Tuck MBA Essay: Tell us who you are. How have your values and experiences shaped your identity and character? How will your background contribute to the diverse Tuck culture and community?
Background Information: An entrepreneur musician shares the power of music in improving the mood of distressed children, her mentorship, and the agency she started to help upcoming artists.
Theme: Music, Education, Job Security
Theme (Explained): Music transcends culture, religion, and status. Narrating the power of music is one of the themes in the essay. A larger theme is the job security of musicians, like in other creative niches that are negatively impacted by streaming and AI.
Profile: Educator, Musician, Entrepreneur
Industry: Marketing, Education, Music
MBA Essay Strategy: The experience of the applicant in building an audience is shared to demonstrate the value she will bring to the Tuck MBA class and anyone in the community serving the creator economy.
For the essay, I had to cover many sub-themes – parent’s failure, push to a career in hospitality, the rebellion against parent’s wishes, music as a power of good in low-income communities, entrepreneurship, the reality of making a living as a musician, her initiative to find collaborators to find new revenue streams, and the potential impact of her contributions for the Tuck community.
The challenge was significant, as I had to seamlessly transition through all these themes in a story format, capturing the complexity of the applicant's journey.
Opener: I wanted to differentiate the applicant’s socio-economic background to show her unique rise as an entrepreneur.
Sample Tuck MBA Who you are and how you will contribute Essay: Re-thinking the Music Industry (293 Words)
My parents barely had any education. I was born when they were working as assistants in Delis, making $5/hour. Their American dream – a restaurant, failed to get them out of middle-income trap. From that time, my father talked about investing in restaurants.
A BA in Music was an escape from the hospitality industry.
I taught music for underserved children in Brooklyn through <X>, innovated with tempo, and saw the music elevate the mood of distressed children.
Last year, my album – Y, earned 50,000 downloads, but a sad truth faces the new artists: streaming services democratized music but limited the reach of artists.
Hosting shows and live music in expensive venues offer the best ROI, but the upfront cost is too high for most artists..
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