Darden strives to identify and cultivate responsible leaders who follow their purpose. Please provide an example of a situation in which you have made a meaningful impact. (200 words)
Darden focus immensely on your leadership capabilities. The biggest testament of your leadership is the impact you create on any organization. This essay allows you to share an example in which you shaped an organization. CAR (Challenge-Action-Results) format will help you demonstrate the before and after picture of the situation to prove your substantial impact.
Your example could be either from professional or extracurricular, but ideally describes a significant accomplishment of yours that made a noteworthy impact. The size of the impact could be big or small as long as it was meaningful to you and your team. For instance, if you are a technology applicant and you have spearheaded an initiative to boost efficiency of IT systems or you led a Six Sigma project to reduce product defects significantly, then you can narrate that story.
On the other hand, if you are passionate for environment, you might have organized campaigns against carbon emission and global warming, or you might have campaigned against the use of excessive pesticides in food. If you wish to fight against illiteracy, you might have funded scholarships for poor students. While the impact of those actions may have been limited, it shows your values. It also highlights how you would make a greater impact on the world when you have the required ability and the platform to implement changes.
Diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission, and they work best when they are an integral and celebrated part of our community. Read University of Virginia’s Diversity & Inclusion Vision Statement. Share a time in which you engaged with a perspective, identity, community or experience that was different from your own and how it impacted your worldview. (200 words)
As a global leader, it is essential for anyone to understand the significance of diversity. We all need to work with people from various walks for life, who have different life experiences, perspectives, skin color, religion and nationalities. Sometimes, when we work with a diverse group of people, we encounter difficulties in understanding others’ point of view. We also find it difficult to make other people accept our opinion. We often find that people have different priorities, thinking patterns, and belief systems that are way different from those of ours. What do you do in such circumstances? Do you get irritated with them or do you get frustrated with your fate as life is putting you in challenging situations?
Even though such experience might cause temporary frustration, it broadens our horizon. It pushes us to realize that we have to collaborate with people whose worldview clashes with that of ours. And such clash of ideas will continue throughout your career as a global leader. It is an art to manage yourself and others in such situations. For instance, I once led a team of consultants for a strategy consulting project in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It was an eye opening experience. I was swamped in all kinds of troubles. Our clients were Saudis, two consultants were from Israel, one from Bahrain, and the rest from USA. It was a complete mess with huge gap of understanding in almost every aspect of the project. But, it taught me volumes in cross cultural communication.
Darden wants to know if you have the DNA to manage such challenges. Select an instance that shows you leading a diverse team or at least part of a diverse team. Explain what difficulties you encountered? How you overcame or circumvented such difficulties? What did you learn in the process? What did you learn about peoples’ psychology? Did you realize your own areas of weakness? If yes, narrate your story in detail.
If written well, this will be a fascinating essay. It will project your maturity and wisdom and can potentially differentiate from other applicants.
The Batten Foundation Worldwide Scholarship provides all Darden students in our full-time MBA program with an opportunity to participate in a Darden Worldwide Course. If you could choose any location in the world, where would you want to travel, and why? (50 words)
Darden has a basket of international opportunities for its students. It has an array of worldwide courses and expects that every student participate in at least one global opportunity during their two years stint in the campus. You can pay a visit to a foreign country through a Global Immersion Course or Global Topic Course, or spend a semester abroad with an Exchange Program.
In this essay, applicants should identify their dream location that excites them and thereafter explain why they are passionate about this place. What unique learning opportunity they expect or what impact they wish to make? The focus of these international programs is to provide opportunity to students to know more about the world of business beyond the United States. Keeping that in mind, what would you like to know and where would you like to learn it?
Tell us what you would want your learning team to know about you – personally, professionally, or both? (100 words)
Darden’s unique case based approach requires that students hail from a wide range of industry backgrounds and experiences to enrich case study discussions. You will be assigned to a learning team of diverse classmates to discuss various case assignments. The sole purpose of such discussions is to make sure that all of you are well prepared to contribute to the class discussion. Hence, the learning team must have a supportive environment and allow each student to express their viewpoint and learn from others’ perspectives.
In this essay, Darden asks you to introduce yourself to its community. What do you wish to convey to your learning team about your background? What kind of unique perspective will you add to your learning team? Perhaps you have in-depth expertise on Cloud Computing or Analytics? Or, you may have wide range of experience on Supply Chain management. Or, you might have experienced the perils of war as a military veteran. Or, you may be from an underrepresented region of the world, or you have been a member of Greenpeace, who organized public awareness campaign against global warming.
In just 100 words, explain what you think will be interesting for the learning team to know about you.
What is your short-term, post-MBA career goal and why? (150 words)
First of all, don't feel anxious by this career goals question if you are still exploring what you wish to do post MBA. As one of the best B-schools, Darden offers extensive career counseling to its students. You will network with alumni, students and the Career Development Center and enjoy incredible opportunities to explore various career paths. However, in this essay, Darden wishes to understand how you think and plan, and what motivates your career choices. You have room here for two small paragraphs to explain your expected path after you graduate from Darden. Explain in detail about industry, job function, major responsibilities that you wish to shoulder and so on. Don’t forget to mention what inspires you to accomplish this goal instead of doing something else.
However, if your career goals are perceived as unattainable – for instance, aspiring to launch a solar power company despite no experience on that domain or start an NGO to eradicate poverty, illiteracy or corruption from African countries despite little or no experience on non-profits, then it might be a challenge to persuade the admissions committee. Moreover, if you wish to pursue a career track that is widely different from most of your peers, then Darden would expect you to tap in your own industry connections to make it happen. Explain little bit about the depth of your professional network to ensure them about your ability to pull it off.
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