halfway across the world at the age of seventeen to follow my dreams of becoming an advertising expert and opening my own firm one day.

It took me some time to find my footing in the US. I often felt isolated and confused. Sometimes, it was little things. For example, I remember the first time I went into a grocery store and found that the food was measured in pounds. I grew up using the metric system, so instead of spending twenty minutes in the store as planned, I spent almost an hour because I had to calculate the weight of things.

Other times, it was bigger things that made me feel isolated. Like the second time I went to that same grocery store and asked a young woman who worked there where I could find scallions, she responded with a blank stare. After I explained what they were, she informed me that they are called spring onions and that if I was going to live in America, I should learn to speak English, or I could go back to where I came from.

I always made it a point to try and learn as much as possible about the places I visited to ensure that I didn't make anyone feel uncomfortable or end up feeling uncomfortable myself. I eventually found the International Student Association at the University of X, where other international students embraced me and introduced me to American students with whom I am still friends to this day. One of whom I fell in love with and married.

My experiences as an international student helped me understand the importance of being welcomed and having access to information. I know that 30% of Wharton business school's student body comprises international students and that every year, it welcomes more. I would like to join the efforts of the students who help make their transition to life in America easier.

Furthermore, I believe that my experiences have taught me to be more open-minded. I look forward to sharing my point of view with students from all over the world and having the chance to learn from them too.  (396 words)

Want to see more Wharton MBA essay examples ?

Prompt from Harvard Business School : Briefly tell us more about your career aspirations. (300 words)

My long-term career goal is to advise small businesses in my community and help them grow. I have been working as an associate business advisor with a local bank for almost a decade, and one of the many things that I have learned from this position is that several business owners do not have access to information that can go a long way toward improving, and sometimes even saving, their businesses. 

Having grown up in a relatively underserved community, I understand the importance of supporting local businesses and ensuring that we reinvest in our own communities. However, as a consumer, I also understand how difficult it can be to do this when there are cheaper and faster ways to access the same products or services that a local business offers. 

Over the years, I have built and maintained relationships with over 100 business owners in various industries and helping them manage their finances has taught me about business financial planning. Furthermore, I have had the opportunity to build practical experience through an internship with a local consulting agency.

I believe that these experiences have given me a solid foundation, but to achieve my goal of becoming a business consultant and helping small business owners, I need to learn more about business administration and management. 

I chose to apply to the Harvard Business School MBA program because it has a rigorous curriculum emphasizing real-world experience through the FIELD immersion program and partnerships with other institutions. This is the perfect program for a person like me who learns by doing. 

I am ready and eager to take this next step in my career so that I can help those around me get the most out of their businesses. I believe that this is the perfect program to help me improve on the skills required to achieve my goal.

Want to learn how to write a Harvard MBA personal statement ?

Prompt from Kellogg Business School : Kellogg’s purpose is to educate, equip & inspire brave leaders who create lasting value. Provide a recent example where you have demonstrated leadership and created lasting value. What challenges did you face, and what did you learn? (450 words)

As one of six operations managers in a contact center, I spend most of my days making decisions that are meant to create lasting value. I lead a team of thirty employees, and my job is to maximize efficiency by ensuring that we have enough employees to provide the service requested by our clients and that the employees have everything they need to do their jobs well.

I was promoted to this role a year ago, and one of the issues I wanted to tackle was our high turnover rate. I know that contact centers have notoriously high turnover rates, but instead of the expected 30 - 40%, we were averaging a rate of 60%. This was not only costing the company a lot of money, but it was reducing the quality of the service that we could provide for our clients.

I spent months pouring over the numbers, trying to understand why we were losing so many employees and what we could do to change it. We pay our agents above market average, give employees good health benefits and vacation time, and hold several contests and competitions to keep them motivated.

After a few months of analyzing the data and finding nothing, I decided to go straight to the source. I changed the company's exit strategy procedure. Instead of a conversation between exiting contact center agents and their former supervisors, they would simply fill out an anonymous survey online that only a few people had access to.

The comments on these surveys helped me understand that the issue actually came from our hiring practices. Most of the comments showed me that many of our new recruits were not understanding the role they were signing up for. So, they would begin working, find something completely different from what they expected and decide to leave.

This information allowed me to take the lead and make some changes that benefited the whole company. I worked with an HR consultant to create better job descriptions that all the different managers now use when hiring contact center agents. Our turnover rate is now 22%, which is lower than the national average for contact centers. 

