London Business School 2011 MBA Essay Questions

Essays

Question 1. Give us a brief assessment of your career progress to date.

In what role do you see yourself working in immediately after graduation and what is your longer term career vision?

How will your past and present experiences help you to achieve this?

How will the London Business School MBA Programme contribute to this goal?

Why is this the right time for you to pursue an MBA? (750 Words)

This is a classic goals question with the focus on your short-term goals — what you want to do immediately after you receive your MBA. How did you develop this goal? Why does it appeal to you? How did your experiences shape your goal and how do they reveal the appropriateness of your goal. (If you are a couch-potato or klutz, don’t say you want to be a professional athlete–which wouldn’t be a match for b-school anyway.)  Finally, how will LBS help you achieve your goal?

Question 2. Give a specific example of when you have had to test your leadership and team working skills. Given this experience what role will you play in a first year study group? (300 Words)

First think of an example of you in a team setting and taking a leadership role. You don’t need to have had the title of “team lead” or “captain.” You need to have influenced, persuaded, and motivated other team members. What qualities did you exhibit that allowed you to succeed? Good listening skills? The ability to take a back seat when someone else knew more? Your teammates trust in your technical knowledge? There could be an infinite number of other traits; these are just a few that I thought of.

Then research the first year study groups at London Business School. The web site says, “When you arrive at London Business School, you will be assigned to a Study Group of six or seven people from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds. You will work with them throughout the first year and achieve around 50 per cent of your first year grade together.” You should also watch this video. Then show how the traits that made you successful in your example would also help you in a LBS Study Group.

Question 3. Student involvement is an extremely important part of the London Business School MBA experience and this is reflected in the character of students on campus. Please describe how you will contribute to student clubs and the community and why? (300 Words)

They shortened this question this year by 100 words. Again, you need to research student life at LBS before you can answer this question. The best answers will directly respond to all elements in the question by showing that you have been involved in similar college, community, or professional organizations in the past. And you will be able to illustrate your abilities to contribute to LBS by discussing your earlier contributions.

Question 4. London Business School offers a truly global and diverse experience. Describe any significant experiences outside of your home country or culture. What did you gain and how will your experience contribute to London Business School? (300 Words)

And they added 150 words to this essay this year. This question reflects the importance of international and cross-cultural experiences for London Business School. What were the most 1-2 significant experiences you have had outside your home country and what did you learn from them.

Please choose ONE of the following options.

First rule when you have a choice: Choose the option that complements your other essays and is easiest for you to write a compelling, persuasive engaging essays. That is almost always the option you are most enthusiastic about writing, the one that almost writes itself.

Whatever you choose, keep it short & sweet. You only have 150 words.

Question 5a. You have decided to stand for the role of Student Association President. Announcing your campaign to the London Business School community for the first time, please describe your manifesto. (150 Words)

To respond to this question, you need to have a clear understanding of student life at LBS and the role of the Association President. What would you introduce or change? How are you qualified to be the LBS Association president?

OR

Question 5b. What is your most substantial achievement to date and why? (150 Words)

If at all possible demonstrate the impact of your achievement using numbers, If you have room, mention a challenge you faced along the way. Definitely include why you consider this experience to be your most substantial.

Question 6 (optional). Is there any other information that you believe would help the MBA Admissions Committee when considering your application? (300 Words)

Please see “The Optional Question: To Be or Not to Be.”

Question 7 (for re-applicants only). How has your candidacy for the London Business School MBA improved since your last application? Have your views of London Business School or the MBA programme changed since you last applied? (300 Words)

This is THE key question for all reapplicants. London just asks it explicitly. Please see:

• Application Advice for MBA Reapplicants
• Create a Better Sequel: How to Reapply Right to Business School
• Take 2: MBA Reapplicant Webinar

Question 8. Please provide a CV/Resume. This CV must only be one page in length. If you have any significant gaps in your employment history, please tell us why on a separate sheet.

Go beyond mere job description to highlight achievement. If your title is “consultant,” saying that you “consulted on projects” is uninformative at best. If you are a financial analyst boasting that you did financial analysis states the obvious. Writing that you “Led a 6-member team working on a biotech outsourcing project to Slovakia with a budget of $X. It came in on time and under budget.” conveys infinitely more.

