『M7 and Top 20 MBA Essays - 9 Themes (2026 Entering Class)』のカバーアート

M7 and Top 20 MBA Essays - 9 Themes (2026 Entering Class)

M7 and Top 20 MBA Essays - 9 Themes (2026 Entering Class)

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 The first question all those who are shortlisting M7 or Top 20 MBA programs should ask is which themes cover my personal and professional experiences.1) Goals2) Inclusion3) Values4) Community5) Career Choices6) Curiosity7) Leadership8) Uniqueness9) IMPACTLet us say you are applying to the INSEAD MBA. Applicants who don’t have enough international experience should not apply to INSEAD, which closely evaluates your cultural intelligence and negotiation skills across international teams.There are applicants who might not be a good fit for Wharton, but could be an excellent fit for Chicago Booth.The choice of the schools should be determined by the incoming class profile, post-MBA placement trends, and the curriculum, but if you are shortlisting a few stretch schools, evaluate the essay themes and ask yourself – can you map your life story into one of the themes.That is why I use an IMPACT table to help applicants summarize their life stories in one document. So, let’s go one by one through each theme:1) GoalsThis is the most common essay question that you should expect in all your school applications. Even schools that use reflective or open-ended essays, will ask about your goals in short-answer questions.Learn the concept of ‘Agency in MBA Application essays’ that I have explained in my previous video.Schools use goal essays to evaluate your ambition and also to measure your potential to reach a goal. This cannot be just stated without evidence of achieving similar goals in the recent past.If your post-MBA goal is ambitious, you should show evidence of tackling a similar problem even if the scale is smaller.For example, an applicant was passionate about transforming the job market for low-income workers in Africa. Typically, low-income workers move from one job to another without any trace. He talked about using digitization to create a work history record that could be shared with any contractors in the region. Because the applicant has experience in a large consulting company, working on a similar data project, his goals looked feasible.This is an important concept you have to keep in mind before shortlisting a school.Read through their essays and see if you have relevant experience to cite ambitious post-MBA goals in your essays.If you don’t have any entrepreneurial experience either in startups or a non-profit, citing entrepreneurial goals would not work out.The same goes for industry switching from, let's say, technology to finance.If you don’t have experience in Finance, either through managing a family business or running the accounts of a non-profit, or even working as a subject matter expert in a bank, mentioning a goal to transition into Finance would not be feasible.Earlier, when applicants didn’t have the stories to transition into Product Management or Finance, they used to choose consulting as their default industry and function.Right now, even Consulting is not a recession-proof industry with Ai and automation affecting the demand across the clientele.Now, to switch into Consulting and into a niche capability, you should have some hands-on experience.It is the middle-management and entry-level jobs that have been deeply disrupted by AI.Apart from a few selective schools that still build skills for General Managers, most want some functional experience with the technology or some experience in the industry.To know more about the right schools where your general management or leadership narratives could be used, contact me using F1GMAT’s contact form 2) InclusionThe inclusion theme has evolved over the past 4 years, from an academic version of interpreting concepts in equity and diversity to a moderate interpretation of how you have incorporated inclusion in your work or personal life.This change is a reflection of American politics and to a larger extend a backlash from centrist and right-leaning ideologues, who found students prioritising identity over economic outcomes extremely Unamerican. The stricter control over federal funding where universities were asked to tow the line to such an extreme that now you won’t find any essays with DEI mentioned it. Even pages with DEI were scrubbed with the new administration.Columbia has rephrased the PPIL essay, which was a great essay question that connected the school’s legacy of incorporating diverse perspectives, to right now with a prompt that might misguide applicants.Even if there is political pressure to change certain uses of phrases around Diversity and Equity, cultures don’t just vanish. Applicants must be aware of it and not get carried away by the pressure the universities are facing to comply. Refer to F1GMAT’s PPIL Essay tips to understand the evolution of the inclusion question at Columbia.Read the older version of the PPIL Essay Tips.This year, Columbia has rephrased the PPIL essay to an inclusion essay that asks, “Please share a specific example of how you made a team more collaborative, more ...
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