Notre Dame Mendoza MBA Sample Essays

Notre Dame MBA Winning Sample Essays – 1

Notre Dame MBA Essay 1: Please share your short term professional goals. How does the Notre Dame Master of Business Administration help achieve your career goals?

I started my career as a mathematics teacher, and three years later, I co-founded my first ed-Tech venture – TestCracker. I scaled Testcracker to form a team of 25 within three years before making a successful exit.

Last year, I started my second venture as a co-founder of ConceptsEra. Post MBA, I want to continue working on my startup to grow ConceptsEra internationally.

I implemented all my learnings to kickstart ConceptsEra; however, I am facing issues scaling up my startup. Therefore, I believe that Mendoza’s innovation and Entrepreneurship trek and unique facilities will help me to achieve my goals.

Notre Dame MBA Essay 2: Tell us about a time, in your personal or professional experience, when you persevered and overcame obstacles or you had to start over and rebuild.

I have been a Teacher and Ed-tech entrepreneur for the last decade, and devoted my life to educating the next generations as well as those from underprivileged communities. I have written my own book on numbers and taught 1000’s of students till date. The journey to this realization wasn’t easy and came from a very personal frustrating, and depressing episode of my life. 

 My passion for providing quality education started because I learned the value of quality education the hard way. I grew up in a large joint family with limited financial means. My parents did the best for my education, and I was enrolled in a government-subsidized makeshift school. I did my best in academics and acquired a Bachelor in Mathematics and a Master in Economics from the best university our small town had to offer. 

After my Master’s, I relocated to India’s capital – “Delhi” to make myself financially independent by crafting a successful career path. My dreams shattered one by one. A small-town groomed individual did not meet the selection criteria of the companies that I aspired to work with. In my hometown, getting a master degree was an outstanding achievement, but in Delhi, it wasn’t even worth the paper it was printed on.

Being a Mathematics Graduate and not an Engineer felt like a cardinal sin in India. The education I had proved inadequate and lacked quality, and I got rejected by 142 firms. A period of financial and psychological stress found me desperately trying to find a career path. This is where a small Ed-Tech start-up founder, Byju Raveendran approached me with an offer to teach mathematics in his start-up. I was desperate to start my career somewhere, anywhere and even though the teaching job was not financially appealing or what I imagined my career to be, it was a start.

 I took a chance to rebuild myself in this new direction. On the one hand, while teaching students, I found my passion for teaching and mentoring students. I went on to write and publish a book of my own, “The Magical Book of Number System”, with the sole purpose of making students fall in love with numbers. On the other hand, Working for Byju’s I saw how start-ups scale up fast to provide education to millions. Today Byjus is valued at $16 Billion, and working first-hand with Mr Byjus was an enthralling experience. His vision and motivation sowed the seed of being an entrepreneur inside me. 

I left Byjus after 2.2 years, and since then, I have been a successful entrepreneur in my own regard. I started my first company and made a successful exit while I was only 25 years old. Today I am starting again, and this time with a much bigger vision and aspirations that could match what Byju “s have done for India in the ed-tech space. I will continue to ensure that the people we reach will not suffer the same fate as getting rejected by 142 companies.

Notre Dame MBA Optional Essay : Tell us about a time in your life, either personally or professionally, when you did not demonstrate servant leadership and describe how this experience informed your leadership style going forward.

Life in a low-income family had fashioned me to think that Life should be directed at amassing so much wealth that I would not have to contemplate every expense. When I landed a job, my goals were clear – work like there’s no tomorrow. My experience working as a product and business development manager with a top ed-tech company made me perceive business only to make profit rather than perceiving business holistically from the perspective of the people, society and profits.

After spending 2.2 years in Byjus’ classes, which is an ed-tech company, I started my company in the same domain. I implemented all my learning to make it profit-oriented, and I turned the company profitable within two months and achieved a turnover of $50,000 in a year.

I became profit oriented rather than creating an inclusive environment. My goal was to increase the revenue of my company rather than understanding my employee’s needs. My company started suffering from a very high attrition rate, and the growth of the company gradually became stagnant. My company was on the verge of collapse because I was not focused on fostering meaningful relationships, understanding people’s value and their contribution to the growth of my company. This event made me realize the value of servant leadership and its impact.

The event changed my approach towards business. Now my focus is more balanced in nature. I focus on making education affordable for all rather than  only growing the company in terms of revenue and valuation. I give more value to my company’s culture, organisational behavior and positive workplace. As an entrepreneur, I need to still make profits but I focus on balancing profits with the people aspect.