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Ohio State Fisher MBA Essay Advice 2024-2025

ohio fisher mba essay advice

The following essay advice examines The Ohio State / Fisher (Fisher) MBA admissions essays for the 2024-2025 admissions season. You can also review essay topic analyses for other leading MBA programs as well as general Essay Tips to further aid you in developing your admissions essays.

The Ohio State Fisher MBA Essay Advice 2024-2025

Let’s take a closer look at each essay.

Essay 1

What are your short-term and long term goals? How/why will an MBA help you achieve those goals? (Maximum length: one page, 11 pt. (or greater) font)
This is a straightforward career goals essay, seeking information about the candidate’s goals and how an MBA will enable achieving those goals. In order to lend meaning to your short-term goals and establish a vision for the reader, you may open with your long-term goals. Then, identify the function or job title you plan to pursue after business school, as well as your target industry and perhaps one or two target organizations. This position should be a logical first step toward a longer-term role that you hope to hold 10 or so years after your MBA.

It would also make sense to include a few sentences about how your work experience to date has influenced (and prepared you for) these future roles, as well as the skills and knowledge that you still need to gain in order to move successfully along this path. This will establish why you need an MBA.  While Fisher refers to “an MBA,” you will want to offer a detailed treatment of the ways specific elements of the Fisher MBA program would help you to bridge the gap between your current skill set and your future plans. After all, it is an application to their MBA program.

To get as much mileage as possible out of this essay, you should aim to develop a very detailed response that explains how lessons from key classes and participation in certain student organizations will position you to accomplish your professional objectives. The adcom will also be interested in hearing about how you see yourself contributing to the community and enhancing the experience of other students, so naming some events that you would like to help organize or a club you would hope to lead will also bolster your case. Covering all of this ground within a one-page essay (which works out to about 500 words) is no easy task, so zeroing in on the aspects of the Fisher MBA program that are most closely aligned with your goals will be important to developing an effective response; an in-depth review of the program website, conversations with current students and alumni, or visiting campus, are all viable sources of the information you’ll need here.

Optional Essay

This optional essay can be used to address any circumstances you’d like the Admissions Committee to be aware of (gaps in work history, academic performance, choice of recommenders, etc.). (Maximum words: 500)
This essay is best used to address liabilities in one’s application per the examples, e.g. gaps in employment, a weak quantitative record, etc. In such cases, you should keep your response brief and to-the-point, offering explanations without making excuses and humbly bringing mitigating factors to the reader’s attention. That said, it’s possible that there are other elements of your background that would be appropriate and not covered elsewhere in the application, for example an anticipated promotion or an element of your identity not covered in the program’s data forms. While applicants should make an effort to fully represent their candidacies within the required elements of the application, this leaves a bit of room for short exceptions.

Clear Admit Resources

Thanks for reading our analysis of this year’s OSU / Fisher essay topics. As you work on your OSU / Fisher MBA essays and application, we encourage you to consider all of Clear Admit’s OSU / Fisher offerings: