Appendix

Original Essays of Successful Applicants

(Reproduced with permission)

 

 

 

 

Earlier in Chapter 9, we dealt with the subject of writing good essays which define and determine the outcome of the admissions process in your favour. The most common topics and themes were explained and it is clear that you can do a lot in each of those to leave a strong positive impression on the admission committee members. Almost all schools try to have basic ideas with questions like: why MBA; why now; why our school; your strengths and weaknesses; things you do apart from work; and the flavour of the season is a question on any moral or ethical dilemma faced by you in your life. Schools try hard to ask these questions in different ways but the soul of the questions remains the same. We are sure that you benefited a lot from our views on writing essays that will make a significant difference. In this section, we have given some of the essays written by successful applicants to various business schools. The school has been highlighted first, followed by the essay questions and then, the essays (not in all the cases). The reason for including these essays in this book is simply to give you a perspective of how people with different backgrounds successfully manage the admissions process. For purposes of confidentiality, names and numbers have been changed or removed at various points and personal information has been removed, which might cause a few of the essays below to seem incomplete, but an effort has been made to leave much of the original essay unchanged. Our sincere request to you as a reader would be to refrain from copying these essays in parts or whole, since this is the original work of successful applicants. Also, they are well recorded and can be easily identified. What you should do is to look closely at their style as well as the detail and usage of words.

This section contains successful essays to Harvard Business School, INSEAD, Ross School of Business at University of Michigan, The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, Kellogg School of Management, Said School of Business at Oxford University, Judge School of Business at Cambridge University, Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and Darden School of Business at University of Virginia.

Harvard Business School

Essay questions for application in fall of 2007 for class starting in 2008:

1. What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (within 600 words)
2. What have you learned from a mistake? (within 400 words)
3. Please respond to three of the following (each within 400 words)
   1. Discuss a defining experience in your leadership development. How did this experience highlight your strengths and weaknesses?
   2. How have you experienced culture shock?
   3. What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?
   4. What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?
   5. What global issue is most important to you and why?
   6. What else would you like the MBA Admissions Board to understand about you?

Joint degree applicants:

1. How do you expect the joint degree experience to benefit you on both a professional and a personal level? (within 400 words)

Applicant Essays

SET-I

What would you like the MBAAdmissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?

Upon securing XXX rank out of over 150,000 candidates in a nationwide examination, I joined the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in 199* to lay a solid foundation in the principles and methods of engineering, and build expertise in solving industry problems through analysis. Electives at IIT’s superior Management, Mathematics and Humanities departments were additional incentives for my choice.

My four years at IIT were a humbling and yet a great learning experience. A superb peer-group, rigorous course-work and excellent faculty constantly tested and expanded my qualities of problem-solving, hardwork and time management. Group exercises varying from Welding and Foundary projects to Management case-studies helped me master the skills of collaboration, effective communication and promoting team spirit while preserving individual creativity. By working on several design projects, I was able to integrate my imagination with theory. The flexible curriculum allowed me to explore my diverse intellectual interests ranging from Management, Humanities and Economics to Ecology and Conservation as well as gain world-class training in XXXXX Engineering. Efficient prioritization skills and a strong work-ethic enabled me to graduate at the top of my class while actively participating in sports and organizational activities.

As part of the Practical Training requirement at IIT, I worked on a Ministry of XYZ sponsored project at ZYX, India in 2000. I worked with the ZYX employees to study their manufacturing processes and subsequently developed a scheduling simulator for optimal production planning. Encouraged by the initial success and ZYX’s response, I continued to work on the project through my senior year as part of my undergraduate thesis. My internship and thesis work, in which I earned an ‘A’, were my first opportunities to lead a team in solving a business problem and postively impact an industrial operation. My interaction with managers and shop-floor employees at ZYX helped me to hone my interpersonal skills and get an empirical knowledge of the business world.

My array of undergraduate courses and projects provided me great exposure in the field of Engineering and made me a better professional. My experience also helped me realize that in order to meet my long term goal of being an analytical expert, I needed further technical training through graduate studies. Overall, IIT was a great starting point in my quest of knowledge and prepared me to gain admission to fine institutions such as ABC, University of DEF (with scholarship) and GHI in United States for my masters.

What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such?

In 200*, Cricket was a new phenomenon on the DEF campus and most of the graduate students lacked awareness of the DEF Cricket Club’s (now called DEF Cricket Board) activities. In order to promote participation among graduate students, I founded XYXY United—one of the first cricket teams exclusively for graduate students. Barely having the minimum eleven players, I led our team into the fall tournament as underdogs. Through a gutsy team effort, we won the tournament. Thereafter, I worked on increasing our roster, implementing a practice regimen and also promoting camaraderie through outings such as team lunches. I transitioned my leadership responsibilities to my successor in December of 200*. By then our team had won three tournaments and were runners-up in the remaining three. Within a year, twenty-five players had played for our team at different times and our success had inspired the formation of two other graduate teams.

My second major achievement was playing a pivotal role in increasing the productivity of MLK’s City plant by over 80% in two years. When I joined the plant in January 2004, the standards for measuring line efficiencies were based on historical records. I carried out capacity studies to develop new run-rate goals for the production lines. My standards showed that the plant’s efficiency was 45%, considerably below the 65% level that we used to report. I faced tremendous pressure from the corporate leaders to consider using lower standards. I knew that the existing standards did not reflect the true machine-capacities and decided to lead a paradigm shift in management’s perception. With my Plant Manager’s support, I finally got the approval for new standards, which was the easy part. The difficult part was finding ways to increase our efficiency to a truly world-class level and overcoming resistance from some employees to change work-habits. I established an efficiency reporting system, worked with our plant personnel and outside consultants to eradicate bottlenecks, standardize work and reduce rework. We engaged our hourly-employees by starting daily floor-meetings, translating their feedback into action items and implementing visual controls to show hourly line-performances. Our sincere efforts were finally rewarded in May 2005 when the plant crossed the 80% efficiency mark for the first time. By April 2006 the plant was consistently operating at the 85% level. Having played the role of a catalyst in increasing our productivity, saving more than $ 2M in annual labor costs and changing the work-culture of four hundred associates gave me utmost satisfaction and joy.

My third accomplishment was at a personal level. I came across a flier about a Walk for Diabetes in the a temple in August. I had lost my grandmother to diabetes year ago and earlier this year, my mother was diagnosed with a marginal case of type 2 diabetes. After consulting my wife and brother, I founded a team for a non-profit event to help fight the disease that has affected me personally and millions around the world. We have spread awareness of diabetes among family, friends and colleagues as well as student and professional organizations and have raised $675 till date. Most importantly, twelve citizens from other countries such as America, China, India, Italy and Taiwan joined my team and walked for a common good. The experience of walking for diabetes and bringing people together to give back to the community has been extremely fulfilling. In order to continue our support for the cause, my brother and I have joined the planning and organization team for next year’s walk.

Discuss a defining experience in your leadership development. How did this experience highlight your strengths and weaknesses as a leader?

In 200*, the city plant was still using a paper based work-in-process (WIP) inventory system. The system was tedious and labor-intensive; the inventory data was not real-time and was prone to human error. As a result, our daily product reconciliation process was inaccurate. Tracking of WIP was time-consuming leading to downtime on the downstream operations, missed customer orders and frustration among the employees. In August, the manufacturing manager and I proposed to rectify the above issues by using wireless setup and bar-coded tags on products to transfer WIP information directly to a database. We also proposed to introduce several new Quality, Operations, Scheduling and Accounting reports and tools, dependent on the WIP data, in the system. After a yearlong effort involving a large team from the plant and Data Capture Technology, we cut over the system in August 200*. The project was an immediate success on all measures.

The project was a defining experience for me as it was my first opportunity to lead a highly diverse team of twenty-two professionals. I also had to overcome the deep apprehension of management and hourly associates about the wireless technology. The combination of the scope and length of the project with the complex technology was a new and exciting challenge for me.

The project highlighted my proficiency in communication. It demonstrated my capability to manage individual expectations to arrive at common solutions and handle resistance through dialogue. I was able to ensure good participation in geographically separated groups through effective updates. The project also showcased my ability to make a decision after careful risk-assessment. The thick walls, steam and temperatures from 20°F to 212°F on the shop floor had raised doubts among my colleagues about the reliability of the wireless setup and the bar-coded tags. By conducting encouraging site-surveys to check radio coverage on the floor and tests for bar-coded tags, I concluded that the risk was worthwhile given the huge upside.

As the project was gaining momentum, I started missing some of my deadlines and realized that I needed to improve my delegation skills. After consultation with my co-lead, I decided to take a more hands-off approach on some tasks and delegated more assignments to the subject matter experts such as mapping of the existing processes and formulation of the new standard operating procedures. We met our timelines going forward and even implemented the system before schedule.

In your career, you will have to deal with many ethical issues. What are likely to be the most challenging and what is your plan for developing the competencies you will need to handle these issues effectively?

One of my first significant ethical decisions when starting my consulting firm in India (see essay 5) will be whether to offer financiers and future clients equity in my company to attract capital and customers. Corruption in India (ranked 70 out of 163 nations in the 2006 Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International) will frequently pose situations from bribery requests for our company’s registration to dishonest bidding practices. Another major dilemma will be concerning servicing clients with questionable child labor, environmental or accounting practices. As the leader of my company, I will also come across ethical issues related to objective hiring practices, fair treatment of employees, and transparent communication with every stakeholder, including clients.

My team of consultants will also face major conflict-of-interests. Normally, clients want the best solutions at minimal costs while consultants want maximum profits by maximizing their clients’ expenditure which could lead to over-billing, or minimizing their efforts leading to compromises on solution-quality. For example, at the city plant, a vendor once supplied us film-lifts with untested and sub-standard wheels to cut his quality-costs thereby, putting the safety of the liftoperators at risk. Another significant ethical dilemma pertains to unethical behavior of the client himself. For instance, I had to remind a certain corporate leader about ethics when he asked the consultants working with me at the city plant to ‘play the game’ and show false efficiency gains. Some other important moral issues that my team will face are confidentiality of client information and dealing with project-requests for which we may not be qualified.

In order to build further competence to engage future ethical challenges, I will focus on hiring morally strong professionals and make my team aware of my commitment to ethics. My past-experiences at DEF will be helpful in dealing with similar situations in the future. I will continue to follow the ‘Code of Ethics for Engineers’ and ‘Ethical Practices’ that I learned at IIT and the Project Management training at GHI respectively. But most importantly, my education during the Harvard MBA—with its emphasis on developing ethical leaders—will be my main guiding light. Courses such as ‘The Moral Leader’ and ‘Leadership and Corporate Accountability’ as well as the experiences of my classmates, specific to consulting and entrepreneurship, will help me gain a greater appreciation of the complex ethical issues facing my industry and the tools available to promote a socially and morally correct behavior among my associates.

What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?

My long-term goal is to start a consulting firm in India specializing in analytical solutions for complex business problems. Growing-up, I saw my father, an astute engineer and manager, turn around many production units of XYZ. His accomplishments made me realize the scope of improvement that can be brought in systems and services using business acumen and engineering methods. My own experiences in diverse industries, both in India and the US, have reinforced my conviction. Many organizations often lack in-house resources to develop state-of- the-art decision-support tools. My consulting firm will help such organizations to optimize their operations and strategic plans. By saving costs or increasing revenue for my client-organizations, I will help them achieve their maximum potential, thereby increasing job security and morale of their employees. It will fulfill my strong personal desire of contributing to the well-being of my fellow countrymen.

In order to successfully manage my consulting firm, I need a good balance of technical and business expertise. My advanced engineering education and experiences with DEF, ABC and XYZ have exposed me to an array of powerful engineering techniques and have laid a solid foundation in project management, leadership and team-skills. I now possess the experience of providing technical solutions in many industries and feel confident in handling any future assignment. However, I yet do not have a firm grasp of several business areas such as General Management, Corporate Strategy and Marketing. Building expertise in these fields through job-experiences will require a substantial amount of time. An MBA from Harvard will considerably accelerate my management learning through active participation in the case-based learning model that simulates the latest business challenges in the global marketplace. Harvard’s world-class resources such as the Arthur Rock Center and the Entrepreneurship Club as well as electives such as ‘Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise’ and ‘International Entrepreneurship’ will help me develop a flair for entrepreneurial management. The global nature of my peer group and the alumni of HBS will assist me in connecting with professionals who may be interested in my financing or joining my Indian company. Lastly, Boston has a regional office of my wife’s employer, MNP, which will enable her to continue her career.

After my Harvard MBA, I would like to work for a few years in an analytical consulting firm to hone my newly-acquired management skills, learn best practices of consulting and get a first hand knowledge of challenges involved in the running of a consultancy. After gaining suitable experience and arranging capital, I will proceed to establish my firm.

SET-II

Describe a significant change that you brought about in an organization and its impact on your development as a leader. (within 400 words)

My first priority when I joined Company X as a manager in 2002 was to unite my band of 12 subordinates into a tight-knit, motivated and skilled team. We were struggling to transform the Unit into a World-Class Sourcing facility for our parent concern. We needed to quickly orient ourselves to numerous complex supply chains, and were simultaneously under huge pressure to minimize costs. My team lacked the exposure, confidence and skills to meet this challenge. The problem was compounded by the fact that they were in their early-to-mid 30s and set in their ways while I was an inexperienced 21.

While my predecessors used an authoritative leadership style, I felt the current situation called for something different. I needed to earn their respect first. On my very first day, I astounded them by learning all their names within the first 10 minutes, and used them frequently in my conversations. I made a concerted effort to quickly understand the substance of operations since only then would I be in a position to lead them.

I realized that they were stuck in a rut and needed stimulation and exposure. My priority was to de-link my team from their traditional way of working, train them to upgrade their skills and make them externally-focused and be less insular. Providing them numerous opportunities to interact more with suppliers, customers, government agencies, etc. augmented their sense of importance and inspired commitment, accountability and ownership. I initiated a series of job rotations to increase their exposure; this was a calculated risk, but it paid off richly, ensuring the right fit between person and job.

The next step was to increase their motivation levels. We learnt to celebrate small wins. Also, I consciously tried to encourage transparency. Gradually, the group started to bond as a team and has started to deliver excellent results in terms of improved accounting hygiene, streamlined planning, cost reduction initiatives, and prompt servicing of orders.

I have been identified as a High-Potential Manager in my company primarily because of this visible transformation.

This experience has taught me the importance of the roles played by individuals in group dynamics—they all shape the process and the result. A true leader is one who enables individual empowerment while ensuring the organization’s goals are met. I have learnt that investing time in people to understand them pays off in the end. My concern for people and my confidence in my ability to contribute to their development has increased thanks to this experience.

What are your three most substantial accomplishments, and why do you view them as such? (within 600 words)

Improving Banking Collection Efficiency

Six weeks after I joined X, as part of the training program, I was deputed to one of our branches to study our banking network to reduce cheque encashment time and bank charges. The Branch’s annual sales were to the tune of $ 123, and collections were spread across banks in 600+ locations.

I quickly grasped the scope of the projects and its deliverables. Leveraging on my company’s brand value, I held a series of meetings with bankers to understand their product offerings and their USPs. Then, I pulled out data on our geographic distribution pattern from the MIS systems within the branch and got down to designing the optimization model. I presented my proposal to the branch commercial team with my recommendations on the lead and correspondent banks to use, based on the locations. This led to a reduction in banking charges by $ 123 per annum. We were able to sell this proposal to Central Banking, and implementation had already commenced by the time my 4-week stint was over. This project was my first independent assignment and gave me the confidence that I could cope with the expectations and demands of a challenging job.

Long-term wage settlement

Over a 7-month period in 2003, the Factory Unit was in turmoil as the negotiation process with the labor union dragged on, impacting the servicing of our orders. The management team, of which I was a member, was under tremendous pressure from the top management to conclude this speedily. The labor union also had its own agenda—scores to settle, political lobbies to please, etc., and was intent on dragging on the process. I played a key role in bringing down expectations to a reasonable level by communicating business realities. I spoke frankly to the union and individual workmen about the fact that we were new entrants in the global arena and our main advantage was our cost competitiveness; we thus, had to prove ourselves in terms of quality and delivery. I conducted a series of sessions with the union at the height of the tension, making them aware of all the potential threats to our business, our actual performance, and opportunities available if we established a good track record as a sourcing site.

We were finally successful in negotiating a fair, productivity-linked settlement. Parleying with the union and workers taught me to be resilient under pressure and overcome a crisis situation

Supply Chain crisis

Recently, my team and I had to handle a long nationwide truckers’ strike that had the potential to disrupt our operations totally. This strike crippled all industries, causing an estimated loss of 600 Million $ to the Indian economy.

The strain on us was phenomenal; we were already carrying a production backlog due to a recent drop in productivity, and this strike potentially spelt disaster for us. I was able to rally around my team though they were initially doubtful of success.

I leveraged on the excellent relations we had developed with our transporters over the last few years. I convinced them to ply their vehicles, often taking different routes from the usual highway, driving at night, transshipping cargo to avoid any one truck being targeted, and optimizing rail/air shipments. My entire team was involved in the constant follow-up and micro-planning all shipments and supplies. We now had to not only manage our own supply chain, but also that of our suppliers’ to ensure their inbound and outbound movements went smoothly! Despite the strain on our resources, I was able to successfully lead my team in a crisis and consequently prevent a sales loss of $ 123.

My sense of achievement comes from the rigor we adopted in the planning process and the commitment displayed by my team despite formidable external constraints.

Provide a candid assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. (within 400 words)

Strong value system

I am deeply committed to the values and ethics instilled in me by my family. In India, corruption is an unavoidable fact of life. At work we are subject to a lot of policing and disguised harassment, but I have never sacrificed my beliefs just to make my work easier. I have a strong core of responsibility and believe in fulfilling my duties.

Analytical ability

My clear thought process has aided me in getting to the root of any matter and understanding all its facets. My quick grasping power helps me juggle numerous tasks simultaneously. This skill came in handy when I worked with company Y for 2 months on a project on increasing buying efficiency for our product range across Asia. This involved liaising with buyers across 17 countries, installing IT systems that would collate and compare data to throw up the most cost-effective source, and coordinating with the Product Research team to ensure this would not effect consumer perceptions. I did this exercise for nearly 800 components used in the formulation of the products.

Resilience under pressure

I am a decisive person. This has aided me in responding to situations and meeting the constant demands of my internal and external customers, in a competitive business environment. Recently, 2 days before our ISO 9001 audit our workmen suddenly went on strike over some welfare issues. I was among the first to insist that we go ahead with our audit as scheduled. I had faith in our inherent systems and felt that we ought not to postpone the audit, thereby giving the workmen wrong signals.

However, my chief weaknesses are these -

My emotional involvement in whatever I am doing tends to be very high. While this motivates me to give my best, it also means that I sometimes find it difficult to make a clinical, dispassionate assessment. While even a year ago, a failure would have deeply upset me, now I try to look more at what I now need to do right to convert it to a success.

In order to increase my understanding of the operations not under my purview, I need to develop a good rapport with my junior-level employees in other departments. I am now consciously trying to network more with them at an informal level. I have also tried to increase their appreciation of commercial processes through brief training sessions.

How do you define success? (within 400 words)

Success to me is not a single defining event—it is the culmination of a multitude of achievements, emotions, and even failures. It is a state of mind where you can get a good night’s sleep, untroubled by the murmurs of conscience and wake up in the morning, looking forward to a new day. It needn’t translate into a high-powered career, bags of money, or a lavish lifestyle—it is a measure of contentment and the respect shown to you by others.

At a personal level, I would consider my life a success if I had laughter and good companionship, enjoyed good health, and retained the ability to find joy in simple things. I also want to leave a legacy for my family, comprising of values, responsibilities and respect for nature and God. I got married a few months ago against quite a few cultural and practical odds; I consider our relationship a success because we have managed to overcome these odds and learnt to celebrate our differences.

