ross business school essays

Michigan Ross School of Business Essay Tips and Examples

June 23, 2023

Jeremy Shinewald

University of Michigan (Ross) Essay Analysis - mbaMission

In our view, the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan takes a very no-nonsense, just-the-facts approach to its application essays (even the scope of its optional essay is relatively narrow). For the school’s “short answer” questions, candidates choose one prompt from each of two lists of three and are asked to submit what are essentially mini essays of just 100 words. In Ross’s (again concise) 150-word-total career “essay,” candidates share and explain their short-term professional aspirations, thereby demonstrating for the admissions committee that they have a plan in mind and have given serious thought to why they need a Ross MBA to achieve their goal. No specific word limit is stated for the program’s optional essay, but applicants are gently encouraged to use bullet points in their response, reinforcing our impression that the program really just wants the key facts about its candidates, without any extraneous filler. Read on for our full analysis of the school’s 2023–2024 essay prompts.

University of Michigan (Ross) Essay Analysis, 2023–2024

Part 1: Short Answers

Select one prompt from each group of the two groups below. respond to each selected prompt in 100 words or less (<100 words each; 200 words total)., i want people to know that i:, i made a difference when i:, i was aware that i was different when:, i was out of my comfort zone when:, i was humbled when:, i was challenged when:.

The Ross admissions committee clearly hopes these mini essays will reveal distinctive facets of applicants’ personalities in a straightforward manner, unencumbered by any unnecessary wordiness. Given the mere 100-word maximum for each, you might be tempted to just jump in and start writing, but thinking strategically about who you are as an applicant is critical here.

We encourage you to first consider very carefully which option within each group feels most authentic to and revelatory of who you are as an individual. Then, thoroughly and thoughtfully brainstorm to identify your strongest possible responses. You want to be able to “own” your answer—as we like to say—meaning that no other applicant could write the same thing as you do. Using the second prompt of the first group as an example (“I made a difference when I…”), writing something like “gave back to my community by volunteering with the local homeless shelter” would be far too general a response and could likely be stated by multiple applicants. Instead, something much more specific like “dedicated every Saturday morning for three years to helping cook and serve scrambled eggs, biscuits, and bacon at the local homeless shelter, where I introduced a bulk-shopping plan that saved hundreds of dollars each year on supplies” would stand out for its originality and paint a clearer picture of the candidate who wrote it with respect to their values, dedication, and fiscal creativity. In addition, using a narrative approach is a good way to paint a dynamic picture of how you conduct yourself and to engage your reader with a compelling story that has a clear beginning, middle, and end. If you simply discuss a trait without a narrative, you risk sounding as though you are bragging. In addition, this would be a wasted opportunity for the admissions reader to get to know you in more depth.

When you are done writing, look over your responses and see whether they are complementary of one another. If they seem repetitive or focus on the same general idea, story, or area of your life, you should probably rewrite one. Your goal is to have each response reveal something new and interesting about you. Another factor to consider is everything the admissions committee will already know about you from the other portions of your application; you do not want to miss this chance to paint a well-rounded picture of yourself by repeating information available elsewhere in your profile.

So, to recap, you want your responses to (1) genuinely reflect who you are as a candidate and be as specific to you alone as possible; (2) present a narrative that allows the reader to walk in your shoes, so to speak; (3) be complementary of each other, with each one revealing something different about you; and (4) not repeat an aspect of your profile that is already well explained or represented in a different part of your application.

Part 2: Career Goal

What is your short-term career goal and why is this the right goal for you (150 words) .

With just 150 words total, you do not have any space to waste here, so you must present your answer as directly and thoroughly as possible—and give the admissions committee what it wants! In the past, the Ross admissions office has expressed a preference for responses that concentrate more on the “why” than on the “what,” and at one time, it even separated this prompt into two parts to ensure that applicants used more space discussing the latter element. Although the school is no longer prescribing just how much space candidates have for each part of the prompt, we would still encourage you to focus primarily on conveying your reason for choosing the goal, rather than getting overly wordy or detailed in presenting the goal itself.

