Tuesday Tips: Dartmouth Tuck Fall 2017 MBA Essay Tips

The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth has a small student body and a rural location, combined with world-class faculty and academic focus. As you approach your Dartmouth Tuck MBA application it will be important to consistently show how you will fit into the school values of leadership, teamwork and collaboration and bring your own unique qualities and experiences to the community. This revised set of essays focuses on global approach as a significant value as well.

The Tuck admissions blog offers the following advice: “There are no right or wrong answers. We encourage applicants to limit the length of their responses to 500 to 700 words for Essay #1 and 500 words for Essay #2. Please double-space your responses.”

Stacy Blackman Consulting has worked with many successful Tuck applicants, contact us to learn more about the customized assistance we can provide for your application.

Essay One (Required): Tuck educates wise leaders who better the world of business. What are your short- and long-term goals? How will a Tuck MBA enable you to become a wise leader with global impact?

Tuck has updated the career goals essay to include a question about your global vision and impact on the world of business. Consistent with a standard MBA career goals essay you must also outline your short- and long-term career goals. Your short-term goals are the aspirations you have for your job immediately after graduation, while your long-term goals may be 10 or 20 years after you complete your MBA.

As you consider how you will make a global impact in your career, you should incorporate “Why Tuck” as a crucial element. Make sure you have researched the school’s programs and determined how your education will help you achieve your goals.

For example, Tuck has multiple global business programs, including a class where you can consult to an international company and short Global Insight Expeditions. By reaching out to current students and alumni you can learn more about the experiences and classes that would inform your development as a global leader.

Essay Two (Required): As a diverse and global community, our students arrive at the same place from many different paths. Tell us about an experience in which you have had to live, learn and/or work with other people very different from yourself. What challenges and/or opportunities did you experience, how did you respond, and what did you learn about yourself as a result?

The new required Essay Two also seeks to understand your global awareness and ability to learn and grow from those with different backgrounds. This essay prompt is open ended and allows you to choose an example from work or from an extracurricular experience. Think broadly about your background and when you have expanded your world by interacting with someone very different.

A compelling narrative will demonstrate learning and growing through interacting with others. Think about a time when you were truly challenged by a person or group of people different from yourself, and how you resolved the experience.

What did you learn about yourself and others? Interacting with your Tuck classmates may challenge you in a similar way, and showing a growth mentality would be attractive to the admissions committee.

This essay is not only an opportunity to discuss your ability to learn from others, you can also show that you are a leader in the Tuck tradition. The Tuck School of Business definition of leadership is inherently collaborative. Team based experiences are preferable, and as you describe working with someone different from yourself you can likely work in a strong leadership example.

Essay Three (Optional): Please provide any additional insight or information that you have not addressed elsewhere that may be helpful in reviewing your application (e.g., unusual choice of evaluators, weaknesses in academic performance, unexplained job gaps or changes, etc.). Complete this question only if you feel your candidacy is not fully represented by this application.

This is your opportunity to discuss any perceived weaknesses in your application such as low GPA or gaps in your work experience. When approaching a question of this nature, focus on explanations rather than excuses and explain what you have done since the event you are explaining to demonstrate your academic ability or management potential.

You could potentially use this space to add something new that was not covered in the previous essays or in the application, resume or recommendations, however use your judgment about the topics as Tuck asks that you only complete this question if you “feel your candidacy is not fully represented by this application.”

Essay Four (Required from Reapplicants): How have you strengthened your candidacy since you last applied? Please reflect on how you have grown personally and professionally.

If you are re-applying to Tuck this essay is the place for you to showcase any developments since your last application. Ideally you have concrete improvements like a stronger GMAT score, grades from business classes, or a promotion. Even if nothing quantitative has changed in your profile you likely have developed more leadership activities or progressed in your job responsibilities.

If you are struggling to think of any clear improvements you can describe refined goals or deeper thinking about your future that has led you to apply again to Tuck. Demonstrating growth in maturity or introspection can be a huge improvement to your application and absolutely should be highlighted.