mba essay questions and answers

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MBA Essays: Everything You Need to Know

Scott Edinburgh - Personal MBA Coach

Scott Edinburgh is an mba.com Featured Contributor and the founder of Personal MBA Coach , a boutique MBA admissions consulting and tutoring firm.

Nearly all MBA hopefuls are familiar with the term “MBA essay”, but what exactly does this mean and why is the MBA essay so important? To help guide MBA hopefuls, Personal MBA Coach would like to answer some common questions about the MBA essays and share details on the most common MBA essay types.

Why do I need an MBA essay?

Beyond the obvious answer that nearly all schools require you to write one in order to be admitted, the MBA essay is your chance to show MBA admissions committee members who you are BEYOND the facts and figures. These essays are your opportunities to show what makes you unique, share your goals and discuss how you will add to the dynamic community at your target business school. 

Do I need different MBA essays for each program I apply to?

Unfortunately, YES! While there are some overlapping themes across the most common MBA essay types (more on this below), each business school has its own unique essays. Unless you are applying through an organization such as The Consortium (which has some specific requirements), you must complete a separate application for each MBA program and answer each school’s specific essay questions.

To make this daunting task more manageable, Personal MBA Coach helps clients identify common elements across essay types. Ultimately, however, you should develop a separate essay for each school you are applying to.

What should I write about in my MBA essay?

First and foremost, you should answer the question. It is surprising how often candidates write beautiful essays that do not actually answer the question. Instead of writing what you think admissions committee members want to hear, answer the question.

What are the most common MBA essay questions?

While there are countless different essay questions across MBA programs, the three most common types of essays questions are Goals Essays, Why an MBA? Essays, and Personal Story Essays. (Often one essay question will ask clients to discuss both their goals and why they want an MBA.)

Below, Personal MBA Coach shares our tips for answering each of these key essay types:

Goals Essay

When answering a question about your MBA goals , it is crucial that you are decisive . While no one will hold you to what you write in your MBA applications, you should have a specific post-MBA plan. For most schools, you will want a short-term and a long-term career goal. This goal should be logical for you. This means it should flow naturally from your passions and experience. If it doesn’t, it is crucial that you explain why this goal makes sense for you.

Finally, this goal should be attainable. You are not going to be the CFO of Pepsi two years after graduating from business school (sorry!). Do your research in terms of what position might be reasonable in your target industry.

Why an MBA? Essay

To answer a question about why you want an MBA or why you want to study at X school, you want to show that you have carefully thought through how an MBA (at your target program) will prepare you to achieve your career goals. To do so, Personal MBA Coach suggests being very specific in detailing the opportunities you plan to take advantage of on campus.

Discuss classes you are particularly interested in or perhaps professors you are looking to study with, etc. Do not include a laundry list. Instead, carefully think through how each offering will allow you to fill in your skill and/or experience gaps. Be sure to show an understanding of your target school’s culture and avoid writing vague statements and copying content from other MBA application essays.

Personal Story Essay

With a personal story essay, your objective is to show the reader how your story is unique and how you will add value and diversity to classroom discussions and on campus activities. This can be one of the hardest essays to write. To get started, Personal MBA Coach advises that you make a list of everything you have done in your life and take the time to write it all down. Then, think carefully about the decisions you have made, activities you enjoy and, most importantly, why you made those choices. Finally, look for a theme! What single idea connects these items? This is the hard part, so give it time.

How do you conclude an MBA essay?

Do not overthink the conclusion. In fact, with short word limits, Personal MBA Coach often advises clients to write just one concluding sentence or remove the conclusion altogether. Conclusions can be fluffy, generic or repetitive. You do not need (or want) to waste words here. If you have told your story well and you have addressed the question clearly and concisely, do not worry about the conclusion!

How far in advance should I start my MBA essays?

As soon as possible! It is never too early to start thinking about your MBA essays. In fact, Personal MBA Coach works with many clients 6 month – 3 years in advance through our Early Planning package, helping future applicants make the appropriate career and extracurricular decisions to ensure they have enough experience to write strong MBA essays.

That said, with diligence, some Personal MBA Coach clients are able to develop a compelling MBA essay within a month. (Keep in mind, this is a very compressed timeline and takes dedication to achieve!). Plus, you always want to leave time for proofreading and should avoid submitting your essays at the last minute. 

Founded by a Wharton MBA and MIT Sloan graduate who sits on the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants Board of Directors, Personal MBA Coach has been guiding clients for 14 years and is consistently ranked #1 or #2, currently holding the #1 ranking in the US on Poets&Quants.

We help clients with all aspects of the MBA application process including early planning, GMAT/GRE/EA tutoring, application strategy, school selection, essay editing and mock interviews. Our team includes a former M7 admissions director and former M7 admissions interviewers.

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Learn How to Answer MBA Essay Questions

By the time you sit down to work on your b-school applications, you’ve already laid much of the groundwork for your candidacy, and a lot of the pieces of your profile are already set. (There’s no going back in time to change your undergrad record!) But there’s one piece of the application that you have full control over: your essay. That can be intimidating.

But it’s also exciting. After all, your application essays are your chance to introduce yourself to the adcom – to explain your goals, to show what matters to you. In short, to help the adcom see you as the unique person you are: a person who belongs at their school.

Building on our experience coaching applicants like you to success at elite MBA programs, we’ve created our free guide, Top MBA Essay Questions: How to Answer Them Right . The guide is filled with specific and actionable advice straight from our admissions experts, breaking down each of the essay questions asked by top schools.

With so much depending on your b-school essays, why would you risk a flawed strategy? Especially when you can get our consultants’ expert analysis of each b-school’s questions – for free.

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• Acing the MBA Essay Questions – Tips & Reviews

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Focusing on Harvard Business School application essays written by candidates who won admission, our previous guide in this series presented general principles for writing compelling long-form MBA essays. However, this guide takes a different approach. In this article, we present specific tips for writing short-answer essays constrained by tight word limits.

The current trend in favor of the short-answer essay continues to gain momentum. Schools that currently require short-answer essays include the Harvard Business School, the Columbia Business School, and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Harvard only requires a 400-word short-answer essay from joint program applicants. At Columbia and Darden, all applicants must submit short-answer essays, and the word limits are brutally tight. For example, one Darden prompt imposes a 50-word limit, and one of Columbia’s questions only permits a 50 character response.

Below we present some effective strategies for writing short answer essays required by a popular MBA program: the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We selected Kenan-Flagler for several reasons, not the least of which is that UNC provides a good example of a school with a tradition of exclusively requiring the short-answer essay format for the past several years.

Moreover, Kenan-Flagler offers MBA@UNC, one of the finest online MBA programs in the world which currently holds the #1 ranking from U.S. News and World Report . But another benefit that makes UNC especially attractive to online MBA students involves the school’s liberal GMAT waiver policy. As we discussed in this guide , all applicants to UNC with five or more years of work experience automatically qualify for waivers, and 86 percent of a recent UNC incoming class of online MBA students won admission without either a GMAT or a GRE score.

For these reasons, the best-qualified candidates who are committed to the benefits of online graduate management education apply to UNC. In fact, data from U.S. News shows that UNC’s MBA applications during 2022 exceeded the school’s two closest competitors in the publication’s online rankings. About 45 percent more candidates applied to MBA@UNC than applied to the University of Southern California online MBA program, and more than four times as many applied to UNC than to Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School Online Hybrid MBA.

