Rotman MBA Sample Essays from Past Clients: 1
Essay: Our admitted students stand out by doing interesting things with their personal and professional lives — something we describe as the ‘spike factor’; what are the things that you have done in your life that demonstrate Passion/ Grit/ Resilience/ Innovation/ Drive/ Ambition and more? This can cross all or any aspects of life outside of work – hobbies, volunteerism, awards, entrepreneurial ventures, sports and the arts. We believe that exposure to a rich diversity of viewpoints makes for a superior learning experience, and pride ourselves on building a diverse class of exceptional individuals who will go on to make the School proud as professionals and alumni.
Explain your spike factor (something unique about yourself) that you believe will contribute to the Rotman community and is aligned with Rotman values. (up to 500 words)* Optional – Please upload 1-3 of your ‘spikiest’ pictures to the supplemental items section of your application here. Note: Your photos must be uploaded as a single PDF.
Required video interview (2 questions) with a new timed written response component (10 minutes in length). Check out our blog posts for more details on the video essay and the timed written component.
Rotman’s values are integrity and respect means that leaders have the courage and integrity to create a fair and inclusive work environment where all individuals are respected irrespective of their cultural background.
I am a gaming enthusiast.
I have a rating of 1896 on lichess.org, and I compete in international tournaments for DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike games, where I have won multiple online competitions.
As a clan leader in an online gaming community, I lead a diverse group of gamers from various ethnicities, including Malaysia, Philippines, Nepal, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand. In the digital gaming world, sitting behind a screen and anonymously sledding or cyberbullying is relatively common.
As a clan leader, it is my responsibility that my team feels included and respected to play with each other. One day, two of our clan members fought and abused each other based on their country of origin and ethnicity. Ultimately it was my responsibility to keep my clan together and resolve any internal issues. I decided to talk to both individuals separately and explain the importance of being in a supportive team and what behaviors are unacceptable; no matter how good of a gamer you are, you will be kicked out. I also set up some community guidelines for the clan to follow to prevent similar incidents in the future. Both individuals understood their inappropriate behavior and chose to let the incident go. They played well together, and our team placed third in the tournament.
I also carry the same ethos in my professional work atmosphere, where I take a stand to ensure everyone feels included and respected.
To quote an instance where I took a stand was when I was leading a team of six people. One of the team members – “Basavaraj”, was very religious and spiritual, and his different appearance and manner of speaking often made him stand out from the crowd. Others made casual fun of his personality, but one day I noticed he felt uncomfortable, and he approached me with a request to leave the team because of the reactions and behaviors of some members. I personally made an effort to understand his perspective. I also took up the issue with other team members and unequivocally addressed that any instances of discrimination or bias won’t be tolerated. As a result of my actions, I am glad Basavaraj decided to stay. With time, he felt more comfortable, and within 6 Months, he was one of the best-performing team members. Cherry on top-our project at that time was released to customers with great acclaim, and my team and I received the ‘Juggernaut’ award for the project results.
These experiences have taught me that sometimes a leader’s responsibility goes far beyond just delivering work and results and expands into creating an inclusive environment where all individuals can thrive. Embracing these values has helped me become a better leader, and I look forward to bringing this ethos to the positive and respectful Rotman community.
Rotman MBA Sample Essays from Past Clients - 2
Rotman MBA Essay 1: Explain your spike factor (something unique about yourself) that you believe will contribute to the Rotman community and is aligned with Rotman values. (up to 500 words)* Optional – Please upload 1-3 of your ‘spikiest’ pictures to the supplemental items section of your application here. Note: Your photos must be uploaded as a single PDF.
As someone who was unlucky to be born with facial palsy – a condition that affects facial movements, vision and hearing ability, lived a life full of struggles just to fit in with the normal kids; the spike factor that is aligned with Rotman values is openness to different perspectives and diverging opinions and i think i can teach my peers how to be open to different perspectives and promote diversity and inclusion for those belonging to communities groups like physically disabled people.
Growing up, I was unable to independently perform simple daily tasks such as brushing teeth, speaking fluently and indulging in pursuits that most children take for granted. Consequently, I was recommended to attend a “special school” as I was seemingly different from all the other kids. I decided to act against this proposition and not let my physical disability define me as a person.
Thus began my journey and thereafter I joined reading and speaking clubs to overcome my physical disability and limitations. I stopped living up to others expectations; explored my right to life, education; volunteered to help other physically disabled people. Defeating all odds, I even joined the National Cadet Corps that is considered as the toughest physical training-regimen and graduated as class-valedictorian.
I attended college with normal kids and pursued Computer Science engineering. During undergrad, I along with 25 other students decided to adopt a nearby village. I took charge of the education department and mentored 20+ disabled kids to learn and educate themselves while overcoming their disabilities. This project helped shape my life’s mission to be a strong proponent of inclusivity.
I graduated as an engineer but decided to pursue a career in finance. I appeared for one of the toughest probationary officer exams in India and cleared it in my first attempt. In Spite of having tremendous performance in SBI, I had to struggle to get equally challenging assignments and leadership roles as other physically able people. Even after receiving good recommendations, I was asked to give an undertaking that I will be liable if I am not able to perform at the same bar as other physically able people.I took the risk on my own career, gave the underwriting and accepted challenging roles.
