London Business School Application Essay Tips, 2024-2025
According to London Business School (LBS), what makes its program so unique and valuable is its continued business impact, global growth, and world-class people. LBS is particularly proud of its multinational students who hail from a variety of professional and personal backgrounds. The school’s application has just one mandatory essay and one optional essay. On the one hand, this is good, because you do not have to write an overly long submission or respond to multiple queries, but on the other hand, you might feel extra stress at the prospect of having only “one shot” with which to impress the admissions committee. Hopefully, our tips can help relieve that pressure a bit and get you ready to compose a great LBS essay (or two!).
Question 1: What are your post-MBA goals and how will your prior experience and the London Business School programme contribute towards these? (500 words)
With this prompt, LBS wants to know that you have given careful thought to your career path, that you understand what the program has to offer with respect to your particular career objectives, and that you believe the skills and experiences you will gain there will help you achieve your goals. When you break it down, the prompt is asking for three basic things: (1) what you hope to be doing professionally after you graduate, (2) how what you have done in the past will help you succeed in your target role/industry, and (3) what LBS can provide to assist and support you. Ideally, this essay will complement the information in your resume and recommendations and tell a more comprehensive story about where you have been and where you want to go in the future.
Be as specific as possible about what you would like to do. Explain why you believe these goals are particularly right for you. Why is this the path you have chosen to take? To explain how you will get there, focus on identifying and sharing the skills and experiences you have developed so far and which ones you need to gain at each step along the way (e.g., at LBS, in an internship, in your first post-MBA job).
The other important message to convey is how LBS fits into your plans to reach your goals. Do your research on the school to figure out which specific classes, events, clubs, faculty members, community attributes, job search resources, and/or other offerings are relevant to your ambitions, and clearly spell out how they will help you. With LBS, you should always think about the international component, too, with respect to the school’s London location, its globally diverse student body and faculty, and the opportunities it offers to study at roughly 30 business school partners around the world. If this is key to your goals in some way, you definitely want to address it in your essay.
Question 2 (Optional): Is there any other information you believe the Admissions Committee should know about you and your application to London Business School? (500 words)
We typically advise applicants to use the optional essay somewhat sparingly, reserving it primarily for explaining or clarifying any problem areas in their profile (e.g., a gap in work experience or education, a low GPA or test score, a disciplinary problem), and of course, if you have such an issue, this is where you should address it. But in this case, the LBS admissions committee gives you only the one required essay with which to express yourself, and its scope is pretty limited, so this essay offers a good opportunity to highlight something else that is particularly important or interesting about yourself. In other words, if you feel you have something big to say, use this optional essay to say it!
In Stratus Admissions’ How to Get into London Business School, you will find information on a variety of the MBA program’s offerings, such as the LBS Social Impact Club, Social Impact Week, and the Leadership Launch program.