5 Tips for Applying to NYU Stern for Round 1

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MBA Admissions Consultant - Amerasia Consulting Group

This time of year we see two things from the people contacting us about Round 1: panic about

the deadlines October 18 and earlier, and some planning for the later Round 1 deadlines. It's a

little late for the former (although we can take people on for late-stage essay editing), but there

is still plenty of time to do a fantatic job on an MIT, UCLA, Texas, Duke (round 1, not early

action, obviously), or NYU application.

We're going to try to get the blog up and running here in time to help people navigate these

"late stage" schools and we'll start with NYU Stern as we pass along 5 tips that should prove

helpful as you attack this application:

1. Understand the applicant pool. It is important to be aware of the fact that Stern gets

saturated with “I guess I’ll apply to Stern” applications. You may be one of these people.

Given the unique deadline, a lot of round one applicants get antsy when they don’t hear

back right away from HBS, Wharton, Booth, Stanford, etc., and they don’t want to wait

until Rd 2, so they decide to fire off a dart to NYU. This puts more pressure on you to

have an authentic portrayal of your interest in Stern, which means it is also an

opportunity to stand out from other applicants.

2. Make it personal. The implication of the above fact, coupled with Stern’s very personal

approach to the process (requiring an on-campus interview), means that nailing “Why

Stern” is probably more important here than any other school to which you apply (Tuck

is the only school that might put more emphasis on this). It is part of the reason that we

work with so many NYU applicants – far more than other schools ranked similarly. (Hint:

what makes Stern “Stern” is not New York and it’s not finance. It’s a mentality. You

*have* to nail the mentality, which is a mix of “scrappy” and “collaborative” and

“inventive” that is hard to explain in a short post like this.)

3. Show comprehension. The collaborative nature at Stern is not super unique … until you

consider that the school is in New York and facing the same challenges that Columbia

faces (big NY population, big international population, meaning relatively few students

MBA Admissions Consultant - Amerasia Consulting Group

who fit the typical “U.S. student packing bags and moving to a new city” model). Many

of the extremely collaborative programs such as Tuck, Duke, Yale, Ross, and Cornell are

more “socked in” because they are outside of huge metro areas. The fact that NYU can

boast of such a collaborative environment while being based in NYC is amazing,

something the school is rightfully proud of, and definitely something you want to keep

in mind.

4. Differentiate your Essay 3. Don’t just use the PDF you submitted to Booth. It will be so

obvious and will reflect a lack of effort that has major ramifications considering the

points above. That said, you also don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Connect an audio

essay to that slide show and make it a combined multimedia presentation. Take your

four slides at Booth and blow them out to eight slides and change the thesis to

“everything you need to know about me” so that it fits the NYU prompt. As long as you

take the extra effort to make your Essay 3 unique from other nontraditional prompts,

you will provide NYU what it wants to see.

5. Use Essay 1 and 2 to portray your career goals. Most traditional career goals essays ask

you to explain what, why, how, and where (and sometimes when). That’s the formula

for Columbia, Haas, Duke, and a host of others. A few schools throw wrinkles at you.

Booth doesn't really need the "how." Yale specifically asks the “when” question. Kellogg

asks you to “assess” your career progress. The wrinkle with Stern - like Wharton - is that

your career goals answer isn’t contained to the career goals question. “How” is 1a

(examining the choices you’ve made to date), “why” is 1b (why an MBA), “what” is 1c

(short and long-term goals) … that is all pretty straight forward. But the trick is that the

“where” comes in Essay 2, particularly 2b. The fragmented nature of Essay 1 and the

tricky nature of Essay 2 often leads candidates to miss what is an easy opportunity to lay

out the usual career goals argument – it just happens to take place over two essays.

(The rest of Essay 2 can be strategically approached as well, so fear not).

MBA Admissions Consultant - Amerasia Consulting Group

There are plenty of other tricks and hints for Stern that will change this from one of the hardest

applications to nail to one of the easiest, but these are the most critical.

We hope this has been helpful - good luck to all of you as you approach your NYU Stern

applications!

MBA Admissions Consultant - Amerasia Consulting Group

If you are interested in admissions consulting services for Round 1 or Round 2,

emailmba@amerasiaconsulting.com to find out more about packages, prices, and options. If

you mention this post, we will offer a 10% discount on any school package.

MBA Admissions Consultant - Amerasia Consulting Group