MBA Admission Essay Samples

MBA Admission Essays: Sample #1

Prompt from Wharton Business School: Considering your background – personal, professional, and/or academic – how do you plan to make specific, meaningful contributions to the Wharton community? (400 words).

Fifteen years ago, after graduating from high school, I left Tanzania and moved to the United States because I wanted to study multimedia marketing, and my research told me there was no better place to learn. I moved halfway across the world at the age of seventeen to follow my dreams of becoming an advertising expert and opening my own firm one day.

It took me some time to find my footing in the US. I often felt isolated and confused. Sometimes, it was little things. For example, I remember the first time I went into a grocery store and found that the food was measured in pounds. I grew up using the metric system, so instead of spending twenty minutes in the store as planned, I spent almost an hour because I had to calculate the weight of things.

Other times, it was bigger things that made me feel isolated. Like the second time I went to that same grocery store and asked a young woman who worked there where I could find scallions, she responded with a blank stare. After I explained what they were, she informed me that they are called spring onions and that if I was going to live in America, I should learn to speak English, or I could go back to where I came from.

I always made it a point to try and learn as much as possible about the places I visited to ensure that I didn't make anyone feel uncomfortable or end up feeling uncomfortable myself. I eventually found the International Student Association at the University of X, where other international students embraced me and introduced me to American students with whom I am still friends to this day. One of whom I fell in love with and married.

My experiences as an international student helped me understand the importance of being welcomed and having access to information. I know that 30% of Wharton business school's student body comprises international students and that every year, it welcomes more. I would like to join the efforts of the students who help make their transition to life in America easier.

Furthermore, I believe that my experiences have taught me to be more open-minded. I look forward to sharing my point of view with students from all over the world and having the chance to learn from them too. (396 words)

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MBA Admission Essays: Sample #2

Prompt from Harvard Business School: Briefly tell us more about your career aspirations. (300 words)

My long-term career goal is to advise small businesses in my community and help them grow. I have been working as an associate business advisor with a local bank for almost a decade, and one of the many things that I have learned from this position is that several business owners do not have access to information that can go a long way toward improving, and sometimes even saving, their businesses. 

Having grown up in a relatively underserved community, I understand the importance of supporting local businesses and ensuring that we reinvest in our own communities. However, as a consumer, I also understand how difficult it can be to do this when there are cheaper and faster ways to access the same products or services that a local business offers. 

Over the years, I have built and maintained relationships with over 100 business owners in various industries and helping them manage their finances has taught me about business financial planning. Furthermore, I have had the opportunity to build practical experience through an internship with a local consulting agency.

I believe that these experiences have given me a solid foundation, but to achieve my goal of becoming a business consultant and helping small business owners, I need to learn more about business administration and management. 

I chose to apply to the Harvard Business School MBA program because it has a rigorous curriculum emphasizing real-world experience through the FIELD immersion program and partnerships with other institutions. This is the perfect program for a person like me who learns by doing. 

I am ready and eager to take this next step in my career so that I can help those around me get the most out of their businesses. I believe that this is the perfect program to help me improve on the skills required to achieve my goal.

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MBA Admission Essays: Sample #3

Prompt from Kellogg Business School: Kellogg’s purpose is to educate, equip & inspire brave leaders who create lasting value. Provide a recent example where you have demonstrated leadership and created lasting value. What challenges did you face, and what did you learn? (450 words)

As one of six operations managers in a contact center, I spend most of my days making decisions that are meant to create lasting value. I lead a team of thirty employees, and my job is to maximize efficiency by ensuring that we have enough employees to provide the service requested by our clients and that the employees have everything they need to do their jobs well.

I was promoted to this role a year ago, and one of the issues I wanted to tackle was our high turnover rate. I know that contact centers have notoriously high turnover rates, but instead of the expected 30 - 40%, we were averaging a rate of 60%. This was not only costing the company a lot of money, but it was reducing the quality of the service that we could provide for our clients.

