For Isser Gallogly, the assistant dean of MBA admissions at New York University’s Stern School of Business, admissions essays are so 1886.
“You know, where people have the quill and the ink and parchment and they write these letters to one another that would be delivered on horseback months later,” Gallogly says. “Essays, to me, in some ways are from a different time.”
With that view, Gallogly’s office last year implemented a game-changing addition: a Pick Six Pictures portion of the application process for the full-time MBAs and the school’s two “Focused MBA” programs for tech and entrepreneurship and fashion/luxury. Applicants include six photos they’ve decided best capture their personalities; Gallogly calls it “admissions meets Instagram” and says it was a huge win for the school and applicants.
“People have really loved doing this,” Gallogly says on a lengthy phone call with Poets&Quants. “They feel like it gives them an amazing way to truly demonstrate who they are across a number of different angles, in a relatively straight-forward means, but in a way you can really dramatize it in a way you can’t dramatize it in a written essay. And for us in admissions reviewing them, the committee has also loved them as well. It gives you a very quick view and impression of an individual — what they value, what’s important to them, and what they’re about.”
FIRST YEAR OF EQ ENDORSEMENTS AND PICK SIX A WIN-WIN
In addition to the Pick Six, last year was the first year in which the school asked for emotional intelligence — EQ — endorsements from a personal contact, which Gallogly also says was a hit among applicants and the admissions staff.
“We got some very interesting and useful information about people — things that people don’t necessarily talk about themselves,” Gallogly says. “Some people don’t like to brag. Some people feel like it’s very disingenuous to self-promote in that way. And there is something about someone else giving the example that gives more resonance to it. It definitely gave us some insight on people in ways that we hadn’t gotten before and I don’t think would have gotten in any other way, other than bringing the person in for an interview.
“It really does impact how you view the candidate. It provides another dimension and lens for the candidate — especially in borderline cases.”
APPLICATION DEADLINES AND ESSAYS ANNOUNCED
Stern announced today (June 11) its application deadlines and essay questions for this coming year’s application cycle. The Round One deadline will be October 15, Round Two will be November 15, Round Three is January 15, and Round Four will be March 15. Two “Professional Aspiration” essays are included, each with a 500-word limit. The prompts are “What are your short and long-term career goals?” and “How will the MBA help you achieve them?”
In a wide-ranging interview below, Gallogly explains what they saw in this year’s EQ endorsements and Pick Six Picture portion — both good and bad. He also explains what applicants are doing now that annoys him the most and the best tactics to navigating Stern’s new and unique application.
The below interview has been edited for readability.
ALSO SEE OUR INTERVIEW WITH GALLOGLY FROM 2015.
Poets&Quants: There are two recent changes to the NYU Stern application. First are the deadline changes and second are the EQ additions. Let’s start with the deadline changes. Can you share what was behind bringing back the November deadline and adding the February Focused MBA deadline?
Gallogly: Yeah, we’ve had a November deadline for the two-year MBA program in the past. And essentially, we figured try without it last year, but we got some feedback that people like having the November deadline in there. A lot of schools don’t have that and it’s a nice way for people who need a little more time than September or October but don’t want to wait till January or for some people who would like to beat January to the punch. For us, it’s not that hard to add it back, so we felt like, if people want it and we can manage it, that would be fine.
For the Focused MBA programs, people are used to having a little bit longer to apply. A lot of people have deadlines that extend into the late spring, so to have January as a cut off for people is a bit tough. So we decided we could add a February one in there for U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It’s a little bit late for internationals at that point with the start time of what it is. But we felt like we could do it otherwise.
P&Q: What is your advice for applicants trying to decide which deadline to hit?
Gallogly: I think the basic story on this — and you probably hear it from almost all admissions officers — is apply as early as you are most competitive. There’s no sense in rushing your application if it’s not as competitive because you’re only hurrying to get a bad result. You don’t want to hurry up for bad news. If you feel like, for example, your essay could use some more work or you’d really rather retake the GRE, give yourself the time to do that because it gives you your best chance. For us, we issue decisions on an ongoing basis, so sure, there are less places in the class as time goes on. But at the same point, you want to put your best foot forward, even if that means there are less spots at the time that you do. So, I always say, as soon as it’s ready, do it.