Clearly, a lot of applicants to both UNC’s on-campus and online MBA programs care about how they might win admission. Writing effective short-answer essays comprises a critical component of these candidates’ strategies.

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General tips for short-answer essay writing.

“Short” hardly means “easy.” The word limits often make writing compelling responses far more challenging. Here are a few general tips:

Case Study: UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School 2018-2019 Short-Answer MBA Essays

Question 1: Required (500 words)

Please respond to the questions below that will assist us in learning more about you:

• Part 1: Tell us what your immediate career goals are and how you will benefit personally and professionally from earning an MBA at Kenan-Flagler Business School.
• Part 2: As the business world continues to evolve, circumstances can change and guide you in a different direction. Should the goals that you provided above not transpire, what other opportunities would you explore?

Part 1 Analysis

More than 40 percent of MBAs switch to unanticipated industries after graduating, according to a 2022 report from the Graduate Management Admissions Council .

Given this new research we first reported on in our Guide to MBA Careers , it makes sense that admission committees would cut questions about long-term career objectives and ask about short-term objectives instead. The prompts about short-term goals like this one from UNC and other schools like Columbia reflect admission officers’ up-to-date awareness of this trend.

Nevertheless, this prompt contains a couple of hidden questions. Ostensibly the prompt only asks about short-term goals. However, it’s not effective to talk about short-term objectives without at least briefly suggesting how they fit within a larger, long-term context.

In the first sentence or two, candidates need to present a big-picture vision into which their short term objectives will fit. Then they need to declare their short term goal and establish a rationale for why that goal is necessary for them to achieve their long-term objective.

We agree with MBA Mission’s analysis that UNC next wants evidence from the candidate that they have thoroughly considered business school as their next career step, and the school expects the candidate to explain some very clear, specific reasons why this is a necessary step for them at this time.

The candidate needs to be careful not to discuss their background and explain how they reached such a choice; the question doesn’t ask about those aspects, and any more than briefly establishing a long-term context up-front will waste badly-needed space. However, an effective transition to the next section might talk about how the candidate’s career progress will continue to be hindered by personal and professional deficiencies that only the UNC MBA program can remedy.

The second hidden question amounts to asking, “Why UNC?” We would even suggest that most candidates will not be able to effectively write a compelling narrative that satisfies this admission committee without visiting the business school, attending several classes, and talking with professors and student ambassadors at some length. Indeed, this kind of trip seems even more essential for candidates applying to online MBA programs like MBA@UNC.

Furthermore, the narrative ideally needs to cite competitive advantages unique to UNC and emphasize that other business schools offer no viable substitutes that will benefit this particular applicant in comparable or better ways. The applicant should also portray how they aspire to interact with these features of the program and the benefits these features provide the candidate that will help them achieve their objectives.

Part Two Analysis

This question asks about a candidate’s “Plan B” career choice in the likely event that the “Plan A” short-term objective no longer seems attractive or satisfying.

The committee wants assurance, in the words of MBA Mission’s analyst, not only that “you are prepared to switch gears and recommit to a different path, if necessary, but also that you are fully capable of doing so.” That means the fallback career needs to appear “just as connected to your skills, interests, and ambitions as your original plan.”

In other words, the committee probably does not want to read that if a planned career as a management consultant with McKinsey fizzles, the candidate always wanted to write mystery novels, anyway. No, instead they want reassurance that the Plan B career plan is closely related to the original plan to seem practical and realistic.

For example, one possible option might involve a move to an internal consulting role working for a McKinsey client in the same industry sector in which the applicant practiced.

Question 2: Required (250 words)

The UNC Kenan-Flagler community lives by its core values: excellence, leadership, integrity, community, and teamwork.

• Pick a core value that resonates most deeply with you.
• Identify the most challenging situation that you have encountered and how you responded while upholding that core value.

This is a difficult topic made even more challenging by the severe 250-word constraint.

Like the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Kenan-Flagler is a values-driven school. The committee wants assurance that a candidate will fit with these values as Kenan-Flagler defines them, definitions which potentially differ somewhat from those that candidates might assume. For that reason, applicants first should study the school’s statement, Core Values in Action , and reflect on situations that had involved values defined in these ways. The prompt does not rule out interactions from one’s personal life as well as career.

Candidates need to select one of these five values with which they most deeply resonate—and that a particular challenge has threatened. Then, they need to explain how one or more potential ways of overcoming this challenge would have compromised their value. However, the candidate needs to illustrate how they didn’t back down, didn’t take the easy way out, and instead took steps that—despite added costs or consequences—upheld that value while nevertheless overcoming the threat.

The best situations show the candidate to be adept at managing tradeoffs by balancing business considerations with their values. Extremely imbalanced situations where the candidate displayed value leadership along with severely compromised business judgment probably will not offer the best choices for this narrative.

This is the kind of essay that lends itself to shocking introductions that grab the reader’s attention, as described in our previous essay guide . In other words, a dramatic moment of recognition might offer an effective plot device. Detailed narratives that explain one’s thought process, analysis, or considerations before key decisions or actions would also work well.

Douglas Mark

While a partner in a San Francisco marketing and design firm, for over 20 years Douglas Mark wrote online and print content for the world’s biggest brands , including United Airlines, Union Bank, Ziff Davis, Sebastiani, and AT&T. Since his first magazine article appeared in MacUser in 1995, he’s also written on finance and graduate business education in addition to mobile online devices, apps, and technology. Doug graduated in the top 1 percent of his class with a business administration degree from the University of Illinois and studied computer science at Stanford University.

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7 Common MBA Essay Questions and How to Tackle Them

There are a handful of business school essay questions that seem to capture the heart and imagination of many an MBA program.

It seems that, across the board, admissions committees feel these queries offer the best insight into the minds of their applicants. You are likely to see a version of one or more of these common MBA essay questions on your b-school application . These tips will help you craft the perfect answer.

1. Describe your specific career aspirations and your reason for pursuing an MBA.

This may be the most important essay question you tackle. You must convince the admissions committee that you deserve one of their few, cherished spots. Reference your background, skills, and career aspirations, demonstrating how this degree is a bridge to the next step in your professional life. Be sure to speak to how this particular program will help you realize your potential.

It's okay to present modest goals. Deepening your expertise and broadening your perspective are solid reasons for pursuing this degree. If you aspire to lofty goals, like becoming a CEO or starting your own company, be careful to detail a sensible (read: realistic), pragmatic plan.

Read More: Find Your Business School

2. What are your principal interests outside of work or school? What leisure and/or community activities do you particularly enjoy?

There's more to b-school than the library. The best programs buzz with the energy of a student body that is talented and creative and bursting with personality. These students are not just about case studies and careers. Describe how you will be a unique addition to the business school community.

B-school is also a very social experience. Much of the work is done in groups. Weekends are full of social gatherings or immersion experiences, and the networking you do here will impact the rest of your career. Communicate that people, not just your job, are an important part of your life.

3. Who do you most admire?

The admissions committee wants to know the qualities, attributes and strengths you value in others and hope to embrace. Drive, discipline and vision are fine examples but try and look beyond these conventional characteristics. Tell a story and provide specific examples. If you choose someone famous (which is fine), remember that you risk being one of many in the pile. Instead, consider a current boss, business associate, or friend. Know that your choice of person is less important than what you say about him or her.

4. Describe a situation in which you led a team. What challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?

The committee isn't looking to see how you saved the team through your heroic efforts (so put yourself on ego alert). They want to see how you helped foster an environment in which everyone contributes, illustrating that the sum is greater than its parts. B-schools like leaders, but they like leaders who can help everyone get along and arrive at a collaborative solution.

