London Business School (LBS) MBA Essays Analysis 2010-2011

Jul 12, 2010

London Business School (LBS) MBA Essays Analysis 2010-2011

Categories: MBA Essay Writing Tips 2010-2011

Job responsibilities

Please give a detailed description of your job, including nature of work, major responsibilities; and, where relevant, employees under your supervision, size of budget, number of clients/products and results achieved. (250 words)

A) This question asks for numbers and data so be as specific as possible. Take an overall view of your job avoiding the details about individual projects. Write about broad skills or functional competencies that you have developed, e.g. planning and budgeting skills, and then justify this with relevant data/ numbers. To respond to the part on employees under your supervision, don’t just mention a certain number but also add in what capacity you supervised them, bringing out the extent of managerial responsibility you held.

Q6 Career description

Please give us a full description of your career since graduating from university. If you were to remain with your present employer, what would be your next step in terms of position? (250 words)

A) Share your unique growth story. If you have been through several role changes and level changes, you can showcase your accomplishments and hence growth. Without repeating the job responsibilities, talk about how you have been vested with increasing levels of responsibility or how have you broadened your exposure to different areas/industries through your role changes. As far as your next position with your employer goes, you can sneak in a bit about your special accomplishments that propel you towards the next level of responsibility/seniority. You can also touch upon what opportunities you will forego in order to pursue an MBA at INSEAD.

Q7 Description of yourself

Give a candid description of yourself, stressing the personal characteristics you feel to be your strengths and weaknesses and the main factors, which have influenced your personal development, giving examples when necessary. (400 words)

A) This seems like the easiest question, because it talks about the person most familiar to yourself – you. However, resist the temptation to make it a set of adjectives for a matrimonial posting. Rather, dig into your experiences and find qualities which will help you stand out at INSEAD ? like show your academic promise or leadership potential. Do not be shy while talking about your weakness/es ? this shows your self-awareness and maturity. Be honest and select weaknesses which are mild and workable. Divide your write-up among 2-3 strengths and 1-2 weaknesses, giving example of each.

Q8 Most substantial accomplishments

Describe what you believe to be your two most substantial accomplishments to date, explaining why you view them as such. (400 words)

A) A good approach is to select two accomplishments from two different realms – one professional and another to do with a hobby/ an academic achievement. Why these achievements were substantial – because of the results you achieved or the exceptional effort you put in or the challenges you overcame to succeed? Paint a broad picture of the landscape against which you achieved the results, such as the extent of competition, the scarce resources that you had to work with or the punishing deadline you met. At INSEAD, show strengths like ability to contribute to the class, cultural acclimatization, maturity and leadership.

Q9 Personal objectives

Describe a situation taken from school, business, civil or military life, where you did not meet your personal objectives, and discuss briefly the effect. (250 words)

A) Can you analyze a situation where you failed and draw lessons from it?

It is important that you cite the objectives, your role, failure statement, analysis of what went wrong and your learning. Therefore, the failure itself is not as important as how you viewed it, how you introspected and improved for similar future assignments. Thus, devote good words to explain how you were affected by the failure and what did you learnt from the whole incident.

Q10 Career goals

Discuss your career goals. What skills do you expect to gain from studying at INSEAD and how will they contribute to your professional career. (500 words)

A) Get to the goals straight and do not talk about career summary or progression.

Think hard about the career choice you wish to make post MBA. Again, it is not so important that you have the next twenty years of your career path neatly charted out but it is important that you understand your personal aspirations and the impact of an MBA, an INSEAD MBA on your future.

Get to learn more about academics, experiences and opportunities at INSEAD (read http://mba.insead.edu/academics/ and http://knowledge.insead.edu/home.cfm) and attend information sessions, meet current students or alums, research INSEAD?s online resources and visit the campus, if possible.

Q11 Culture shock

Have you ever experienced culture shock? What did it mean to you? (250 words)

A) The intention here is to find out if an applicant can acclimatize in an alien environment.

INSEAD is acclaimed for diversified cultural interactions and it is very important for a new student to feel comfortable. Talk about incident/s when you experienced a new culture, found something out of your perceived notions and were in for a shock! Now, talk about how you coped with the frustrations, adjusted to the surroundings and came out as a winner. This experience could make you learn something about yourself, help you look at things from a different perspective, give you a new professional direction or gradually appreciate the goodness in that new setting.

