Stern application process

Since there aren't too many bloggers out there (that I know of) who're attending Stern, I thought I'd put in my two cents about the Stern application process.

Before we start, FWIW, here are my stats:

GMAT: 740 (balanced quant and verbal score)
Undergrad GPA: Mid 3s from Top 10 engineering school in India (BS in CS)
Work ex: 6 years (mix of software development, project management, some tech consulting thrown in. About 3 years of experience leading teams)
Extra Curriculars: Lots of it with leadership positions in undergrad, 2 long-term involvements since then, one very strong and community focused, the other less so.

Ok, onto the application.

Must Do's before you start on your application:

As with all schools, in order to have enough to write about in response to "why Stern", make sure you visit the school and attend classes if possible. Talk to as many current students, alumni and profs as you can.

Good to know:

1. Information sessions (and a tour of the school) are held Mon-Thur at 4pm, and are a great way to get a feel for the school. If you visit on a Thursday, you can attend the weekly "beer blast", and meet current students.
2. If you want to sit in on a class, this is only allowed during the Fall term (in the Spring term, invitations to class-visits are issued alongwith interview invites only). If you're applying for the full-time program, make sure you attend a daytime class. The first class I sat in on was a 6pm-9pm class filled with part-timers, and the energy level was understandably low, which concerned me somewhat. Thankfully, my concerns were allayed when I later attended a reasonably enthusiastic and interactive morning class.
3. You can call the number listed on the website and talk to one of the MBA Graduate Ambassadors during the day. They're very responsive and helpful (of course, they are brand ambassadors, so you might get too rosy a picture of the school, but atleast you can get your questions answered).
4. Research the different specializations and clubs. Stern places a lot of emphasis on the Stern Community, so it's absolutely essential that you know how you will be contributing to the community once you're there.

Essays:

3 of the 4 Stern essays are probably the most straightforward essays you can hope for (not sure how much has changed for 2007), so there really isn't much advice here that's not already obvious.

Essay-related things to remember: Definitely get your essays read by atleast 2 or 3 other people who have gone through the process (with admits preferably :-)). It also helps to have someone who is really good at English edit your essays by checking for grammatical errors and maybe also tightening up the language (don't lose "your voice" though).

Essay1:
Professional Aspirations: Think about the decisions you have made in your life. Describe the following (2 pages maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font): (a) What choices have you made that led you to your current position? (b) Why pursue an MBA at this point in your life? (c) What is your career goal upon graduation from NYU Stern? What is your long term goal?

This is pretty much your standard goals essay. You need to make a connection between your past, present and the future, and how an MBA will help you get to where you want to go. The unasked question here, which nevertheless needs to be addressed in great detail, is "why stern".

The biggest problem I had with this essay was the space. 2 pages, double-spaced with 12 point-font (even the narrowest 12-point font on a page with a 0.25 margin :-)) is simply not enough to answer all the questions above. The way I attacked this was by writing in as much detail as I could, and then whittling it down with each subsequent draft till it fit the requirements without compromising on the story.

What I wrote:

- Intro (Don't do the cheesy quotation bit :-))
- Why I got into Computer Science, why I decided to switch companies when I did, what I learnt and achieved at each company. Basically I tried to talk more about the reasons behind the actions and also the lessons learnt and skills developed rather than direct achievements here (since that's what the resume is for).
- Why MBA.
- Detailed short term goals (I went so far as to list possible companies and departments at which I'd like to work upon graduation) and why.
- How the different specializations, courses and club activities at Stern would help me achieve these goals (i.e. Why Stern). I also talked briefly about how Stern was the right fit for me.- How I would contribute (i.e. Why me) .
- Long term goals (which I left somewhat vague, listing a few leadership and entreprenuerial possibilities, but not really focusing on one versus the other) .
- Conclusion.

Essay2:
Fit with Stern: The NYU Stern community is one of our strongest assets. Please answer the following questions about community: (2 pages maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font):(a) What is your personal experience with the Stern community? What actions have you taken to learn more about us?(b) How would you contribute to our community as a student?(c) How will you benefit personally and professionally from the Stern community?

This, again, is fairly straightforward. The adcomm basically wants to make sure you have researched the school (as is obvious from (a) above), and will be a good fit ((b) and (c)). Be very specific, which means research and talk to current students about their involvement in the Stern community.

Try to balance the professional, community and recreational activities. If you feel like there's a new club you might start, write about it and explain why and how. Try to sound passionate (and realistic!) about each activity. Obviously, having strong community involvement in your past goes a long way towards strengthening this essay. If you're a woman, definitely write about SWIB (Stern Women in Business). I know everyone mentions it, but an omission would be glaring. The same applies to industry-specific clubs.

What I wrote:

I talked about my overall personal experience at Stern as a prospective student in the introductory paragraph. I talked about my community involvement in the past and present, and then segued into the impact I would make at Stern. I listed 4 things which I felt I could contribute significantly towards, and for each activity, I talked about what I would contribute, and how it would benefit me (either professionally, personally or both).

Essay3:
Personal Expression: Please describe yourself to your MBA classmates. You may use any method to convey your message (e.g. words, illustrations). Feel free to be creative. Please be aware that only .doc, .rtf, .xls, and .txt files may be uploaded here. If you submit Essay 3 with your supplementary materials, please include a brief description of it here. All submissions become part of NYU Stern's permanent records and cannot be returned for any reason. We do not recommend submitting anything that must be viewed or played electronically, or that is perishable (e.g. food). If you submit a written essay, it should be 2 pages maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font.