If you would like help with your London Business School MBA application, please consider Accepted’s MBA essay editing and admissions consulting or an LBS MBA Package, which includes essay editing, interview coaching, consultation, and a resume edit for the LBS MBA application.

By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.

Students that are considering MBA programs at schools like London Business School, Harvard, or Wharton are the target students for these top Asian b-schools. “There’s the Ivy League in America,” says Nick Soriano, Nanyang’s director of marketing and admissions, “so we thought: ‘Why can’t we Asian business schools do the same kind of thing.’”

Asia’s recent economic boom is responsible for the concurrent success of its business administration programs. Singapore and Hong Kong universities report that in the last five years their Western applications have doubled. At Nanyang last year alone the number of students from the Americas increased fivefold.

Last year American and European students made up 20% of Hong Kong University of Science & Technology’s MBA class; in 2001 there were half as many. At CEIBS 22% of the MBA class hails from the U.S. and Europe. 80% of the Western students who attend CEIBS remain in China after graduation to work.

Western students are attracted to these top Asia b-schools for a number of reasons. First, English is the language of instruction, making the coursework 100% accessible. Also, the programs are shorter and cost less. Studying at the Indian School of Business where you can walk away with a degree one year and less than $50,000 later, is a lot more appealing to some students than studying at Wharton for two years at a whopping hundred grand. The opportunity to gain international work experience is yet another considerable draw, in addition to the fact that large western companies have begun recruiting more and more from top Asian business schools.

And these schools are good. Very good. In the 2010 Financial Times global business school rankings, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology tied with Chicago Booth for ninth place. The other three schools in the new alliance are all included in the FT’s top 30: ISB was ranked number 12 this year; the China Europe International Business School came in at the number 22 spot; and Nanyang came in 27th on the list of the top 100 b-schools. (London Business School, Wharton, and Harvard snagged the top three spots.)

Do you want to go global with your MBA? Download Internationalizing the MBA, a free special report, to explore the increasingly global canvas of leading MBA programs in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

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• An Israeli news source (Globes.co.il) reports that top b-schools in the U.S. have begun recruiting seriously in Israel. This year, more than 150 Israeli students will attend MBA programs in the U.S., including the first ever Israeli-Ethiopian student will be studying at Brandeis as a Fulbright scholar. Duke Fugua recently established a scholarship especially for Israeli students, and decided that Tel Aviv will soon become an anchor city for holding admissions interviews, putting it in a class with Beijing, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Army experience (which in Israel is mandatory) is always an impressive point when adcoms are reviewing student profiles.
• Top business schools in the U.S. are adding social media courses to their curricula to keep up with the growing corporate demand for social media-savvy employees, reports a Businessweek article, “B-Schools All A-Twitter Over Social Media.” Companies like Panasonic, AT&T, and Citigroup all hire social media directors to “develop and manage marketing strategies that address the nuances of the online world.” If b-school graduates want to be considered for competitive positions in marketing and development, they’ll need to make sure that their technological social media skills are current. (Only 84% of 2009 b-school graduates placed jobs straight out of school, compared to 2007’s 98%.) Columbia offers four internet marketing courses, including “Media and Technology” and “Social Media.” Harvard offers “Competing with Social Networks.” Other top international b-schools that offer courses in social media include London Business School, Insead, and HEC Paris.
• An AAMC study examines med student interest in practicing in underserved areas at the time of matriculation, and how that interest changes by the time they graduate. Student race and ethnicity are also factored into the data. Results show that intent to serve the underserved populations diminishes over the course of med students’ studies. Those who were undecided at the time of matriculation were more likely to change their intentions to “no.” However, among Latino and African American students, the switch to “yes” from “undecided” was more prevalent.

Does an international MBA pique your interest? Find out more about the international MBA scene when you download Internationalizing the MBA, a new Accepted.com special report.

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A little about Prof. Dipak Jain:

• Prof. Jain was born in Assam, India.
• He is 53 years old, making him one of the youngest business school deans on the international scene.
• While the vast majority of his teaching experience has been in the U.S., he has also taught in India and has been known to have a “vision of developments in Asia”—one of the qualities that appealed to the Insead board.
• He was dean of Northwestern Kellogg for eight years, until he stepped down in 2009.
• He is a prolific marketing scholar.
• He was responsible (according to Jain himself) for altering the Kellogg culture from being an individual-driven program, as it was when Don Jacobs (his predecessor) was dean, to an institution-driven program, “with multiple associate deans and devolved responsibilities.”
• Prof. Jain is “a thoroughbred academic,” in contrast to INSEAD’s current dean Frank Brown, who is more of a business professional. INSEAD, London Business School, and IMD, top international business schools, all hired non-academic deans in the recent past, and are all now—after deeming that strategy a mistake—replacing them with academic deans.

