Stanford Business School
Stanford Business School, colloquially known on campus as the “GSB” (i.e. Graduate School of Business) is one of the most selective business schools in the world, and their application is intense.
The essay prompts require you to search deep within yourself to find meaning — and to situate GSB within your greater character arc. Many potential applicants have been disarmed by their simplicity and lack of direction (or even clear connection to business concepts).
If the prompts have left you speechless, then this article is for you. I will break down the GSB essays this year and provide a comprehensive approach to how you can master them.
Preparing to Write the Stanford GSB Essays
First, take a moment to review the questions. It is imperative that we understand what the questions ask on a deep level.
Essay Prompts
Essay A: What matters most to you, and why?
For this essay, we would like you to reflect deeply and write from the heart. Once you’ve identified what matters most to you, help us understand why. You might consider, for example, what makes this so important to you? What people, insights, or experiences have shaped your perspectives?
Essay B: Why Stanford?
Describe your aspirations and how your Stanford GSB experience will help you realize them. If you are applying to both the MBA and MSx programs, use Essay B to address your interest in both programs.
Both of these questions convey a lot of information regarding the type of learning environment that GSB promotes. If a GSB applicant embraces a guarded personal story and solely seeks career advancement, that applicant will not make it very far unless the applicant taps deep emotional self-awareness. What these questions already tell us is that we need to connect deeply and emotionally on one core issue. Be vulnerable!
Asking the Right Questions to Avoid the Wrong Process
Most GSB applicants try to reverse engineer the process. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT start with a topic.
This approach is flawed because it leads to superficial reasoning, when admissions wants the exact opposite: depth.
Here is the WRONG PROCESS in a nutshell:
A student will pick a topic and then work to think of “why” that topic is important in his or her life. A simple example is as follows:
Topic chosen: Financial Independence in Developing Economies
Thesis: What matters most to me is helping people in third world countries achieve financial independence
The Why: Because financial independence is important to the health and wellbeing of people everywhere and we should strive to help everyone reach this goal
This story may very well turn out to be a heartfelt essay, with the writer meaning 100% of every word he or she wrote. But, there is a flaw in the logic flow with this reasoning that is doomed to result in a subpar essay.
Why reverse engineering doesn’t work
In this example, the thought chain fails to capture buy-in from the reader because nothing is really at stake for the writer. As a storyteller, we need the protagonist to risk something. Without the intricate connection to why financial independence impacts who you are at your core, it will read like a disconnected and disjointed personal statement.
We need to know why you feel this way, and in particular, what was the moment that brought this awareness and a deep interest in this topic into your life. That’s why starting with a topic often leads writers astray. Sure, the selection might get lucky and land on a deep source of meaning. But 90 times out of 100, the motivation is not in the right place.
The RIGHT Process: Start with why
To get to the heart of these ideas, we need to start with, as the title of Simon Sinek’s suggests, start with why.
The following are good questions to ask to help you arrive at a key moment of influence.
Did you experience a form of this phenomenon as a child?
Did someone show you or teach you what this topic is
Were you or someone close to you directly impacted?
When built from this core building block, your essay will automatically put your character on the line. That vulnerability is exactly what Stanford wants.
What to Write for Stanford Business School
The essay needs to be about you and your values. But how you go about writing on these topics can matter just as much as what you write.
Here are two pitfalls that have caused many ships to founder on GSB’s shoreline.
Be careful when you find yourself making an intellectual argument. Many students discuss definitions of a specific value and veer into academic arguments. In many cases, these academic arguments do not further the main point. At core, they are impersonal deflections of character rather than character building.
Be careful when discussing a work or project accomplishment because of the level of separation from your work to who you are as a person.
Of course, as with most things, “never say never” applies to these recommendations. I have read essays where a concise intellectual argument has communicated a great deal about an applicant. And there are moments when professional work does lead to satisfaction on the deepest motivational level.
A Useful Template for Mastering the “What Matters Most to You” Essay
The key to the first essay is the pivot.
Most good narratives have a central character who’s invested in a conflict. How you articulate this moment of influence has considerable flexibility, and you may walk down one of many avenues to arrive.
However, the “set-up” to the “punch” does not have as much flexibility. Admissions counselors read thousands of “heartfelt, mushy-gushy” essays. Therefore, we must resort to structure and clarity. Most creatively inspired master work is born from the seeds of structure.
Even if you do not follow this template exactly, be sure that you come to understand what your structure is. (This is best done before you write the first draft.)
Below is an effective example outline:
Paragraph 1. Open the essay with what matters most. This statement should be clear, and you will never be docked points for your level of clarity. The reader should quickly understand what you will spend the rest of your essay building upon in the opening paragraph.
Paragraph 2. Continue to articulate why this value matters to you. Introduce any people, situations, or environments that set up the pivot to come in the next paragraph. At the end of two paragraphs, we should know enough to see where the story is going.
Paragraph 3. The pivot. What makes a truly great story or written essay is where you take the reader on an unexpected path. This is a tricky point, but it is an important one. Great stories are not predictable. Consider this example: If you set up the situation such that you know the protagonist will win the National swim meet, and then tell a story in which the individual does win, then the reader will miss an “aha!” or “pivot” moment that inspires a central meaning. Please beware: this moment of influence, or “pivot”, does not mean that the story suddenly changes. You cannot go from setting up a National swim meet to speaking on the Congressional Floor to hundreds of Political Representatives about Climate Change. In other words, the pivot needs to be both unexpected and inevitable. You want the reader to come out of this paragraph thinking “wow, I was not expecting that, but that makes sense”.
Paragraph 4. Now you need to tie the value or topic you chose as what matters most to you and explain how your relationship with that value or topic has changed as a result of the pivot. This is where the central character in a story gains redemption. He or she has learned something fundamental that has played a part in greater self-fulfillment or meaning.
Paragraph 5. This paragraph is all about forward momentum. Why this topic or value matters beyond just yourself. Why should the reader care (in other words, what’s in it for Admissions)? Remember, GSB expects you to develop self-awareness that will propel you to deeper relationships with students, faculty, and the community. Ultimately, this is where your vision for life ties with your mission for career success to Change Lives, Change Organizations, and Change the World.
This last paragraph leads nicely into the second essay, which should be considerably shorter than the first, on Why Stanford. This essay is a much more straightforward exercise in linking your short-term goals to your long-term vision, with the GSB being the natural bridge that links these two disparate ideas. Articulate how Stanford’s MBA program is a requirement for you to reach your long-term vision.
What Not to Write
This is not Harvard Business School. Unlike their famous question, “what more would you like us to know,” your essay should not veer off into a generalization of your candidacy. Instead, fulfill the essay prompts regarding “what matters most to you.”
Conclusion
A good brainstorming session will lead you to numerous details/concepts that accomplish similar tasks.
If you find yourself thinking too closely to the example you just read, feel free to read other examples! There is no right way to do this, so reading multiple examples will help to formulate your own unique path. Good luck!