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

Profile: Mr. J

Profile (Background): Mr. J wants to leverage the finance heritage of Chicago Booth and the VC community in the US to bring sustainability to African farms.

Essay Approach: “Why Chicago Booth MBA?”

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

Profile: Miss. C 

Profile (Background): Miss C, with strength in deal origination and portfolio company management in Europe in the healthcare and IT industries wants to build her network in the US and Asia and facilitate deals in the Energy industry

Essay Approach: “Why Booth MBA?”

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

Background Information: From the privileges of a cocooned life, the applicant is displaced from Syria and forced to restart her life in the US.

Leadership Traits: Resilience

• Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your choices have influenced your career path and aspirations. (up to 300 words)

Background Information:  An applicant who has grown in her PE career is facing a dilemma: whether to continue in her finance career or pivot into her creative career, where she has over 50,000 loyal YouTube subscribers, and her videos have captured over 10 million views. 

Theme: Passion, Talent

Background Information: A Technology Consultant is working on an innovative product that has a high consequence on evaluating credit-worthy citizens who are underserved by banks or misrepresented by traditional credit scoring agencies. 

Theme: Addressing Systemic Inequity, Creating an Inclusive Environment    

Background Information: A PE associate narrates the challenge of onboarding an older candidate to the team. The person had an illustrious career in Technology but was a newbie to the NFT fund the team was managing. 

Even with the history of recruiting non-traditional candidates from different backgrounds – the age (45+) bias, skepticism against a region known for its conservative values, and a warped view of the socio-economic exposure the candidate had, all culminate into resistance from the team in fully embracing the candidate’s ideas. 

Background Information: The applicant notices one person in his team consistently underperforming. His humane intervention to address the personal challenges helped the teammate rise to a star performer. 

Theme: Inclusion, Mentorship

Theme (Explained): Often, mentorship when a peer or a sub-ordinate underperforms need context-setting about the problem.

For the essay, the theme of the intervention is holistic mentorship where the person’s personal challenges are handled sensitively.

Tuck MBA Essay: Describe a time you meaningfully contributed to someone else’s sense of inclusion in your professional or personal community. (300 words) 

Background Information: The applicant proactively offered guidance and mentorship to a junior analyst who was struggling to interpret contracts in an M&A deal

Theme: Inclusion, Mentorship

Theme (Explained): Mentorship to make a peer or a subordinate feel included is the best way to demonstrate your sensitivity to the person’s struggles. 

Tuck MBA Essay: Describe a time you meaningfully contributed to someone else’s sense of inclusion in your professional or personal community. (300 words)

Background Information: In the applicant in charge of leading a team of 20+ associates for an insurance giant witnessed an error in judgment from one of the 5 team leads. Reversing a decision to let go of the person is the ‘risky’ sense of inclusion narrative.

Theme: Inclusion, Ethics, Courage

NYU Stern MBA Essay: Change: _________ it (350 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

In today’s global business environment, the only constant is change. Using NYU Stern’s brand call to action, we want to know how you view change. Change: _____ it. Fill in the blank with a word of your choice. Why does this word resonate with you? How will you embrace your own personal tagline while at Stern? Examples:

NYU Stern MBA Essay 1: Change: _________ it (350 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

In today’s global business environment, the only constant is change. Using NYU Stern’s brand call to action, we want to know how you view change. Change: _____ it. Fill in the blank with a word of your choice. Why does this word resonate with you? How will you embrace your own personal tagline while at Stern? Examples:

Stanford GSB MBA Essay A: What matters most to you, and why? (650 Words)

Background Information: The applicant grew from poverty to the top 25 percentile income bracket by acing one of the most competitive exams in Finance. 

Theme: Mental Health, Low-Income 

Stanford GSB MBA Essay A: What matters most to you, and why? (650 Words)

Background Information: Testing the authenticity of the insights from Generative AI was a challenge for the applicant when it suggested a stereotype. 

Theme: AI, Safety

Harvard Business-Minded Essay 

• Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career choices and aspirations and the impact you will have on the businesses, organizations, and communities you plan to serve. (up to 300 words)

Harvard Business-Minded Essay 

Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career choices and aspirations and the impact you will have on the businesses, organizations, and communities you plan to serve. (up to 300 words)

Columbia MBA Essay Question

We believe Columbia Business School is a special place with a collaborative learning environment in which students feel a sense of belonging, agency, and partnership--academically, culturally, and professionally.

How would you co-create your optimal MBA experience at CBS? Please be specific. (250 words) (Common for both January and August entering class)

Post-MBA Goal (Short-term): Senior Associate (Leadership responsibilities)

Build strategic decision-making, communication, and marketing skills to improve the service offering of the PE firm

Post-MBA Goal (Long-term): Scale the PE firm

Knowledge Gap: Leadership to transform the culture and build new allies in North America

Career Pathways: Leadership, Strategy, Private Equity

Post-MBA Goal (Short-term): Valuation Analyst to Consulting

Post-MBA Goal (Long-term): Start a boutique Consulting firm specializing in the Healthcare industry

Problem (Narrative): For this Sample MBA Essay, I had to focus on the healthcare niches in the Columbia MBA curriculum and connect with the applicant’s exposure and experiences. 

Knowledge Gap: Healthcare Strategy, Entrepreneurial leadership and Consulting 

Career Pathways: Healthcare, Entrepreneurship

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)

Most top Business Schools have picked Finance or Consulting as a popular specialization based on their close network with recruiters. At Berkeley Haas School of Business also, Consulting was the clear winner (28.1%). 

Pre-MBA Employer: Wells Fargo Securities

Pre-MBA Title: Associate