I spent months pouring over the numbers, trying to understand why we were losing so many employees and what we could do to change it. We pay our agents above market average, give employees good health benefits and vacation time, and hold several contests and competitions to keep them motivated.

After a few months of analyzing the data and finding nothing, I decided to go straight to the source. I changed the company's exit strategy procedure. Instead of a conversation between exiting contact center agents and their former supervisors, they would simply fill out an anonymous survey online that only a few people had access to.

The comments on these surveys helped me understand that the issue actually came from our hiring practices. Most of the comments showed me that many of our new recruits were not understanding the role they were signing up for. So, they would begin working, find something completely different from what they expected and decide to leave.

This information allowed me to take the lead and make some changes that benefited the whole company. I worked with an HR consultant to create better job descriptions that all the different managers now use when hiring contact center agents. Our turnover rate is now 22%, which is lower than the national average for contact centers. 

I pride myself on my ability to look at problems objectively and approach them from different angles until I find a solution. In this case, I was able to do the same thing, and in the process, I learned the importance of asking questions and looking beyond the numbers.

I am conscious of the fact that I still have a lot to learn, and I am eager to do so because I know that the knowledge I gain from this program will help me do right by my team. (449 words)

Check out more Kellogg MBA essay examples!

MBA Admission Essays: Sample #4

Prompt from Columbia University: Tell us about your favorite book, movie, or song and why it resonates with you. (250 words)

When I first started writing this essay, I began by writing a list of all my favorite books. I had filled about two pages with titles when I realized that I don't have one favorite; I have several. I initially told myself that I should talk about a business book, or something related to finances, but as much as I enjoy such books and as much as I learn from them, they are honestly not my favorites. 

After careful consideration and a few pro-con lists, I decided to write about one of the books that I have read and enjoyed multiple times: The girl with the louding voice, by the Nigerian author Abi Dare. This book follows a young girl from a poor and remote community as she tries to raise enough funds to get an education and use what she calls her 'louding voice.' Her story is both heartbreaking and inspiring. 

This particular book resonates with me so much because it reminds me of the importance of literacy and that millions of young girls worldwide do not have access to education. A cause that I am very passionate about.

I have and continue to donate my time and money towards changing things for the better. That is why I started an initiative in our publishing house to distribute books in underserved areas and underfunded schools. I hope that the knowledge and know-how that I will gain from your MBA program will allow me to do even more to help. (250 words)

Want to see more MBA admission essays from the best MBA programs in the US?

• More Columbia MBA essay examples
• Chicago Booth MBA essay examples
• Haas essay examples
• Stanford MBA personal statement examples
• Kelley MBA essay examples
• Yale MBA essay examples
• Cornell MBA essay examples

Conclusion

As you can tell from the different essays you just read, business schools can ask MBA applicants about various topics. Sometimes, the same school might even give you several different prompts and ask you to choose a few from the list. Harvard MBA personal statement prompts are a great example of this. It is therefore important to review as many MBA admission essay samples as possible to get inspiration and familiarize yourself with the proper structure of an admission essay.

We would be remiss if we did not remind you that while looking at MBA admission samples for inspiration is great, you should not use these essays or parts of these essays as your own. Not only is this unethical, but universities can detect plagiarism, and it can have severe consequences.

After reviewing examples, you should start by brainstorming for your own essay. Think about the experiences and motivations that have led you to apply for an MBA program and your reasons for choosing each particular MBA program that you are applying to. You can then use this information, along with examples and anecdotes from your academic and professional background to create an MBA admission essay that will stand out.

We recommend that you give yourself at least six to eight weeks to go through this process. If you're unsure how to craft your own essay, invest in MBA admissions consulting. The consultants can guide you through the brainstorming, writing, and editing process to help you ensure that you are submitting an essay that is not only compelling but original. Thus, improving your overall chances of getting into your chosen MBA program. 

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