All MBA Application Related Tips

In this MBA Application Resume Tips, I will share about a strange but obvious lack of focus that I see among applicants who are programmed to think only with respect to their team.

In this MBA resume tip, I will share two approaches to position your resume into a traditional profile or a profile with leadership and entrepreneurial experience.

I want to start with an insight that not all schools want an entrepreneurial or a profile with diverse leadership experiences. Although if you have had such experiences, it is important to highlight them. Many top 10 schools want to see how you have progressed in a company or a function.

My uncle shared a story about a watchman who was overseeing a property, and there was a huge plumbing issue. In an hour, the apartments started flooding. In another hour, the hallways began flooding. Finally, when the Watchman reached out to the maintenance engineer, he asked, “Why didn’t you report the flooding earlier?” And the response was, “My job is to watch who enters and leaves the property and not to report on the maintenance inside the property.”

A goals and motivation essay framework can help you capture all the right contexts. For the Kellogg MBA, the admissions team has included 5 contexts: 

1) Intentionality

Intentionality in a narrative is a style that clearly shows ‘purpose’ in your action. 

“The man - shirtless, grease all over his body with a facemask jumped on to the window, barely holding onto the bars. He scanned the room from right to left. I sat at the left corner, two feet away from the Window. We looked at each other with shock and surprise waiting to see who will start the conversation.

5 seconds passed.

Who are you?

“I heard a burglar was in the neighborhood. We were just checking.”

Atul Jose (Admissions Consultant, F1GMAT): I will start with the motivation behind writing F1GMAT's Essay Guides. When I started consulting and offering editing services – officially – way back in 2012, there was no one offering any sample essays – free or otherwise. Even blogging like how we are seeing now was not prevalent in the MBA admissions market. The first version of Winning MBA Essay Guide or any school-specific Essay Guides had no samples in it. But after reading the 100th book about writing, I noticed that apart from a couple of books, no one showed the work.

Our curiosity is driven by internal motivations - desire for new information, openness to novel stimuli, finding the last piece of the puzzle, and a strong urge to escape boredom.

For Harvard MBA application essay on curiosity and growth, thrill seeking and curiosity to escape boredom has limited relevance. 

Question 2 (450 words): 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.

Leadership might have become a clichéd essay topic, but not for Kellogg.