Cambridge / Judge Essay Topic Analysis 2011-2012
Today, we’d like to take some time to offer a bit of guidance to applicants who plan to tackle Judge’s MBA application essay questions in the coming months. With just three essays totaling 1,000 words, the Cambridge application is a relatively short one, though this means that applicants must make judicious use of the available space to highlight their industry-specific knowledge and preparation for business studies.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the program’s prompts:
Essay 1: What are the key issues facing organizations in your sector over the next three years? What course of action would you recommend to such organizations? (300 words)
Focused on the immediate changes and challenges facing the applicant’s chosen field, this opening essay is a chance for applicants to demonstrate their insight into sector-specific issues, as well as their sound judgment with respect to how these might be addressed. This essay suggests that the admissions committee is interested in identifying prospective students who will be ahead of the curve upon graduating from business school, and in a position to make a meaningful impact on the organizations they join after completing the Judge MBA.
Given the narrow word limit and the likelihood that the admissions reader will not possess deep knowledge of most of the industries applicants will be discussing, the key to this essay will be delivering your predictions in a concise and accessible way, perhaps offering some examples to ground the discussion in terms the reader (and one’s future MBA classmates) will be able to understand. If you’re feeling stuck on this forward-looking prompt brainstorming with or bouncing ideas off of a colleague or two could be a great starting point for generating and developing ideas.
Essay 2: What did you learn from your most spectacular failure? (200 words)
While the topic of failure is a common one when it comes to MBA applications, the very tight word limit of this response makes this a relatively unusual task. With only 200 words to work with, applicants will need to summarize the failure itself in a very high-level manner, devoting the majority of the response to a treatment of the lessons they learned from the experience and perhaps a mention of the ways and sorts of situations to which this learning has subsequently proven applicable.
The “spectacular” scope of the question adds a further layer of complexity; while personal situations are technically fair game for this response, applicants should aim to discuss lessons that will be relevant to future experiences on the Judge campus and in their future careers. Failures from the personal realm are technically fair game here, but candidates will likely want to give first consideration to professional or academic examples, or to those from structured extracurricular activities.
Essay 3: What are your short and long term career objectives? What skills/characteristics do you already have that will help you to achieve them? What do you hope to gain from the degree and how do you feel it will help you achieve the career objectives you have? (500 words)
Closing out its set of questions, Cambridge includes a fairly standard career goals essay of the sort featured in many MBA programs’ applications. Applicants are asked to outline their immediate post-MBA professional objectives, as well as their longer term plans. As is also typical, Judge asks applicants to explain what they hope to gain from its MBA program, and to link the skills and knowledge they’ll acquire during this year of study to their ability to achieve these goals. Meanwhile, the explicit request that applicants inventory the existing skills and characteristics that will help them along their chosen paths is a somewhat unusual one, so candidates will need to reflect on their qualifications and take care in addressing this element of the prompt.
As is the case with most schools, demonstrating an understanding of the unique merits of Judge’s program is crucial to an effective response to this question. Taking the time to learn about the school’s curriculum, special programs and extracurricular activities – whether through a visit to campus, conversation with alumni or students, or conducting thorough research via the school’s website – will pay dividends here.
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