Applicants to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School must provide two written essays of no more than 500 words each. The school’s first essay question requests several common elements of a traditional personal statement—career goals, why our school—plus a less common Plan B option. For the second required essay, candidates are asked to discuss a situation in which they helped create a positive impact for another person, group, or organization and to explain how the experience has influenced their view of what makes a responsible leader. Applicants with more to share about themselves or issues to explain can use the school’s optional essay to (briefly) offer this key information. Read on for our in-depth analysis of Kenan-Flagler’s 2024–2025 essay questions.
UNC Kenan-Flagler 2024–2025 Essay Tips
Essay 1 is required. Your response should be no longer than 500 words and should address the following questions:
– What are your immediate career goals and how will you benefit from earning an MBA at Kenan-Flagler Business School?
– As the business world continues to evolve, circumstances can change and guide you in a different direction. Should your goals that you provided above not transpire, what other opportunities would you explore?
Kenan-Flagler’s career-related essay focuses strictly on applicants’ initial post-MBA job. Business schools know only too well that students regularly change their long-term professional plans after being exposed through the MBA experience to new people, information, and options and after learning new skills and ways of looking at the world and themselves. Given that reality, asking about candidates’ long-term goals can in some ways be a waste of time, if an admissions committee is not simply doing so to see evidence that the applicant has put serious thought into their plan for attending business school. With the first part of this prompt, Kenan-Flagler wants to know that you have thoroughly considered this next step in your career and are pursuing an MBA for very clear, specific reasons—not because you feel you are supposed to or because you are following in a parent’s footsteps, and definitely not because you do not know what else to do at this juncture in your life! (Believe it or not, these are all actual reasons some people choose to earn the degree.) Kenan-Flagler, like all top programs, wants engaged, driven, and focused individuals who are ready to be an active part of its MBA experience and to do big things with the knowledge and skills they acquire from it. Although the school does not ask you to lay out your background and explain how you reached this choice, providing some basic context for your goal is a good idea (just be succinct!) to ensure that the admissions committee understands that your plans are reasonable and fitting for you.
The school is also looking for a brief explanation of “Why Kenan-Flagler?” The admissions committee wants evidence that you have researched its MBA program thoroughly enough to have pinpointed resources and offerings that directly align with your particular interests and needs. This is the part of our essay analysis where we once again urge you to get to know a school well beyond its website and published materials. If at all possible, visit the campus or sit in on a class in person right now (or at least do so online), and connect with students and alumni, read recent press releases and student blogs, and peruse the Kenan-Flagler YouTube channel. Identify clubs, events, courses, initiatives, and other opportunities that resonate with you and relate to who you want to be by the time you graduate and going forward in your career. Ideally, Kenan-Flagler offers one or more specific resources or experiences that you believe are vital in achieving your goals and are not available elsewhere. When you include this information in your essay, do not simply provide a list but instead explain how you will engage with these elements of the MBA program and what you expect to gain from them.
With career goals essays, candidates often feel they must be totally unequivocal in their stated aspirations, but with the second part of this essay prompt, Kenan-Flagler is giving applicants room to speculate on and discuss other options. The admissions committee knows that sometimes the best-laid plans do not play out as expected or might even yield unintended results, and the school wants to know not only that you are prepared to switch gears and recommit to a different path, if necessary, but also that you are fully capable of doing so. The key is to show that your alternate goal is just as connected to your skills, interests, and ambitions as your original plan and does not come “out of left field,” so to speak. For example, you would probably have a difficult time convincing the admissions committee that your short-term goal is to work in technology consulting while your alternate goal would be to work in human resources, because these industries, for the most part, require entirely different skills and personalities. Just be mindful that both goals you present must be plausible and achievable.
Overall, this essay encompasses a few core elements of a traditional personal statement essay, so we encourage you to download our free mbaMission Personal Statement Guide for more in-depth guidance. This complimentary publication offers detailed advice on approaching and framing these subjects, along with multiple illustrative examples.
Essay 2 is required. Your response should be no longer than 500 words and should address the following question:
Reflect on a project or initiative you were involved in that had a significant positive impact on a community, organization, or individual. How did this experience shape your sense of responsibility as a future leader dedicated to making a difference in the world?
