Undergoing a complete overhaul under the administration of Luke Anthony Pena who joined as the executive director of admissions and financial aid last year, Tuck has decided to completely deconstruct its standard goals and careers essay into a series of short-answer questions and added new prompts for the required essays. The prompts are true to Tuck’s fiber of being one of the most engaged, closely-knit and collaborative MBA student bodies.

The school also has a clear set of admission criteria as outlined on the website: “You’re smart, nice, accomplished, and aware” and the new application is aimed to test out just that. As Pena explains on the admissions blog, “The essays invite reflection on these criteria because you have opportunity elsewhere to demonstrate that you are smart, through your GMAT, GRE and transcripts, and accomplished per your resume.”

Studying through the descriptions of the admission criteria of being smart, nice, accomplished and aware should give you enough fodder into the kind of student body the school is looking to build. These criteria form the essence of the culture at Tuck and brainstorming examples and experiences from your life that illustrate these traits would really help in forming a strong essay for this prompt.

This essay essentially asks for two things – who you are as an individual and how your individuality would translate into the Tuck student community. For the first part of this question, focus more on your personality and passions rather than presenting a random spread of your professional achievements. Instead of just talking about disparate aspects of your personality, use examples from the personal and professional fronts to establish who you are, and try to weave them together to present your holistic self. Use the traits so established to propose how you would contribute to the Tuck community. This would require you to have a fairly intimate knowledge of the school, and connecting with students, alumni and the admissions team may provide crucial insights.

This may well be a difficult story to recollect, but Tuck stands for collaboration and teamwork. With most schools asking for examples of how you succeeded through challenging circumstances, Tuck is keen to explore if you have invested in the success of your peers, colleagues or people around you.

Do not choose an example where you simply provided superficial support – the most impactful stories here would be of a time when you really collaborated with someone for their success. The essay prompt asks for one example, so stick to one strong example that establishes your commitment to “shared success”. The format is that of a typical Behavioral question, so do not hesitate to use the traditional STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) approach.

Try not to present stories that may be too cliché, like volunteering at a non-profit to teach underprivileged kids, or assisting a junior in office learn excel. Your contribution and involvement should go deeper than that, ideally effecting a lasting impact.