Business School Application Essays
Optional essays are just that, so don’t feel obligated to write something just because the space is there on your application.
|
Business School |
Number of |
Number of |
Number of |
Length Restriction |
| Carnegie Mellon |
1 |
0 |
2 |
300 words |
| Chicago |
1 |
1 |
0 |
No word limit |
| Columbia |
3 |
1 |
1 |
51 characters – 500 words |
| Cornell (Johnson) |
3 |
0 |
2 |
350-500 words |
| Dartmouth (Tuck) |
2 |
0 |
1 |
500 words |
| Duke (Fuqua) |
2 |
3 |
1 |
100 words -2 pages |
| Emory (Goizueta) |
4 |
0 |
1 |
25-300 words |
| Georgetown (McDonough) |
1 |
0 |
2 |
250-750 words |
| Harvard |
1 |
0 |
0 |
No word limit (around 1000- 500 words) |
| Indiana (Kelley) |
3 |
0 |
1 |
500 words – 2 pages |
| INSEAD |
8 |
0 |
2 |
300 – 600 words |
| London Business School |
3 |
0 |
0 |
300 – 500 words |
| Michigan (Ross) |
2 |
0 |
1 |
250-400 words |
| MIT (Sloan) |
2 |
5 |
1 |
500-750 words |
| Northwestern (Kellogg) |
2 |
0 |
0 |
250- No word limit |
| NYU (Stern) |
2 |
0 |
1 |
500-750 words |
| Ohio State (Fisher) |
2 |
0 |
2 |
250-750 words |
| Purdue (Krannert) |
1 |
0 |
1 |
250-500 words |
| Rochester (Simon) |
1 |
1 |
1 |
25-500 words |
| Stanford |
2 |
0 |
0 |
400-750 words |
| Texas — Austin (McCombs) |
2 |
0 |
1 |
250-500 words |
| UC — Berkeley (Haas) |
3 |
0 |
1 |
250 – 500 words |
| UCLA (Anderson) |
1 |
0 |
1 |
250-750 words |
| UNC (Kenan-Flagler) |
1 |
0 |
3 |
300-500 words |
| U. Pennsylvania (Wharton) |
2 |
0 |
0 |
400 – 500 words |
| USC (Marshall) |
2 |
0 |
1 |
200 – 700 words |
| Vanderbilt (Owen) |
2 |
0 |
1 |
500 words |
| Virginia (Darden) |
1 |
0 |
0 |
500 words |
| Washington U. (Olin) |
2 |
0 |
1 |
300-500 words |
| Yale |
1 |
0 |
0 |
500 words |
Most schools expect your essays to be double spaced and in a font size of at least 10. When determining the maximum length for schools that list it by the page length, you should carefully read the application for formatting requirements and call the admissions office if you have any lingering doubts.