INSEAD Essays 2011 - 2012 Tips and Guidance

INSEAD, with campuses in Asia and Europe, has a 10-month MBA program, and their first round deadline is coming up soon, on September 28th!

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

• Questions 1 & 2 go together; between the two, they should cover the breadth of your professional experiences, as well as be an articulate point-in-time snapshot of your career as it stands today
• Regardless of whether you are an individual contributor, or the manager of a small or large team, be candid about your day-to-day; the AdCom really wants to understand what you do
• Re-read your answer to confirm that it would make sense to someone who knows little about your industry or function; start at the top and provide some context if necessary

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

• Very similar to question 1, even more important to (a) provide context about your industry, function, role and (b) avoid technical jargon, especially if it comes across forced. 

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

• Try to limit to two strengths and two weaknesses 
• The best essays will have a coherent description of your personality - supported by some examples - where the strengths and weaknesses will jump out to the reader without being called out explicitly. 
• It's important that all of these attributes come together to describe you!  Avoid sounding bipolar or schizo as you describe it

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

• Covered in our HBS Essay Question Review

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

• Also similar to the HBS question on setbacks - don't try to disguise behind a strength or accomplishment - remember, it's not as important that you failed in the major leagues than that you played in them!

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

• Three parts - describe the path that you're on, what skills you need to add to your repertoire, and tie it in to INSEAD's offerings
• Especially if your career goals include high-buzz areas like "micro-finance", "renewable energy", or a high-tech entrepreneurial project, a word of caution:  please make sure it's clear how your path so far, and future goals are tied together - a LOT of people have similar goals, so it's important to distinguish yourself!

Please choose one of the following two essay topics:

a) Have you ever experienced culture shock? What did it mean to you? (250 words approx.), or

• Why do schools ask this culture shock question?  They do it to understand what you've adapted to you in your past - so it doesn't have to be moving to a new country - it could be a new job in a very different industry, a new culture, etc. 

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

• Great question - regardless of what country you're from!  Strongly recommend that you answer this - your opportunity to make your country sound welcoming, exciting and warmly embracing.  Think of how you'd project it to a classmate - and you'll get great results!

Cambridge Judge Essay Questions 2011 - 2012 - Tips and Guidance

Looking for a year long general management program?  Cambridge's Judge Business School would be an excellent choice.  Their first round deadline is also early, on September 23rd.

What are the key issues facing organisations in your sector over the next three years? What course of action would you recommend to such organisations? (300 words)

• The balance you have to strike in this question is being in-depth enough (which sometimes requires the use of technical jargon), but yet articulating in a way that a layman would appreciate your understanding of your industry
• Using the jargon can sometimes be important, especially if you are in certain industries - so don't shy away from this if you must use it, but at the same time, don't stick in big words just to sound intelligent :-) 

What did you learn from your most spectacular failure? (200 words)

• The choice of the word spectacular is intentional; it is designed to invoke your most embarrassing or high-stakes failure 
• 200 words is tight - describe the failure in a sentence or two, and then quickly get into what you learned from it

What are your short and long term career objectives? What skills/characteristics do you already have that will help you to achieve them? What do you hope to gain from the degree and how do you feel it will help you achieve the career objectives you have? (please do not exceed 500 words)

• Somewhat similar to Kellogg's leadership + assessment questions, you can start by describing what you've done so far, and what leadership areas you want to develop at business school
• A writing tip for this essay -  first, write this essay without the second half (why the degree?).  Write your career objectives, and as you read them (or a reviewer reads them), it should be plainly obvious what your needs are.  Those needs should then be articulated in a few sentences for why Judge, why the degree, but those sentences should be a natural conclusion to your first half.  

Good luck folks!  Write us at essaycritique@gmail.com to get your essays reviewed. 

Kellogg Essay Questions 2011 - 2012 - Tips and Common Mistakes

Kellogg's Round 1 (Part 1) Deadline is on September 22nd!  Don't forget to send in Part I of your application before then.  You can view our Deadlines page to save this and other deadlines directly to your Gmail calendar. 


Briefly assess your career progress to date. Elaborate on your future career plans and your motivation for pursuing an MBA. (600 word limit)

• Not only describe your career progression so far, but also assess it - what went right, what not quite?  This should just naturally lead the reader into thinking - "of course this candidate needs an MBA!"
• Candidates who try to answer the "Why Kellogg" question won't have enough words to fit in the real answer for this essay - keep it simple, answer what is asked - why an MBA? 

Describe your key leadership experiences and evaluate what leadership areas you hope to develop through your MBA experiences (600 word limit). 

