UPDATE: This article was originally posted on September 2, 2019. It has been updated with new information and tips below.
With its focus on innovative leadership, strong connections with Asian business schools, and location in the heart of Barcelona, ESADE is at the top of the list for an increasing number of applicants who seek to pursue (or continue pursuing) a high-impact, global career.
However, competition to join ESADE’s elite MBA is more difficult than ever.
That’s why we’ve prepared this guide to help you use your ESADE admissions essays to stand out. We’ve rounded up our best tips and links to ESADE MBA sample essays to ensure you give your Haas application your best shot.
1. Who is ESADE looking for?
(Photo courtesy of @_esade on Instagram)
“The ESADE MBA empowers you to become a driving force for change. To disrupt the future of business, and forge a path for others to do the same. To lead with great integrity and flexibility. working as part of a team. To make your mark as a creative business activist. To think deeply about our world and how you can change it for the better. The ESADE MBA is for the future leaders who are ready to think differently and break new ground.” ESADE Admissions
Every year, ESADE literally searches the globe (43 countries are represented in the current class) for the outstanding professionals given the honor of joining its annual class of 184 students.
With a strong emphasis on diversity, there is no “typical” ESADE student, yet the average admitted student does tend to have an average score of 660 on the GMAT classic or 615 on the GMAT Focus Edition. Their average GRE score has been around 160V/162Q.
Beyond the statistics, though, ESADE is looking for candidates who want to positively disrupt the world of business through their careers. That’s why, in addition to strong academic performance (demonstrated through their test scores and university grades), ESADE seeks candidates who possess seek to be the following type of leader:
If this sounds like a community in which you’d be right at home, you’ll first have to prove you’ve got what it takes by successfully answering ESADE’s admissions essay questions.
2. How should I answer the ESADE essay questions?
This year, ESADE kept their essay questions from the previous year intact, only adding additional space for candidates to answer. Though ESADE does require numerous essays, this approach allows you to fully present who you are and why you’re passionate about the school in your application.
2.1. Essay 1 Tips
Which aspects have you improved on during your academic and professional career so far? Which tools or values have helped you achieve this? (3000 characters maximum including spaces)
This essay is a bit more complicated than it may appear at first glance. Instead of just asking you to highlight your career achievements, the essay specifically asks you to discuss improvements, which suggests a focus on self-awareness.
As such, you want to make sure to select a few areas in which you have shown marked improvement (ideally choose examples from college or later). For instance, you could mention your first attempt at leadership in your first post-college job, telling us the story of what happened and the ways in which you fell short of the mark. Then, after analyzing what went wrong, you could bring in a second leadership example from later in your career that shows how you worked to overcome your “weaknesses” as a leader.
This is just one example, and there are many others you could choose for this essay. However, make sure your essay flows logically from one point to another. A random collection of unrelated stories will be difficult and confusing to read.
Need more guidance?
Our MBA Resource Center has dozens of ESADE MBA essays that worked to get our clients admitted to help you plan out a winning ESADE essay. Our library also includes guides for all top global MBA programs, detailed essay brainstorms, interview tips and mocks, CV templates, and recommendation letter guides. Click to join!
2.2. Essay 2 Tips
How will your background, values and non work-related activities enhance the experience of other ESADE MBA students and add to the diverse culture we strive for at ESADE? (Note: The goal of this essay is to get a sense of who you are, rather than what you have accomplished). (3000 characters maximum including spaces)
For starters, do not simply copy/paste a shortened version of your Stanford “What Matters Most” essay here, as the focus of this essay is to understand who you are outside of work.
Considering the short word length for this essay, start by brainstorming what you’re truly passionate about. Any passion you decide upon must be supported by evidence, so if you can’t find one or two ways you’ve turned your passion into action, keep brainstorming!
Considering the length here, your best plan of attack would be choosing either 1 or 2 unrelated activities you’re passionate about and discussing each fully, or choose a broader theme (teaching, sustainability, astronomy, etc) and show how you’ve pursued this passion in a number of ways. If you go with the latter option, make sure the activities you choose truly connect to your theme. Otherwise, your essay will be highly confusing and difficult to follow.
