CEIBS MBA Essay Tips

The following essay tips cover the CEIBS MBA admissions essays for the 2024-2025 admissions season. You can also review essay topic analyses for all other leading MBA programs as well as general Essay Tips to further aid you in developing your admissions essays.

CEIBS MBA Essay Tips 2024-2025

Let’s take a closer look at each prompt. 

Essay 1

What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA career aspirations? Discuss how your prior experience has prepared you for these goals and explain how the CEIBS MBA Program will help you achieve them. (500 words)
This is a fairly straightforward career goals essay, asking applicants to explain their post-MBA career objectives and how they will come to fruition. First, applicants should explain the specifics of their post-MBA plans. Establishing your long-term vision first would lend meaning to your short-term plans, as it can help the reader to know your destination before the path. So, explain your broader 5-10 year plan, even going beyond the “what” and the “where” to the “why”—in other words, the impact you hope to make on an organization, sector, consumer base, or region. Then, applicants should outline their short-term plans very specifically, including both the position the candidate hopes to hold immediately after an MBA, along with 1-2 companies one plans to target. This short-term goal should lead naturally to the long term. Keep in mind that career aspirations are likely best aligned with the CEIBS MBA program if they are specific to the growth of the China economy.

In regards to how you plan to achieve your goals, it would make sense to briefly comment on your work experience to date to establish the skills you already possess; this sets up the gap in your skill set that an MBA would fill. This phase of your discussion should describe the skills and knowledge you hope to gain from an MBA with an eye to your future plans. Forging specific connections between the skills you hope to gain (whether in class or outside of it) and your future plans will show the adcom that you have a sound understanding of how an MBA will prepare you for success.

Essay 2

Share an accomplishment you are most proud of and a situation where you faced failure. Explain why you felt proud of your accomplishment and how you have dealt with the failure. How have these experiences shaped your relationships with others and your overall growth? (500 words)
This response — which asks applicants to detail (1) their proudest achievement, (2) a potentially unrelated failure, (3) the impact both experiences had on their interpersonal relationships, and (4) the lessons they learned from each — requires one to cover quite a bit of ground in just 500 words. In detailing both items 1 and 2, applicants will need to provide sufficient context for a reader to readily understand the nature of the situation or project, the stakes involved, and the outcome.

Applicants will need to be thoughtful about how they organize this essay. If discussing unrelated examples, we recommend treating the achievement and failure within two 200-word mini-responses to ensure that they fully address each element of the question. Or, if you experienced an achievement and a failure (not necessarily in that order) in the course of a single project or engagement, a chronological narrative may be more natural.

Candidates should note that both the accomplishment and failure can be drawn from the professional or personal realms, leaving a fair amount of leeway in the subjects they select. Of course, applicants should think strategically about the examples that will add the most value to their files; given how little room there is to detail professional accomplishments, for example, applicants may find that a workplace success of which they’re proud is a good choice for this response.

Based on the situations, explain how you grew–whether honing your ability to lead with empathy, inspire others, or build strong, collaborative teams. If you can conclude with a brief example of how you applied your learnings in a subsequent situation, it will reinforce your sense of growth.

Optional Essay

As we review your application, what else would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the CEIBS MBA Programme? (300 words)
This response will be an appropriate place to address any elements of your application that need further explanation (e.g. recommender choice, expected promotions, etc.). Applicants should aim to demonstrate good judgment in deciding whether to respond to this prompt, and should take care not to introduce information that appears elsewhere in their materials or that could have been covered in response to one of the above essays.

Clear Admit Resources

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

• CEIBS Profile on the Clear Admit website: up-to-date advice and admissions information
• Clear Admit LiveWire: admissions updates submitted in real time by applicants to CEIBS
• Clear Admit DecisionWire: school selections in real-time by admits to CEIBS