Application for Boston University MBA Program Essay – Example
1. Describe your experiences as a member of a team working in a professional or volunteer capacity. Comment on how you might have used leadership skills in these situations, and how your involvement helped to improve the functioning of the organization.
I was able to recognize the true nature of leadership when I joined the ‘ Nationwide College Student xxx Contest’ in the summer vacation of the third year in college. The xxx team at xxx University of which I was in charge was just a club newly established and the members of my team was afraid of being placed on the bottom among 24 participant teams.
As a result, they seemed to agree with the idea of passing up the participation in the contest. Given the chance of making my own argument with reference to the participation, I firmly decided to take part in the contest as a team head, although we might be placed on the tail, in order to set a good example to the following underclassmen. Once the decision was fully made, my mission was to build confidence of the team.
Therefore, I participated in the ‘Motivation Building Camp’ for 5 days implemented by the xxx with 18 members of my team, preliminary candidates for the team included. Owing to survival from 12 hours of rigorous training such as penetration of mud and 2 km swimming on a daily basis, the first outcome was friendship and confidence. My colleagues were able to gain confidence that we could do it whatever it takes because we had gone through the real training of xxx that we usually saw in the movie. By the end of harsh training, we were able to feel strong brotherhood like ‘ We are the one.’ between ourselves. The next step I took was to join the intensive training in terms of technology and localization for 10 days in xxx by introducing a professional coach of xxx from Korea xxx Association. The decision was based on my conviction that we would not be able to accomplish our goal only with motivation but effective training. Compared to other teams involved in 40 days of training annually, we trained ourselves for just 10 days. The qualified instruction of the professional coach served as great help to the development of technique in our team. Although our team eventually gained the second runner-up in the contest in August 15 19xx, the members of our team shouted for joy, saying ‘ We made it!’ over and over again.
Although we couldn’t win the contest, all of us were able to experience much more valuable things than the championship-confidence, friendship, and the sense of challenge. During the whole phase of the contest, I had no choice but to make lots of decisions as a leader of the team all by myself. Throughout this experience, I realized the significant elements of leadership for the sake of right decision as follows. The leader should have the sense of challenge and the ability to make the members of the team build confidence not to speak of friendship. In this context, I realized the outcome of business depends mainly on the efficient leadership from the bottom of my heart.
2. Boston University seeks a diverse entering class, rich with students of unique talents and experiences. Describe how your personal distinctiveness will make for a stronger learning environment at Boston University, and how this distinctiveness will contribute to your success as a manager.
My main contribution to Boston MBA program is the knowledge on the Asian information and communication business circle and venture business. Since I was in college, I have been deeply interested in the field of information and communication in Asia, devoting myself to the research on the field. In college, I established a research club on venture business by the name of ‘xxx’ with other 12 fellow students in the department of business administration. Therefore, we opened conferences on a regular basis for the sake of predicting their technology, business management, and prospect for the development of 50 potential venture businesses in Korea. As a matter of fact, we expected 8 companies such as xxx and xxx would grow as world leading companies during that time. Like the way we expected, they are currently marking rapid increase in stock value more than xx times of its original value in x years. In this context, it proved our high level of capability in terms of analysis.
Thanks to my vigorous attention, during x years of work experience at xxx, I have been mainly involved in the business analysis for the sake of foreign investment company that would like to invest on the Korean venture businesses as well as Korean companies that would like to invest on the information and communication enterprises in Asia including China. Beyond that, I personally spent lots of time in developing the level of my knowledge on the information and communication business circle in about 80 countries in Asia including Korea. In this context, I am confident that I have more specific and analytical knowledge as to what is going on in Asian venture businesses than anybody else. In particular, I am eligible to transfer a great deal of knowledge on the technology, potential, and flaw of the main venture businesses in terms of Internet in Korea to the fellow students in Boston. I hope that my specific knowledge will serve as great help when my colleagues in Boston enter the business market in Asia after graduation.
3. Why is an MBA, MS/MIS, or MSIM the next natural step in your career advancement? Why is this the right time for you to pursue graduate management education? Please mention your career goals in your response.
