MBA Video Essay Strategy & Review
Video is the fastest-growing part of the MBA application and the least coached. Kellogg went from three video questions to five this year and cut its written essays from 900 words to 550. Darden added a video essay from scratch. MIT Sloan rebuilt its first video so it now absorbs a written prompt that no longer exists. Around twenty programs will put you on camera this cycle - most of them one take, most of them with a randomized prompt you have never seen, several of them with under twenty seconds to think. The written part of your application is shrinking. The spoken part is growing. And committees are now reading both side by side. Here is how we handle it. We start with 30 minutes together, live or async, your call. I pull the current format for every school on your list: how many questions, how long you get to think, how long you get to talk, how many takes you are allowed, and whether the prompt is published or drawn at random. Then we work through what you would actually say. Not scripts - the six to eight experiences that can answer most of what any of these schools will throw at you, and how to route an unfamiliar question to one of them in the four seconds you will have. If you want to rehearse live on that call, we rehearse. I will ask you questions cold, on the clock, the way the platform will. Then you record on your own time. Send me everything you made for a school - every take, every question - and I will spend 15 minutes per school on one consolidated round of feedback. Delivery, structure, what is landing, what is costing you seconds you do not have, and which take to submit. 72-hour turnaround on the review round. WHAT IS INCLUDED - 30-minute strategy session, live or asynchronous - A prompt-by-prompt map for each school on your list: question count, prep time, response length, retake policy, and what that program is actually testing - Story bank build - the raw material that survives a random draw - Live cold-call rehearsal during the session, if you want it - One consolidated round of feedback on every sample you record, per school - 72-hour turnaround on the review BEST FOR - Anyone applying to Kellogg, Darden, MIT Sloan, Haas, Yale SOM, McCombs, Georgetown, UNC, Tepper, Emory, Owen, Foster, Marshall, Booth, INSEAD, LBS, Oxford, IESE, Rotman, Ivey, Schulich or NUS - Applicants who write better than they speak - the gap between the two is now something committees can see - Anyone who has never sat for a one-take, timed recording and does not want their first one to count NOT A FIT IF - You want your written essays reviewed - that is the Essay Unlimited or Comprehensive package - You want multiple revision rounds on video. This is one consolidated round per school - You want me to script your answers. I will not, and it is the most reliable way to lose on these
What's included
I came to this from the speechwriting side, and video responses are much closer to speechwriting than to essay editing. What separates a strong 60-second answer from a weak one is almost never polish - it is whether the person picked the right story in the first four seconds and got to the point of it before the timer ran out. So that is what we work on. I do not give you answers to memorize. Schools have spent three cycles engineering these formats specifically to defeat memorized answers: randomized question pools, ten-second prep windows, single-take rules, prompts that do not unlock until after you have paid. A memorized answer to a question you were not asked reads worse than a rough answer to the one you were. On the review round, I am watching for the things you cannot see in your own footage - where you buried the point, where you spent twenty seconds on setup you did not need, where your on-camera register drifts away from the person who wrote your essays. That last one matters more this year than it used to. Committees are comparing the written file to the spoken one, and the applicants who get hurt are the ones whose essays sound like a different person. Expect specific, direct feedback and a clear call on which take to submit. Applicants tell me the most useful part is usually the rehearsal - being asked something cold, on a clock, before it counts.
- 30-minute video essay strategy session - live or asynchronous, your choice
- School-by-school prompt map: question count, prep time, response length, retake policy
- Story bank built to survive a randomized question draw
- Live cold-call rehearsal on the clock, if you want it
- One consolidated feedback round on every sample you record, per school
- A specific call on which take to submit
- 72-hour turnaround on the review round
Meet your expert
Ben L.
4x Top MBA Coach | 400+ M7 Admits | xSpeechwriter | GSB '21
• Stanford GSB Alum, Class of 2021 -- see relevant background & experience below: • Coaching | Advised 400+ admits into Stanford GSB, HBS, Wharton, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, INSEAD, Haas, and more (230+ Leland reviews), while teaching multiple courses through Leland • What I'm Doing Now | Based in NYC, building a publication 'Staying Human', working on a stealth, marketplace startup, coaching and playing chess profssionally, and advising a slate of Seed to Series C startups through Elevate LLC • Public Policy | Prior to Stanford, worked on the Policy Team for the Chicago Mayor's Office under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, focusing on 5G infrastructure policy, criminal justice policy, and citywide corporate/economic development deals • McKinsey | Before policy, worked at McKinsey & Co , with casework focused on job training for the formerly incarcerated and workforce development for at-risk youth • PE / VC / Startup Advising | After Stanford, worked in Bain's Private Equity Group on various due diliegences, managed deals with several venture capital firms, and advised multiple startups on growth and go-to-market strategy • Professional Writing | Speechwriting in public policy & political environments, Lead Editor for Nondisclosure (Stanford GSB's magazine) and Managing Editor for the Stanford International Policy Review • Additional Writing | Crafting op-eds, ghostwriting for major publications, developing a fictional short story collection, policy deep dives, a book on chess applications to life, and application essays of all sorts • GMAT / Test-Taking | Scored in the highest percentile of GMAT test-takers, but more importantly I've honed my ability to help others extrapolate top test-testing strategies in the areas they're weakest • Additional Coaching Details | 5+ years experience working with >750 individuals on essay writing and resume professionalization for top consulting firms, MBA programs, execs, and the broader job market • Interview Training | I was interview-trained with McKinsey, helping me give high-quality mock interviews for MBBs and any MBA program; I've also held 10+ events through Leland on interview prep for McKinsey's PEI and GSB's interview process in particular
