Ross Admissions Director Provides Insight into New Essay Questions

soojin kwon 2The admissions director at the University of Michigans Ross School of Business weighed in on the schools new industry endeavor inquiresannounced this weekin an exchange of e-mails with absolved Admit. Read on to fit what she had to say.\nOn Wednesday, Ross Admissions manager Soojin Kwon post the schools new stress questions for the 2015-16 m removeing season on her Admissions Director Blog. This year, she and her team up chose to ruffle stopping point old age two essay questions (What ar you some tall of personally? and What are you to the highest degree steep of professionally?) into one, more open-ended question and ask a second question close to applicants line of achievement goals. \nWhat group the Changes This Year?\nIn an telecommunicate exchange with Clear Admit, Kwon revealed trey key drivers behind the changes to the questions this year. In terms of the decision to combine last years questions into one, the accept was to provide applican ts with more analog to write about some subject that genuinely stands out to them, she writes.\nKwon uses her own admissions deputation as guinea pigs to outpouring essay questions, asking from severally one of them to answer the questions to get a awareness of the kinds of responses applicants leave alone submit. In answering this years rewrite what are you most proud of? essay, some members of her team chose personal examples, others professional ones. The elicit embark on was hearing why they viewed that dwell as the thing they were most proud of, Kwon writes.\nBy no means should applicants feel circumscribed to providing just professional examples, she says. In fact, some on the team fear that could be the inadvertent result of the change to the prompt. We accept to see a entire range of stories, Kwon writes. The important thing is to choose a report that leave tell us something important about you as a person.\nA race goals essay made it concealment into the mix this year because without one, the admi! ssions military commission put in it more operose to choose which applicants to invite for an interview. cardinal applicant, for example, wrote about his passion for and achievements in philosophy for both of his essays, Kwon donations. This unexpended us wondering whether lineage school made sense for him. It could have, however without knowing what his race goal was, we couldnt say. For this reason, the team is cheery to have the career goals essay back, she writes.\nFinally, taken together this years two questions invite applicants to be both retrospective and forward- come outing. two questions are introspective but focus on various parts of a candidates timeline, she notes.\nRoss wants students who will pursue careers that are interesting, motive and fulfilling, Kwon writes. Hence, we ask the all-important why? at the end of the career path question. Candidates who can restrain what is interesting, motivating and fulfilling to them will be well on their sort towa rd a career that will deliver.\nStars and Strugglers\nAt the end of each academic year, Kwon and her team collaborate with the schools career services subdivision and MBA program office to prove the years Stars and Strugglers. After colleagues in the other departments identify students in each category, the admissions committee re-reviews those students applications to look for indicators or predictors of mastery or struggle, Kwon writes. Her team too gathers feedback on how the students fare in the recruiting surgical process and whether their backgrounds and skills matched what recruiters in various industries were flavour for.\nWeve found that prior obtain is only part of the recruiting winner equation, Kwon writes. Much of an MBAs career success comes from their communication skills. She notes that a retrospect of corporate recruiters by the polish Management Admission Council (GMAC) found that the top four things skills companies are face for (out of 25) are communic ations-related, specifically oral communication, list! ening skills, compose communication and presentation skills. That is, in large part, why we launched the aggroup Exerciseso we could assess that set of skills, she writes.\nRoss Seeks veridical People\nIn her intercommunicate post announcing the questions, Kwon urged applicants to write intelligibly and concisely, as if they were speaking to a real person. In her email to Clear Admit, she expanded on that advice. Tell your novel, in your voice. Dont abrade the interwebs for successful examples that got person else into military control school, she writes. Doing so runs the risk that the story you lift will also end up in someone elses essaysomething shes seen.\nWe love getting a sense that someone has given us a glimpse into who they arethrough the examples they choose, through the flair they reflect on their stories, she writes.\nWere looking to build a conjunction of people, not degree earners or box-checkers, she writes. In fact, Kwon began her career years ago as a v olunteer alumni interviewer for Yale undergrad admissions. I did it (and still do it) because I love learning about peoples paths and goals, she writes. People are interesting! We hope the essay questions weve make up this year help candidates share that with us.