The Dartmouth Tuck MBA focuses on rigorous coursework and teamwork. As expressed on the website, “The dynamics within study groups are electric. You will perform at your highest level because your team is counting on you.” The Tuck experience is one that prepares you for the next level both professionally and personally.

In evaluating candidates, Tuck looks at several criteria: demonstrated academic excellence, demonstrated leadership, demonstrated accomplishments, interpersonal skills, diversity of background and experience, and a global mindset. Note that many of these criteria specify that Tuck is looking for “demonstrated experience.” Aside from the raw data in your application, your essays are the best place to demonstrate what you will bring to the school.

If you are targeting the Round One deadline on October 13th, you may be thinking about how to approach this set of Tuck MBA essay questions.
Setting strategy is your best first step. Clearly assess which of the desired traits are ones that you can demonstrate through your own experience. What are the areas you want to communicate to the Tuck admissions committee? Which essays work best for a work example or a community service example? Be sure to provide specific examples for each essay. Real life examples provide the best evidence of your leadership qualities, teamwork skills and management potential.

While Tuck does not require a certain word limit, the 500-word guidance should be adhered to. Generally 10% plus or minus the word limit suggestion is reasonable when there is no formal limit.

1. Why is an MBA a critical next step toward your short- and long-term career goals? Why is Tuck the best MBA program for you? (if you are applying for a joint or dual degree please explain how the additional degree will contribute to those goals.)

This standard career goals question requires you to clearly outline your short- and long-term career goals. Your short term goals are the aspirations you have for your job immediately after graduation, while your long-term goals may be 10 or 20 years after you complete your MBA. In this relatively short essay you will need to explain what you have been pursuing in your career thus far, and why you need an MBA at this point in your life, along with your career goals.

“Why Tuck” is an important aspect to this essay, and your opportunity to demonstrate fit. Make sure you have researched the school’s programs and determined your education will suit your plans. By reaching out to current students and alumni you will gain crucial insights that will provide a personal perspective on the culture of the school.

Essay 2: Discuss your most meaningful leadership experience. What did you learn about your own individual strengths and weaknesses through this experience?

This essay is similar to Kellogg’s leadership essay. As in the Kellogg essay, you will want to define your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. What are you good at, and what do you hope to develop at Tuck? Unlike the Kellogg essay, this version requires that you describe one specific example that illustrates your leadership challenges and strengths. When you contemplate your most meaningful leadership experience, it may not be the most impressive example. Think about the leadership opportunities that led to a deeper understanding of yourself and others, and may have resulted in definition of your strengths or an improvement in your weaknesses.

The example you choose can be from work or community involvement, as “great leadership can be accomplished in the pursuit or business and societal goals.” You will need to adhere to the Tuck definition of leadership and include a team-based aspect to your example. As you describe your leadership experience, make sure you explain how you were able to inspire and enable others to accomplish.

3. What is the greatest challenge or hurdle you have overcome, either personally or professionally, and how did you manage to do so?

This question is somewhat similar to the classic mistake essay, and it’s your opportunity to show how you handle challenging situations. Everyone faces challenges at work or in personal life, and it is how you decide to react that creates learning and growth. Revealing your emotions and thought process in this essay will provide a window into how you process difficult experiences and emerge from them with a new direction. Think back to Tuck’s criteria, and consider using this essay to either demonstrate your interpersonal skills (if your challenge was of the interpersonal variety) or to show something from your background or experience that is unique.

When brainstorming for this essay think first about what you learned from the situation, and then work backwards to describe the circumstances and the initial challenge or hurdle, that will help you see the whole situation from a more optimistic viewpoint. Is there a learning from the experience that impacted your life or carried a thread through your character, goals or accomplishments?

4. Tuck seeks candidates of various backgrounds who can bring new perspectives to our community. How will your unique personal history, values, and/or life experiences contribute to the culture at Tuck?

This question provides you with an opportunity to describe why you are different from other applicants. Do you have a unique background? Unusual work experience? Or have you demonstrated a consistent history of community involvement? The part of your application strategy that is most unique and surprising should be described here.

Once you have determined what is special about your candidacy, you need to tie your personal history, values and/or life experiences to how you will interact with your fellow students at Tuck. The most obvious approach is to outline the clubs and organizations you will contribute to. Beyond formal groups, you may contribute your unique perspective to the classroom, provide networking opportunities in your industry to your classmates, or mentor your fellow students.

5. (Optional) Please provide any additional insight or information that you have not addressed elsewhere that may be helpful in reviewing your application (e.g., unusual choice of evaluators, weaknesses in academic performance, unexplained job gaps or changes, etc.). Complete this question only if you feel your candidacy is not fully represented by this application.

