Grad School Application Essays

Septus

I'm working on two essays for an app to an MBA program. One is an essay asking me about my three greatest accomplishments in life and what I learned from them. Does anyone have any experience with college admissions and what is expected of these? I'm very hesitant to list all three accomplishments as having come from my current job, within the last two years of my life. Before that, however, I'm grasping for anything that seems like an appropriate answer(nothing too personal), which would be something they'd value in a candidate for business school.

The other essay asks my opinion about ethical leadership in business, and the state of that in the market today. Considering that I've had no training in business except a tiny bit of accounting and an intro to business class years ago, should I just read a few articles about the subject, come up with a general opinion on the subject, and expand upon that? Maybe I'm wrong, but I wouldn't think the school would expect much knowledge on the subject, prior to actually being in business school.

EggyToast

As someone who is currently enrolled in an MBA, they typically expect you to have experience in business in some form, and base their acceptance on whether they feel you will succeed in the program and if what you're looking for is something an MBA can help with.

I'm not on any sort of admissions board, so don't assume I'm authoritative on this, but I would assume that yes, talking about recent business accomplishments are very appropriate for an MBA application. As a bonus, you can use your experiences to show that they steered you towards an MBA program (otherwise, why write about them?). For the second, yes, you're on the right track. With the Enron stuff in the early part of the decade and the financial crisis of 2008, MBA programs are big on ethics right now. Having students who are successful because they are ethical creates a better name for both the individual and the school. While you may make more money by being ruthless and/or unethical, an MBA program is generally more concerned with effective management.

So yes, looking at recent events either in your life or the news and using that as a springboard for your application should definitely be applicable. For an example, I've got a friend who recently got into an urban planning masters program with all of his experience based only on the previous couple years. He approached his personal history from the POV of urban planning as well, showing that he was paying attention and interested in the field.

NargorothRiP

It's quite staggering how many people are enrolled for MBA at almost every school that offers it. At the Uni i am going for a Master in Information Systems Security, fully 2/3 of the class you have to take for entrance to any masters program there is MBA.

Septus

EggyToast wrote: »

As someone who is currently enrolled in an MBA, they typically expect you to have experience in business in some form, and base their acceptance on whether they feel you will succeed in the program and if what you're looking for is something an MBA can help with.

Well, this is Texas State University, a pretty decent or good MBA program but nothing that highly ranked. I've got a good GMAT score, a low GPA, but I've been out of school for 5 years and I've got good references. I don't think I need to wow them on the essays, but my other factors aren't so great that I want to risk poor essays, or essays that poorly reflect what they want.

I mean, I guess there's nothing to be done about the lack of business knowledge at this point. I have been reading a number of articles on the cause of the financial meltdown, and I'll continue to read more.

On the accomplishments, I guess what I'll go with is 1)my experience in a three week course, sponsored by my job, that gave CFO training, 2)work I did two years ago in our crunch time on a specific issue, and 3)the value I got out of my first time at the general crunch time two years ago, and apply broader lessons than in the specific issue.
I'm not crazy about having #2 and #3 as separate, but I think you make a good point about work experience, and I can't think of anything better in my pre-college and college days.

Gork

As someone currently in an MBA program and about to graduate (BEST TIMING EVER), I can say one thing they love to hear about is your leadership skills.

If you can come up with an example of a time you lead a project, mentored someone, or showed some kind of initiative, in any setting, they will eat it up.

Septus

Noted, and included.

One more thing, anyone know if these types of essays need to follow strict Intro(state premise), Body(State premise in expanded form), and Conclusion(restate premise) format? I think it'll just waste space, but I can certainly do that if it'll be viewed better.

Maybe just a quick thesis and that's it?

bowba.cisse

I am leaving the army and trying to go back to scholl for my MBA. I m trying to get some Idea how to attack a question like Describe your strengths and weaknesses as they relate to your academic ability, contributory work experience, and personal qualities and characteristics that you will bring to the University?
please advise.