Business School Admissions
Essay Samples
This section contains three MBA
essays:
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Why
MBA? Essay
Turkish news nowadays carry vivid
images which have become terrifyingly commonplace: the surface of the sea littered
with dead sheep; a landfill explosion leading to a number of deaths; vendors
offering radiation-contaminated tea for half-price; a little girl's death resulting
from her fall through an open sewage manhole in her schoolyard; radioactive
waste sold to unsuspecting scrap dealers; a twenty-year-old tanker breaking
into pieces, spilling hundreds of tons of crude oil into the ocean and killing
sea life all around.
The frequency with which these environmental
disasters fill Turkish news broadcasts -- along with the obvious insensitivity
of the authorities towards both environment and health issues -- prompted me
to learn about ways to prevent these types of disasters. At the age of fifteen,
I decided to focus my studies on environmental sciences in order to equip myself
with the technical tools I would need to make a real contribution.
After earning a master's degree in environmental sciences, I completed a professional
international management certificate program in order to gain a management perspective
of the field. I then realized that, in order to effectively combine my technical
knowledge and management skills, I needed to accumulate real-world experience.
Specifically, working at a large company would allow me to develop insight into
various industries, as well as an overarching vision of the international business
arena.
I have now worked for nearly two years in the energy and environment group of
Koc Holding, Turkey's first and biggest diversified conglomerate. As a project
engineer, I am mainly responsible for our holding companies' environment and
energy sector investments. This position has given me the opportunity to interact
with businessmen from all over the world, thereby expanding my international
perspective. Because of my outstanding work performance, I was chosen to attend
various meetings with local and international governmental bodies such as OPIC,
IFC, and the World Bank. It is highly unusual for a young associate to represent
the company at such events, and my self-confidence -- as well as my management
skills -- was further enhanced by that successful experience.
While working in various business lines, including the automotive industry,
consumer durables, and the energy sector, I have realized that the root cause
of many environmental problems is financial. I believe that many people in the
environmental sector are so ignorant or insensitive that they will cheat customers
to increase profits. Furthermore, businesses do not prioritize environmental
investments; as a result, insufficient funds are allocated to adequately prevent
problems. For instance, despite a population over eight million people, Istanbul,
Turkey's largest city, still lacks a properly operating sewage system. In most
of the areas of the city, waste water is discharged directly into the Bosphorus.
In the long term, I hope to help solve my country's problems by starting my
own environmental-services business in Turkey. The company will serve both local
and international customers by providing cost-effective, adaptable solutions
ranging from waste management to safety management. In order to accomplish this
goal, however, I must deepen my knowledge of the field. Despite my experience,
I still lack some important knowledge and management skills, especially in finance,
marketing, and entrepreneurship. I am also aware that my knowledge of American
environmental issues is insufficient. Since dealing with aspects of international
business will be an integral part of my job as an entrepreneur, it is essential
that I fill in these gaps.
The NAME School's MBA program is the perfect bridge from where I am to where
I want to be. I am attracted by the inventiveness and uniqueness of its entrepreneurial
and finance programs, and believe that I will increase my practical knowledge
of entrepreneurship by interacting with my classmates. I value the fact that
at NAME entrepreneurial education does not stop at the classroom, but rather
continues through internships and extracurricular activities. I feel that a
business school for entrepreneurs should balance a dose of theory with real-world
application, and NAME's curriculum and hands-on experiences through associations,
internships, and the management field study provide such balance.
I am also drawn to NAME because of the school's emphasis on teamwork and technology,
reflected by such exciting courses and programs as High Technology Entrepreneurship,
International Finance, 12-week field application projects, and the global immersion
program directed to teach global thinking and global action. Additionally, the
school's profusion of student groups and its flexible entrepreneurial program
-- with electives from 200 courses -- will allow me to tailor my course of study
directly to my career interests. It is precisely this flexibility that I plan
to draw on while at NAME and beyond, by taking advantage of (and contributing
to) the school's strong international alumni network.
Above all, a NAME MBA will help me strengthen both the finance knowledge and
the entrepreneurial skills necessary to secure a position as an environmental
specialist in a multinational American-based firm. Such a position, in turn,
will prepare me to accomplish my long-term ambition of building my own company.
By developing and maximizing the technical knowledge and managerial skills I
have already accumulated, NAME will allow me to ultimately make a concrete and
substantial contribution to Turkey's environment.
Uniqueness
Essay
For the first 20 years of my life,
my activities--and self-confidence--were circumscribed by the fact that I was
a chronic allergic asthmatic. I was underweight, not as strong or as well as
my peers, and unable to participate normally in sports. At night I was unable
to sleep without an inhaler beside my bed. I was forced to ingest heavy medication
on a daily basis.