The other thing that I would say is, for us — you know, some schools have a deadline and that’s the window and that’s that — for us, the deadlines and the notifications, all those dates are more for the convenience and management of applicants. We take applications on an ongoing basis — we don’t just sit on them. If somebody isn’t ready for the November deadline, but is ready in December, apply in December. You don’t have to wait till January. So, for us, literally when I say apply when it’s ready, it could be to the day. Now, we will probably consider within the January timing, but that said, you certainly got in your application way ahead of the January crowd and that could mean your application gets reviewed and notifications go out before that. It’s not a guarantee, but it certainly creates that possibility. So, for us, yeah, apply as soon as you feel most competitive — even if that date is between deadlines.
P&Q: Let’s switch to the EQ recommendations. When you all made the announcement last year, we thought it was fascinating. How did the first application round of using the professional and personal EQ recommendations go? What are some things you learned?
Gallogly: I mean, IQ plus EQ is at our core. We’ve always felt like the opportunity to gain more insight on that throughout the application is essential. And, yeah, we hit the idea a while back — almost this notion of an old school character reference — but really focusing on EQ and really getting at that question by asking it directly. Beyond that, expanding the range that could provide such insight. Because sometimes the person that can provide that insight is not necessarily your direct supervisor. They might have only been your supervisor for a few months and only see you in one context. Whereas there are other people who have known you for a lifetime and have a variety of examples to draw from.
We got some very interesting and useful information about people — things that people don’t necessarily talk about themselves. Some people don’t like to brag. Some people feel like it’s very disingenuous to self-promote in that way. And there is something about someone else giving the example that gives more resonance to it. It definitely gave us some insight on people in ways that we hadn’t gotten before and I don’t think would have gotten in any other way, other than bringing the person in for an interview. It really does impact how you view the candidate. It provides another dimension and lens for the candidate — especially in borderline cases.
So what we decided to do this year was — you know, a number of people wanted to do EQ endorsements from people they had known in the professional arena like their supervisors — so we decided to make all these things EQ endorsements and basically combine them. So that way, people could be essentially filling out some of the professional and historical recommendations but also comment on the EQ, because we care about that. So basically, we just kind of morphed it and enhanced it this year. And so now it’s kind of infused throughout and consolidated. I think we’re going to get even more insight and it’s a little more straight-forward for the applicants because they can basically submit two forms and they cover the professional pieces, the EQ pieces, and they give flexibility in terms of who one of them is from. It really is a natural evolution that makes it better.
But the long story, short, it really was a big win for us. The applicants really enjoyed it. We do surveys and we’ve already gotten some surveys back from people who applied and were admitted and a number of them commented how it was nice to see a school that really valued that. And it was nice to have a school that gave applicants the opportunity to provide information about it. It was definitely something they found differentiating about our process and school and that they really felt gave them a chance to add value. So, whether it was from the applicant side or us on the evaluation side, it was a big, big win and we’re excited to continue it.
NYU Stern School of Business – Ethan Baron photo
P&Q: Do you have any examples of things that stood out to you in the positive that made you want to bring an applicant in for an interview?
Gallogly: It’s always tough to get into personal stories because of confidentiality, but it’s a lot of the stuff you could imagine. Sometimes someone talks about how they were in a very difficult situation and their friend or colleague was able to come in and assist them, or provide guidance, or navigate them on something challenging. It’s just, again, seeing how people respond to crisis and how they elevate and rise in some of the most challenging situations are just those types of stories. It’s not always of the scale or magnitude as to when a country or city experiences some challenge, like a natural disaster or something along those lines where you hear the stories of people who go above and beyond to help their neighbors and friends. It has that type of feel of that selflessness or character to step in. And also, how to manage situations.
You know, sometimes in recommendations, people use vague platitudes. The nice part about the way we ask the questions is we ask for a specific anecdote as an example. And the detail and specificity in that really brings that to life. It’s one thing to say someone is selfless, but it’s a very different thing to tell a story where the only conclusion is that they’re selfless.
P&Q: What were some mistakes or wrong approaches you saw to that EQ recommendation portion?
