[转帖]MBA申请系列范文选(Essay,R/L...)

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ZT from tol24.com

Essay01
What arguments would you use to demonstrate your ability to perform well in the MBA program?

I am a fast learner. A student of the Mainland University, I was not trained in business. But when I wanted to do business, I quickly learned the art of identifying a niche market and developing a strategy to seize it. I did not have much knowledge of computer science when I went into the computer software business, but I made myself something of a computer expert so fast that I was soon able to come up with the principal ideas for the development of software systems. These systems catered to a very specific market.

I am an experienced businessman. I have set up and run my own company, which has been very successful. In this experience, I have many success stories that I can be proud of. There are also lessons that I have learned very well. I am prepared to share these experiences with my classmates. I am sure that the lectures and textbooks will make more sense to someone who can measure them against his personal business experience, particularly if that experience has been significant.

I am a good communicator. I talk smoothly in any situation, particularly in small group settings. These skills have enabled me to keep together a diverse group of people working for my company. I am sure that such skills will help me in my communications with both the faculty and fellow students.

ireneyuz

many thanks!

celinapple

thanks for sharing!

sunjack

thanks a lot!

lttlecat

good job!

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Essay28
If you are in charge of the company you work for now, what strategic changes would you make to give your company a competitive edge?

I really enjoy my current job, particularly the fact it is challenging. I am exporter vis-a-vis the Chinese market, but in South Africa, I am in fact an importer. This dual role notwithstanding, I have to conduct careful market research, tough negotiations and be always on the lookout for more and better business opportunities. The demanding nature of the job means that I must muster all my intellectual resources in order to do the job well. This has forced me to improve both my professional expertise and my strength of my personality constantly.

I also enjoy the career opportunities that the job has brought me in the last two to three years. As I said, very few of my former classmates have moved so far or so far up the corporate ladder as I have in the last two to three years. This has brought me not only handsome monetary compensation but also professional respect from my friends and confidence in myself.

It used to be hard to say what I disliked about my job, but this has changed recently with the deepening Asian financial crisis. With the drastic devaluation of most Asian currencies and the Chinese government's determination to uphold the value of China's currency, Chinese products are getting increasingly expensive in foreign markets, particularly those emerging markets, including in South Africa. By now, we have lost all pricing advantage we ever had, which has made it increasing difficult for us to do business abroad. The dire situation has aggravated the already intense competition among Chinese exporters, who are racing to beat each other's offer of prices. This state of affairs simply cannot be allowed to continues for long, or we may lose significant amounts of money.

If I were promoted to the top management of the company, I would make a strategic change to our business. I do not want to abandon the South African or other African markets, and the market share we occupy will be needed in the future, say, after the Asian financial crisis comes to an end or China is forced to devalue its currency. No big company with long-term plans should pull out of the market and simply give up its market share to its competitors. But meanwhile, the company has to be doing commercially viable business to survive, or it will make no sense to talk about the future. So, every effort must be made to ensure that our loss of pricing advantages can be compensated for by better services and more value-added technologies.

But more importantly, we must shift the focus of our business if we want to be certain that we can ride out the financial crisis. For now, instead of exporting Chinese products for consumption in South Africa, we can import South African products, particularly raw materials and wine, which can now be bought at almost unprecedented bargain prices, thanks, again, to the financial crisis that has swept into Africa.

This will be good for China as a whole, too. One way or another, China's economic takeoff will have to happen. The country will need raw materials on a massive scale as it pursues a host of gargantuan infrastructure projects. The Asian financial crisis surely has given China headaches, but it should be taken to be nothing but a curse. China's imports are getting cheaper, which will help cut down the cost of its infrastructure projects and relieve the Central Government of some of its financial burdens.

When my company is engaged in both imports and exports, it will enjoy much more resiliency in the volatile marketplace. In fact, it will place the company in a position where it can hardly ever lose. That way, I will find my job much more gratifying and a whole lot less distressful.

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Essay27
You have the opportunity to invite three individuals who have ever lived to help you solve a problem. What problem would you solve? What role would each person, including yourself, play on the team? (1-2 pages)

I would like to help solve the education problems in China, as that has been my long held dream. Education needs people who are devoted to the progress of the society.

I would like to have Confucius who lived 2,000 years ago to help me to promote a higher moral standard of the general public. He was a great educator advocating human dignity, forgiveness, honesty, diligence and charity. Traditional Chinese ethics and culture to a large extent stem from Confucian teachings. A person who wishes to be properly treated when in a subordinate role must, according to the Confucian Golden Rule, treat his own inferiors with propriety. In the midst of the warfare and tyranny, he urged a system of morality and statecraft to bring about peace, stability, and just government. Today after the era of communism in China, our nation is in desperate need of new ethical standards to guide its people's behavior.

I would also invite Benjamin Franklin, the American statesman, scientist and writer to help me educate the educated. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence, which he signed. As a scientist, he proved the presence of electricity in lightning through his famous experiment with a kite in a thunderstorm. Today, many Chinese intellectuals lack the sense of social responsibility and they pursue their studies only to improve their personal life. Franklin would be a good example as an outstanding intellectual, who was devoted to the cause of freedom and the cause to understand the natural forces.

