ESMT Berlin MBA Essays & Analysis 2024-2025

The following essay topic analysis examines the ESMT Berlin MBA admissions essays. The ESMT Berlin MBA essays are 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.

ESMT Berlin MBA Essays & Analysis 2024-2025

Let’s take a closer look at the ESMT Berlin MBA essay prompts.

Essay 1

Describe your specific career aspirations and reasons for pursuing an MBA at ESMT Berlin. (max 250 words)
Applicants should concisely describe their plans upon graduating from ESMT Berlin, covering the particular role and responsibilities they are interested in. Given the use of “aspirations,” it would behoove you to account for your long-term vision and the impact you wish to have. Then, priority should be given to how ESMT Berlin is the ideal stepping stone to your goals. This can involve talking about courses you hope to take, clubs you plan to be active in (and how), and what you hope to gain from joining the ESMT Berlin community. 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 connecting with resources through the ESMT Berlin website—will pay dividends here.

Essay 2

Failures are rich learning opportunities and help us to grow. Tell us about a setback in your life (personal, academic, or professional), your reaction to the setback, and how it changed you. (max 250 words)
This prompt is rather open ended, as candidates may choose from their personal, academic or professional lives. This essay is a good place to highlight instances of resourcefulness and persistence, and to provide insight into one’s personal and professional maturity over the course of a narrative. An effective approach might be to describe the initial obstacle and its broad implications in a few sentences, followed by a discussion of how you dealt with it—along with a brief illustrative example—before concluding with a reflection on the lessons you’ve learned and impact that you’ve had. To conclude, it could work well to account for how you would bring the lessons forward as a student at ESMT Berlin or even in one’s future career. Accounting for specific ways in which you would contribute to ESMT Berlin based on this experience would not only support one’s sense of vision, but also understanding of one’s fit with the program.

Essay 3

You can invite one guest for dinner, be they living, dead, fictional, or other.  Who would you invite and why? (max 250 words)
The adcom is looking to get to know you on a personal level here or to learn about some interest or talent you may or may not have highlighted elsewhere in the application. Keep in mind it will be important to create context—not everyone will have read that obscure WWII history book on your nightstand, or think about the Roman Empire every day. The important thing will be to ensure the person you choose reflects your values or experience in some way. For instance, while it may be fun to meet Taylor Swift, what connection to your candidacy could you make? In the same vein, writing about figures such as Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, or Bill Gates might be challenging. First, the reader will likely have seen many essays on the same person before and also, in the case of famous people, it’s likely you would not be able to draw on personal experience with them. So, you may also consider your personal relationships—perhaps you have a mentor at work who has inspired you, or you’ve met someone through your community involvement that has informed a better sense of who you want to be. Of course, if you’re passionate about a certain career path like impact investing and you wish to meet someone who has made significant strides in that area, you could make it work. The key will be in the connections to influencing who you are and aspire to be.

While you need to highlight why you chose the person as a guest, ensure that most of the content is shedding light on who you are or aspire to be. At the end of the day, the ESMT Berlin adcom is trying to get to know you. When sharing the requested examples, be sure to include how you have acted as a result of their influence. Show the adcom the values you embody as a result of this wish.

Optional Essay

Is there any other information, not covered in the application, that you would like us to know about you? (max 250 words)
Applicants should exercise discretion when responding to this prompt, as providing an optional essay creates extra work for the admissions reader. This will be a good place to address extenuating circumstances that have influenced your academic or professional history or to address weaknesses in your application. The wording of this question is open enough that applicants may also choose to discuss an element of their background that is not reflected in their other materials (including data forms and résumé), though they will need to demonstrate sound judgment in doing so – i.e. the nature of the content should be such that it makes a material difference to one’s application – and should summarize the information as concisely as possible. Be sure to review the rest of the application for opportunities to share information before repeating content here.

Clear Admit Resources

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

• ESMT Berlin 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 ESMT Berlin
• Clear Admit DecisionWire: school selections in real-time by admits to ESMT Berlin