London Business School
Average GMAT Score	697	GMAT Range	600-780
Total Applicants	Click here to know	Acceptance Rate	Click here to know
Class Size	403	Average Work Experience	63 Months
Applicant Deadlines	R1 - Oct 05, 2011 R2 - Jan 05, 2011 R3 - Mar 01, 2012 R4 - Apr 18, 2012	Decision Dates	R1 - Dec 15, 2011 R2 - Mar 29, 2012 R3 - May 15, 2012 R4 - Jun 28, 2012
Length of Program	15,18,21 Months	Placement Information	Click here to know

 

 

Essay question and Analysis for 2011-2012:

 

Essay Question 1 (500 words):

Please discuss your career progress to date and explain why now is the right time to undertake an MBA at London Business School?

 

Essay Question 2 (300 words):

Where do you see your career progressing five years after graduation and what is your longer term career vision?

 

Essay Question 3 (250 words):

Give a specific example of when you have had to test your leadership and team working skills. Given this experience what role will you play in a first year study group?

 

Essay Question 4 (300 words):

Student involvement is an extremely important part of the London Business School MBA experience and this is reflected in the character of students on campus.  Please describe how you will contribute to student clubs and the community and why?

 

Essay Question 5 (250 words):

London Business School offers a truly global and diverse experience. Describe any significant experiences outside of your home country or culture. What did you gain and how will your experience contribute to London Business School?

 

Essay Question 6 (250 words):

Considering what you have already included in the application, what else would you like to tell us about yourself?  You can approach this question however you like.

 

Essay Question 7 (300 words): (This question is for re-applicants only)

How has your candidacy for the London Business School MBA improved since your last application? Have your views of LondonBusiness School or the MBA programme changed since you last applied?

 

Additional Information  (This question is optional)

 

This is not a compulsory essay but please complete if you would like the opportunity to clarify or expand upon any information submitted in your application.

 

Essay question and Analysis for 2010-2011:

 

Instructions:

Please do not write more than the specified word limit for each essay. Any extra words or essays may be disregarded.
You should complete just one essay for Essay Question 5, choosing option 5a or 5b.

 

Essay Question 1 (750 words):

• Give us a brief assessment of your career progress to date.
• In what role do you see yourself working in immediately after graduation and what is your longer term career vision?
• How will your past and present experiences help you to achieve this?
• How will the London Business School MBA Programme contribute to this goal?
• Why is this the right time for you to pursue an MBA? 

 

Essay Question 2:

Give a specific example of when you have had to test your leadership and team working skills. Given this experience what role will you play in a first year study group?

 

Essay Question 3 (300 words):

Student involvement is an extremely important part of the London Business School MBA experience and this is reflected in the character of students on campus. Please describe how you will contribute to student clubs and the community and why?

 

Essay Question 4 (300 words):

London Business School offers a truly global and diverse experience. Describe any significant experiences outside of your home country or culture. What did you gain and how will your experience contribute to London Business School?

 

Please choose ONE of the following options.

Essay Question 5a (150 words):

You have decided to stand for the role of Student Association President. Announcing your campaign to the London Business School community for the first time, please describe your manifesto.

 

OR

 

Essay Question 5b (150 words):

What is your most substantial achievement to date and why?

 

Essay Question 6 (300 words):
(This Essay Question is optional)

Is there any other information that you believe would help the MBA Admissions Committee when considering your application?

Essay Question 7 (300 words):
(This Essay Question is for re-applicants only)

How has your candidacy for the London Business School MBA improved since your last application? Have your views of London Business School or the MBA programme changed since you last applied?

 

Essay Question 8:

Please provide a CV/Resume. This CV must only be one page in length. If you have any significant gaps in your employment history, please tell us why on a separate sheet.

 

Essay question and Analysis for 2009-2010:

 

If you believe in brand value for your MBA, then London Business School is the place for. The LBS has made its reputation of being the top B-School over the years by establishing itself as place for developing leadership skills, academic excellence, flexible curriculum and exceptional peer group. The true global peer group of LBS can be seen from the fact that in a MBA class size of 401, 59 languages are spoken and 91% are international students. The world renowned 140+ faculty members represent around 30 countries.

 

The major feature of LBS curriculum is flexibility. They have exit points at 15, 18and 21 months. Their curriculum also offers flexible elective options, international exchanges with 30 leading B-Schools, languages, summer options etc. The two popular programs are Global Leadership Assessment for Managers (GLAM) and the Shadowing Project.

 

London being the centre of business world brings world’s leading business and political leaders to LBS for inspirational and motivational talks. The 30,000+ international alumni from over 130 countries provides huge business and personal network which is beneficial in present competitive scenario. LBS boasts world-class facilities and resources for their students, alumni, faculty and staff.