You should shift gears for this question. Almost the entire application process thus far has asked you to showcase "me-me-me." Now the focus of your story needs to be on the "we" and how you made the "we" happen.

5. Our business school is a diverse environment. How will your experiences contribute to this?

This essay gets at two concerns for the admissions committee: (1) how will you enrich the student body at this school and (2) what is your attitude toward others' diverse backgrounds?

Diversity comes in many shapes. If a grandparent or relative is an immigrant to this country, you can discuss the impact of his or her values on your life. Perhaps you are the first individual in your family to attend college or graduate school. Maybe you are involved in a meaningful or unusual extracurricular activity. Whatever you choose to write, it's vital that you discuss how it contributes to your unique perspective.

6. Describe a personal achievement that has had a significant impact on your life.

Don't pull your hair out just because you haven't founded a successful start-up or swum across the English Channel. Smaller accomplishments with a lot of personal significance are just fine if they demonstrate character, sacrifice, humility, dedication, or perseverance. A good essay describes how you reached a personal objective and what that meant to you. Maybe you didn't lead a sports team to a victory. Maybe the victory was that you made it onto the team .

Read More: 20 Must-Read MBA Essay Tips

7. Discuss a non-academic personal failure. What did you learn from the experience?

Many applicants make the mistake of answering this question with a failure that is really a positive. Or they never really answer the question, fearful that any admission of failure will throw their whole candidacy into jeopardy. Don't get crafty. You should answer with a genuine mistake that the committee will recognize as authentic.

Write about a failure that had some high stakes for you. Demonstrate what you learned from your mistake and how it helped you mature. This is a chance to show b-schools your ability to be honest, show accountability, and face your failures head-on.

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MBA Essay Examples, Tips, and Analysis

Y our MBA application essays are your best opportunity to share meaningful life experiences that hide in the “white spaces” of the resume and to tell admissions officers not only “what” you have achieved but also “why” those achievements are meaningful to you.

Your MBA application essays are going to be crucial if you are competing for a spot at one of the world’s top business schools.

These resources will show you how to excel in the rigorous MBA essay writing challenges ahead of you, provide you with the guidance to create MBA essays that will impress admissions officers, and share MBA essay examples that illustrate our advice in action.

Second, we survey the five most frequently asked MBA essay questions. We preview video essay questions and link to detailed guidance on how to tackle this emerging class of application essays.

Third, we will teach you how to choose topics and stories for your essays and share a story-outlining technique to help you tell those stories.

Common MBA Essay Forms: Persuasive versus Narrative Essays

There are two primary forms that MBA application essays take: persuasive essays and narrative essays. In a persuasive essay, you must persuade your reader that your argument is a sound one. An op-ed column in a newspaper is one example of a persuasive essay.

The classic “What Will You Contribute to the Class?” question is an excellent example of a persuasive essay question that MBA programs like to ask. The essay you write must persuade the admissions committee that you will enrich next year’s class. You will generally present evidence from past experiences and achievements to support your claims about what you can offer the MBA community.

The other style of essay you’ll encounter in your MBA applications is the narrative essay. Certain MBA essay questions don’t sound like questions at all; they are, in fact, an invitation for you to tell a story. We refer to these as narrative essays – but others call them behavioral essays or expository essays.

The Leadership Story Essay is a perfect example of a narrative essay. It’s one thing to claim to be a leader – but it’s quite another to show the admissions committee that you’re a leader by telling a captivating leadership story in which you played the starring role.

While MBA essays often fall into these two categories, the actual prompts will differ from school to school. Let’s discuss the five most frequently asked MBA essay questions. ↑ To the Top

The Five Most Frequently Asked MBA Essay Questions

Every business school application requires you to answer one or more MBA essay questions. Although the essay prompts differ from application to application, we identified five types of MBA application essay questions that appear again and again.

Career Goals Essays

A career goals essay question regularly appears in one form or another on just about every MBA application. Even if you aren’t required to write this type of essay, you will almost certainly be asked about your post-MBA career goals during an admissions interview.

Admissions committees ask about your career plans because they want to understand what you aspire to do after your MBA and how the MBA degree fits into your career plan. As it turns out, a strong career goals essay is one of the best tools in your application to stand out from MBA candidates who don’t have a compelling career vision or haven’t effectively articulated their professional goals in their MBA application essays.

Leadership Essays

Leadership essays are your absolute best opportunity to convince MBA admissions committees of your leadership abilities. Remember that MBA admissions officers will be interested in your leadership achievements both inside and outside of work.

You probably won’t be asked directly, “Are you a leader?” Instead, you’ll be asked to tell stories about your leadership achievements. When given the opportunity, you need to supply evidence that you can rally other people and motivate them to work together to achieve an important shared vision or goal. Therein lies the objective of a great leadership essay.

Why MBA? and Why Our School? Essays

The “Why MBA? Why Our School?” essay is your chance to convince admissions officers that their school is the perfect fit for what you need from an MBA program. The best answers to these types of questions are both personal and specific. You need to effectively convey what you are looking for in an MBA program and tell the admissions committee why their school will best satisfy your learning goals and help you achieve your career development objectives.

“What Will You Contribute?” Essays

The “What Will You Contribute?” essay presents you with an opportunity to tell the MBA Admissions Committee why you would be a valuable addition to their incoming class. The schools are looking for candidates who can put in just as much as they take out. One critical thing to understand when preparing to answer these questions is that concrete and tailored answers about what you can contribute to each MBA program are crucial.

Professional Experience Essays

The professional experience essay is an executive summary of your career thus far. A resume is a record of jobs and achievements — a Professional Experience Essay provides the connections and interrelationships between those jobs and brings your resume to life. An effective Professional Experience essay will give the admissions committee a sense of the career decisions you’ve made, your major achievements in each step of your career, and the skills and knowledge you’ve acquired along the way.

MBA Application Video Essays

MBA admissions committees are increasingly relying on technology to help them evaluate and manage their growing applicant pools. MBA application video essays are becoming a popular tool, as MBA programs can use them to learn far more about candidates than the traditional application permits. In recent years, leading MBA programs including Kellogg Northwestern , MIT Sloan , and Chicago Booth have incorporated a video component into their evaluation process. Video essays are excellent screening tools that allow admissions officers to assess candidates’ professional presence and communication skills.

Free MBA Essay Writing Course

Please enter your email below to gain 30 days of free access to our MBA Essay Writing course. Learn about the five most frequently asked MBA application essay questions and access our brainstorming tools and sample essays.

No matter which type of MBA essay question you are tackling, your primary objective is to provide evidence that proves you possess the qualities that admissions committees value most. By doing so, you will move one step closer to an acceptance letter from a top business school.

Now that you have a better picture of the classic MBA essay questions you’re likely to face, let’s cover selecting the strongest stories to present in your MBA application essays.

How to Choose the Best Stories for your MBA Essays

Story selection is something all MBA applicants wrestle with. When you first read the MBA application essay questions, it may be hard to figure out which topics to cover or which of your stories to tell. We’ll explain how to go step-by-step to choose your best stories. Here are the steps:

Research the School’s Fit Qualities

Categorize the question.

• Brainstorm Topic/Stories

Choose a Topic or Story

To choose your best stories, you need to know what qualities MBA programs truly value when evaluating applicants. You want to tell stories that prove to the admissions officers that you possess the attributes they seek in MBA candidates. We refer to these as the school’s Fit Qualities . You might think of them as the highest-common denominators among the candidates who are accepted.