This is your opportunity to discuss any perceived weaknesses in your application such as low GPA or gaps in your work experience. When approaching a question of this nature, focus on explanations rather than excuses and explain what you have done since the event you are explaining to demonstrate your academic ability, or management potential. If you do not have a weakness to explain, this may be an opportunity to address any additional facet of your application strategy you have not been able to illuminate in previous questions. There is no requirement to complete this question, and it would be wise to use the space for something truly new and important to your application that has not been addressed elsewhere.

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IESE is an international MBA program based in Barcelona. Along with the traditional full time MBA, IESE offers a range of executive programs, including the Global Executive MBA. The Global Executive MBA program operates across several continents with sessions in Barcelona, Madrid, Shanghai, India, Silicon Valley and New York City. To learn more about the Global Executive MBA, you may want to attend one of IESE’s events.

The nice thing about this set of essays is the specificity of the questions. That is also the difficult challenge you will have as you apply your overall application strategy, with the strengths and accomplishments you wish to communicate. Many of the situational questions ask for examples within the last two years, which may be a challenging direction. While you may be attached to situations that are further behind you, remember that the key to any situational question is a clear and concise example that you can extrapolate larger learnings from.

The situational essays in this set allow you to approach the question from either a professional or personal perspective, and it will be important to choose wisely. Think about the correct balance of personal and professional, and which activities you want to particularly highlight.

Essay 1: Please describe your short term professional goals (post MBA). (200 word limit)
Essay 2: Please describe your long term professional goals (post MBA). (200 word limit)
These first two essays are the key components of every career goals essay, and should work together in the same way that a more typical career goals essay would while also remaining two distinct essays. Make sure your short and long-term goals are cohesive, and that your short-term goals lead naturally to your long-term goals. While not explicitly part of the question, you should certainly work in why you need an MBA, and specifically why the IESE MBA will be important to achieving your career goals.

Essay 3: Describe two substantial accomplishments and one failure in a professional or private endeavour. (600 word limit)
This essay question is very similar to the HBS question asking for three accomplishments , with the substitution of a failure for one of the accomplishments. It’s difficult to explain three distinct situations in 600 words. Focus on quickly recapping the accomplishment, making it very clear what the accomplishment was, and take some time to reflect upon the accomplishment and its larger meaning to you in your life or profession.
For the failure section of the essay, you will want to find a failure that can be described succinctly, that you learned from, and that you were able to ultimately redeem yourself through. Whether you turned the failure into a success in that exact situation, or faced a similar situation later than you were able to succeed in, ending on a positive note will be crucial for this question.

Essay 4: Describe a recent situation (within last two years) in which you used a contact from your network to achieve a personal or professional objective. (200 word limit)
Limiting the situation to the past two years may be frustrating to you, but the important part of this essay will be demonstrating that you are able to build and maintain a strong professional network. If you haven’t faced a major situation that required help from your professional network, like a job hunt, think about times that you may have reached out to your friends or co-workers to seek a new perspective on a problem, or to tap into their vocational expertise. The question also allows the use of the network for a personal objective, which may be a more common occurrence day-to-day.
Whatever situation you choose, this is an ideal opportunity to demonstrate how you work with others, your collaborative approach to problem-solving, and how you may behave in a team situation at school, or as an alumna or alumnus of IESE.

Essay 5: Describe the most difficult project (personal or professional) that you have faced recently (within last two years). (200 word limit)
Difficult projects are a great learning experience, and you will want to be able to communicate clearly what you learned from this particular difficult project. If you were ultimately successful, that is a great result, but even if the project never reached completion in a satisfactory way, you hopefully learned a lesson that could be applied in subsequent projects. Though the word count is restrictive, be as specific as possible about the situation and how you approached it.

Essay 6: Describe a recent situation (within last two years) in which it was difficult to convince others. (200 word limit)
This essay is a great opportunity to demonstrate your leadership, teamwork and/or communication and negotiation skills. You will want to find a situation that was difficult, but where you were ultimately convincing. Clearly describe what was difficult about convincing others, and how you were able to ultimately succeed.

Essay 7: I wish that the application had asked me… (200 word limit)
This essay is a gift for all of the extra material in your application strategy. If you had an important situation in your life that occurred more than two years ago, this is an opportunity to highlight it. If you have an interesting personal story, explanation for any weakness in your application, or other material that will help your candidacy, this is the ideal place for that material.

