Essay Tips

IIMC PGPEX Essay Tips

Statement of Purpose

This is the most critical essay and the ideal one to be written first. The SOP is several questions rolled into one - "Why MBA?", "Why now?", "Why IIMC PGPEX?", "What after MBA?" - and therefore should address each of these.

The admission committee wants to ensure that you have given sufficient thought to your future career and that IIMC PGPEX fits well in the short- and long-term goals you have set for yourself.

Start with briefly describing your career evolution so far and then talk about your goals. Relate your goals to your interests, skills, and experience. Strike the right balance between being ambitious and being realistic. Further, while it is good to have clarity about your goals, do not be very rigid (unless you are genuinely very sure) and be open to some amount of exploration. Show how the IIMC PGPEX program will help you achieve your goals. Also explain why now is the right time in your career to go for IIMC PGPEX. It will pay to do a thorough research to find out the unique attributes of the program.

Finally, be sure not to make it sound like an "I want to get out of this rut" story and do not curse your current job, boss, company, or situation.

Essay 1

Give detailed description of three activities you performed in your workplace in the last five years which will help us assess your abilities and strengths.

This is your chance to showcase the depth and breadth of your professional experience which is very important for entry into an executive MBA. Choose activities that showcase the following strengths-

1. Leadership (initiative, teamwork, responsibility)
2. Analytical and problem solving skills
3. Global, multi-cultural, and/or cross-functional exposure

Depending on your individual professional experience, you can take either of the following approaches-

• Approach1: Each activity focuses on one of the above strengths
• Approach2: The activities put together showcase all of the above strengths.

Finally, your professional excellence and maturity should reflect throughout this essay. Not only should you talk about your accomplishments, but you should also describe how you went about achieving them.

Essay 2

Narrate an important/unusual incident of your life when you had to face a very demanding/challenging situation. How did you overcome the situation? What lessons did you learn from this incident?

This essay is about how you can come out of adversity and what you can learn from it. Since your professional experience has been dealt with in Essay 1, it is best if this essay covers an incident from your personal or social life (Notice "incident of your life"). The admission committee wants to understand you as a person - your values, emotional maturity, character, and caliber.

Make it interesting. Follow the Situation, Action, Impact structure and complement it by describing your takeaway. Show that the situation was indeed challenging. Talk about possible actions and then describe the one you took. Highlight your leadership traits and creativity. Then describe the outcome. Finally, share your learning which should be powerful and lasting.

Essay 3 (Only for re-applicants)

What are the changes in your profile vis-à-vis previous year's?

Think hard of possible reasons of your rejection last year. Take a good look at how you have grown personally and professionally in the last one year, what concrete actions you have taken to overcome the weaknesses in your profile. For making an impact, it has to be more than just the usual rate of growth.

Essay 4 (Optional)

Anything else you would like to highlight in support of your application

This is an optional essay and should be treated as one. This question is asked either to give you a chance to provide a crucial piece of information that is not captured elsewhere in your application or to allow you to address a weakness or a gap in your profile. The admission committee may find it frustrating to grind another pile of chaff only to find no oil. So do not write this essay unless it significantly helps your case. For example, if you are an Indian applicant, do not explain the one-year gap after class 12^th by saying you were preparing for the engineering entrance examination. On the other hand, if you have had absolutely genuine reasons for a noticeable underperformance or if there is something that helps you significantly differentiate yourself from otherwise similar applicants, mention that by all means.