I pride myself on my ability to look at problems objectively and approach them from different angles until I find a solution. In this case, I was able to do the same thing, and in the process, I learned the importance of asking questions and looking beyond the numbers.

I am conscious of the fact that I still have a lot to learn, and I am eager to do so because I know that the knowledge I gain from this program will help me do right by my team. (449 words)

Check out more Kellogg MBA essay examples !

Prompt from Columbia University : Tell us about your favorite book, movie, or song and why it resonates with you. (250 words)

When I first started writing this essay, I began by writing a list of all my favorite books. I had filled about two pages with titles when I realized that I don't have one favorite; I have several. I initially told myself that I should talk about a business book, or something related to finances, but as much as I enjoy such books and as much as I learn from them, they are honestly not my favorites. 

After careful consideration and a few pro-con lists, I decided to write about one of the books that I have read and enjoyed multiple times: The girl with the louding voice, by the Nigerian author Abi Dare. This book follows a young girl from a poor and remote community as she tries to raise enough funds to get an education and use what she calls her 'louding voice.' Her story is both heartbreaking and inspiring. 

This particular book resonates with me so much because it reminds me of the importance of literacy and that millions of young girls worldwide do not have access to education. A cause that I am very passionate about.

I have and continue to donate my time and money towards changing things for the better. That is why I started an initiative in our publishing house to distribute books in underserved areas and underfunded schools. I hope that the knowledge and know-how that I will gain from your MBA program will allow me to do even more to help.  (250 words)

Want to see more MBA admission essays from the best MBA programs in the US ?

• More Columbia MBA essay examples
• Chicago Booth MBA essay examples
• Haas essay examples
• Stanford MBA personal statement examples
• Kelley MBA essay examples
• Yale MBA essay examples
• Cornell MBA essay examples

Have you started preparing for your MBA interviews? This video is for you:

As you can tell from the different essays you just read, business schools can ask MBA applicants about various topics. Sometimes, the same school might even give you several different prompts and ask you to choose a few from the list.  Harvard MBA personal statement  prompts are a great example of this. It is therefore important to review as many MBA admission essay samples as possible to get inspiration and familiarize yourself with the proper structure of an admission essay.

We would be remiss if we did not remind you that while looking at MBA admission samples for inspiration is great, you should not use these essays or parts of these essays as your own. Not only is this unethical, but  universities can detect plagiarism , and it can have severe consequences.

After reviewing examples, you should start by brainstorming for your own essay. Think about the experiences and motivations that have led you to apply for an MBA program and your reasons for choosing each particular MBA program that you are applying to. You can then use this information, along with examples and anecdotes from your academic and professional background to create an MBA admission essay that will stand out.

Write down as much information as possible when you are brainstorming for your essay, this information can be very helpful when you start to prepare for MBA interviews . ","label":"Bonus tip","title":"Bonus tip"}]" code="tab1" template="BlogArticle">

We recommend that you give yourself at least six to eight weeks to go through this process. If you're unsure how to craft your own essay, invest in MBA admissions consulting . The consultants can guide you through the brainstorming, writing, and editing process to help you ensure that you are submitting an essay that is not only compelling but original. Thus, improving your overall chances of getting into your chosen MBA program. 

Your admission essays are very important. They give you an opportunity to present your strengths and explain your weaknesses to the admission committee. They also give you a chance to tell them exactly what you have to offer and why you deserve a spot in their class. A well-written essay can differentiate you from other candidates and significantly improve your chances of getting into your program.

MBAs are highly sought after, so the competition to get into the programs can be fierce, especially for the top institutions such as  Ivy League schools . You will need a stellar application if you want to get in.

That will depend on the school you are applying to and the specific type of admission essay that has been requested. Unless otherwise specified by the school, your essay should be between 400 and 650 words.

Not all MBA programs ask for one, but the majority of them do. Many schools require more than one admission essay, so you should always verify the school's requirements you're interested in.

A personal statement is one of the many different types of admission essays. You may be required to write a personal statement and a different type of essay, such as a letter of intent. Or your chosen school may only require one essay. Either way, you should verify the school's admissions page for the most accurate and up-to-date information.

They don't necessarily change every year, but they are subject to change depending on the school and the admission committee. You should always check the school's website before you start writing your essays to be prepared.

If you want your MBA admission essay to stand out, you need to make sure that you are showing instead of telling. Use specific examples and short anecdotes to back up any claims that you make about yourself. You should also make sure that you are following any instructions or guidelines provided by the school. If you truly want to beat the competition and craft an outstand essay, you may want to work with an MBA essay consultant.