On a professional level, my success would be defined by how much intellectual and creative stimulation and satisfaction my job gave me. The degree of recognition I receive for my contribution motivates me and is also a measure of success. Success needs to be celebrated with companions, not savored in solitude.

I think a person can call himself successful if he can look God in the eye and be able to tell him that he has fulfilled his destiny—he has played his part in the grand scheme of things. The kind of fame and riches that come to you by luck or a concatenation of circumstances don’t constitute success—unless earned by one’s own effort, it would be a hollow achievement indeed.

But true success I believe transcends the individual—it is a product of the efforts of many people and translates into a debt to society. I would need to feel that I am creating value and growing, otherwise I believe we are no longer relevant to society.

To sum up, if one knows deep down that one is doing the right thing the right way, whether others approve or not, I think one can truly call oneself successful—after all, it is not just the goal that makes a difference, it is the route you take towards it.

What are your career aspirations, and how can an MBA help you to reach them? Why now? (within 400 words)

After almost 4 years of operational exposure, I now feel the need for specialized inputs, especially relating to finance—something I feel an MBA can give me. I need a deeper understanding of how to determine a business’s feasibility, long-term viability and risks involved, especially considering the high failure rate of new businesses.

I believe an MBA will be an asset to me in three ways -

Firstly, since my long-term goal is to start my own business, I think an MBA, specifically from Harvard, would be a great learning ground for entrepreneurship. An MBA will hone my General Management skills, a key to make a success of my ventures. Secondly, the kind of international exposure I will gain and the diversity of the student community will definitely add to my knowledge base, giving me new perspectives on a host of things. I will also be able to build a strong network, which will definitely aid me in my career goals.

Thirdly, the ‘Case Method’ will be a dynamic learning aid—learning from others’ successes and mistakes and putting my own analytical skills to test will prepare me for the outside world. The range of ideas generated and the variation in thought processes will definitely add to the experience. I would like to acquaint myself better with the intricacies of foreign trade, banking, funding and international laws affecting the same. My goal is to gain about 3–5 years experience in an international funding organization like the World Bank or International Finance Corporation. I believe this will give me an insight into developmental strategies across the globe, unique features of regional markets, and their funding priorities and infrastructure capabilities.

My long-term goal is to start my own export business, based in India. I would like to leverage on India’s natural advantage in the field of agriculture. Already, horticulture and animal husbandry are among India’s fastest growing sectors, and the government has granted many sops in the form of priority lending, tax exemptions, preferential duty structures, etc. My aim is to capitalize on this and bring our specialized skills into developing a widespread customer base for India-specific cash crops like exotic fruits, castor, etc., and later expand into processed food exports.

I feel that the skills I possess today and those that I will acquire in the next few years will place me in a good position to benefit from the outsourcing boom that has stormed India. India is already a cost competitive manufacturing location, but I think with additional technology inputs and greater emphasis on quality, we could be truly global players.

Set-III

What are your three most substantial accomplishments, and why do you view them as such? (within 600 words)

The three kinds of incidents mentioned, reflect different learning experiences from various stages of my life.

1. When my younger brother did not pass his engineering entrance tests, everyone in the family was extremely disappointed. However, I was not surprised. I had known for a long time that his strength was not mathematics and analytical theories; instead, he with his easy grasp of biology was more suited to the medical profession. I counseled my brother and convinced him to attempt the medical entrance exams. We met a few doctors to get a feel of the profession and understand the requirements. It took me five months of hard work to convince my family that this was possible, but skepticism remained. He immersed himself in the preparation. Whenever there was any doubt in him about having made the right choice, I made him comfortable and increased his confidence. He passed the exam with high scores and got into one of the better medical schools in India.
2. I was member of the cultural affairs committee of my hostel at my undergraduate institute. We had lost all but one running trophies in the inter hostel competitions. The only chance we now had for salvaging the pride of the hostel was to win the ‘Best Concept’ trophy. I volunteered to take up the challenge and set up the stall and selected a team of people for the same. After a few brainstorming sessions, we agreed on the theme of war against terrorism. We used representation of people suffering in the Kargil war, between the Indian Army and the insurgents in Kashmir, as the overall theme. The team worked relentlessly to set up the stall. We prepared a note, through which many students committed themselves to fight against terrorism. The Dean’s committee commended our initiative and efforts. Our hostel won the Best Concept Trophy for the first time in its history.
3. Not shown due to confidentiality constraints

The experiences are monumental in my life, for they taught me a few important lessons. The first experience made me realize the importance of being able to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of people and the need to guide them and motivate them in the right direction to achieve results. It also demonstrated the significance of strong self-belief to inspire confidence in others. The second incident made me appreciate my ability, to take up extremely difficult challenges and remain focused under pressure to deliver outstanding results. It established with certainty, my leadership skills and my commitment to a cause. The last incident reaffirmed the meaning of having a set of non-negotiable values and principles in life. It has given me the courage to stand up for my beliefs in the most adverse of situations.

Provide a candid assessment of your strengths and weaknesses (within 400 words)

I am an extrovert by nature and love interacting with people. My greatest strength is my ability to understand people and their needs and being able to influence them into channeling their thoughts and actions in the right direction. This strength is particularly dependent on two facets of my personality. An avid listener, I can patiently listen to people without getting bored or losing attention. Secondly, being a persuasive communicator, I am usually able to engage people in conversation with articulate comments that influence them in a positive manner.

Being a highly independent individual, I enjoy taking on challenging assignments, particularly when others have given them up. I have been able to adjust quickly to unstructured and unpredictable settings and usually respond fast to a change in professional environment. Adept at handling a variety of concurrent assignments, I am not overwhelmed by the pressure of deadlines or delivery targets. Flexibility in managing my work schedule and in being able to work at a variety of locations has helped me to deliver outstanding results in my current job.

I am naturally inclined to take on the role of a leader, leading by example and injecting energy and enthusiasm into my team, encouraging and motivating them towards new performance standards. I love to involve my team members in the process of deciding work roles and plans, so that I can learn from their experience and bring a sense of ownership and responsibility in them. I enjoy being a team player when needed, actively sharing my ideas and contributing to the team in the best possible manner.

In the opinion of my superiors, one of my weaknesses is the fact that I am strong willed and unconventional in my approach. Another is my refusal to accept the general consensus, as I believe in the merit of a logical discussion. In my opinion, my personal weakness has been a strong response to criticism directed on to my team or me. I have been consistently working on my expression in such a situation and believe that I have improved significantly in the last one year. A relevant professional weakness is the limited knowledge outside my area of academic and professional expertise, which is an important factor in taking up a cross functional role or contributing to other teams in a professional setup. This is the most important reason that prompts me to seek Business Education at this stage of my career.

How do you define success? (within 400 words)

I would like to use a few illustrations from my own life, to define success.

1. Sketching and painting have been my hobbies since I was a child. However, within one week of enrollment, I left art school, realizing that one need not be coached to express oneself through paints. Completed my first portrait when I was 10 and won the best amateur painter award from the same school.
2. During the 10^th grade of school, I appeared for the national talent search scholarship examination. Having cleared two written tests and a round of interviews, I was among the top 750 students in India to be given the scholarship.
3. I chose economics as a subject of study during my 12^th grade examinations. Coming from a science background, I was competing with the best students from the commerce school, who had trained in the subject. I finished first in my school in economics and scored amongst the top students in the country.

I know what I want to achieve in my life. I have set my goals knowing well that there are alternatives that are comparatively easier to achieve. Challenges have always attracted me. And I have always achieved my goals.

Success to me is not a destination. It is being able to achieve the short-term goals as milestones on the journey of life. Being successful would allow me to have a good family life and contribute actively to social causes. I would consider myself successful, if at the end of my life, I can look back with pride and say, ‘I have lived an interesting, happy and fulfilling life and achieved all that I had wanted to and aspired for, both in my personal and professional life’.

What are your career aspirations, and how can an MBA help you to reach them? Why now? (within 400 words)

My goal is to establish a network of world-class health care centers across India, providing healthcare facilities to the majority of the Indian population. The Indian healthcare system is currently in a beleaguered state, with only 3 doctors and 46 beds available per 10000 patients, ranking 110th on global healthcare standards. Although the situation has improved in the past few years, the average Indian life expectancy of around 53 years compares unfavorably with the 70 years average for the United States. The government infrastructure is grossly inadequate, and most of the private investment in healthcare is concentrated in urban areas (e.g. The Apollo Group, Wockhardt Group, etc.) and is primarily focused on providing advanced medical care. I love my country and aspire to bring about a change that would make affordable healthcare available to each individual across India.

I believe that my in-depth technical education in healthcare and my hands on experience in business management have been great learning experiences and will contribute a lot to my career progress. However, I still lack some of the skills required for running a successful business particularly the understanding of other support functions like marketing, logistics, etc. Hence my short-term aim is to gain the required knowledge and domain expertise through an MBA program (with specific courses in healthcare concentration). I believe that this is the perfect time for me to do my MBA, since I have a good academic background and a well-grounded professional experience and now want to fill the gaps in my knowledge before I progress further in my career. After completing my studies, I would like to work with a company such as the Tenet Healthcare Corporation, which will expose me to management of a well-developed healthcare system in a country such as the United States. An exposure to the current knowledge and international best practices within such a system would help me enormously in establishing such a healthcare system in India.

The case method of learning and the excellent faculty at Harvard Business School, coupled with the fact that HBS attracts the best people from across the globe, makes it my first choice for pursuing an MBA. I stand to gain from the experience of my fellow students by learning from and sharing my experiences with them. An education from Harvard would build my credibility and network with the healthcare providers in the developed world, which would be vital in bringing the best healthcare practices to India. Finally, the HBS alumni network is the pre-eminent group of business leaders around the world and I look forward to contributing to and benefiting from its continued growth and success.

Stanford Graduate School of Business (Questions only)

From the admissions office:

We read the essays to get to know you as a person and to learn about the ideas and interests that motivate you. Because we want to discover who you actually are, resist the urge to ‘package’ yourself in order to come across in a way you think Stanford wants. Such attempts simply blur our understanding of who you are and what you can accomplish.

In other parts of the application, we learn about your academic and professional accomplishments (i.e., what you have done). Through your personal essays, we learn more about the person behind the achievements (i.e., who you are).

We want to hear your genuine voice throughout the essays that you write. Truly, the most impressive essays are those that do not begin with the goal of impressing us.

This is the time to think carefully about your values, your passions, your hopes and dreams. In your short answer responses, we learn more about the experiences that have shaped your attitudes, behaviors, and aspirations.

Essay Questions for the 2007/2008 Application Year

• Essay A: What matters most to you, and why?
• Essay B: What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them?

  As a Stanford MBA student, you will be assigned a team of advisors who will guide both your academic experience and your personal development. Your team will include a faculty advisor, a career counselor, and a leadership coach. Use Essay B to help you prepare for your first conversations with these mentors.

• Essay C: Answer 2 of the questions listed below.

  In answering both questions in Essay C, tell us not only what you did, but also how you did it. Tell us the outcome and describe how people responded. Describe only experiences that have occurred during the last three years.

  1. Tell us about a time when you empowered others.
  2. Tell us about a time when you had a significant impact on a person, group or organization.
  3. Tell us about a time when you tried to reach a goal or complete a task that was challenging, difficult, or frustrating.
  4. Tell us about a time when you went beyond what was defined, established, or expected.

Length and Format of the Essays

Your answers for all 3 essay questions cannot exceed 7 pages in total, double spaced using a 12-point font.

Each of you has your own story to tell, so be sure you allocate these 7 pages among the essays in the way that is most effective for you.

We provide some guidelines below as a starting point, but you should feel comfortable to write as much or little as you like on any question, as long as you do not exceed 7 pages total.

• Essay A: 3 pages
• Essay B: 2 pages
• Essay C: 1 page each

Required Formatting

• Use a 12-point font, double spaced
• Indicate which essay question you are answering at the beginning of each essay.
• Number all pages
• Preview each uploaded document to ensure that the formatting is true to the original
• Save a copy of your essays

General Guidelines

• Take time to think, then write—these are not easy questions to answer.
• There are no ‘right’ answers.
• Tell us your story in a natural and honest way.

The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Essay Questions for the fall of 2007 Application:

First Time Applicant Essays

All first time applicants and those who applied for an entering class prior to Fall 2005 are required to complete the first time applicant essays. Candidates who applied for the Entering Fall 2005 or 2006 class and wish to reapply are to complete the Reapplicant Essays.

Essay 1 (Required)

Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and longterm career goals. How do you expect an MBA from Wharton to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program? (within 1,000 words)

Essay 2 (Required)

Describe a failure or setback that you have experienced. How did you respond, and what did you learn about yourself? (within 500 words)

Essays 3 and 4 (Required)

Please complete two of the following four questions (within 500 words each):

1. Describe a personal characteristic or quality that will help the Admissions Committee to know you better.
2. Describe an impact you’ve had on a team, group or organization. How has this experience been valuable to you or others, and what did you learn?
3. What do you do best?
4. When have your values, ethics, or morals been challenged? How has this shaped who you are today?

Essay 5 (Optional)

If you feel there are extenuating circumstances of which the Committee should be aware, please explain them here (e.g., unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, inconsistent or questionable academic performance, significant weaknesses in your application). (within 250 words)

Additional Joint Wharton MBA/MA-Lauder Applicant Essays

(required for all Lauder applicants in addition to the appropriate set of essay questions above)

1. Describe a cross-cultural experience in your adult life that was challenging to you. How did you meet this challenge and what did you learn from the experience? (within 1,000 words)
2. Please explain why you are currently applying to Lauder. How do you expect the Wharton/Lauder joint-degree experience to benefit you on both a professional and personal level? (within 1,000 words)

Applicant Essays:

Required: Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect an MBA from Wharton to help you achieve these goals and why now? (within 1,000 words)

My long term goal is to serve patients and healthcare industry globally by starting a company that manufactures QQQ devices. These devices would facilitate development of customized treatments. For example, new generation remedies such as the anti-cancer drug Herceptin, work only in patients that carry specific genes. By identifying individuals worldwide that possess similar disease related genes, my company would expand the market for such drugs. These devices would also aim to alleviate hereditary health risks by early detection of defective genes. Towards this end my short term goal is to gain experience in bringing new technologies to market as a product manager in a medical devices or diagnostics firm.

These goals have been shaped by personal and professional experiences over the years. The seeds of this desire were sowed when my grandmother succumbed to cancer during my sophomore year at the X university. This personal loss inspired me to increase health consciousness among students. As the highest elected student official of a hostel, I sought a ban on public smoking to reduce harmful effects of passive smoking. This effort cultivated strong persuasion skills during the formative years of my career. I also undertook research projects to study the mechanism of YYY drugs. This sparked an interest to gain a deeper understanding of the field through further graduate education at JJJ, widely reputed and highly regarded.

At JJJ, lectures by prominent scientists convinced me that genomics would provide potent weapons to fight complex diseases. To get valuable professional exposure in this field, I joined JJJ. Just a month into my new role, I proposed to fully automate the JJJ’s ZZZ process, an effort previously tried out with little success. The boldness of the proposal, coupled with my lack of sequencing experience, elicited skepticism from my colleagues. Enrolling support from them at every stage of the project, I eventually gained their respect and delivered beyond the planned scope. Through this experience, I learnt to harness the expertise of my co-workers by building trust and generating confidence in my abilities. The cost savings resulting from deploying the software played a significant role in obtaining a $ X grant.

After two years at the JJJ, I joined MMM to employ science in developing innovative and commercially viable healthcare products. Last year I represented my firm in a consortium of multinational organizations. Being the youngest, I was the only one without a PhD degree to be appointed a Section Head in the consortium to supervise a team of six international scientists. In this capacity, I successfully forged a global consensus that agreed with the controversial findings of a novel MMM technology. Through managing an intellectual and culturally diverse group, I learned the need for tolerance and openness to different perspectives to be an effective leader.

I was recently promoted in less than two years of joining the group, an accomplishment that only two of 24 colleagues have achieved in the five year history of our team. With increased client management responsibilities, I have realized that effective communication of a product’s value to customers is crucial for the success of a business. Recently, our group had missed a proposed project deadline and the client was on the verge of halting future payments due to mismatched expectations. Based on my performance within the group, I was entrusted to salvage the $ X contract. By engaging the client through regular communications I improved their understanding of our technology. I also translated their requirements to the engineering team and instituted an efficient data generation and delivery process. These steps convinced the agency to continue funding. Besides understanding the intricacies of federal contracts, I learnt to satisfy all stakeholders in this process, namely the investors, senior management and my team members.

At this stage of my career, my training in sciences has honed my ability to identify promising new ideas and speed up their transition from the bench to the market. Although this provides great satisfaction, my experience starting a nonprofit entity to spread awareness of cancer, helped me recognize my true calling. I discovered that I like creating organizations that use technology to make a positive impact on society. In the past year, I have developed a model that builds upon existing technology to diagnose cancer causing defects. While this device still needs to be field tested, I intend to patent and commercialize it. This will lay the foundation for my long-term entrepreneurial goal of providing genomics based personalized diagnostics solutions to patients around the globe.

To fulfill my aspirations, I need an appropriate environment and training in broad business skills such as marketing and finance to complement my technical background. The flexible and comprehensive MBA program at Wharton will provide that. Courses such as Formation and Implementation of Entrepreneurial Ventures would help me develop my business model. Avenues such as Clubs and Leadership Ventures will provide opportunities to interact with the talented student community and form a well-rounded team to join me in my endeavor. Through the HealthCare Mentor program I will seek and incorporate advice from industry veterans to improve my idea which I will then test at the Wharton Business Plan Competition. It is also vital for me to thoroughly understand global regulatory changes and its effect on market participants. Based on insights I gained through interactions with Associate Director of HealthCare Management (HCM) program, I believe that the HCM concentration will provide the best opportunity to acquire this knowledge. To build on my education at Wharton, I will join a large firm such as Roche or Abbott Diagnostics in a product management role. This would allow me to potentially bring in my idea through a partnership or licensing agreement to further develop and commercialize it.

At Wharton, I plan to enrich classroom discussions by sharing my professional experiences in the biotech world and the challenges I faced in starting the nonprofit organization. Outside the classroom, my demonstrated leadership in X University would aid me in my desire to improve the quality of student life and actively contribute to the Wharton Graduate Association and the HealthCare Club. I also plan to pursue my passion for music by starting a Music Club. With such a stimulating experience at Wharton and access to its professional alumni network, I am positive I will realize my dream of becoming a successful HealthCare entrepreneur.

2. Required: Describe an impact you’ve had on an individual, group or organization. How has this experience been valuable to you or others? (within 500 words)

Motivating individuals is important for successful functioning of a team and in turn developing a cohesive team is important for successful functioning of an organization. During an experience at MMM, I had an opportunity to not only to impact the performance of individuals, but also impact the vision and execution of our group and the overall design strategy for my organization.

In 200*, while developing new products and their commercial applications, our group discovered a new mechanism building on existing knowledge. However, within the group, there were two conflicting views regarding this data. One camp held the view that this indicated existence of new data, while the other camp disagreed. This divergence of scientific views led to confusion and a clash of opinions in determining strategic direction for future projects of the group.

After talking to both groups, I took the initiative in creating a two-member team to develop a computational strategy that would address this question. Implementing the strategy showed the presence of several hundred new data points. However, because the two opposing camps viewed any serious examination of the other’s position as being a waste of time, consensus was hard to come by. I then motivated a Research Associate to conduct additional experimental tests. However, he struggled upon encountering skepticism from other scientists. I convinced him that his test designs were absolutely correct and helped him structure solid facts and present them in a persuasive way. With renewed confidence, he conducted the tests and was able to successfully confirm my findings. I learnt to inspire individuals to deliver effective results under challenging situations and thus contribute to their professional growth.

