Q) Describe a time you meaningfully contributed to someone else's sense of inclusion in your professional or personal community. (300 words)

Unlike other T10 schools, Tuck has not hinted at DEI for this essay but instead asked you to shortlist and expand on examples that capture relationship building and investment of your time, reputation, or resources, with a clear IMPACT on the beneficiary.

To meaningfully answer the essay and not turn the narrative into a mundane tactical example, follow the 3-step structure:

1. The Inconvenient Part

The inconvenient part of helping someone should be the core of the narrative. Without that narrative arc, the context, no matter how altruistic, will fall apart. Supporting the person through a setback or support against the team's overwhelming consensus reads well in essays as it treads through the gray area of decision-making with incomplete information – a theme used by applicants when citing ethical dilemmas.

2. Leadership

In addition to building interest by narrating a believable 'inconvenient part,' you must demonstrate leadership. Without courage or taking a position that is not popular, leadership is a fancy word used to signal relevance.

Courage should be obvious in the narrative.

3. Bigger Picture

Applicants who help someone feel included and eventually succeed have the advantage of a perspective that is founded on long-term thinking and experience to see a brighter future after the inconvenient short-term setback.

The narrative should hint at an event or experience that offered you a long-term perspective.

For the examples that I have captured in F1GMAT's Tuck MBA Essay Guide, the first example is about burnout seen in YouTube content creators. The applicant who has a growing channel, supports the person to overcome burnout by offering mentorship and even giving the person a segment in his videos to improve visibility.

The second example is of an applicant who persuaded the senior manager to reverse the decision to let go of a high-performing peer. An error in judgment to meet the compliance standards is the cause of the layoff. By re-evaluating the incentive structure, the applicant ensures that the high-performing ethos of the community is not compromised.

In the third example, the applicant invests time outside the billable hours to help the junior accounting person pick the pace and integrate with the highly autonomous M&A team.

In the fourth example, the applicant – a white American stands up for the Xenophobia shown by a peer against Chinese and Asian peers who arrives in the US for an onsite project just after COVID-19.

The final example demonstrates the applicant's empathy in finding out the reasons for the underperformance of a peer. On understanding the challenging personal circumstances – both parents bedridden and responsibility of managing household chores, the applicant finds a solution that drastically reduces the burden on the person. The narrative is a classic example of inclusion as the woman is a first-generation college graduate, and both the parents were blue-collared workers from low-income families.

If you want to read the Sample Tuck MBA Essays, Download F1GMAT's Tuck MBA Essay Guide