Adam Markus: Graduate Admissions Guru: 11/1/10 - 12/1/10

The University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business is along with HBS, MIT Sloan, and Stanford GSB, one of the hardest programs to get into. The program is small and attracts a very diverse group of students. The objective of Haas admissions is to find the best applicants in order to put together a diverse group of students who will thrive in a program that values innovation, collaboration, and a high level of participation both in and out of the classroom. Haas has made much of its changes to its curriculum. See here and here. To listen to the Deans of Haas, HBS, and Kellogg discuss their curriculum, go here. IT IS CRITICAL TO CONSIDER CHANGES TO THE CURRICULUM IN TERMS OF YOUR APPROACH TO SHOWING FIT WITH HAAS. For more about BILD, including an interactive of the concept, see here. The interactive map actually provides a complete overview, so I suggest reviewing it closely. You can find my Q&As with Haas students here (MBA) and here (MBA/MPH).

1. What are you most passionate about? 2. Tell us about your most significant accomplishment. 3. At Haas, our distinctive culture is defined by four key principles — question the status quo; confidence without attitude; students always; and beyond yourself. Give an example of when you have demonstrated one of these principles. Give us an example of a situation in which you displayed leadership. Please feel free to provide a statement concerning any information you would like to add to your application that you haven’t addressed elsewhere. From my perspective, unless you really believe that you have nothing else important to say about yourself, there are no optional questions here. Needless to say, you should not treat the Short Answer Essays with any less seriousness than the Required Essays. REALLY ANSWER THEIR QUESTIONS! I can that my clients who have been admitted there, all had one thing in common: They took time to craft answers specific to Berkeley's questions.

There is a natural human tendency towards laziness that results in many applicants not taking the time to do that. If your objective is to get into Berkeley take the extra time required to craft truly excellent school-specific answers to their questions. Once you write the essays for Haas, you will have significant amount content for writing other school's essays. Short Answer 1. What are you most passionate about? This is the only completely new question for Fall 2010 admission. It replaces a question on regret, which was a rather depressing question. Passion is about emotion, it is about motivation. It is not rational and hence is in contrast to the very rational questions that make up the rest of the Haas application. In How To Write Essay About Leadership , when Columbia asked this question (and they did for many many years), I have seen successful essays on this topic on a variety of subjects, but the only common thing was that no one wrote about work or their career goals. Given, the 1000 words you have for the Haas goals essay, writing about your career goals here would be highly redundant. This post has been done with the help of Essay Writers!

Whether it is your committed involvement in an organization, an issue that you care deeply about, a hobby/interest that you have long been engaged, your personal relationships, or your deepest beliefs, provide Haas with some insight into who you are as a person through this essay. Whatever it is that you do write about, passion has to be there. Also, since it is the very first essay, you certainly want to get them engaged and interested in you as an applicant. Short Answer 2. Tell us about your most significant accomplishment. Please see my analysis of the similar HBS question. Given that you can only write on one topic, for most applicants, I suggest making it your most significant professional accomplishment. Of course, significance is really the issue and it is important that you explain why it is significant. If you truly believe you have a personal or educational accomplishment that is your most significant, just make sure that admissions will not only understand why you believe that to be the case, but be able to view your accomplishment as a basis for admitting you.