Every global B-school looks for the factors in your profile that make you unique. You must showcase what unique experiences and insights you have gained throughout your professional and academic career that will help you to immensely contribute to the learning experience of your peers. In fact, the primary purpose of your application essays is to uncover your “Unique Selling Proposition” that will make you distinct. This is what B-schools call “diversity”.
Now consider carefully why should ISB admit you when there plethora of other applicants with a comparable professional and academic experience or GMAT score? Stand in front of the mirror and think how you are different compared to your peers.
For instance, if you are an Indian IT applicant, do you have a better networking skills compared to your peers? Can you narrate an example in which you have demonstrated your ability to network with senior management, clients or other stakeholders in order to achieve project objectives? Have you ever worked in Business Development (BD) areas and persuaded any client to give your company a substantial business contract? Hundreds of Indian IT applicants talk about their analytical, communication or client handling skills. They even talk about Six Sigma initiatives or Process improvements and showcase how they have reduced defects or improved system efficiency. But all these do not help them to differentiate from other applicants. Try to venture outside the periphery of typical work that an IT professional does. Networking with others, persuading others to shoulder additional responsibilities, marketing any product to customers, or maybe even creating a computer operating system or other cutting edge software products (not services!) and so on are the kind of things that generally IT folks don’t talk about. If you have done something that other IT applicants generally don’t do, then that’s a great news. Talk about it.
Similarly, if you are a marketing guy, don’t just talk about how you have boosted the sales figure. Have you ventured into any new product category or a new market? Have you done a detail survey of the target market and thereafter brainstormed with the product development team to create a product as per market demands? If yes, then that’s unique about you.
So try to think what you have done that your peers generally don’t do. That will help you to identify your uniqueness.
Even think about things that you do outside your work. Thousands of Indian applicants talk about playing cricket or working in any non profit. But do you engage in some activities that are little different from those of the crowd? Are you a voracious reader? Are you passionate to study human psychology? Do you love mountaineering and have scaled few mountains (may not be the Mt. Everest!)? Do you love to keep track of global events and maintain your own blog? Keep in mind that extracurricular activity is any SERIOUS activity that you do outside your work (excluding eating, sleeping etc.). So, it can be stamp collection, or reading Tom Clancy novels, watching Hollywood classics and so on. Don’t have the false believe that you have to participate in some non profit in order to showcase uniqueness.
Whatever may be the activities that you are passionate about about, explain how those will be valuable to ISB and its student body. For instance, if you love to study human psychology, you can add valuable information during case study discussions. Since time immemorial, global leaders have been fascinated about psychology in order to understand other human beings. It is one of the most important traits of CEOs or Presidents. So, if you have any crucial insight to share with your peers, then that will certainly be valuable for ISB. And that showcase your uniqueness.
Similarly, if you love to keep track of current events across the globe, narrate how this sharpens your global mindset. You may actually understand the strength and weaknesses of different cultures and nationalities. That is an asset for any global leader. You can share your insights with your peers in ISB about various global issues such as why is India a software superpower while China is a manufacturing powerhouse. You may reflect on the reasons why Scandinavian countries are so transparent but India /China/Russia/Brazil have widespread corruption. These kinds of eye-opening insights will really make you a valuable asset for ISB.
So as you can see, the possibilities are infinite. You can add diversity to the classroom and enrich their discussions in infinite ways. What will be your way?
Talk to us in case you need experts’ advice to unravel your strengths and uniqueness or just want to know how to showcase your uniqueness to ISB.
Review a sample MBA essay on Contribution to School.
This is a straight forward goal essay question. Answering it is actually not difficult. What makes it complex is the fact that admission to ISB is a cut throat competitive process and you need to write stuff that makes the admission officers take a note of your profile.
As there are hundreds of tips on goal essay question on the internet (plenty of tips in this website as well!), I won’t give a long lecture on what to write. Instead, I will advocate that you MUST focus on how to write the essay.
Don’t get me wrong! Your essay content needs to be top class. You need to do thorough research, talk to current students, alumni and admissions officers, attend webinars, visit campus, and so on. But hundreds of applicants are doing all of these things. They are ransacking the internet, reading tips from various admissions consulting websites, watching YouTube videos and talking to as many consultants as possible.
In this scenario, how do you differentiate yourself? Extremely difficult, unless your job profile is very unique such as engineer in a nuclear power plant, military professionals, working in Sudan to supervise UN humanitarian projects etc.
If you are a regular Joe, it’s a sky high challenge. I will advice that after you are done with all your research (which, by the way everyone else is also doing to varying extent), focus on how to write your story. My experience showed me that applicants who focused on writing their ideas well have an upper hand in this competition. You can’t change your profile by 75% or even by 50%. But, you can always change the way you project your story. Focus on that. Talk to me if you need assistance.
Class Profile: Click here
Application Deadlines: Click here
Click here to review my clients’ feedbacks, including video testimonials!
Politicians have speech writers. Journalists use news editors. Famous writers and columnists have an army of professional editors. Don’t you think you also need to have one?