McGill has completely revamped its MBA and made it more flexible with 12, 16, and 20-month program options. For the intake of Fall 2020, Desautels has 3 application essays. Let’s debrief them.
Essay Debrief
1. Why do you intend on pursuing an MBA at this point in your life? Describe your mid-term and long-term visions for your post-MBA career path and how will the Desautels MBA program add value to your future career? (500-word limit)
Let us start as usual by paraphrasing and breaking down the question above.
Why MBA?
Why now?
What are your short-term goals?
What are your long-term goals?
Why Desautels?
If you answer the above 5 questions you will have a pretty-good skeleton of what you want to say in your essay. Apart from the obvious written communication skills, ad-com wants to access your FIT to its program. Why have you decided to pursue an MBA at this point in time in your career? Why do you think McGill is the best school for you to achieve your goals? How will pursuing an MBA at Desautels help you achieve those goals? Here, your research about the school’s MBA program will come in handy. You have ample word limit to expand on your answers, so use it.
2. What qualities would you look for in an MBA classmate when working on a team project and describe how your background and leadership skills will enhance the experience of others? (500-word limit)
Let’s rephrase this question also, shall we?
How will you go about selecting your MBA team?
Why you?
How will you add value to the classroom discussions?
Why would your team members want you on your team?
What achievements and leadership skills set you apart from the rest of the crowd?
How do you add diversity to our group?
These are some of the ways the above essay question can be paraphrased. The ad-com here would like to know what qualities you value in your team members and why do you value them? Is it because you possess them yourself or you’re weak in that area and your team member will compliment you? The reason for selecting a quality is more important than the quality itself.
The second part of the question is relatively simpler if you answer the questions above, you will not have much difficulty in approaching them. Ultimately, McGill wants to know what sets you apart. Mention your unique achievements and experiences that will add value to the diverse group at Desautels. Try to mention your inimitable qualities or experiences that make you stand out and will make you the right candidate for an MBA at McGill.
3. Describe a difficult decision you made and the process that you went through to make it. (500-word limit)
You have a lot of room to narrate an incident properly. So do it! We all have faced some or the other form of challenge or difficult situation in life. But it is important that you choose a rather unique and extremely difficult situation here. Think an ethical dilemma? Switching jobs? Firing your teammate? Here, McGill has not expressly asked for a professional situation but it is advisable to stick to professional ones only.
Help the reader understand the situation first. What was the scenario you were in and how was it rather unique and difficult one? Then dig deeper into your approach, how did you analyse the situation? What is your process to break down and analyse a challenge? How to do think in a crisis management scenario? What is your decision-making process? And then probably you can also mention what did you learn from the whole experience? One’s ability to learn from challenges makes him/her an effective leader.
Apart from the essays above Desautels application requires:
- Two References
If you’d like to discuss your profile and know whether Desautels, McGill is the right school for you or not then fill out this form and we can have a FREE call. Check out our tool MBA Matrix, where you can search and compare more than 300 MBA programs. MBA Matrix contains deadlines, essay questions, all rankings, average GMAT scores and a lot more all in one place. You can say nice things to me on What’s App!