Early in your MBA essay writing process is the time to make some strategic choices about which qualities and strengths you will put front and center in your MBA essays. If you attempt to feature all of your strengths, you run the risk that admissions officers will finish your essays with no clear idea of any of them. Instead, select three or four of the qualities that your research tells you the school you are applying to prizes most of all.

Second, study the essay question to determine if it falls into one of the five essay categories discussed earlier in this article.

By categorizing each question, you’ll have a better idea of what the admissions committee will be looking for in your response. You’ll know the criteria for scoring top marks in that essay style, which will guide your application essay design decisions.

Brainstorm Topics/Stories

Third, you are ready to start brainstorming potential topics and stories. Remember that your central objective is to find opportunities to feature the key elements of your application strategy .

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you to choose your best topic or story:

Are you the star of the story or supporting cast?

With very few exceptions, you need to write stories where you play the starring role. Don’t make the mistake some applicants make of writing a thrilling story about their parents’ hardships and triumphs, leaving little room for their own.

Did the experience occur recently?

It is usually best to choose stories that happened within the last three years. If an older story is incredibly compelling, then keep it on your list. However, bear in mind that admissions officers are rarely interested in reading about your high school glory days.

Does the essay feature several Fit Qualities?

Review your topic ideas objectively and ask yourself if they exemplify the school’s Fit Qualities. Because you’ll be limited to telling only a few stories, you’ll want to choose the ones that feature a few different Fit Qualities if at all possible.

Once you have selected your best stories, it is time to create an outline to organize your thoughts before jumping into the writing process. ↑ To the Top

How to Outline Your MBA Essay Stories

The persuasive essay writing style is prevalent in university and work settings, so it may have been some time since you were asked to write a story. For that reason, we want to share a powerful outlining technique called the STAR framework that will help with the “story-telling” essays you may be asked to write in your MBA application.

The STAR framework is designed to help you tell a concise story with a beginning, middle, and end.

The “S” in STAR stands for Situation .

The Situation is the time, place, and context of the story; you can think of it as the setting, but it might also include the broader challenge or conflict you or your organization faced. In essence, this is the set-up of the story.

“T” in the STAR acronym stands for Task . The Task is your role and goal in the story. What were you expected to accomplish by the end of the story? An effective story has built-in conflicts and complications.

The Action of the story is what admissions officers are really interested in because this is their chance to see your strengths and qualities in action. While it won’t be necessary to write down every step you took at the outlining stage, you’ll want to jot down the highlights.

Below is an MBA essay example told using the STAR framework. It outlines a story written by a candidate who served as a donation chair for a fundraising event for a non-profit organization.

Task: Assigning specific jobs to committee members, checking on their progress, helping teammates meet agreed-upon deadlines for obtaining the donations, and offering other assistance

Action: Motivated my team by having them meet Literacy Now children. Assigned tasks and checked in regularly. Successfully mediated team disputes. Visited 20 restaurants and called 12 wineries. Ensured deadlines were met.

Sample MBA Essays: MBA Applicant Beware!

MBA Prep School’s guide is replete with essay writing tips, and we do provide excerpts from sample essays to illustrate the most common MBA essay categories. However, while you will find page-after-page of helpful advice and building blocks for constructing your own original MBA essays and stories, we don’t publish an extensive catalog of MBA essays written by MBA Prep School’s past clients.

The problem with collections of sample MBA application essays is that they can mislead you into thinking that if you can just replicate one of those sample essays, you’ve got your golden ticket into business school. Unfortunately, the opposite can be true. The reason those essays “succeeded” is because they were an integral part of a complete story about an impressive human being whom the admission committee concluded belonged at their business school.

And the scary truth is that reading MBA essay examples might even harm your chance of admission for several reasons:

1. They might stunt your creativity and ability to express yourself. If you are trying to mimic someone else’s essays – the content, the style, or the approach – your story and voice are likely to get lost in the process. Admissions committees want to be impressed – but they want to be impressed by you. Feature the traits and tell the stories that depict “you” at your best.

2. Sample MBA essays can undermine your confidence in your MBA candidacy. The essays that get published as samples are often truly eye-catching, dramatic, and sensational – stories of exceptional accomplishment, rare feats, or extreme obstacles. It may seem, in comparison, that none of your stories stack up. The good news is that the whole package is what matters, not a single defining moment in a candidate’s life.

The last thing you need is to doubt your abilities or have a crisis of confidence when you’re trying to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). Trust in your own experiences and tell stories about what you – and only you – will bring to the MBA program.

3. Admissions officers can tell when you’ve “sampled” from sample MBA essays. The pesky thing about MBA admissions committees is that they’re filled with brilliant people who know how this game is played and what resources are available. They can spot themes and clichéd stories inspired by sample essay collections. More importantly, they can sense when you’re telling someone else’s story or when the story doesn’t ring true to your MBA application’s other elements. Don’t give an admissions officer reason to doubt your authenticity by risking even the appearance that you “sampled” from MBA sample essays that are swirling around on the Internet.

At MBA Prep School, we work with clients we believe in and help them tell their stories, not someone else’s. Remember that the MBA application process is not a storytelling contest; even if it were, the winners would be chosen based on the authenticity, originality, and integrity of the stories they tell!

Final Thoughts

Critics of MBA essays often wonder if they still have a place in the application process when admissions committees can rely on quantitative data points to choose among applicants. However, your transcripts, test scores, and resume are historical documents that only tell a fraction of the story. Your MBA essays represent a powerful opportunity to communicate your goals, strengths, reasons for applying, and potential contributions to the class.

The process of writing MBA essays provides you with a rare opportunity for self-examination and self-expression. Many applicants value the introspection required of them in the MBA essay-writing process and find they can better articulate their strengths and goals during their subsequent MBA interviews as a result. By putting ample thought and effort into brainstorming and writing your MBA essays, you will almost certainly increase your odds of being accepted to a top MBA program.

Related Articles: Essay Examples

• Career Goals Essay Example
• What Will You Contribute? Essay Example
• Why MBA? and Why Our School? Essay Example
• Leadership Story Essay Example
• Professional Experience Essay Example
• MBA Video Essays
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How to Answer 3 Common MBA Essay Questions (And Any Other Question)

The secret to effectively answering MBA essay questions is understanding what information the admissions committee is looking for and knowing how to give it to them.

As you prepare to apply for your MBA, you may notice different iterations of the same essay prompt appear on several of your applications. Why? Because most business schools generally want to know the same things about MBA candidates.

At first glance, it’s likely you’ll have knee-jerk responses to each query, but before you put pen to paper, it’s crucial that you take some time to reflect on your responses in order to avoid spilling 500 words of irrelevant personal information.

We know you’re reading this in order to gain insight on a few of the most common MBA application essay questions, but first, it’s important we give you the tools you need to formulate thoughtful responses that will woo the admissions committee.

How to Write an Impactful MBA Essay

→ Step 1: Get a head start before the application is released by making a list of the qualities you would most like to present to the admissions team.

Not sure which qualities to include? Here are some business schools like to see:

Intellect (emotional and/or analytical)

Self-Awareness

People skills

→ Step 2: Each question in your MBA application will pertain to a specific quality. As you read through the required essays, categorize the prompts according to the quality they relate to. For example, if the question asks about your community contributions, this is a service question. Be warned: They won’t all be this easy to categorize… But by taking the time to understand what each prompt is aiming for, you’ll be more likely to hit the bullseye with your responses.

