How To Get Into Chicago Booth

Update: This article was originally posted on August 3, 2022. It has been updated with new information and tips below. 

Known for its highly academic community and with more Nobel Laureate professors than any other MBA program in the world, Booth is one of the best places to prepare for a successful career solving some of the biggest problems in business. Considering that Booth offers one of the best-ranked MBAs out there, earning a spot at this school requires you to really stand out among the competition. 

In this guide, we will go through how to get into Booth. While many applicants think that simply marketing themselves well is enough to gain admission, successful applicants are the ones who understand a) who Booth is looking for, b) how Booth’s MBA program, community, and opportunities fit their profile and goals, and c) how to prepare a Booth-specific essay and interview. Read on for our expert advice on how to master these three things.

 

1. Understand who Booth is looking for

(Photo courtesy of @chicagobooth on Instagram)

“Since 1898, we have produced ideas and leaders that shape the world of business. Today, we empower bold thinkers and inquisitive minds to dig deeper, discover more, and shape the future.” Booth Admissions 

Every year, Booth’s admissions team selects just around 630 students for the honor of joining their prestigious MBA program. With a focus on academic and career excellence, Booth admits have an average of 5 years of work experience and tend to have outstanding test scores (the median GMAT score for the Class of 2025 was 730 and the average GRE score was 163 Quant, 162 Verbal). 

Booth also places an emphasis on diversity, admitting students from 54 countries (totaling 36% international students overall). The most recent class also contains 42% women and 12% LGBTQ+. 

Beyond impressive stats, however, Booth also looks for applicants who distinguish themselves in three specific areas: Curriculum, Community, and Career. 

For curriculum, “We look for applicants who have both the ability and desire to thrive within a challenging and stimulating environment. The qualities we seek include academic preparedness, intellectual curiosity, and communication skills.”

For community, “We look for applicants whose unique personal and professional experience will contribute to a strong, congenial community that supports its members and pushes them to be the best they can be. The qualities we seek include leadership, collaboration and teamwork, respect for others, philanthropic tendencies, strong interpersonal skills, fit with Chicago Booth and contribution to school community/culture, and a unique perspective.”

Finally, for career, Booth states, “The qualities that contribute to your future success may be evident early in your career. The qualities we seek include a track record of success, resourcefulness, sense of personal direction, time-management skills, realistic expectations for the MBA.”

In addition, Booth highly values interview performance, specifically focusing on a candidate’s ability to communicate clearly and effectively, as this skill is critical to succeeding in Booth’s culture of intellectual debate.

So, if this sounds like a community in which you’d be right at home, you’ll have to think of the ways in which you align with the main characteristics of Booth’s students. This means forming your business school brand and then focusing on the aspects of that brand that align with strong critical thinking skills, outstanding communication, and curiosity. 

 

2. Know Booth’s program and how you can use it

The second thing you must do to get into Booth is to know the MBA program and how it applies to your career goals. If you want to get into Booth, you really need to show the admissions committee why it’s a good fit for you (and why you’re a good fit for the community too)!

While you will have to do your own research to find the specifics of what aligns specifically with your goals and profile, below we are highlighting some of the main aspects of Booth’s MBA program so you can be informed about what makes it unique in comparison to other business schools.

 

Booth’s excellence in research and analytics 

Admitting students with excellent academic track records and demonstrated value for intellectualism, Booth produces graduates who excel in innovative thinking. This is demonstrated by the number of research opportunities, quant-heavy curriculum, and balance between theory and practice. 

As such, Booth has a large number of labs and research initiatives that allow students to pursue projects and real-world practice in their particular areas of interest during their MBA studies. Booth’s countless labs are available to students as both core and elective courses and extracurricular activities. Lab topics include Entrepreneurial Discovery and Healthcare Analytics.

There are also multiple research centers aimed at exploring and innovating on some of the most pressing developments in the business world and beyond. For example, the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation empowers students to prepare for successful disruptive companies, and the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation focuses on solutions to some of the most significant social and environmental problems. Other centers include the Center for Decision Research and the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence.

 

Flexible curriculum

Booth’s MBA curriculum is multidisciplinary and famously flexible. While there are core categories that students must fulfill, students have choices within each category to personalize their courses to their interests. Booth’s core curriculum only has one required class; while students are required to fill out categories for graduation, they have a lot of choice in what those courses can be. This means that students have a lot of autonomy in how their degree is shaped and how the MBA prepares them for their particular futures. Students also take electives that fit their career path. 

 

Outstanding faculty

Chicago Booth is known for its faculty full of renowned business professionals and academics. For example, Austan Goolsbee, an award-winning professor at Booth, was a chief economist during Barack Obama’s presidency in the US. Or take Marianne Bertrand, a professor of economics and researcher at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Center for Economic Policy Research, and the Institute for the Study of Labor. Her research in labor economics, corporate finance, and development economics has been published in numerous prestigious journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the American Economic Review. She has received several awards and honors, including the 2004 Elaine Bennett Research Prize, awarded by the American Economic Association to recognize and honor outstanding research in any field of economics by a woman at the beginning of her career.

