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Sample MBA Essays and School Specific Tips

Haas Embody Leadership Video Essay (Valuing Diverse Experience)

Berkeley Haas MBA Video Essay Question: The Berkeley MBA program develops leaders who embody our four Defining Leadership Principles. Briefly introduce yourself to the admissions committee, explain which Defining Leadership Principle resonates most with you, and tell us how you have exemplified the principle in your personal or professional life. 

Berkeley Haas MBA Goals Essay Example: Product Management to Venture Capital

Pre-MBA Employer: Facebook
Pre-MBA Title: Product Manager
Post-MBA Title: Associate
Post-MBA Employer: Venture Capital Firm

Foundational Knowledge: Because the candidate has extensive experience in Technology, the curriculum mentioned in the goals essay was customized to include foundational skills in Finance and Investments.

Failure as an Example in Haas MBA Embody Defining Principles Video Essay

Fast-moving consumer goods manufacturers like Unilever and P&G struggled to find a market in developing economies with traditional American and European-themed promotional strategies. Poking the aspirational class with the hope of a better future or the sparkling smile of the celebrity didn’t help the market share. On the verge of giving up the drive to enter rural markets that represent the lion’s share in developing economies, the executives called on ‘MBA’ consultants, many from reputed universities, for solutions. 

Haas MBA Embody Defining Leadership Principles Video Essay Example (Motivate)

Haas MBA students selected for the IBD (International Business Development) consulting engagement, apart from sharing the tourist getaways, share a poignant observation - while discussing the client and their customers from thousands of miles away, they lacked the perspective on the ground realities. The statistics were too impersonal. When they reached on-site, the real challenges for enterprises to overcome infrastructural limitations and price sensitivity became apparent.

Berkeley Haas MBA What Makes you Feel Alive Essay (Working on Climate Change)

Haas MBA Essay: What makes you feel alive when you are doing it, and why? (300 words maximum)

Sometimes life’s mission might be something that has a ripple effect on an entire generation and the future of humanity. It could be working on a vision to bring equity into a society that is growingly becoming unequal. It could be working on systems, policies, and technology that would determine how humans will consume and expend resources for the next 1000 years.

Theme: Climate Change

Berkeley Haas MBA What Makes you feel Alive Essay Example: Design Thinking

Berkeley Haas MBA What Makes you feel Alive Essay Example: Design as a Tool for Change

Theme: Design

Theme (Explained): When engines and integrated chips can be concealed beneath the flow of human interaction with no one even wondering that there are hundreds of machines and technology, a few inches and a few yards away from our daily existence, the eye soaring wind turbines and clunky solar panels are a big resistance to the adoption of renewable energy. 

MIT Sloan MBA: World You Come From Shaped You Essay (Military Upbringing)

Q) How has the world you come from shaped who you are today? For example, your family, culture, community, all help to shape aspects of your life experiences and perspective. Please use this opportunity if you would like to share more about your background (250 words)

Background Information: A technologist from a military family shares the impact of military ethos – respect, discipline and self-reliance on his startup and his career. 

Theme: Self-Reliance

MIT Sloan MBA World Shaped Who You Are Essay: War Trauma & Visual Storytelling

Q) How has the world you come from shaped who you are today? For example, your family, culture, community, all help to shape aspects of your life experiences and perspective. Please use this opportunity to share more about your background. (250 words or less)

Background Information: A consultant reflects the escape from the genocide in Rwanda and the impact the war trauma had in shaping his extra-curricular engagement as a visual storyteller. 

Theme: War Trauma, Creativity, Inclusion

MIT Sloan MBA Cover Letter Example - Product Strategy to Consulting (Renewable)

Background Information: A field engineer in the oil and gas industry who transitioned to renewable wants to help businesses adopt sustainability practices to the climate-change realities we are likely to see in 2030.

Theme: Adaptability, Climate Change, Sustainability

Theme (Explained): Working towards holistic systems and adapting to the realities of climate change is a theme not many applicants are narrating.