→ Step 4: Here’s the part where it all comes together. Look back to the questions and the categories you assigned to each, as well as the stories you’ve brainstormed about the qualities you want to communicate. You likely have many questions and stories that overlap, so here’s a few tips on how to narrow it down:

Choose topics/stories that:

Have happened in the last few years.

Have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

Present you as the main character.

3 Common MBA Essay Questions and How to Answer Them

Warning: Don’t forget the formula above while you read this next section. Below, you will find a few common MBA essay questions and effective ways to tackle them. Keep in mind that these responses are not universal. What works for one applicant may not be right for you. It’s crucial you stay true to yourself. This will always result in the most successful MBA application.

→ Question 1: “Why an MBA?”

Right off the bat, this question may seem simple. If you’re applying to business school, you surely have reasons for wanting an MBA.... But not so fast. This question is less about describing your personal reasons for wanting an MBA and more about convincing the admissions committee that you need an MBA more than other applicants.

Here’s How:

Lay the foundation by discussing your background, skills, and future goals. Then, build a narrative about how this MBA is the next step in your personal evolution and the key to unlocking your full potential.

Pro Tip: It’s okay to have ambitious dreams… but at the risk of coming across as unrealistic, sometimes it’s best not to mention your aspiration of becoming a CEO in your application. It’s typically best to take the pragmatic approach. It’s okay to communicate more modest goals such as gaining new insight or having new experiences.

→ Question 2: “Tell us about a time when you showed leadership.” Leadership isn’t about telling your team members what to do. It also isn’t necessarily about saving the day. The best leaders do more than delegate and direct, they foster collaboration. Good leadership is not easy, so it’s your job to paint a clear picture of a time you showed proper leadership. Holding the title of ‘leader’ is not enough.

Remember what we said before about presenting yourself as the main character in your essays? This prompt is your cue to water that down a little. While it is still important to highlight your personal skills, discuss how those skills encouraged the success of your entire team. Another thing: Be sure to get specific about your experience. Generalities will not properly communicate that you understand what it takes to be a successful leader.

Any essay about leadership is most effective when the applicant demonstrates clear understanding of their personal leadership style. Before answering this question, do some research on different types of leadership. Ask yourself how you motivate others, the ways you influence your team, and how you communicate approval/disappointment. This will help you better understand how you navigate leadership roles, providing additional insight for your application.

→ Question 3: “What Makes You Unique?”

This question is not asking for any ol’ fun fact about yourself. When this appears on a business school application, it’s because the admissions committee wants to know how your background, ability, and training will contribute to their program. MBA programs are looking for diversity, so it’s up to you to stand out.

Here’s How: This is your opportunity to tell the admissions committee why they should accept you rather than why they shouldn’t reject you. The primary goal of this essay to paint yourself as the individual you truly are, and this can only be done by being true to yourself. Whether you are a first generation college student or dedicate your free time to volunteering, any positive personal stories that will help you stand out from the pile are fair game.

Pro Tip: When it comes to questions regarding diversity, it’s not enough to simply share a one-of-a-kind story about your life… You must always share t

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How To Answer MBA Interview Essay Questions

Nov 1, 2023

Harvard Business School’s Post-Interview Reflection

Mit sloan’s interview essays, chicago booth’s pre-interview video essay, yale som’s pre-interview quote, make sure you succeed in any mba interview.

UPDATE : This article was originally posted on November 22, 2018. It has been updated with 2023/24 information and tips below. 

After spending months fine-tuning your MBA application essays, you’ve finally received that long-awaited interview invitation — only to discover that now you need to write more essays!

Though not all schools utilize interview essays – essays that are required only of candidates invited to interview – they have become increasingly popular in recent years. With more and more competitive candidates applying every year, elite MBA programs are always looking for new ways to distinguish the “admits” from the “dings.” 

Though they may seem small and relatively unimportant at first, MBA interview essays are an important element of your overall application and should be carefully crafted. That’s why we’re sharing our top tips on how to approach and write your own MBA interview essays . By following these tips, you can ensure you stand out and land a spot at your dream school. 

Harvard’s post-interview reflection is perhaps the most well-known example of an MBA interview essay. Now with a suggested word limit, this open-ended question must be answered by all candidates that are selected to interview at HBS . 

As part of the application process, you will be required to complete a Post-Interview Reflection. Here are a few details:

• The Post-Interview Reflection is not intended to be another formal essay. Think of it instead as a reflection after a meeting.
• We will be much more generous in our reaction to typos and grammatical errors than we will be with pre-packaged responses. Reflections that give any indication that they were produced before you had the interview will raise a flag for us.
• We do not expect you to solicit or receive any outside assistance with this exercise.
• Your Post-Interview Reflection is due within 24 hours of the conclusion of your interview. Let the interview soak in a little bit…no need to start writing your reflection right at the conclusion of your interview.
• There is a word guidance of 300-450 words for the Post-Interview Reflection.

How to approach your answer

Since you only have 24 hours after your interview to prepare the essay, you might be tempted to write out your answer in advance and then make small adjustments later on. 

I personally love HBS’ admissions process because the school is incredibly clear and transparent about its expectations. For your essay, they couldn’t make it clearer that a pre-packaged answer will hurt your application: 

“ We will be much more generous in our reaction to typos and grammatical errors than we will be with pre-packaged responses. Reflections that give any indication that they were produced before you had the interview will raise a flag for us. ”

That’s because the Post-Interview Reflection (PIR) works best when it’s just that – a reflection on how your interview with the school actually went . 

Though we’re sure you diligently prepared for your big day , interviews have a way of going a little differently than expected. 

Last year, for example, our client Nathalia’s interview was so focused on her new international job that she only later realized she’d never told her interviewer her reasons for wanting to attend Harvard. In her PIR, she was able to address this topic, as well as a few other points mentioned in the interview that she wanted to further expand/clarify upon. 

This approach helped Nathalia get into HBS. 

As such, the best strategy for your PIR is to do your best on interview day and then calmly assess your performance afterward. After reflecting, you should consider including the following elements in your PIR: 

• A brief thank you for the opportunity to interview
• Any points you feel are relevant but were not able to discuss in the interview
• Any “mistakes” you’d like to correct or additional points you’d like to add
• How you feel you can contribute to the HBS community (if you were not able to mention this)
• Anything you learned about HBS during the interview or during your campus visit (if you interviewed in Cambridge)
• A closing paragraph that reinforces why you are so passionate about attending HBS. 

Essentially, after reading your PIR, the admissions committee at HBS should be convinced that you deeply reflected on your interview and your place in the HBS community, demonstrating you are exactly the type of candidate they are looking for!

Finally, though the HBS admissions committee states that they are more understanding of spelling and grammar errors, try to run your essay through software like Grammarly to avoid any unnecessary mistakes. 

Photo courtesy of @mitsloan on Instagram

MIT Sloan has also long required candidates who are called to interview to submit an additional essay. This year, MIT Sloan’s interview question is as follows:

REQUIRED QUESTION #1 (DIVERSITY)

The mission of the MIT Sloan School of Management is to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world and generate ideas that advance management practice. We believe that a commitment to diversity, inclusion, equity, and well-being is a key component of both principled leadership and sound management practice.

In 250 words or less, please describe a time when you contributed toward making a work environment or organization more welcoming, inclusive, and diverse.

