Tips on How to Write ISB Essays 2023-2024 Intake (ISB PGP Essays Released in June 2023) [Specific Frameworks and Tactics Inside]

The Indian School of Business (ISB) essays for the 2023-2024 intake for ISB’s Post Graduate Programme (PGP) have just been released in June 2023.

This year, ISB has increased the number of essays while also experimenting with essay questions. There are 3 essays of which 2 are compulsory and 1 is optional.

If you are a reapplicant, then you have an additional essay, bringing the total essay count to 4 – 3 compulsory essays and 1 optional essay.

With a special emphasis on getting to know you as an individual, personally and professionally, ISB has designed its essay prompts to delve deeper into what makes you unique in terms of your experiences, values, and skills.

As ISB’s flagship program, PGP is a full-time, one-year residential program, admitting professionals with at least 2 years of work experience.

ISB PGP’s immersive learning experience and ISB’s international faculty are major reasons why it’s such a sought-after MBA program ranking in the top 40 business schools globally (ISB is also ranked the number one school in India, ahead of IIM-A, IIM-B, and IIM-C).

Essay Prompts for ISB Essays 2023-2024 Intake (Class of 2025)

ISB Essay 1 – Provide an honest portrayal of yourself, emphasizing your strengths and weaknesses. Highlight the key elements that have shaped your personal journey. Give relevant illustrations as needed. (400 words max)

ISB Essay 2 – Contemplate two distinct situations—one where you experienced success and another where you faced failure. Delve into the personal and interpersonal lessons you learned from these instances. (400 words max)

ISB Essay 3 – Given your previous experience and future aspirations, how do you plan to use the PGP at ISB to fulfill your professional goals?
Note: It is not necessary for you to write this essay. Please use this space only if there is something really significant that you would like us to know. (250 words max)

ISB Reapplicant Essay – Please use this space to explain significant improvements in your profile since your last application to the ISB PGP (200 words max)

Tips for Writing ISB Essay 1

ISB PGP Essay 1 

Provide an honest portrayal of yourself, emphasizing your strengths and weaknesses. Highlight the key elements that have shaped your personal journey. Give relevant illustrations as needed. (400 words max)

This essay demands you take a step back and look at yourself and your journey to date through a deeply introspective lens.

The AdCom really wants to know how well you understand yourself, your strengths, weaknesses, your goals, and the values driving you. And it wants you to show through specific experiences and challenges how you have grown as an individual.

Start by reflecting on your journey so far, especially the highs and lows, be it experiences, achievements, and challenges that have shaped you. List them out.

Next, list out all your strengths and weaknesses that have or continue to influence your personal growth.

After this initial reflection and brainstorming session, you’ll have a long list of experiences, strengths, and weaknesses. Now, you can start zooming in on a few of the specific elements to sketch out your narrative.

Start by choosing 1-2 key strengths along with specific anecdotes to demonstrate how you have used these strengths to solve difficult challenges or help others.

For instance, let’s say you consider your communication skills one of your key strengths, you could talk about the time you used your communication skills to resolve a conflict or build a relationship.

Next, choose 1-2 weaknesses you believe have impacted your growth and how you are working on improving them.

Weaknesses, unlike your strengths, can be a tricky zone. Remember to choose weaknesses relevant to your growth as a future business leader.

For instance, if you were to talk about something like struggling with poor presentation skills and how you are working to improve your presentation skills, then that’s an example of a good weakness to highlight in your MBA application.

For more tips on how to identify your weaknesses, check out this detailed post on the weaknesses that pass the litmus test during your MBA interviews as well – What’s your greatest weakness?

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Finally, zoom in on 1-2 key elements – experiences or events – that have helped you grow. These could include achievements, challenges, relationships, or transformative moments. Use anecdotes to illustrate how these key elements have influenced your personal journey.

Pro Tips

• To brainstorm and identify your strengths, ask yourself questions such as, “What am I good at?”, “What are the achievements I am most proud of?”. Doing so will help you narrow down both your strengths and specific anecdotes to support them.

• While brainstorming your weaknesses, think about the times you have failed, the reasons for failing, and how you are working on those improvement areas. Choose weaknesses that can impact your growth as a capable business leader. You must be authentic when writing about your weaknesses while showing through the right examples your willingness to overcome them.

• Remember to always connect your strengths, weaknesses, and key elements from your personal journey to your future goals and aspirations, at ISB and beyond.

