1) What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)

2) What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)

3) Please respond to three of the following (400-word limit each)
a) Discuss a defining experience in your leadership development. How did this experience highlight your strengths and weaknesses?
b) How have you experienced culture shock?
c) What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?
d) What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?
e) What global issue is most important to you and why?
f) What else would you like the MBA Admissions Board to understand about you?

Recommender Questions:
1) Please comment on the context of your interaction with the applicant. How long have you known the applicant and in what connection? If applicable, briefly describe the applicant’s role in your organization. (250-word limit)

2) Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. (250-word limit)

3) Please make additional statements about the applicant’s performance, potential, or personal qualities you believe would be helpful to the MBA Admissions Board. (250-word limit)

One the biggest considerations when applying to business school is financial aid. Generally speaking, the cost of attending a full-time, two year MBA program is about $100,000. University of Chicago’s admissions director recently spoke to BusinessWeek.com about handling the costs of school. Overall, she stressed that Chicago, like all schools, is committed to working with students to find a solution to financing school through a combination of loans and scholarships. Also for international students in need of financial aid, Chicago guarantees help - whatever they need to borrow in loans is given to them. She also stressed that an MBA must be seen as a long-term investment, and that students are on track to receive great job offers.

She also had a few tips for individuals planning to attend school:
* Get your finances in order first
* Think about living slightly below your means before school.
* Save as much as possible
* Avoid credit card debt
* Scale back on things you don’t need (including big things like a car if you don’t need one)

Finally, she stressed that just because you can borrow money, it doesn’t mean that you should.

You can read the entire article here.

As we posted on June 12, Stanford has released their MBA application essay questions for 2007-2008. Stanford appreciates a good story and wants to hear about your life through colorful anecdotes and examples. Your overall goal with these essays should be to present a comprehensive picture of you - personal background, work experience, significant service or extra-curriculars, and honest dreams for the future. Try to think about who you are, how you became this person, and what you hope to do with your life.

* Essay A: What matters most to you, and why? (Recommended length is 3-4 pages, double-spaced)
This topic seems overwhelming at first. Before trying to think of some clever approach, take a step back and think about the honest answer. What is actually important to you? To get started, try brainstorming significant moments in your life from childhood to the present - these can come from family experiences, travel, school, work, community service, etc. Hopefully you will begin to see a theme that runs through some of these. To put the essay together you need to explain the theme and offer up a few micro-examples, significant moments from your life, ideally spanning a few different times and places.

* Essay B: What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them? (Recommended length is 2-3 pages, double-spaced)
This is a standard career essay, but hopefully it is influenced by the theme you presented in essay A. Remember your career goals should in some way reflect what is important to you (this does not mean they are one and the same, but that there is some correlation). So, in many ways essay B is a continuation of thoughts from essay A, but now focused on a concrete plan to create a career that reflects your values. It is important to be very specific about how Stanford will help you achieve those goals - offer up classes, clubs, etc that will help you. They want to see that you are ready to hit the ground running, that you will take advantage of Stanford and make a difference in their community.

* Essay C: Short Essays—Options 1-4
Please answer two of the questions below. In answering each question, please tell us not only what you did, but also how you did it. Describe what you felt, said, and thought during these experiences. Tell us the outcome, and describe how people responded. Your responses should describe experiences that have occurred within the last three years. (Recommended length is 1-2 pages, double-spaced for each)

Option 1: Tell us about a time when you did something that was not established, expected, or popular.
Option 2: Tell us about a time when you felt effective or successful.
Option 3: Tell us about a time when you had a significant effect on a group or individual.
Option 4: Tell us about a time when you tried to reach a goal or complete a task that was challenging, difficult, or frustrating.

For all of these essays, Stanford gives you the key to your response in the directions: Describe what you felt, said, and thought during these experiences. Applicants tend to get into trouble by just describing the event without their reaction. Instead set up the example clearly and concisely but focus the response on your reactions, reflection, and lessons learned.

Finally, you want to consider your essays as a package. Be sure to use examples from your personal background, work, community service, and extra-curriculars. So take into account where your examples come from in essay A and draw from other areas in the short answer questions. Again, you want to be sure Stanford has a comprehensive picture of you from different facets of your life.

Wharton offers a unique resource for prospective applicants with their MBA Blog. It’s a great way for applicants to keep up to date on the admissions process as well as the Wharton community. The MBA Blog offers:
*application tips
* MBA news
* answers to FAQ
* links to general application resources and other school websites

The MBA Blog also features student2student connections and links to the BusinessWeek Forums, applicant blogs, and student blogs. From the applicant blogs you can read about other applicants’ experiences and other schools. For example, there’s etc and etc’s preparation to attend Chicago GSB or Engineer in Transformations‘ GMAT experience. The student blogs feature entries from students of all schools, not just Wharton. Of course many students are enjoying the summer before school starts such as MBA for HairTwirler who writes about travels before heading to Georgetown.

So if you’re interested in Wharton or just looking for MBA news, check out the Wharton MBA Blog.