At MIT, diversity is a core value . This means that at Sloan, you’ll constantly interact with people who think and act differently than you do. 

Succeeding in such an environment requires a great deal of adaptability and flexibility, as well as a willingness to learn from those who are different. This type of environment, however, is not for everyone, which is why MIT seeks to gauge how you respond to diversity in this essay. 

We suggest you start by considering the brand you are presenting to MIT and examine which examples about diversity you can share that will add value to the stories you told in your cover letter and video. Then, make sure you narrow this list down to your single best story . In a 250-word essay , you won’t have time to fully explore multiple examples, so limit yourself to one killer story. 

REQUIRED QUESTION #2 (DATA)

We are interested in learning more about how you make data-driven decisions and communicate results. Please select one of the following prompts to respond to. 

• Please select an existing data visualization and in 250 words or less explain why it matters to you. The data visualization should be uploaded as a PDF. Examples may come from current events, a business analysis, or personal research (e.g. climate change, COVID maps, etc).
• In 250 words to less, please describe a recent data-driven decision you had to make, and include one slide presenting your analysis. The slide may include a data visualization example and should present data used in a professional context. Your slide must be uploaded as a PDF.

Considering how short the MIT application is, you should also use this as another opportunity to add something new to your application. 

With this question, MIT seeks to understand how you are able to use data to make important decisions. MIT states that this example should come from data used in a professional context, so keep this in mind. When designing your slide, remember that you’re being judged on how you present the information visually, not on the data itself.

In your essay, make sure to explain how you analyzed the data and used it to make a decision . If you are not able to show how you applied the insights gained from the data you presented in a clear, concrete way, you may want to consider a different approach.  If you don’t have a job that requires you to use data on a regular basis, question 1 would be a better fit for you. If you do use data frequently at work, question 1 may still be a good option, but showing a real and measurable way in which you used data to make a decision is an excellent way to show the adcom you possess a great fit with their program. 

TOP TIP: Make sure not to share confidential information. If you need to “sanitize” the data, this is acceptable. 

Photo courtesy of @chicagobooth on Instagram

For several years running, Booth has asked candidates who move to the next application phase to submit additional materials before the interview. Like last year, you’ll need to submit your response in video format. 

Please submit a video response to one of the following two prompts:

• Tell us about something new you learned recently that shifted your worldview. How did it influence your behavior and/or actions?
• What is something you wish people knew about you, but you’re not sure that they do?

Please note the following:

• The length of the video response should be no more than 60 seconds.
• You will not be evaluated on the styling and editing of the recording, only the content of your submission. 
• Feel free to record the video with a cellphone, computer, or other video recording device. 

The most important task is first considering which prompts you will choose from each category , especially considering there is space for repeating themes. 

When looking at each category, choose the question that is both easiest to answer and that allows you to shed light on a new element of your profile. If you’ve already mentioned community service in one question, for example, perhaps avoid repeating community service as the theme in other answers.

Most importantly, consider what you want Booth to learn about you . Booth’s application – like its curriculum – is incredibly flexible , but it does mean that you can end up repeating themes from your essays unless you’re very careful and strategic in how you use each and every word the interview essays give you. 

Then, after choosing your best stories, use a condensed version of the STAR methodology to walk your reader through what your example is before ending with a final lesson or takeaway. 

TOP TIP : Start your video script by simply writing out the story and then refining the content/length. In our experience, applicants can comfortably speak 160-180 words in 60 seconds. You may also want to review some of these best practices to ensure you’re ready for your video debut. 

This is the first year that Yale SOM has asked candidates to send additional information when they are called to interview, though their format is highly unusual compared to the other business schools. 

Please submit a quote that has a special meaning or resonates with you. We ask that you submit this no later than 24 hours prior to your interview day.

Considering Yale SOM’s focus on values (after all, their essay question does ask you for the greatest commitment you’ve ever made), we see this as one more opportunity for you to demonstrate what motivates and drives your actions to Yale. 

Since they specifically did not ask for an essay along with the quote, we would imagine that the quote will factor into your admissions interview. Likely, the admissions committee will ask you why you chose the quote you did, so think carefully about how you would approach the quote in this context. 

As such, think about the story you might be able to connect to this quote and carefully consider how this story will add value to your profile. For example, if you volunteer, you may want to choose a quote that one of the people you helped said to you, as this can unlock the possibility to dive deeper into your extracurricular activities. 

Though you might not be practicing for your interviews, your competitors are. When you’re competing at such an elite level (and top MBA programs are about as elite as it gets), practice is the only way to get the edge you need. 

Working with highly-trained professionals, like our team of interview experts, can also be an excellent step to include in your interview process. 

• Maybe you don’t know where to start preparing.  
• Maybe you ramble on and lose your focus while answering. 
• Maybe you’re concerned about making errors, discussing your strengths, or addressing weaknesses.
• Maybe you’ve downloaded interview guides or have spent hours reading interview report forums—but still have questions and doubts. 

Our interview prep and practice service focuses on helping you determine what to highlight in your interview depending on the program while using appropriate, impact-driven language without being artificial, or worse, robotic. We also help you choose (and perfect) culturally appropriate examples based on the schools you’re interviewing for. 

As our former client Helena said:

 “ My husband and I applied for an MBA at INSEAD this year. We knew it would not be easy since we had a very small window, were applying in the 3rd round and only wanted this specific school. 

Ellin helped us with the preparations for the interviews and she really helped me organize my story, but the most special aspect was how Ellin inspired me to be more confident during the interviews. I would definitely recommend her to anyone interested in applying for an MBA! ” 

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MBA Personal Statement Workshop: Tips & Pitfalls

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There are a lot of things to think about when preparing your business school applications, but one stands out more than the rest: why do you want to get an MBA? It may seem like the question is obvious, but it’s often neglected and it’s important to have a cohesive answer before starting to put together your application.

Why It’s Important to Know Your Motivations for Business School

You may be wondering why you need to have an answer to this. Isn’t it sufficient that you’re motivated enough to apply? The answer is no, it’s not. Admissions committees want to admit students who really want to be there and will contribute to the program. Business school is a huge investment–both in terms of money and time–so you need to ensure that it makes sense in your long-term goals.

The word counts for application essays are pretty limited and understanding why you want an MBA will help you make the most of every letter. You’ll have an easier time sharing relevant past experiences, learnings, and stories that all tie into your future goals.

Also, thinking about “Why an MBA?” will help you understand a lot of your previous decisions in context, like why you picked the jobs you did, where you see yourself in five years, and what values are important to you.

It’s easier to be more confident in your decisions, and convey that confidence to the AdComs, if you know why you’re pursuing business school in general and the particular program specifically. You’ll have an easier time telling a compelling story and conveying a unique candidacy.

The Most Common Interview Questions of the Top 10 MBA Programs

Every MBA program looks for different qualities and characteristics when interviewing applicants. To help you prepare for each individual interview, we've compiled all the most frequently asked questions for the top business schools. Drop your email below and we'll send it straight to your inbox.

How to Start Answering this Question for Yourself

At the end of the day, getting to know your motivations for pursuing an MBA is an exercise in getting to know yourself. You can start from either the past or the future, whichever you find the most helpful.

From the Past

First, ask yourself why you made the choices you have so far. Write out some of the most impactful decisions in your life and what they show about your values and aspirations. Think about common themes and patterns that connect the different points in your work experience and educational journey thus far. Don’t be afraid to go all the way back to childhood; this should not be a 15-minute exercise, but rather a days-long process.