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The Oxford Said Business School MBA is a one year MBA program located at one of the most prestigious universities in Europe. For access to international business acumen and a diverse and close-knit class from 50 various nationalities, Oxford is an excellent choice.

Oxford’s two essays will require discipline and focus, with only 3000 words available to market yourself.

Essay 1: Explain why you chose your current job. How do you hope to see your career developing over the next five years? How will an MBA assist you in the development of these ambitions? (1000 word maximum)

This is a variation of the classic career goals question, which focuses initially on your current job. You will want to provide some background to describe your motivation in your career thus far and how you set and achieved the goals you have accomplished in your career path up until now.

The next section of the essay seeks to understand your career over the next five years. This is a fairly brief window into the future, but you can at least set the stage for any long-term goals you have. Explaining your short-term goals very concretely will be the basis of a successful answer to this section.

The link between your past and your future is your Oxford MBA. Explaining clearly why you need an MBA at this stage in your career will be important. At the same time, take the opportunity to describe why an MBA from Oxford is the right choice for you. To understand the MBA program as well as you can, take the opportunity to visit the campus and attend a class if you are able to travel to the UK. If not, you can attend an international event

Essay 2: Which recent development, world event or book has most influenced your thinking and why? (2000 word maximum)

This is a broad question and will require a strategy and clear approach. You could approach this like Stanford “What matters most” and similarly think about your life – personal, extracurricular, and professional – and what themes arise. Framing the answer around a theme that also fits with your career goals will provide focus and communicate who you are effectively to the admissions committee.

While you will want to have a plan for this question, understanding what you need to communicate with your answer, do not neglect the core question. You will want to choose an event, book or development that fits in with your overall theme and that can serve as a microcosm of your general attitude and motivations.
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Washington University’s Olin Business School focuses on evaluating candidates on both past evidence of achievement in leadership and teamwork across work and extracurricular activities, as well as future potential. Another key factor is a diversity of background and experience that candidates can bring to Olin and contribute to their teammates.

When approaching this short set of essays, evaluate your application strategy carefully and select your topics judiciously. The first essay calls for a succinct explanation of your career goals, with scarce room to outline some of your past experiences. In Essay 2 you will have the opportunity to describe a bit about your background and demonstrate your knowledge of the Olin Business School. Essay 3 is your opportunity to show your background and potential for leadership and or teamwork. Whichever option you choose, take the opportunity to provide a very specific example that can demonstrate your abilities and potential. Optional essays are generally used to explain any weakness in your application profile, yet in this case it would make a lot of sense to use this essay to tell a story from your strategy that you did not have room for elsewhere, especially on an extracurricular or personal topic.

Essay 1. Describe your short- and long-term career goals upon completion of the MBA. Please be as specific as possible.(300 word maximum)

A standard career goals essay, Washington University’s Olin Business School gives you very little room to describe your short and long term career goals while providing the necessary background information. Make sure you answer the question thoroughly and that your goals fit logically together.

You will want to be selective with the background you do provide in this question since you will need significant space for your goals. Choose examples from your background that fit logically with your goals and provide evidence of your passion for your goals. If you are not currently working in the field you are planning to join after business school, focus on the research you have done or the extracurricular experiences you have had that are relevant to your goals.

Essay 2. Explain your specific interest in the Olin Business School. In other words, why do you view Olin as a good fit for you? (300 word maximum)

To make up for the short career goals essay, you have an entire essay to explain why you are a great fit for Olin. This is also an opportunity to describe a bit about yourself. Focus on your career goals and the resources you will gain from Olin, while also discussing some of your extracurricular experiences and personal attributes that support your fit with Olin. Overall you will want to hit all of the aspects Olin would like to know about you, and also demonstrate your familiarity with the program.

Olin is receptive to providing you as much support for your application as possible. In addition to the opportunity to visit the program in person, you can interact with admissions at recruiting events sponsored by the Consortium and the Forte Foundation among others. The website also offers information on student life.

Essay 3. Respond to exactly one of the following essay topics (400 word maximum):

a. Describe your most significant accomplishment and why you view it as such.

This essay is similar to the HBS essay of the same topic, yet you have more space to elaborate upon your accomplishment and provide plenty of evidence. Taking the opportunity to highlight your leadership skills or teamwork ability would be an ideal focus for this essay. Elaborate upon what you did in the situation and how you approached the solution. End with reflection upon why you consider the accomplishment to be significant to you.

b. How do you define or describe successful leadership?