While the tests were being conducted, I decided to enroll my direct supervisor to generate support for my endeavor. With her encouragement, I personally explained to each individual within the group the rationale of my strategy. The computational results backed by experimental confirmations convinced both camps about the validity of the approach. This prompted them to get together for the first time in two years to develop a common strategy and successfully obtain funds worth $ X to expand the scope of the project. By presenting hard facts and making everyone appreciate each person’s independent perspective, I learnt to align individual goals with those of the group thereby improving the overall productivity of my team.

Finally, the results of my study are playing an important role in providing a sense of direction to MMM’s design process for new products. My findings convinced the product development team to incorporate the newly discovered information in future designs to stay ahead of competition. This study was published in 200* in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal NNN. Based on my presentation’s reception in international conferences, I believe that these findings will have a significant impact on the biotech and pharmaceutical industry—and the scientific community at large. This experience made me realize that understanding long-term business implications is crucial to widen the impact of my work. It helped me mature as a leader to deliver success to my team and my firm.

5. Describe a personal characteristic or something in your background that will help the Admissions Committee to know you better. (within 500 words)

My mother has been an important factor in molding my personality. As the Head of a school for underprivileged children, her actions, over the years have inculcated in me the value of helping individuals and serving my community.

At X university, this passion led me to develop a comprehensive program for improving students’ public speaking abilities. This initiative was based on my initial success with ABC, who had excellent command of the English language but lacked self-confidence. After I coached him, a confident ABC went on to place third in an inter-dorm debate competition—a far cry from the timid student I had known just a few months earlier. This experience served me well during my professional career. In 200*, while working on a project at MMM, RTY, a Research Associate expressed interest in leading the part of the operation. Although he had no background in complex software, his enthusiasm for the work convinced me to personally undertake his training. Working longer hours I patiently taught him through real-world examples. I also encouraged him to take part-time software classes. As a result, RTY essentially took over all of the specific aspects of the project in only two months. Having guided the likes of these people over time, I have learnt to vary my leadership style based on individual’s distinct personalities.

Bringing out the best in individuals gave me the confidence to reach out to the larger community. This led me to start a Foundation with colleagues to promote cancer awareness in rural India. Over the span of five years, I coordinated efforts to raise funds by selling art donated by yyy based painters and craftsmen through on-site auctions in various cities and online websites. The Foundation ran campaigns in nine villages to educate people about risks of getting ZZZ disease from CCC practice, a popular practice in India. It also dispatched 5 mobile hospitals to conduct free diagnostic tests. Since we were targeting a mostly illiterate population, I proposed to involve village artists to design a word of mouth promotional campaign. The effort successfully drew in large crowds and the artists felt gratified that their talent was utilized to address issues that affected their society. I learnt to tailor my strategy to capitalize on local conditions which enhanced my potential in building a successful organization. It also reinforced in me the importance of setting specific, clearly defined objectives and retaining focus on those goals to better serve my community.

These experiences have allowed me to develop life-long friendships. The letters and emails that I still receive give me an immense sense of satisfaction and fuel my desire to further grow as an individual who makes a difference in my community.

Reapplication Questions

Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and longterm career goals. How do you expect an MBA from Wharton to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program? How has your candidacy improved since the last time you applied? (within 1,000 words)

My long term goal is to set up an investment management firm to acquire and turnaround commercial banks. Having worked in financial services consulting for over four years, I have realized that there are significant entrepreneurial opportunities in the banking sector. India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world but is still inefficient in its financial sector, characterized by over 200 commercial banks. As markets open further, Indian banks will need strengthening in the form of capital and strong management support for long term sustenance. In such a scenario, there is strong potential for a financial management company to change the face of banking through consolidation at an Indian and a pan-Asian level.

I started my career with ABC, a company, delivering consulting services to clients across industries. Working in financial services was not a conscious decision; however after working with senior management at several US and European financial service companies, I realized that complex financial situations excited me. Being an engineer, I was naturally drawn to the analytical rigors of the financial world and I grew rapidly from an Associate to a Team Leader position. After two years at ABC, I joined XYZ India as a research analyst in the Asian Financial Institutions Practice to gain deeper expertise into the financial sector. In over two years, I have had significant interaction with the top management at leading Indian and multinational banks on various strategic and operational issues. I started by producing research and then very quickly moved on to client facing roles based on my interpersonal skills and analytical expertise. I have developed an in-depth understanding of Asian banking dynamics through my participation in long term value creation processes at several of these banks. In recognition of my contributions as well as client impact, I was promoted to the consulting track this year as a 3rd year Business Analyst.

While at XYZ, a fascination for managing money and the desire to be a pioneer drew me to exploring unique business models in banking. A chance encounter with QQQ, who was instrumental in turning around a leading Indian bank, acted like a catalyst to my thinking. QQQ felt that there was strong opportunity for a turnaround company to operate at a pan-Asia level and it was critical for budding entrepreneurs like me to think about investing in the Indian financial sector. My experiences at XYZ and interactions with senior partners also reaffirmed my belief that a turnaround/management company focused on financial services could contribute significantly to the Indian economy. This then convinced me to pursue an entrepreneurial career in finance.

Since till now, I have experienced banking with an outside-in perspective, my short term goal is to gain actual banking experience. Post my MBA, I plan to work in a global bank and want to j oin specialized management divisions in banks, such as the elite International Officers unit at HSBC. Such an experience will help me to develop deep product and operational knowledge in banking and investment management, which I can leverage towards my long term entrepreneurial goals.

Wharton for me therefore is the first stepping stone towards an entrepreneurial career in finance. This is the perfect time for me to do a MBA since I have an excellent academic background and a well-grounded professional experience and now need to fill the gaps in my knowledge before I progress further towards my entrepreneurial aims. I need to gain professional skills such as finance, operations management, and venture initiation and believe that Wharton can provide to me the maximum exposure and the best opportunities in both finance and entrepreneurship compared to other schools.

Wharton has the longest history of teaching management and finance (starting as the Wharton School of Finance) and has consolidated its position as the premier school in the world of business. The phenomenal legacy of the School as the pioneer in business education with a curriculum that gets innovated along with industry trends attracted me to Wharton. Hence be it classes in Private Equity (with one class in LBOs and one on VC) or latest research on hedge fund economics (spearheaded by renowned professors such as Richard Marston), Wharton provides the best education anywhere in the world. This coupled with active participation in events such as the Finance Conference and the Restructuring Conference organized by the student body, will enable me to think and breathe finance and assimilate best practices from around the world. This will provide me the global credibility that is critical for my success in the competitive world of finance.

The other reason for my choice is Wharton’s focus on Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship for me is about Leadership—having the courage to create a vision and the skills to pursue that vision while getting others excited about the idea. Through active support for Entrepreneurship (Business Plan Competition, Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, Venture Initiation program) and in class exposure (electives such as Entrepreneurial Management, Entrepreneurship and Venture Initiation), Wharton presents excellent avenues for development of entrepreneurs. Closely tied to this, is its focus on Leadership (Leadership Ventures, Leadership Coaching program) which will help me to develop my own leadership style and be truly distinctive across my professional career as a financial entrepreneur.

While disappointed at not having been accepted at Wharton last year, I have consciously used the last year to develop my profile further, introspect on my future goals and aspirations and have become increasingly convinced through my interactions with over fifteen alumni and current students that Wharton is the only school that fits best with my short term and long term goals. I also made a conscious effort to interact with several business and financial leaders in India and these interactions have convinced me that there is a strong ‘Now’ potential in business opportunities in India, especially in finance and has increased my faith in my career goals. Professionally, my promotion as a 3^rd year Business Analyst brought two years of hard work to fruition and provided a confirmation of my intellectual caliber and ability to excel in intensely competitive environments. I therefore decided to decline an offer of admission from INSEAD this year, to reapply to Wharton and I am looking forward to soon becoming a part of the Wharton community.

Describe a personal characteristic or quality that will help the Admissions Committee to know you better (within 500 words)

Every student at Wharton is a potential business leader of tomorrow, a catalyst of change in business and the community. I wish to discuss this aspect of my personality, which highlights my efforts towards bringing a positive change in the community.

I come from a middle class family in India and lived for most of my pre-teen years in a small town. Ever since I can remember, I saw my grandmother feeding the destitute every Sunday at the local Temple. My mother used to teach neighborhood children in her free time. She believed in giving back to society and inculcated this caring attitude and passion into me. Like most small towns in India, CCC has a large population of poor families where children start working at the age of five. Every morning on the way to school, I passed through localities where small kids worked as laborers and waste scavengers. I frequently felt guilty about my relative affluence and wanted to help them but couldn’t do much except share my lunch with them. These experiences left an indelible impression in my mind and I became passionate about helping underprivileged children.

At IIT, I set up a social organization to generate awareness on social issues like AIDS and child education. We ran campaigns on the importance of educating children across several slums in Delhi. Working with PRAGYA gave me a chance to teach poor children in nearby slum areas every evening. Over two years, I was able to get more than twenty children enrolled into primary school. Post college, I have actively supported NNN (a local NGO in Delhi) that helps underprivileged children by channeling material such as clothes and books. I organize and participate in collection drives wherein volunteers visit various affluent localities in Delhi to collect household items, which are then sent to villages and slum areas for distribution.

‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’—these words by Edmund Burke have inspired me over the years to devote my free time and resources towards achieving direct impact in society. Last year I adopted a baby girl from SOS Villages (the global non-profit organization) and the time that I spend with my daughter gives me immense personal satisfaction—the satisfaction of having made a difference. Over the last one year, I have also been working on setting up a children’s foundation that will set up shelters and provide daily meals and clothing for street children (on the lines of the Hunger Foundation). Having created the business plan, my current focus is on gathering funds from investors and corporates wherein I have been actively pursuing opportunities and hope to have the required funding soon.

I sincerely believe that serving the underprivileged allows me to repay society’s contribution to my development and success. At Wharton, I would like to continue this work by actively mentoring students at the University about community service and helping them find avenues to make a difference.

Describe an impact you have had on an individual, group or organization. How has this experience been valuable to you or others, and what did you learn? (within 500 words)

Everything I do is about creating impact—adding value to others by providing innovative solutions for their needs. For the last three years, I have managed a theater group in Delhi that provides working executives with a constructive outlet for their creativity and has had a significant impact on their lives. This experience is valuable as it taught me the importance of channeling people’s passion in the right direction to achieve results. It also reinforced my ability to think creatively about solutions and convinced me to walk on an entrepreneurial path.

Theater is the greatest passion of my life. At IIT, I regularly directed plays, winning several awards at the hostel and institute levels. Even after graduating, I regularly visited the National School of Drama to interact with theater enthusiasts. During this period, I sensed that a large number of working executives (like me) wanted to make a difference by working for social causes but the lack of opportunities held them. Realizing the need to innovate on the traditional model of theater, I started a week-end performance group (the first in Delhi) called ABC in 200* focusing on mid career executives interested in social theater. Since inception, we have performed over 15 street plays across social themes such as corruption and racial discrimination. Our performances attracted several corporate and individual donations and we rapidly grew from 5 people to 30 members.

All the members of ABC credit it with having had a significant impact on their personal and professional lives. Through ABC, I provided them with a creative outlet for their emotional energy, which has made them more confident human beings and better professionals. At the same time, all of them believe that they have become more socially aware by actively working on social themes and bringing these to the masses. This has enabled them to utilize their spare time in a highly constructive and fruitful manner, which has brought greater satisfaction into their lives.

Working with ABC has been a gratifying experience in my life. Firstly, I learnt the true value of initiative and the significance of strong self-belief to inspire confidence in others. It also reinforced my ability to connect with people at a personal level and empathize with their needs, while motivating and energizing them towards a greater goal. Secondly, ABC helped me to hone my mentoring and people management skills. I had to manage the expectations of experienced executives while creating an open and constructive team environment. Over the last year, I have especially focused on creating a self sustaining organization. The group now chooses its leader from the members on a rotating basis and hence does not require my continuing intervention. This helped me to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of people and established with certainty my leadership skills and commitment. Finally, as my first entrepreneurial venture, ABC taught me the importance of innovation even in daily life. From thinking differently on social themes to executing them in a unique way, I realized the immense personal satisfaction of building something of my own.

Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Essay Questions from the Fall of 2006 Application:

1. All applicants must complete A, B or C as appropriate. Please number your essay responses.
   1. Master of Business Administration applicants only. Briefly assess your career progress to date. Elaborate on your future career plans and your motivation for pursuing a graduate degree at the Kellogg School. (one to two pages, double-spaced)
   2. Master of Management and Manufacturing applicants only. Briefly assess your career progress to date. How does the MMM program meet your educational needs and career goals? (one to two pages, doublespaced)
   3. Joint-degree applicants only. Briefly assess your career progress to date. How does the joint program meet your educational needs and career goals? (one to two pages, double-spaced)
2. Each of our applicants is unique. Describe how your background, values, academics, activities and/or leadership skills will enhance the experiences of other Kellogg students. (one to two pages, double-spaced)
3. You have been selected as a member of the Kellogg Admissions Committee. Please provide a brief evaluative assessment of your file. (one to two pages, double-spaced)
4. Complete three of the following six questions or statements. (two to three double-spaced paragraphs for each question)
   1. What have been your most significant leadership experiences to date?
   2. Describe an ethical dilemma that you faced and how it was resolved.
   3. Outside of work, I…
   4. Describe a professional situation in which you were able to successfully persuade others to see things your way.
   5. I wish the Admissions Committee had asked me…
   6. Since your previous application, what are the steps you have taken to strengthen your candidacy?

Applicant Essays:

You have been selected as a member of the Kellogg Admissions Committee. Please provide a brief evaluative assessment of your file. (One to two pages double-spaced)

The Candidate’s file definitely makes interesting reading. Abroad range of interests in diverse subjects, a keen curiosity to explore the unknown, an evaluative approach to calculated risk-taking, a driving passion to find meaning in everything he does and an ability to critique and improve upon his shortcomings—all paint the picture of a versatile, adaptive and extremely capable person. His inherent strengths are his definite leadership abilities, his capacity to work effectively with people, his communication skills, his out-of-the-box innovative approach and his capacity for analytical rigor. He displays a maturity that belies his age and shows sensitivity to his environment that is a constant factor in all his decision making.

Within the diversity and seeming randomness of his past experience The Candidate shows a clear thread of ambition that directs his future plans of action. He is abundantly clear about his desire to invest himself in a career that would affect meaningful change to the world he inhabits. Toward that end The Candidate has over time exposed himself to working with several developmental and nonprofit organizations to understand first-hand the realities of functional change management. He has further shown the initiative to use this knowledge in his corporate environment at HLL in implementing a rural women empowerment scheme. He has the drive, is constantly seeking the knowledge and displays the capabilities required for a career invested in marrying corporate profitability with sustainable society development.

His immediate career path out of his MBA is clear and his plan of moving to International Consulting in the short-term is a well-thought out decision since it would afford him the international exposure he requires to convert himself into a truly world-ready professional managing developmental change. The Candidate clearly is an outstanding team-player. He is able to form an instant connect with people and has the maturity to enhance collective performance in a collaborative environment. He is also a man of action. Organizing an entire ‘Critical Mass’ event in his city requires a definite enthusiasm, passion and commitment and he displays all these qualities in abundant quantity throughout his application. He is governed by a strong sense of ethics and has clearly demonstrated the ability to take on responsibility far beyond his age. He has proven his managerial excellence amongst a peer-group that includes the top percentile of managerial talent within India and excelled in a demanding environment. Having been exposed to fields ranging from brand management to suicide counseling to nature conservation The Candidate is clearly an excellent candidate for any managerial responsibility.

One of The Candidate’s significant strengths comes from his ability to understand and act upon his own developmental needs. Having moved into business management directly from an engineering background, The Candidate today recognizes his need for a solid rigorous grounding on the quantitative aspects of management. While he possesses a global outlook and displays a mature width of perspective he also understands his need for exposure to international business environments. His plan to invest his next ten years of professional growth in a career in International Consulting addresses his development requirement of exposure to strategic levels of business in an international playing field. The Candidate’s strong analytical skills and capacity for academic excellence shine through while reviewing his excellent track record. His undergraduate CGPA while low, is definitely offset by the combination of diversity during his college experience and his outstanding merit record which cuts through from his schooling to his GMAT. His ability to recognize his own failure in adequately allocating sufficient time and resource for his academics at IIT displays a maturity that will stand in good stead as he takes on the rigor of management education during his MBA. In addition to having qualified within India’s top one percent in its most competitive entrance examination (IIT qualifiers) his resume also stands out for the significant amount of personal and professional stretch he has exposed himself to during his undergraduate study.

The Candidate shows a well-researched understanding of all that Kellogg has to offer and displays a keen drive to be a part of the Kellogg community in the next two years. His career today is poised at the perfect point of inflection where an MBA at Kellogg would provide him with the skills, flexibility and impetus he desires. He understands that his developmental needs are best met by the Kellogg’s curriculum and is firm in his mind about his ability to invest the rigor the demanding course would entail. His hands-on understanding of rural marketing along with the breadth of experience he brings with him will add meaningful diversity to the Kellogg MBA classroom. His capacity for interaction will make him a valuable resource in any collaborative activity and his drive to constantly challenge him self will add to the vibrancy of his peers’ experience. The Candidate hence stands today as a perfect candidate ready for entrance into the Kellogg School of Management.

4. Complete three of the following five questions or statements. (two to three double-spaced paragraphs each)

1. What have been your most significant leadership roles to date? What was the most valuable lesson learned?
2. Describe an ethical dilemma that you faced and how it was resolved.
3. Describe a situation in which you provided a solution that met with resistance. How did you address that situation?
4. Outside of work I…

   Starting off as a casual hobby and growing into a passion that has been an integral part of me till date—Theatre, has over time afforded me some truly life-transforming experiences. Right from my school days, I have utilized every available opportunity to feed my flame for the stage. Public Speaking has been my forte and debating my passion. The Best debater award at the India’s most prestigious college debating competition—The Parliamentary Debate at the National Law School remains my most treasured performance award. To be able to connect with an audience from the retreat of a stage is, in my opinion, a euphoric feeling. I have always been intrigued by the power of a personality and its ability to connect through communication and the stage is where one hones this art to perfection. I have had the opportunity to perform on a wide variety of subjects and genres to many types of audiences. I have equally enjoyed playing simple themes from Rowan Atkinson and Monty Python to a light-hearted audience and being able to make Brechtian theatre come alive in an Indian context in a more somber cultural event at the Max Mueller Bhavan. I have worked extensively in native Indian folk theatre in a variety of regional languages and my resultant understanding of the ethos of Indian society couldn’t have been sharper crystallized in any philosophy classroom.

   Apart from the energy and creativity that is required during performance, I also enjoy the teaching and interaction aspects of theatre. While directing plays, teaching participants how to completely feel and empathize with the intent of the scene is critical to the success of any production. It is satisfying to not only see participants learn the components of the play, but also watch them as they add their own personality to the interpretation of the performance. Personally the stage has helped me marry the aspects of commitment, creativity, collectivism and collaboration. Theatre has showcased my capabilities even while it helped me better attune myself to my limitations.

   I will continue to engage actively in theatre as it provides me with an avenue through which I can celebrate my culture, spirit and life. One’s understanding of oneself is a continuous evolution through time and theatre presents the context in which any empathetic individual can better engage in that dialogue with oneself.

5. I wish the Admissions Committee had asked me.

If needed, use this area for additional space for your application questions. (Please limit your response to 60 lines of text).

I graduated from IIT with a CGPA of 6.38, an outlier in my otherwise flawless track record that includes National merit rank certificates in school and a 99th percentile GMAT score. On a voyage of self-discovery, shedding boyhood and transitioning into a world of decisive adults whilst reconciling social and familial expectations against personal interests and skills, I indulged in a multitude of endeavors before isolating desirable traits in a career path. Journalism, event management, project management, web-site development, theatre, sport, community work, activism—I experimented with every option available.