An MBA essay consultant is an admission expert that helps students through the MBA admissions process, specifically with admission essays. They guide students as they try to craft their personal statements or other MBA admission essays. These consultants also help students improve their research and writing skills.

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When college applicants plagiarize, Turnitin can spot them

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The student’s admissions essay for Boston University’s MBA program was about persevering in the business world. “I have worked for organizations in which the culture has been open and nurturing, and for others that have been elitist. In the latter case, arrogance becomes pervasive, straining external partnerships.”

Another applicant’s essay for UCLA’s Anderson School of Management was about his father. He “worked for organizations in which the culture has been open and nurturing, and for others that have been elitist. In the latter case, arrogance becomes pervasive, straining external partnerships.”

Sound familiar? The Boston University student’s essay was written in 2003 and had been posted at businessweek.com. The UCLA applicant was rejected this year — for plagiarism.

The detection of such wholesale cheating in college applications is on the rise due to the use of Turnitin for Admissions, an anti-plagiarism database service that compares student essays to an immense archive of other writings. Around the country, more than 100 colleges and universities have adopted it, mainly in graduate divisions, although Stanford University is among the dozen schools starting to use it for freshman applicants this year.

That growth highlights the search for authenticity in college admissions at a time when the Internet offers huge amounts of tempting free material, increasing numbers of private coaches sell admissions advice, and online companies peddle pre-written essays. In addition, the larger numbers of applications from overseas have raised concerns about cheating that may be difficult for U.S. schools to discover unaided.

“The more we can nip unethical behavior in the bud, the better,” said Andrew Ainslie, a senior associate dean at UCLA Anderson. “It seems to us nobody ought to be able to buy their way into a business school.”

In the school’s first review of essays from potential MBA candidates this year, Turnitin found significant plagiarism — beyond borrowing a phrase here and there — in a dozen of the 870 applications, Ainslie said. All 12 were rejected.

Turnitin — as in, “turn it in” — began in the 1990s and became a popular tool at high schools and colleges to help detect copying in academic term papers and research by scanning for similarities in phrases from among billions of Web pages, books and periodicals.

Two years ago, the Oakland-based firm developed a service for admissions decisions, allowing large numbers of essays to be reviewed quickly and creating a database of students’ essays. The service shows sections of essays next to the possible source and calculates a percentage of possibly copied material. It is left up to schools to determine whether the plagiarism was minor, accidental or serious enough to reject the applicant.

“If you are a very selective institution, or a very prestigious institution, and you have a huge number of people vying for just a couple of slots, admissions people want to make sure they have all the information to make the fair decision,” said Jeff Lorton, Turnitin for Admissions’ product and business development manager.

Internal testing of the database, using past essays, showed plagiarism ranging from about 3% to 20% of applicants, Lorton said.

Colleges want “to be proactive in discouraging dishonesty,” said Richard Shaw, Stanford’s dean of undergraduate admission and financial aid.

So Stanford will test Turnitin on the 7% or so of its 36,000 applicants who make it past other hurdles to be offered admissions, Shaw said. If plagiarism is detected, students will be allowed to respond but probably will face revocation.

Other schools are skeptical about using Turnitin on prospective freshmen, especially since the company charges large campuses several thousands of dollars a year. Rather, plagiarists can be discovered when admissions officers notice mismatches between strong application essays and weak grades, interviews and SAT or ACT writing samples, said David Hawkins, public policy and research director of the National Assn. for College Admission Counseling. Schools also fear wasting time on false positives triggered by cliches and platitudes, he said.

And experts say it can be easy to tell when several applicants repeat the same material or, more glaring, when they don’t change electronic typefaces from their sources.

Turnitin’s freshman screening could rise sharply, however, if the service is adopted by Common Application, the online service used by 456 college admissions offices. Rob Killion, Common Application executive director, said there is “a very real chance” it will add Turnitin in 2013.

Among current Turnitin for Admissions users are some graduate schools at Johns Hopkins, Brandeis, Northeastern and Iowa State. They pay annual fees that start at $1,500 and rise depending on volume, averaging about a dollar per application, Lorton said. About half the schools explicitly tell applicants about the detection while others warn more vaguely.

Before adding the tool, staffers at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business two years ago discovered 29 essays about “principled leadership” that contained material lifted from the Web, said Carrie Marcinkevage, the MBA program’s managing director. Except for a few borderline cases, those graduate school applications were denied.