From the Future

Picture yourself at age 80 in a rocking chair contemplating your life. What are the most precious memories and achievements that you would want to share with your grandkids? What will you reminisce about the most? What would make you think that you’ve made the most of your time on Earth? Is it a financial, social, or political goal? There is no wrong answer, as long as it remains true to who you are.

If you’re not certain, it’s okay. You don’t need to have a completely solidified twenty-year plan; simply give the AdCom an idea. It’s more important that you show initiative and ambition than a step-by-step roadmap of your career path.

Whatever you choose to write about, make sure that you are being vulnerable. Personal elements help the reader get to know you and your story. The essays are the one part of the application that is completely within your control and portray a human, rather than a list of accomplishments.

Almost everyone applying to an M7 degree program will have a stellar resume and it will be a lot more difficult to stand out there than in your essays. Remember that your essay may be the fiftieth one that the admissions committee member is reading that day. How can you make yours remain interesting and stand out, even when the reader is tired and at the end of a long day? Dig deep, and spend a lot of time reflecting on your story.

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Be comfortable with knowing that your “why” is not set in stone and can change. In fact, it will very likely evolve entirely throughout your MBA program and after graduation. It doesn’t need to be grandiose, but rather what uniquely motivates you.

My grandma used to say, “I don’t care that much what path you pursue; but, whatever you do, be passionate about it and try to excel.” This advice applies perfectly to your business school applications.

Don’t seek pity or sympathy and don’t try to come off as the smartest or most accomplished applicant. Neither of these tracks is likely to translate into a compelling application. Stay true to yourself and write from the heart, rather than focusing on what you think the AdCom wants to hear.

Understanding why you want to get a business graduate degree is the first step toward submitting a cohesive application, and the importance of spending time on reflection is not to be underestimated.

If you’d like personalized guidance on any part of the MBA application process, I’d love to work with you on Leland. I’ve been coaching for ten years and am passionate about helping others become the best versions of themselves. Head to my profile and book a free intro call to get started.

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5 Expert Tips for the "Why Stanford?" MBA Application Essay

Discover 5 expert tips to help you craft a compelling "Why Stanford?" MBA application essay that sets you apart from the competition.

Personal MBA Coach’s Guide To Writing Winning MBA Application Essays

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As class of 2023 MBA hopefuls put pencil to paper (so to speak) on their MBA application essays, I would like to help candidates get back to the basics with an MBA Application Essay Writing 101. Below, Personal MBA Coach would like to share our tips for how to approach the essay writing process, plus five key guiding principles to consider.

How to Approach the Essay Writing Process

Personal MBA Coach advises our candidates to follow a 5-step process as they develop their application essays, leaving adequate time for each stage.

Step 1. Brainstorm

Brainstorm each question one at a time. For those applying early decision, start with ED essays first. Otherwise, begin with the easiest essay as your writing will improve throughout the process. As you develop potential topics, consider relevant strengths, hobbies, passions, and experiences.

Step 2. Outline

Before you begin to develop prose, outline the key points you hope to cover. Pay special attention to flow and length here. (Hint: a 250-word outline is too long for a 500-word essay.)

Step 3. Draft

Once you have a solid outline, begin to put together your first draft. At this stage, it is ok if your writing is not perfect. Most first drafts should and will be a bit longer than the final product. For your early versions, be sure that your points flow well and are easy to follow. Do not worry about grammar, spelling, and other minor errors.

Step 4. Edit Again & Again

This is the longest part of the essay writing process. Edit your essays as many times as it takes to get them right. Finalize general content and flow, then begin to focus on fine-tuning your writing. If your essay is not working, do not be afraid to start over. You may need to repeat steps 1-3 multiple times.

Step 5. Proofread

Always ask someone unfamiliar with your work (and ideally your industry) to read over your essays. You will need a fresh set of eyes to catch all mistakes. Personal MBA Coach uses proofreaders for each MBA application for this reason.

Now that you have the overall writing process down, let’s look at some key tips to keep in mind as you develop your essays.

Personal MBA Coach’s Essay Writing Guiding Principles

1) answer the question asked.

It is surprising how often candidates write beautiful essays but do not answer the question. Instead of writing what you think admissions committee members want to hear, answer the question. While thinking a bit outside of the box and considering the why behind an essay prompt is advised, first and foremost you must answer the question.

2) Write authentically

Do not write what you think admissions committee members want to read. There is no one perfect candidate profile. Instead, your uniqueness will be one of your greatest selling points. Your essays should paint a clear picture of who you are, what motivates you, and what you are passionate about. Do not feel compelled to show how you fit the mold that seemingly makes up the “ideal” candidate. If you have no desire to run a non-profit, that is ok. If you are not motivated by improving the environment, do not pretend you are. Readers will see right through this and you could end up doing more harm than good.

3) Be succinct and avoid repetition

Keep in mind that the essays are just one part of the application. In addition to submitting an MBA resume (unsure how to write an MBA resume? Check out these tips ), most schools will have you fill out a detailed application. This means admissions committee members will read about everything you have accomplished, all the roles you have held, and the awards you have won. There is no need to try to fit this all into your essays. So instead of squeezing in as much as you can, focus on sharing a few key highlights and adding the details as well as your voice. This is your chance to explain your choices, show your accomplishments, and share your passions. The fewer things you try to cover in your essays, the more you will be able to achieve this objective.

4) Keep your language approachable

The terms you regularly discuss at the office may be foreign to others, including admissions committee members. When in doubt, do not assume the reader is familiar with everything about your job. Focus on language that is more general and easier to use to compare you to other applicants. Admissions committee members do not need or want all of the technical details anyway.

5) Limit flowery prose

Similarly, we often read complex flowery prose. You are not submitting your essays for a Pulitzer prize or applying to become a professional writer. Instead, you are telling your story. While of course, you want your essays to be well written and free from grammatical mistakes and typos, you also want them to be relatable and easy to follow. Everyone from your grandmother to a professor of microfinance should be able to understand your essays. They should also convey why you are someone others would want to study with, learn from, and eventually be inspired by. That type of person is human and down to earth. Your essays should show this.

Scott Edinburgh is a Wharton MBA and MIT Sloan BS graduate and founded Personal MBA Coach 15 years ago with the goal of providing customized one-on-one support. Scott also serves on the Board of Directors for AIGAC, the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants, and is invited to speak at MBA Admissions events globally. Our clients have been accepted to all top schools globally with a 96% success rate. They received $6.5M+ in scholarships last cycle.

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.

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7 Typical MBA Essay Questions and How to Answer Them

Many modern students choose MBA programs because such major can give you a good kick-start to your career and all the necessary skills and knowledge.

However, there is a nuance to keep in mind. Many business schools are considered to be prestigious educational institutions, and thus, applying to them may be a bit more challenging than you expected.

One of the main issues that applicants face is difficult MBA essay questions. Of course, you can choose to order an essay online instead of writing it, but, in any case, it is beneficial to know how to answer these questions, as this will give you more confidence.

Different schools can provide different MBA essay questions. However, they always have something in common. In this article, we will take a closer look at some of the most common MBA essay questions, explain what is expected from you, and give you some useful tips on how to handle these questions with ease.

“Why are you choosing MBA” questions

This is one of the most often asked questions, and thus, it is one of the most important ones. The admission committee wants to hear why you deserve to study in their school. If you were asked to write an essay on this topic, don’t hesitate to highlight your skills and knowledge, talk about your career goals, and explain how the particular school and program can fully realize your professional potential.