The appointment process should be completed in the next few weeks.

(Source: Financial Times, “Dipak Jain Tipped for Insead“)

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

• Another recent Financial Times article, “Shift to international standards happening, but slowly,” reports on some of the challenges b-schools have been facing in the area of global business harmonization, particularly with regards to accounting. The rules of accounting have traditionally varied by jurisdiction, yet the EU has been attempting to include accounting in its international financial reporting standards (IFRS) since 2005. The U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board, however, have confirmed that they will not meet the June 2011 deadline, creating educational limits for providers who are seeking to standardize and internationalize their accounting programs. Accounting professors must juggle both American and international standards until the two merge following what may be many more years of debate and planning. According to the FT article, soon, localized accountancy training will disappear with the “globalization of accounting practices and the eventual adoption of IFRS.”

• Big GMAT test prep books have gone the way of bulky dictionaries and encyclopedias—they’ve gone digital. Future MBA hopefuls will no longer need to tote oversized paper GMAT books, but will be able to download easily accessible GMAT apps for their smart phones, reports a Businessweek blog post. iPhone apps include Kaplan GMAT Flashcards, GMAT ToolKit, and the new GMAT Pill, a month-long study plan developed by GMAT high-scorer, Zeke Lee. The benefit of such programs—besides for the amount of space they’ll save in your bag—is that they implement more visual explanations through video tutorials. As Lee explains, “What’s special about these videos is they are really helping students change the way they think.” Android and BlackBerry users will also have GMAT options at their fingertips, for affordable, on-the-go GMAT prep.

• Rising college costs are a source of anxiety and anger for many students and their families. According to a recent Businessweek blog, tuition and fees for private nonprofit universities and colleges has increased by about 4.5%, about 0.2% greater an increase than last year. While these increases may wreck havoc on your bank account and retirement plans, it is interesting to note that these tuition hikes (last year’s and this year’s) are actually the two lowest increases since the 1972-1973 academic year. 4.5% may seem unmanageable, but it beats the pre-recession increase average of 6% per year. Another silver lining: Grant and scholarship programs received a 6.8% average increase this year.

Do you need help financing your future college or graduate school costs? Buy our featured ebook, Financing Your Future, by July 31, 2010 and receive 20% off when you use coupon code FUTURE20 at checkout.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Internationalizing the MBA, a special report written by Accepted editor and international b-school expert, Tanis Kmetyk, will explore the pros and cons of joining the overseas MBA scene, helping you make your big decision—should you study for your MBA on home soil, or take the leap and head abroad to an international or American b-school in a foreign country?

Learn whether an international MBA is right for you by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of these different programs.

Download  Internationalizing the MBA.

By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.

London Business School 2011 MBA Essay Questions

The Admissions Committee will consider carefully your answers to the following questions.  Please complete all of the essay questions beginning your answer below each question and giving word counts for each answer.  Once complete, please attach this document to your online application following the instructions given on the web form.

Question 1 (750 words)
Give us a brief assessment of your career progress to date.
In what role do you see yourself working in immediately after graduation and what is your longer term career vision?
How will your past and present experiences help you to achieve this?
How will the London Business School MBA Programme contribute to this goal?
Why is this the right time for you to pursue an MBA?

This is a classic goals question. Last year it focused on short-term goals, and a separate question asked about long-term goals. This year it asks about both short-term, post-MBA goals and long-term “career vision.”  How did you develop this goal? This vision? Why does it appeal to you? How did your experiences shape your goal and how do they reveal the appropriateness of your goal. (If you are a couch-potato or klutz, don’t say you want to be a professional athlete–which wouldn’t be a match for b-school anyway.)  Finally, how will LBS help you achieve your goal?

Caution: Don’t repeat your resume in your response to this question. Choose 1-3 influential and impressive experiences to show how your aspirations developed and your qualifications for LBS.