Since then, Turnitin has helped find plagiarism rates of between 3% and 5%, Marcinkevage said, adding that the technology is worthwhile since it “covers a lot more ground” than humans can.

Dominican University of California, in San Rafael, recently began using Turnitin in graduate programs. Applicants sometimes “resort to whatever means possible to get an edge. It’s unfortunate, but I think it’s human nature,” graduate admissions director Larry Schwartz said.

A few suspicious reports are being investigated and most suspected plagiarists will be given “the benefit of the doubt” and a chance to submit a second essay for scrutiny, Schwartz said.

At UCLA Anderson, one recent applicant didn’t search far for essay material. He stole verbatim from the school’s website in citing “exceptional academic preparation, a cooperative and congenial student culture, and access to a thriving business community.”

If plagiarists like that are denied admissions, future business leaders may include fewer unethical careerists, said UCLA Anderson’s Ainslie. “If they are going to do that,” he said, “they are going to do it in every aspect of their lives.”

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Larry Gordon was a higher education writer for the Los Angeles Times and covered issues affecting colleges and universities in California and around the nation. He has been an assistant city editor and an urban affairs writer at The Times. He previously worked at the Bergen Record and Hudson Dispatch in his native New Jersey. He won a mid-career Fulbright grant to teach journalism in Bulgaria. Gordon has a bachelor’s from Georgetown University and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. He left The Times in 2015.

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Most B-Schools Think Plagiarism Is A Problem

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It’s no secret that some B-school applicants cheat. In 2012, UCLA’s Anderson School of Management rejected 52 aspiring MBAs for application plagiarism. A year later, Pennsylvania State’s Smeal College of Business turned away 48 applicants for the same reason. At the time, Smeal’s MBA Managing Director Carrie Marcinkevage said 10% of the 481 Round 1 and Round 2 applicants plagiarized their application essays. At Anderson, the dean of the MBA program at the time, Andrew Ainslie, predicted the number of plagiarists was much lower — around 1% to 2%.

Both schools turned to Oakland, California-based Turnitin , a plagiarism detection software company. According to research published today (June 6), Anderson and Smeal are still in the minority of schools taking measures to catch cheaters. The research, conducted by Kira Academic , a Toronto-based admissions interview video platform, surveyed admissions officials at 50 North American business schools, including Smeal. Of the schools surveyed, only 17% reported using some sort of plagiarism identification software.

According to the study, Kira found that the vast majority of admissions offices believe plagiarism occurs in MBA applications, but few are doing anything about it. Some 84% of respondents say admissions plagiarism and fraud, in general, is a problem — yet only 30% report having a “process in place to protect and prevent” it from occurring. Even fewer (24%) say they have a set definition within their admissions offices for what constitutes fraud.

What’s more, of the 70% of admissions offices that don’t have any sort of process in place to address plagiarism and fraud, only one in five plan to implement one. This discrepancy is likely because of the fact that only half of the respondents believe plagiarism is a problem in their school’s applicant pools. Meanwhile, 88% of the admission officials believe it’s happening at other business schools.

ADMISSIONS OFFICES HAVE FOSTERED A CULTURE OF FRAUD DENIAL AND COMPLACENCY, RESEARCHER SAYS

Andrew Hastings, Kira Academic’s research director, says over the two years he and his team have been researching fraud, one theme continues to arise. “It’s a strong word, but the word would be ‘denial,'” Hastings says on a phone call with  Poets&Quants.  Kira’s research, he says, reveals at least a third of the surveyed respondents believe fraud is happening — just not at their schools. “I can assure you that’s not the case,” Hastings continues. And the schools aren’t just in denial — he even sees some defensiveness. “It reflects on their school’s reputation,” Hastings explains. “And as we know, schools are very much into protecting their reputation. Reputation is almost everything in higher education.”

Hastings believes the denial and defensiveness has created a culture of complacency — illustrated by the study’s findings that few schools are employing plagiarism identification software. “As a result, nothing is getting done about it,” Hastings says. “We know that very few of them actually have a process in place to deal with fraud.”

The problem got some attention late last year when  Fortune reported that only 40 business schools had adopted some sort of anti-cheating software, among them Smeal College, UCLA’s Anderson School, and Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.

CHINESE AND ELITE STUDENTS MOST LIKELY TO FAKE THEIR APPLICATION MATERIALS

The influx in Chinese applications is a major contributor to the problem, Hastings says. “We know that applications from students in China is growing significantly,” says Hastings. “We know that Chinese applicants represent one-third of international applicants in the U.S. And we know that business and management is the number-one choice of Chinese applicants studying in the U.S.”

