B-Schooled Podcast Episode #293: Write the Essay That Scares You
The essay you’re most afraid to write might be the one worth writing. In this personal episode of B-Schooled, host Chandler Arnold, a Stanford GSB alum and social impact CEO, urges applicants to lean into the topics that make them feel exposed because that discomfort is usually a sign of real power beneath the surface.
The logic is simple. When a topic scares you, it’s often because it touches something vulnerable or uncertain. And vulnerability is exactly what lets you connect with the human being reading your file, the person who decides how thoughtfully your application gets considered. By the time you reach your essays, your GPA, scores, and work history are locked in. Your essays are where you stop being a collection of numbers and become someone worth remembering.
Chandler walks through three places to find that essay: your background and upbringing, where the traits that make you feel like you don’t fit the mold become your most memorable material; your work history, including the question you’d least want an interviewer to ask; and your personal life and the choices you’ve made. For any setback, his formula holds: own it concisely, take full responsibility, then spend the rest of the essay on what you learned and how you grew.
The through-line? Courage. Even if you draft the essay and never submit it, you’ll have done the introspection, and that work shows up everywhere else in your application. As Joseph Campbell put it, the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
Don’t write around the hard thing. Write straight into it.
Listen to B-Schooled episode #293 here, or on your favorite podcast app.
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Prefer to read? View the transcript here.
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Here’s a snapshot of the caliber of expertise on our SBC team.
Ashley
Ashley is a former MBA Admissions Board Member for Harvard Business School (HBS), where she interviewed and evaluated thousands of business school applicants for over a six year tenure. Ashley holds an MBA from HBS. During her HBS years, Ashley was the Sports Editor for the Harbus and a member of the B-School Blades Ice Hockey Team. After HBS, she worked in Marketing at the Gillette Company on Male and Female shaving ...
×Pauline
A former associate director of admissions at Harvard Business School, Pauline served on the HBS MBA Admissions Board full-time for four years. She evaluated and interviewed HBS applicants, both on-campus and globally. Pauline's career has included sales and marketing management roles with Coca-Cola, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, and IBM. For over 10 years, Pauline has expertly guided MBA applicants, and her clients h ...
×Laura
Laura comes from the MBA Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS) and is an HBS MBA alumnus. In her HBS Admissions role, she evaluated and interviewed hundreds of business school candidates, including internationals, women, military and other applicant pools, for five years. Prior to her time as a student at HBS, Laura began her career in advertising and marketing in Chicago at Leo Burnett where she worked on th ...
×Andrea
Andrea served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Harvard Business School (HBS) for over five years. In this role, she provided strategic direction for student yield-management activities and also served as a full member of the admissions committee. In 2007, Andrea launched the new 2+2 Program at Harvard Business School – a program targeted at college junior applicants to Harvard Business School. Andrea has also served as a Career Coach for Harvard Business School for both cu ...
×Jennifer
Jennifer served as Admissions Officer at the Stanford (GSB) for five years. She holds an MBA from Stanford (GSB) and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Jennifer has over 15 years experience in guiding applicants through the increasingly competitive admissions process into top MBA programs. Having read thousands and thousands of essays and applications while at Stanford (GSB) Admiss ...
×Davina
Davina received her MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB), with a certificate in Public Management, and her BA in Psychology from UC Berkeley. Davina is an experienced strategic planning leader, facilitator, and business case writer who spent more than 15 years building culture, entrepreneurship, and leadership initiatives across Stanford University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She designed ...
×Erin K.
Erin served in key roles in MBA Admissions--as Director at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and Assistant Director at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB). Erin served on the admissions committee at each school and has read thousands of applications in her career. At Haas, she served for seven years in roles that encompassed evaluation, outreach, and diversity and inclusion. During her tenure in Admissions at GSB, she was responsible for candidate evaluation, applicant outreach, ...
×Susie
Susie comes from the Admissions Office of the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she reviewed and evaluated hundreds of prospective students’ applications. She holds an MBA from Stanford’s GSB and a BA from Stanford in Economics. Prior to advising MBA applicants, Susie held a variety of roles over a 15-year period in capital markets, finance, and real estate, including as partner in one of the nation’s most innovative finance and real estate investment organizations. In that r ...
×Dione
Dione holds an MBA degree from Stanford Business School (GSB) and a BA degree from Stanford University, where she double majored in Economics and Communication with concentrations in journalism and sociology. Dione has served as an Admissions reader and member of the Minority Admissions Advisory Committee at Stanford. Dione is an accomplished and respected advocate and thought leader on education and diversity. She is ...
×Anthony
Anthony served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he dedicated over 10 years of expertise. During his time as a Wharton Admissions Officer, he read and reviewed thousands of applications and helped bring in a class of 800+ students a year. Anthony has traveled both domestically and internationally to recruit a ...
×Meghan
Meghan served as the Associate Director of Admissions and Marketing at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute, a joint degree program combining the Wharton MBA with an MA in International Studies. In her role on the Wharton MBA admissions committee, Meghan advised domestic and international applicants; conducted interviews and information sessions domestically and overseas in Asia, Central and South America, and Europe; and evaluated applicants for admission to the program. Meghan also managed ...
×Amy
Amy comes from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she was Associate Director. Amy devoted 12 years at the Wharton School, working closely with MBA students and supporting the admissions team. During her tenure at Wharton, Amy served as a trusted adviser to prospective applicants as well as admitted and matriculated students. She conducted admissions chats with applicants early in the admissions ...
×Ally
Ally brings six years of admissions experience to the SBC team, most recently as an Assistant Director of Admission for the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School (CBS). During her time at Columbia, Ally was responsible for reviewing applications, planning recruitment events, and interviewing candidates for both the full-time MBA program and the Executive MBA program. She traveled both internationally and dome ...
×Emma
Emma comes from the MBA Admissions Office at Columbia Business School (CBS), where she was Associate Director. Emma conducted dozens of interviews each cycle for the MBA and EMBA programs, as well as coordinating the alumni ambassador interview program. She read and evaluated hundreds of applications each cycle, delivered information sessions to audiences across the globe, and advised countless waitlisted applicants. ×
Dana
Dana served as Assistant Director of Admissions at Columbia Business School for the Full-Time MBA program and has over 10 years of experience working in higher education. Known as a scrupulous file reader, Dana reviewed countless applications and assisted in rendering final decisions for the Admissions Committee at CBS. While leading information sessions at Columbia and on the road, Dana met and advised myriad applicants� ...
×Holly
Holly worked as a member of the NYU Stern MBA Admissions team for seven years and holds an MBA from NYU Stern. In her tenure as Director of NYU MBA Admissions, Holly worked closely with admissions teams from Columbia, Michigan Ross, UVA Darden, Cornell Johnson, Berkeley Haas, Yale SOM, and Duke Fuqua on recruiting events domestically and internationally. On the NYU Stern admissions committee, Holly conducted interviews, planned and hosted events, and trained staff on reading and interviewi ...
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