Gallogly: Most people did a good job with it. I think sometimes people were maybe not taking us at our word, that it was OK to have an EQ endorsement from just about any source. I think sometimes people wanted to keep it only in the professional arena. And sometimes the person they chose had a limited ability to comment on their EQ, just because of how they knew them, how long they knew, the situations they’ve seen them in — it probably wasn’t as powerful of an endorsement as what they might have gotten from a different selection. I think some of that is it’s new, people are getting more comfortable with it. I think other people were looking at it more as a recommendation instead of an endorsement of character, and they are different things. It’s the same with recommendations. You have to choose the people that can offer insight, not just the people who have titles and things like that. That’s about the only mistake, but it wasn’t frequent. It was definitely infrequent.
P&Q: What’s some advice you can offer applicants preparing for this year’s cycle for the professional and personal EQ endorsements? What are some things they can go ahead and start doing?
Gallogly: I think the biggest thing is to think hard about who it is that will give you the best bang for your buck out of it. And spend some time chatting with those people. See if they have some time and are willing to bring forward some stories. You could even ask them, what kinds of stories might you tell about me. Obviously, you don’t write these documents — other people write them. But it doesn’t mean you can’t have a conversation and make sure the person is going to put forth a strong effort on your behalf and tell stories that are impactful and going to put you in a great light.
Also, give the person the chance to get in that mindset by giving them a lot of lead time, so they don’t have to rush and put it together in a thoughtful way. Similarly, with your direct supervisor, having a conversation about what you’re doing, getting their support, make sure you give them adequate time. You can talk with them about the fact that they are going to talk about the EQ piece in particular, as that may not be something they are as familiar with.
P&Q: And what about the Pick Six Pictures portion of the application? How did that go?
Gallogly: It was also brand new last year. We had historically had a personal expression essay, which gave you the ability to write an essay, describing yourself to your future classmates or you could submit a creative submission, whether it be a video or song or cereal box mocked up with yourself, or a game board mocked up with yourself or any number of crazy interesting things we’ve gotten over the years. So we really decided to evolve the personal essay section into the Pick Six last year for a number of reasons. The first is that it standardizes what people submit and we wanted them to spend time on the thought of how they wanted to articulate themselves as opposed to the means. We didn’t want people going off and hiring Martin Scorsese to do their feature film. We didn’t think that was the best use of time. It doesn’t need to be that — it’s much more about the insight we get from the person. Also, I think some people wanted some better guidance, you know, what should I submit, what shouldn’t I submit.
The other important thing is that essays in some ways feel kind of like 1886 to me. You know, where people have the quill and the ink and parchment and they write these letters to one another that would be delivered on horseback months later. Essays, to me, in someways are from a different time. And a lot of communication these days is combination of visual and verbal. I mean, look at websites, look at apps, everything that people do. People do infographics now and word clouds and listicles. In today’s day and age, you need to make sure people can communicate visually as well as verbally, certainly with social media. To us, in someways, the Pick Six is like admissions meets Instagram. It’s a very familiar means of people to express themselves.
The other thing we hear about from people is essays have word counts and character counts. The great part about this is if a picture really does say a thousand words, this is an essay with an over 6,000 word limit, so they clearly aren’t limited that much in what they can express. People have really loved doing this. They feel like it gives them an amazing way to truly demonstrate who they are across a number of different angles, in a relatively straight-forward means, but in a way you can really dramatize it in a way you can’t dramatize it in a written essay. And for us in admissions reviewing them, the committee has also loved them as well. It gives you a very quick view and impression of an individual — what they value, what’s important to them, and what they’re about.
P&Q: Did you see any mistakes applicants made in the Pick Six? What are some things you think future applicants should avoid?