Tips for Writing ISB Essay 2

ISB PGP Essay 2 

Contemplate two distinct situations—one where you experienced success and another where you faced failure. Delve into the personal and interpersonal lessons you learned from these instances. (400 words max)

Another refreshingly different essay that requires you to talk not just about your successes but also your failures. This is the first time ISB has explicitly asked about failed experiences.

Just like in the previous essay, you must be careful about choosing the right stories to include.

Start by identifying two distinct situations, one where you were successful and another, where you failed. 

For both success and failure, explain in detail the context, the roles you played, and the actions you took for each situation

For the success story, talk about your actions that led to a positive outcome, whereas for the failure story, talk about the actions that resulted in a negative outcome.

To conclude your success story, share your key takeaways from the experience. Specify the skills and strengths you gained along with important interpersonal skills that helped you succeed.

And to conclude your failure story, share the personal lessons you learned from the experience. These could range from the mistakes you made, the areas for improvement, or crucial insights you learned about yourself.

Highlight the interpersonal lessons you learned as well such as improving your ability to adapt or to seek timely support, and how these could have influenced the situation’s outcome.

Finally, sum up the personal and interpersonal lessons learned from both situations and how they have shaped your behavior and mindset.

Pro Tips

When it comes to writing this essay, use the START framework

START which stands for Situation, Task, Actions, Results, and Takeaways can help you elaborate on each achievement by

• explaining the context,
• highlighting the challenges,
• illuminating the specific role you played,
• outlining the actions you took,
• emphasizing the results you’d achieved, and
• your key takeaways or learnings from your experiences.

Tips for Writing ISB Essay 3

ISB PGP Essay 3 

Given your previous experience and future aspirations, how do you plan to use the PGP at ISB to fulfill your professional goals?
Note: It is not necessary for you to write this essay. Please use this space only if there is something really significant that you would like us to know. (250 words max)

Though ISB has tagged this essay as optional, I would highly advise you to write this essay. Goals essays are always important. 

You must include both your short-term and long-term goals, though ISB has not explicitly asked for these.

Now to write this essay, start by indicating the strengths and skills you’ve gained in your career so far and also, include your motivation behind taking up specific roles.

Next, talk about the opportunities that you want to pursue.

Then specify your post-MBA goals – this will help you establish a logical connection between your current profile and your future role.

Here’s a quick framework to help you think more clearly about approaching your post-MBA goals essay, easily the toughest essay to write –

Here you can take two approaches –

1. Specify your short-term goals and then outline your long-term goals. Or,
2. Talk about your long-term goals first and then mention your short-term goals.

Furthermore, make sure you highlight the weaknesses or limitations that you need to overcome to transition to your post-MBA goals, connecting those with the resources (such as courses, clubs, faculty, alumni network, and so on) at ISB.

This way you are clearly articulating to ISB why you want to do an MBA and why ISB and its resources are crucial to help you achieve your goals.

Specificity Rules

Take note: It’s important to be as specific about your post-MBA goals, especially your short-term goal.

Consider the following examples of post-MBA goals that can be construed as vague:

 “I want to be part of corporate strategy.”

 “I want to join management consulting.”

Now, most MBA applicants want to get into consulting or strategy roles because that’s what business schools are well-known for.

However, when you state your goals without elaborating on why you chose those as your post-MBA goals. The Admissions Committee is unable to clearly understand why you want to be in corporate strategy or management consulting.

An example of an effective goals statement would look something like this. (Assuming you have a background in healthcare or a related industry).

I aim to join as a strategy consultant with a leading management consulting firm like McKinsey or BCG, focusing on the healthcare sector, and help them set up operations in North India.

Tips for Writing ISB’s Reapplicant Essay

ISB PGP Reapplicant Essay

Please use this space to explain significant improvements in your profile since your last application to the ISB PGP (200 words max).

This is the place where you talk about the steps you have taken to improve your profile such as getting a higher score in your GMAT or GRE, taking up bigger responsibilities at work, contributing to a social cause, working on a side project, and more.

Again, it’s important to talk about the impact that you’ve created and how you have evolved, personally, professionally, or both, since you last applied to ISB.

ISB Application Deadlines

Application Phase	Deadline for Round 1*
PGP Application Submission	10 September 2023
Interviews	September – November 2023
Results	To Be Announced (TBA)

*Round 2 timelines are yet to be released.

Round 1 or Round 2

ISB explicitly mentions that “applying in any round does not impact your chances of securing an admission offer”.

Need help with your ISB Essays 2023-2024?

Struggling to write powerful yet succinct essays?

Finding it difficult to know which stories to include?

Unsure about your post-MBA goals?

To make it to ISB is no mean task. You have built a strong career and worked hard to get a good GMAT score.

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