Short Answer Question 1: What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal? (50 characters maximum)
Essay 1: Through your resume and recommendation, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals over the next three to five years and what is your long-term dream job? (500 words)
Essay 2: The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL) is a co-curricular program designed to provide students with the skills and strategies needed to develop as inclusive leaders. Through various resources and programming, students explore and reflect on the following five inclusive leadership skills: Mitigating Bias and Prejudice; Managing Intercultural Dialogue; Addressing Systemic Inequity; Understanding Identity and Perspective Taking; and Creating an Inclusive Environment.
Describe a time or situation when you had the need to utilize one of these five skills, and tell us the actions you took and the outcome. (250 words)
Alternatively, please share a specific example of how you made a team more collaborative or fostered a greater sense of community within an organization
Essay 3: We believe Columbia Business School is a special place with a collaborative learning environment in which students feel a sense of belonging, agency, and partnership--academically, culturally, and professionally.
How would you co-create your optimal MBA experience at CBS? Please be specific. (250 words)
Who Should Buy F1GMAT's Columbia MBA Essay Guide
If you don't know how to approach the Short-term Goal essay, we list out a 5-step template to create a relevant goal.
For Essay 1, I have categorized the electives and interesting experiential learning modules based on industries - Finance, Consulting, Healthcare, and Technology with context on how the courses will be valuable for your post-MBA career.
For the PPIL Essay, I have covered concepts in bias, prejudice, inclusive environment, intercultural dialogue, systemic inequity, identity and perspective-taking.
For the Optimal Experience Essay, I have captured belonging, agency, executives in residence, and student clubs with a demonstration on how to combine all these factors to create a persuasive Optimal MBA experience essay.
If you want Sample Essays for Inspiration, I have included 16 Sample Essays.
If you don't know how to approach the long-term Goal essay, I provide two alternatives - predicting the future and starting with your core strengths.
For Essay 1 - in addition to explaining the curriculum, I have shared six Goals Essay Examples
- Sample Columbia MBA Goals Essay: Enterprise Technology to Consumer Marketing (495 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA Goals Essay: Healthcare (Finance to Consulting) (498 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA Goals Essay: FinTech (Product Manager to Strategy) (497 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA Goals Essay: IMPACT Investing (Accounting to IMPACT Investing) (489 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA Goals Essay: Digital Strategy – Media Technology (Journalism to Media Tech Venture) (499 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA Goals Essay: Scaling Private Equity Firm (500 Words)
For Essay 2 - The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL) essay, I have included five Sample Essays
- Sample Columbia MBA PPIL Essay 1: Onboarding a non-traditional Candidate (250 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA PPIL Essay 2: Changing Biases in the Algorithm (244 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA PPIL Essay 3: Improving Women’s Success Potential (Oil & Gas Industry) (245 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA PPIL Essay 4: Recommending Unionization (Railway Project) (250 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA PPIL Essay 5: Recommending Social Media Controls (Liberal Applicant with Conservative peers) (249 Words)
For Essay 3 - Optimal MBA Experience essay, I have included five Sample Essays
- Sample Columbia MBA Optimal Experience: Value from New York, EIR, and STEM Education (248 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA Optimal Experience: Auto Manufacturer (Family Business – Value from CBS peers, professors, and alumni) (249 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA Optimal Experience: Unique Insights from Mentors (246 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA Optimal Experience: Strategy in Investments and Practical Perspective(245 Words)
- Sample Columbia MBA Optimal Experience: Real Estate Company – Strategy, ESG Goals and GenZ (247 Words)
If your essay looks too bland, F1GMAT's Columbia MBA Essay Guide will show you, with examples, on how to use the elements of Storytelling like Incorporating "The Struggle," using Emotional connectors, narrating the Journey and the use of Chronology, Vividness and Active Verbs to transform your essays.
If you are stuck in the Writing process, F1GMAT's Columbia MBA Essay Guide will show you how to silence the Analytic Mind and overcome mental blocks.
If you feel that the Essays are not persuasive, F1GMAT's Columbia MBA Essay Guide will teach you how to use the W-Pattern narrative, Contexts, Turning Points and "The Show Don't Tell Approach" to write a Winning MBA Essay.
If you don't have enough leadership experience, Columbia MBA Essay Guide will show you how to highlight non-obvious qualities like Trust, Focus, Listening Skills, Personal Responsibility, Humility, Self-Knowledge, and other secondary traits to prove your leadership.
If you don't know how to review your essays, Columbia MBA Essay Guide will demonstrate how to improve readability with the power of iteration and maintain your original voice by removing review biases.
Author: Atul Jose, Founding Consultant (F1GMAT)
Atul Jose spent 15+ years editing, and reviewing Essays for MBA applicants. When no consultant in the market was willing to show how to write an essay that can get you a seat in the hyper-competitive M7 and T10 MBA programs, Atul went about capturing his wisdom as an Essay Specialist into an easy-to-read book format.
With Sample Essays for Columbia MBA and the writing tools and frameworks, you will learn to turn life experiences into interesting stories. Although he spends most of his time writing essay guides and helping applicants gain admission to top MBA programs, he is also the Editor and lead author at F1GMAT - the highly popular MBA and Master's admissions blog.
Book Details
Page Length: 391
Entering Class: 2025
“ I knew very little about many of the specific motivations behind the PPIL program and even aspects of New York that would have a direct impact on my career progression. The book is extensively researched and well-written. Good work! “ – Verified Purchase
“Tracing the courses, experiential learning, and application of each course for a post-MBA goal was an interesting exercise that I picked up from the guide. My fit and goals essay looked similar. What didn't fit the goals, I moved to the fit essay. The guide showed me how to completely rewrite the essay with specific outlines and themes that are unique to my story. “ – Verified Purchase
“In all my writing goals essays for over seven schools, I never felt that the goals required rework. My draft seriously lacked the nuance and professional tone to connect my story deeply with the new-york-driven experiential learning, networks, and club. The exhaustive value from the learning experience helped me see for the first time the deeper meaning of 'motivation' in an MBA application. The story of the profiles covered in the essay guide helped me break away from an expected narrative style that acts as filler or feels like a template. “ – Verified Purchase