Calling all IESE MBA applicants for 2019 intake (Class of 2021)

tarun2040


Essay Question I: How do you expect to be changed by your experience at IESE and what impact you would like to make after your MBA? (word limit 300 max)


Another way to ask you why you are choosing IESE. Because most IESE applicants are also applying to LBS and INSEAD…along with other European schools. For purposes of yield, they do want to know that you have a special interest in their school and this is a sly way of getting that information (one idea might to be to show why Barcelona is a must for you.)

“How do you expect to be changed” this is another way of asking you how you expect to be transformed by your experience at their school; it’s kind of like why MBA + why IESE specifically.

Pretty clever question because in one go they are learning about why you need THEIR program (what's in it for you? how do you need them to help transform you?) and how you will be more successful as a result of it (what's in it for them? will you be an alumni who will make them proud and attract foundation dollars?)

Essay Question II: What are your short and medium term post MBA career goals and how will IESE help you achieve them? (word limit 300 max)


A bit tricky because unless you navigate this carefully, potential for overlap between the 2 questions.

My recommendation would be to focus the first essay question around personal qualities and a personal transformation and then the long-term legacy you hope to have. Using process of deduction here long-term is the only term missing in the second essay question.

For essay two, just stick to the post-MBA job and make sure it is something they can help you with. If you are looking to become the next cleantech entrepreneur IESE might not be the right school so take a look at their employment statistics and recruiters and make sure they can realistically help you get what you want. Medium term; the path you would take to achieve the long term goal mentioned in the first essay.

Hope this helps!~
Farrell
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Hi Farrell,
Thank you very much for such detailed response. You always seem to be the Santa Claus for us giving us much needed information. I also received some valuable insight from you for other applications.

Great description of the questions giving a clear picture of what is expected. I was worried about the overlap between the two questions as well. I have a couple of follow up questions regarding the above:

When the school asks how do I expect to be changed, do they expect me to specifically address my weaknesses, considering it will only be about 150 words for the first part of first essay?

Can you briefly explain about foundation dollars? You can just brief what it is and in which ways a student's success can affect it.

My long term goal is entrepreneurship. And I hope to achieve it through consulting and creating a network along the way. Ideally my long term venture would have a product development arm, leadership team spread across the country and a sales arm among other typical organizational divisions. I'm still trying to figure it out. How much detail do I have to mention about it?

Thank you very much for your valuable insights.

tarun2040: Thanks for starting this topic. I've moved it to IESE forum. Let's make it official discussion for IESE 2019 intake. I am adding first post with data table, stats, and useful links.

Thanks for starting this Narenn. Let me know if you would like help with moderating.
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https://blog.iese.edu/mba/from-engineer ... cted%29%29

https://mbaprepcoach.com
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Thank you for the details explanation Farrell. The link is super helpful as well.

Farrell, also just wondering why no one has been active here apart from me for IESE. IESE has an early decision round on Sep 4th deadline and I thought at least a few would be active. Am I missing something?

tarun2040 hi there, sorry for the late response. Well, a couple of things I think that it is a fairly eurocentric school and this is a pretty Asia Centric forum. Also I'm not sure that a lot of people would like to put a deposit down on iese when they would prefer to explore adjacent options like insead lbs hec and possibly even other Spanish programs. However if you are able to articulate a strong fit between your goals and their program and apply round one I think that your chances will be significantly higher than those in later rounds. Because to be honest iese probably knows this about themselves, if you present yourself as someone who is likely to say yes if they say yes to you (yield) it will increase your chances sizeably.

https://mbaprepcoach.com
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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

Hi aeon86

sorry to hear IESE did not work out last time. I feel that you have a fantastic focus on what separates IESE for you, and thankfully the essay questions this year definitely require you understand and articulate how IESE fits with your goals LOCK AND KEY.

I will say, I'm not sure it is a safe assumption to believe that you didn't get an interview all because of R2 vs. R1. Yes, if you are overrepresented you need a strong GMAT but that can be partly sidestepped by differentiating yourself effectively.