At the age of 20 I started running (slowly at first), because I discovered that
this exercise--although routinely precipitating a mild asthma attack--would
later enable me to sleep through the night. Very gradually, my runs became longer.
My strength improved, the severity and frequency of my attacks lessened, and
soon I was able to discontinue all medication. More remarkably, after about
seven years I was actually able to run 20 miles with no problem at all. This
accomplishment was an enormous confidence booster, as it demonstrated that a
normal, healthy life was possible for me and that I could achieve anything if
I set my mind to it.
Eventually it was a logical step for me to progress into competition. I found
myself running in marathons and, finally, competing in triathlons. In 1983,
in fact, I successfully competed in the Hawaii Ironman triathlon, arguably the
most arduous and certainly the most celebrated single-day athletic endurance
event.
I have assiduously pursued aerobic exercise for the past 11 years, ever since
I discovered that such endeavors were finally possible for me and were the means
by which I could attain physical strength and well-being. It was a long and
arduous road--from huffing and puffing (and wheezing) my way through tentative
one-mile runs to involving myself in the rigors of the triathlon--but I was
determined to become fit and to stay fit.
It has made all the difference.
Qualifications
Essay
As a Marketing Manager with ADP's
corporate marketing department, I have been assigned to lead various product-specific
marketing initiatives supporting a diversified group of business segments. Among
these tasks, none was more important to the strategic direction of the business
than leading the development of ADP's web site adp.com.
ADP, a leading $5 billion technology company with over 425,000 clients worldwide,
lacked a consistent or aggressive Internet strategy. Instead, each business
unit or division was driving its own website strategy and execution. More often
than not, the result was a fragmented message: a cluttered, company-centric
website that failed to effectively communicate our broad range of products and
services. Despite its market leadership, ADP was meeting neither the expectations
of users nor the needs of clients. The company was also missing a tremendous
marketing opportunity and risking losing market share because our competition
was operating at a far higher level than ours. Realizing that corporate marketing
could add value across the company's business segments, I initiated and led
a plan to redesign the website and fully leverage the Internet as a marketing
channel to drive branding, product awareness, and sales leads through an integrated
and path-driven website.
My role was specific: develop a strategy to improve navigation, communicate
the complete range of ADP's products and services, optimize the flow of traffic
to drive leads for the business segments, persuade visitors to purchase ADP
products and services online, and create a platform for ADP's evolving E-business
strategy. This initiative was highly challenging because of the complexity of
the service offerings, the diversity of the business, and the overwhelming political
bureaucracy within the organization.
With a limited budget, limited resources, and limited supervision, I designed
a four-phase strategy to re-evaluate the current website and replace it with
an active, path-driven site. The strategy included a review of the company's
current navigation and content, a strategic assessment mapping navigation and
functionality against corporate and divisional objectives, and the design and
architecture of the site. Furthermore, we developed a plan to validate our recommendation
with market feedback through client and prospective client focus group interviews.
The first phase encompassed an overall program review, analysis of all current
ADP and industry Internet market research, a web traffic audit, and internal
interviews with senior management. In familiarizing ourselves with current industry
practices, we also reviewed ten competitors and twelve business-to-business
leaders' websites. These 22 sites were carefully evaluated for their relative
strengths and weaknesses in the areas of navigation, content, degree of user-centricity,
and organization. The second phase included a design exploration. Working together
with a web design firm, we developed five different design options. In phase
three, we gathered market feedback through focus group interviews conducted
with both clients and prospects based on the current web site and on the new
design options. The final phase involved feedback-based revisions to the designs,
which will be presented to ADP's Executive Committee in April and launched in
May 2000.
The project was a success. Our recommendation was received with exceedingly
positive feedback by both the business units and the Executive Vice President
of Marketing. In addition, I have been awarded with the honor of presenting
the project to the Executive Committee in April. Our long-term goal is to develop
an entire adp.com team dedicated to servicing clients and marketing on the Internet.
The management skills I have gained from this project have been invaluable to
my career growth. I have learned the value of qualitative and quantitative research,
experience in fiscal management and project management, and the importance of
matching corporate strategy to Internet strategy. More importantly, the experience
has taught me the value of gathering senior management "buy in" through the
progression of a project. I was able to successfully gain the support of senior
management by maintaining open communication and making them part of the process.
Ultimately, this support was critical to the success of the project, which has
brought my department and me increased visibility within the company -- a development
that, in turn, has led to more important projects. Through the success of adp.com,
I am now regarded as an effective and respected manager who has the ability
to analyze and lead complex projects from concept to completion while gaining
the support of senior management.
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