Referencing a 2011  New York Times article , Hastings says 90% of Chinese applicants to U.S. colleges and universities admitted submitting false recommendations. What’s more, research has shown that 70% of the same population admitted to not writing their own personal essays, and half falsified school transcripts. “When you see these, frankly, staggeringly high numbers and you see enrollment from this country is only going up significantly every year, I’d say the issue is growing. It has to,” Hastings says. “And if you look at (the fact that) only 17% of the schools are addressing it, that’s a huge problem. It’s a huge gap.”

It’s not only international applicants faking application materials. Hastings says he did his own investigating and hired a service to write some personal statements. During the process he asked the company what type of applicants use its services. “I was almost certain I was going to hear international applicants or students who have low GMAT scores and poor communication skills. But it was the opposite,” he explains. “The consultant said, ‘It’s mainly top applicants using us.'” Top applicants are obviously competing for spots at elite schools and are more willing to pay for polished essays, Hastings says. “You would think it would be the opposite case, but actually it’s these top applicants who are doing this.”

NEW FRAUD PROTECTION BEING IMPLEMENTED AT SCHOOLS

Hastings took his investigation a step further and asked the admissions team at Smeal College to run his plagiarized essay through Turnitin. “It came through with flying colors,” he recalls. “I didn’t even write this essay, but I would have gotten through a traditional system.” One prominent MBA admissions consultant tells Poets&Quants  that some schools soon will begin implementing more advanced fraud protection software. On a panel earlier this year, the consultant said adcoms from Columbia Business School, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, and MIT’s Sloan School of Management claimed to either be in the process of implementing or have already implemented a program called Slate.

A product of Technolutions , Slate was created more than a decade ago exclusively for higher education admissions offices, and a few MBA programs have been using the software for a few years. Slate’s differentiator is the ability to track document metadata — unseen information and data attached to electronic text files. According to Technolutions’ website, Slate can automatically flag statistically significant metadata similarities. For example, if an applicant wrote his or her recommendation letters and then sent them to their recommenders to submit on their behalf, the software could find statistical similarities in the applicant’s personal essays and recommendation letters — essentially, that they came from the same place.

According to the admissions consultant who spoke to Poets&Quants , Columbia has already implemented Slate. Columbia Admissions Director Amanda Carlson has so far been unable to comment. A spokesperson from Tuck said the school has not yet used the software for an admissions cycle and administrators are still discussing how exactly to use the software.

PLAGIARISM STEMMING FROM ADMISSIONS CONSULTANTS?

Interestingly, 62% of the respondents in the Kira study believe applicant plagiarism is occurring as a result of MBA admissions consultants. In October, Hastings blogged about his experience with a “black market admissions consultant.” For $160, Hastings was able to purchase a 500-word personal statement. A simple Google search reveals many companies that will happily do the same. As Hastings explains in his post, some consultants will simply edit a personal essay, while others will actually write them for applicants.

Betsy Massar of Master Admissions says it’s “unfortunate that admissions officers point the finger at consultants,” noting there is a stark contrast between reputable consultants like herself and others and bogus pay-for-essay sites. “Consultants that I know, including my colleagues at the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC), abide by principles that expressly prohibit writing essays for students,” Massar says. “In fact, if any potential client suggests that is what they are looking for, all the professionals I know would run in the other direction.”

Hastings agrees that the professional and established consultants of AIGAC are not the consultants he and MBA admissions offices are concerned about. It’s the plethora of options Massar referenced as “We-write-MBA-essays-for-you. com” types of sites. “This has not been lost on admissions teams. They are acutely aware of this issue,” Hastings says, referencing open discussions he has seen of such pay-for-recommendation and essay sites on MBA admissions forums like GMATClub. “Those are not the ones they are pointing fingers at, those that respect the process,” he continues. “They are talking about the others, of which there are many — a quick Google search will reveal a seemingly endless supply of them.”

To crack down on plagiarism and fraud, Hastings says interviewing is a simple solution. “Fraud is a complex problem with a very simple solution,” he says. “And that solution is interviews.” Hastings suggests any sort of interview, whether by phone or in person. “It’s much harder to cheat your way through an interview than have someone write your essay.”

DON’T MISS: IS CHEATING UP IN BUSINESS SCHOOLS?

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Plagiarism in graduate application essays: how to avoid it.

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