Given your passion and interest in the school, I would STRONGLY recommend that you have an established admissions consultant review your essays, CV, app responses and recommendation letters from last year. The feedback that you will get from this could help identify red flags to avoid and build a more solid application this year.

Might cost a few dollars but this whole MBA thing does anyways, so to properly leverage your investment in application fees it makes sense to know if you are headed in the right direction.


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MBAPrepCoach Hey, I may not have been clear: I did get the interview, as well as the assessment day. It was after those, that I got denied.

I did consider it. Despite feeling admissions coaches to be extremely expensive.
However, with less than a month remaining I don’t know if it’s worth it.
As mentioned I’m currently focusing full time on that gmat, and will then write those essays (2nd half of August).

I already have a general idea of what I want to write, and have several people on standby to proofread and provide feedback. My recommendation letters are also sorted (2 old bosses (previous owners of the company), each of which I worked directly under.)

Right now I believe I can manage it all provided I get that gmat up.
Unsure what an admissions consultant could do on such short term, especially considering I’m certain most are extremely busy with prepping other clients for R1

Posted from my mobile device

update on my status:
I retook the GMAT today, and while I don't have my AWA score yet (I don't feel I did my best writing), I did manage to improve from my 700 to a 750.
I'm super happy because I really wasn't looking forward to studying the rest of the holidays to try and improve it once more before the ED round.

so right now I'm continuing my Essays and recommendation letters.
The GMAT is going to be my biggest improvement since my rejection in March, half a year ago though, but I do feel that it's a strong improvement.

Hello guys,

I am an IESE candidate for the 2020 class.
It's starting next week!!
I know you guys must have a lot of questions about the application, GMAT, visit fo the campus, life in Barcelona, etc...
I decided to do a blog! I just started a few days ago, so the tone is not yet perfect

https://www.iesemba.com

I will be posting during the year, to share my experience during the MBA.
Let me know what you think and don't hesitate to ask me questions I'd be happy to answer!

Best,

Waïna

Hello Waïna,
always nice to see a fellow Belgian
I'm looking forward to reading about your experience, and, god willing, experience it myself next year.

Just got the following email from IESE. May be beneficial to Indian applicants.


Come and meet our admissions team and alumni in India to find out:

• Why the IESE MBA ranks among the top programs in the world
• How the IESE MBA will expose you to business practices spanning 5 continents
• What we mean by “experiential learning” and how it transforms mindsets

Coffee Chat with Alumni, New Delhi, Sept. 22nd. RSVP: https://apli.iese.edu/Tracking/redir.as ... e=71372938
Coffee Chat with Alumni, Mumbai, Sept. 23rd. RSVP: https://apli.iese.edu/Tracking/redir.as ... e=71372939

Hi Aeon86,

Congrats on the GMAT. I'm sorry I'm not sure how I missed the earlier messages here. 750 is a very good score.

I'm almost done with my application as well and looking forward to submitting.

Did you figure out what could have gone wrong in your application apart from the R2 vs R1? Because from my alumni homework, I understand that people who are called for assessment days are almost always converted to an admit unless something really messed up happens.

We shall keep in touch through the process. May I also ask what your post MBA plan is? Thank you.

Hey Tarun,

I actually just submitted today.

Looking at my profile, my CV was far from optimal, I had a not-strong gmat and my essays could have been better. In addition I believe one of my recommenders wasn’t top notch.

I addressed all those issues this time.
What I believe went wrong?
I had already done the case we had to prep during the open day, and they asked me to try and guide the team in the right direction without letting them know I knew the answers. Since everyone tries to prove them self this proved to be near impossible, and I didn’t want to start arguing. In addition I took a trait from Germans which is that I’m very direct which can be seen as rude/aggressive. Cultural sensitivity is something I’ve been working on.

You don’t get feedback, so I hope I read it somewhat right.

Posted from my mobile device

Hey Aeon,

I understand. Did you try to address this issue before submitting today? As in make more facetime with adcom and engage to show the cultural fit via talking/essays/informational interviews etc?

Please keep us posted about any developments with you. I will do the same as well.

Thank you.