To effectively convey the “why” element, you should include a little context for your stated goal so that your career path makes sense. Stating your goals in a vacuum, without any connection to where you have been, can be a bit confusing for the reader, especially if you are a career changer. For example, imagine that you plan to move from consumer marketing to equity research for consumer goods companies after graduating. If you were to simply state, “Post-MBA, I want to join a boutique equity research firm” as your opening sentence, your reader could be left wondering where this interest comes from. But if you were to instead write, “For the past four years, I have basically lived and breathed Fruity Pebbles. I now understand how the tiniest increase in coconut oil prices or a competitor’s coupon can affect a product’s margins. I have subsequently become obsessed with the big data that drive computer goods and want to spend the next phase of my career in equity research, helping investors understand the riddle.” These are two very different answers, all because of some helpful context. From here, you can delve deeper into why equity research is right for you—how you intend to grow in your role and further develop your passion for the position.

Michigan Ross does not ask you why its program is the right one for you, but we encourage you—if at all possible—to note at least one specific resource at the school that would enable you to make your career goal a reality. Truly integrate your mention of the resource(s) into your essay in a way that shows genuine professional need. We explain these concepts and how to achieve them in more detail in our mbaMission Personal Statement Guide , which is available free of charge, so download your complimentary copy today!

And for a thorough exploration of Michigan Ross’s academic program/merits, social life, unique offerings, and other key characteristics, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guide to the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business , which is also available for free.

Optional Statement

If there is any other information that you believe is important to our assessment of your candidacy, feel free to add it to your application. (if in written form, limit your response to 500 words.).

Michigan Ross has tightly worded its optional essay prompt to specify that this essay is intended to give candidates space to address unclear or problem areas in their profiles and is not an open invitation to discuss anything more they wish to share with the admissions committee. The directive about bullet points seems to be a not-too-veiled implication that the school wants you to focus on imparting key information rather than offering a detailed and longwinded explanation of the issue in question. This is absolutely not the time or place to share another cool story or otherwise try to impress or pander to the admissions committee. If you do not truly need to explain an issue or potentially confusing element of your candidacy, we recommend that you not submit an optional essay; if you do have issues to clarify, keep things concise. In our free mbaMission Optional Essays Guide , we offer detailed advice on when and how to take advantage of the optional essay, including multiple examples.

The Next Step: Mastering Your Michigan Ross Interview

Many MBA candidates find admissions interviews stressful and intimidating, but mastering this important element of the application process is definitely possible—the key is informed preparation. We therefore offer our free Interview Guides to spur you along! Download your free copy of the Michigan Ross Interview Guide today.

To learn more about the essays for other top business schools, visit our MBA Essay Tips and Examples Resources Page .

2023-2024 Business School Essays MBA Essay Tips University of Michigan (Ross)

Tags: business school essay career goals free guides Insider's Guides MBA application essays Michigan Ross optional essay

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Click here for the 2022–2023 MBA Essay Tips

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Berkeley-Haas
Boston University (Questrom)
Cambridge Judge Business School
Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper)
Columbia University (Columbia Business School)
Consortium for Graduate Study in Management
Cornell University (Johnson)
Dartmouth College (Tuck)
Duke University (Fuqua)
Emory University (Goizueta)
George Washington University (GWSB)
Georgetown University (McDonough)
Harvard University (Harvard Business School)
IE Business School
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New York University (Stern)
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Ohio State University (Fisher College)
Oxford University (Saïd Business School)
Penn State Smeal College of Business
Rotman School of Management
Saïd Business School
Southern Methodist University (Cox School of Business)
Stanford University (Stanford Graduate School of Business)
University of California Los Angeles (Anderson)
University of Cambridge (Judge)
University of Chicago (Booth)
University of London (London Business School)
University of Michigan (Ross)
University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
University of Southern California (Marshall)
University of Texas at Austin (McCombs)
University of Virginia (Darden)
Vanderbilt University (Owen)
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An Example of UMich’s Ross School of Business Prompt 1

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Robert Crystal in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered

Setting the scene, proposing a solution, taking initiative, being specific.

In this post, we go over an example answer to the first essay prompt for the University of Michigan ’s Ross School of Business. For more information about this college’s admissions, check out this article on how to get into the University of Michigan .