After graduating from your university in 20xx, I intend to return to xxx,the company at which I am currently employed, and work for x years as a consultant to venture companies in Korea and Asia. By the year 20xx, I hope to have founded my own consulting firm and to operate a “venture incubator” company that nurtures startup ventures by providing support with capital investment and management consulting. To this end, if possible, I plan to pursue a CFA certification after graduating from your business school. Armed with the CFA certification along with a top business school’s international exposure, strength in finance, and management training, I will concentrate my efforts on turning venture companies into world-class companies with my technical expertise and aspiration. Working at xxx for the last x years helped solidify my goals. After graduating from college in February of 19xx and joining xx- considered as the most experienced consulting company in Korea – I concentrated on analyzing investment results and securing foreign capital for Korean companies. The four projects which I handled in these two years were mainly market forecasting and return-on-investment analysis for companies looking to invest in the Internet and telecommunications.
During this period, I was able to discover the enormous market potential in Asia for Internet-related businesses. In particular, xxx to which I was a consultant for two months starting May 19xx, and the xxx Project, for which I am currently a consultant, are xxx projects with expected revenues of $xx billion and $xx billion respectively over the next 10 years; they are model cases that showed me the potential of venture telecommunications companies. In working on these projects, I discovered the possibility of unearthing venture companies operating in Asia and developing nations and turning them into global competitors. I decided that in order to realize this goal, I must gain a greater insight on the business international environment in addition to the management and accounting knowledge that I currently have. This is the first reason why I want to go to business school. I want to cultivate my management abilities by engaging in focused studies on areas such as Corporate Finance and Financial Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and International Marketing at a U.S. business school. The second reason why I want to go to business school is because I want to acquire a firm knowledge of the Asian market, a topic I have avidly pursued since college. During college I attained considerable knowledge on Japan and China through two separate 6-month language-training studies, and these experiences greatly aided my performance of investment consulting in Asia during my employment at xxx. These experiences also made me realize the need to further reinforce my knowledge in up-and-coming telecommunications markets of countries like China and Singapore; while studying at your university, I hope to concentrate my studies on Asia, its companies, and its growth potential and investment strategy. This is precisely why I would choose International Business as my area of concentration.
One of the main reasons I have chosen Boston University is its environment. Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States. And it is located at the heart of Boston. I can say with confidence that I know about Boston University’s advantages and status more than anyone else does, because I’ve stayed in the city for about two months. Indeed, I’ve been to the building of School of Management in Boston University several times. And I think that I could acquire more information and have various experiences there than in other business schools which are far away from cities.
The second reason why I apply for Boston University is its unique and excellent MBA program. Encouraging students to concentrate on process instead of function, the MBA program that Boston University offers put an emphasis on “Total Quality Management”, which integrates a number of subjects. In this light, I believe that those who go through the MBA course in Boston University could exercise more outstanding capability even in the areas they don’t major in than those who study in other business schools.The third is the fact that Boston University provides students with full support, especially through the Field Career Center. I know that Boston University is a school that is willing to give a practical help to its students through a vast range of programs, such as “the First Place”, which is an interactive software-recruiting program. Thank you.
Optional question:
5. What will be the admissions committee’s chief concern in evaluating your potential for success at Boston University? Please explain why this concern might be unfounded or not important.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, I have been a permanent employee of xxx since February 19xx. Because my transcript indicates I also earned a degree in journalism in February 19xx, I believe this warrants an explanation of the circumstances surrounding this record. Since college, I have had a great interest since in the influence that the media has on the modern corporation. During my junior year, I received a prize in a college thesis-writing competition sponsored by the xxx for a paper entitled “xxx” In particular, my suspicions that the media’s reporting had a crucial effect on the Korean stock market and the growth of companies were confirmed during sessions of the “xxx” at xxx University Business Administration Department, of which I was an ardent participant.
From this experience, I concluded that to become a management consultant, I needed more in depth study of the relationship between the media and the corporation.
For this reason, I decided to pursue both journalism and business administration degrees. While working as a consultant, I attended evening classes and earned the journalism degree in 1 year. Therefore, although I was enrolled in xxx University in 19xx, I was actually employed full time at xxx as a 19xx graduate. I would like to point out that my studies in journalism took place in the evenings, and thus this is consistent with my two or more years of full-time work experience.