We want to know what matters to you, and our essay question is designed to help us gain insight into your background, passions, motivations, responsibilities, ideals, identities, challenges, or aspirations, depending on where you take your response. To ensure that you’re able to write about something important to you, we offer you three essay prompts from which to choose:
Option 1: Describe the biggest commitment you have ever made. Why is this commitment meaningful to you and what actions have you taken to support it? (500 words)
Option 1 Tips: Commitment to an idea, cause, or dream forms the basis of our passions and achievements. The Yale MBA admissions team wants to know about what really matters to you through your biggest commitment.
For this MBA essay, you could write about a particular value, attitude, or approach toward life that you have developed within yourself and are deeply committed to. And if this is indeed your biggest one, then your life must have taken a path determined by this commitment. Reflecting on your life choices and identifying the crucial milestones in your life will help you uncover the underlying themes about what really matters to you and could take you towards an answer to your biggest commitment.
Whatever you choose to talk about would reveal your deep and personal self to Yale admissions. So be also mindful that what you choose to talk about will also be used to evaluate your fit with not only Yale MBA but also your intent for MBA. Since pursuing an MBA is a really big decision, so ideally your life's biggest commitment should be directly or indirectly connected with your MBA plans.
Option 2: Describe the community that has been most meaningful to you. What is the most valuable thing you have gained from being a part of this community and what is the most important thing you have contributed to this community? (500 words)
Option 2 Tips: This is a new question this year. Every business school is a community and each admissions team seeks to know how you'd become part of their community. What role you'd play, how you'd contribute to them. So, before they admit you to their MBA class, Yale team wants to understand who you are based on the community that has been most meaningful to you.
Some of the communities you could consider are your colleagues, your friends, teams with whom you play sports or engage in community improvment activities. It could be any group of individuals bound by common passion or cause.
Once you have decided to select a community, then come to answering the 2nd part of the question - what have you gained and what have you contributed. It is through answers to these questions that Yale would evaluate your potential for growth and contribution to their community.
Option 3: Describe the most significant challenge you have faced. How have you confronted this challenge and how has it shaped you as a person? (500 words)
In facing challenges, we become stronger and learn about ourselves. Challenges help us grow and help shape our values and character.
To answer this question, you can talk about a personal or professional challenge. Make sure it is significant challenge. A challenge that tested your limits, that pushed you, maybe even challenged your values or ethics. The more difficult the challenge, the greater would be your winning story.
When talking about how you confronted the challenge, make sure to focus on the actions you took. Take the reader through your thought process. How you overcame the challenge.
And finally, reflect on how this particular experience has impacted your life, how it shaped you as a person.
If any aspect of your candidacy needs further explanation (unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, academic performance, promotions or recognitions, etc.), please provide a brief description here.
The main question in any optional essay is to decide whether you need to write it at all.
Do not use this essay to summarize your entire MBA application. Also do not submit your optional essay as an addendum to any of your essays or because you feel the quality of your earlier essay is improvable - in which case you should actually increase your efforts in the earlier essay and leave the optional essay alone.
You could use this optional essay to explain shortfalls in your application that you feel are truly detrimental to your candidature. Areas of underperformance (academic or professional or GMAT) or events which stick out (gaps in your resumes or second MBA) or application issues (reapplications) can be commented on if you have an explanation that is intelligent, interesting, and credible.
Yale MBA application requires you to submit a one-page resume along with details about your employment and academics. The typical MBA resume format consists of employment, education, and extracurricular details. MBA resume tips
In your Yale application, you will be asked to provide two MBA letters of recommendation - from your current or previous supervisors.
As per Yale's MBA admissions team: ideally one of your recommendations will be from your current supervisor. However, sometimes this is not possible. In these cases, we would suggest you look to your most recent former supervisor. The more insight your recommenders can provide in their evaluations, the better we’re able to understand your story and gauge your potential. You may also want to think about finding two recommenders who can speak to different strengths and skills sets.
Like many top business schools in the US, Yale MBA application constitutes of letter of recommendation questions from the GMAC MBA letter of recommendation template. MBA LOR tips
As is the policy with most top business schools, Yale MBA interviews are conducted only by invitation. Students typically would receive an invite 4-6 weeks after submitting their MBA applications.
The 30-minute interview conducted by a second-year student or an admissions officer, is blind, meaning your interviewer will only know what they see on your resume. MBA interview tips