Engineering afforded me credible intellectual stimulation within the underpinnings of a logic-based approach to life. I certainly possessed the capacity for extended periods of monolithic confinement and focused effort required for proving the practicability of theoretical science. I possessed a natural bent for quantitative rigor, which was another key aspect of making a successful engineer. But in the gap between ability and passion I realized that my branch of Engineering left my high-touch communication, leadership and multi-tasking skills largely untapped. One of my core attributes was my ability to form an instant connect with the people I worked with and the isolated environment of a career in engineering gave me little scope to leverage my natural traits. As I progressed through my four years at IIT, I hence looked to invest in a variety of opportunities to build my people management skills and leverage on the clarity of focus that my broader perspective that those opportunities afforded me. My constant search for a wider canvas to paint on lad me far beyond the confines of a classic engineering undergraduate degree.

Growing into a managerial role, I today have learnt to live by the Theory of Constraints. In hindsight, I could have invested additional effort into my academics over summary dismissal as revealed by my CGPA. In my career I see any role I take on throwing up many challenges, not all equally desirable. I consciously recognize that I would need to exercise mature judgment in allocating time and resource to each of them in order to maximize my overall effectiveness. I today fully appreciate the strength of a collaborative approach to any task at hand and see myself bringing the capacity to agglomerate the positives of various people in my environment toward better functioning on any task afforded. Academic rigor and an ability to excel in all spheres of structured learnings will definitely form a corner stone of my approach to all future educational ventures. As I look forward with clear ambition and set direction, I will focus on effectively striking a balance between the formal requirements and inspirational challenges of all my future endeavors.

MIT Sloan School of Management, MIT (Questions only)

Use the essays to tell us more about you and how you work, think, and behave. For each essay, please provide a brief overview of the situation followed by a detailed description of your response. Include what you thought, felt, said, and did. Please select experiences or events from the past one to two years.

More than that, the essays are a chance for you to discuss your passions, values, interests, and goals. Emphasize those experiences that were most important and meaningful for you—which may not necessarily be those that were most outwardly prestigious. Be sincere and be specific. There is no one ‘right’ kind of MIT Sloan student; in fact, MIT Sloan deliberately builds each class to unite varied strengths and perspectives. Tell us what particular experiences and expertise you will bring to the mix. The essay instructions and questions are included below.

We are interested in learning more about you and how you work, think, and act. For each essay, please provide a brief overview of the situation followed by a detailed description of your response.

Cover Letter

Prepare a cover letter (up to 500 words) seeking a place in the MIT Sloan MBA Program. Please comment on your career goals and those factors which influenced you to pursue an MBA education at MIT Sloan. The cover letter provides a chance for you to discuss your passions, values, and interests. Through what you write we hope to discover whether you will thrive at MIT Sloan and how you will contribute to our diverse community. Address your cover letter to Mr. Rod Garcia, Director of MBA Admissions.

MBA and LFM applicants only:

Essay 1: Please tell us about a time when you had an impact on a person, group, or organization. Describe in detail what you thought, felt, said, and did (500 words or less).

Essay 2: Please describe a time when your team had to arrive at a compromise. Describe in detail what you thought, felt, said, and did (500 words or less).

Essay 3: Please tell us a time when you advocated for a position. What alternatives did you consider? Describe in detail what you thought, felt, said, and did (500 words or less).

Essay 4: Please tell us a time when you put an idea into action. Describe in detail what you thought, felt, said, and did (500 words or less).

Supplemental Information

Use this part of the application to give us any additional information that might help us understand the choices you have made, your leadership activities and skills, and your scholastic and professional achievements. Please elaborate on your personal interests, activities and hobbies, as well as any special circumstances you feel are relevant.

We would like to know what you’ve learned and how you learned it. Please tell us anything that will round out our impression of you as a unique individual.

INSEAD (Fontainebleau, France)

Essays for admission for the Fall of 2007:

1. Give a candid description of yourself, stressing the personal characteristics you feel to be your strengths and weaknesses and the main factors, which have influenced your personal development, giving examples when necessary. (400 words approx.)
2. Describe what you believe to be your two most substantial accomplishments to date, explaining why you view them as such. (400 words approx.)
3. Describe a situation taken from school, business, civil or military life, where you did not meet your personal objectives, and discuss briefly the effect. (250 words approx.)
4. Discuss your career goals. What skills do you expect to gain from studying at INSEAD and how will they contribute to your professional career. (500 words approx.)
5. Please choose one of the following two essay topics:
   1. Have you ever experienced culture shock? What did it mean to you? (250 words approx.), or
   2. What would you say to a foreigner moving to your home country? (250 words approx.)
6. Is there anything that you have not mentioned in the above essays?
7. In case of reapplication, please use this page. Your essay should state any new aspects of professional, international, academic, or personal development since your last application. We would also like you to explain your motivation for re-applying to INSEAD. This essay should not exceed 400 words.

Applicant Essays

SET-I

Give a candid description of yourself, stressing the personal characteristics you feel to be your strengths and weaknesses and the main factors which have influenced your personal development, giving examples when necessary. (400 words approx.)

One of my key strengths is my strong interpersonal skill. By nature, I respect experience, listen patiently to others, and love working with people. In my last 2 years at YYYY Factory, my abilities have earned me the respect of the 155 workmen. This was evident during the long-term negotiations with the workmen Union last year. Unlike in the past, the negotiations were characterized by a highly cordial atmosphere and did not result in any work disruption.

I enjoy working in teams, and build upon ideas germinating in team discussions, besides offering my own. My technical expertise, complemented with my team skills and strong personal rapport with the manufacturing fraternity at various sites, earned me, despite being the youngest among the group, a position in the Packing Board of ABC India—a board driving operational excellence across factories.

Hard work and determination constitute other strong aspects of my personality. At University, starting at the 2nd-last position in my department in freshman year, I finished graduation with a 2nd position among 42 students. The patience that my determination breeds in me keeps me unnerved even in the face of failure. Despite the initial setbacks, I solved a persistent quality problem faced by various manufacturing sites producing a detergent powder—the biggest detergent brand of ABC India.

Additionally, I am creative in developing solutions. Recently, along with a vendor, I have developed a unique low cost automatic product counter, first of its kind in ABC India, which has replaced manual counting operation.

One of my weaknesses, when I joined ABC India, fresh out of University, was my hesitation to interact with senior managers. Determined to overcome this weakness, I proactively sought opportunities to make presentations to the visiting senior managers. Thus, I learnt not only to express myself confidently to the managers, but also to respond assertively to their questions. Today, I am looked upon by my peers as a confident person who can voice out his opinions in various discussion forums.

My current drawback is my tendency to delve deep into every minor detail. This makes it difficult for me to focus simultaneously on multiple projects. Due to my recent induction into 2 central teams the number of projects, I handle, has gone up. I am forced to devote long hours at work so that the drawback does not affect any of my projects. However, I am working earnestly on the drawback and have had discussions with my superior for guidance. I have increased job delegation to my subordinates, and have started weekly monitoring of projects, an approach which is showing encouraging results.

Describe what you believe to be your two most substantial accomplishments to date, explaining why you view them as such. (400 words approx.)

My most significant accomplishment till date relates to the successful launch of XYZ Detergent powder—the largest powder brand of ABC India. The market pressure from local players demanded a revision of the powder formulation. I was the Manufacturing lead in the multi-disciplinary Product Innovation team—comprising of members from Marketing, Innovation, Quality and Manufacturing function. I was entrusted with the responsibility of evaluating and rolling out the new formulation across all powder manufacturing sites.

I identified early engagement of all manufacturing site teams as the key to project success as I believe that involvement breeds commitment. The involvement of site managers at an early stage was a deviation from the past practices for such projects. However, I went ahead and briefed all the manufacturing heads about the critical competitive context of the launch and proactively sought their perception of the manufacturing risks associated with the new formulation. Our team narrowed down on three prime risks and identified specification revision for certain raw materials for risk elimination. I then shared the risk prognosis and specification revision proposal with the sourcing and quality assurance team, and eventually got the specifications revised.

With the homework done well, the product was successfully rolled out at all the sites in a first time right manner. I view the accomplishment as really special to me because not only the success was of high importance to the business but also the accomplishment reinforced my belief that effective team working thrives on complete involvement.

The second accomplishment, close to my heart, is associated with the difference I made to the life of a high-school student. I had come down from college to spend my vacations with my parents. During my stay, I came across a high-school student, named BCD, who had failed in her high-school Physics examination. She was to reappear for the exam in a month’s time. The girl was low on self-confidence and had completely given up hope.

I undertook the task of restoring the girl’s confidence and preparing her for her exam. I identified her weak areas and made a simple study plan devoting more study hours on them. In my teaching sessions, I invariably narrated different motivational instances from my high-school days about students scoring distinctions in their re-examinations. As a result of our collective efforts the girl comfortably cleared her exam. My faith in her and her hard earned success revitalized her confidence for years to come. She is currently pursuing higher studies in Biotechnology and this gives me a lasting sense of pride in my accomplishment. The accomplishment taught me the power of motivation that transforms efforts into success.

Describe a situation taken from school, business, civil or military life, where you did not meet your personal objectives, and discuss briefly the effect. (250 words approx.)

While at University, I was selected for an internship program in GHI Ltd.—a global giant in various services. Since the internship meant my first tryst with Industry, I aimed at gaining a complete understanding of the operations and contributing to the company through my learning.

From a structured learning environment of University, I suddenly found myself in an unstructured environment on the field—the company’s base in India. The work environment was characterized by engineers spending majority of their time away from the base. Their field-work was supported by technicians at the field and at the base. I adopted the theoretical approach of poring over manuals and focusing on learning sessions with my mentor—a field-engineer. However, in the end it proved inadequate to make my training experience complete. I realized that I had overlooked two repositories of knowledge—experience of the technicians and operating knowledge of client. While I gained theoretical knowledge of operations, I failed to grasp the broader know-how of the company’s business.

This experience translated into a lifelong learning for me. Knowledge is omnipresent. In an unstructured environment like business is, I ceaselessly seek knowledge from all possible sources and never abandon my quest till I get the answers. I value the experience of vendors, and my subordinates, and have learnt substantially from them. Extending beyond formal documents and reports, the experience of my subordinates forms an integral part of my decision-making process. This approach to seek opinion in team discussions has made me a keen listener—a trait that guides me in understanding individuals at greater depths, and that breeds everyone’s commitment in my decisions.

Please choose one of the following two essay topics:

1. Have you ever experienced culture shock? What did it mean to you? (250 words approx.), or
2. What would you say to a foreigner moving to your home country? (250 words approx.)

In December 200*, I was in Japan to receive the TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) ‘Consistency Award’ for my factory. The award is given by JIPM (Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance) to various business units excelling in TPM. I was impressed by the hospitality and humility of the managers of ABC Japan, who were our hosts.

After the award ceremony, I approached a senior manager of ABC Japan to discuss TPM implementation in his plant. During the discussion, the manager enquired about the operational efficiency of my factory. I shared with him the high efficiency level of my plant. The manager, visually astonished, remarked condescendingly, ‘How can the efficiency level of your factory in India be so high when such high efficiencies are rare even in ABC Japan?’ Shocked by the comment coming from a senior manager, I wondered that even in a world where technology barriers are fast disappearing; there are people who judge a business unit capability based on its location or the nationality of people who run it. That there are people who believe that by virtue of being located in India, the plants in India are inferior to their Japanese counterparts.

Instead of reacting, I chose to respond. I called upon one of the most senior Japanese consultants of JIPM, who had been guiding ABC India, as well as ABC worldwide, for several years. The consultant reiterated the high operational excellence of my plant and recounted its impressive journey in reaching the benchmark plant status. The consultant’s revelations humbled the manager.

Albeit perturbed with the incident, I was satisfied with my response since it had changed a mindset.

SET-II

1. Give a candid description of yourself, stressing the personal characteristics you feel to be your strengths and weaknesses and the main factors which have influenced your personal development, giving examples when necessary. (400 words approx.)

   My mother has had the strongest influence in my life. She laid great emphasis on the values of hard work, dedication and honesty, values which she herself lived everyday. She believed in giving back to society and inculcated this caring attitude and passion into me. These ideals form the core of my value system and I owe who I am to her guidance and love.

   I am an extrovert by nature and love interacting with people. My greatest strength is my ability to understand people and empathize with their needs while helping them to achieve their goals. A proactive listener, I can patiently listen to people and understand the issues they are facing. Being a persuasive communicator, I am able to engage people in conversation with articulate comments that influence them in a positive manner. This ability to connect with people at a personal level has helped me tremendously while performing theater and working with Non-Governmental Organizations.

   Being a highly independent individual, I enjoy taking on challenging assignments, particularly when others have given them up. I have always adopted a ‘never say die’ attitude such that I am not overwhelmed by the pressures of deadlines or stretch targets. I am able to adjust quickly to unstructured settings and usually respond fast to a change in professional environment. My rapid growth within ABC and XYZ bears witness to the fact that I can deliver outstanding results in highly competitive professional environments.

   I am naturally inclined to take on the role of a leader, leading by example and motivating and energizing my team towards new performance standards. I look to involve all team members in the process of deciding work roles and plans, so that I can learn from their experience and bring a sense of ownership and responsibility into everyone. I love to build relationships and hence enjoy being a team player actively sharing my ideas and contributing to the team in the best possible manner. At XYZ, I have actively focused on managing projects whenever possible and have made every effort to coach and mentor juniors folks on these projects.

   In the opinion of my superiors, one of my weaknesses is that I tend to do everything myself, frequently taking on more responsibilities than I can handle. Taking heed of this, I have consciously tried to delegate more and am proactively taking up cross functional roles across teams within XYZ. Moreover, I am strong willed and unconventional in my approach. I believe in the merit of a logical discussion and would prefer to take a well thought out, informed decision rather than agree on general consensus.

2. Describe what you believe to be your two most substantial accomplishments to date, explaining why you view them as such. (400 words approx.)

   The two incidents mentioned below, reflect different learning experiences from various stages of my life.

   1. I was a member of the cultural affairs committee of my Hostel at the University. That year we had lost 4 out of the 5 running trophies in the inter hostel competitions. The only chance we now had for salvaging the pride of the hostel was to win the ‘Best Stall’ trophy. I volunteered to take up the challenge and selected a team of 7 people for aiding me. After a few brainstorming sessions, we agreed to depict a representation of people suffering in the Kargil India—Pakistan war under the overall theme of ‘War against Terrorism’. The team worked day and night to set up the stall within three days. We also prepared a signature campaign through which more than 2000 students committed themselves to fight against terrorism. The Dean’s committee and the Director were highly impressed with our initiative and our Hostel won the Best Stall Trophy for the first time in its history.
   2. Theater has been the greatest passion of my life. I started a performance group called ABC in Delhi in 200* focusing on mid career executives who were seeking a creative outlet for their emotional energy. They wanted to make a difference by working for a social cause but the lack of opportunities held them. This group gave them the opportunity, as I organized street plays with social themes related to corruption and racial discrimination among others. Our performances attracted several corporate and individual donations and we rapidly expanded from 5 people to 23 members within 2 years. ABC is my first entrepreneurial venture and I feel proud to have created a self sustaining organization as the group chooses its leader from the members on a rotating basis and does not require my continuing intervention. Being able to balance the demands of work along with building this group has given me immense satisfaction.

   These experiences are monumental in my life, for they taught me a few important lessons. The first experience gave me the confidence to take up extremely difficult challenges and remain focused under pressure to deliver outstanding results. It helped me to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of people and established with certainty my leadership skills and my commitment. The second incident made me realize the importance of channeling and motivating people’s passion in the right direction to achieve results. It demonstrated the significance of strong self-belief to inspire confidence in others and reinforced my belief in my ability to creatively think about innovative solutions.

3. Describe a situation taken from school, business, civil or military life, where you did not meet your personal objectives, and discuss briefly the effect. (250 words approx.)

   When I started my undergraduate program at University, I had an objective of excelling in extra curricular activities as well as academics. Working towards this aim, I became significantly involved in student affairs and theater from the first year itself. I was appointed the hostel representative for the Dramatics and Quizzing Clubs in the second year. Fellow students who acknowledged my multi faceted personality and leadership in the college community also elected me the Secretary for my Hostel (the most important position in hostel affairs). Consequently, I spent a significant amount of time in student body meetings, play rehearsals and training sessions. Balancing academics with this hectic extracurricular schedule became a challenge and I slowly realized that I had taken on more responsibilities than I could handle given the time constraints. While I graduated with a very good CGPA, my personal goal had been much higher. However, at the same time, I was recognized for my exceptional work with Outstanding Contribution awards in Cultural Affairs, Quizzing and the National Cadet Corps.

   The experience at University made me realize my potential of managing a variety of roles. I successfully managed a multitude of responsibilities across diverse functions while delivering a good overall academic performance. I am now confident in my capability to compete in a multi-role, multi-cultural team environment. Moreover, I also learnt the importance of prioritizing and setting expectations correctly. I now make it a point to establish my priorities beforehand, which has allowed me to ‘hit the ground running’ and deliver superior results across diverse roles at ABC and XYZ.

4. Describe your career goals. What skills do you expect to gain from studying at INSEAD and how will they contribute to your professional career? (500 words)

   My goal is to set up an investment management firm to acquire and turnaround weak banks in India. A fascination for managing money and complex financial situations has drawn me to exploring opportunities in banking. I have realized that to sustain the strong economic growth, the Indian financial sector will need strengthening over the next decade. As markets open up further, Indian banks will increasingly need capital and strong management support for sustenance. In such a scenario, there is strong potential for a turnaround company to change the face of banking at a pan-Asian level.

   In the past few years at XYZ, I have had tremendous exposure to top management at leading Indian and multinational banks on various strategic and operational issues. I have developed an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of Asian banking by virtue of the long term impact that I have created at several of these banks. However till now I have experienced banking with an outside-in perspective. My short term goal is hence to work in a global bank and get the on-ground feel of applying international best practices in investment management. Post my MBA, I will aim for elite programs such as the International Officers program at HSBC for working in the Asia Pacific region. I will look to develop deep product and operational knowledge, across functions and geographies, which I can leverage towards my long term entrepreneurial goal.

   This is the perfect time for me to do my MBA since I have a good academic background and a well-grounded professional experience. I now need to fill the gaps in my knowledge before I progress further towards my entrepreneurial aims. After extensive research and interactions with several INSEAD students and alumni, I have concluded that INSEAD best serves my needs.

   I want to accelerate my path into banking by bolstering the skills gained at XYZ and ABC with a deeper understanding of functions such as finance and operations management. The one year rigorous program at INSEAD will help me to achieve this in the shortest time possible. Working with renowned professors will provide me access to cutting edge international best practices, which will help me enormously in running a successful investment business. Also, the all pervading entrepreneurial culture at INSEAD makes it my first choice for pursuing an MBA. Attending courses such as Realizing Entrepreneurship Potential (REP) will enable me to gain real time exposure to investing strategies and turnarounds, which will help me to develop a strong foundation for my future as an entrepreneur. Finally, no other leading B-school provides the opportunity to gain multi-cultural experience through multi campus programs at Fountainebleau, Singapore and Wharton. I stand to gain immensely by learning from and sharing my experiences with the most internationally diverse student body at INSEAD. These experiences will help me to assimilate best practices from around the world and customize them to different professional situations as the need arises.

   The uniqueness of the MBA program has convinced me that an education from INSEAD would build my credibility and network with financial service institutions in the developed world. I hence view INSEAD as the stepping stone to my career as a successful entrepreneur in India and Asia.

