University of Cambridge Judge Business School is a powerful international, one-year MBA. With close links to Silicon Fen in Cambridge, this programme offers a strong network to those interested in entrepreneurship and tech in Europe.
As begin to prepare your application, be sure to keep track of Cambridge’s application deadlines.
ESSAYS
Essay 1: Please provide details of your post-MBA career plans. The statement should not exceed 500 words and must address the following:
- What are your short and long term career objectives? How will the Cambridge MBA equip you to achieve these?
- Looking at your short-term career goal, describe the research you have done to understand how this industry/role/location recruits MBA talent and what they are looking for in a candidate?
- How do you meet the requirements of your short-term career goal? What preparation are you doing now?
This essay is concerned with your future plans and their viability, so it’s best to try identifying what logical steps you would take following your MBA. While you may not have a single short-term post-MBA role in mind, try to dig into those options that would be most accessible for someone of your profile through the Cambridge MBA programme. When it comes to long-term objectives, you have greater leeway with your options, though it would still be best to think of goals that correspond with your past experiences and potential MBA studies.
Once you’ve chosen your short-term goal, list out all the skills and characteristics that would make an employee successful in such an enterprise. If you’re unsure of everything that might be relevant, try to get in touch with individuals in the field who can instruct you on what they’ve found most useful in their roles. After you’ve completed your list, connect any individual points you can to real-life examples in your past that illustrate those same skills and characteristics.
For those areas in which you are lacking or require refinement, consider what actions you can take before the MBA and, more importantly, what resources Judge may offer you to improve them. Have a look at professors, courses and tools that clearly provide you with the edge you need to better accomplish your short and long-term objectives.
Essay 2: Describe a difficult decision that you had to make. What did you learn from this and how have you changed as a result? (up to 200 words)
Cambridge would like to understand how you faced a challenging decision, how you analysed the necessary actions to take, and how you evolved from that experience. When choosing an example, either a personal or a professional one can work. In either case, it may be best to select a challenge that didn’t take place too recently, as you want the admissions team to trust that enough time has passed for you to have genuinely reflected on and absorbed the lessons that experience taught you.
Moreover, as you prepare your response, it may help to think of your situation as a short story that you are recounting, because this can help engage your reader more vividly with the dilemma that you faced and overcame.
Essay 3: Describe a time where you worked with a team on a project. What did you learn from the experience and how might you approach it differently today? (up to 200 words)
Here, Judge is looking to understand how you problem-solve in a team environment. Search for instances in your history where you’ve displayed a few unique traits that proved invaluable to the group, especially if this took place in an international setting.
It’s important not to neglect the heart of the question by focusing solely on the results. Cambridge is particularly interested in understanding how you’ve grown from the experience. Since nearly everything can be improved upon, try to identify a meaningful change you could have implemented that would have allowed you to have a greater impact on either the process or the outcome.
Essay 4: If you could give one piece of advice to your 18-year-old self, what would it be? (up to 200 words)
With this rather personal and introspective prompt, Cambridge is attempting to better understand your motivations and values.
As you begin, consider what were your 18-year-old self’s primary aspirations, whether personal or professional. Between then and now, think about what risks you took to achieve them, or regrets you may have had for delays, missteps or missed opportunities. Is there something you wish someone else would have told you or clarified for you?
In your answer, you should briefly share this advice, how you ended up acquiring it, and why you would have wished to have discovered it sooner.
For help creating a successful application, get in touch with our Judge Experts. Otherwise, for technical information on the application process, you can visit Cambridge’s official website.
