Required Essay: What are your post-MBA goals and how will your prior experience and the London Business School programme contribute towards these? (500 words)
There is no change to the essay prompt from LBS this year. This comes after a series of years where prompts were changed continually so it is a clear indication that the school has finally stumbled upon a prompt which tells them exactly what they want to know about the applicant. Interestingly, this is a relatively traditional essay in a sea of creative application prompts.
A variation of the standard goals essay, LBS is very straightforward about their expectations for this essay. A good way to answer this prompt is to divide it into three distinct parts:
Goals – Dedicate about 100-150 words to outline your immediate post-MBA goals and if space permits, show how this is the first piece in the puzzle of your overall career strategy.
Prior Experience – In another 150-200 words, discuss how your career path so far has prepared you to achieve your goals. Highlight a couple of achievements and your learnings from them. Touch upon your transferable skills, lessons you have learnt and additional skills you need to develop to achieve your goals.
Why LBS? – Use the last 150-200 words to write about the fit between your goals and LBS. What resources and opportunities available at LBS will enable you to bridge the gap between you and your goals? Try to be as specific as possible – for example, LBS is the only top business school located in the financial capital of Europe.
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Optional Essay: Is there any other information you believe the Admissions Committee should know about you and your application to London Business School? (500 words)
Usually, we recommend that optional essays should only be attempted with caution and only if you genuinely have something that needs to be said. However, in the case of LBS, the wording of the optional essay and the presence of only one required essay make it a good idea to write this essay. Use this space to round off your candidacy and talk about aspects of your profile that haven’t been highlighted elsewhere in the application. Take a step back and think about the image the rest of the application is presenting about you. Identify what is missing and what you want the admission committee to know. It is completely fine though to leave this space blank if you believe that the other parts of the application present you holistically.
