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On this site, we’ve written before about the various reasons that people with entrepreneurial interests should consider pursuing MBAs. Generally speaking, the connection isn’t difficult to appreciate: MBA programs teach students invaluable concepts, methods, and principles for running a business. They also help young people expand their networks of connections. In this post, however, we’re going to look even more specifically at how your MBA application essay can later assist you in starting a business.
This concept may sound somewhat thin to a lot of people who are either in the midst of MBA studies or considering starting their own businesses, but you may be surprised how much value your application can provide when looked at in retrospect. Certainly, MBA applications and essays are tedious while you’re filling them out. However, they also force prospective students to assess themselves honestly and to think seriously about ambitions and intended practices. Here are a few specifics on how this can help you down the road.
For starters, there’s the fact that any business, in the conception and planning stage, involves carefully considering a thorough outline: a mission, stated goals, plans of action, etc. In its 50 steps to starting a business, Entrepreneur’s John Rampton outlines the concept of a business plan, stating that it should include a mission statement, company summary, and a description of a target market, among other things. If that doesn’t sound familiar to MBA students or prospective students currently applying, it probably should. It is basically the company version of what you’re often asked to do in an MBA application. They’re not exactly the same, of course, but in outlining your capabilities, goals in business, and plan for how to accomplish those goals, you may unwittingly be providing a blueprint for a future business endeavor.
Next, there’s the tendency of MBA essays to ask applicants to address their own failures or shortcomings. In regard to the MBA essay, Alice Van Harten of Menlo Coaching writes that “it can be agonizing to write a clear and persuasive story about yourself.” And yet, that’s just what applicants have to do. For many, it’s one of the only times in adult’s life in which you’ll sit down and honestly record your own imperfections. This isn’t fun for anybody, but it provides you with a wonderful resource. It’s not that you’ll forget or fail to recognize your weaknesses over time. Rather, it’s simply that it can help you in any number of ways, from making you aware of that weakness again to helping you see how you have grown past it. This sort of introspection will inevitably strengthen the foundation of your involvement with your own business.
And finally, in a less specific sense, there’s the idea that your intentions in the world of business are often at their most personal and uninhibited when you’re writing an essay. Yes, there’s a desire to please. To some extent, this can lead prospective students to focus on things they feel they should say rather than what they actually want to say. But at the same time, an essay can provide a strong reminder of why you started a life in business in the first place. This will impact every person differently on an individual level, but it’s worth remembering if you’re looking to start a business and some soul-searching occurs.
None of this is to say you should discount what you learn, or how your views and goals shifts over the course of your business education. But for a lot of people starting their own small businesses, a glance at the past can offer just the spark that’s needed. Your old MBA essay, filed away in a drawer of things you never want to bother with again, could just provide you with that insight.
Paul Bryant is a part-time freelance writer with a strong interest in small business. His writing covers topics related to business education and early business strategies.