Gallogly: I think there are a lot of things out there about some of the common ones like using bad language, or sloppiness, or not doing research. But one of the things I’ve been seeing more recently is not understanding boundaries. That’s one that has been really interesting to see lately. For example, I’ve been recently getting a lot of requests from applicants or prospective students via my LinkedIn account. It’s kind of interesting and surprising to me because this is an account that is a personal account as a professional. It’s not an account that I maintain on behalf of NYU Stern, it’s not a public account. And, yeah, there have been complete strangers trying to connect with me and those sorts of social media connections are for people who are already in your network, who you know. To me, that’s one of those things where I think it’s poor judgment in terms of boundaries. I’m more than happy to inform and help applicants and there are a multitude of channels by which they can get information. It just feels like someone showing up at your house instead of your place of business. And, to me, I think that it’s a boundaries issue and one that is happening more often. I understand that people want to get an edge and be singled out, but in some ways it can single them out in the wrong way. I don’t know if they’re getting advised on this or they just don’t think about it, or if it’s just generational, but that is a thing I don’t think works out in a person’s favor. There are many other channels to communicate and I advise applicants to use those.
I even checked in with some of the admissions consultants through the AIGAC organization and I asked them, is this something that you guys think would be advised to people. And they sort of agreed with me that this is a boundaries issue and they would not advise people to do when giving consultation for general approaches to applying to business school.
A Pick Six example from Sebastian Hooker, who is enrolled in the tech and entrepreneurship MBA at NYU Stern. Courtesy photo
P&Q: We’ve talked a bit about the changes in the application you all have recently made. Have you seen any changes in the applicant pool over the past few years?
Gallogly: I think this has been going on for more than a few years now, but people who were growing up and experienced the ’07-’08 drama that occurred have a different vantage point. And a lot of those folk have been coming through a little bit and are coming through even more when those were really formative years. They’ve seen what can happen to industries and they’ve seen the good and the bad in business. They’ve seen how it affects themselves, how it affects their families and those in their communities. And I believe from those experiences, along with others, that they’re seeking something more than a career. I think they are seeking a profession, a calling, something that has meaning. And it doesn’t meant that they want to go off and work for the Red Cross or something — they can get meaning from their jobs, you know, traditional jobs. But that’s becoming increasingly important — does my career have some sort of impact? Or am I just perpetuating ongoing cycles? And that also speaks to the fact that they also have a life as well — that they feel like they can do some of the things they want to do outside of work and it’s not just all about the work or all about the money from the work.
That’s why I think we’ve seen such an interest in the tech space. That’s a new and exciting field. A lot of tech companies are known for having a bit more of a balanced approach to life and lifestyles. And a lot of them are having a huge impact in terms of how things are done, goods and services, a lot of them have CSR programs, or are engaged in green programs and sustainability. These things are fully engrained in the DNA of today’s applicants. And they are important for schools to know and understand.
At Stern, we’ve been part of this change in many ways, you know, whether it’s our sustainability effort, or the creative destruction lab, obviously the boom in tech with our new tech MBA. There are just so many things that are a part of this. But I also think that is why people respond so well to the Pick Six and the EQ endorsement. Because it speaks to us looking at them beyond a business person to a person that wants to make a contribution and impact. And so it has to be a more holistic and much more individualistic view of what they are, what their DNA is, and what they think their roadmap towards impact will be. When you talk to our new dean, Raghu, he’s all about the future. He’s all about what is the change that is going to happen? How are you going to evolve? How are you going to innovate? How are you going to adapt? What is your impact going to be? Because the pace of things is also accelerating.
I feel like we’ve always been a place that values these things. It’s nice to do that and see it magnified. But that would be the macro trend that I see and it’s fun to be part of it.
P&Q: I like how you brought that back full-circle. That was nice.
Gallogly (laughing): There’s a reason we do what we do, right? It’s usually based in what we’re seeing. At Stern, if there is a word I’d use these days it’s ahead. We’re always thinking about what’s next. We have a long, long history, but we don’t really care about it. We’re not looking at the last hundred years, we’re looking at the next hundred years. I joke about it a lot, I say, you know there are a lot of schools that have a history, but Stern has a future. And we’re always thinking about what’s next, what’s ahead, what’s coming down the pike. We’re not handcuffed to old rules. We don’t really care about that. That’s why it’s fun to be here. Every year is a new adventure for me and I’ve been here over 15 years. You just keep seeing new change at an accelerating rate. You keep seeing new ways to make an impact. These one-year programs are just so radically different, but of course we would do this. I think there are many schools that would never do this. It’s fun.
P&Q: Any final thoughts?
Gallogly: I think we covered a lot ground and that gives you a good flavor for what we’re doing.
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