MIT-Sloan executive MBA essays analysis

Jul 27, 2010

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.

MIT EMBA essay questions 2010-2011

1. A statement of purpose, indicating your qualifications and why you are pursuing the MIT Sloan MBA for Executives. (500 words or less, limited to one page)

The part on your own motivation to pursue an EMBA and your professional background and qualifications is straightforward to answer. Highlight strengths such as leadership, global business experience and also show how you are prepared to handle the rigor of being back to academics and a demanding curriculum e.g.your past performance in high level training programs within your organization itself.

Given the next stage of your career goals, why do you think you need an MBA to get to these goals? For e.g. you may have acquired significant exposure and experience in a specific functional area in your industry, but lack the breadth of experience or general management exposure to be considered for top management roles. Considering that MIT EMBA program has just been launched, you have mostly their website to research regarding why you want to pursue this program. But bear in mind that the program will draw on the expertise of MIT Sloan’s well known faculty and their extensive real world business knowledge- plus how do you plan to utilize linkages such as MIT Sloan Fellows Program in Innovation and Global Leadership.

2. The educational mission of the MIT Sloan School of Management is to “develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world.” Please discuss how you will contribute toward advancing this mission. (500 words or less, limited to one page)

The answer to this prompt must emphasize your commitment to innovation, improving global business and the leadership role you will play in doing this. It sort of asks you about your long term goals in an indirect way, such that your goals are expected to bring about all of the above. Therefore, lay out the general direction for your career in the long term – how do you propose to encourage ethical business and innovation in getting to this goal? What kind of leadership role will you assume e.g. as an entrepreneur who sets up a solar energy company or as an investment banker who will champion new regulatory norms etc.

3. Please describe a time when you changed your opinion, and why. (500 words or less, limited to one page)

The Adcom wants to evaluate your analytical abilities through this -from the position where you held a certain opinion, because of particular reasons, how did you evaluate the situation which finally prompted you to change your opinion. Your answer must therefore, explain your earlier position and also the course of reasoning you followed which made you change your opinion. What were some compelling points which motivated you to do so? You could end by briefly stating what impact this had on you – how you felt when you had to change your opinion and what you learnt about how such a change affected you.

4. Please discuss an occasion when your resources and time were limited and you needed to achieve a significant organizational goal. What did you do, and how did you do it? (500 words or less, limited to one page)

All MIT EMBA candidates are expected to have at least a decade of professional experience, so selecting one such instance which fits the essay prompt should not be difficult. Describe the goal and what kind of resources you needed to achieve the given goal. What factors made such resources scarce e.g. you were setting up business in a new country and you needed to assemble a team very quickly. How did you meet the challenge – did you think laterally and come up with innovative ideas to beat the resource and time crunch? Finally, you could summarize your learnings in a line or two.

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