Chinese Client Rejected by MIT Sloan
‘Get,set and go’ was all I needed to do. As a teenager, I always visualized a horizon beyond my home country. I moved to Germany at the age of 25 with a want to know more. I felt both personal and professional life were inviting me to build , explore and establish!
My life experience so far have taken me a long way and allowed me to have a more open minded spirit, and allowed me to understand the diverse cultures of this world, how to appreciate each, and how to quickly and seamlessly adapt my work style to those different cultures. I think I will be able to add diversity to the classroom, and offer my knowledge of the developing market.
Being decisive always lead to me progress! After graduating as an engineer I was thrilled entering professional life. The dynamics of the economic environment, the daily challenges and interaction with people was very satisfying and fulfilling. My job with Huawei showed me my strengths of communication and interaction leading to result oriented approach.
Having the outlook of join my father and have a career without having to sacrifies any of the conveniences of living in a country with culture I appreciated and knew gave me a lot of security. In opposition to this I always wanted to work in a more international context and I realized that staying in China would not allow me to achieve this goal. My decision to step out of this promising and secure situation and start my professional career in Europe or the USA was very difficult and forced me to focus and think about my plan of life and sharpen my own view on the essentials how I could achieve them. Looking back this process and ultimate decision to settle in Germany gave me a lot of self confidence. The cultural differences I experienced living first in Dallas (TX), Munich and finally Berlin in Germany broadened my personal horizon a lot and taught me to always put things in perspective and take cultural related values and traditions in to account when working with people on complex projects.
First and foremost, there are plenty of grammatical errors and mistakes in sentence construction in this essay. A significant number of Chinese applicants struggle with English grammar and this applicant is no exception. However, the biggest drawback is that the applicant has not thought deep enough before writing the essay. In the introduction paragraph, he wrote that “‘Get, set and go’ was all I needed to do. As a teenager, I always visualized a horizon beyond my home country.” So it is abundantly clear that the candidate aspired to broaden his horizon and see the outside world from his teenage days. Then when he got the chance to go to foreign countries for his professional career, he opted to go to US and then to Europe. Now it will be a difficult decision for anyone to leave his family behind, move out of his comfort zone and migrate to a foreign country. But it is also very evident that he was quite willing to see the outside world from his teenage days. So even though it was a difficult decision to leave family behind, can it be categorized as the most difficult decision? NO.
Even if its the most difficult decision taken by the applicant, then the essay should not have been started in this manner.He could have written that he always wanted to get a glimpse of the outer world but never intended to settle abroad as that would entail leaving his loved ones behind. But he also wanted to be a global leader. So gradually he realized the need to work in foreign countries in order to get the world view. However the decision to leave parents and siblings behind was a painful one. Caught on the horns of a dilemma, it was one of the most difficult decision of his life.
In addition to that, in this age of globalization, a significant number of professionals have to settle in foreign countries for better job opportunities. So will this essay “differentiate” the applicant in any way from thousands of other Chinese MBA applicants (and even other Asian applicants) who also have left their comfort zone and moved to US and EU for better career opportunities? NO.
Business schools ask for application essays in order to evaluate the leadership qualities and maturity of applicants. Leaders face numerous challenging situation and they have to take various difficult decisions. Hence, the “most difficult decision” essay is a golden opportunity for any applicant to portray his leadership maturity and in-depth perspectives on life as a whole. Selecting the appropriate decision is paramount for this essay. Applicants need to showcase the various challenges of that particular situation. For instance, firing an employee can be a difficult decision. Not only you have to think about his replacement in the office but also consider the impact of your decision on his emotional health. Moreover, leaving your mother behind who is suffering from cancer and moving to US for higher studies will be a very difficult decision. Similarly, joining the Marine Corps and going to war will certainly be a very difficult decision, except for people who fantasize about warfare and military weapons.
Think hard on all the major decisions that you have taken in your life, consider the various difficulties that you faced while taking those decisions and then cherry-pick the decision that you had to make after lots of consideration.
Do you want to know how a winning MBA essay on Challenging situation/Difficult decision looks like? Check the Describe a Challenging Situation essay that we developed for one of our client. Even though many applicants would not have faced a similar situation as described in the essay, its an excellent essay for applicants to read and learn about how to write an effective application essay.
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