The basic purpose of this question is to comprehend your ability to contribute to the Tepper community so as to make it collaborate, supportive and inclusive. In this endeavor, Tepper wants to evaluate your potential to create such an environment; hence, they have asked you to write an example of you doing so in earlier times, either in professional or in personal settings.
It's preferable that you write a story from your professional life since this is the only essay the admission team has asked. You need to project your leadership competencies via suitable story as you are applying to MBA, which is nothing but a senior leadership program.
You need to take a stock of your strengths and then evaluate exactly where you can contribute to the Tepper community. This question demands a thorough research on CMU Tepper MBA program. Please do actual research instead of just browsing their website. Do visit the campus. In case you can’t, then attend webinars and other admission events. Tepper expects you to do at least this much. Just talking to few alumni won’t do. No one can measure your depth of engagement with alumni and how much you understood about the Tepper culture. So, the school expects you to interact with their admissions officers to obtain first-hand information about their culture and community.
Tepper has a wide array of student driven clubs. If you have a passion for entrepreneurship, the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship will provide you the ideal ecosystem where you can seamlessly interact with innovators, mentors and investors. Their small class size helps students to know each other really well. Hence, exchange of ideas is quite fast. The newly launched Tepper Quad is designed to quicken this exchange of ideas on business, technology, and analytics. You will be in the midst of all these hustle and bustle. How are you going to add your 2 cents in this collaborative environment?
Please review my tips on optional application essays in my blog posts Tackling the Optional MBA Essay.
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