King for a day - Harvard - Business school admissions essay tips
Business school admissions essay tips
Alarm clock. Clock radio. Cereal. Multivitamin. Rain. No jog today. The firm represents your career as one pyramid inverted on top of the other. The bottom pyramid represents analysts and associates; the top pyramid, junior and senior partners. At the fulcrum is the case manager. It is the best and worst role at the firm.
Five new voice mails, twelve new e-mails. Scan Red Herring, Venture Wire, American Banker, WSJ, and the NY Times. Must stay current, I rationalize. Client calls. “Could we have an update before the presentation to review the findings?” The presentation is only four days away. “Absolutely.” “I’ll see you tomorrow in Parsippany at eight-thirty a.m.” The best part is that you see and do it all. You watch partners agree to outrageous proposals. You design the analysis to execute those proposals. You learn your clients’ quirks and earn their confidence. You guide your team. You support the firm, too—writing articles, giving recruiting seminars on “cracking a case interview.”
A partner stops by: “I promised Tom that we would incorporate the perspective of Japanese beverage executives.” Panic. The analyst reminds you of his vacation. Meet with case team. Reshuffle work plan. Interview client CFO. Rewrite executive summary (again). Gently, have “career concerns” discussion with advisee.
The worst part is that you see and do it all. It is all ultimately your responsibility: the right answer, a happy client, a non-mutinous case team, the partner appearing at the meeting and remembering the
topic. You are one part uber-analyst, one part therapist, one part administrative assistant. Secretly, I like this responsibility, too.
What time does the gym close? Business plan needs another iteration. Girlfriend calls: “We are meeting for dinner at nine, right?” Panic. E-mail document to client. Grab a taxi. Rain. Everything will be fine. It always is.
Analysis
If you are a consultant, answering this question can be terrifying. Everyone knows what a consultant does, but here you are trying to describe a typical day in a way that is interesting and that sets you apart from the crowd. It is no easy task, but the writer of this essay passes with flying colors.
Humor helps, as does the author’s thoughtful (and honest) perspective of what it is like to be a case manager and balance the myriad demands from coworkers, partners, clients, and life outside of work. The writing is crisp and the pace fast. The end of the essay— “Everything will be fine. It always is.”—is a nice touch and says to the admissions committee that the author is not so overwhelmed by day-to-day pressures that he loses sight of the bigger picture and what is really important in life. No matter what your background, demonstrating that you can see your job in a larger context (connecting the dots, so to speak) is invaluable and demonstrates maturity and poise. The takeaway from this essay is that you can tell a very descriptive tale in few words. Do not panic if you are worried you are not an amazing writer. Do spend the time to think about what you do, why you do it well, and how to succinctly convey this along with a bit about your unique personality.
From 65 Successful Harvard Business School Application Essays edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2009 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group