Booth MBA, Personal Growth Essay requires you to shortlist examples that demonstrate a growth in your skills and mindset. Here are three strategies to create a persuasive Booth MBA personal Growth narrative:
1) Discipline
Booth is not an entrepreneurial school. The school is known to attract applicants with strong academic potential. An essential part of academic excellence is the discipline to stick to a learning schedule, overcome weaknesses in understanding a concept, and have a mindset to prepare and perform on a regular basis.
These traits can also be conveyed in your Booth personal growth essay.
Any hobbies or extracurriculars in music, poetry, writing, research, standup, sports, or content creation as a YouTuber/TikToker are all signals that you have the discipline to persist and build your skills. Use them strategically and share the learning curve and the interesting nuances of performing if it is a performance art and the IMPACT it had on your community, how you interact with teams, and your mindset to face challenges.
2) Adversity
Adversity comes in so many forms, from the interpretation of an adversity that is confined to your culture/region or an adversity that has a universal appeal. Some of the examples that resonate with the admissions team include setbacks in the health of your loved ones or your own health, financial challenges while running a business, either your family business or your startup, or adversity from war, pandemic, or setbacks from regulatory intervention or change in market dynamics.
Because the word count is a minimum of 250 words, spend 100-150 words on setting up the context of the adversity. Once you set up, the essay should pivot to the lessons learned, how they changed your approach or perspective, and how the whole experience has helped you grow as a person.
3) Teaching
Movies about coaching, mentoring, and leadership have a universal appeal because we all look for someone to guide us through life’s uncertain moments. Mentorship from Alumni, a supervisor, a person in the family, or a great thinker - dead or alive from any part of the world is essential for making the right decisions.
Many realize the value of mentors and offer dedicated time every week to support younger professionals or students to navigate the evolving career options that we have now. These interactions also help the applicant grow personally. They are learning to empathize with another person’s worldview, insecurities, and goals. These are traits that are tough to capture in just one professional goals essay.
Strategically use your extra-curricular, volunteering, and interesting entrepreneurial or life experience for this essay.
that supports curiosity, inspires us to think more broadly, and take risks. At Booth, community is about collaborative thinking and learning from one another to better ourselves, our ideas, and the world around us.