Essay Advice – UVA’s Darden School of Business
And so, it begins…the first 2021-22 MBA application is live! Last week, the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business opened their application. It includes a variety of short answer essay prompts. Admissions tweaked the prompts slightly from last year. Darden will continue to offer an early decision round. You can choose binding or non-binding options. In other exciting news, the school plans to begin the year with normal operations. In-person instruction will resume!
Application Run Down
The deadlines are as follows:
Early Action – 9 September 2021
Round 1 – 6 October 2021
Round 2 – 5 January 2022
Round 3 – 6 April 2022
The essay prompts include:
- Tell us what you would want your Learning Team to know about you that is not on your resume. (150 words)
- Darden strives to identify and cultivate responsible leaders who follow their purpose. Please respond to one of the following prompts (200 words)
- Option 1: Tell us about a time when you acted with a team to solve a problem or seize an opportunity. What role did you play? What did you learn from this experience?
- Option 2: Tell us about a time you acted to solve a problem for the greater good. What drew you to this issue? What did you learn from this experience?
- The Darden School develops practices and cultivates a culture that reflect and incorporate the worldviews of its many community members. In this inclusive culture, the community learns important — and sometimes uncomfortable — lessons from one another, resulting in more conscientious global leaders and citizens. Please respond to one of the following prompts (200 words)
- Option 1: Share a time when you learned something related to diversity, equity or inclusion that was previously unknown to you? How did this experience impact your perspective?
- Option 2: Share a time when you advocated for a perspective, identity or community different from your own. How did this experience impact your worldview?
- What is your short-term, post-MBA goal and how does it align with the long-term vision you have for your career? (150 words)
- The Batten Foundation Worldwide Scholarship provides all Darden students in our full-time MBA program with an opportunity to participate in a Darden Worldwide Course. If you could choose any location in the world, where would you want to travel, and why? (55 words)
How To Tackle These Essays
The biggest challenge of the Darden essays is their limited word count. It’s really hard to write a robust answer in 200 words or less. That’s barely two paragraphs! It equals basically two paragraphs! On the flip side, you write about a variety of topics. This makes it easier to paint a multi-dimensional picture. You can show what you bring to the table.
Make Every Word Count
This advice applies to all MBA essays. But it’s even more critical here. Make every word count! This is not the place for loosely worded sentences. Avoid fluff. Actually, avoid any fluff! Your language should be concise. Choose each word with purpose. That’s the only way to pack in everything you want to say. You can show the adcom how incredible you are!
From a process standpoint, start long and edit down. This works best with short answers. By long, I don’t mean 1000 words. That’s too much. But early drafts can be up to double the allotted word count. That’s okay in this case. As you iterate, think of ways to say something in one word. Enlist a trusted friend or family member. They can help you determine which details to cut. Keep the necessary context.
Tell Your Own Story
Working with clients on the Darden essays, I advise them to resist one temptation. Don’t look at each question and ‘see what story pops into your head.’ That approach lets the application tell your story. You should actively manage the narrative instead. This lets the application tell their story. They should actively manage the narrative instead. Instead, we revisit their personal branding. We pull out critical stories. These support the picture they want to paint of themselves. Then we match these stories to the prompts. We see what works!
For instance, a past client wanted to position herself as an accomplished athlete. She also had a passion for mentorship. She could unite teams around a common goal. With this branding in mind, we told several stories. We shared her time as a D1 athlete. We mentioned her experience tutoring students from an underserved area. We described how she united a virtual work team during the pandemic. (The prompts were slightly different last year.) We then filled in the rest. We added her career goals. We included a unique answer about where she would like to travel. She told the story she wanted to tell within the confines of the application, as opposed to letting the application define what she shared.
If you need help with your MBA applications, including Darden, click here to schedule an initial consultation.
Katie is a passionate mentor and coach, helping her clients craft a unique, compelling story by leveraging her experience as a corporate executive, alumni interviewer, and campus recruiter. Before completing her MBA at Kellogg, Katie spent five years in banking where she learned practical finance skills as well as how to operate in a demanding, high pressure environment. She pursued an MBA in order to transition to an industry role where she could utilize her finance knowledge to drive change within an organization. Post-MBA, she worked in finance and strategy for a leading CPG firm, progressing to an executive role leading the finance function for a $2B business segment. Her experience managing diverse teams led to a passion for developing others. In addition to her day-to-day responsibilities, she led her firm’s MBA recruiting efforts and served as an alumni admissions interviewer for Kellogg.