I would also ask for help from Kenan's family, who donated to the Kenan-Flagler School of Business. People like them have through their altruistic actions made education much more affordable and attainable. I will invite her or him to China and preach on contribution to education. If we believe one's value lies in one's contribution to society, then contribution to education renders the highest value to the contributor. In making such contributions, the contributor does not only maximize his contribution to the society but also sow the seeds of uplifted human beings, who can be inspired to pay back to the society that they feel indebted to.

As for myself, I will do something really special. In China, the government allows only one child in each family to receive public-financed education as one of the measures to reinforce Family-Planning Policy. While this policy is necessary to forestall a catastrophic population explosion in the world's most populated country, it is very unfair to those "extra children," who did not choose to come to this country. They are often deprived of equal rights to education, which usually means they will not have any opportunities whatsoever. Private schools in China only cater to kids in wealthy families and are prohibitively expensive. I will set up schools to take in only these disenfranchised children and provide them with quality education. I will make sure that my school instill in them good values and mold them into responsible and noble citizens.

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Essay25
What is your most important achievement and how has it changed you?


Born into an ordinary family in a small town in China, I, as a child, used to believe that whether one can be successful depends on one's luck. It never occurred to me that I could get anywhere or become somebody. Such is life, I thought. But I still studied hard in high school, thinking that it would not do any harm anyhow. My diligence proved rewarding, as I passed the mandatory university entrance examinations with such high scores that I was accepted into the Beijing University, described by Bill Clinton as "China's Harvard" on his recent trip to my home country. That was really a milestone in my life.

Once I entered into the Beijing University, I had a lot more confidence in myself and I began to believe that, as long as I tried hard enough, everything would be possible. With that kind of confidence, I graduated from the university as one of its top students, which won me a host of excellent job offers. Having taken up a job, I believed that I could have an outstanding career if I worked hard enough. With industry and tenacity, I have been quickly promoted up the corporate ladder. I am convinced that it is my intellectual caliber and hard work, not good luck, that ensures my continuous success in life.

It is with such confidence that I am now applying for acceptance into the Harvard business school, which no doubt has a reputation of selectivity and distinction. I know that most of Harvard's applicants make up the cream of their communities, but I also know that I will make no less a businessman than any of them.

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Essay26
What are the three most important accomplishments in your life?

The three most significant achievements in my life are: winning acceptance into the Beijing University, winning a job with Tigerta Group Corporation Ltd., and winning the position of general manager of Tigerta's South African chapter.

On the strength of the high scores that I obtained in 1990 in the National University Entrance Examinations, which are held every year to screen high school graduates for higher-learning, I got to enroll myself into the Beijing University, considered by most people as China's best institution of higher education. Five years at Beida, as it is known in Chinese, endowed me with extensive knowledge, broad perspectives, confidence in myself and a strong sense of mission and responsibility. I entered into Beida a naive small town teenager, but, five years later, I graduated a mature man.

One sign of my maturity was that I chose to work for Tigerta Group Corporation Ltd., based in the boomtown Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong. This went against the trend among university graduates in Beijing, most of whom prefer to stay in the nation's capital even today. But I wanted to join a good-sized company in a pioneering city. Shenzhen was an ideal place as it was the venue where most of China's reforms are first tested before they are dropped or adopted nationwide. Working for Tigerta, one of the country's top 300 companies, as its CEO's assistant, I learned first-hand how a modern Chinese is managed. By participating in the policy deliberations, I gradually developed my own thinking on management.

In 1996, I was sent to South Africa to be Tigerta's top gun in opening up that country's market, which was closed to Chinese businesses for decades as the Chinese government refused to deal with its former white government. In South Africa, I worked perforce independently, which forced me to keep learning and exploring. I had to come up with a solution to every problem, big or small, no matter what. The pressure was intense, but my entrepreneurial spirit was tempered. In South Africa, I got to improve my command of English by leaps and bounds, since it was my working language every day.
The hardship that necessarily accompanies expatriate businessmen did not deter me, but rather helped to steel my will and give me unprecedented will power.

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Essay24
Describe an experience in which you exercised leadership and made a difference in an organization.

As my company's top guy in South Africa since October 1995, I have secured a strong presence for my company in South Africa. To do this, I have streamlined our business, devised new incentive program for our employees, and cut back the cost.

Before I was made the manager, my company was trying to sell a wide range of Chinese products in South Africa, including commodities as different as foodstuff, china, clothing, and textiles. Seeking to do many things too fast, the company incurred huge costs but generated little profit. Upon careful analysis of the market situation, I determined that my company should concentrate on marketing textiles, for which we had relative advantages in terms of expertise and supplies. So, we pulled out of the markets of other products, where we had no special advantages in the fierce competition. With the benefit of scale in one product, we quickly achieved better efficiency.

With a new incentive program I developed, the company's sales people, its biggest asset in South Africa, worked harder and more productively. In my scheme, remuneration was strictly tied with one's performance. Each salesperson's income is made proportionate to his or her volume of sales. With this program, the company brought in more revenue and the sales people made more money for themselves.

Large sums of money were saved for the company because, with strict control of operational cost, I drastically cut down the company's overhead in South Africa. For this, I put in place a clear chain of authorities with respect to who can authorize what amount of spending for what purpose. That has worked very well. With the cost down and revenue up, the company's profits have soared.