Although Kenan Flagler asks you to explain how the experience you discuss in this essay has influenced the kind of responsible leader you intend to be in the future, take note that you do not have to have served as the leader in the story you are sharing. This—and the fact that you can draw your story from any area of your life (professional, personal, community/volunteer)—opens up your options quite a bit. Your core goal here is to describe a time when your actions resulted in a positive outcome for others and the result left a lasting mark on you as well.
You will obviously have to convey what the “positive impact” ultimately was, and on whom. And despite the limited word count, do your best to “show,” or really spell out, how things unfolded—rather than just stating the outcome or flatly presenting the situation—to give the admissions reader perspective on how you conduct yourself and achieve. The admissions committee wants to understand that the decisions you made (or were involved in making) and the actions you took clearly paid off and that an organization, individual, or group subsequently experienced an improvement of some kind. And because past behavior is generally believed to be a reliable indicator of future behavior, by explaining your specific role in the situation, you show the admissions committee not only some of the skills you possess but also how you apply them.
As part of your discussion of what you took away from the experience with respect to how you anticipate conducting yourself as a leader in the future, be sure to touch on why you believe making a positive difference for others matters. This will provide the admissions reader with some insight into your values as well as your capabilities and could help you stand out. Kenan-Flagler wants individuals who intend to use their knowledge and talents to achieve good things not just for themselves but also for the communities they belong to, and ideally, to the world. So show the admissions committee you are just this kind of candidate.
Essay 3 is optional. We encourage you to tell us more about who you are so we can get to know you as a person and potential member of the Carolina community. Use this essay to convey information that you may not have otherwise been able to in the application. Your response should be no longer than 200 words.
Optional topics:
– Personal or professional accomplishments
– Interests and passions
– Gaps in work experience or inconsistent academic performance
– Context for recommender selection
– A fun fact about yourself
Kenan-Flagler’s optional essay prompt swings the door wide open (or as wide as 200 words will allow, that is) for applicants to discuss pretty much anything they feel strongly that the admissions committee needs to know about them. In general, we tend to believe that the best use of the optional essay is to explain confusing or problematic issues in your candidacy, and this prompt obviously offers an opportunity to do that. So, if you need to, this is your chance to address any questions an admissions officer might have about your profile—a poor grade or overall GPA, a low GMAT or GRE score, a disciplinary issue, etc. In our free mbaMission Optional Essays Guide, we offer detailed advice on how best to take advantage of the optional essay, with multiple examples, to help you mitigate any problem areas in your application.
However, Kenan-Flagler does not stipulate that you can only discuss a problem area in this essay and even offers some lighthearted suggestions in its “optional topics” list. So this is where you can technically share anything you feel the admissions committee must be aware of to fully understand you as a candidate and evaluate you effectively. We caution you against trying to fill this space simply because you fear that not doing so would somehow count against you, though. (It will not, and remember, whenever you submit an additional essay, you are asking the admissions committee to do extra work on your behalf, so make sure that time is warranted!) If you ultimately decide to write an optional essay, avoid being overly verbose or needlessly creative. Simply craft a brief submission that reveals this illuminating new aspect of your candidacy.
Re-Applicant Essay:
If you are re-applying to the program, we appreciate your continued interest in UNC Kenan-Flagler. We require a complete application, with new essay responses, recommenders and an updated resume. … In addition, we ask for a brief essay (100 words or less) that describes how your application differs from your previous submission and that alerts us to new test scores, a recent promotion, or other areas that demonstrate how you have strengthened your candidacy.
Whether you have improved your academic record, received a promotion, begun a new and exciting project, increased your community involvement, or taken on some sort of personal challenge, the key to success with this essay is conveying a very deliberate path of achievement. Kenan-Flagler wants to know that you have been actively striving to improve yourself and your profile, and that you have seized opportunities during the previous year to do so, because an MBA from its program is important to you. The responses to this essay question will vary greatly from one candidate to the next, because each person’s needs and experiences differ. We are more than happy to provide one-on-one assistance with this highly personal essay to ensure that your efforts over the past year are presented in the best light possible.