 

To be a part of multicultural, multi lingual, talented, mix of smart people and have an experience of lifetime, you need an average GMAT score of 701, track record of academic and professional excellence, leadership potential skills, intellectual vitality and having global perspective. These are showcased in your application essays and interviews, which will need the expertise of a professional, who will guide you in bringing the uniqueness of your profile standout in front of admissions committee

 

General Education has LBS alumnus in its team, who has successfully worked with students who had aimed for their once in lifetime LBS MBA experience. Join us today to be a part of that success number.

 

LBS Essay 1. (Required)

In what role do you see yourself working immediately after graduation? Why? How will your past and present experiences help you achieve this? How will the London Business School MBA Programme contribute to this goal? Why is this the right time for you to pursue an MBA? (600 words)                            

LBS Essay 1 analysis

This essense of this essay may be understood by isolating the sub-questions. For convenience, let us dissect this question in the following 5 sections. Listed below are the number of words for each section breakup but this is an approximate guideline and feel free to experiment and size up different sections as it suits your writing style.

Central Theme (50 -100 words) - The core theme of the essay is to write a detailed statement on what EXACTLY you will do IMMEDIATELY after MBA. The most common pitfall here is that applicants usually shy away from stating precise immediate goals as they are afraid of presenting themselves in narrow light. You goals should be as focused as possible and must ideally go to the extent that you wish to work for XYZ company in ABC role. Do not limit yourself to only stating your designation but explain what will you physically do in that role i.e. ""Prepare Marketing Strategy for Value Added Services for Voice/Data services in Telecom industry"". Ensure that whatever you state is practically possible to achieve and perform. The best way is to get in touch with alumni, present students of LBS and find out if someone has similar profile as you have and is pursuing a similar goal. Get in touch with them and, reflect & validate your ideas. It is better to reach out to knowledgable people for real world information than to mentally invent your career profile.

Why do you wish to pursue the immediate goal mentioned in the central theme (100 words) - Next comes the pertinent part of rationalizing your immediate goal as to why you wish to pursue the stated work role after your MBA coursework. There could be multiple reasons (make sure not to put more than 3 top reasons, though you may have a list of a dozen in your mind. Admission committee is not keen on bulk but on quality of your arguments) but the most important is the connect between your immediate goal after MBA and your past experience. You need to demonstrate a strong and pragmatic alignment between the two.

How will you past and present experince help you? (150-200 words) State HOW exactly your past and present experience help you in achieving your immediate goal i.e. getting the type of job or role you mentioned in central theme. DO NOT describe or explain what all you did in your past professional life but only mention RELEVANT experiences (again NO description but prepare holistic phrases and expressions that represent your experience. Instead of ""At PQR company, I lead a team of 10 engineers on a successful mission to moon....."" mention ""I foresee meticulously leveraging my strong team leading skills, honed in cross cultural environment, to...""). Relevant signifies that you ONLY need to talk about experiences that will help you achieve your role and nothing else.

Why LBS? (200 words) You need to be well educated about resources available at LBS to do this. Stop here and spend next 3 days reading/watching/listening the material is available on the internet about LBS that includes LBS website, forums, blogs, youtube etc. Inspect the rich list of learning resources at LBS below to investigate which courses, projects, internship help you best in achieving your immediate goals. Prepare a quick sheet of top 4-5 reasons (NO MORE than 4 to 5) as to how LBS will help you prepare you to help you achieve your immediate goal. The obvious (cause almost everybody talks about them in their application) attributes of LBS are academic excellence, specific segment of academic courses, projects in Finance, Marketing, Strategy etc (look at the list of core and electives courses under section below and zero in upon which ones will be most suitable to help you achieve your immediate goals), people networking opportunities, specific club activity, international cohort. The trick here is to phrase your statements that present your argument in personal, unique and strongest possible manner. It is important to give an individual touch to each reason as this is uniquely your career plan.

Why now? (50-100 words) You need to provide appropriate reasons as to why you wish to pursue MBA now. Relate it to your PRESENT professional situation and PRESENT development needs.

In actual essay, the sections need not be written in the serial order as listed above but may be mixed as per your writing style and the manner in which it conveys your essay in the best and coherent shape. This is the most important essay so spend a week of intense research and writing to develop this piece.

