FTMBA

Essays

Essay questions give you the opportunity to present yourself more fully to our MBA Admissions Committee and to provide insight into your experiences, goals, and thought processes.

Required Essay Format

Two essays are required and described below.
Clearly label each essay at the top of the page with your name and the essay number (e.g., essay #1 or #2) and/or essay title.
Double space your essays, and use a font that is easy to read (e.g. Arial). We suggest a 10-point font.
Number all essay pages at the bottom of the page.
Stay within the limit of number of words per essay.

Characteristics of a Good Essay

Be genuine.

The content and wording should reflect who you are and allow the MBA Admissions Committee to gain insight into your personality and what motivates you.

Be the sole author of your essays.

While we encourage you to seek feedback from family, friends, and business colleagues, we strongly discourage you from letting their feedback influence the core thought processes that drive this creative exercise.

Provide examples.

Making a general statement about who you are or citing your accomplishments is powerful only if you can provide the reader with underlying examples of actions that define your personality or activities that led you to success in a given project or work assignment.

Invest time in writing your essays.

Since the MBA Admissions Committee places great emphasis on well-structured, well-written essays that allow them to get a true "feel" for you, essays play an important role in the overall evaluation of an application.

Essay #1 - Shaping Your Vision

Every year Fisher College’s Full-Time MBA program admits a select group of talented professionals with demonstrated potential to become successful business leaders in an increasingly competitive, global environment. Why do you want to earn an MBA degree in general and a Fisher College MBA in particular? How will Fisher specifically assist you in achieving your individual potential? As part of your response, include a brief summary of your professional accomplishments to date. If you have not held a full-time job or are still in college, let us know about your leadership accomplishments in a school, internship, or extracurricular context.

Maximum words: 750

Essay #2 - Focusing on Leadership or Discovering You

For your second essay, choose either Focusing on Leadership or Discovering You.

Focusing on Leadership

One of Fisher's strengths is its dedication to developing leaders. Listed below are 10 attributes that characterize great leaders. Please select the two criteria that best describe your strengths and provide us with concrete evidence to support your choices.

Write an essay for each of the two characteristics you select, describing situations in which you exemplified these leadership traits. Please title each of your essays with the specific trait (e.g. 'endurance') that you have chosen for yourself. As part of your essay response, you may include a digital photo or link to content (e.g. blog, video clip, website, etc.) if that content helps to illustrate the attribute(s) you have chosen.

Please be sure to title each essay with the characteristic you selected.

Integrity
Empathy
Curiosity
Endurance
Creativity

Global awareness
Passion
Vision
Self Awareness
Communication and interpersonal skills

Maximum words: 500 per attribute

Discovering You

As a Fisher College MBA student, you get the best of both worlds: the up-close and personal feel of a small program combined with the resources and opportunities offered by a major research university. As an individual participant, you will play a key role in shaping our culture. Consequently, we would like to learn more about who you are and the unique characteristics you will contribute to the Fisher College community. Provide an honest description of yourself outside your professional context, stressing the personal characteristics you believe to be your strengths and weaknesses, along with the factors that have most influenced your development to date.

Maximum words: 750

Supplemental Information (Optional)

Please feel free to provide a statement concerning any information you would like to add to your application that you have not addressed elsewhere.

Maximum words: 250

Supplemental Information (Optional)