If you have space and can meaningfully connect your passion to some club or initiative at ESADE, showing how you will pursue your passion on campus can be a great way to end this essay.
2.3. Essay 3 Tips
What are your motivations in pursuing a full-time MBA at this point in your life? Describe your mid-term and long-term visions for your post-MBA career path. What is it about ESADE you think will help you reach your goals? (3000 characters maximum including spaces)
Though it may seem that you have a lot of space to discuss why you’d be a good fit for ESADE in your overall application, you will want to pay special attention to this question!
That’s because this goals essay not only shows your career ambitions (an important part of determining how prepared you are to leverage your MBA after graduation), but also asks you to answer one of the most important questions in the application: why us and not another business school?
First, when discussing your goals, clarity is king, so make sure you include a job title and industry in your description of your post-MBA aspiration (mid-term) and also a connected long-term goal.
However, goals without context can be a little confusing to decipher or understand (or they can just seem a bit lackluster). For example, a client last year initially started his essay by saying:
“I want to become a Business Development Director at a Brazilian company.”
While interesting, it’s better to give a little bit of context to help these goals come to life. Check out the final version of the same essay’s introduction:
“In the 1970s, the phrase “think global, act local” came into use, suggesting that for the world to change, one must be active locally. With this mindset, I focused my career on Brazilian multinational companies to start creating global change at home. I now seek to take the next step to become a “glocal” leader by becoming Business Development Director at a Brazilian company.”
After clearly stating your goals (and your motivations for having these goals), we suggest you briefly touch on how ESADE can help you achieve these goals. This should not be a “laundry list” of 10 classes you found on the ESADE site, nor a section in which you repeat clichés about the school.
Instead, you should thoughtfully consider how you must grow personally and professionally to reach your stated short-term goal and what elements of ESADE (classes, faculty, clubs, etc.) will help you reach them.
Ending your essay with a killer conclusion sentence to leave your reader with a strong image of your profile is the perfect wrap-up.
2.4. Essay 4 Tips
Complete two of the following four questions or statements (1500 characters maximum including spaces per response – total of 3000 characters maximum including spaces)
- a) I am most proud of…
- b) People may be surprised to learn that I…
- c) What has your biggest challenge been and what did it help you learn about yourself?
- d) Which historical figure do you most identify with and why?
a) I am most proud of…
This question seems to clearly ask about a time when you generated impact. To answer, mine your top stories for examples where you used your free time (or your professional work!) to leave a meaningful mark on others.
We suggest starting your essay by answering the question, for example: “I am most proud of volunteering in the Chilean Patagonia in 2011.”
Then, talk about exactly how you generated impact (a condensed version of the STAR methodology will work very well here) and end with the result you obtained or lesson you learned.
b) People may be surprised to learn that I…
Here is a chance to share something about yourself that may not neatly fit into the “traditional” set of MBA essay questions. However, that does not mean you should waste this opportunity to show the admissions committee how you stand out from other applicants and can contribute to the overall diversity of their class.
As such, think about your top stories that you weren’t able to fit in anywhere else. Perhaps you want to write about a language you speak and how you came to learn that language, an ability you have and how you have employed it, a project to which you’ve dedicated significant time, or even a patent you’ve developed!
The options here are truly endless, just make sure we learn something valuable about what you can add to the ESADE cohort.
c) What has your biggest challenge been and what did it help you learn about yourself?….
This question seems written to understand how you respond when things aren’t perfectly going your way.
Given the open-ended wording of the question, you have quite a bit of range in terms of types of examples you could use, in our opinion. For example, you could speak about a promotion, a new project at work, an international experience, a volunteer experience… the list goes on and on.
The key to this essay is to clearly establish the situation and how it challenged you (adding the right amount of drama in your setup here will help sell this point). Then, show how you overcame the challenge and were able to obtain a winning result. Finally, make sure you show the lesson you learned as a result of this experience.
d) Which historical figure do you most identify with and why?
Though on the surface this might seem like a fun “getting to know you” type question, it’s actually written to help the admissions committee understand your values more in-depth.
