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Ross MBA Pick One Thing Essay Example - Entrepreneurship

The traditional entrepreneurial applicant is unlikely to take a break from their pursuit to find product-market fit, scaling or exit, with an MBA program.  However, most entrepreneurial applicants targeting Business Schools had some success or failure to scale before pivoting to a corporate job.

In this example, an entry that seems like a side-business in college has special meaning when you read the constraints and the exceptional time management of the applicant.

Simultaneously managing a business, featuring on the Dean’s list with exceptional academic performance, and leading a student-run club are contributions that would have been lost if the context was not offered.

The narrative has the right transition in the middle when the applicant reveals that his side-hustle funded the college costs.

Sample Essay – Pick One Thing from your resume and tell us more (Entrepreneurship) (100 Words)

• Secured and maintained 12 clients while managing two billable employees with day-to-day operations for a $50k Z dry cleaning business

Establishing Z dry cleaning business while managing 2 employees, 12 clients, and completing my bachelor’s in finance from <R> School of Business, was the most satisfying experience in my life.

For the full narrative on how the applicant leveraged entrepreneurship to fund his education plus 31 Sample Essays and 300+ Pages of Essay Writing, Editing and Storytelling Tips, Download F1GMAT’s Ross MBA Essay Guide

 

About the Author 

Atul Jose

I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.

 

For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.

 

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I am the author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, the best-selling essay guide covering M7 MBA programs. I have written and updated the guide annually since 2013, which makes the 2026 edition the thirteenth.

 

The reason I still write and edit essays every cycle: a good MBA essay carries a real applicant's voice. Writing essays for F1GMAT's Books and Editing essays weekly is how I stay calibrated to what current admissions committees respond to.

 

Contact me for school selection, career planning, essay strategy, narrative development, essay editing, interview preparation, scholarship essay editing, or guidance documents for recommendation letters.