Question 2 (300 words)
Give a specific example of when you have had to test your leadership and team working skills. Given this experience what role will you play in a first year study group?

Very similar to last year’s #3. First of all learn about the role of study groups at London Business School. Also, reflect on your experience in teams. If you have been involved in teams outside of work and your other essays focused on work, then this essay presents an opportunity to discuss another facet of your life. Have you been able to both lead and occasionally take a back seat when others with skills or qualifications you lack are better prepared to lead your team? After thinking about your team experience and the role of study groups at LBS, show how your past experience will help you contribute to your study group.

Question 3 (300 words)
Student involvement is an extremely important part of the London Business School MBA experience and this is reflected in the character of students on campus. Please describe how you will contribute to student clubs and the community and why?

You need to research student life at LBS before you can answer this question. The best answers will directly respond to all elements in the question by showing that you have been involved in similar college, community, or professional organizations in the past. And you will be able to illustrate your abilities to contribute at LBS by discussing your earlier contributions. Don’t forget to answer “and why.”

Question 4 (300 words)
London Business School offers a truly global and diverse experience. Describe any significant experiences outside of your home country or culture. What did you gain and how will your experience contribute to London Business School?

This question reflects the importance of international and cross-cultural experiences for London Business School. Note the word limit here. Short and sweet. What were the most 1-2 significant experiences you have had outside your home country and what did you learn from them? How will you consequenlty contribute?

Question 5

Please choose ONE of the following options.

Providing a choice is a new move for London Business School. Choose the essay that will allow you to write with enthusiasm about an area of your life or achievement that you have not yet discussed.

Question 5a (150 words)
You have decided to stand for the role of Student Association President. Announcing your campaign to the London Business School community for the first time, please describe your manifesto.

This may be difficult to answer if you have not been involved in student government and certainly would be a very difficult essay to write if you don’t have a clear idea of what you would do as Student Association President. On the other hand, if you have really studied student life at LBS and have a clear idea of what you would like to accomplish, go for it.

Question 5b (150 words)
What is your most substantial achievement to date and why?

The essay is short, and the topic is broad. Be succinct. Show how your accomplishment achieved impact, contribution,

Question 6 (300 words) (This question is optional)
Is there any other information that you believe would help the MBA Admissions Committee when considering your application

Please see “The Optional Question: To Be or Not to Be “

Question 7 (300 words)(This question is for re-applicants only)
How has your candidacy for the London Business School MBA improved since your last application? Have your views of London Business School or the MBA programme changed since you last applied?

This is THE key question for all reapplicants. London just asks it explicitly. Please see:

• Application Advice for MBA Reapplicants
• Create a Better Sequel: How to Reapply Right to Business School
• Take 2: MBA Reapplicant Webinar

Question 8
Please provide a CV/Resume. This CV must only be one page in length. If you have any significant gaps in your employment history, please tell us why on a separate sheet.

Go beyond mere job description to highlight achievement. If your title is “consultant.” Saying that you “consulted on projects” is uninformative at best. If you are a financial analyst boasting that you did financial analysis states the obvious. Writing that you “Led a 6-member team working on a biotech outsourcing project to Slovakia with a budget of $X. It came in on time and under budget” conveys infinitely more. For more information, please see “Admissions Resume: What to Include.”

If you would like help with your London Business School MBA application, please consider Accepted’s MBA essay editing and admissions consulting or an LBS Package, which offers soup-to-nuts advising and editing for the LBS MBA application.

By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.

• As social media penetrates the business world, business schools have no choice but to jump on the bandwagon and make sure that their students are well equipped with social media knowledge, reports the New York Times article, “Business Schools Respond to Demand for Use of Social Media.” Top b-schools, including Harvard Business School, INSEAD, and London Business School, are now incorporating social media material into their MBA curriculums. Anthony Salcito, VP of worldwide education at Microsoft, explains that as businesses adopt and adapt to the commercial value of social media networks, universities need to keep their students up to speed on the profitable potential of internet marketing.

Related Accepted.com MBA Resources:

• B-School Zones
• Navigating the MBA Maze, an ecourse.
• Submit a Stellar Application: 42 Terrific Tips, an instantly downloadable ebook.
• MBA BlastOff: 45 Terrific Tips to Launch Your MBA Application, an instantly downloadable ebook.

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Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best