This is one of the most important parts of the whole MBA process – the MBA admission essay! All the global business schools consider MBA application essays as one of the deciding factors for your admit. This is the only section, before the personal interview, where you can showcase your personal and leadership attributes to the committee. Here, we are going to write about the main points that the admission committees look for when they scan through all the applications.
MBA application essays – Objective
Considering you have already given them a professional resume, a cover letter, so they know your educational background, experience, and every other information you have wilfully shared, but through the essays, they want to understand you beyond your resume. They want to know you better as a person, as an individual, to learn about your contribution towards the society, people, organizations, and your impact on the said crowd. You show all of this through real stories and incidents.
MBA application essays – How many essays?
On average, for most business schools, you have to write at least 2 to 4 essays, with word limits ranging from 300 to 500 words, but of course, it can differ from university to university.
Then you might also have to write a scholarship essay for a few schools, as they require an application for a few types of scholarships. But the majority of the schools consider your normal application essays for scholarships as well.
MBA application essays – Area of focus
What do they generally ask? It’s a common question and we can divide it into three major areas:
- MBA related questions – The questions will be focused on your MBA goals, about the school and program, etc. Some of the examples are: Why do you want to pursue an MBA now? What are your short term and long term goals? Why are you choosing this school? Why should we choose you? How will you contribute to the class and community as a whole? Why do you think an MBA is necessary for you at this moment? What’s unique about this program? If you are admitted to this program, what would be your biggest challenge? How will your classmates remember you?
- Leadership/Personality – This is very crucial and difficult to express. They want to understand your leadership style in different situations. Questions around this will be asked even during your interview rounds. There could a range of questions on this section and most of them would require you to think and deep dive in your past. Some of the examples are: What’s your leadership style? What’s the most challenging situation you have faced so far and how did you overcome that? Experience when you tasted failure? Have you ever worked with a bad/difficult manager and how? What do you dislike about your job? What kind of team member are you? Can you give an example? How would your colleagues describe you? How would your supervisor describe you?
- Contribution to the community – your achievements, initiatives, suggestions, success stories, revolving around you, your team, your managers, organizations, your clients, et cetera, are all valuable contributions and impacts, which you should mention in your essays. Some of the examples: Describe all types of extra-professional activities in which you have been or are still involved for a significant amount of time (clubs, sports, music, arts, politics, etc). How are you enriched by these activities? What are your principal interests outside of work or school? What leisure and/or community activities do you particularly enjoy? Describe a situation in which you led a team. What challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them? Our business school is a diverse environment. How will your experiences contribute to this? Describe a personal achievement that has had a significant impact on your life.
For all the questions, focus on your real experiences. Your experiences and achievements could be small or big, but express from your heart and own whatever you are saying. You don’t have to mention generic and internet stuff in your application. That would not add any value.
MBA application essays – Assessment parameters
One of the first things applicants get judged on is their language skills. They want to see your understanding of the English language, basic stuff like sentence construction, correct usage, and how grammatically perfect you are. If, say, your language skills aren’t outstanding, if you’re not used to using flashy or catchy words, you needn’t worry. The important part is to have a basic understanding, and the flow of ideas should be excellent.
Another important factor is to never exceed the word limit unless they mention that you can exceed it by a couple of words. Though most of the schools are very particular about the words, some of them might give you liberty. But still, its always better to stick within the limits.
The next thing to keep in mind is the structure. The paragraph breaks, the flow, and most importantly – the examples. Whatever experience you decide to share, have some real-time examples and stories in your bag to add in the essays. This only makes your essays more concrete and gives a better impression of you to the reader. They are looking for some serious stories. Try introspecting your experiences and how well each incident is connected to one another, and how you can beautifully add it to your essays. Lying or making up stories might not be in your best interest because it could be asked in your interview. You might get through the application stage on some occasions, but it would be difficult to convince during the interviews. It’s ok to glorify your work and achievements but do not fake things during the process.
Remember, they aren’t looking for perfect essays, they are looking for genuine stories. Keep that as your focus.
Let’s say you only have 2 to 3 years of experience, but the number of years doesn’t count if you have powerful, meaningful initiatives and achievements, and if you manage to express them honestly, your chances are better than someone who, let’s say, has 7 to 8 years of work experience but no substantial achievements to talk about. so, quality matters a lot over quantity.
We hope this article helped you in understanding and writing up your MBA essays better.
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