Suffering from multiple disabilities, I have had to deal with everyday tasks leveraging innovative approaches.But innovative thinking didn’t provide a solution for all my problems. My staff, my customers and even my own team sometimes doubted my capabilities just because of my disability. I outworked all my teammates to earn their respect as well and slowly built a reputation. This allowed me to then take on more challenging projects.These projects have helped me in getting a first-hand view into executing marketing strategies, understanding fundamentals of credit, handling negotiations and building teams and leading them to deliver ground-breaking projects. My efforts were recognized by the DMD of SBI and I was designated as Youth Icon for my contribution and received two promotions. Being a strong proponent of the right to education, I also started a platform – that helps people to invest in themselves.
I think that the biggest challenge we face today is to create a place that is inclusive of differently abled people, different perspectives and backgrounds. As a person with multiple disabilities, I have personally faced biases and that’s why I pay special attention to removing such biases from my actions. Through my own experience, I am deeply motivated to create an environment that understands the value of diversity and inclusivity and work towards uplifting each other. Having a disability is definitely difficult, but it is also one of the richest learning-curves a human can experience. During my time at Rotman, I wish to help my fellow batchmates in overcoming adversity.
Rotman MBA Sample Essays from Past Clients: 3
Rotman Essay 1: Please upload 1-3 of your ‘spikiest’ pictures and use the essay to tell us why you have chosen these particular images to illustrate your ‘spike factor’ (use up to 1000 words).
I am a corporate lawyer with seven years of professional exp and currently working with Deloitte. At Deloitte, I independently handle the Public Sector Industry projects as a part of Deloitte India corporate legal team. After undergraduation, I have crafted a successful career for myself while working with some of the biggest MNC’s and international clients. But things were not always like this, there was a point in time when being independent was a far fetched dream.
When I was eight years old, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which rendered me bedridden and with limited movement for six years. Back in the day, the only known cure for my condition was regular penicillin injections which was an excruciating and painful procedure, to say the least.
In these six years, I was bedridden for the most part and could barely make any friends or enjoy any of the childhood pleasure. The only pleasure I had to indulge myself in was watching television. Given my lack of social life and inability to participate in physical activities, I developed a deep love for movies and television. Watching movies was the only pass time I had, I would often mimic dialogues, lip sync songs and hoped that one day I would get out of my state and be able to do these things in theatre. This was the beginning of my dream and passion for doing theatre one day.
At the age of 14 years, my condition improved and I started a new chapter of my life. I moved to a new city for my bachelor’s degree, and the first thing I did was to join the theatre club on my campus. The first picture I have is of my crew and I performing my first stage appearance in front of our college crowd. That performance was the accumulation of many dreams fulfilled and my first spikiest moment in life. I remember vividly how nervous I was for that performance and how it felt to be appreciated and cheered upon. From that day onwards I never looked back, the appreciation fueled me, and over the next four years I took part in more in 20 events, performed in full-fledged plays in front of crowds of 1000s of people and travelled across the country for various performances. These public performances gave me the confidence to face the crowd and developed skills such as public speaking, improvisation and people management which I could never experience during my early childhood.
My second picture is a collage of all my enjoyable and cherishable moments accumulated while travelling more than ten countries. In today’s globe tottering generation of millennials, travelling may not be the spikiest thing to do and highlight, but for me, it used to be a distant dream. Summer and winter vacations are a kids paradise, and that’s all they look forward to every year. All my friends went travelling with their families, came back and shared their adventures year after year. But, I was one of those unfortunate bedridden kids who dreaded vacations and desperately waited for them to get over so that my friends would come back. I hated the feeling of being alone during vacations and also my family was not able to go anywhere due to my regular treatment needs. But now I am cured and earning independently, I have made it a point to catch up on all those memories which I couldn’t form during my childhood or the moment my family sacrificed to stay with me. Since getting a Job in 2011, I have been to some of the most exotic places in the world like Bali, Thailand, Turks and Caicos, Jamaica, Hawaii, Iceland, Norway, Rome, Paris and Philippines.
So yes, travelling is more than just being a spike factor for me. Theatre and travelling both are more about giving myself the confidence to achieve my dreams and prove that nothing is out of bounds if you have the motivation to work towards it with sheer dedication and passion. This brings me to my third picture which is about giving back to society and where I share my journey with similar unfortunate kids to give them the motivation I had.
I regularly volunteer with NGO’s, and social work experiences have changed my whole perspective. Overtime, I realized that teaching was a very small part of my social work initiatives. The most beautiful thing about all teaching in NGO in my early years was that I changed. I began to care – really care about them because I can connect to their feelings. Before getting cured, all I cared was about myself and used to ask stupid questions as – will I fit in society? Will I be able to lead a life like normal kids? But with these kids, I forget about me and care for them overtakes my sensations. Since I have been through the hardship, I can connect with them. I know getting a good education is only a way out of the hardships of life. I have always used my story to motivate them. I believe teaching them Science or English is important but what’s more important is to inspire and motivate these kids to chase their dreams.