First, the school asks you to choose one single figure. We suggest you stray away from the “usual suspects” like Gandhi and Steve Jobs and instead choose someone who shares something about your values with the admissions committee. The historical figure does not have to be especially famous.
After selecting your person, make a list of the characteristics you admire about this person, thinking about what stories or elements of your profile you can link to your choice.
For example, in a similar essay (which did not limit applicants to historical figures) a client who wrote this essay for LBS’ EMBA program chose Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi, the first female CEO of PepsiCo. This was the perfect opportunity for the client to discuss her values of resilience and diversity and also gave her the chance to discuss the women’s empowerment initiatives she leads at her corporation. When discussing what you admire about the leader, however, make sure you discuss why you admire the person as a leader, not as a human being. We also suggest detailing your interpretation of what it means to be a leader.
After giving background on your choice, we suggest you devote a good portion of the essay to the real star of the show: you. Make sure to focus on why the person you have chosen is so inspiring and try to build some connection to your profile or background.
2.5. Essay 5 Tips
Please provide any additional information that you would like to bring to the attention of the Admissions Committee. This may include gaps in employment, your undergraduate record, plans to retake the GMAT or any other relevant information. (3000 characters maximum including spaces)
Though with such a short application you may be tempted to use this response to add additional stories and information you couldn’t quite squeeze in elsewhere, restraint is necessary here. Make sure you focus on explaining gaps in your application only, though you can use these explanations to highlight related achievements.
For example, our client Fernando needed to explain his 6-month gap in work experience. As luck would have it, he spent these 6 months volunteering in Asia, so we not only addressed a “weakness” but were also able to include a new achievement in his application.
We have written extensively on the issue of optional essays, giving tips and tricks for how to address issues like low GMAT scores or poor academic performance here.
2.6. Short answer tips
Are you applying to other schools? Please provide detail of Schools and Programmes. This information is for our own records; it will not affect the Admissions Committee’s decision. Maximum 255 characters (including spaces).
This question is aimed at understanding a bit about your motivations for applying to ESADE, as it’s an interesting way to “double-check” answers in your application. For example, if you mentioned that ESADE’s location in Europe was a draw for you, since you want to relocate to the region, then show here that you’ve only applied for schools in the US (aside from ESADE), that could be problematic.
Though we don’t suggest lying, you may want to list 2 or 3 peer schools and should reinforce your strong interest in the program for which you’re interviewing.
If you ended up only applying for one program, it’s ok to say so. However, most applicants apply for several programs, so it’s alright to mention that you also applied to other schools.
Did you learn about this programme through an Alumnus recommendation? If so please provide us with the name and graduation year. Maximum 255 characters (including spaces).
As a school with a particularly high-touch approach to recruiting students, ESADE really values knowing that you made a concerted effort to connect with its community. As such, we highly recommend that you reach out to current students and alumni to learn more about ESADE, their motivations for joining the school, and how the school has helped them reach their objectives. For this very miniature essay, make sure not to just list the person’s name, but include an insight or two that the shared with you and show why this made ESADE’s program attractive to you.
Looking for ESADE MBA essay examples?
Check out our real sample essays that got our clients admitted here.
3. Worried you won’t get into your dream school?
You’ve built an impressive career and worked hard to get to this point, but now you’re facing the daunting task of pulling together a compelling MBA application. The pressure to choose which stories best sell your profile, write essays that reflect your achievements, prepare for interviews, and manage multiple deadlines can feel overwhelming. Are you doing enough to be noticed by admissions committees at top business schools?
At Ellin Lolis Consulting, we understand the stakes. With a 98.9% success rate, we’ve helped countless applicants just like you secure spots at their dream schools. Our expert consultants will work with you to develop a strategy tailored to your goals, ensuring every part of your application—from essays to interviews—tells a cohesive, compelling story that gets you in.
So if you need much more than just a few comments on your essay but instead want focused help shaping how you present your life’s greatest hits to one of the world’s toughest critics, you can count on us.
Don’t leave your future to chance. Learn more about working with us and take the first step toward a successful MBA application journey.
4. ESADE Deadlines
ESADE has 8 admissions rounds, which can be found here. You can access the online application here.
Real MBA Essays That Got People In
School-specific sample essays that got our clients accepted
