DEADLINES
Round 1: 1 June 2018
Round 2: 1 July 2018
Round 3: 15 August 2018
Round 4: 15 September 2018
Round 5: 15 October 2018
Round 6: 15 November 2018
Round 7: 2 January 2019
Round 8: 1 February 2019
Round 9: 1 March 2019
Round 10: 1 April 2019
Round 11: 2 May 2019
Round 12: 3 June 2019
Round 13: 1 July 2019
ESSAYS
HEC consistently ranks as one of the top 5 schools for future Fortune Global 500 CEOs. It should come as no surprise that its high-ranking MBA program is one of the most sought-after European programs among our clients.
It’s also very important to keep in mind that, while HEC offers a very large amount of potential application rounds, their classes have been known to fill up well before the later deadlines, leading to canceled rounds. What does that mean for you? Don’t wait too long to submit your application.
Essay 1. Why are you applying to the HEC MBA Program now? What is the professional objective that will guide your career choice after your MBA, and how will the HEC MBA contribute to the achievement of this objective? (500 words max.)
This is a classic MBA question that asks you to link your future objectives with your current need for a degree. Be sure to begin by doing a good deal of research into HEC and its program, as well as connecting with its educators, representatives and alumni through campus visits, events and networking opportunities. Understanding what this powerful program has to offer is an absolute necessity for successfully completing the application process.
To answer the first part of the essay, you need to understand how your future objective and your current station, professional and personal, make it the ideal time to pursue HEC’s program. Start by identifying what your professional objective is. Try to be as specific as possible. Don’t worry if that means beginning a new career or entering into a new geography; HEC is well known for helping individuals reorient their professions: nearly 70% of its class does.
Once you have figured out a target, link it to your previous experiences without being repetitive relative to the other portions of your application. You have to show that your past, HEC’s MBA and your future objective share some concrete points and fall into a logical pattern. Of course, part of that logical pattern is chronology, making now the ideal time to apply.
Finally, you need to explain how your future professional objective connects to HEC. Once you truly understand what areas you need to improve to best attain your post-MBA objective, you then need to link those needs to specific parts of HEC’s program. It’s vital that you don’t just illustrate the breadth of your research on the school but also the depth (i.e., what makes HEC clearly useful for your future objective).
Essay 2. What do you consider your most significant life achievement? (250 words max.)
For this essay, it’s vital that you focus on achievements that created a significant impact. However, it’s left up to you whether to choose a private or a work example. Ideally, your choice will have elements that display your capacity for leadership and teamwork.
Even though this essay is only 250 words, do try to bring your achievement to life. The reader should clearly see what hurdles you surmounted and what was so essentially valuable about this particular outcome.
Essay 3. Leadership and ethics are inevitably intertwined in the business world. Describe a situation in which you have dealt with these issues and how they have influenced you. (250 words max.)
Many people feel unsure about sharing any occurrences that fall on the negative side of ethics, assuming incorrectly that just mentioning such circumstances would make them seem guilty. However, in the business world, ethical dilemmas are all too common. While we often read sensational stories of theft and fraud, ethical problems occur even on the smallest level of dealings. What do you share with the client? How do you close a deal? Do you honor a verbal agreement with an employee? All these questions require an ethical decision.
When talking about issues you have been involved in, don’t neglect the mental aspect. How you processed the situation and then acted is crucial to the answer. Additionally, HEC wants to know how you evolved from this experience. It could have been a change in thinking, in workflow or in how you handle particular relationships.
Essay 4. Imagine a life entirely different from the one you now lead, what would it be? (250 words max.)
Did your professional life take an unexpected turn? Do you have a passion that consumes your nonworking hours? This essay is the perfect place to expose another dimension of yourself to the admissions committee.
As you develop your answer, imagine how different both your personal and professional life might have been. Certainly, one can assume that your core qualities would have made you just as driven; however, the important question to answer is where these qualities would have driven you.
Essay 5. Please choose from one of the following essays, 250 words max.:
a) What monument or site would you advise a first-time visitor to your country or city to discover, and why?
b) Certain books, movies, or plays have had an international success that you believe to be undeserved. Choose an example and analyze it.
c) What figure do you most admire and why? You may choose from any field (arts, literature, politics, business, etc.
Whether you choose to talk about your city, an unwarranted success, or someone you deeply admire, make sure that it is both personal and uncommon. A good starting approach might be to list out potential answers for all of these questions, before choosing one to jump into. Afterward, eliminate any choices that might be often used or that you aren’t passionate about.
Moreover, HEC wants to be able to visualize your character from this essay. So, when writing about your topic try to expose your opinion in an engaging fashion. Sell your style.
Essay 6. Optional: Is there any additional information you would like to share with us? (900 words max.)
This optional essay can be used either to add beneficial information to your application or to explain an issue with your candidacy. However, if you feel that you have truly shared everything beneficial and there is nothing negative that needs to be discussed, leave this area blank: knowing when to be strategically silent is vital.
If you’ve done a further review of your application and some important trait of your character (e.g., a particular extracurricular passion or an important project) is left unmentioned, feel free to include that in an essay here.
On the other hand, if you have some particular problem, such as missing a recommendation from a supervisor, poor performance during your university studies or a job gap, you need to explain it in this essay. If you do not do so, HEC’s admissions committee will always assume the worst reason possible.
When clarifying a problem, it’s best to show that you have taken concrete steps to permanently rectify the issue. For example, if you had low scores in quantitative classes during your university studies, how you pursued other quant courses at a later period in which you excelled. You want to reassure HEC that this problem will remain firmly in the past.