This is a fairly abstract question, and it will be important to offer examples – preferably from your own experiences – to make any descriptions or definitions concrete. You can approach this question by providing either examples where you have been part of a team with a great leader, or even when the team and leader have not performed as well. Either way, you should elaborate upon what you learned from the experience and how it has influenced your own behavior. Overall, communicating how you define or describe leadership by using real-life examples will both engage the reader and communicate effectively about your own candidacy.

c. What do you expect will be your greatest professional challenge upon completion of your MBA?

This essay is also fairly open-ended. One approach is to think about your strengths and weaknesses and discuss one of your weaknesses and why it would be a challenge. This could be a fairly risky strategy, however, and should be balanced with plenty of discussion of your strengths and ability to overcome any challenges.

Another approach could be more global and elaborate upon some aspect of your future industry that you consider to be a challenge. If you are someone who has a record of innovative thinking, this is a great place to describe some of the past challenges you have overcome in this way. Similarly you might be excellent problem-solver and can demonstrate that ability. In any case, think about the unique personal qualities you bring and can contribute to any potential challenge in your future career.

Olin Washington Essay 4 (optional). Provide any additional information about your application that you believe would be helpful to the Admissions Committee. (300 word maximum)

If you need this space to address any perceived weakness in your application profile, outline the issue briefly and spend some time providing explanations and not excuses.

Otherwise, this is a great opportunity to provide additional information for the admissions committee. If you have a unique or diverse background, have overcome a significant personal challenge or have been heavily involved in a community activity this would be a great opportunity to describe that situation. Focus on a solid example and provide some reflection upon the example and a reason why this additional information is important to your candidacy.

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The London Business School is a close knit program with an international focus, set in one of the most exciting centers of culture in Europe.  LBS is also one of the top ranked international options with US recruiters. 

When approaching this set of essays, which has very specific questions, you will want to make sure you are also presenting your well-rounded self, with focus on career, extracurriculars and personal attributes.

Question 1 (600 words)
In what role do you see yourself working immediately after graduation? Why? How will your past and present experiences help you achieve this? How will the London Business School MBA Programme contribute to this goal? Why is this the right time for you to pursue an MBA? 

This classic career goals question focuses more on your short-term goals than the typical school might.  Make sure you can clearly demonstrate how your past and present career and personal experiences support your goals, and why you have settled on your particular aspirations.  In addition, you will need to demonstrate why London Business School is the particular MBA program for you and why you are planning to pursue an MBA at this point in your career and your life.

In just 600 words to answer 5 distinct questions you will need to demonstrate your commitment and reasons throughout the essay.  Through your narrative thread it should be obvious why you are pursuing an MBA, why now is the right time and how LBS will help you achieve your goals.  If you are planning to switch careers and do not have the track record to demonstrate you are serious about your goals, it will be helpful to show your commitment through research you have done, extracurricular activities you have been involved with, or relevant accomplishments in your current position.

When researching the LBS difference for this essay, you might find some help in the form of the student blogs on the London website.

Question 2 (200 words)
Where do you see your career progressing five years after graduation and what is your longer term career vision?

As a continuation of essay one, this is your opportunity to talk about your long-term goals – both those that are more in the short-term and those further down your path.

This essay should flow very smoothly from essay one.  There should be a clear link between your immediate post-MBA goals and these two milestones, and all of them will flow from your current and past experiences.

Question 3 (500 words)
Please describe your experience of working in and leading teams, either in your professional or personal life. Include any specific challenges you have faced. Given this experience, what role do you think you will play in your first year study group?

This question offers the opportunity for you to demonstrate your teamwork skills and demonstrate your knowledge of LBS teams.  You may want to refer to student blogs, the programme website or current or former students to understand the role of study groups at LBS and how you will likely fit in. 

In providing your team work example, you have the option of a variety of settings, whether at work or in an extracurricular involvement and an option of discussing either working within or leading teams.  Because the essay asks for several experiences, it will be useful to choose a few specific examples to cite, though you will want to be judicious due to the short length of the essay.  Think about examples that most typify your approach to working within a team, and use these examples to support your speculation about the role you might play within your study group.

Question 4 (400 words)
Student involvement is an extremely important part of the London Business School MBA experience and this is reflected in the character of students on campus. What type of student club or campus community events will you be involved with and why? How will you contribute?

This question provides an opportunity to describe some of the community involvement you have been involved with and relate it to what you might do at LBS.  Thorough research will be helpful here, whether online or in person.  To be most effective in answering this question you will want to be specific and logical in your choices.  What activities make the most sense in the context of your career and industry interests?  What about your hobbies?  Any community involvement you are currently pursuing and plan to continue will be especially credible here.

Question 5 (150 words)
Describe any significant experiences outside of your home country. What did you gain from these?

