isb essay 2

Here are the advises from ISB application consultants on Essay 2:

There are 2 parts to this essay:

  1. What are your goals in 5 and 10 years
  2. How will ISB help you

For part 1, if you look at the timeline, you will find that this essay is asking nothing else but about your long term and short term goals with a twist. Instead of the immediate short term goal, the ADCOM is asking about your goals 5 years after the MBA and the 10 years goal will be the long term goal that you have in mind.

This requires planning upfront. Answering what you want to do after MBA is easy and can be done just by looking at the placement reports. But what will you do 5 years later, requires research and deep thinking. If your goal is to become a consultant, go ahead and talk to your consultant friends and ask them about their career progression. If you goal is to become a Product Manager, talk to people and see how a Product manager’s duties evolve. Do they lead more products or do they move to a different domain. If you want to become an entrepreneur, you must figure out what you want your organization to be in the next 5 years. What path will you take and what goals have you set for yourself.

You can also append your career aspirations with how you want to evolve as a person. If you want to work on your management skills, tell how your immediate MBA role will help you do this. If you want to work on product development skills, again tell how your Product manager/Owner role will help you do that. In short, club your professional and personal development goals to help the ADCOM understand your goals.

For the long term goals, tell about where you want to be in 10 years. It may or may not be very specific and you might even change the goal in the future. But the ADCOM wants to see how do you want to see your career unfold and if you have put enough thought into the goal. A good way to enhance your answer would be to put goal enablers in the answer. In other words, what things will help you achieve those goals.

Always think of MBA as a bridge between your current version and your aspired version. The second part is the age-old question of Why this School. The more research you do the better it is. We recommend talking to the current students and alumni in addition to scourging through the website. You need to tell the ADCOM that you know specifically what you want out of your MBA journey. This includes:

  • Courses you want to study
  • Treks you want to go on
  • Student clubs you want to join
  • Things you want to learn




Old Essay 2:


It’s a clear question based on goals with focus on how this amazing MBA Program from ISB will help you in transforming your career and help you in achieving your goals. The ideology behind this question is to judge the perspective of clarity of goals and purpose of MBA being sought by the candidates.

It’s highly important question where you need to have a clear and well researched answer in place. Whether your vision is to work continuously in the same industry/function or to make a switch to the different department, there always need to be clear credentials gaps between your previous professional experiences and the future based goals.

The answer should be knit very practical and logical with an MBA from ISB serving has a bridge. A great essay is that which easily manages to clear the link with three aspects which include –

  1. Career goals
  2. Past professional knowledge
  3. Why/why now MBA and why ISB

1. Career Goals

Your career goals need to be very realistic and it must be about your goals only. So it would be great that you discuss this with the alumni and carry out some research on the b-school website to align your goals within the positions being offered at ISB. Briefly emphasis on the overall experiences that helped you shape your goal and discuss the appropriateness of your goals.

2. Career Progression

ISB is seeking candidates who have clear paths behind and before them. So you have to be very specific in terms of writing this essay. Also mention, how each one of them added value to your professional knowledge.

3. Why/Why now MBA and why ISB?

You have many reasons to put on in this segment so be realistic and see how this MBA through ISB is gonna change your life. It could be in terms of personal development, professional gain or other factors that you believe are gonna change your life.