tarun2040 hey!
I'm also targetting the September 4th ED round.
Last year I started looking into doing an MBA around mid-September and was already too late for R1 on IESE (had a deadline of October 17th), so I applied R2, and just didn't make the cut. (I'd like to think it was strong competition (a lot of GMAT 720+ in my round), and strong, company sponsored profiles).
Considering IESE is my absolute favourite school to go to. The reasons for this are, a) I want to move to Spain, so a Spanish alumni base is important for me, b) it's a 2 year program, which I believe to be important so that you have time to learn, and absorb/apply what you learned (think: creating a habit), and finally c) because out of the 3 Spanish schools I most relate to their focus on general management, entrepreneurship and focus on Ethics. (in particular the ethics part).
anyway, since my belief is that I would have gotten in in an earlier less competitive round, I decided to apply round 1 this year.
Then I discovered they had added an early decision round, and decided to aim for that one (priority school, I'm certain I will take this one if I get acceptance + all spots still open, no profiles have been accepted yet that could potentially have the same background as mine)
Right now my focus is on improving my GMAT (scoring 760 in GMATprep practice exams but only 700 on the actual test), and getting my recommendation letters sorted.)
I did my own analysis of the essay topics and came pretty much to the same conclusion (i've been on them since 2 weeks before they were published, chasing my Adcom, asking why they weren't up yet
)
- why MBA + why IESE, what's your added value to IESE
- what are your short and medium term goals --> prove you've thought about this.
the one thing I'm concerned about on the essays is that you don't really get space to sell yourself. Last year the essay specifically asked you to speak about your strength and weaknesses, which allowed you to speak about how you improved on these through experiences.
now, since they basically ask you to answer 3 questions in 300 words... it's not that easy.
I'm planning to ask my recommenders to focus a bit on those strengths, weaknesses and my growth in them