Interested in London Business School’s highly-competitive MBA programme? Keep careful track of the LBS MBA deadlines and keep reading for tips on how to approach their essays.
As a general note, London Business School has decided not to change the essay topics from last year. Before you start answering them, however, try to make time to acquaint yourself with LBS’s program: research the MBA and wider school offerings, engage directly with LBS alumni and events, and look into what courses and student organizations are offered by this unique program.
ESSAYS
What are your post-MBA goals and how will your prior experience and the London Business School programme contribute towards these? (500 words)
To answer this essay question, first focus on what post-MBA goals you hope to target. Be they short or long-term, they should follow a natural and achievable career arc, while retaining a sense of excitement and discovery. If you’re hesitant on how to approach this task, it can help to source opinions on career paths from peers and mentors in your network.
For the second part of your answer, it’s important to relate skills from your past to your future roles. It can be easier to work backwards, drawing a line from your major accomplishments to the skills that you built up in order to achieve them. As is often the case, try to describe some of these instances narratively, especially if they don’t appear elsewhere, so that the reader is better engaged.
Lastly, what value will LBS bring to your future career? The main mistake to avoid in this final portion of the essay is to not be specific or clear enough. LBS provides a lot of information on its courses, professors and extracurriculars, and encourages candidates and alumni to meet. Here, LBS want applicants who have taken the time to truly think through the demands of their futures jobs and who can link them to how LBS’ programme will help meet those needs.
Is there any other information you believe the Admissions Committee should know about you and your application to London Business School? (Optional) (500 words)
While it may seem like your profile and first essay are enough to give the admissions team a solid understanding your candidacy, because LBS proposes just two essays it is generally helpful for candidates to seize this second essay as an opportunity to show how else they stand out.
Often, applicants who respond to this question benefit from concentrating on LBS’s pride for its students’ internationality. For this approach, first retrace your personal experiences that were linked to a foreign experience or cross-cultural interaction, be they at work or in your personal life. After assembling a list of examples, consider which ones best illustrate your strengths and show how you would contribute well to LBS’s diverse community.
If few examples come to mind, don’t despair: instead, try to list meaningful personal events that can speak to your character’s positive traits in other ways and that, if possible, include instances of teamwork or leadership. These can be very helpful for showing your motivation to actively participate in LBS’ community if accepted.
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