Chicago Booth MBA Who you are Essay
An MBA is as much about personal growth as it is about professional development. In addition to sharing your experience and goals in terms of career, we’d like to learn more about you outside of the office. Use this opportunity to tell us something about who you are… (250 word minimum)
When Chicago Booth asks you to highlight an aspect of your personality outside of work, it is important that you understand the different ways in which you can answer the question.
In this deep dive into answering the Chicago Booth MBA Who you are Outside Work Essay, I cover:
1) Volunteering or Extra-Curricular
Very rarely, I have seen an applicant spending equal time on volunteering and extra-curriculars as they progress through their high school and undergraduate degree.
In our MBA admissions paradigm, extracurriculars are talent-related contributions - drawing, singing, dance, stage performance, sports, and Volunteering require offering your time for an organization in skill-related (teaching/mentoring, carpentry, organizing, technology – website development, media – influencers, fund-raising, marketing) or care & administrative tasks.
According to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) statistics, the volunteering rate has been dwindling from 28.8% of Americans volunteering in 2005 to 23.2% in 2021, with adults aged 35-44 showing the highest volunteering rates while the 20-24 age group had the lowest community engagement at 18.4%.
The low engagement is the standard until you notice that 31.5% of Bachelor’s degree holders volunteer while Graduate degree holders were as high as 42.2%.
At Booth, which attracts academically competent and global citizens to the cohort, volunteering would be a unique selling point to stand from applicants (60-70%) who have not volunteered.
Media: Dedicated TikTok or YouTube channels with at least 10,000 subscribers with a history of engaging with the audience for social causes is another way to demonstrate your influence in a community.
Volunteering – Understand trends in your City
The formal volunteering also differs by region, with Philadelphia leading at 28.7%, while Washington DC (27.9%), Chicago (27.6%), Boston (25.4), Phoenix (25.4%), and Houston (20.1%) – all maintaining a 20% and above rate.
The lowest formal volunteering were in New York (19.4%), Los Angeles (15.1%), and Miami (14%).
Booth at Chicago is in the top tier. The culture of the city influences the school’s admission preferences.
If you have continuous volunteering in regions with low volunteering, the scale of the IMPACT is irrelevant, as by showing interest in underrepresented and underprivileged groups, you are demonstrating leadership in your community.
Storytelling Tips
For less than three beneficiaries that your volunteering has impacted, the narrative should be tweaked into a personal narrative of helping the mentee cross a milestone (financial, academic, skill, psychological).
Volunteering – International
For international applicants, some statistics on your peers will help pick a volunteering or an extra-curricular narrative.
Here, a monthly vs annual volunteering rate should be a strong consideration as the numbers are starkly different.
Annual vs Monthly Volunteering Rate
• Africa (Annual – 67.7%, Monthly – 17.5%)
• Arab (Annual – 35.5%, Monthly – 9%)
• Asia Pacific (Annual – 67.8%, Monthly – 7.2%)
• Europe and Central Asia (Annual – 34.0%, Monthly – 10.6%)
• Latin America and the Caribbean (Annual – 41.4%, Monthly – 10.5%)
For applicants from Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Arab region, volunteering is an excellent way to stand out from peers.
For African applicants, the cause and why it matters to you should be the opening line to set the context.
Extra-Curricular vs Volunteering
If you don’t have substantial (IMPACT) or continuous volunteering (annual), citing extra-curricular experience is a strategy that will work.
The best volunteering essays for Chicago Booth or any top US school revolve around identity.
Connecting Volunteering with Identity
We care more about our identity, primarily – gender, family, ethnicity, nation, politics, religion (least for younger demographic), city, and heritage (shared trauma) over any other factors.
For an African American applicant, the parent’s milestone as the first in the family to attend college turned into an early orientation toward scientific temperament. The impact on the parents was the motivation for the applicant to consider Teach for America as a volunteering organization.
For a Kenyan applicant, the transformation of the country with Digitization, specifically mobile payment, is cited as a motivation for his career transition from a corporate to a startup career. Risk-taking is an aspect that the applicant wanted to highlight in the essay.
Extra-Curricular – Unique Quirks
On average, an American spends 5 hours a day on leisure and sports. It would be stereotypical and expected for you to narrate an association with a sports club or a team.
For outdoor activities – trekking, surfing, rafting, mountaineering, and flying, connecting these experiences to how you see the world should be the theme of the essay.
The ‘shock’ element is what is interesting about such a narrative.
An accountant with a passion for mountaineering, a consultant who has a popular offline woodwork workshop course, and an applicant who appeared in over 100+ guest roles – mostly as extras in movies/TV series felt interesting.
These are accomplished applicants who have interesting quirks.
Find your unique quirks if volunteering is not your strength.
2)Unique Upbringing
For the Booth MBA Who You Are Essay – Entrepreneurship, I share the narrative of an Entrepreneurial Booth MBA applicant whose experience as a child of a single parent expanded his worldview to thinkers from all around the world, all from the habit of his mother sending him off to New York Public library before her shift work. Such broad reading habits were the foundation for the applicant’s thinking and his first venture.
For another applicant in the Booth MBA Who You Are Essay – Conservationism, the transfer of parents from New York to the countryside built in her a passion for hunting and conservationism – two sides of the same coin that don’t sound obvious. The essay digs deep into this symbiotic relationship and the applicant’s activism in maintaining the delicate ecosystem.
An applicant – a second generation restaurateur in New York City cites the motivation behind a non-profit collaboration that his family business engages to feed the hungry in the city. In addition to volunteering, he also cites a value that he acquired against all modern wisdom about personal connection over technological optimization.
Unless your identity is closely tied to the causes you are citing from your volunteering engagement, your unique bringing and influences will be a better fit for Chicago Booth Essay 2.
3) Trauma Based Narrative
For an American applicant, the opioid crisis and how it affected a family member turned out to be the biggest motivation for starting a non-profit that addresses the biggest health crisis in the country.
There are several traumatizing narratives that I have read while editing MBA essays that touched on financial hardship, violence in the neighborhood, military combat experience, autism, and physical challenges, often limiting the quality of life (of loved ones) that motivated the applicant to help those affected by similar traumas. Such narratives feel more authentic than a random initiative reached through reason.
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References
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.