Hi

I am extremely confused about what should go in my traditional essay answers in my applications to b-schools. The following few lines mention my profile and then I'll express my conundrum. Please respond to the questions that follow. Thanks

Undergrad in Finance and Physics (dual degree) from BITS, Pilani
GPA 7.81/10 (I guess translates to 3.27 on 4)
8 years and 3 months work experience as a commodity trader with a proprietary trading firm.
GMAT - 710 (Q49, V38, IR 7)

I don't want to change industry from 'Finance', but I don't want to trade anymore. There is not much that I have learnt apart from trading, so I need an MBA to add skills to move to a new function in the same industry.
Since my job required me to work absolutely independently with no intervention from anybody and no hierarchy in the company, my genuine thoughts are that I want to build experience of working in teams and move to this new place with new culture for work after MBA. I am open to various pure finance fields of work such as investment management and investment banking. This is exactly my truthful story and is the content I was going to write in my essay answers.
Somebody pointed out that the story isn't convincing enough that I am interested in an MBA, and I should write a story that sounds more exciting. They also mentioned that my current story tells the adcom that I'm bored with trading so I'm doing an MBA. Although I do understand this person's thought process, I am not inclined to lie in my essays. My question hence is, are the facts in my story not good enough reasons to do an MBA? How are the adcoms going to perceive my thoughts? Can adcom members put me in an ordeal with questions on the length of service in trading (which is quite long, more than 8 years)?


Thanks

Hey szubham!

I would love to address your questions but let’s start with a comprehensive profile evaluation which will help you to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of your profile which in turn will help you craft a good application.

To commence your profile evaluation, I would say that your academic background is quite strong. Your GPA of 7.81 not only displays your academic prowess but also opens a lot of opportunities and doors to top business schools for you. The brand name of BITS Pilani further aids in strengthening your profile as Top B-schools tend to favor candidates from top schools of each country.

Moreover, your GMAT score of 710 is also pretty competitive and would allow you to target most of the top schools in the world.

Moving on to your work experience, you have 8+ years of quality work experience in the field of finance which sets you at par with your competition. However, you have been trading with a proprietary trading firm until now and hence don’t have a big brand name attached to your profile, a major factor dominating the work experience of the average applicant pool. To negate the lack of big brand names, talking about the kind of projects you have undertaken, the impact you created, and your career progression with major learning takeaways would definitely showcase the quality of your work and establish you as no less than a big4 candidate.

Further on the note of extracurricular, B-schools favor applicants with well-rounded and holistically developed profiles which means that apart from your academics and work experience, you also need to highlight your personal development as well. Therefore, to build upon your extracurricular, you can take up certifications in the field of finance such as CFA and FRM to highlight your determination to constantly upskill yourself and take up volunteering activities with local NGOs or your companies’ CSR initiatives to display not only your active community involvement but also capability to utilize your skills to create a positive impact on the society.

Now coming on to your question, I would say that there is no such thing as a good or bad story. What matters is how you pitch your story to the admission committee in your essays to showcase the fact that you not only have the caliber to excel in the program but also need the program to bridge the gap in your skillset. So rather than focusing on the fact that you require an MBA to build upon your skills, you need to highlight a life instance that made you realize the need for an MBA and how the MBA will add on to your current skill set and help you achieve your career goals.

For creating a compelling application, you need more than a simple story. You need to dig deep into your life experiences to figure out the factors that will adorn your application by highlighting various skills revered by the admissions committee. Therefore, I would advise you to check out our flagship ALL-IN-ONE solutions, which has allowed us to help 3500+ applicants to get into their dream schools. This solution would provide you with end-to-end consulting and unlimited edits on your application documents. Not only that, you’d be connected with a top B-school alumnus who’d be helping you right from the scratch to making it to your dream schools!

Link for the ALL-IN-ONE Solutions:

https://www.mim-essay.com/mim-all-in-one

Hope this helped!
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