In Summary, these three pictures represents the most significant aspects my dreams and my life in a nutshell. It hasn’t been easy so far, but after all these experience I have never been afraid to dream bigger and better. Now I aspire to learn from the best institutes like Rotman and become a business leader who can not only lead but also inspire others to dream big in life. I can bring not only diverse and spiky experiences to class, but also a true story of grit and motivation to share with my peers.
Rotman MBA Sample Essays from Past Clients: 4
Rotman Essay 1: Please upload 1-3 of your ‘spikiest’ pictures to the supplemental items section of your application here and use the space below to tell us why you have chosen these particular images to illustrate your ‘spike factor’. (up to 1000 words)
There are three aspects of my early childhood life that have left an indelible mark on my life and defined the critical personality traits which have helped me craft a successful career for myself. First is my father’s public-sector job of a civil engineer as a government of India employee. He usually has regular job transfers every 2-3 years, and due to the transferable nature of my father’s job, I grew up in 6 different economically backwards cities spread across the breadth of India. I had to change schools every 2-3 years, made new friends and learned different languages. Second, everyone in my family is an engineer, so I genetically acquired an inquisitive mind which pushed me towards engineering as well. Although early on, my inquisitive mind ensured that I created more problems than I solved but over time I developed problem-solving skills as well, which coupled with my cultural adaptability and language skills made me a perfect fit for consulting world.
After my undergraduate, I joined ZS associates where I have successfully led and contributed to multiple projects. I have worked with various global teams on aspects of sales and marketing for large pharmaceutical companies and acquired significant client facing experience.
I worked on the development of a BI report catering to the analytical requirement for over 300 field sales representatives. The report enabled the users to gain strategic insights from their sales and marketing data, which helped improve their efficiency and increased sales. The project received multiple accolades from the client, an award for my team and myself, which brings to my first picture with my project champions award that I received at my organisation level for driving excellent client service. This is the first picture, which I believe was in recognition of the innovative and out of the box thinking I employed to derive insights for the data analysis. This award not only recognised my skills but also help me fetch my first promotion within the organisation. It was the first award that I received in my professional career and brought me the confidence that I can achieve even higher accolades, and therefore this award and picture are special to me.
My second picture is about an activity which I feel deeply passionate about and love to do whenever I get any free time, i.e. “Baking”. In this picture, I am baking one of my favourite chocolate cake and cookies, on a random Sunday for my friends and family. Being a complete foodie, I not only like eating different kinds of cuisines but also have a knack for cooking. My mom and her cooking were the inspiration that fueled my interest in cooking, and I started experimenting with different stuff in her kitchen. My uncontrollable desire for sweet and baked goods, compelled me to attempt baking and that’ when I found my passion and a new hobby.
I mostly bake over the weekend where it acts as a retreat from my hectic weekday. Baking not only helps me relax and disconnect from the work week but also teaches me some valuable life lessons. It shows me that little mistakes will blow over, you can accidentally add a little extra flour in the cake mixture which can potentially spoil the cake, but you learn a good lesson for the next time and improve your recipe. Similarly, in life sometimes we tend to beat ourselves up over little things, or little things that we don’t have the power to change, but we should always learn from them and aspire to get better at them. The second important thing I learn from baking is that things do get messy, but if you are patient enough the results are worth the wait, and there is always a sweet reward at the end for all my hard work. It gives me immense pleasure in seeing the smile and happiness, on the faces of my friends and family when they eat my cakes. It reignites my passion for baking and motivates me to help others so that I can bring in joy in their lives as well.
I believe, I have been very fortunate in life and had a comfortable life. My early upbringing in economically backward cities across India left an imprint on my mind which continually reminds me that not everyone is similarly fortunate. This is the third aspect of my early childhood that defines me and the third picture of my story. These experiences motivated me to step-up an NGO named “Gyankunj”, where my team and I help the low-income families in bridging the gap in their kid’s education. So far, we have raised more than INR 300,000 through crowdfunding and received a corporate social responsibility award of INR 100,000 from BAIN India. We are utilising these funds to impart a practical-oriented education to underprivileged children and conducted individual sessions to train the kids beyond their regular coursework. One important thing I noticed during my early social work experiences is that these kids rarely have knowledge and access to appropriate real-life role models to look up to. To bridge this gap, we created a concept under which we bring in high profile speakers from positions in different fields like civil services, engineering, bankers, etc., to motivate the kids.
Working at Gyankunj brings in the sense of self-satisfaction from giving it back to the society. It also helps me develop a sense of responsibility, ownership and leadership qualities that I can even use in my professional growth. In fact, spending time at Gyankunj helps me be a better leader at work too. I believe that all my professional and personal journey along with my diverse experience across consulting, baking and social work have given me a lot of learnings about patients, teamwork and leadership which I can share both in-class and out of class with my peers. The sum total of which makes me a perfect fit for the Rotman MBA class.
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