3 Things Stanford GSB looks for in the essay “What Matters To You And Why?”

On getting into Stanford Business School

“You should go to business school,” my teammate says on the phone. Let’s call him “Allen.” Allen was an alum of Stanford Business School.

“Why? I am not sure if I need to,” I reply.

“Business school will put you on a different trajectory,” Allen goes, “you’re operating on one plane right now. Business school will elevate you to a different plane.”

“Huh” I go. I only half-understood what Allen meant.

“Elsa would tell you the same thing.” Elsa, our other teammate, is an alum of Harvard Business School.

“Huh,” I say.

“Business school is like taking two years to go to the moon.” Allen continues enthusiastically. “It’s an opportunity to go to the moon. It’ll take two years, and when you get back, life on earth will be exactly the same as it was before. But you get to spend two years in an incredible rocket-ship ride around the moon. Afterwards, all you’ll have is your memories of your trip and the friends you made on the rocket.”

Now Allen has completely lost me. “Well, I like the idea of a two year journey to the moon…” I say, trying to sound like I understood what he was talking about.

I was sitting in my car at the parking lot of Life Time Fitness. Allen had called me to discuss our game plan, as our startup will run out of money soon. Allen wanted to work on a new startup. I, craving more stability, had applied for a job at Google Health. But I didn’t get the job. I did, however, have an offer to work at Microsoft Health. But I didn’t want to work at Microsoft again because I’d worked there in the past.

“Going back to Microsoft feels like going backwards,” I say to Allen.

“Then go to business school.” Allen pushes.

And so, I applied to business school. I applied to only Stanford, because it was the only school that didn’t require a GMAT. I didn’t want to sit through three hours of taking the GMAT. I avoid standardized tests like the plague, especially ones with Reading Comprehension.

There is a famous essay question that appears every year in Stanford’s Business School’s application:

What matters to you, and why?

For those of you who’re interested in applying to Stanford, here’s what the essay is looking for:

1. Your Soul

That’s the most important one. This question wants to know what matters to you? What makes a difference to you? If you were to fulfill this one thing in life, what would it be? If you were to loose this one thing, why is that so bad? This question reveals your inner-core. While MBA essays at most schools ask about this in some way (usually indirectly), Stanford asks you, straight up.

2. Your Intellect

You’ll need to wax-philosophy. The question wants to see what matters to you, but also how you think about it. You can write your essay on how what matters most is that people pick up after themselves, period. Pretty uncompelling on its own, right? But, if the way your mind goes from A to B is interesting, then it becomes clear that your reasons are genuine, and it could be a homerun. Anything can be a homerun. It’s the deep rumination — the intellectual rigor — that is KEY to unearth. You’ll probably need to spend more time thinking about this one than any other question.

3. Your Dimensions Beyond Business

The temptation is to rope it all into how the thing that matters most to you will make for a more efficient operation. Or grow profits. Or save humanity, etc. This is an opportunity to not allude to those things. Sure, what matters to you can affect all that, but it should, at most, be implied. Stanford’s question is far more philosophical in nature than that of other schools. Imagine yourself up on Mount Kilimanjaro, breathing through your little oxygen tank, you’ve stripped off all the unessential things. You think about the important stuff that you simply won’t live without…what’ll you think of then? Why? Avoid roping business into this, unless it’s core to your theme.

In 2009, after spending two weeks reflecting on what matters to me, I wrote This Essay for my Stanford application. I was admitted to the Stanford GSB.

For those who don’t live in America: Elsa is an English pronunciation coach for foreign students. Check it out on iOS or Android.