The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College is a world-renowned institution that has been educating leaders for more than a century. Founded in 1900, the school has been consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world. It is a private Ivy League college located in Hanover, New Hampshire.
If Dartmouth Tuck is your target business school then you really need to ace the essays to convince the MBA admissions committee of your candidacy. In this article, we have explained how to write the Dartmouth Tuck MBA essay for the 2023 intake.
Application Deadlines
| Application Round | Deadline | Decisions |
|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | September 25, 2023 | December 7, 2023 |
| Round 2 | January 4, 2024 | March 14, 2024 |
| Round 3 | March 25, 2023 | May 2, 2023 |
What is Dartmouth Tuck looking for?
Dartmouth Tuck is looking for candidates with four characteristics:
- Smart
- Accomplished
- Aware
- Encouraging
According to the Dartmouth Admissions Committee – Classes at Tuck are designed to be diverse, but all students have four things in common that are used to decide who to let in. Students at Tuck are smart, accomplished, aware, and encouraging. No two candidates are the same in every way, and you can show different strengths in different ways.
These 4 characteristics also serve as the bedrock for a great MBA essay to impress the Tuck admissions committee. So, make sure that you incorporate stories that to some extent highlight these 4 characteristics.
Let’s discuss all the Tuck MBA essay prompts in detail in the next section.
Dartmouth Tuck MBA essays for 2024 intake
Essay Question #1: “Why are you pursuing an MBA and why now? How will the distinct Tuck MBA contribute to achieving your career goals and aspirations?” (300 words)
Essay Question #2: “Tell us who you are. How have your values and experiences shaped your identity and character? How will your background contribute to the diverse Tuck culture and community?” (300 words)
Essay Question #3: “Describe a time you meaningfully contributed to someone else’s sense of inclusion in your professional or personal community.” (300 words)
Dartmouth Tuck MBA essay tips
As we mentioned earlier the presence of the 4 characteristics in your essay is vital for making a strong case for your candidacy for Tuck MBA. This is also resonated by Patricia Harrison who is the Co-Executive Director, Admissions and Financial Aid. She says, “as with every component of the application, each of the essays maps directly to our criteria: smart, accomplished, aware, and encouraging. Each essay prompt opens with a framing sentence that articulates the connection to the relevant criterion, followed by the essay question itself.”
She also talks about following a strict word limit of 300 words for each question. She adds, “You enter each essay into a text box field in the application, which means the 300-word count is a firm limit.”
Dartmouth Tuck MBA Essay 1
Why are you pursuing an MBA and why now? How will the distinct Tuck MBA contribute to achieving your career goals and aspirations?
Essay 1 Analysis
this Tuck MBA essay prompt is basically asking you about your career goals in a pretty direct way. They want to know what you’re aiming for professionally, why you think it’s the right time for you to pursue an MBA, and what makes Tuck the place you want to do it at. Patricia Harrison, the Director of Admissions, Evaluation & Yield, suggested dividing the essay in half – talk about why an MBA is a good fit for you in one part, and then in the other part, explain why Tuck is the perfect match for your MBA journey.
How to write this essay?
To write this essay follow this framework:
- Begin by explaining your transition from your current profession to pursuing an MBA.
- Articulate the reasons behind choosing an MBA, then transition into detailing your aspiration to pursue the Tuck MBA.
- Elaborate on how the Tuck MBA aligns with your goals and aspirations, using the groundwork from the preceding sections.
- Conclude by reflecting on how your unique attributes will enrich the Tuck community and contribute to its growth.
Tuck’s Director of Admissions has published a comprehensive blog outlining their candidate preferences and criteria. The blog can be found here, and the summarized content is as follows:
Awareness quotient
Tuck seeks candidates who exhibit a sense of self-awareness. Show that you have introspected and grappled with essential questions. It’s not just about understanding yourself and your aspirations, but also recognizing how the Tuck MBA aligns with your aspirations and how you can contribute to the Tuck community. Invest time in elaborating on each of these facets, dedicating effort to writing practice essays for each segment. Weave together effective lines of thought that link all these elements within the scope of this essay. Apply this approach to the next question as well, as suggested by the Director of Admissions.
Why Tuck?
After showcasing your dedicated awareness in your essay, proceed to elaborate on why Tuck is the ideal match for you. If Tuck serves as a stepping stone toward advancing your MBA goals, conduct thorough research to pinpoint how and why Tuck’s distinctive opportunities harmonize with your desired learning, growth, and development. Avoid statements about Tuck’s opportunities; instead, leverage these as a foundation to build upon.
Dartmouth Tuck MBA Essay 2
Tell us who you are. How have your values and experiences shaped your identity and character? How will your background contribute to the diverse Tuck culture and community?” (300 words)
Essay 2 Analysis
This essay seeks a balance between highlighting your uniqueness and fitting into the Tuck profile. However, according to Patricia Harrison key emphasis is on your potential contribution to the Tuck community. To address this, elaborate on how your unique experiences will enrich the diverse cohort, elevate group discussions, and offer fresh perspectives derived from your takeaways. Showcase your versatility, perceptiveness, and skill in applying these insights effectively to engage from multiple angles.