5. Please choose one of the following two essay topics:
   1. Have you ever experienced culture shock? What did it mean to you? (250 words approx.),

   In January, I visited London for a 3 day conference attended by over 200 CEOs and top managers from Asset Management companies across Europe. A XYZ partner and I made a presentation on the potential of the Indian industry. After our presentation, the CEO of a leading UK based mutual fund walked up to us. He highly appreciated our presentation but wanted to know why foreign companies should think of investing in India. He felt that since telecom infrastructure was non-existent, most towns did not have electricity and average incomes were low, investments would not be viable.

   I was shocked on listening to his comments. What surprised me was that a senior business leader was still carrying a picture of India as it had been 30 years ago. Taking care not to sound reactionary and impolite, I mentioned to him that India is the fastest growing economy in the world after China. I told him that most Fortune 500 companies are already operating in India. Comparing legal structures and capital liquidity, I proved to him that India was a high potential investment destination.

   The biggest lesson I learnt from this encounter is that it is easy to make perceptions based on what people think. Misunderstanding between cultures is primarily due to misplaced and inadequate information. I decided to be an ambassador for India wherever I go to ensure that people appreciate the real India. Moreover, I resolved to keep an open mind and analyze the correct picture before making a judgment so that I can assimilate only the best and make informed decisions at a personal and professional level.

6. Is there anything that you have not mentioned in the above essays that you would like the Admissions Committee to know? (200 words approx.) This essay is optional.

   Every student at INSEAD is a potential business leader of tomorrow, a catalyst of change in business and the community. I wish to discuss the aspect of my personality, which highlights my efforts towards bringing a positive change in the community.

   From my early days, I saw my grandmother feeding the destitute every Sunday at the Temple. My mother took an active interest in teaching neighborhood children in her free time. It was only natural for me to become involved with social activities as well. At University, I organized blood donation camps with the support of the Local Red Cross. Working with an NGO gave me a chance to teach poor children every evening, after my classes. Over two years, I was able to get more than twenty children enrolled into primary school. I also co-founded a social organization and took up issues such as eradicating plastic bags on campus and increasing awareness about AIDS. Currently, I work with NNN in Delhi to organize collection drives for distributing household supplies to the needy.

   I believe that I can contribute to the INSEAD Community by actively mentoring students at the University about community service. I sincerely believe that teaching and serving the underprivileged allows me to repay society’s contribution to my development and my success.

Ross School of Business at University of Michigan

Essays for admission for the Fall of 2007:

You must answer all parts of the three questions below.

1. We believe one of the keys to effective leadership is the ability to transform ideas into action. Describe a time within the last three years in which you exercised such leadership. What did you learn about your leadership strengths and development needs? (within 500 words)
2. What are your career goals? How will a Ross MBA help you achieve your goals? How might the action-based learning aspects of the Ross curriculum make a difference? (within 500 words)
3. Describe the initiatives you have taken over the past two years to develop professionally and personally. What motivated you to take those initiatives? (within 500 words)

Optional Question

Is there anything else you think the Admissions Committee should know about you to evaluate your candidacy? (within 500 words)

Applicant Essays:

What career goals have you set for yourself and how will a Ross MBA support the achievement of these goals? How will you utilize the opportunities at Ross to co-create an MBA experience that is right for you? How will you enhance the experience of other members of the Ross community? (within 500 words)

My goals are ambitious, and I am deeply committed to them.

My long-term career goal is to establish and run a medical tourism enterprise. I see huge potential in this industry, particularly for markets such as the UK, the US, and the Middle East, especially given the low penetration of universal insurance in these regions (90% of the UK’s population lacks private insurance), long waiting periods for in-patient treatments (up to eighteen months for a knee transplant in the UK), and the high costs of private treatment (hip replacements cost $ 39,000 in the US, compared to $ 3,000 in India). Not only does this niche have tremendous business potential, through such an enterprise, I could also contribute to bridging the disparity between developed and developing economies, and giving people access to timely and affordable medical services.

In the shorter term, I aim to work in an international context for three to four years, ideally at a venture capital firm focused on the healthcare sector. Doing so will enhance my ability to plan and manage early-stage ventures, and will strengthen my network in my industry of interest.

A Ross MBA will fuel my pursuit of entrepreneurial career goals. Ross offers a powerful curriculum of core and elective courses, and fosters action-based learning through programs such as the Multidisciplinary Action Project (MAP). A Ross education will help me develop cross-disciplinary business fundamentals and lend me a holistic view of establishing and managing my business. Likewise, Ross’ highly experienced and committed faculty, renowned worldwide for its cutting-edge research, will enrich my perspective with the latest in business thinking. The collaborative environment comprising bright and diverse individuals will augment my learning experience, polish my interpersonal skills, and enable me to bond with future leaders of world business. Moreover, Ross offers tremendous opportunities to create an MBA experience suited to my specific requirements. I plan to pursue an entrepreneurial course track, starting with an entrepreneurial emphasis in MAP (EMAP). I plan to pursue electives such as Growth Strategies for High-Potential Ventures and Entrepreneurial Management, which are directly cogent to my planned enterprise. I will emerge from the Ross program as a highly educated, well connected, and driven future entrepreneur.

I feel that I can contribute uniquely to the Ross community. I will enhance the experience of other Ross community members by sharing my specialized knowledge, of operations management and thought leadership, in the rapidly growing outsourcing industry both during classroom discussions and through the Emerging Markets Club. Outside the classroom, I hope to participate in managing the Wolverine Venture Fund, and aim to join a ‘Moderately Active’ M - Trek to South America. I also hope to establish a drama club at the university, to continue to pursue and share my passion for theater. In all that I will do at Ross, I will engage myself wholeheartedly, and do justice to my ambitions by doing so with gusto.

Describe a situation in which others with whom you were working on a project disagreed with your ideas. What did you do? In retrospect, is there anything you would have done differently? (within 500 words)

As cultural secretary of my hostel, at my undergraduate University, I had many responsibilities. My most important duty, however, was leading the entire team of three hundred house members towards winning the institute’s annual cultural trophy. This trophy is awarded based on the cumulative performance of different houses in a yearly sequence of cultural competitions. My role as cultural secretary was to identify and nurture cultural talent among students of my house, motivating them to participate in the events, and managing resources among participating teams. The job sounded, at best, quite fun, and, at worst, a little boring, and I was totally unprepared to tackle animosity among my housemates.

After my election, I saw the house divided into two factions. One of these had strongly supported me in the election, and the other had opposed me. All my direct attempts to unite the opposing factions proved unsuccessful. The house members dismissed my ideas of putting aside factional differences in order to unite into a stronger team to face external competition. I was, however, convinced of the appropriateness of my ideas, and was committed to unifying my house.

Fortunately for me, I had a strong personal rapport with many of the house members in either group. Drawing on these personal connections, I created mixed teams for the competitions. Teamwork bridged differences between individuals, and gradually diluted their faction-level animosity. Indeed, towards the middle of the year, when the inter-house competition had grown to be very tough, this faction-level animosity had diminished to such an extent that my mediation was enough to ‘formally’ bring the two factions together for cultural competitions. In a happy ending, our renewed sense of unity helped us win the trophy that year.

Reuniting the house gave me tremendous confidence as a leader. Yet again, I found myself appreciating the need for investment in personal relationships and valuing every individual’s role in a group effort. However, when the next year’s elections rolled around and old differences flared, I learned another, sadder lesson: the root cause of my house’s problems was that members of the house felt motivated more by those activities that made them visible than those that made the team stronger but kept them in the background. Although I had always realized this weakness in the team, the efforts I had made during my year in office did not address this issue fully. In retrospect, I feel that, in that opportune time when the house had come together, I should have tried to mend our weakness by glamorizing silent participation, making it as important as visible contribution. Though I am proud of what I achieved in my one year as secretary, I know that, had I done so, I could have made a long-term impact.

Describe a situation where your professional ethics were challenged and how you came to terms with the situation. What did you learn from this? (within 500 words)

A chance accident left me torn between my commitment to my client and my obligations to fair business practice.

The industry I work in, Business Research, has strong ethical guidelines pertaining to information: information can be critical for success or failure of a business initiative, and is thus of vital strategic importance. In this light, the strictest codes bind me and my colleagues to respect the privacy of the information we come across, and the boundaries of the audiences it is intended for. During one project, however, I found my normal way of doing business profoundly challenged.

My firm had been retained to help a client prepare a shortlist of four potential service providers (suppliers) for his organization. To this end, an important parameter for our selection process was the stability of senior management, and we thus did extensive research on numerous groups and boards. At that time, however, I shared an apartment with a friend who worked at an executive search firm. One day, while cleaning our study room, one of his papers caught my eye: the President of one of the supplier organizations we had researched had been hired by another company, and was soon to leave his current job. If used, this information would substantially impact our analysis.

I was deeply conflicted. By not sharing the information, I would be forced to make a wrong recommendation to my client, despite being aware of the true picture. At the same time, by passing the information on, I would be transgressing certain protocols of discretion, and would be doing a disservice to my friend, who was morally and ethically obligated by his client’s interest not to disclose it. Approaching my friend regarding the situation, the fundamentals of my quandary became clear: did I believe that my own professional commitments weighed more than someone else’s?

Working through my options with my friend, I settled on a moderate approach. I realized that, as long as the information was confined to the supplier’s senior management, sharing it with my client would give him undue advantage. I also acknowledged that, in a little while, that information would be released to other people in the company while not yet being officially disclosed in the press: communicating with the client at such a later time would mean providing normal market intelligence rather than infringing upon ethically-bound confidentiality. After receiving an ok from my friend, I waited a week or so, and then talked with my client, who not only appreciated the information, but lauded me on my decision.

Though it was agonizing at the time, I am grateful for the challenge I faced. Through it, I learned that mature business professionals appreciate ethical standards as much as business value. I came to further appreciate how ethics remain important in their own right. Having overcome this challenge, I feel stronger and more confident that I can continue to do the right.

Said School of Business (Oxford, UK)

Applicant Essays:

Explain why you chose your current job. How do you hope to see your career developing over the next five years? How will an MBA assist you in the development of these ambitions? (within 1000 words)

On completion of my engineering studies, I had considered two options. I could either pursue an MBA or take up one of the few job offers that I had. Though I always had plans to do MBA, I took a conscious decision to get hands-on experience in the corporate world before pursuing business education. I had counselled with some senior corporate executives, and every one advised me that that working for a few years would help me relate to business school education better.

I decided to work with the information technology (IT) subsidiary of Company Z in India primarily for two reasons. One, I was offered an opportunity to work on the latest emerging technologies with its OSS and Mobile Solutions group. Secondly, I had done my engineering internship with the same organisation and had built a good professional rapport with the team members. In hindsight, my decision was correct because I got to work on challenging projects using the latest technologies and have gained valuable experience in this field. I believe this will hold me in good stead in realising my long-term goals.

I particularly enjoy the design and conceptual phase of my work as this gives me an opportunity to communicate directly with clients, something which I really enjoy, in order to analyse current processes of my clients and identify ways to leverage technology to make these more effective. Further, the work environment in my organisation gives enough space and flexibility to foster innovation and creativity.

At company Z, I got the opportunity to work with domestic and international telecom operators, which not only broadened my outlook towards the domain, but also gave me the best variety of industry exposure one could ask for. At the same time, I learned to work with people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

In July 2004, on an assignment for a Telecom company in Sri Lanka, I visited the client site at Colombo to study a new requirement. On reaching the client site, I sensed an undercurrent of discontent towards our existing billing solution and it was affecting company Z’s rapport with the telecom company. I met the General Manager to understand the situation. He suspected a revenue leakage in the system. I assured him of our solution’s capability and promised to resolve the matter.

I initiated meetings with the IT and the Switching department, and subsequently identified a communication gap between the two departments. This exercise established a protocol for information exchange and thus resolved the crisis. This and other similar experiences have made me cognizant of the challenges such as revenue assurance, trend analysis, reducing customer churn and fraud prevention that Telecom industry faces. Helping clients on such issues, I have discovered in myself a strong inclination towards problem resolution and a sense of satisfaction that I derive from it.

Success with clients and projects brought more responsibilities. As a team leader, I was responsible for gathering and analysing client requirements, designing solutions, and managing team resources. Now the organization has given me the responsibility of a project manager for a breakthrough project in the Middle East. As a project manager, I have learnt to handle larger cross-functional teams, project planning issues, and resource management. This role has also introduced me to areas such as project cost estimation and cost benefit analysis that most technical persons of my level would find uncomfortable to deal with.

While continuing in my current profession, especially when IT services are very high in demand, is an attractive option, I feel that I will soon reach a plateau and will need to widen my horizons to progress faster and further. I want to pursue MBA education primarily because of two reasons. I believe it would sharpen my business acumen and help me better understand different business concepts, especially in the realm of marketing and finance. This is important to me as I plan to be an entrepreneur in the long run and I have felt the need for strong business fundamentals to be successful. Secondly, in the medium term, I plan to continue a professional career in a reputed company and I need to widen my horizons beyond IT to be a successful general manager.

After completing my MBA, I plan to work in an eminent consulting or financial institution for first few years. I plan to specialise in high technology industries like telecom and IT, thus leveraging both my work experience and my business education. Consulting assignments with a variety of clients and industry segments will give me a holistic understanding of business organizations. I would try to get into a client relationship management role very quickly and in three years after my MBA, I see myself actively working towards setting up my own venture. I believe that the accumulated wealth of global perspective, an understanding of business nuances and trends along with a strong and diverse network of professional relationships garnered over a period of five years will empower me to take a mature initiative as an entrepreneur.

An MBA from Said School of Business will help me build a strong foundation in functional areas such as finance, marketing and strategy. At the same time, it would introduce me to the business approaches of other industry segments. Said with its truly international student body will help me shape a global outlook towards management. At this stage of my career, an MBA from one of the world’s most reputed program will put me on the fast track.

I am particularly interested in Said School of Business because of its forte in general management skills, entrepreneurship and strategy. The consulting project will give me valuable opportunities to validate and realign my approach towards management. I believe that a major part of learning would come from sharing experiences and ideas with the student groups and the faculty. Oxford brings instant recognition and credibility with the best of employers. Since I aspire to work with a reputed international company in the medium term, I prefer Said to other business schools.

Which recent development, world event or book has most influenced your thinking and why? (within 2000 words)

‘To fly as fast as thought, to anywhere that is,’ he said, ‘you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived….’ –Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a book which has influenced my thinking and my life in a very positive way. It tremendously changed my approach towards life. I first read the book in August 2001 and have subsequently read it over and over again.

When I first read the book, I was a fresher out of university, just starting my career at company Z. There was thrill in my life about entering the professional world, but at a personal level my life was unorganised and my health was in a bad shape. I weighed about 200 pounds and lifestyle was sedentary. This was also hampering my self confidence. I was not very outgoing and social. Although I wasn’t unhappy, deep inside I felt a desire to change and to live life more enthusiastically and completely.

When I read this book I was deeply inspired to take charge of my life and aspire to higher levels of success like Jonathan. It triggered in me the motivation to take up a challenge and be the best I can be. This book is about a seagull called Jonathan who wanted to go beyond the routine life of seagulls and wanted to learn to fly. Like Jonathan, I too was successful in certain aspects, but I also wanted to grow as person and accomplish certain goals which would help me live life to the fullest.

‘e learned more each day. He learned that a streamlined highspeed dive could bring him to the rare and tasty fish that schooled ten feet below the surface of the ocean: he no longer needed fishing boats and stale bread for survival. He learned to sleep in air, setting a course at night across the offshore wind, covering a hundred miles from sunset to sunrise. With the same inner control, he flow through heavy sea-fogs and climbed through them into dazzling clear skies… in the very times when every other gull stood on the ground, knowing nothing but mist and rain. He learned to ride the winds far inland, to dine there on delicate insects.’

I knew that it was going to be difficult but I was determined to change and improve.

I decided to first get my health in order. I started with a program of light exercise and running. In the initial days I could hardly run one kilometre. I also started changing my lifestyle to adopt a healthy eating pattern. When I told friends about my new drive, I was discouragingly scoffed at. The old eating and living habits were often enticing and I had to really fight with myself to overcome the temptation. At these times, I found great support through reading Seagull again. My determination and self-disciplinary actions paid off and by the end of the first month, I had established a good exercise routine and my diet pattern had become very healthy. I kept myself motivated by visualizing the image of the healthy me I wanted to be. In a few months time I was doing a 10 kilometre jog every morning along with other fitness activities such as cycling and swimming in the evenings. The results started showing soon. Every small victory acted as a motivating force to persist and reach my target weight. Eight months down the line I had dropped more than 50 pounds. I have maintained my ideal weight for more than 3 years now.

I supplemented my physical fitness program with activities related to mental fitness. I learnt meditation techniques and read books on spirituality and leadership. This opened a holistic way of life for me. Daily practice of meditation has tremendously increased my power of concentration and focus on work.

I attended spiritual retreats and camps that helped me disconnect from the world and reconnect to myself. All this has boosted my self-confidence to a higher level and I have managed to conquer the fear that prevented me from being myself. With all this discipline inculcated in my life, I now feel on top of my personal and professional life.

‘Jonathan Seagull was born to be an instructor, and his own way of demonstrating love was to give something of the truth he had seen to a gull who asked only a chance to see truth for himself.’

Having achieved my target, I am now contributing back to the society by mentoring people to who need support and guidance in changing over to a healthy lifestyle. Every month I mentor 2–4 people on ediets.com, one of the world’s leading health and fitness websites. In my office, I have started a health e-newsletter to educate the employees in my organization about the various aspects and benefits of a healthy lifestyle. My aim in starting the newsletter was to help my colleagues achieving a more balanced lifestyle through the practice of simple techniques and routines and to enlighten them about their empowering benefits. I find this way of sharing with my fellow community, the best way to contribute to the society.

As progress at work brought more interactions with clients, I learnt important lessons in client handling. I learnt to empathize with clients and understand problems from their perspective. This line of thought was helpful in every project that I undertook. My seniors acknowledged my skills by giving me additional responsibilities such as recruitment of fresh graduates. I understood the concerns many freshers have when they enter the professional world and wanted to help these individuals make a smooth transition from the campus to corporate world. I teamed up with a management trainers that I knew, to create a customized program for campus recruits. We have conducted this program for two batches now and it has been very successful and highly appreciated.

‘No, Jonathan there is no such place. Heaven in not a place and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect. You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.’

The biggest lesson that I learned from reading Jonathan Seagull is to continuously keep learning and evolving as an individual. When one takes up a challenge or strives towards a goal, it is the path to the goal that teaches us valuable lessons. Life is about doing what we love to do and that to me is the definition of success. I followed my instinct and took effective actions to bring the change in my life that I felt I needed. This has not only built a positive self-esteem but also laid the foundation for a bright future. It serves as an inspiration to me that any difficult task can be achieved by a clear focus on the goal and diligent effort. I am glad I have learnt this so early in life.

Judge School of Business (Cambridge, UK)

Describe a project or a piece of work in which you have been involved since university, which you found difficult or which did not go well. What was your contribution? What did you learn from the experience and what would you have done differently in retrospect?

One of the most challenging assignments that I have handled was my first assignment as a Project Manager. It involved the development of ‘Interconnect Billing Solution’ for a national telecom operator in Iran. The project was a turnkey project where Company Z teams from different countries and domains collaborated to setup a network spread across the entire country. My development team comprised of a fresher out of college, a senior with more than seven years of experience and three more members at different points of their learning curve; operating from our development centers in two different cities. I anticipated the challenge posed by this age-experience-geographical divide in the team. In such a situation, a clear division of the work and proper information exchange between the cross-functional groups were critical to the success of the project.

