In our previous blog post, we shared 3 reasons that you can think about while writing your "Why an MBA?" essay. While selecting and mentioning any one of those reasons, it is important to highlight the functional deficiencies that an MBA degree can fill and how the particular school that you are applying to will address your academic and/or professional needs. It is important to be specific while crafting your MBA essays.
While there are some schools such as Columbia (CBS), Harvard (HBS), and NYU (Stern) which will directly ask you to explain your need of a financially-draining degree aka MBA now, most others might not ask for it straightaway. Whatever might be the case, the responsibility rests on your shoulders to elaborate on why your need for an MBA degree is justified at this juncture of your career (and why not few years later).
For younger applicants (with 2 years of work experience or less) and for mature applicants (30 years old or more, especially for U.S.-based and Canadian programs), the "Why now?" essay is even more crucial. Younger applicants have to show that they can not wait for an year or two to commence their MBA program. Such applicants have to clearly chart out their skills, career progress, and leadership responsibilities in addition to writing a strong goals essay.
If you have traveled abroad or worked outside your home country (brownie points), write that in your essays. If you have a personal story exhibiting mental fortitude and wisdom beyond your years, mention that too. If you are a younger MBA applicant or are applying to MSc Management/MIM programs, highlight your extracurricular activities. For example, one of our students at Faith Career has professionally played Chess for 10 years (both nationally & internationally) and now coaches students hailing from countries such as USA and Portugal. We have highlighted this as one of his strengths in his MIM essays and have coached him to talk about the same during live or recorded video interviews.
On the other hand, mature applicants (or those beyond the mentioned age range of the school) should talk about their sharply defined career goals. They are expected to be professionally mature and thus, they have to convince the admissions committee members through their essays (and later through live or recorded interviews) that they have a vast & strong network which they can use to tap job opportunities for placing themselves post-MBA.
In this blog post, we will share 5 reasons with you out of which you can select your own and write in your essay by amalgamating with explanation about how the lack of an MBA is keeping you away from rising up the rungs of the corporate ladder.
#1) Natural break in career
Many consulting firms have a two or three year analyst program for fresh Bachelor's degree graduates, post which they can apply for an MBA program. Banks have similar programs which are tenure-based. Maybe you have a position in the Indian army whose natural end is approaching and you want to switch to business management (because you held managerial roles during your time in the army). You might be nearing the end of a company's management training program whose duration was pre-determined.
#2) Apprehension of being pigeonholed
It may very well be the case that your career curve has flattened because it has reached a professional plateau. You are on top of your game at work, are not learning anything significant during your regular 1:1 sessions with your immediate manager, and thus are unable to foresee any work-related challenges in the next few years. Staying in this situation of professional comfort can jeopardize your career because you might get pigeonholed and breaking out at a later stage would become more difficult, especially if you wish to change functions.
#3) Eureka!
You have only recently realised or fleshed out your post-MBA goals. Yes, goals epiphany is real and we have heard the same from many of our students in the past 7+ years while working 1:1 with them. Once you have gained a clear enough picture of your goals, you do not want to delay the process of achieving them.
#4) Trend surfing
You are aware (or have predicted) that a certain trend will mature by the time you finish your MBA degree's coursework and you do not want to miss this time window of one or two years to be able to utilize your acumen & skills to capitalize on that trend. Maybe you wish to pursue PhD after MBA and there's a scholarship for which only Master's degree holders are eligible. Maybe there's an inter-continental post-MBA fellowship which would groom your skills that you might be interested in.
#5) Maturity
You have realized that at this stage of your personal and professional life, you have the balance and perspective to make the mammoth decision of investing your time, energy, and efforts in a challenging degree such as an MBA. Many MBA, MFin, MSTM, and MIM programs list the median age and/or the age range of students in their current class. If your age and work experience fall within the range published on the university's website, then you can confidently apply.
Even if one of the above reasons doesn't suit your case, you can still pursue an MBA degree. These reasons of needing an MBA now are not set in stone. Reach out to us today and we will be happy to help you.
Below are some success stories that you might find inspirational ✨
Smriti’s journey from Ambedkar University to London School of Economics (LSE) –https://www.faithcareer.org/post/progress-story-smriti-s-mpp-offer-letter-with-35-scholarship
Nikhil’s story of bagging offers from 5 B-Schools in the UK with scholarship, without a GMAT score - https://www.faithcareer.org/post/5-mba-offer-letters-in-4-months-without-gmat
Yash’s story of making it to Top 3 Canadian Universities (York University [Schulich School of Business], University of British Columbia [Sauder] and McGill University [Desautels]) - https://www.faithcareer.org/post/progress-story-yashashwat-s-mim-application-journey
Do you want to start your success story as well?
Message us on Instagram for a free consultation and we will immediately start the process - https://www.instagram.com/faithcareer/
You can also follow us on LinkedIn to get important tips and tricks for your MBA application which are posted every week - https://www.linkedin.com/company/89586646
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