Blog Archive UNC Kenan Flagler Essay Analysis, 20182019

Blog Archive UNC Kenan Flagler Essay Analysis, 2018â€"2019 *Please note: You are viewing an essay analysis from the 2018-2019 admissions cycle.  Click here  to view our collection of essay analyses for the current admissions season. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School is continuing to stick with rather traditional application essay questions this year and eschewing the ultra creative options some other top programs have embracedâ€" “introduce yourself” videos, tables of contents, lists of “random things,” six-word “stories,” representative songsâ€"but it has all new prompts and now requires two essay submissions, rather than just one. Candidates are tasked with explaining their short-term professional intentions in one essay, while the other essay provides some balance by focusing on one’s core values and response to a related challenging situation. Applicants also have one optional essay, rather than the previous three, with which to address another angle or two of their profile and candidacy, as they see fit. The approach, albeit conventional, gives applicants plenty of opportunity to present a full picture of themselves in the 750 to 1,050 words allo tted. Our full analysis of this season’s questions follows. Essay 1  (Required): Please respond to the questions below that will assist us in learning more about you (500 words):  Tell us what your immediate career goals are and how you will benefit personally and professionally from earning an MBA at Kenan-Flagler Business School.  As the business world continues to evolve, circumstances can change and guide you in a different direction. Should your goals that you provided above not transpire, what other opportunities would you explore? This year, Kenan-Flagler has amended its career-related essay question to focus strictly on one’s initial post-MBA job only. Business schools know only too well that students regularly change their long-term professional plans after being exposed through the MBA experience to new people, information, and options and learning new skills and ways of looking at the world and themselves. Given that reality, asking about candidates’ long-term goals can in some ways be a waste of time, if an admissions committee is not simply doing so to see evidence that the applicant has put serious thought into their plans of attending business school. With the first part of this prompt, Kenan-Flagler wants to know that you have thoroughly considered this next step in your career and are applying to business school for very clear, specific reasonsâ€"not because you feel you are supposed to or because you are following in a parent’s footsteps, and definitely not because you do not know what else to do at this juncture in your life! (Believe it or not, these are all actual reasons some people choose to pursue an MBA.) Kenan-Flagler, like all top programs, wants engaged, driven, and focused students who are ready to be an active part of its MBA experience and to do big things with the knowledge and skills they acquire from it. Although the school does not ask you to lay out your background and explain how you reached this choice, providing some basic context for your goal is a good idea (just be succinct!) to ensure the admissions committee understands that your plans are reasonable and fitting for you. Without posing the question directly, the school is also looking for an explanation of “Why Kenan-Flagler?” The admissions committee wants evidence that you have researched its MBA program thoroughly enough to have pinpointed resources and offerings that directly align with your interests and needsâ€"and not just academically and professionally. This is the part of our essay analysis in which we once again repeat our advice about getting to know a school beyond its website and published materials. Visit campus, sit in on a class, and connect with students and alumni. Identify clubs, events, courses, initiatives, and other opportunities at the school that speak to who you are as an individual and to who you want to be by the time you graduate and going forward in your career. Ideally, Kenan-Flagler offers one or more particular resources or experiences that you believe are vital to you in achieving your goals and are not available elsewhere. When you include this information in yo ur essay, do not simply provide a list but explain how you will engage with these elements of the MBA program and what you expect to gain from them. With career goals essays, candidates often feel they must be totally unequivocal in their stated aspirations, but with the second part of this essay prompt, Kenan-Flagler is giving applicants room to speculate on and discuss other options. The admissions committee knows that sometimes the best-laid plans do not play out as expected or may even yield unintended results, and the school wants to know not only that you are prepared to switch gears and recommit to a different path, if necessary, but also that you are fully capable of doing so. The key is to show that your alternate goal is just as connected to your skills, interests, and ambitions as your original plan and does not come “out of left field,” so to speak. For example, you would probably have a difficult time convincing the admissions committee that your short-term goal is to work in technology consulting while your alternate goal would be to work in human resources, because these industries, for the most part, require e ntirely different skills and personalities. Just be mindful that both goals you present must be plausible and achievable. This prompt encompasses a few core elements of a traditional personal statement essay, so we encourage you to download our free mbaMission Personal Statement Guide for more in-depth guidance. This complimentary publication offers detailed advice on approaching and framing these subjects, along with multiple illustrative examples. Be sure to claim your copy today. Essay 2 (Required): The UNC Kenan-Flagler community lives by its core values: excellence, leadership, integrity, community and teamwork.    Pick a core value that resonates most deeply with you.    Identify the most challenging situation that you have encountered and how you responded while upholding that core value. (250 words) Around the world, people hold very different definitions of success and strong feelings about the best way to achieve it. For some, this means “winning” at all costs and by any means necessary. As a result, you will inevitably encounter situations in life in which people act or things progress in a way that runs counter to what you feel is “right”â€"in other words, in a way that conflicts with your values. Kenan-Flagler wants to know how your values influence your decisions and actions, and in particular, which one you feel serves as your strongest guide. Simply stating that you adhere to your values is easy enough, so the admissions committee is understandably asking for an illustration of this phenomenon from your past to better gauge this for itself. Having an idea of how you tend to react to situations that challenge your core beliefs will help the school better envision how you might navigate such incidents in its classrooms and in the business world after you graduate. The wording of the prompt leads us to believe that the school wants you to choose your featured core value from the list it has provided of its ownâ€"excellence, leadership, integrity, community, and teamworkâ€"and given that your application essays are meant to convince the admissions committee that you would be a good fit with the Kenan-Flagler program, doing so only makes sense anyway. Beyond that, the school does not stipulate whether a story from your personal life or your career should be provided here, so consider all your options to identify the most fitting and revealing one. Although in theory, describing a situation from your personal or community activities would provide a nice balance for the professional focus of the school’s first essay, what is more critical is sharing an experience that best conveys this aspect of your character for the admissions committee. Given the 250-word maximum for this essay, you should definitely skip any preamble or lip service and simply dive into your response, clearly identifying your selected core value, describing the situation that challenged it, and detailing your subsequent thought process and actions in response. Whatever the ultimate outcome of the incidentâ€"even if it took the form of a failure of some kindâ€"the key again is to clearly illustrate for the admissions committee how you were guided by your fundamental beliefs. Optional Essay:  Is there any additional information not presented elsewhere in your application that you would like the admissions committee to consider? (300 words) Optional areas to address include:    If you have not had coursework in the core business subjects (calculus, microeconomics, statistics, financial accounting), how will you prepare yourself?    Inconsistent academics, gaps in work, or low standardized test scores    Choice of recommenders In general, we believe that the best use of the optional essay is to explain confusing or problematic issues in your candidacy, which this prompt allows, and which the inclusion of the illustrative bullet points seems to encourage. So, if you need to, use this opportunity to address any questions the admissions committee might have about your profile. If you elect to take this route, consider downloading our mbaMission Optional Essays Guide, in which we offer detailed advice (and multiple examples) on how best to approach the optional essay to mitigate any problem areas in your application. However, Kenan-Flagler leaves the door open for you to discuss something other than a problem area if you feel you have information that is not covered elsewhere in your application and that you feel the admissions committee truly needs to know to be able to evaluate you fully and effectively. We caution you against submitting a response to this prompt just because you fear that not doing so would somehow count against you, though. Remember, with each additional essay you write, you are asking the admissions committee to do extra work on your behalf, so you must make sure that added time is warranted. If you decide to use this essay to impart information that if omitted would render your application incomplete, strive to keep your submission brief and on point. Share ThisTweet 2018-2019 Business School Essays MBA Essay Analysis University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)