I organized knowledge sharing sessions to help familiarize the team members with the software solution. I took an initiative to study the dependencies between the groups and defined an interface, which allowed the team to coordinate and communicate effectively. I also made sure to communicate the role of and expectation from each team member. At the same time, I made efforts to understand the aspirations and concerns of every team member. As a result, we achieved and sustained higher levels of efficiency and eliminated chances of unnecessary rework.

When we moved on-site for the implementation of the project, we faced many problems like hardware and third party dependency issues due to some ambiguous statements in the order contract. I analyzed the problems and in a discussion with my senior management, back in India, I suggested a plan of action wherein we would take the additional responsibility of installation and configuration of hardware in addition to our software product installation. I also intimated the project director our plan of action and then clearly defined our responsibilities. I had a strong belief in my team that we could handle the additional work and kept them motivated towards the goal. We successfully completed the installation of our solution and obtained the customer acceptance in the planned duration of three weeks onsite activity.

This has been one of the most important projects in my career as I learnt intricacies of team handling, team dynamics, and managing geographically distributed teams. It also gave an insight into key considerations of large turnkey projects. Valuable lessons on the importance of corporate communications and their proper channels along with the experience of working with cross-functional teams have all added to understanding of the global work culture.

Describe a moral dilemma you have encountered, how you responded to it, and what you learnt from it?

In November 2003, I was in Sri Lanka at a Telecom company in Colombo. I visited Colombo with the team to implement our telecom billing solution. When the software solution was about to go live, I realized that the processing for a particular charging scenario was incorrect and could lead to revenue leakage, which was suspected by senior management. I analyzed the problem in detail and found a probable workaround. However, my project manager insisted that we remain silent until the customer raises the alarm. I felt this would be unethical and would have a negative impact on company Z’s reputation. I tried to persuade my manager to allow me to address the problem immediately. I had a go-ahead option with a precondition that I would be responsible for the consequences. I had to choose whether to listen to my manager or to apprise the customer about the problem at this critical stage of the project. I felt that leaving the issue unattended would not only result in revenue loss to the client but could also affect future business prospects with Hutch. I explained the situation to the General Manager IT of the telecom company and proposed the workaround. He was willing to try the solution I suggested. With just a week to go for the official launch, our team worked day in and day out to plug the gap. We managed to deliver the fix in three days. This activity helped strengthen company Z’s relation with the telecom company and built the customer’s faith in my team and me.

How would you like to be remembered?

I have always believed that Life is an opportunity to make this world a better place by giving our best to all spheres of life. I will like to be remembered as an individual who made a difference and influenced those around him in an uplifting and a positive manner.

I want people to remember me as visionary leader, a true friend, an understanding colleague, a loving parent and a committed member of the society.

At workplace, I would like to be remembered as a person who focused on work to find the best solutions, a leader who trusted in his team members and empowered them to grow with him. An individual who was never daunted by problems and but believed in looking for the solutions. The success of an individual in the global world depends on the ability to adapt to the changing world and different work circumstances. I would like my co-workers to remember me as a person who adapted to the changing world and as a team member who cooperated with the team to get results. I would like to be remembered by my team for the quality of my work and the enthusiasm towards giving my best to my work. I would like my clients to remember me as the ‘solutions man’. I would like them to remember me for my enthusiasm to help them get the best value out of their solutions.

I would like to be remembered as a person who balanced his personal and professional life well and spent quality time with family. I will like my children to remember me for laying the foundation of their lives as good human beings and encouraging them to follow their dreams. I would like my community to remember me for the contributions I made to the welfare of society.

In words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, I would like to be remembered as a successful person. Success defined as-

‘To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.’

What are your short term and long term career objectives? What skills/characteristics do you already have that will help achieve them? What do you need to do now and in future to help you achieve them? How will the Cambridge MBA help you?

In the short term, I plan to take up a consulting role in the high technology sector. The volatile character of technology sector introduces complexities that are unseen in other business areas. I find this challenging and interesting. Working with company Z for last years on key projects has given me a broad understanding of the telecom and software industry. In addition I got the opportunity to work in and lead teams and understand team dynamics. Handling corporate responsibilities such as recruitments and orientation of freshers along with the International experience of working with clients in different countries have all added to my maturity.

Although, I have a broad understanding of the technical aspects of the sector, I need to build a strong foundation in business fundamentals in order to succeed as a consultant. The learning from the Cambridge MBA coupled with my experience in software and telecom industry will prepare me to make a head start in consulting. Consulting assignments with a variety of clients and industry segments will give me a holistic understanding of business organizations. This will help me to realize my long-term goal of starting my own consulting venture specializing in technology change management. I believe that the accumulated wealth of global perspective, an understanding of business nuances and trends along with a strong and diverse network of professional relationships garnered over a period of three to five years will empower me to take a mature initiative as an entrepreneur.

Cambridge MBA will help me supplement my technical skills with key skills required for management. The small and close-knit and highly competent class at Cambridge is the ideal environment to get the best of learning. The excellent faculty at Judge Institute and their dedication to make the students get the best of the learning attracts me to the school. A world renowned university and a strong alumni network would open up a large number of options on graduation.

London Business School (Questions only)

For admission for the Fall of 2008:

The Admissions Committee will consider carefully your answers to the following questions. Please complete all of the essay questions beginning your answer below each question and giving word counts for each answer. Once complete, please attach this document to your online application following the instructions given on the web form.

If you experience technical difficulties or have a question about the application process, please email [email protected]. If your matter is urgent and you require immediate assistance please telephone our Information Office on +44 (0)20 7000 7500

Applicant Essays:

Question 1 (within 600 words)

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 program contribute to this goal? Finally, how do you see your career progressing five years after graduation?

My goal is to transform the inefficient business incubation framework in India. I, therefore aspire to build dedicated incubation facilities and set up a venture promotion and capital fund which will work closely with the government and academia to shape policy decisions, attract foreign investment and nurture high potential innovations into viable businesses through a well-established incubation process.

My experiences in some of the high impact projects like the development of a 10 HP mini tractor have exposed me to the beleaguered condition of innovation and incubation in the country. Policies like the lack of patent protection inhibit the growth of private sector investments while the weak academia-industry linkage and absence of a suitable mechanism render the process inefficient. My love for my country and abhorrence for the existing state of the overall incubation framework makes me passionate about generating change.

While my active involvement in the Business Club at IIT, my hands on experience in some high impact innovations and my understanding of various business processes at Company X have afforded great learning opportunities, I want to pursue an MBA from a top tier school like LBS to ensure that I am successful in realizing them.

Firstly, the diversity of backgrounds among LBS’s study groups presents a unique opportunity to share and learn from others’ experiences. I hope to learn the best of the world at LBS and apply my learning in realizing my goal. Working in a study group will further hone my team building and leadership skills. Moreover the emphasis on class discussions combined with an excellent faculty is one of the best ways to get formal business training.

Secondly, the school’s strong emphasis on entrepreneurship as a separate discipline coupled by a number of specially tailored programs makes it all the more special to me. My participation in the SEE1 would be two-fold. It will not only give me a chance to put the theoretical knowledge into practice but would also provide me with an opportunity to introduce some of the struggling ventures in India to my highly talented batch mates at LBS. Being in London which is the financial capital of the world, I will get enough opportunities to seek funding for my venture.

Finally, an MBA from such a reputed institution as LBS would build my credibility and my network in the developed markets. This will be vital for me not only in bringing the best practices and the best resources to India but also in expanding my Business in other parts of the world. The LBS alumni network is the pre-eminent group of business leaders in the world, and I look forward to contributing to and benefiting from its continued growth and success.

Immediately after graduation I see myself as an Entrepreneur, busy setting up the Business Incubators and the Venture capital and promotion fund in India. Five years after graduation, I see myself in the expansion phase of my business. Having met with the initial success stories, I would have made an impact in India and would be all set to have a positive impact in other parts of the world. An international brand of LBS, my long lasting relationships with my friends at LBS and a strong alumni network would be instrumental to my success at this crucial juncture and would make the transition an easy one.

1: Summer Entrepreneurship Experience

Question 2 (within 500 words)

Please describe your experience of working in and leading teams, either in your professional or personal life. Given this experience, what role do you think you will play in your study group, and how do you intend to contribute to it?

I have always been a team player through out my life. I have had experiences of leading and working in teams of equals, teams of people from different Nationalities and cultures and also teams consisting of people from different levels and grades.

My leadership and team building abilities developed most significantly during the ‘Six Sigma Initiative’ that I am currently leading at Company X. In my corporate induction, I had observed discrepancies in the problem solving approach at all levels. My pursuit to attack problems in a more holistic way directed me towards the Six Sigma philosophy. I decided to lead two high impact projects to emphasize its importance in the manufacturing division. The initial resistance by the top management, the low morale of the staff because of the ongoing heavy corporate restructuring and my lack of knowledge about the Discipline made the situation very challenging.

I started the initiative by seeking expertise on the subject. This helped me define a clear goal and break it into a set of tangible milestones. To further facilitate the process, I completed the first phase of one project all by myself. All this started the initial involvement of the staff and the building of the team. I then assessed each member’s existing skills, potential skills and preferences and allocated the tasks accordingly. As the strength of the team grew in person, the enthusiasm grew manifold. After 8 months of rigorous efforts, the projects were finally concluded and I could show a potential saving of 5.6 Million Rupees. There were three key things that I learned about being an impactful team leader through this experience.

Firstly, I learnt that a good leader should be a great simplifier. By setting up a clear goal and breaking it into tangible milestones, I made the target look achievable to the team and thus motivated them to accomplish it.

Secondly, I learnt the art of execution. Through my constant focus on the goal, my active involvement with the team and my regular reviews on the progress helped to generate a feel of ‘making it happen’ amongst my team members. This led to the timely completion of the projects.

Thirdly, I learnt the importance of maintaining a balance between utilizing a team’s existing skills and developing new ones. The delicate balance that I maintained helped me achieve extra ordinary results from simple low skilled people.

Seeing the potential impact of the study, Six Sigma has been taken up as a major corporate initiative at Company X.

In my study group, I would like to take the role of a Task Leader. Through my vivid experiences as a Team player, I have realized that it is the spirit of ‘getting things done’ that matters the most and differentiates a winner from a loser. My focus and self discipline in both time and thought will help sustain this spirit amongst the members of my study group. The group would benefit by doing a quality work on time every time.

Question 3 (within 400 words)

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 event do you envisage yourself initiating? How would you set about organising this, and how would you communicate it to the wider School community?

At LBS, I will initiate a club on Experimental Learning. The objective of the club will be to enhance the team building and leadership skills through interactive business games. I have already founded a similar club at IIT.

Through my past experiences I have realized that people gain a greater understanding of team work and leadership lessons through participation in enjoyable learning exercises. The memories last for a long time and have a direct bearing in the work place. Last year I had organized a series of such games in my factory at Company X in order to boost the morale of the team. Moreover, these games have given me a chance to reflect on my weaknesses which were not known to me and thus helped me in rectifying them.

At LBS, I will first motivate my study group members about the benefits of these interactive games. I will then organize a game known as ‘Chain Reaction’ at the campus and invite all the students to witness the show. Chain Reaction is a team building game which highlights the importance of ‘one team philosophy’. The advantage of this game is that, the message is communicated to the participants and the spectators as well. Moreover, I will be confident in organizing the game because I have already participated and organized this game several times before.

This activity will involve more members in the club. As the strength of the club will grow in person, the enthusiasm will grow manifold. Through my contacts with some professional groups, I will organize similar games on the campus. This will also broaden the scope of the club. The involvement of different people from different parts of the school would help in communicating it to the wider School community.

Through my past experiences in setting up new ventures, I have realized that team work skills play a major role in the formative period of a venture. Ironically most of the Entrepreneurs are not very good in these. Through the SEE, I would like to help entrepreneurial firms by involving the team members in such interactive games.

Question 4 (within 100 words)

Describe any experiences outside of your home country. What did you gain from these?

I have been to Switzerland for pursuing my Summer Internship. During my 3 month stay at PSI, I had led a multinational team in developing a new prototype of an X-Ray Beam Position Monitor. My extra efforts in getting the prototype fabricated and conducting the experiments to check its validity had a huge impact on the overall research group.

Being part of a Global Project helped me get a feel of the strong forces that are reshaping the world. I also realized the huge impact of globalization and the importance of a strong network in augmenting the process of innovation.

Question 5 (within 100 words)

Please explain if you have been involved in charity/volunteer and/or entrepreneurial activities, giving examples of your involvement, the amount of time you gave to each activity and why you chose to get involved.

My personal credo is to bring a positive change in the society around me.

In January I had organized a massive campaign to raise funds for the people hit by Tsunami waves.

I am helping an NGO, known as RSBDC, to create employment opportunities for the economically challenged sections of the society.

Last year, I had organized a placement fair, to help my junior batch at IIT find jobs.

I am involved with Rotary club for a larger part of my life, helping improve living conditions in the Indian villages.

When I was in school, I led a massive campaign to fight for the basic rights of the children of lepers.

Question 6 (within 300 words)
(This question is optional)

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

Question 7

Please provide a CV/Résumé. 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.

Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College

For Admission for the Fall of 2007:

Please respond fully but concisely to the following essay questions. Compose each of your answers offline in separate document files and upload them individually in the appropriate spaces below. Although there is no restriction on the length of your response, most applicants use, on average, 500 words for each essay. There are no right or wrong answers. Please double-space your responses.

1. Why is an MBA a critical next step toward your short- and long-term career goals? Why is Tuck the best MBA program for you? (If you are applying for a joint or dual degree, please explain how the additional degree will contribute to those goals.)
2. Tuck defines leadership as ‘inspiring others to strive and enabling them to accomplish great things.’ Describe a time when you exercised such leadership. Discuss the challenges you faced and the results you achieved. What characteristics helped you to be effective, and what areas do you feel you need to develop in order to be a better leader?
3. Discuss the most difficult constructive criticism or feedback you have received. How did you address it? What have you learned from it?
4. Tuck seeks candidates of various backgrounds who can bring new perspectives to our community. How will your unique personal history, values, and/or life experiences contribute to the culture at Tuck?
5. (Optional) Please provide any additional insight or information that you have not addressed elsewhere that may be helpful in reviewing your application (e.g., unusual choice of evaluators, weaknesses in academic performance, unexplained job gaps or changes, etc.). Complete this question only if you feel your candidacy is not fully represented by this application.
6. (To be completed by all reapplicants) How have you strengthened your candidacy since you last applied? Please reflect on how you have grown personally and professionally.

Applicant Essays:

SET-I

You are head of sales at a medium-sized manufacturing company. A little over one year ago, you recruited John to join the company as a sales manager. Since that time, he has been one of your star producers, and his performance has earned rave reviews from senior management and customers. He has generated an enormous amount of business for the company, landing accounts with the four largest retailers in the region. Last year, John was responsible for bringing in an additional $ 10 million in sales revenue. In that same year, full-year revenues increased 15 percent to $ 62 million, significantly outpacing all competitors. Gross margins for the year were 42.9 percent, compared with 38.0 percent last year, and the selling and administrative expenses were 30.2 percent of full year-revenues, compared with 29.5 percent last year. The CEO credits John with turning around the business and is one of his biggest supporters. Furthermore, the CEO praises you for bringing John to the company. John is viewed by his co-workers and subordinates as intelligent, hardworking, and creative, but they also find him to be arrogant, confrontational, short-tempered, intolerant, and self-promoting. Morale is not good within his group, and earlier this week, two people on John’s team complained to you about how he has been treating them. John is up for his review. At the time you hired him, you implicitly promised that he would be promoted to national sales manager within one and a half years, which would quadruple the number of employees he supervises. You fear that if he is not promoted, he will leave the company and go to the competition, taking with him many of the company’s accounts. Likewise, you are concerned about the effect his promotion would have on the rest of the team.

How would you handle the situation? What professional or personal experiences would you draw upon to guide your actions?

Essentially, there are three dilemmas in the current situation –

• How do I honor the implicit promise made to John without any adverse repercussions?
• How can the morale of the Sales team improve?
• How do I ensure that my decisions do not impact the company’s growth and performance negatively?

It appears that while John’s professional skills are of a very high caliber, he needs to improve on his people-related competencies. Since John is due for his review, I think this is the ideal time not only to recognize his achievements, but also to put them in the right perspective. John needs to be made aware that he has excelled in his job despite his team’s lack of acceptance of his leadership style.

I have always believed in giving and receiving frank feedback—I think it does a person a lot of good to hear about himself/herself from someone else’s perspective. John needs to face a few facts, which will benefit not just his organization, but also his own development as an individual.

John’s contribution to the company is indeed praiseworthy; he is deeply committed and has utilized his drive and creativity to the company’s benefit. His Customer Management skills are obviously of a high order, judging by the regard the customers have for him. I would counsel John to extend his people skills further—he needs to recognize the needs of his internal customers- his teammates, his subordinates—as well. His performance for the year may have been excellent, but if he wants to continue to deliver stellar results, he will find it increasingly difficult to extract the best from his team if they resent him or fear him.

I would discuss the current situation frankly with John; making it clear that the company will promote him as the National Sales Manager based not just on his continued sales performance, but also on improvements in his team dynamics within the next 6 months. We need to make John realize that teamwork is critical to the end delivery of any organizational activity—especially in a sales function where multiple contacts need to be maintained, in-depth market and distribution research are required, and wide geographies are spanned. Sales is a very stress- prone function, and internal strife will only complicate matters.

Often, new employees, in a bid to prove themselves, are solely consumed with ambition, and marginalize their soft skills. John is very likely a victim of this syndrome. However, merely identifying the problem will not suffice; a workable solution needs to be chalked out. . The solution should be based on the answers to the following questions. Does John himself acknowledge that he rubs people the wrong way? Is he conscious of this? Is he willing to change? Does he realize how critical a well-knit team is to long-term success? Does he realize the size of the team he will have to handle in a National role? Is he confident of his abilities to lead a new team effectively?

I would clearly spell out to John what the company’s expectations from a National Sales Manager are—a person with the skills to understand and relate to ground-level operations, and the vision to expand into the right categories and territories; a person who can lead a team of talented individuals, and tailor his attitude to bring out the best in each of them. Can John deliver? I would give him 6 more months to prove himself. Judging from John’s profile, he appears to be the kind who would respond positively to a challenge.

Six months is too short a time for a person’s inherent characteristics to totally change—but what I am looking for is the willingness to change. I believe the organization should invest time and effort in shaping a personality with such a strong intellectual and creative profile.

If however, John is totally unwilling to acknowledge that his leadership style is unsuitable, then I would need to delve deeper as to why this is so –

1. Are his teammates merely envious of the success of a rank newcomer? If that is the only reason, then I believe Senior Management ought not to get involved in such matters; these are best resolved by the individuals concerned.
2. Is he so blinded by his professional success that he is unwilling to concede his failure as a leader? If this is the case and John refuses to budge from this stand, I would evaluate his performance for the next few months to see if there is any improvement in his team’s morale. If there is none, then I would not be in favor of promoting John.

If this means that he is likely to cross over to the competition, thereby resulting in a sales loss to the company, this is a risk that ought to be taken for the longterm interests of the company. Obviously, the top management needs to be made aware of this development. Also, we would need to simultaneously identify other candidates in the company who show good promise and who can take over from John if he takes the drastic step of leaving the company.

I know this is a tough call, but I genuinely believe the organization’s interests will be adversely affected by promoting an individual whose leadership abilities are questionable.

As a Factory Commercial Manager, I have headed the annual appraisals of my subordinates for 2 years. I look forward to this time of the year with a mixture of anticipation and dread. It is a great opportunity to capture the highs and lows of the year. However, it also brings with it the responsibility of helping one’s subordinates identify the gaps in their performance and the chance of working together on an actionable Development Plan.

I have four subordinates who are all totally different from each other in terms of skills, confidence levels, communication abilities, levels of initiative, and so on. Since their appraisals are done across a 2 to 3 day span, it means doing a lot of groundwork beforehand, so that I can be fully prepared to respond to all their concerns and even their arguments!