The first essay prompt reads:

“Choose a current event or issue in your community and discuss the business implications. Propose a solution that incorporates business principles or practices. The review panel will look for creativity, drawing connections, and originality.”

This example essay is about how one student worked to close the gender gap in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) by making their robotics club more inclusive. It begins:

“Over the whir and clank of the seniors’ latest 3D printing project, I struggled to hear the freshmen introduce themselves during our school’s first robotics info session. My heart sank as I looked around the lab and realized that orientation was in just a couple of weeks, and it looked like I’d be the only girl on the team — again.”

This response starts off with an anecdote, using onomatopoeia and sensory language to draw in the reader right away. You can imagine what’s going on here as you’re being immersed in this world. This writer also sets up the main issue that she’s trying to solve, all within the first few sentences. Even if she doesn’t say explicitly that there aren’t enough girls on the robotics team, the reader can gather that immediately. It’s a good idea to keep the background and context short like this, so the reader knows the central issue of your essay right away.

Next, the student shifts to discussing her proposed solution:

“Day to day, practices can be tough in this boys’ club. It’s not that I don’t get along with my teammates, but sometimes, they exhibit a sort of bromance I just don’t feel like I’m a part of. This year, I was tired of setting an example from afar — I was determined to make sure everyone who was interested felt empowered to join our team.”

This is what the writer plans to do about her problem, spoken in plain terms. We get a sense of the dynamic of this club and what the student’s goals are in terms of changing the culture.

She goes on:

“After the info session, I laid a whiteboard on one of our workbenches and got to work brainstorming potential solutions to this gender gap. I analyzed our current recruiting methods by crafting a flowchart and pinpointing specific spots in which the gender balance started thinning out. I isolated our social media approach as a faulty positive feedback loop — as we grew our mainly het-cis male following, more of them were likely to follow us, and their mutuals, typically also male, would show up as our suggested outreach audience.”

This is where the student shows that she has thought critically about why this gender gap issue exists. She’s done her research by analyzing the current recruiting methods, crafting a flowchart, and identifying a potential issue. Business elements are making an appearance in the essay at this point.

The essay goes on:

“With this information in mind, I drafted up a social media campaign that I felt would attract and retain more nonmale participants. I focused on the target audience and drafted tenets for our robotics team to embody this year that would hold us accountable to gender parity. By catering this campaign to women and nonbinary folks at my high school, I hoped that the right groups of people would feel empowered to at least check our robotics club out.”

This section shows initiative on the part of the student. It’s clear she was actively working toward increasing the number of nonmale participants in the club. This section would be a bit stronger, however, if the student gave more specific details about what she did and how she put these ideas into practice while using more business terminology specifically and correctly.

“Pitching my campaign idea to my team reinvigorated my love for engineering. Together, we talked through logistical barriers, potential obstacles, and other conflicts that could arise as we tried to reach our goal of making the team more inclusive.”

This section demonstrates the student’s leadership skills in including the rest of the team in her initiatives. She could have added more detail about whether there were any difficulties in getting the male participants on the team to be receptive to her ideas. This section could also benefit from including more business case terms and more specifics about the process.

“Not only did I pitch my campaign idea to my team, but I also did cross-club outreach by presenting to the Women in STEM Club and Gay/Straight Alliance to reach my target audiences. I created fliers to hand out at these events with our social media handles to maximize our reach.”

Here, the writer is providing specific details on how she worked to achieve this goal. For this essay prompt, it’s important to give as much detail as possible on your initiative: what you did, who you engaged with, and how your experience aligned with your own principles and business goals.

The essay concludes:

“Two weeks later, I stood by the 3D printer and passed out orientation badges. As I glanced over the pronouns written under the name stickers, my heart soared as I took in the diversity around me in this once homogenous robotics lab. Seeing the hopeful faces of our newest members, I vowed to continue championing diversity within STEM to create safe spaces within technology for all.”

This is a great ending. It ties everything together and reiterates the student’s goals and principles. It could be improved by the inclusion of more specifics, such as numbers to show the exact increase in nonmale participants following her campaign. The student does hint that there are more nonmale participants, but the ending would be stronger if she quantified them with data.