Columbia Business School
4 required essays, 1 optional for the 2026-27 cycle.
The program’s page could not be read directly when this was last checked, so the prompts below may be a cycle old. Confirm them on the program’s own page before you write.
Essays
Goals essay · 50 characters maximum · required
Short Answer: What is your immediate post-MBA professional goal?
Goals essay · 500 words · required
Essay 1: Through your resume and recommendation, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals over the next three to five years and what is your long-term dream job?
Program supplement · 250 words · required
Essay 2: Please share a specific example of how you made a team more collaborative, more inclusive or fostered a greater sense of community within an organization.
Program supplement · 250 words · required
Essay 3: How would you co-create your optimal MBA experience at CBS? Please be specific.
Program supplement · Maximum 500 words · optional
Optional Essay: Is there any further information or additional context around your application that you would like to share with the Admissions Committee, including any areas of concern in your academic record or personal history? This does not need to be a formal essay. You may submit bullet points.
academics.business.columbia.edu returned HTTP 403 to every fetch (two pages tried), so the page could not be read. Prompt text comes from search-engine snippets of the school's own requirements page plus memory, and the order of Essays 2 and 3 and the exact optional-essay wording may be off; treat as possibly a cycle stale. January-entry applicants get a second 50-character short answer (Why do you prefer the January-entry term?). The deadlines page snippet said the 2027 deadlines have passed and to check back for 2028 dates, so no 2026-27 dates could be recorded.
Checked against academics.business.columbia.edu/admissions/mba/application-requirements on September 9, 2026. Programs change their prompts between cycles; confirm on the program’s own page before you submit.
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Common questions
- How many essays does Columbia Business School require for 2026-27?
- 4 required and 1 optional, 5 in total. Every prompt is listed on this page word for word, with the length each one states.
- How long should the Columbia essays be?
- 50 characters maximum. That is the length the program states on its own page, which this record was read from on September 9, 2026.