Attempting This Year’s LBS Essays: A Working Guide

LBS has not changed its prompts this season. It is three essays, with the same structure as last year. That is actually good news because the mistakes I see candidates make are pretty predictable, and most of them are avoidable.

London Business School Essay 1: Post MBA goals and why LBS

What are your post MBA goals and how will your prior experience and the London Business School programme contribute towards these?

The bottom line is simple. By the end of this London Business School essay, I should understand why you, why your goals, and why LBS all fit together.

One thing I tell almost everyone applying to European schools is that you need to show genuine interest in the school well before you submit the application. Attend an information session. Speak to students. Go to an admissions event if you can. The more familiar the school feels with you, the easier it becomes for the London Business School essay to feel like a continuation of that interest rather than something you wrote after spending two hours on the website.

Then use the LBS MBA essay to connect the dots. What are you trying to do after the MBA? What from your past has prepared you for it? And what exactly are you going to use at LBS to get there?

Be specific. If a professor’s work genuinely connects with what you want to do, mention it. If a particular club, course, regional trek or global experience is relevant, explain why. And do not forget London. The location is a pretty big part of the LBS experience, particularly if you are looking at a career that cuts across Europe, Africa or the Middle East.

Also spend some time thinking about what you will bring to the classroom. Maybe it is your experience in a particular market, your startup experience, your cultural background, or something you have spent years doing outside work. The school is also trying to understand what kind of person you will be in the cohort.

Why LBS over INSEAD?

This is where I see a lot of otherwise strong candidates get lazy.
LBS and INSEAD are different MBA experiences. If you are applying to both, you should be able to explain that difference in the context of your own goals.

INSEAD is very compressed and intense. You are moving quickly and the programme works particularly well for someone who already has a fairly clear idea of where they want to go.

LBS gives you more time and more room to explore. The different programme lengths and the summer between the two academic years can actually matter if you are someone who wants to test a career path, do an internship, explore entrepreneurship or take a deeper look at an industry before deciding what comes next.

So I would not write that LBS is “flexible” or “diverse.” Everyone applying knows that. Instead, ask yourself a much more useful question: what are you going to do with the additional time at LBS that you could not realistically do at INSEAD?
That answer is probably much closer to your real Why LBS.

London Business School Essay 2: What makes you unique

What makes you unique?

This is probably the LBS MBA essay where you have the most freedom, and candidates still somehow manage to turn it into another resume essay.

I would resist that.

The rest of your application already tells the school what you have achieved professionally. This is your opportunity to show them the person behind all of that.

Think about the things your closest friends or family would tell someone about you. The things you are known for. The things you do that have nothing to do with your job. Maybe you are the person who somehow ends up organizing every trip. Maybe you have a strange obsession with something. Maybe you have built a community around a hobby. Maybe there is something about your background that has shaped how you interact with people.

It does not have to sound impressive. It has to sound like you.
At 200 words, you do not have space to explain your entire personality. Pick one thing and let the reader actually see it.

The optional London Business School essay

Is there any other information you believe the Admissions Committee should know about you and your application to London Business School?

Treat this as optional.

If there is something in your application that needs explaining, this is where you do it. A weak grade, a career gap, an unusual recommender choice, a lower test score. Whatever it is, explain it clearly and take ownership of it. Do not spend 400 words making excuses.

If there is no obvious issue, you can still use the essay if you have something genuinely additive to share. Maybe there is an initiative, community involvement or personal pursuit that has not found a place elsewhere in the application.
But if you are simply looking for something to fill the box, leave it.

One Question Before You Submit

Read your Why LBS essay and replace “LBS” with INSEAD, IESE or another school.

If most of the London Business School essay still works, you have more work to do.
A good LBS essay should make it obvious that you have thought about the school beyond its ranking, location and employment report. More importantly, it should make sense for the person you are and the career you are trying to build.
That is usually where the real Why LBS comes from.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)