Looking for more than just a summary of the Chicago Booth MBA? Luckily, we’ve created a complete guide on Booth, including program specifics, MBA class profile, and Chicago Booth post-MBA salary and employment information. Additionally, we have dozens of sample Chicago Booth MBA essays that got our past clients into Booth, plus essays for numerous other top schools, all in one place. Click to join!

 

 

3. Prepare a winning application

Last, but certainly not least, is knowing how to write an outstanding essay and prepare for a successful interview. Below are our top tips on succeeding at both of these key aspects of your Booth application!

 

Write an outstanding essay

Writing any admissions essay is a tough task, however, impressing Booth’s highly selective adcom is especially challenging. Below, we discuss how to successfully respond to Booth’s main essay questions.*

*Though these questions are accurate at the time of publication, check out our Booth Essay Analysis post for the most up-to-date questions and analysis. 

 

Essay 1 tips

Essay 1: How will the Booth MBA help you achieve your immediate and long-term post-MBA career goals? (Minimum 250 words, no maximum.)

For all goals essays, you should first begin with context, as goals without context often lack clarity or impact. Then, after you set the stage, clearly present your goals to the admissions committee. The section on your goals should include clear short-term and long-term goals, meaning you should list job title and industry for each. Furthermore, stating the motivation you have for wanting these goals and the impact you envision generating while pursuing them is an excellent way to take your essay from good to great. 

Finally, end with a section on how Booth’s MBA program can help you continue to grow to reach your goals. You will first need to research the Booth experience in-depth, and considering the flexibility of the Booth experience, we suggest you consider not just the classes you plan to take but also Booth’s wider offerings. 

TOP TIP: Though Booth does not specify a word limit, we suggest keeping your essay to around 500 words. 

 

Essay 2 tips

Essay 2: An MBA is as much about personal growth as it is about professional development. In addition to sharing your experience and goals in terms of career, we’d like to learn more about you outside of the office. Use this opportunity to tell us something about who you are… (250-word minimum)

As mentioned earlier, one of the hallmarks of Chicago Booth is its flexible curriculum. This format for the Booth MBA means that students are forced to create order out of chaos and make difficult decisions about what to pursue — and what to leave behind — each and every day. Booth’s second essay strikes at the core of this ideal, giving candidates the chance to explore who they are beyond their career goals. More importantly, it gives you the chance to show you are a self-aware leader with a clear vision for your future. 

When considering how to approach this essay, first take a look back at your personal and professional experiences to identify the “tipping points” in your life. What has led you to the point you are at now? What has made you YOU? Then, describe not only what these experiences were, but also how they impacted who you are and your life choices. 

To learn more about Booth’s essays (including how to complete its optional essay) and check out sample essays that got our clients into Booth, click here!

*Note: these are the latest essay questions as of the date this guide was published, but we suggest that you check for recent changes, as schools often update their essay questions closer to the round 1 deadline. You can access Columbia’s essay questions and more application info here. 

 

Prepare a winning interview

Once you’ve submitted your application, you will wait for your invitation to interview. Once you receive this, congratulations! Landing an interview with Booth is an exceptional achievement. 

Booth interviews, since they are conducted by current students and alumni, tend to be slightly friendlier than interviews conducted by the admissions committee. Nonetheless, the interviewer is still trying to gauge how solid your motivations for wanting to pursue an MBA are, how interested you seem in the Booth program, and if you fit well with the program’s flexible format. 

Interviewers often ask many standard MBA interview questions, as well as questions designed to test your intellectual horsepower. You can also expect numerous follow-up questions. The Chicago Booth interview is blind, meaning the interviewer will only have access to your CV, and should last between 45 and 60 minutes. 

In addition to the live interview, Booth expects candidates who are called to interview to complete a video essay. 

Though there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach, we suggest that you choose a single topic that allows the admissions committee to learn something new about your profile. Especially considering the open-ended nature (and word count!) of the Booth admissions essays, it’s important to try not to repeat content. 

For more on Booth’s interview and video essay, see our post!

 

Make Sure You Prepare a Successful Booth application

Getting into the Chicago Booth MBA is no easy feat. 

With multiple essays, numerous letters of recommendation, and admissions interviews, a successful application to Booth requires that you carefully think about all aspects of your profile and craft the most cohesive, compelling narrative possible. 

Starting from scratch, though, can leave many applicants like you feeling confused and uncertain they are developing an application that will impress the Booth admissions committee. 

That’s why we created our MBA Resource Center, which includes everything you need to get into the Booth MBA, all in one place. This includes dozens of sample essays, recommendation letter questions and guides, sample letters of recommendation, MBA CV templates, interview mock sequences, and even sample answers to the most common interview questions. 

In short, our Resource Center puts the Ellin Lolis Advantage into your hands, giving you exclusive access to the materials we used to help maintain our 98.9% success rate.

 

The Ellin Lolis MBA Resource Center has helped countless applicants around the world get into Booth. Sign up today to put this competitive advantage to work for you.