Kellogg MBA Essay One: Intentionality is a key aspect of what makes our graduates successful Kellogg leaders. Help us understand your journey by articulating your motivations for pursuing an MBA, the specific goals you aim to achieve, and why you believe now is the right moment. Moreover, share why you feel Kellogg is best suited to serve as a catalyst for your career aspirations and what you will contribute to our community of lifelong learners during your time here. 

Describe the most significant challenge you have faced. How have you confronted this challenge and how has it shaped you as a person?

You can describe the significant challenge in three contexts – personal, professional, and community. Because there is a community essay, focus on personal or professional challenges.

Background Information: A consultant puzzled by the hesitation of stakeholders to embrace digitization reevaluates incentives to streamline the implementation of digital tools, processes, and frameworks for the hospital network.

Theme: Change

Theme (Explained): Change narratives are critical to building an engaging story. 

Either a change in the protagonist or their ability to take the team/organization through a period of rapid and drastic change – both read well in MBA essays.

Background Information: An LGBTQ minority entrepreneur after failing to raise funds for his apparel business addresses implicit biases in the VC community.

Theme: Leadership, Bias, Inclusion

Theme (Explained): Biases often involve narratives around a person or a culture in an organization, but a larger reason – economic incentives that propagate the biases is never addressed. 

Profile: Entrepreneur

Industry: Fashion

Background Information: A technologist, responsible for managing a proprietary pricing algorithm, stares at zero sales in the airline and hospitality industry – a once-in-a-lifetime event that motivates him to find a creative solution.

Theme: Leadership, Creativity

Essay: Kellogg leaders are primed to tackle challenges everywhere, from the boardroom to their neighborhoods. Describe a specific professional experience where you had to make a difficult decision. Reflecting on this experience, identify the values that guided your decision-making process and how it impacted your leadership style. 

Background Information: A young technology leader makes one of the toughest decisions in his professional career – to let go of two senior team members.

Theme: Leadership

Essay: Kellogg leaders are primed to tackle challenges everywhere, from the boardroom to their neighborhoods. Describe a specific professional experience where you had to make a difficult decision. Reflecting on this experience, identify the values that guided your decision-making process and how it impacted your leadership style. 

Background Information: A consultant in a non-profit balances short-term value creation with long-term impact by cultivating empathy for the beneficiaries.  

Theme: Leadership, Empathy

Essay: Kellogg leaders are primed to tackle challenges everywhere, from the boardroom to their neighborhoods. Describe a specific professional experience where you had to make a difficult decision. Reflecting on this experience, identify the values that guided your decision-making process and how it impacted your leadership style. 

Background Information: A campaign manager risks losing an account when a star copywriter takes emergency leave.

Theme: Leadership, Authentic Communication

MIT Sloan MBA: Video Statement Example (Youngest Engineer with Flying as Passion)

Q) Please introduce yourself to your future classmates via a brief video statement.

Background Information: An Oil & Gas Engineer and the first female to earn the title of Project Manager in the shortest time for her pioneering remote operations, the applicant credits her checklist mindset for her success.

Theme: Habit

MIT Sloan MBA: Video Statement Example (Accounting Professional with a unique patent)

Q) Please introduce yourself to your future classmates via a brief video statement.

Instructions: You will need to use an internet-connected computer, with a webcam and microphone. As part of the application review, the Admission Committee will evaluate your response to see how you express yourself and to assess fit with the MIT Sloan culture. The simple, open-ended question is designed to help us get to know you better.