This is the most fun and most frustrating essay of the lot. I had wanted to create some sort of software for this, but since you can't send in anything that has to be played or run on a machine, that was pretty much out. To get an idea of what people have done in the past for this essay, be sure to check out this NPR segment.

The main thing here is that while you need to be creative, you also need to convey atleast 2-3 key attributes of yourself that fit in with the overarching theme of your essays, either explicitly or implicitly (like the example of the soft-toy mentioned in the segment).

What I did:

This is not all that creative, but I basically personalized the front page of the Stern Opportunity. I "published" the first page (in newspaper form) with 3 articles -- a personal interview (to highlight things I couldn't talk about in the other essays), an essay about a certain social cause that I'm very passionate about, and one not-very-special article that I won't even go into -- and a couple of other cutesy things and photos thrown in for effect. All of the articles were pretty short, obviously. The reason I picked this format (other than the fact that I coudn't think of anything better) was that it felt like a good way to not only convey things I couldn't through the other essays, but also display an added interest in the school. And also, it felt easier than doing something genuinely creative :-).

Essay4:
Additional Information:Please provide any additional information that you would like to bring to the attention of the admissions committee. This may include gaps in employment, your undergraduate record, plans to retake the GMAT or any other relevant information (optional).

Talk about anything in your application that might be an issue. I didn't obtain a recommendation from my direct supervisor, so I had to explain why.

Recommendations:

Plenty of good advice out there about recommendations. The only thing I can add that not everyone might run into is that if your recommender asks you to write the reco on their behalf (as I was asked to by one of my recs), be very very careful about the tone of the reco. The reco should not sound like your essays (in tone), and should sound like it was actually written by the person who is supposedly writing it (i.e. if your recommender is an MD, the reco shouldn't read like it was written by a 2nd year analyst). This was a lot harder than I thought, and my recommender had to make quite a few changes to it before the reco read like something she'd write.

Interview:

All interviews (except international ones) are held at Stern by either admission officers or MBA2's (you could have two people interviewing you). You are given a choice of dates and times for the interview. Alongwith the interview, you can schedule lunch with a current student and also a class visit. I decided to do the student lunch and the class visit the day before the interview so that I would have some additional material for the interview, if required. I'm a morning person, so I scheduled the first slot in the morning. One thing to remember is that the interview slots get booked pretty quickly, so it's hard (not impossible) to change the dates later.

I spent about 3-4 days prepping for the interview. I culled all possible Stern-interview questions from accepted.com's interview database, and rehearsed answering each of them in front of a mirror. The most helpful thing, for me, was having a mock interview conducted by a friend of mine. You can sound perfect when rehearsing in front of a mirror, but the true test is in trying to explain to a real person why you want an MBA so badly, why Stern is the absolute perfect school for you, and why the school would be committing a collossal mistake by not admitting you. I strongly recommend having a friend conduct a mock interview. Apparently, I had quite a few major interviewing issues:

1. My description of my projects tended to be too technical (my friend is an advertiser turned mgmt consultant)
2. My description of my career choices tended to be too verbose
3. Apparently, I sounded too tense and wound up. This was the worst. And this is very important because the interviewer is evaluating you based not only on your answers, but also on your overall body language and behavior during the interview (who wants to work with someone who has a breakdown everytime there's a stressful situation).

On the day of the interview, I got there about 15 minutes early, and hung out with another interview candidate. Despite all the nerves during the mock interview, I was super-relaxed that morning. The Stern interview is not a blind interview. i.e., the interviewer has read your entire application, and might ask you to elaborate or explain certain parts of your application. So, read through your application thoroughly the day before (or the day of) your interview. Know your application well and be prepared to answer questions about it.

My interviewer, an Assistant Admissions Director, had a copy of my creative essay in front of her, and seemed pretty amused by one of the photographs. There couldn't have been a better start to the conversation! We chatted about the photo briefly. She asked me about my social-cause involvement, so I talked in detail about that and why it meant so much to me (it's so easy to sound passionate when you actually are passionate about something :-)). This was a good opening to talk about the Stern community, so I talked a bit about that. The conversation moved on at some point to technology, so I talked about some of the work I'd done, and what I wanted to do post-MBA. There were a lot of opportunities to weave "why stern" into the conversation. She asked me to elaborate on the departments and companies I'd mentioned in the goals essay, which I was able to do very satisfactorily because of all the research I'd done. We also talked about women in technology, at which point the interviewer narrated a pretty amusing story from the last SWIB conference. I felt like this was a clear indication that the interview was going well. The only place I stumbled a bit was when she asked me about conflict resolution. Now, I knew what I wanted to talk about in response to this question, but the way she worded the question was a bit vague, and instead of just asking her to clarify (which is the obvious and smart thing to do), I sort of stumbled through the answer not even certain that I'd answered the right question. But, I managed to sound confident and poised through it, so maybe it worked (or not, who knows). I was asked if I had any questions/concerns. I had 2 or 3 questions that she answered in detail. At the end of 30 minutes, she wrapped up by telling me she'd be sending in her evaluation to the committee and that I'd hear from them within 3 weeks.

Overall, it was a very good interview experience. I was pleasantly surprised when we started chatting in the beginning because I was under the impression (after reading all the interview feedback on accepted.com) that all Stern interviews were rapid fire Q&A style interviews.

So, that wraps up my 2 cents (and about 3 hours of my time). Hope this is helpful for anyone applying to Stern next year. If you have any further questions, leave a comment or email me.