Blog

mbaMission Releases New Optional Statement Guide!

Is your GPA lower than your target school’s average? Is your GMAT score uneven? Do you have a gap in your work experience? Most business school candidates have at least one irregularity in their profile and must consider whether to write the optional essay to explain it. And, of course, if you decide you do need to write one, you need to know how to do so effectively. In our mbaMission Optional Statement Guide, we present a variety of scenarios in which one should—as well as should not—write an optional essay, and advise you on how best to mitigate your weaknesses and accentuate your strengths in such essays.

The mbaMission Optional Statement Guide provides crucial guidance on how to properly use the optional essay to address “issues” within one’s candidacy (and when not to), and includes 15 sample essays.



onTrack by mbaMission

A first-of-its-kind, on-demand MBA application experience that delivers a personalized curriculum for you and leverages interactive tools to guide you through the entire MBA application process.

Get Started!


Upcoming Events


Upcoming Deadlines

  • Dartmouth Tuck (Round 1)
  • IESE (Round 1)
  • MIT Sloan (Round 1)
  • Carnegie Mellon Tepper (Round 1)
  • Duke Fuqua (Round 1)
  • Georgetown McDonough (Round 1)
  • Oxford Saïd (Round 2)
  • Penn State Smeal (Round 1)
  • UCLA Anderson (Round 1)
  • USC Marshall (Round 1)
  • UW Foster (Round 1)

Click here to see the complete deadlines


2024–2025 MBA Essay Tips

Click here for the 2023–2024 MBA Essay Tips


MBA Program Updates

Explore onTrack — mbaMission’s newest offering allowing you to learn at your own pace through video. Learn more