Berkeley Haas Essays, Berkeley Haas Tips, Berkeley Haas Deadlines

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Haas School of Business, Berkeley

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Berkeley Haas Application Deadlines

Round 1 (20 Oct 2009), Round 2 (10 Dec 2009), Round 3 (2 Feb 2010), Round 4 (10 Mar 2010)

Berkeley Haas Essays

Berkeley Haas Essay 1: What are you most passionate about? Why? (250 word maximum)

Essay Tips: Haas’s essays start here with your personal side. Its class size at 240 is very small compared to other leading international B schools and it prides itself on a fascinating, vibrant community marked by a nonstop schedule of activities developed by and for students. The reason for this vibrant community is the mix of personalities of people it admits. Hence, use this essay to show how you can contribute to this community. What activities you can organize. How your classmates can learn from you as much as you learn from them. Bring out what you care about and how your involvement in that benefits the people around you in general.

Looking at the tight word limit, try to focus on one thing that you really care about and through one or two examples, preferably show your achievements in that rather than just involvement.

Berkeley Haas Essay 2: Tell us about your most significant accomplishment. (250 word maximum)
Essay Tips: Your most significant accomplishment can come from personal life, job or extracurricular. An evidence of leadership and team work in your chosen accomplishments would be a big plus as these are the qualities Haas stresses on. There is a separate essay for innovation and creativity. Save them for that essay. Across different essays, you have to try to balance examples from different spheres of life demonstrating the entire set of qualities Haas stresses on.

But understand that purely subjective statements hold little weight as accomplishments because it’s tough to verify them. Therefore, your story for this essay should be complemented by numbers.

The significance of this accomplishment to you can also subtly indicate to the adcom what kind of things matter to you.

Berkeley Haas Essay 3: At Haas, we value innovation and creativity. Describe a time when you created positive change in a group or an organization. (250 word maximum)

Essay Tips: Haas School stresses on challenging conventional wisdom and leading with creativity. It prepares leaders who can put new ideas to work and it calls these skills and qualities ‘Leading through Innovation’. In two years at Haas, these qualities can only be refined in people who have already demonstrated a potential for them at some level in their career.

Keeping in mind the tight word limit, focus on one incident when you were able to look at a situation from a different angle, take a fresh perspective, and make a positive impact. The innovative or creative effort here does not necessarily have to be a big one but at your level even that small change in process you executed that saved your company some percentage in operating costs or improved the CSI by 5% would demonstrate a potential. Always try to quantify the impact of your efforts to increase the credibility of your story.

Berkeley Haas Essay 4: What steps have you taken to learn about the Berkeley MBA program, and what factors have influenced your decision to apply? (250 word maximum)
Essay Tips: Take this opportunity to demonstrate your sincere interest in the Berkeley MBA program. Have you talked to its alumni? Attended any admission events? Read blogs of current students? Visited the school?

Show the adcom what efforts you have made to learn about the distinct advantages of Berkeley MBA program and how you think you’d be a fit in Haas School and the extended Berkeley community.

Your own opinion about how the unique Haas resources would help you groom yourself into what you aspire to become would add a personal touch to your application. It also tells them that given an offer, how serious you are specifically about joining Haas amid all other B schools you may be considering.

Berkeley Haas Essay 5: Give us an example of a situation in which you displayed leadership. (500 word maximum)

Essay Tips: Though you can take an example from any area but one from your profession would be best suited here because with its two year MBA, Haas hopes to groom you primarily into a business leader. You don’t necessarily need to have had a formal leadership position in your organization. Even as part of the team at a junior level, you may have taken initiatives and led your team informally. But have you gone beyond your routine responsibilities?

Whatever you did, focus on how you did it. Bring out your leadership style. What was your thought process? How did you manage the expectations of people following you in that situation? How did you handle emotions? What was important to you?

Show the potential in you to be a business leader.

Berkeley Haas Essay 6: What are your post-MBA short-term and long-term career goals? How do your professional experiences relate to these goals? How will an MBA from Berkeley help you achieve these specific career goals? (1000 word maximum)

Essay Tips: This is the standard career goals and why Berkeley essay.

A good way to write about career goals is to divide them into short term, medium term, and long term goals. It demonstrates clarity of thought and helps you in laying out a well thought out career path with clear transition plans across different temporal bands. It also gives an easily understandable structure to your essay. The question not only asks your future career goals but also asks you to justify them in light of your career choices so far. Tell the adcom how your professional experiences put you in a position to pursue the career you want to.

From your research for question 4, use your understanding of the courses offered at Berkeley, club activities, faculty research, a strong alumni network and other unique resources of Berkeley to indicate how they will help you move on to the path of your short and medium term goals post MBA.

Berkeley Haas Essay 7 (Optional): Please feel free to provide a statement concerning any information you would like to add to your application that you haven’t addressed elsewhere. (500 word maximum)

Essay Tips: Haas has specifically asked you a lot of information that matters through multiple short essays. Hence, write this optional essay only if it makes your candidature outstanding.

However, this essay can be effectively used to give explanations for any specific weaknesses in your profile, like a gap in work experience, a low undergraduate GPA, an absence of recommendation from your current employer, etc. But rather than seeking excuses for any such weakness, try to demonstrate a strength that explains and makes up for that weakness.

Also if a weakness can also potentially show up during your MBA at Haas, give convincing reasons for the adcom to believe that you will not let it show up there.