My company has a system of relative grading wherein only a specified percentage of excellent/good/average/below par ratings can be given. One of my subordinates had to be rated ‘Good’ for the third year in a row despite the fact that he had handled all his responsibilities well. As expected, he didn’t take this well and became very morose and demotivated. I had to explain to him that just doing one’s job well is sometimes not enough. In contrast to the innovative contributions made by some of his peers, his performance couldn’t hold up. I had to make him understand that he now needed to shift his focus and look at how he could simplify his current job and accept additional challenges and responsibilities. He needed to constantly come up with new things to do or new ways to do things. It wasn’t an easy process, but I finally managed to convince him to accept this challenge. Over the last 9 months, he has displayed considerable enthusiasm and drive in trying to increase his work skills, and take up tasks in areas not directly related to his own. . This was a potentially tricky situation, but thankfully, I was able to give it a positive outcome. Thus, I have had experience in dealing with an intellectually strong and driven individual who needed to be told frankly about what’s missing in his conduct at work. I think this closely parallels the current situation with John.

Why is an MBA a critical next step toward your short- and long-term career goals? Why is Tuck the best MBA program for you? (If you are applying for a joint or dual degree, please explain how the additional degree will contribute to those goals.)

My CA background geared me for a career in accounting, and gave me a good theoretical insight into controls, systems and corporate laws. I consciously charted my career path in a different direction, I steered clear of jobs offered by big audit firms and tax consultants and instead joined Hindustan Lever Limited, which I knew would give me a much broader exposure. My thirst for knowledge and my interest in new experiences have spurred me on, exposing me to related fields like manufacturing operations, distribution, sales, banking, buying, logistics, and many others. I have also had a chance to experience the more human side of management—leading, developing and training a team. I realize that I have the opportunity to be much more than an accountant or supply chain manager in the future.

After almost 4 years of operational exposure, I now feel the need for specialized knowledge, something I feel I can learn with an MBA. While being a CA has meant that I am familiar with the basic concepts of finance, the curriculum was tilted towards core accounting disciplines. I need a deeper understanding of how to determine a business’s feasibility, long-term viability, and gauging risks, especially considering the high failure rate of new businesses.

In the immediate future, I would like to acquaint myself better with the intricacies of foreign trade, banking, and funding and international trade laws. My goal is to gain about 3–5 years experience in an international organization like the World Bank or IMF after completing my MBA. I believe this will give me an insight into developmental strategies across the globe, the unique features of regional markets and their funding priorities and infrastructure capabilities.

My long-term goal is to start my own export business in India, in partnership with xxx, whose interest lies in agricultural biotechnology. We would like to leverage on India’s natural advantage in the field of agriculture and the outsourcing boom that has recently stormed India. Already, horticulture and animal husbandry are among India’s fastest growing sectors, and the government has granted many sops in the form of priority lending, tax exemptions, preferential duty structures, etc. Our aim is to capitalize on this and complement each others skill sets to develop a wide-spread customer base for India-specific cash crops like exotic fruits, spices, etc., and later expand into processed foods export.

I believe an MBA from Tuck will be an asset to me in four ways -

Firstly, since my long-term goal is to start my own business, I believe an MBA will be a great learning ground for learning vital entrepreneurial skills. General Management skills are key to making a success out of one’s own venture, and I feel the Tuck experience will certainly help me hone these. Also, Tuck aids a lot of research, which will certainly help me further my knowledge in bio-technology, specifically its impact on developing countries.

Secondly, the kind of international exposure I will gain and the diverse student community I will get to interact with will definitely add to my knowledge base, giving me new perspectives on leadership. The small class size and consequently the heightened interactions among students and professors appeal strongly to me. I will also have the chance to build a strong network, which will definitely aid me in my career goals. Tuck thus appears to combine the dual advantages of a heterogeneous group and a diverse curriculum with personalized focus from the faculty.

Thirdly, I am a great believer in tradition and roots, and the thought of being part of an institution that has been creating leaders for the past 100 years excites me. The sense of community and of continuity is very strong here, as I have gathered from my research on the school. The commitment displayed by the alumni in Tuck’s present and future progress also underscores this point.

Fourthly, the Case Method is a fabulous aid in tackling real life situations. Learning from others’ successes and mistakes and putting my own analytical skills to test will prepare me for the outside world. It will help me look at a situation from different points of view and sensitively interact with people from different backgrounds, each having their own opinions and interpretations. I think the range of ideas and the variation in thought processes the Case Method will generate will definitely add to the experience. While I was studying to be an accountant, the approach was rather one-dimensional and theoretical, but an MBA will be a more dynamic learning process.

Describe a situation in which you led a team to reach a specific goal. Looking back, what characteristics helped you to be effective as a leader? What areas do you feel you need to develop in order to be a better leader?

My job profile as the Commercial Manager in company X’s sourcing site involves joint responsibilities for accounting control and supply chain management.

As a factory, we service a number of concern companies worldwide, and the technological and logistical complexities are quite high. In August, due to labor- related problems, we were battling with a production backlog of approximately 3 weeks’ output.

In this already demanding scenario, the All India Transport Association announced an indefinite strike in mid-August this year, to protest against proposed government levies. This spelt potential disaster for my factory; not only would we lose what little ground we had regained by stabilizing production, but the backlog could climb to insurmountable levels, effectively ruining our service relationship in the world market. I was under tremendous pressure from the top management to ensure continuity of operations, especially since many of our customers were new, and we had yet to establish a solid relationship with them.

The strike, perhaps the longest such strike in India’s recent history, stretched on for 9 interminable days and crippled all industries, causing an estimated loss of 600 million $ to the economy.

However, operations in my factory were unaffected, and supplies and dispatches continued as usual! The strain on us was phenomenal; we had to avert delays at any cost, or we would lose out on many orders. I was able to rally around my planning team comprising of 2 coordinating officers and 4 staff members, though they were initially doubtful of success.

We leveraged on the excellent relations we had developed with our transporters over the last few years. We convinced them to ply their vehicles, often taking different routes from the usual highways, driving at night, and transshipping cargo to avoid any one truck being targeted. My entire team was involved in constantly following-up and micro-planning all shipments and supplies. We now had to not only manage our own supply chain, but also that of our suppliers’ to ensure their inbound and outbound movements were smooth! Despite the strain on our resources, we managed to do just that. I was able to successfully lead my team in a crisis and thereby prevent a sales loss of $ 123.

We were coordinating with numerous suppliers, transporters and clearing agents spread all across India, and just when we solved one problem, three more surfaced in its stead. It was very rigorous work and needed a lot of commitment from the operations team. My main role was to motivate and guide the team. They needed encouragement when the going got tough and a sense of direction when it looked like we were trying to do too many things at the same time.

I believe my clear thought processes and ability to keep a cool head under pressure really came in handy. I thought this was a situation that needed leadership by demonstration—I was as involved as the planning staff in coordinating shipments and chasing trucks. Often, when the tension became too much, my sense of humor came to the rescue. This experience has taught me to value teamwork and appreciate the role of each individual’s contribution.

However, there are certain facets of my leadership abilities I would like to improve upon. I tend to be very protective of my subordinates and peers, especially from top management While in certain instances, like the situation highlighted above, it gives them room to work undisturbed without being overly pressured, I know that it also reduces their accountability to some extent. I think I should play a balancing act between being over-protective and sheltering co-workers from unnecessary external pressure.

SET-II

You are head of sales at a medium-sized manufacturing company. A little over one year ago, you recruited John to join the company as a sales manager. Since that time, he has been one of your star producers, and his performance has earned rave reviews from senior management and customers. He has generated an enormous amount of business for the company, landing accounts with the four largest retailers in the region. Last year, John was responsible for bringing in an additional $ 10 million in sales revenue. In that same year, full-year revenues increased 15 percent to $ 62 million, significantly outpacing all competitors. Gross margins for the year were 42.9 percent, compared with 38.0 percent last year, and the selling and administrative expenses were 30.2 percent of full year-revenues, compared with 29.5 percent last year. The CEO credits John with turning around the business and is one of his biggest supporters. Furthermore, the CEO praises you for bringing John to the company. John is viewed by his co-workers and subordinates as intelligent, hard-working, and creative, but they also find him to be arrogant, confrontational, short-tempered, intolerant, and self-promoting. Morale is not good within his group, and earlier this week, two people on John’s team complained to you about how he has been treating them. John is up for his review. At the time you hired him, you implicitly promised that he would be promoted to national sales manager within one and a half years, which would quadruple the number of employees he supervises. You fear that if he is not promoted, he will leave the company and go to the competition, taking with him many of the company’s accounts. Likewise, you are concerned about the effect his promotion would have on the rest of the team.

How would you handle the situation? What professional or personal experiences would you draw upon to guide your actions?

John has delivered outstanding results within his first year in the company. Customers have given highly positive feedback about his work. Senior management thinks highly of him. I myself have good faith in his abilities and had recruited him with a very positive mindset.

However, a problem seems to be rearing its head now that John has been in the organization for a little over a year. In the eyes of his subordinates and colleagues, he is a highly motivated and capable individual. However, they do not feel the same way about his ability to lead them. They find that his interactions with them are unpleasant on account of his arrogance and intolerance.

The problem can be broken down into three parts:

1. How can John be guided so that he overcomes these problems that emanate from his working style?
2. How should John’s performance for this year be appraised in view of his extremely ambitious goals?
3. How should the decision regarding John’s promotion be made and how can it be best communicated to John and his team?

How can John be guided?

John is a great individual worker, highly motivated and willing to stretch himself to achieve his goals. But when placed in a leadership position, he seems to face difficulties. This could be due to a variety of reasons- not being able to assess the abilities of his subordinates correctly, leading to too high pressures on them or not being able to guide them correctly, leaving them directionless and frustrated. It could also be due to sheer over-ambitiousness. Individuals, often in their zeal to achieve too much in too little a time, lead their teams into a downward spiral. Though John has delivered results through his team in the first year of work, it has been with a high level of frustration within his team of colleagues and subordinates. This is clearly not a sustainable state of affairs. Sooner or later, John will have to face the consequences.

I can relate this case to the problem faced by a subordinate of mine few months ago. He had been promoted from a sales representative to a sales officer two years ago. With a team of five sales representatives reporting to him, he performed very well in his first year as an officer. However, there was a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction within his team. He had been driving his team too hard and had pushed his subordinates to achieve disproportionate targets without proper support or guidance. A few of his subordinates had also complained about how he treated them when their performance was not up to mark.

Ultimately, this problem blew in his face when it was discovered that one of his subordinates had been resorting to unethical and fraudulent ways of selling. Though the subordinate was asked to leave the organization on account of this, he was only too glad to do so, clearly indicating the severity of problem. He blamed excessive pressure and mistreatment at the hands of his superior for this. After this incident, I had counseled my officer extensively and I am currently helping him develop a more empathetic leadership style.

John’s case is similar to this—he desperately needs to adopt a more empathetic style of leadership. A detailed plan of coaching and mentoring would be required to bring about this change in John’s working style.

How should John be appraised?

I would investigate a few facts before I review John’s performance. While it is true that John has brought in $ 10 million worth of additional sales revenues, it is also clear from the figures mentioned in the case that the selling and administrative expenses as a percentage of the total turnover have risen. This is a cause for concern. As turnover increases, this percentage should ideally go down as some of the fixed costs are shared between more dollars of sales revenue. Though the increase is not significant, a timely check would be useful in ensuring that nothing is overlooked.

For John’s review, his performance during the year will have to be appreciated—it is after all true that he had delivered results (after the investigation mentioned above, of course!). However, along with a favorable review it needs to be impressed on him that this performance will not be sustainable if he does not improve his ability to empathize and sense discontentment among his subordinates and colleagues. This might, however, have a negative effect on John and could even lead to his leaving the organization and going away to the competition. This is a tricky situation, and I would draw upon my experiences in handling similar scenarios during appraisals of some of my subordinates to tackle it.

Employees are often grateful if their weaknesses are not formally included in their appraisals. If they are given an informal opportunity to correct a weakness that would have otherwise been recorded in their reviews, they are willing work hard to correct it by the time they are up for their next appraisal. In John’s case, I would pen down a favorable review as regards his performance in the previous year and a neutral (instead of negative) assessment as regards his potential for immediate promotion. At the same time, however, I will take up this issue strongly and impress upon him that sustainable performance can come about only by developing the team as a whole. I would also instruct him to work hard on this front.

Decision regarding John ’s promotion

John’s promotion, clearly, must come about only after he clearly demonstrates a more empathetic leadership style. John will have to work on a time based plan for this. I would myself invest effort in ensuring that John gets every support required by him for this.

Assuming that John succeeds in effecting this turnaround in the next six months or so, his colleagues and subordinates would not have a problem with his promotion. At the other extreme, if John fails even to make a beginning in this direction, it will clearly indicate that he is not capable of improving on this front and is probably not even interested. Any scenario that falls in between these extremes would need to be assessed using feedback from members of his team as a barometer. However, whatever the decision, the best policy would be to keep John abreast of how he is doing and how much he needs to stretch himself. And since it is confidential feedback from his team that will be used to make this decision, it will clearly not have an adverse impact on his subordinates or colleagues.

Why is an MBA a critical next step toward your short- and long-term career goals? Why is Tuck the best MBA program for you? (If you are applying for a joint or dual degree, please explain how the additional degree will contribute to those goals.)

I was an avid believer in technology and industry as a panacea for problems I saw in the society around me. I had chosen to pursue it in my undergraduate studies and even planned a career in technology. During my undergraduate studies, however, I realized that the technology that I was mastering did not answer the questions of inclusive development posed by the society I grew up in. It provided no answers to how prosperity can be brought about in places that were years away from technology.

To find these answers, I took up a job that would bring me closer to the realities in the Indian society, particularly in villages and small towns, so that I could closely interact with people. I wanted to understand the broader socio-economic context that the Indian society operates in and how this promotes or limits the adoption of technology in any area.

My quest for this ideology—marrying technology and inclusive development—has enabled me to gain valuable insights into how the disconnect between technology and inclusive development can be bridged. I realized that for seventy percent of the Indian population living in rural areas, the best way to bring in technology to improve their lives is not industrialization in the conventional sense. This can be done best by bringing in technology to improve the quality and quantity of their agricultural output, enabling them to compete at a global level for meeting the ever-growing demand for food. This realization helped shape my long term goals.

In the next three decades I want to revolutionize, through private enterprise, the technology flow for innovations in the agricultural sector from developed economies to developing economies like India. Combining the latest and relevant developments in agricultural biotechnology with appropriate information technologies, I want to set up a business that uses the natural advantages of cost and labor in developing economies to meet the increasing global demand for food products. As a major player in this sector, I intend to bring about policy changes that would enable others to benefit from the use of such technology flows. I seek to establish this business along with xxx who shares this dream with me.

There would be two types of skills that I would need to establish and grow a business of this nature- operational skills in various functions of business and conceptual skills for making the right business decisions. During the course of the last 3 ½ years I have handled responsibilities in various functions of business at company Q. Having developed hands-on skills in these functions and set up an entire distribution channel myself, I am confident of being able to handle the operational aspects of setting up and handling a business of my own. I now seek to broaden my conceptual business skills as also build a network of acquaintances across countries in order to realize my goal-making an MBA the next critical step for me.

In the immediate few years after my MBA, I plan to work and get exposed to agricultural biotechnology sector, working with organizations like DuPont and Monsanto. This exposure at an international level will complement my ground level skills of sourcing and distribution that I have developed in my career so far. With these skill sets, I would be in a position to move on and set up my own private enterprise to achieve my long-term goal.

Why is tuck the best MBA program for me?

Having carefully weighed different MBA programs and having interacted with many current students and alumni, my wife and I have converged on Tuck as our preferred school. I view tuck as the best MBA program on account of the following:

Close ties between students and faculty

My academic and professional life has taught me that true learning comes not just through intellectual debates. It comes from living together and sharing thoughts, ideologies and lighter moments together. The strongest bonds and associations that I have formed are with colleagues, classmates and professors whom I interacted with outside purely academic or professional context. I seek this proximity to other students and the faculty so that I build a lifelong relationship of learning and sharing. With its small class size and close interaction with faculty, Tuck school of business would provide the right setting to a learning experience of this kind.

Strong general management grounding

As an entrepreneur in a pioneering field, the skill that I will need most from my MBA is that of learning to deal with a diverse and dynamic environment and making sound business judgments. I believe Tuck’s to be one of the strongest general management MBA courses and look forward to acquiring the best inputs in general business management that an MBA can offer.

Describe a situation in which you stood up for something you believed in, even though others did not agree with you. In what ways were you pleased with how you handled the situation? What do you wish you had done differently?

In the June 2003, company Q ventured into a new category of edible products. A team from an erstwhile baking company that had been acquired by company Q in 2002 handled the production and marketing of this category. The manufacturing began in June/July and batches of product were produced and allocated to different sales areas in an order of priority, considering the market potentials. No stocks were initially allocated to any area in the rural channel, as potential in the rural channel for this product was considered limited by the marketing team.

The product has a shelf life of 6 months. Indian laws prohibit selling and distribution of products that have crossed their shelf life. In October, the marketing team realized that they had been too buoyant on their initial sales estimates and that stocks that had been allocated to certain areas from the first few batches had not sold out as expected. An inventory of stocks just two to three months away from the end of their shelf life had thus been accumulated. In order to prevent a complete write off of these stocks, the marketing teams were desperate to sell these stocks even at a heavy discount.

After a disappointing sales bid by the urban channel, the marketing team now focused on the rural channel with heavy discounts as an incentive. However, a crucial piece of information—that most of the stock was close to the end of its shelf life- was purposely kept hidden.

Having agreed on a selling-in target with the marketing team, I worked out a sales plan and dispatched a total of 15 tons of the product to many of my distributors in early December 2003. In a few days of this, complaints started pouring in from my distributors—that the stocks were very close to the end of their shelf life and that they could not be resold to traders and shopkeepers. This came as a rude shock. I went back to the marketing team and confronted them with these facts. But the sales revenues had more than justified their move and they turned a blind eye to the number of people who had been duped into buying an outdated product that could have been a possible health hazard.

My superiors in sales management suggested that I not pursue this issue. They were of the opinion that these stocks should be made available to the shopkeepers in the rural markets at discounted prices and these would sell out eventually as literacy and awareness of legal issues such as shelf life is low in rural areas. Several colleagues of mine followed this advice. However, I was against this unethical proposal.

I took up this issue with the senior management, apprising them of the unethical nature of the situation—dumping outdated food products on an unsuspecting, illiterate and underprivileged population. However, this was not easy. I had to go against the advice from my immediate boss and had to face severe opposition from the marketing team who, being senior to me, used their influence to thwart my efforts. I persisted for many months. Finally, in September 2004, I recalled these stocks after senior management instructed the marketing team to make amends and reimburse distributors for the expired stocks.

During this ordeal, I was pleased at the tenacity with which I pursued the agenda. I raised this issue at all important forums. I made it known to senior management that what was being done was unethical and insisted that as a responsible organization we must do only what is legally correct. On a number of occasions, my colleagues who had opted to take the easy way out ridiculed my obstinacy and this even led to a low in my relations with them. But I persisted in spite of all these problems.

Looking back on this experience, I feel that I could have been able more careful and meticulous in my negotiations with the marketing teams as well as in planning my sales. I should have asked the right questions and this could have avoided the miscalculations that were caused due to oversight and ignorance. The lesson I have learnt from this experience is that supply chain of food products should always be planned with extreme care, taking into account the exact shelf life of the products involved. I practice this meticulously now so as to avoid any such incidents in the future.

