Wharton is one of several top Business schools to offer a choice of which essays to write. This practice gives applicants freedom to select strong anecdotes to share with the school. We highly encourage you to do some deep brainstorming and reflection on what topics you choose, as anecdotes that may not seem as powerful as others, may actually highlight your personality better and provide a more complete picture of you as a candidate. At Inside MBA Admissions, we spend a great deal of time with each of our clients in a structured brainstorming process, and can help flush out the best reflection of you. If you don’t receive professional assistance, we recommend you spend time with friends, colleagues and family members who can be a sounding board for you.

1. Reflect on a time when you turned down an opportunity. What was the thought process behind your decision? Would you make the same decision today? (600 words)

This question is a repeat from last year and is fairly straight forward. Wharton is not so interested in the actual opportunity you turned down; rather they would like to understand your level of risk and your thought process for making such a decision.   Don’t be too general here by saying things like, “I had to consider what I wanted to do in the long run.” That is way too generic and doesn’t give them a sense of how you think.   Make sure you share with them the steps you went through to make your decision – did you collect data or conduct research? Maybe you interviewed or shadowed professionals in the same predicament.   Perhaps you laid out a thorough pro’s and con’s list and went about it analytically.   You need to focus this essay on whatever your thought process was.

For the part of the question asking if you would make the same decision today – be honest. It may feel safer to select a topic where you would make the same decision, however selecting the opposite will allow you to demonstrate growth. Either way, make sure you clearly articulate why you would or wouldn’t make the same decision and what you learned about yourself as a result.

2. Discuss a time when you faced a challenging interpersonal experience. How did you navigate the situation and what did you learn from it? (600 words)

It is quite evident that Wharton is trying to get a good understanding of how you will interact with your other classmates/team members via this essay question.   Business school requires a lot of team work, and difficult situations that require savvy navigation, arise in every group. A good essay will be one that showcases a time when you had to really work well with others. Again, don’t be too general here. Get specific with the skills/tools/techniques that you used in the situation. In one client example, a former captain of her collegiate volleyball team was asked to lead a team that had two very vocal participants on it. These two squashed other teammate’s ideas and deflated the team’s spirit. Our leader’s efforts to engage them individually failed, so she developed a very creative “volleyball” game during the meetings, where positive contributors would be awarded points for “setting” up others, and negative ones would be deducted points for “blocking” others. The winner received dinner, which was a small price to pay for the accolades the team (and the team’s leader) received after successfully achieving their goal.  

In your essay, it is critical to recap what you learned from the experience.   You may not have navigated the situation perfectly, but hopefully you understand what could have been done better so that you can apply that learning in the future. In the case of the Volleyball player, she recognized that peer pressure and positive competition from others was stronger than individual pleas for change.

3. "Innovation is central to our culture at Wharton. It is a mentality that must encompass every aspect of the School - whether faculty research, teaching or alumni outreach." -Thomas S. Robertson, Dean, The Wharton School

Keeping this component of our culture in mind, discuss a time when you have been innovative in your personal or professional life. (600 words)

Innovation has been a theme in previous years’ Wharton essays, and this quote from the Dean highlights their view of innovation as an innate part of their culture. Similarly, the strongest essays will demonstrate that the candidate’s specific innovative activity was actually part of a pattern of innovative behavior. In the case of the volleyball player above, she was able to show that competition and teamwork were her innate qualities, which is much stronger than selecting a topic with just an isolated peer conflict.

Some applicants struggle with the concept of innovation vs. invention. You do not need to have invented something new; instead, provide an anecdote where you used a very plain existing concept or activity in a unique way. In many regards, the volleyball anecdote above could be used for either of these essays. When brainstorming with clients we often find examples of seemingly boring activities that are actually phenomenally innovative. The fact that the applicant did not even recognize it as being innovative is a good indication that this quality is actually one of their innate behaviors.