How to write this essay?
To write the essay 2 for Tuck MBA admissions 2024 follow this framework
- Begin by narrating an impactful experience that has molded you, emphasizing the value you gleaned from it.
- Transition into detailing how this value is integrated into your daily life and your plans for its future application.
- Build upon this foundation to illustrate how this value aligns with Tuck’s environment and how it will enrich your journey there.
- Shift into elaborating how the fusion of your values and experiences equips you to contribute profoundly to Tuck. Ensure this section is thoughtfully crafted, reflecting on your insights.
Differentiate yourself
Begin by discussing your distinctive experiences in both your professional and personal spheres. Next, outline the unique aspects of each experience. For instance, if you had a brief stint in the gaming industry, working closely with players and product developers, emphasize the rarity of this role that allowed you to bridge the gap between these two teams. Highlight your capacity to leverage insights from both sides, building innovative features that were popular with customers.
Following this, discuss your takeaways from these experiences. Continuing with the gaming industry example, discuss the challenges you faced while collaborating with these distinct teams, managing conflicting ideas, and striving for consensus. Address navigating through bureaucratic hurdles to introduce innovative features. This approach enables you to effectively convey your uniqueness, underscore your skills, and emphasize the value you can bring to the Tuck community.
Tips to write this essay effectively:
Tuck’s values
As you navigate through your experiences, unique attributes, and alignment with Tuck, ensure that your narrative resonates with Tuck’s core values: ‘personal, connected, and transformative.’
Tuck believes that their students are:
- smart, curious, and engaged
- accomplished, impactful, and principled
- aware, ambitious, and purposeful
- encouraging, collaborative, and empathetic.
Under the ‘personal’ aspect, discuss the challenges you’ve encountered and the hopes you nurture. Next, for ‘connected’, explore how your interactions with various communities have shaped you, whether as an active community member or a contributor. Lastly, delve into ‘transformative’. Elaborate on the changes you initiated and their motivations. Reflect on the impact your actions have had on others’ lives and the ongoing ripple effect that propels further change.
Dartmouth Tuck MBA Essay 3
Describe a time you meaningfully contributed to someone else’s sense of inclusion in your professional or personal community. (300 words)
Essay 3 analysis
This essay corresponds to Tuck’s “encouraging” criterion. This question basically wants you to talk about a tough situation you’ve been in that matches up with what Tuck looks for—being encouraging, working together, and showing empathy. Since Tuck wants students who really lift others up, it’d be a good idea to pick a situation where you were directly there for someone, cheering them on and helping them out.
How to write essay 3
Follow this framework to write the essay 3 of Tuck MBA application
- Start by providing a concise overview of your engagement in DEI practices. Transition to a discussion about ‘others’ sense of inclusion.’
- Next, detail why this concept resonated with you. Explain how you educated yourself before taking action.
- Enumerate the specific actions and practices you implemented in response.
- Conclude by sharing your key takeaways and your future plan of action.
Also these tips will help:
Research
Prior to addressing this question, conduct thorough research on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). This step will offer fresh insights into your existing actions or serve as a foundational understanding if it’s your first encounter with the concept. Once acquainted with DEI, reflect on how you’ve implemented such practices in both your professional and personal domains. After highlighting these practices (avoid specific instances), discuss why you chose to implement them, how you initiated them, their impact on the community, their ongoing implementation, your key takeaways, and how you intend to apply them moving forward. Utilize the terminology and concepts you’ve gained from your research to discuss your personal experiences.
Be comprehensive
The terms ‘meaningful contribution’ and ‘others’ sense of inclusion’ carry substantial weight. It’s imperative to define what constitutes a meaningful contribution – this extends beyond mere agreement with policies to active involvement in their implementation, execution, and ongoing practice. Avoid reiterating well-known DEI concepts. Instead, list the specific activities you’ve engaged in. When addressing ‘others’ sense of inclusion,’ delve into how it differs from your own perspective, why it struck a chord, and how you acted on it. Subsequently, outline the steps you took to align yourself or initiate such efforts.
Optional Essay
Please provide any additional insight or information that you have not addressed elsewhere (e.g., atypical choice of evaluators, factors affecting academic performance, unexplained job gaps, or changes). Complete this question only if you feel your candidacy is not fully represented by this application. (300 words)
The admissions committee is very clear about what kinds of topics are “allowed” for this Tuck MBA essay and says that it should be used to talk about any weaknesses in your application. It’s possible that there are other parts of your background that would be appropriate and not covered elsewhere in your application, like an upcoming promotion or a part of your identity that isn’t covered in the program’s data forms. However, the wording of this prompt suggests that it should be used sparingly (i.e. that applicants should make an effort to fully represent their candidacies within the required elements of the application).
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