Fuqua School of Business (Duke University)

For Admission for the Fall of 2007:

Two short essay answer questions and two long essays must be completed before submitting your application. Prepare your essays carefully. The Admissions Committee considers your responses to the following questions important in the selection process. Please respond fully and concisely using 1.5 line spacing.

For the short answer questions, please restrict your response to a single page each. For the long essay questions you must answer the first question and for the second essay you may select from one of three essay options. There is no restriction on the length of your response for the two long essay questions. Applicants typically use between 500 and 750 words for long essays one and two.

Candidates who applied to Fuqua between September 2005 and April 2006 are considered reapplicants. Reapplicants are asked to complete the Reapplicant Essay in addition to the Applicant Essays.

All applicants have the opportunity to submit an optional essay to explain any extenuating circumstances of which the Admissions Committee should be aware.

Short Essays—Answer both short-essay questions.

1. Please discuss your career path, your short and long-term goals.
2. Why are you interested in The Duke MBA program and how will it help you achieve your goals? If you are interested in the Health Sector Management concentration or a joint degree program, please address in this essay.

Long Essays—Answer essay question 1, and for essay question 2 please answer only one of the three essay options provided.

1. How has your personal history and family background influenced your intellectual and personal development? What unique personal qualities or life experiences might distinguish you from other applicants? How will your background, values and non-work related activities enhance the experience of other Duke MBA students and add to the diverse culture we strive for at Fuqua? Note: The goal of this essay is to get a sense of who you are, rather than what you have achieved professionally.
2. Please respond fully and concisely to one of the following essay questions, identifying clearly which question you have selected.
   1. To be a good team player, one needs to be an effective individual leader and vice-versa. Describe an example of where you were challenged to become a leader in a team-oriented context. What was the challenge you faced, how did you address it, and what did you take away from the experience for your future development as a leader?
   2. Describe a situation in which your ability to perform ethically was challenged. What was the issue, how did you handle it, and what did you learn from it?
   3. Describe a significant leadership failure in your life. What did you learn from this failure? How has it impacted who you are today and the kind of leader you would like to be?

Reapplicant Essay

In addition to the Applicant Essays listed above, please answer the following question. There is no restriction on the length of your response. Reapplicants typically use between 500 and 750 words for this essay.

1. Write an essay describing how you are a stronger candidate for admission compared to the previous year’s application.

Applicant Essays:

Describe your professional work experience since earning your bachelor’s degree and discuss how you chose your career path.

My goal is to establish a network of world-class health care centers across India, providing healthcare facilities to the majority of the Indian population. The Indian healthcare system is currently in a beleaguered state with only 3 doctors and 46 beds available per 10000 patients, ranking 110th on global healthcare standards. Although the situation has improved in the past few years, the average Indian life expectancy of around 53 years still compares unfavorably with the 70-year average in the United States. The government infrastructure is grossly inadequate and most of the private investment in healthcare is concentrated in urban areas (e.g. The Apollo group, Wockhardt group etc.) and is primarily focused on providing advanced medical care. I love my country and aspire to bring about a change that would make affordable healthcare available to each individual across India.

This goal was defined when I was a 10-year-old child and lost my maternal grandmother in a terrible accident, and the path took shape as I grew and became mature. I ranked highest in the school certificate examinations in both 10^th and 12^th standards in school. Aiming towards further studies in the healthcare sector, I opted for a premier engineering institute in the country. Here, I honed my analytical abilities and developed a solid theoretical background in the technology behind healthcare. I understood the practical constraints of the theories during my internship in new drug development, when I worked with a top Indian pharmaceutical company. I got a global perspective on research towards healthcare delivery as an exchange student in a foreign country. I spent most of my spare time understanding and analyzing the various problems facing the healthcare system in India in collaboration with professors in the department. My work with the a research institute, gave me a clear understanding that healthcare in India requires more of a preventive (rather then curative) medical care in its healthcare initiatives.

After completing my degree, I joined company Y with the aim of getting a thorough grounding in the basics of establishing and managing a good distribution system to reach the masses. This formed part of my core training in the Program. After completing my training, my responsibilities include delivering on sales targets for the business, management of brand activation, and expansion of direct distribution to achieve business growth in the region. I have had a very satisfying professional career at company Y and have progressed well in the span of last one year, as reflected in the increased responsibility entrusted in me, by the organization.

What are your short and long term career goals once you earn your MBA? Why are you interested in The Fuqua School of Business and how will The Duke MBA help you reach your goals?

I believe that my in-depth technical education and my business management experiences have been great learning experiences. However, I still lack some of the skills required for running a successful business, particularly the understanding of other business functions. Hence my short-term aim is to gain the required knowledge and domain expertise through a good MBA program. I believe that this is the ideal time for me to do my MBA, since I have a good academic background and a well-grounded professional experience and want to fill the gaps in my knowledge before I progress any further in my career. After completing my studies, I would want to work with a company such as the Tenet Healthcare Corporation, which will give me exposure to management of a well-developed healthcare system in a country such the USA, and will provide me an understanding of international best practices. My long-term aim and career aspiration is to serve the people of my country and alleviate their suffering by providing to them, an extensive and world-class healthcare network in India.

I believe that an education from Fuqua can help me in meeting my short-term and long-term career aspirations in the best possible manner. Firstly, an MBA program in Health Sector Management with intellectual expertise called from across the Duke campus—the Medical Center, the School of Medicine, Lax, Public Policy, Environmental Engineering and the Fuqua School of Business itself, will equip me with the skills required to run a successful business in India. Courses such as Economics of Health Care, Management of Health Systems and Policy, Health Care Marketing, along with a project done in Mentored Study in Entrepreneurship would cover most of my learning expectations. Involvement with the American College of Healthcare Executives, the Health Sector Advisory Council and the Health Care Club would allow me to get an insight on the latest developments in the sector as well as meet and interact with the school alumni and other business leaders working in related areas.

Secondly, the diversity of backgrounds among Fuqua’s learning teams presents an unequalled opportunity. I hope to gain from the diverse experiences of my learning teammates in the collaborative culture of Fuqua and use their inputs to give shape to my business model for establishing a healthcare system in India. I also hope to contribute to my team and add to the learning by sharing from my experiences of running a business setup and from my academic background in Healthcare.

Finally, an MBA from a world-renowned institution like Fuqua would add to my credibility and help build my network in developed markets like the United States. This is important, as it will be crucial in not only understanding and implementing the best practices but also in raising funds for establishing the healthcare network in India. The Fuqua alumni network is well established across the globe and has many a distinguished names in the world of business, and I look forward to be able to contribute to and benefit from being associated with the institution and its alumni in the long run.

‘Team Fuqua’ is a frequently used term when discussing the Duke MBA program. Great teams have great leaders with great ideas and great team play. Thus, ‘Team Fuqua’ means much more than teamwork. In fact, it builds directly from the core values of Fuqua, which are collaboration, innovation, and leadership. Please describe what you would bring to build on these core values and make Team Fuqua great.

What differentiates a leader from others is a clearly defined goal (vision), an understanding of the path leading to the goal (opportunities), and an ability to motivate others (team) to achieve the goal. Finally, a leader has to lead by definitive success, that of his own and of others.

I would like to use a few illustrations from my own life, where I defined my success.

• Sketching and painting have been my hobbies since I was a child. However, within one week of enrollment, I left art school, realizing that one need not be coached to express oneself through paints. I completed my first portrait when I was 10 and won the best amateur painter award from the same school.
• During the 10^th grade of school, I appeared for the National Talent Search Scholarship examination. Having cleared two written tests and a round of interviews, I was among the top 750 students in India to be given the scholarship.
• I chose economics as a subject of study during my 12^th grade examinations. Coming from a science background, I was competing with the best students from the commerce school, who had trained in the subject. I finished first in my school in economics and scored amongst the top students in the country.

An incident, where I helped define success, for and with others.

I was member of the cultural affairs committee of my hostel at my undergraduate institute. We had lost all but one running trophies in the inter hostel competitions. The only chance we now had for salvaging the pride of the hostel was to win the ‘Best Concept’ trophy. I volunteered to take up the challenge and set up the stall and selected a team of people for the same. After a few brainstorming sessions, we agreed on the theme of war against terrorism. We used representation of people suffering in the Kargil war, between the Indian Army and the insurgents in Kashmir, as the overall theme. The team worked relentlessly to set up the stall. We prepared a note, through which many students committed themselves to fight against terrorism. The Dean’s committee commended our initiative and efforts. Our hostel won the Best Concept Trophy for the first time in its history.

What I bring to Fuqua, as an individual, is a distillation of all these experiences and many more, as well as a well-established academic background and real time knowledge of running a successful business. I believe that by sharing my experiences with other students, I would be able to instill in them a passion for winning against all odds and delivering outstanding results. The ingrained leadership skills and ability to work well in teams will allow me to contribute to the success of my learning team at all times. The famed ‘Team Fuqua’ resulting from the collaborative culture would definitely welcome my approach and benefit from the sharing of my experiences with other students. I look forward to an opportunity to lead a GATE trip to India, where I can help fellow students understand the economic and socio-cultural scenario of India and explain the reasons which makes my country, one of the sought after destinations for investors across the world. I am also looking forward to the ILE trip, where I get to meet other incoming students and my team in outdoor settings and get to know them better and make good friends, with whom I can have a great time during the trip as well as during the course of my stay at Fuqua. I am committed towards contributing to the learning experience at Fuqua for all present and future students, and towards ensuring a better community life at the University.

Darden School of Business (University of Virginia)

For admission for the fall of 2007:

1. Why is an MBA a critical next step toward your short- and long-term career goals? (500 word limit)
2. Each of our applicants is unique. Describe how your background, values, education, activities and/or leadership skills will enhance the experience of other Darden students. (500 word limit)
3. Choose one of the following questions. (within 250 words)
   • What would you do if you didn’t have to work for a living?
   • Describe a significant maturing experience.
   • What have been the most satisfying aspects of your work life thus far and the most dissatisfying?
4. (Optional) If there is further information that you believe would be helpful to the Admissions Committee, please provide it below. (within 250 words)

Applicant Essays:

Write your life story in one page or less.

I best like to describe my life as a journey of ideologies. At each stage of my life, I have identified a goal I could relate to and have pursued it with tenacity.

Despite being from a household with a modest income and limited access to good education, I realized at a young age the crucial role that well-rounded knowledge played in effecting positive changes in a person’s life. This realization created in me the urge to perform well at academics, push myself beyond my immediate confines of socio-economic-educational dictates and broaden my horizons. Thus, while I stayed in villages, studied in vernacular schools and interacted with farmers and learnt about agricultural practices, I also made a conscious effort at learning the English language to connect with the outside world and avidly read about cultures and geographies of the world as well as the physical sciences and mathematics.

While at school, I developed a fascination for technology: I could see that technology impacted life immensely—regions that had factories and power plants were richer, and this made me believe that technology brings about prosperity and that industrialization was the answer to the problems I had witnessed through my life in the rural areas. I combined my passion for mathematics and the physical sciences with this fascination and went on to pursue an undergraduate degree in technology in one of India’s finest technological institutes.

However, during my stint at engineering institute, I had discovered that the technology I was mastering did not successfully answer the questions of economic development and inclusive growth that the society around me posed. While it provided solutions for development of established industries, it still provided no answers to how prosperity can be brought about in places that were years away from technology. I spent a lot of time doing research and internships outside of my regular curriculum to see how this missing link could be found—but realized that this quest required a closer and more critical interaction with the society that I had grown up in.

And so while I graduated in the top fifteen percent of my class and could have pursued a comfortable career in a technical field, I took up a challenging job that would bring me closer to the realities of the Indian society, particularly in villages and small towns, where I could closely interact with people. I wanted to understand the broader socio-economic context that the Indian society operates in and how this promotes or limits the adoption of technology in any area.

Two and a half years ago, while on my quest for this ideology, I met with someone who shared a similar dream. We married three months ago and look forward to continuing this journey of ideologies together.

Why do you want to earn an MBA? In an ideal scenario, what would you be doing in fifteen years?

My experiences over the last two years have helped me develop valuable insights into how the disconnect between technology and inclusive development can be bridged. I have realized that for seventy percent of the Indian population living in rural areas, the best way to bring in technology to improve their lives is not industrialization in the conventional sense. This change can best be brought about by using technology to improve the quality and quantity of their agricultural output, enabling them to compete at a global level for meeting the ever-growing demand for food. This realization has helped shape my long term goals.

In the next three decades I want to revolutionize, through private enterprise, the technology flow for innovations in the agricultural sector from developed economies to developing economies like India. Combining the latest and relevant developments in agricultural biotechnology with appropriate information technologies, I want to set up a business that uses the natural advantages of cost and labor in developing economies to meet the increasing global demand for food products. With the growing importance of the private transnational sector and intellectual property rights for biotechnological inventions as well as the opening up of the agricultural input and output trade in nearly all countries, I believe that there is immense potential in this sector. As a major player in this business, I intend to bring about policy changes that would also enable others to benefit from the use of such technology flows. I seek to establish this business along with xxx who shares this dream with me.

An MBA will help me achieve this goal in three ways:

First of all, it will impart me essential conceptual skills by way of formal businesses training to meet the challenges that are involved in setting up and running a business on one’s own. As the business I seek to establish will be of a pioneering nature, I will need to develop skills to assess changing real-life situations and make sound and informed business judgments. This will complement the execution skills that I have developed in my career so far.

Second, for managing an international business of this nature successfully, I will need to understand the business context across different countries. A diverse curriculum and interactions with students of different nationalities and diverse backgrounds will give me a platform to do this.

Third, I seek to make use of the extensive network that I will develop during my MBA to establish and make a success of my business.

In fifteen years from now, I see myself, along with my wife, successfully running and growing this private enterprise in a host of nations. I would be revolutionizing the technology flow for innovations in the agricultural sector from developed economies to developing economies like India. Also, as a major player in this sector, I would be initiating and influencing policy changes across nations to foster this change. Operating out of developing economies, I would also bring about various types of organizational, social and cultural changes—microfinance, self-governance, low cost information technologies and micro-enterprise—that also work toward the goal of inclusive development.

What is your understanding of how Darden is different from other schools to which you are applying? Why do you feel Darden is a good fit for you?

Having carefully weighed different MBA programs and having interacted with many current students and alumni from different schools, my wife and I have converged on Darden as our preferred school. I view Darden as different from other business schools as well as the best fit for us on account of the following:

Strong general management grounding with a focus on execution:

As an entrepreneur in a pioneering field, the skill that I will need most from my MBA is that of learning to deal with a diverse and dynamic environment, making sound business decisions and executing them in real life. Over the last three years I have worked with talented and intelligent colleagues, most of who are MBA’s from Indian schools of management. However, I have consistently noticed that how well they perform is dependent more on their ability to execute business initiatives than their intellectual or conceptual abilities—the main reason why I have been able to outperform most of them despite not being a business school graduate. As such, I have come to believe that it is the combination of conceptual understanding and real-life execution that makes the difference between a winner and an also-ran. Darden has the strongest general management MBA that focuses on the execution of concepts and ideas as much as the concepts themselves. In this respect, I look forward to acquiring the best inputs in general business management that an MBA can offer.

Close ties between students and faculty

My academic and professional lives have taught me that true learning comes not just through intellectual debates. It comes from living together and sharing thoughts, ideologies and lighter moments together. The strongest bonds and associations that I have formed are with colleagues, classmates and professors whom I interacted with outside purely academic or professional context. I seek this proximity to other students and the faculty so that I build a lifelong relationship of learning and sharing. With its relatively small class size and close interaction with faculty, Darden would provide the right setting to a learning experience of this kind. Darden’s supportive alumni network that actively engages with students would reinforce this experience further.

A stimulating environment

Charlottesville, with its natural beauty and high standard of living, would be a stimulating environment to pursue two years of rigorous academic endeavor. Relatives of mine who visited the city this year have been very impressed by both the quality of life in the city and the professional attitude of its people and have strongly recommended it to us. My wife and I thus feel very positively about studying at Darden and making it a memorable experience for both of us.

Describe your most rewarding leadership experience and what it means to your development as a potential leader?

My most rewarding leadership experience has been the change that I have brought about from 2003 onwards in the mindset of senior managers and my colleagues at company Q handling the urban distribution channels, towards the organization’s rural channel initiative. By demonstrating under tough circumstances that investment in the rural channel is indeed an excellent strategy for growth of the organization, I have succeeded in converting my fellow workers from being skeptic about the rural channel’s ability to deliver to being supporters of this initiative.

In October 2002, I had pitched for the position of manager for the rural channel in company Q—a position not many were willing to move into as it was a new and difficult initiative. I was assigned to establish a dedicated sales channel for the rural markets in November 2002. With a team of 13 members comprising 8 fresh recruits, I embarked on plan to set up the sales channel in the state.

At that point of time, rural markets were looked down upon as a liability in company Q and were seldom done justice to. Marketing support for the channel was minimal. To compound problems, rural markets were serviced by the urban channel earlier. Thus, the rural channel was seen as cannibalizing sales of the urban channel.

Even among my subordinates, the environment was not inspiring. The task of a rural sales officer or a rural sales representative is much tougher and more demanding than that of an urban equivalent—more travel, lesser comfort, poorer connectivity and longer periods of loneliness and separation from one’s family.

However, my own experience and analysis of the Indian market for the FMCG sector had led me to believe that sustainable sales growth for a company that is the market leader could only come from the rural markets. The rural markets were then catered to largely by wholesale markets in the urban areas. This method of reaching nearly three fourths of the country’s population was, at best, inefficient. A direct coverage of traders in the rural markets would, if done in the right manner, not only improve the sales levels in the currently covered markets, but would also help penetrate further into smaller markets in the rural areas by tapping the rural wholesale channel and adding new consumers. But sadly, most of the other managers in the office did not buy this point of view.

As one of the first managers in many years to be recruited into the sales and marketing function without an MBA, I faced a lack of conceptual understanding while starting out. I invested considerable time and effort in learning and familiarizing myself with various distribution models and examining them to see their relevance to what I observed on the field.

Working with my team, I understood the issues that they faced on the field and the other problems they experienced due to lack of active involvement of support functions such as HR, logistics and the systems department. I influenced the key people in these departments to make special allowances on a trial basis and judge the returns they obtained through these. I negotiated with the commercial team and streamlined the payments due to my distributors. With these departments getting actively involved with my team, I also persuaded senior management to approve fundamental changes in the distribution models that I felt were necessary to improve rural distribution.

I set milestones that would measure our progress—number of distributors appointed, efficiency of dispatches to and from the distributors, getting the right manpower and infrastructure to the distributors and many more. Apart from regular meetings, I organized get-togethers to celebrate the achievement of these milestones.

While at this time the rural channel in other states saw high attrition in the ranks and unprecedented people problems, my team worked consistently to create a robust infrastructure by adding distributors and increasing coverage. By the time we exited the first half of the year, my team had an extremely robust distribution network in place—distributors with a total of more than 2000 rural markets covered every month. Sales levels had already been experiencing an upward trend. Senior managers were keen to visit and witness this transformation themselves. Marketing teams realized that the rural markets were where the potential lay. Support functions in our offices started looking up to the rural channel as the key growth drivers. Managers, who had earlier contended my theory now openly, appreciated the transformation in the rural distribution. They welcomed the importance of the rural markets and the need to develop specific support and plans for them.

This turnaround in ideology was a vindication of my belief in the potential the rural economy in India holds for an organization like company Q.

An important lesson that I learnt was that with conviction and ability, one can bring about a change within one’s team and within one’s organization as well.

Also, leading my team of subordinates through this journey without adequate support from other departments was a tough task that honed my skills as a team leader. Oftentimes, I had to confess to my team that we were in an unfortunate situation where not many people saw and appreciated our efforts but that if we stuck together and affected a turnaround despite all these difficulties, we would be rewarded. In many ways, the reward has come. And I have matured as a leader capable of leading a team through adversity.