sailtheworld wrote:
I know this is a very old thread. I am curious what you did for your personal statement. What do you mean by creative? Just wondering because you had great #s and sometimes people are overly critical of themselves and what seems like cheap or lame might not be.
Did you have a lot of finance experience prior?
LSE has only one essay question, and it's quite an open one. If memory serves me correctly, it was basically "write everything and whatever you want in two pages." At least that's what it felt like. So I decided to concoct a mock interview with myself in the form of a conversation. I asked myself questions and would answer them. It was titled "blah on blah" as a reference to F. A Hayek, a noble laureate economist who once taught at LSE (his autobiography, which takes the same form as my application essay, is
Hayek on Hayek). And "blah" in this post stands for my last name (my real last name isn't "blah," by the way)."
The questions dealt with topics that would have been mentioned anyway in the essay (reasons for applying, why now, goals, etc.). But I wanted to add a bit of character instead of just putting "my goal is x and LSE is good because of Y and my thesis will be on Z."
And yes, this was a risky move on my part. I realized this from the start. But confronted with a 2.6 percent acceptance rate, the odds were against me anyway. Plus, I had completed a number of standard application essays from other schools at this time, so my brain's logic system was a bit warped.
Looking back, my approach was a mistake. My self-imposed interview questions acted as a cage and constrained me to my comfort zone. LSE (I suspect) wanted creativity, precision, and uniqueness in my thought process. I shouldn't have relied on questions to guide me through the essay.
And my background did not serve me that well, I'm afraid. Sure, I have good grades from a small university and a solid GMAT score. But that doesn't make me stand out. I lived in Japan and studied the language over there, and this was a plus. But no interesting work experience did not help my case.
But I am currently correcting these omissions. I am a student at HEC and have a solid internship in Asia lined up for September. Afterward, I hope to do another internship after that. Later this year, I will decide whether or not to re-apply to the MSc Finance program, apply to a different MSc program, or just look for a job.