• What are leadership experiences?  Situations that you've been in that you've been tested in, where a lot has been at stake, and you have led the way.  They can be personal or professional, but you should cite at least one professional experience
• Limit to three experiences at most
• What are leadership areas?   The most obvious one here is the one that Kellogg touts the most - "team leadership" or "community leadership".  But to write a truly compelling essay, think beyond -- what specific leadership areas are you looking to develop, that will tie in to the first part of your essay?   Motivating and empowering large groups of people, leadership in the community, product leadership in an industry, executive communication skills, etc. 

Assume you are evaluating your application from the perspective of a student member of the Kellogg Admissions Committee. Why would you and your peers select you for admission, and what impact would you make as a member of the Kellogg community? (600 word limit). 

• This is your "why Kellogg" and "why you" question - go all out and present yourself as the package that brings a mix of professional, personal and community based leadership experiences to the table
• Make it fun - describe yourself in a way that others would truly want to learn more about you!

Complete one of the following three questions or statements. (400 word limit) 
a) Describe a time you had to inspire a reluctant individual or group. 
b) People may be surprised to learn that I….. 
c) The riskiest personal or professional decision I ever made was….. 

• This is a wide-open essay, use it to demonstrate a part of your personality that may not have come through in your application thus far - you want the reader to feel pleasantly surprised about you after this - i,e., "Wow, he / she did x, y AND z?!  That's pretty awesome."

Get your Kellogg Essays reviewed by our reviewers!   Email us at essaycritique@gmail.com

HBS Essay Questions 2011 - 2012 - Tips and Analysis

Essay tips for the new HBS essays from our HBS alum...

Tell us about three of your accomplishments. (600 words)

• This continues to be the centerpiece essay - best advice I got for this essay was to first write it as though it were three separate accomplishment essays (in as many words as you need) and then edit it down to approximately 200 words each - it becomes much less daunting this way  
• A lot of applicants will have a central theme woven into the three accomplishments - this is great if there is a legitimate theme that applies to the three accomplishments, but it's better to have no theme than to force one into your essay
• This one is obvious, but try to showcase accomplishments that highlight different aspects of your experiences - the template most suggest and use is one professional, personal and community - but these could easily be two professional accomplishments, if in fact, they are different enough from each other
• If you have to get one essay reviewed by someone else (another alum, or us!), get this one.  It's your best chance at knocking the socks off the AdCom reader and you don't want to miss it. 

Tell us three setbacks you have faced. (600 words)

• This is so much better than the "what have you learned from a mistake?" question!   The most strong applicants have invariably been through a number of high-stakes setbacks in their lives, so this is a great question to ask of everyone
• Setbacks don't have to be mistakes or failures - a setback could be not getting selected for an opportunity that you wanted, or not being recognized for something as you expected - it is, in most cases, a deviation from your expectations of an outcome
• Describe how you dealt with the setback - show your mental strength and how you recovered from it.
• This can often be the most painful essay to read and edit - why?  Because 80% of candidates try to mask achievements or strengths as setbacks - PLEASE DON'T DO THIS.   Remember: it's not as important that you lost in the major leagues as much as that you played in them!   

Why do you want an MBA? (400 words)

• Keep the answer as simple as the question
• Briefly cover where you are now, and why it makes sense for you to get an MBA for where you are going (goals)
• The "Why HBS" piece is less important than the "why MBA" - don't litter the essay with name drops and internet research on classes at HBS - use these prudently only where it aligns with your goals 

Answer a question you wish we'd asked. (400 words)

• My favorite question, because applicants usually have something they want to discuss through their application that they usually try to stick in through the other questions :-)
• The open nature of this does make it difficult - there are two routes to consider: 
• Use a question that other business schools ask - What means the most to you and why?  What will you bring to the HBS Community?  What are you most passionate about and why?  You get the idea.
• Be creative and come up with your own question - use this...
• When you know you have an experience that you want to discuss that you haven't covered in another question
• When you have some explaining to do - something that looks weird on your resume  / application
• Avoid being overly specific on this question - "e.g., why did you decide to run three marathons in 2010?" or "why did you go to africa to help the poor" - I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean. 

MBA Class of 2014, are you ready?!

Hi folks!

Our administrator and reviewers are all meeting this week to get our act together for our third year together as a team!  We're excited to kick off the 2011 season and look forward to working with many of you this year.

Any questions?  Email us at essaycritique@gmail.com.

Thanks,
Tim

P.S.:  We are now on Facebook!   

Phew! Almost there...

Over the past few weeks, we've been busily reviewing Wharton, Ross, Tepper, Sloan, Booth, Darden, Ross, and UCLA Essays.  PHEW!

Now, time to focus on the rest.  Hang in there, we're almost through Round 2.  If you're working on HBS essays, don't forget to peruse our initial pointers.  We're going to keep reviewing until all the deadlines are up, and we'll be posting a "Mistakes to Avoid" post shortly as well.

Stay tuned...