The IESE MBA provides a comprehensive study of international business. It offers the depth, breadth, and choice of gaining hands-on experience in the global industry across all continents over 15 or 19 months (per your chosen period). Electives, internships, abroad modules, etc., allow you to personalize your education. This MBA will have a significant and long-term impact on your professional career in the coming future. Management abilities are necessary – you will improve your managerial skills, interact with executives from worldwide firms, learn how to project & market your brand (if so), and increase your decision-making skill during the program.
The admissions process is specifically created in such a way to assist you and IESE in determining whether the MBA is a good fit for you and your objectives. The application has two compulsory essay questions and one optional.
In this article, we will discuss and provide an analysis of the two main essay questions:
Essay 1:
Who do you admire the most and why? Help us understand who has played a pivotal role in shaping you to be the person you are or the person you aspire to be. Please provide specific examples of how they have shaped or inspired you. (word limit 300 max)
Analysis:
This essay requires the applicant to identify themselves to the admissions committee, with views on a significant figure in their lives and who has impacted their personality. The information and reasons you provide should be pertinent to your MBA application. As a prospective student, you can begin your essay by stating who you most admire. Writing about someone like Ratan Tata, Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk may be daunting and have its challenges. Because this individual must have played a “pivotal and significant” role in your life, the challenge urges you to reflect on a deeper personal relationship.
For starters, the reader will likely have gone through numerous articles on the same subject. In the case of well-known leaders, you are unlikely to be able to relate to any personal experience or share something out of the box without actually having any kind of companionship with them. So think critically about your connections—perhaps you have a professional mentor who has inspired you, or you’ve met someone through your community activity which has helped you define who you want to be. Of course, you could make it work if you’re passionate about a certain professional route, such as impact investment, and you respect someone who has made substantial progress in that field. The connections that influence who you are and your desire to be will be the key.
Parents are often the most influential persons in a person’s life, yet they should be avoided in admissions discussions. Why? On the one hand, IESE is searching for persons with a natural sense of maturity and leadership. If your mother or father is your primary role model, it could suggest that you haven’t entirely “left the nest,” raising concerns about your capacity to think independently. Every rule, on the other hand, has an exception. If you grew up in a single-parent home and your parent made significant sacrifices to get you to university or similar accomplishments, this is your time to share your story.
Before you begin writing, consider what you want IESE to take away from the essay. While it’s important to emphasize how the person has inspired you, make sure most of the text focuses on who you are or want to be. The objective here is to make the IESE admissions committee get to know you at the end of the day. Include how you acted and changed due to their influence when you share the requested instances. It’s about personal development and the modest acceptance that you will never have all the answers, as well as how others influence your experiences, perspectives, and learning.
Essay 2:
What are your post-MBA career goals right after graduation and five years after? What kind of resources or opportunities IESE offer will help you achieve them? (word limit 300 max).
Analysis:
Since the first question is about discovering who you are, this one is about discovering who you want to be and what you aim to accomplish. While this question is a variation of the traditional career goals essay, the 300-word limit imposed by IESE is a little more stringent than some programs. Applicants must express their future ambitions clearly and concisely, immediately after business school and in the medium term, demonstrating how their aims relate to their previous employment and the abilities they would obtain from an MBA. Connect your interest in the MBA program at IESE by naming some significant courses and clubs that support why you wish to study at IESE in particular.
As an expert, I can say that most applicants focus on their ideal career in the far future rather than creating a feasible provisional road to get there. IESE hopes to gain insight into the exact approach that will support your career trajectory by specifying the timeline right after graduation and 5 years out. It’ll be critical that your job goals are both ambitious and feasible. It can be challenging to strike the correct balance, but be cautious because unattainable career objectives can raise red flags with admissions officers. Make sure the admissions committee can connect the dots by considering your previous experiences.
The admissions team expects to know that you can see how the IESE MBA will help you achieve your career goals and advance professionally. As a strong & worthy candidate, you must be able to explain how you could and would contribute to class discussions and how you plan to be active in campus activities and other ventures. The quality of work & with what sincerity & clarity of thought you move forward — you’re capable of generating is reflected in your ability to define a logical, compelling professional vision. This clarity also shows you have the skills to build an intelligent job search plan – even when your goals change.
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