Q12 Foreigner

What would you say to a foreigner moving to your home country? (250 words)

A) Are you knowledgeable about your country and can you help others to enjoy their stay? Keep the tone of this answer even and balanced. You neither have to sing paeans in praise of your country or its culture, and nor should your answer read like a list of do’s and don?ts for a foreign immigrant. The question has to be answered more in abstract and general terms and you should not unnecessarily get into factual details about your country. Informative advice can be the main theme. For example you can write about common social and cultural etiquette followed in your country that can help an immigrant acculturate himself in dealing with your country’s people. You could also point out some interesting pursuits or activities or suggest groups which he could associate himself with in order to learn more about and establish a social network in your country.

LBS essay questions 2010-2011

Q1 Give us a brief assessment of your career progress to date. In what role do you see yourself working in immediately after graduation and what is your longer term career vision? How will your past and present experiences help you to achieve this? How will the London Business School MBA Programme contribute to this goal? Why is this the right time for you to pursue an MBA? (750 words)

Summarising your professional experience, build a link between the skills/knowledge base you have already acquired and what further you need in order to achieve your future career goals. This part should also answer the question on why you feel that an MBA is needed at this stage. Are you clear about your immediate post MBA goal – keep in mind that this goal needs to flow well with the rest of the essay on how the LBS experience will help you to get to it. By the words ‘career vision’, the AdCom wants to get a sense of why your long term career goal is meaningful to you. Finally, devote about a quarter of the essay to explaining why LBS is suitable for you- research the LBS MBA and point out its significant advantages to you e.g. 1 year MBA which allows you to get back to your family business sooner, yet equipped well with management knowledge etc.

Q2 Give a specific example of when you have had to test your leadership and team working skills. Given this experience what role will you play in a first year study group (300 words)

Pick an example where your team successfully met certain objectives. Briefly outline what these were, and what role you played vis-a-vis-the rest of the team in moving towards the goal. As a ‘test’ of your leadership, did you meet with some resistance/lack of support from the others and how did you surmount this? Or perhaps your team was low on morale due to early failures and you played a key motivational role? What did the experience teach you – therefore how will you transfer the learning to your work group.

Q3 Student involvement is an extremely important part of the London Business School MBA experience and this is reflected in the character of students on campus. Please describe how you will contribute to student clubs and the community and why? (300 words)

The list of student clubs at LBS is a delight for students who thrive on extra curricular life, ranging from Art and Acting to Wine and Cheese Clubs! But to answer this question, choose judiciously, keeping in mind that you need to demonstrate clear interest/involvement in the activities of the respective clubs. This could be through similar involvement in the past; perhaps you were in the Dramatics Society of your college, and you would like to pursue this hobby at LBS too! Just a listing of the clubs will not suffice, be sure to answer what you would contribute e.g. would you use your mass communications experience in XYZ country to share with the Media Club, how media affects popular perception.

Q4 London Business School offers a truly global and diverse experience. Describe any significant experiences outside of your home country or culture. What did you gain and how will your experience contribute to London Business School? (300 words)

The LBS MBA is known for its ‘international nature’. Keeping this in mind, do you adapt quickly and easily into a multi cultural or diverse environment? Can you substantiate this with a real instance- perhaps initially you faced some hesitation in being accepted by a diverse group or you yourself felt reluctant to engage with them? How did you change this mindset and what did this teach you about adapting to diverse groups? How will this experience help you at LBS – will you for e.g. play a mediator in a diverse work group?

Q5 You have decided to stand for the role of Student Association President. Announcing your campaign to the London Business School community for the first time, please describe your manifesto (150 words)

Research the role played by the Student Association – you will notice that the SA is an influential group and therefore its members have a clear agenda and role. As President of the SA, you will be the chief liaison between the SA and the School´s administration. As a campaigner, what new initiatives do you propose e.g. will you initiate greater networking events with alumni, demand higher budget for career services function, press for expanding the representation of international students etc

Q6 What is your most substantial achievement to date and why? (150 words)

A short essay- so without much ado, clearly state the achievement – what results did you achieve, how did they compare with past results or those of peers etc. What key steps did you take to achieve this – and what does this say about your strengths such as resilience, leadership etc. Why was this accomplishment important to you – did you set a new standard, or did you uncover hidden potential in yourself etc.

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