I’ll address the why MBA-goals-why this school essay in this article. This is the most important essay of your application. While the other essays help the admissions committee understand you as a person, this essay gives them a glimpse of your ambitions. Every B-school prefers taking people who are clear about their goals and this essay gives you a platform to showcase your clarity about your goals.
The essay should start with a brief description of your career progression till date. Next, you should write about your short term and long term goals. The point to be taken care here is – career progression, short term goal and long term goal should be well aligned. Even if you are planning to switch career post MBA, the reason should be a plausible one. So if you are planning to move into finance from an IT background, write about the transferable skills that you’ll bring from your IT background to the finance job. Here you can also mention the efforts you have made till date to achieve your short term goals. So you might have taken the CFA exam to switch to finance or you might have written a business plan for a venture you want to start post MBA.
Next part in the essay is typically “why MBA”. This part should be written keeping in mind the short and long term goals. You should focus on – what is it that you intend to learn during your MBA which will take you closer to your goals. Most common mistake in this part is that people tend to generalize the answer for this question and do not align it with their goals. So if you are from a background where you did not have any client interaction and post MBA you want to move in a relationships management role, your MBA would help you polish your soft skills. If you want to start your own venture, the B-School might give you the opportunity to connect with the venture capitalists or with people from similar background. Somebody planning to move to consulting would like to interact with diverse set of people but somebody planning to get into the healthcare sector would focus more on people from the healthcare background.
The point is – everybody would be looking for something different to take away from his MBA, so do not use generic statements but make it more relevant to your own goals.
Once you have defined the journey from your current career to MBA to your goals, you should write about “why this school”. This is the most important part of this essay and the best place to impress the admissions committee. The biggest mistake people do in this part is that they do not research well about the school and end up writing some general stuff which can be easily copy pasted for any B-school. Go to the website, talk to the alums, read blogs and understand what opportunities this school is going to give you to achieve your goals.
It’s very important to structure this essay nicely. Don’t leave any unanswered questions about your goals. Again, think deep about every aspect and try to personalize this essay to your best.
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