Stanford Essays Analysis 2010-2011

Jul 08, 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.

Stanford essay questions 2010-2011

1. What matters most to you, and why? (750 words)

There are two important parts -’what matters’ and ‘why’. Both these must be well connected, logically and through the examples you give, so choose the answer to ‘what matters’ carefully. Also, be genuine, and do not try to appear lofty. You could talk about a value/principle that you strongly believe in e.g. integrity at the workplace or a goal that you are deeply committed to e.g. social entrepreneurship. Trace the genesis of why and how this particular value/goal became important to you. With examples, show how you practice this value/ are working towards the goal.

2. What are your career aspirations? What do you need to learn at Stanford to achieve them? (450 words)

Stanford GSB offers a degree in general management with the option of tailoring your courses to meet your specific needs including course planning mentoring by faculty. – Therefore be sure not to say that “I intend to specialize in Finance etc’. That said, what direction do you wish to give your career post the Stanford MBA – e.g. do you wish to work in the healthcare or consumer products industry? What is your current skill set and to achieve your career goal, what specific additional skills/competencies that you want to add at Stanford? In what way does Stanford offer you a unique advantage in doing this, e.g. the right mix of courses (for which you should give examples), access to certain companies/industries (again, give examples), a practicum on leadership/entrepreneurship etc

3) Option A: Tell us about a time when you built or developed a team whose performance exceeded expectations. (300 words)

As this and the next three essays are short ones, be precise and specific.

Start by stating the purpose for which your team was formed and what the expected deliverables from the team were. Compare the actual results achieved against these to show how your team excelled. What was your role vis-a-vis the team- were you the designated leader or maybe you took on an informal leadership role? What steps did you take to motivate the team and what was your personal interest in doing so? Did you come across roadblocks and as a leader how did you help your team to surmount these? You can end by briefly mentioning what this leadership experience taught you.

3) Option B: Tell us about a time when you made a lasting impact on your organization. (300 words)

The key word here is ‘lasting’. This is not just about meeting your routine work goals but rather being responsible for significantly affecting the organization. Maybe you suggested an innovative work practice which had far reaching impact, or due to your efforts, your company secured a major client. You could organize the essay to first briefly explain your accomplishment/initiative and how it has made a lasting impact. Thereafter, elaborate your role in this, highlighting the special efforts you might have put in or your unique talents/ideas which made this possible.

3) Option C: Tell us about a time when you generated support from others for an idea or initiative. (300 words)

Are you a persuasive leader and how do you respond in the face of opposition to your ideas? Try to bring out these elements in this essay. What was your initiative and in what form did you need the support of others to achieve your result? What might have happened if you did not succeed in getting their support? If you met with resistance to your initiative, how did you go about overcoming this? You could round off by summarizing upon the measures you took to reach out to the group and what the whole experience taught you.

3) Option D: Tell us about a time when you went beyond what was defined, established, or expected. (300 words)

First of all, why did you make the extra effort to go beyond the expected? In what way was the outcome particularly meaningful to you which made you strive to better yourself? Give a comparison of what was the expected outcome and to what extent you exceeded meeting this outcome. In doing so, what skills/abilities did you use and what personal qualities such as perseverance, risk-taking etc helped you go beyond? Finally, did you set a new standard through your efforts – you could mention this.

If you require any help with your Stanford MBA application, please check out ApexWriters’ MBA essay editing and admissions consulting services. Our complete application package includes brainstorming discussions on your profile and application strategy, essay editing for Stanford, resume editing and critique on recommendation letters (if available). You can buy the package of your interest at Stanford MBA Application Packages.