Leadership Experience Essay ... Dilemma ...

Excellent reminder!

I lie somewhere between aaudetat and aurobindo.

My question is, how is your application distributed between work and extracurriculars? Since we don't know, I will give you my examples for the three schools I'm currently applying to:

Haas: 7 essays
- All 4 short answer essays are on extracurriculars, even though some are extracurriculars at work
- Leadership Essay is on a work event
- Goals essay is work, of course
- optional essay is about community service

UCLA: 4 essays
- Family Essay is personal
- Leadership essay is work
- Goals essay is work
- optional essay is community service

Stanford: 4 essays (this is the one where I focused mostly on outside)
- Essay A is personal
- Essay B is goals and work
- Essay C1 and 2 are about community service and extracurriculars

So my other essays, word count wise, is roughly 50% work 50% non work. My Stanford essay is a bit different, with 5 of the 7 pages on non-work, and 2 pages on work. Even in those 2 pages, 1 is spent on why Stanford.

I did this for Stanford because they like to see how you made an impact in your personal life, work life, community service, and your hobbies. I fit each of my four essays into one of those bins. The risk is I'm not talking about work enough, but I will leave that to my recommenders to do. Each of them have talking points from me that talk about my leadership abilities at work, so hopefully that's enough.

With that said, you would have to see if the school focuses more on your personal side (like Stanford) or work side. See what your work/non-work distribution is, and make a decision from there.

I generally would lean towards the BETTER story and example of your leadership potential. Yes, b-school is all about work, but if you don't have the opportunities to demonstrate your leadership skills at work, then it'd be better to see it elsewhere and extrapolate that to work.

Good luck!

I don't agree with the "bucket mentality" (work or not). More often than not, the lines are blurred, specially when you discuss your strengths and weaknesses, etc.

That said, I subscribe to AAu's reminder. Make sure you convey that you are an overachiever at work, and then discuss how well rounded and diverse you are by discussing other aspects of your life.

L.

lepium, yes, the lines are blurred with strengths and weaknesses, but if the essay question asks you for ONE leadership example or ONE greatest accomplishment, then you need to use the "bucket" method. It's either work or non-work.

When it's something that asks about your family, then putting in your work experience probably seems forced.

For what matters most, depending on the thing you choose, you may or may not be able to include work in there.

As for being an "overachiever" at work, not all of us can claim that and some of us have much greater non-work leadership experiences than at work, due to circumstances. I believe business schools are looking for potential leaders, no matter where they apply their skills, not just people who are good at work. Of course, you should talk about your progression at work, but that's what the "goals" essay is for.

My 2 cents.

I tend to agree with this...MBA is about work and not community service. A good leadership experience at work will outweigh a good leadership experience in the community. Check with the school and see if they will sway your decision either way...its worth a shot even if they tell it doesn't matter.

WHile I agree in general with auu and others, I think in this particular case the ad-com is not too concerned about where you derive your experience from. Other schools specifically ask you to cite a professional situation.

trahul4: Because you claim that your non-professional leadership is significantly better, I suggest you to consider it more seriously. But to balance the essays, I suggest you use a professional experience for one of the other essays. The leasership essay is the key essay in any app and you should stick with ur best story for that one. My 2 cents!

Thanks for the comments guys but im finding it really hard to come out of this. LEt me tell you the choices i have

4 essays

1. Wht MBA (100 words) : Cant speak much about work in these 100 words here

2. Biggest failure in life (200 words) : Dont get much of a chance in this. Well i can still touch few lines about work and somehow try to connect

3. What can you contribute : Again my extra curriculars are bt unique and strong. I would like to tell about this rather than my work.

4. LEadership experience.

I think in one of these i need to strees on work if im going to talk about my community leadership. What do you guys suggest? Should i talk about work in what can i contribute essay even though my community work is strong?

In my opinion, you should talk about work in "1. Why MBA"

"4. Leardership experience" can be work or non-work.

"2. Biggest failure" can be non-work I think. Since we are in the beginning stages of career, I don't think we can create blunders at workplace. I agree. It depends

"3. What you can contribute" can be non-work if your extracurriculars are unique.

In all I suggest that you stick to 2 questions on work and 2 non-work as you think your extracurriculars are strong.

Packaging should be on the lines Lepium suggested. Try to position ur self as an "Over achiever with multi-dimensional personality."

if your community leadership is stronger than work, I would use community service for your leadership essay and work for the "contribute" essay. you do need to have some essay in there that mentions work.