 

LBS Essay 2(Required)

Where do you see your career progressing five years after graduation and what is your longer term career vision? (200 words)

LBS Essay 2 Analysis

Explain in detail about your intermediate goals (5 years) and your long term goals (20 years). Ensure that whatever you say is well aligned with your immediate goal as mentioned in Essay 1 and also PRACTICALLY ACHIEVEABLE. Avoid making generic statements like ""I will open up a consultancy catering to IT in India"" . Be focussed and talk about SPECIFIC DETAILS as to what exactly you will do and how. Avoid bringing in ideas that sound extra professional such as ""I want to open up a school for destitute children"". This is not profesisonally relevant unless you want to work full time in social service sector. The essay must only talk about your PROFESSIONAL GOALS and no more and no less. Be as PRECISE/EXACT as possible while explaining your career progression at 5 years and long term. In fact, your long term goal is the reference or the starting point (as that is what you ultimately wish to achieve in your life) that must define your immediate and intermediate goals.

 

LBS Essay 3. (Required)

Please describe your experience of working in and leading teams, either in your professional or personal life. Include any specific challenges you have faced. Given this experience, what role do you think you will play in your first year study group? (500 words)

LBS Essay 3 Analysis

This question is to gauge applicant's fitment in the first year study group. As LBS puts up ""The first year study group will be a microcosm of the class, combining a diversity of nationalities and different professional and undergraduate backgrounds."" Through this question, the admission committee intends to ensure that the applicant has cultivated sufficient team skills to survive in the described microcosm dynamics both as a team member and as a team leader. One of the biggest challenge here is to manage interpersonal conflicts (due to difference in cultural, educational and professional upbringing).

Team leading experience (150-200 words) - This is a rather tricky section where you DO NOT have to write the description of experiences but talk about the EXPERIENCES ONLY. Now the next decision point is to refer to one experience or multiple experiences!! The experience can come from a single team leadership incident or multiple leadership incidents. You can as well mix and match learning/experiences from personal or professional life. Avoid bringing in academic team leadership (even if you have a big temptation to describe your role as student union leader, avoid it and research your team leading experiences from professional background preferebly while leading cross cultural teams).

Challenges (150 words) - The challenges are tightly linked with the next sub-question ( what role do you think you will play in your first year study group?). Keep in mind to state the EXACT and RELEVANT challenges (top 3-4 relevant challenges. Avoid coming up with a list of a dozen challenges) you faced. DO NOT write about technical or non-people challenges such as ""Web servers were extremely expensive and to overcome the unaffordability, I deviced a novel Alpha-Beta-Gamma algorithm to make application work on scaled down hardware platform"" or ""The oil well was located in deep sea and harsh location and I took a risk by diving in deep"". Focus on people and interpersonal challenges as you need to carry the learning gained from tackling those challenges to work in first year study group.

Your role in first year study group (150 words) - You will have to play multiple defined and undefined roles in the study group. Do not go about writing anything that is not related with your leadership experience.Keep in mind your team leading experiences where you must have played the role of a team leader, team member (sometimes you have to step back and allow someone more competent than you to lead the team), conflict resolution intermediary between two members in case of conflict, creating harmony amongst the members, team building etc.

 

LBS Essay 4. (Required)

Student involvement is an extremely important part of the London MBA experience and this is reflected in the character of students on campus. What type of student club or campus community events will you be involved with and why? How will you contribute? (400 words)

LBS Essay 4 Analysis

This is a straight question where the applicant needs to explain the extra academic endaevors he or she intend to pursue at LBS.

What Clubs/Activities ? (200 words) Choose only top 4-5 clubs or activites combined as it will not be practically possible to do everything. Relate the activities with your interest and passions (such as Acting and Creative Communication club if you have been into dramatics) or learning towards the fulfilment of your professional objectives (such as Energy club for aspiring energy consultants) etc.

Your contribution to clubs (200 words) - Talk about some pragmatic and real benefits that you can bring to the clubs that you can define as action items such as you can bring eastern and western classical fusion to the Music Club etc. Avoid saying that "I intend to share my experiences in manufacturing or IT industry with the consulting club members". 

 

LBS Essay 5. (Required)
Describe any significant experiences outside of your home country. What did you gain from these? (150 words)

LBS Essay 5 Analysis

This is again a straight question where you needs to explain about your international exposures and also what you learnt from those experiences. Through this question, the admission committee wants to explore the richness of your international experience if you have actually used the experience to integrate with people and understand their cultures. Focus on cultural, people and other soft aspect learnings.

 

LBS Essay 6. (Optional)

Is there any other information that you believe would help the MBA Admissions Committee when considering your application? (300 words)

LBS Essay 6 Analysis

Though this question is optional, I would advice you to attempt it if you have worthwhile material to write. This is the space to talk about important and positive accomplishments or some important aspect of your life that you think is relevant to your LBS application and will support it. It can range from some specific association with community work to exceptional achievements at work or projects.