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

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.

MIT Sloan MBA Cover Letter Prompt >>

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. 

Essay: Why Stanford?

Profile: Miss. N

Profile (Background): Miss. N, a Humanitarian Affairs Officer with an impressive record in the UN, pivoted and joined Facebook after getting frustrated with the slow pace of the bureaucracy in the organization. With the changes in Facebook to limit oversight on moderation, she rejoined the UN. The change she noticed at the UN from a leadership-driven to a technology-first culture made her aware that both extremes were not good for serving those affected in disaster-affected areas. 

Essay: Why Stanford?

Profile: Miss SK

Profile (Background): Miss. SK has strong leadership experience managing workers from 85 nationalities in the rig. As the only engineer to earn a triple promotion in 2 years, she also integrated a sustainable water infrastructure in a complex rig layout. 

Additionally, her status as one of four women engineers in the team makes her story even more impressive.

LBS MBA Essay: What makes you unique? (200 words)

Background Information: Partisan media or editorial has been an accepted norm in publishing for the past 150 years in the US. The only difference now is that we are aware of the biases. Under such open ideological positioning, democracy is at risk of making fatal decisions that negatively impact the federal structure and welfare of US citizens.

Theme: Bipartisanship

LBS MBA Essay: What makes you unique? (200 words)

Background Information: Coming from an illustrious business family, the applicant found her true calling, serving the displaced at UNHCR – the UN’s agency assisting refugees to return to their home country or integrate/resettle in another country. 

Theme: Privilege 

Chicago Booth Essay 1# How will the Booth MBA help you achieve your immediate and long-term post-MBA career goals? (250-word minimum)

Profile: Miss. A 

Profile (Background): A Reservoir Engineer in the Oil and Gas industry wants to transition into a consulting role. 

Target Industry: Energy

Target Function: Consulting

Target Geography: United States 

• Leadership-Focused Essay: What experiences have shaped who you are, how you invest in others, and what kind of leader you want to become? (up to 250 words)

Background Information: The applicant, ambivalent to the mental health epidemic, facilitates one of the largest mental health awareness campaigns after tragedy hits home.

Leadership Traits: Openness, Communication

• Leadership-Focused Essay: What experiences have shaped how you invest in others and how you lead? (up to 250 words)

Background Information: Through the changing economic and family dynamics of her father's mining business, the applicant finds her voice in a unique way, initially to find an audience for her underappreciated voice, and later as one of the youngest subject-matter experts in mining and commodities.  

Leadership Traits: Resilience, Authenticity  

Background Information: The fifth example is of a White Male liberal applicant working for a think tank in DC. Unlike ideologues-based think tanks, the non-profit that the applicant worked for has a history of helping Senators introduce transformative Acts. The secret ingredient behind the success was the composition of the team. 

With recruitment geared towards finding balance in political ideologies, the applicant was often paired with conservative team members who had a different perspective on spending limits, regulations, and the value of life. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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

Anyone working in the Technology industry would attest that change is the only reality. 

A leader should have the foresight to accept that holding onto processes, technology, and strategy of a bygone era is a losing pursuit. 

Case studies of the 1980s and 90s have little relevance for the current generation, where with each iteration of technology or geopolitical development, iron-clad strategies have become fictitious narratives. 

Haas MBA Career Goals Essay: What are your short-term and long-term career goals, and how will an MBA from Haas help you achieve those goals? (3-5 years short; a decade or more long-term goals) (300 words max)

Brands have remained neutral to society’s ill and the overreach of organizations, government, and powerful influencers. With social media putting pressure on leaders to follow the pulse of society, businesses have also embraced positions that would categorize them as a pro or against a position.

From a business perspective, this is a risk as any misconception about their position could have an immediate impact on their cash flow as customers demonstrate preferences with their pocket first before verbalizing their opinions in popular media.

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 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.

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