Questions related to your personal accomplishments

It doesn’t have to be something huge. It is much better to write about a small accomplishment that is very significant to you, and that shows your good qualities that are valued by the particular school and its community.

Questions related to your interests, hobbies and extracurricular activities

Every school, college or university is a community. And schools often want to see their students as bright and versatile personalities, so you should prove that you are here not only to read books and attend classes but also to become a part of the community. And don’t hesitate to tell how talented and creative you are.

Questions related to challenges and failures

Many students have a wrong approach to this question. But don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes, as it is exactly what is expected from you! Tell what happened, how you handled it, and how this experience helped you (or can help in future). Your goal is to be as honest as possible and show the committee that you can admit your mistakes, draw a conclusion, and learn from your failures.

Questions related to your leadership skills

Every businessperson is a leader! And the admission committee wants to see whether you have leadership skills. Usually, this question will be related to the teamwork somehow, and you will have to talk about a situation in your life when you have helped a team to create a healthy environment, collaborate with each other, and together contribute to finding a solution. In such essay try to focus on the team, instead of talking only about yourself.

Role model related topics

Who is a role model for you? Your answer to this question will help the committee to find out what qualities you value in other people, but try to stay away from clichés to make your essay stand out. Provide clear examples and try to go beyond the “traditional characteristics”.

Questions related to contribution and diversity

As was mentioned earlier – school is a community, and your answer to this question must indicate two important things:

• How you treat people with different background;
• How can you contribute into the enriching the school’s community.

Here, you can discuss pretty much anything that shows that you are a diverse person with strong values and desire to make a contribution to the society.

Final words

Now you know what to expect from MBA essay questions and know how to handle them, so go ahead and follow your dreams. Good luck!

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2 Clever Responses to MBA Short-Answer Essay Prompts

A great MBA short-answer essay typically includes personality, not just facts.

2 Clever MBA Short-Answer Essays

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Individuality is a key component of a compelling short-answer MBA essay, experts say.

MBA hopefuls who are filling out business school applications often feel intimidated by short-answer essay prompts with tight word limits. However, B-school admissions officers say that essay prompts with length restrictions help applicants hone in on the ways they can contribute to an MBA class .

Fitting a sales pitch into a tight space can help applicants discover their most attractive selling points, admissions officers say.

"You really do have to think about what are the must-communicates versus the nice-to-communicates," says Isser Gallogly, associate dean of MBA admissions and program innovation at New York University's Stern School of Business .

[See: 10 Mistakes to Avoid in MBA Applications .]

Gallogly says that Stern's "Pick Six" essay, which asks MBA applicants to select six images that represent their identity and briefly describe what each image symbolizes, allows applicants to highlight the reasons why they would be a valuable addition to an MBA cohort.

Here is an image and caption from a "Pick Six" essay that impressed Gallogly. The essay's author, Sebastian Hooker, is a student in Stern's Andre Koo Technology and Entrepreneurship MBA program.

Hooker, who enjoys skiing and mountain biking, says the reason he included this photograph and caption in his MBA application is because he wanted the admissions committee to know about his appreciation of nature. The photograph shows Hooker exploring an ice cave in Oregon.

Provided by NYU's Stern School of Business, created by NYU student Sebastian Hooker

"I have always lived my life with a, 'Work Hard, Play Hard' attitude and will continue to seek awe-inspiring experiences in the great outdoors," Hooker wrote.

Hooker, who grew up in Utah, says he wanted to make clear that if he attended business school in New York City, he would continue pursuing his outdoor hobbies. "I'm not going to move to the concrete jungle and become a 100 percent city-driven person," he says.

Hooker says that outdoor adventures typically require careful planning, and that he's had to work hard professionally in order to earn the money necessary to fund these expeditions. "It's something that's really important to me, and it's something you have to make time for," Hooker says.

Individuality is a key component of a compelling short-answer MBA essay, experts say, because it ought to tell admissions officers something that they cannot learn from a candidate's transcript or resume.

[See: 10 Ways to Ace the MBA Admissions Interview .]

Ben Strickhouser, an incoming second-year MBA student at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business in Pittsburgh, says the key to answering a short-answer essay question effectively is staying true to your identity.

"You want to be authentic in the way that you answer the question, so most likely the first thing that comes to mind whenever you read this question is what you want to put, and then you just need to spend a little bit of time to make sure that it's put in an eloquent way," Strickhouser says.

Here is how Strickhouser responded to an essay prompt asking how he would introduce himself to an MBA admissions officer if he was sitting next that officer at an airport during a layover. The prompt indicated that the maximum word count for this essay was between 300 and 350.

I've spent the last five years working in operations. I’m ready to make a pivot in my career so that I will be in a position to affect organizational decisions and implement improvements.

Due to my obligation to the United States Merchant Marine Academy, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to numerous places during my short five year career. I've worked in nine countries on three continents and sailed the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Working in these different places has been an incredible experience. Even more incredible are the people with whom I’ve been able to work.

While seeing a foreign land and learning the culture are invaluable experiences, nothing compares to what you learn when you work with someone from another culture. This is a time when you learn how people truly act and feel. From the Philippines to Poland and the Ivory Coast to name just a few, I have had the pleasure to work with a truly diverse group of people. The most important thing that I’ve learned from them, something I could never have learned on my own, is perspective.

Pins on your travel map mean nothing if you don’t take the time to talk to the people who live there. Working and of course living onboard a ship in such close proximity to diverse individuals allowed me the opportunity have in depth conversations with them and understand why they feel the way they do.

The Navy has taught me many great lessons about leadership and allowed me to practice them on a daily basis, but it is my time in the private sector around the world that's truly shaped how I am as a leader. I know that these experiences have given me the empathy to be able to step back and consider all of the factors when confronted with a problem, not just the quick and easy solution. I believe this is my greatest strength to bring to Tepper.

Kelly R. Wilson, executive director of masters admissions at the Tepper School of Business, says this essay is excellent because it demonstrated that Strickhouser would have an interesting perspective to share and the capacity to learn from his classmates.

Wilson says that MBA applicants shouldn't worry about responding to a short-answer essay prompt correctly. "What I think is important for the candidate to remember is that there is no single right answer to these short-answer questions," she says. "Too often, the candidate thinks that there is the perfect answer and that there is a single ideal candidate. Neither of those is true."

Soojin Kwon, the managing director of full-time MBA admissions and program at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor's Stephen M. Ross School of Business , says that B-school hopefuls can use short-answer essays to demonstrate their ability to write concisely.

Kwon says MBA admissions officers like to see evidence that MBA applicants can communicate succinctly and clearly, because MBA courses usually require brief, straightforward essays as opposed to lengthy, abstract treatises.

[Read: Learn From an Accepted MBA Applicant's Resume .]

"It's business writing," Kwon emphasizes. "It's getting to the point quickly, doing it clearly and having a good structure."

But Kwon warns that, even in very short MBA essays like the 100-word essays her school requires, it's important for MBA applicants to not only describe events in their lives, but also explain the lessons they have learned.

Some applicants make the mistake of simply recounting a life event without reflecting on why the event matters, Kwon says. "It will almost be like a grade-school essay," she warns.

Applicants should go beyond mere description and explain the significance of their experience, Kwon says. She suggests that MBA applicants write something along these lines: "This happened and here is what I learned from it, or here is how it has shaped me today.'"

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Tags: MBAs , business school , education , students , graduate schools

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