This question is brief and mainly seeks to understand your international experiences in breadth and depth.  Any particular insight you gained from international travel will be helpful, and if you can tie it to your overall application theme, that’s even better.  Since LBS is a particularly international program they are certainly seeking applicants who are well traveled and thoughtful about the rest of the world.

Question 6 (300 words) (This question is optional)
Is there any other information that you believe would help the MBA Admissions Committee when considering your application?

If you have a situation you need to explain, whether it is a low GPA or academic probation, this is the correct space to address it.  Focus on explanations and not excuses.  If you have additional material that you think will be helpful to your application this may also be an opportunity to offer another reason to admit you. 

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INSEAD is a highly regarded international program located in both France and Singapore that has the added benefit of opportunities to study at some of the top US MBA programs as an exchange student.

While INSEAD has a diverse, international focus it also has the name recognition in the US to translate to interesting career opportunities. If you are an international student interested in the shorter length of an international program, yet interested in recruiting at US firms, INSEAD may be the ideal program for you.

To learn more about INSEAD, there are opportunities to attend one of the many admissions events.

Each essay topic listed below and in the subsequent pages must be answered.

Essay 1: 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.)

This essay asks for a self-aware and candid exploration of your strengths and weaknesses. Ideally you can use one concise example that will highlight both a few strengths and at least one weakness. Think about an example where you were able to interact with others and exhibit leadership and teamwork. When you discuss your weakness, make sure that your weakness is genuine and that you are able to provide evidence that you were self-aware enough to both recognize the weakness and work on it to improve your effectiveness.

While you can use non-work examples in this essay if they exhibit the key characteristics you would like to explore, it is probably most effective to focus on a great professional example to start the set of essays in the right tone.

Essay 2: Describe what you believe to be your two most substantial accomplishments to date, explaining why you view them as such. (400 words approx.)

This is a fairly similar essay to the HBS three accomplishments essay. Similarly, you will want to choose two examples that highlight different sides of yourself. If you chose a professional example for Essay 1, you may want to choose extracurricular and personal examples for Essay 2, and if you choose another professional example make sure it is materially different from the example in Essay 1.

Because you only have about 200 words per accomplishment you will need to focus on providing a concise and specific situation, a clear result that demonstrates the significance of the example, and a bit of space for self-reflection upon the accomplishment.

Essay 3: 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.)

This is a classic mistake essay. While some questions ask you to focus specifically on a mistake, this one allows the room for a situation that may have been objectively successful, yet did not meet your personal objectives.

You will want to demonstrate the pivotal nature of this event in your life, and due the leeway in topic areas, you will have the ability to delve into areas of your life that you may not have previously discussed and that may be fairly far in the past. Think about the moments in your life where you have changed direction, defined your goals more clearly, or had an epiphany about yourself or your purpose. Most importantly, you want to demonstrate that you have the ability to reflect upon the imperfect nature of your past and retain lessons that continue to serve your future.

Essay 4: 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.)

This is a classic careers goals essay, yet similarly to HBS asks only the future oriented question of your career goals. You will certainly need to discuss your past a little in order to demonstrate how you have arrived at your goals, but you want to devote most of the space to explaining what your goals are, and how you expect the INSEAD MBA program to assist you in reaching them.

Essay 5: 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

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

You can choose either question, and should pick a) if you have a clear and vivid example of culture shock. If you are struggling to recognize and communicate such an example, you will want to choose essay b) which is more oriented towards those who may not have a clear international background.

When answering either question you will want to demonstrate your interest in and sensitivity towards different cultures, and discuss some of the international or multicultural experiences in your own life.

Due to the very short word count, choose a vivid and concise example and reflect upon its meaning in the context of your life and goals thus far.

Essay 6: Is there anything that you have not mentioned in the above essays that you would like the Admissions Committee to know? (200 words approx.) This essay is optional.

This optional essay is the ideal place to write about any aspect that was not covered in the previous five essays, and/or explain any weaknesses in your application. In either case, keep the essay brief, to the point, and make sure you are describing a new aspect of yourself that fits in with your overall application strategy and assists your case for admission.

Re-application

Essay 7: In case of reapplication, please use this page. Your essay should state any new aspects of professional, international, academic, or personal development since your last application. We would also like you to explain your motivation for re-applying to INSEAD. This essay should not exceed 400 words.

Reapplication essays should focus entirely on why you are a better candidate this year than you were last year. Describe any promotions, new extracurricular activities, awards or academic achievements. Keep the descriptions brief and topical, and use the rest of the essay to reiterate your interest in the INSEAD program and your desire to attend if admitted.

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