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Posted on August 9, 2019

LBS MBA Essay Questions Tips & Deadlines 2019-20

LBS

London Business School, an internationally focused program in one of the most exciting cultural centers of Europe, has a diverse student body with 92% of its students coming from 69 countries of the world.

Application Deadlines:

Round Application Deadline Interview Decision Sent on Interview Period Admission Decision Sent on
Round 1 13 September 2019 10 October 2019 mid- Oct to early Nov 2019 20 November 2019
Round 2 03 January 2020 06 Feb 2020 mid- Feb to early Mar 2020 31 March 2020
Round 3 05 March 2020 07 April 2020 mid-Apr to early May 2020 21 May 2020
Round 4 22 April 2020 14 May 2020 mid to end May 2020 18 June 2020

All application deadlines are 17:00 UK time. All Admissions Committee decisions are communicated via email and will be sent on the relevant deadline day by 23:30 pm UK time.

Essays:

The essay questions remain unchanged from last year. The MBA applicants for the 2019-20 application season are required to write only one essay of 500 words. They also have an option to submit an optional essay of 500 words.

Let’s take a closer look at the essays:

Essay 1:

What are your post-MBA goals and how will your prior experience and the London Business School program contribute towards these? (500 words)

This is a straightforward Goals Essay question. You begin this essay with a statement about your post MBA career objectives. Explain what you plan to do after your MBA. Make sure your career objectives are both ambitious and realistic. Be as specific as you can about your goals and specify the industry, your role, and the companies that interest you.

To demonstrate how your professional experiences are aligned with these goals, provide a brief career history focusing on your career progression and the skills and knowledge you acquired at each job position. Also, discuss your rationale behind each career move and explain how your career so far has prepared you for your goals.

Then describe where you stand now, what skills you lack to fulfill your career aspirations, and how an MBA from LBS is aligned with your goals. This means that you have to provide a logical connection between your previous experience, your current need for an MBA degree from the LBS, and your future career goals. For this, you will need to do a thorough research of the program so that you can draw out a link between specific resources/ offerings of the LBS and your career goals and interests. In addition, reach out to current students and alumni to gain their insights about the program and attend admission events to learn more about the school.

You may organize the essay in the following manner:

  • Your Short-Term Goals (approximately 100-150 words)
  • Career history & accomplishments (approximately 100-150)
  • How LBS can help you fulfill your post MBA goals (approximately 200 words)

Even though the essay prompt doesn’t require you to discuss your contribution to the school, it still makes sense (if space permits) to wrap up your essay by briefly stating what value you will bring to the school.

Essay 2-Optional

Is there any other information you believe the Admissions Committee should know about you and your application to London Business School? (500 words)

The optional essay is a great opportunity to touch upon other key aspects of your candidacy that you didn’t get a chance to discuss in any other parts of the application, i.e. essay, résumé, application form. Since you are provided fields in the online application to address any academic weaknesses, e.g., academic probation, class withdrawal, etc., you can use this essay to address other weaknesses in your application such as low GPA, low GMAT, employment gap, choice of recommenders or any other extenuating personal circumstances.

Even if you do not have any weakness in your profile, I would highly recommend you to write this essay to provide more information about your accomplishments, leadership experiences, interests or significant voluntary experience since the required single essay doesn’t leave you much space to discuss your past accomplishments. Please note the word ‘should’ in the essay prompt and use this essay to provide information that you think is relevant to your candidacy. Also, the 500 limit of this essay allows you to throw a spotlight on those key aspects of your candidacy that you couldn’t cover in the required one essay.

Free Resources:

10 Key Essay Tips with Examples
Essay Analysis of Other Tops Programs- 2019-20

25 Video/Chat Interviews of Successful MER Students

 

Since 2011, Poonam, founder, and president of myEssayReview (MER) has helped applicants get accepted into the top 20 global MBA, programs, including LBS (Poonam is one of the top 5 most reviewed consultants on the GMAT Club).

You may email Poonam at poonam@myessayreview.com with questions about your LBS application.

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