Wharton MBA Application Essay 1: How do you plan to use the Wharton MBA program to help you achieve your future professional goals? You might consider your past experience, short and long-term goals, and resources available at Wharton. (500 words)
For the eight Sample essay, we look at a Fictitious profile – a candidate with experience in starting and managing a sports events venture which highlights the growth of the venture, a suggestion that the investor community offered and subtly hints at the mismatch in both their perspective that finally led him to discontinue the venture.
The switch from an entrepreneurial to a professional career was not a challenge as the founder offered him complete autonomy on leading the product’s vision. The product’s USP is highlighted and mapped to his analytical skills that were required to create models for the pricing algorithm.
After highlighting his contributions in enabling a $20M acquisition - the technical USP of the service, the applicant highlights his leadership skills post-acquisition to integrate a team that was spread across 5 countries. The applicant then brings the challenges of building camaraderie and how he included COVID conversation that had affected the team’s immediate or extended family. The applicant credits the team with coming up with a wide range of ideas to combat the large percentage of travel cancellations that began with the global lockdown. He mentions one idea that put an end to the over 90% cancellation rate.
The applicant then mentions a vulnerability in his skill that was tough to scale in the new reality where a deeper understanding of revenue management, human behavior during the crisis, and the company’s strategic goals was required.
Wharton MBA’s course structure, San Francisco semester, The McNulty Leadership Program, and the Antarctica expedition are mentioned as essential for the applicant’s growth both technically and as a leader.
Sample Wharton MBA Essay 1: What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (Tech Entrepreneur to Product Manager with Strong Business Fundamentals) (497 Words)
After organizing 3000+ sports events and managing a team of 15, the investor community recommended that I reduce the personal interactions and pivot completely to an online model. The community was built on face-to-face interactions. The disconnect was a painful realization that my vision didn’t resonate with the investors.
Transitioning from an entrepreneurial career to an engineering role didn’t take much time, as the founder of Y gave me complete autonomy over the product’s vision. With a unique price prediction algorithm, we supported over 10 travel sites and helped them create offers on the fly. The extensive models I created for the machine learning algorithm influenced Y’s acquisition by Z for $20M. The integration of our 10-person company with the bureaucratic structure of Z required strategically creating functional teams in over 5 countries. The pandemic had halted travel, and our revenue fell by 80%. Initially, I tried to remain completely focused on the tasks but soon recognized that there should be at least 5-10 mins to talk about the elephant in the room. Some of our retrospective sessions were painful as many shared the horrors of uncles, aunts, and parents collapsing from covid-related complications. Sharing the vulnerabilities built greater camaraderie between the two teams. As we began working on tweaking the algorithm on an unforeseen black swan event, teams began building an extensive idea pool on creating offers. From the 20+ ideas, we chose one that incentivized the customers against canceling their reservation with a life-long membership as a platinum user.
The offer halted the more than 90% can...
