Georgia Tech Scheller MBA Essay Questions & Analysis 2024-2025

The following essay topic analysis examines Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business MBA admissions essays for the 2024-2025 admissions season. You can also review essay topic analyses for all of the other leading MBA programs as well as general Essay Tips to further aid you in developing your admissions essays.

Georgia Tech Scheller MBA Essay Topic Analysis 2024-2025

Essay 1

Why an MBA and why Georgia Tech? Describe how your experiences, both professional and personal, have led you to the decision to pursue an MBA at Georgia Tech. (2,000 character maximum (including spaces).)
With about 350 words, you’ll need to be concise in summarizing how your career and personal history have led to your decision. Your interest in an MBA can be skill-based–perhaps you have arrived at a natural breaking point in your career or need skills that you cannot attain on your current career path. Most of your discussion should focus on the Scheller MBA offerings and how they will empower you to achieve your goals. Taking the time to learn about the school’s curriculum, special programs and extracurricular activities—whether by seeking out alumni or current students to engage, or reviewing resources through the Scheller website—will pay dividends here in drawing rich, specific connections.

Essay 2

What are your short-term career goals after you complete your MBA? (2,000 character maximum (including spaces).)
 2,000 characters is about 350 words, which should be enough room to describe your short-term goals. You will want to directly assert your short-term goal, naming your target industry, function and some ideal firms (it could help to review Scheller’s career services connections to confirm what’s feasible here). It would also help to elaborate on what will be expected of you in this role—as this can support skills you need from a Scheller MBA and also attest to your familiarity with your plans. Space permitting, you may briefly touch on your long-term goal to lend meaning to your short-term plans.

Essay 3

List 10 facts about yourself that will help your future classmates get to know you. (2,000 character maximum (including spaces).)
This open-ended prompt allows applicants to showcase interesting and meaningful facts about themselves that they otherwise might not get a chance to share with the adcom. It also amounts to a test of the applicant’s creativity and judgment in arriving at a well-rounded set of admissions-appropriate tidbits.

So, in the spirit of the Scheller MBA essay, here’s our list of ten not-so-random things to think about when developing your response to this prompt:

1. Keep it positive! Share happy memories, silly details, interesting talents, or (very short) stories of resilience and accomplishment. Steer clear of failure or disappointment (unless you can be light-hearted or self-effacing about it).
2. Aim to cover all domains of your life, including your interests outside of work and even important personal details and relationships. Writing about the reason you admired your grandmother growing up or what you learned during a long-distance phase in your relationship will help the adcom get to know you on a level beyond your resume.
3. Short list items are okay!
4. In fact, the most effective responses to this question will intersperse very brief items (of just a few words) with longer ones that might include several sentences, creating an almost poetic effect.
5. First-date and job-interview rules apply here — think twice before discussing religion or politics. If these areas are important enough to you to warrant mentioning, limit your comments to personal meaning and community aspects (i.e. don’t try to educate or persuade the reader).
6. Take a lifespan view. Sharing a few details from your childhood can give the admissions reader insight they won’t find anywhere else in your file. Meanwhile, covering present-day favorites (e.g. food, film, travel destination, place to visit in your city or town) can show the reader who you are today.
7. Brief anecdotes — for example, about learning something the hard way while traveling internationally or working hard to improve at a new hobby — can showcase both your interests as well as your process when faced with a challenge.
8. We recommend a maximum of 5 work-related list items (and suggest that you aim for even fewer). This information will be prominent in your application already and the goal is to get personal with your classmates.
9. Aim for balance in content throughout your list; rather than listing items chronologically or by domain (i.e. professional, personal, extracurricular), change things up throughout and keep your reader on her toes to make this truly “random.”
10. Show your draft to a close friend or relative to get feedback on how well you’re capturing your personality (and on whether you’re overlooking anything).

Optional Essay

The Admissions Committee believes that the required essays address issues that are important in learning about you and in understanding your candidacy for this MBA program. However, you may provide us with any information pertinent to your admission that has not been covered in the rest of the application. Feel free to discuss any unique aspects of your candidacy or any perceived weaknesses. This could include low undergraduate GPA, gaps in employment, or frequent changes in employment (as some examples). (500 words)
It’s possible that there are other elements of your background that would be appropriate and not covered elsewhere in your application, for example an anticipated promotion or an element of one’s 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. For those who need to address potential liabilities or inconsistencies in one’s application in this prompt, adopt a humble tone, acknowledge the issue without making excuses, and gently suggest other aspects of his or her candidacy that may help to compensate for this weakness.

Clear Admit Resources

Thanks for reading our analysis of this year’s Georgia Tech Scheller MBA essays. As you work on your Georgia Tech MBA essays and application, we encourage you to consider all of Clear Admit’s Scheller offerings:

• Georgia Tech Scheller School 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 Fuqua
• Clear Admit DecisionWire: school selections in real-time by admits to Fuqua