{"id":34181,"date":"2016-08-16T07:20:59","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T14:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=34181"},"modified":"2016-08-15T14:33:04","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T21:33:04","slug":"add-detail-to-your-social-enterprisecommunity-service-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/add-detail-to-your-social-enterprisecommunity-service-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Add Detail to Your Social Enterprise\/Community Service Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"community-service\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re applying for an MBA, a PhD in Public Policy (or many other doctoral fields), or a Masters in Social Work, you\u2019re likely to talk about social enterprise, or community service, goals in your application<\/a>. For some, this will be your primary objective \u2013 those of you seeking careers in the non-profit sector, for example. For others, community service may be secondary, but you\u2019re likely to mention service-related goals in the context of how you\u2019ll contribute to the program or in outlining your post-degree volunteer\/philanthropic efforts.<\/p>\n

Bringing Social Enterprise Goals to Life<\/b><\/p>\n

Regardless, you should follow a simple piece of advice: Use rich specifics to bring your social enterprise goals to life. I can\u2019t tell you how many essay drafts I\u2019ve seen with something like \u201c\u2026and I look forward to giving back by helping those in need in my community and addressing major global issues like poverty and global warming.\u201d You may as well write, \u201cI\u2019m a good person, I swear.<\/a>\u201d It would have about as much impact.<\/p>\n

Instead, use powerful details to paint the picture of your goals. For those of you whose careers will focus on social enterprise, this is especially important. For example, if your future path is related to microfinance (i.e., managing micro-loans to entrepreneurs in emerging economies), on top of the places where you would seek employment talk about the specific countries on which you would like to focus (e.g., India, Mexico, African regions), the target segments and types of entrepreneurship you would seek to fund (e.g., women selling handiwork), and the partnerships you would try to forge (e.g., with banks and NGOs).<\/p>\n

Okay, you may say, but my social enterprise goals are harder to define because they\u2019re not in a well-established field like microfinance. For example, you may be an IT engineer who wants to use technology to improve the lives of those in underserved rural regions of a country like India. In that case, do your best to specify how you\u2019d like to do this, including by using statistics on relevant trends. You may point out that though internet use is still minimal in rural India, the mobile phone subscriber base has grown by 70% a year (made-up stat; you should use a real one), representing a great opportunity to do\u2026whatever it is you\u2019d like to do.<\/p>\n

Dealing with Fuzzier Social Enterprise Goals<\/b><\/p>\n

Hold on, you may say, what if I don\u2019t know exactly what I want to do within social enterprise? Well, you should probably have some <\/em> idea, but it doesn't need to be highly specific. This is where you can rely on existing examples to lend richness to your essays. Remember, the majority of successful people didn\u2019t reinvent the proverbial wheel; they just figured out new and better uses for it. So find examples of people doing the kinds of things you\u2019d like to do, and (briefly) tell their story to support yours.<\/p>\n

For example, take a look at the One Acre Fund<\/a>, a non-profit organization started by Kellogg MBA alumnus Andrew Youn that is attacking Africa\u2019s hunger problem by providing individuals seed and fertilizer on credit, weekly on-site agricultural training, and improved market access, with all operations and results assessed with quantitative measures.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s ideal to paint your own vision of your career path, but it\u2019s wise to use such examples when you\u2019re venturing into new territory or truly don\u2019t know exactly what you want to do.<\/p>\n

Bridging Past Community Service Experience with Future Goals<\/b><\/p>\n

And remember: Those of you for whom social enterprise will be a sideline or something you do primarily while in the program (e.g., all top business schools have multiple community service clubs and activities), you\u2019re still not exempt from using specifics. Point out how you\u2019ll build on past community service activities with specific efforts at the school and beyond: \u201cAt Kellogg I\u2019ll build on my hospital volunteer work with Lion\u2019s Club by driving healthcare initiatives for the Social Impact Club. Post-MBA I look forward to joining NGO X to drive AIDS awareness efforts in rural India.\u201d You get the idea.<\/p>\n

So while community service goals are admirable, they won\u2019t have much impact unless you use strong specifics to paint their picture. And we can help you! Check out our catalog of application services here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Leadership_in_Admissions_CTA\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Accepted<\/a><\/p>\n

Related Resources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 Linda Abraham on Fit in Admissions<\/a>, podcast episode
\n\u2022 From Example to Exemplary<\/a>, a free guide
\n\u2022 Ten Do\u2019s and Don\u2019ts for Your Application Essay<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\n

This article<\/a> originally appeared on\u00a0<\/i>blog.accepted.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Applying to a top b-school? The talented folks at Accepted have helped hundreds of applicants get accepted to their dream programs. Whether you are figuring out where apply, writing your application essays, or prepping for your interviews, we are just a call (or click) away.<\/p>\n

Contact us, and get matched up with the consultant who will help\u00a0you\u00a0<\/i>get accepted<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether you\u2019re applying for an MBA, a PhD in Public Policy (or many other doctoral fields), or a Masters in Social Work, you\u2019re likely to talk about social enterprise, or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,939,775,113,243],"tags":[330,1118],"class_list":["post-34181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-accepted","category-admission-consultants","category-applications","category-blog","tag-social-enterprise","tag-social-enterprise-initiative","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34183,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34181\/revisions\/34183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}