London Business School (LBS) is one of the top UK business schools and is one of the world’s global schools.

One of the keys to getting into LBS is by acing the admissions essay, which is why I want to highlight the three key points you must cover in your LBS essay.

Why are you choosing this particular area of study – clearly state why you are interested in pursuing a degree in this area. Then, convey your reasoning and motivation by giving concrete examples of relevant projects, work, etc., that you have done in this area.

Why do you have chosen to apply to this particular university and department? Is there any reason you are applying to this program, such as specific facilities/equipment or faculty, etc., that appeals to you?

Short and Long-term Career objectives – at this point, you may not have a clear idea of where you want your career to be after completing your degree. However, you should at least have some loose ideas that you must write down in your essay.

Here are the essays of a student who made it to LBS He has graciously shared the essays he wrote to get admitted.

Essay 1 LBS

Based on your current knowledge of the program, what do you think will be the key challenges for you during the Masters’s in Analytics and Management, both academically and personally? How do you intend to overcome these challenges?

I am genuinely excited by LBS’s plethora of academic and non-academic opportunities. I look forward to effectively utilizing the time to the best of my and my cohort’s advantage. However, academically and personally, such vast opportunities present challenges around prioritizing the most critical opportunities I need to be involved in since time constraints will limit the options I can take advantage of.

For this, I hope to be involved around the most focused personal and professional goals, which would be leveraging networking opportunities, active participation in Private Equity club events, volunteering in the Social Impact Club, and setting up a Boxing Club at LBS (to continue my extensive boxing routine). 

Another major challenge at LBS will be to develop tangible solutions to real-world business problems. For this, initiatives such as the Global Immersion Field Trips and London LAB will offer the opportunity to challenge me both individually and as a team to evaluate real-life business problems. 

Since my goal is to enter hedge fund Management, I need to upgrade my investment management analysis skills by learning advanced coding for efficient algorithm development. I would like to leverage my experience building a customized Algorithm at Barclays despite not knowing much about coding. I will try to challenge myself by actively taking courses and projects that provide the most opportunities to build this skill, and I will also learn from my more knowledgeable colleagues in the field in the process.

Lastly and most importantly, interacting with more than 11 nationalities with vastly diverse experiences in the class cohort will present challenges around understanding the vastly different cultural nuances, moving around language barriers, and understanding and appreciating their perspectives in the class and beyond. This will be vital for a transformational and well-rounded MAM experience. I intend to utilize my International experience of studying and working in Australia and Canada and my American perspective to make this transition smooth for me and my cohort.

To conclude, I believe every challenge is an opportunity for self-reflection and challenges one to grow out of comfort zone and succeed. Therefore, I eagerly await LBS’s challenges to convert them into life-changing learning opportunities. 

Essay 2 LBS

As an aspiring entrepreneur in investment and finance, the Masters in Analytics and Management program at LBS offers world-class learning opportunities to help me achieve my future career goals. Given my passion for financial analytics, I am enthusiastic about setting up a Quantitative Hedge Fund upon graduating from LBS. During my undergraduate, I co-founded a philanthropic Hedge Fund, The Australian Students Asset Management. The intervarsity fund aims to teach students the fundamentals of investing while donating the generated returns. In addition, I hope to expand on our current operations with a new “for-profit” fund focusing on statistical arbitrage trading strategies.

I have developed exposure to arbitrage trading strategies while working as an Analyst at Barclays Capital, a Global Hedge Fund. During my time with the fund, I learned basic programming like VBA and Python, which was critical in transforming my ideas into successful trading algorithms. With advanced, formal programming training, I can maximize the efficiency of these algorithms to decrease the time required to execute the programs and react to new market data sets effectively. With my ambitions lying in starting a quantitative hedge fund, the skills I learn in the MAM program will allow me to manipulate large data sets and automate trading decisions and executions. As such, the “machine learning” course is also fascinating for me as it will allow me to develop an understanding of deep learning and training neural networks to analyze a wide variety of data, including text, audio, and images. This will add new dimensions to my skill repertoire, currently limited to spreadsheet analysis. I am also eager to learn topics related to general dimension reduction techniques and Ensemble methods, as their use in forming accurate price derivatives would be invaluable.

Apart from building up my data analysis skills, I am eager to improve my management skills at LBS. My professional experience has helped me understand the importance of having a firm investment philosophy and vision to allocate capital efficiently, especially in times of poor performance and challenging external environments. I believe the program will equip me with the necessary tools and frameworks to create and communicate a similar sustainable management philosophy and develop a competitive advantage by tackling challenges from a strategic perspective. In addition, I aim to perfect the core problem-solving and decision-making skills that will provide me the confidence to operate a robust, successful global business model.

The MAM program will also allow me to interact with a diverse, talented, and global cohort of students along with the vast alumni base of LBS. During my time at LBS, I hope to build a solid and diverse network of current and future leaders in the Investment Management Industry to develop and appreciate multiple cultural and organizational perspectives. Ideally, I would love to bounce off entrepreneurial ideas with like-minded students and learn from mentors who have succeeded as entrepreneurs.

I also aspire to improve my interpersonal skills since it is as crucial as having technical skills like Data analysis for professional success.

Overall, the strength of the MAM program lies in its innovative programming and database curriculum coupled with extensive opportunities for developing strong interpersonal and management skills. As a MAM program graduate, I am confident that I will develop the proficiency to create a strong business impact in today’s complex and dynamic financial markets through active, well-rounded engagement inside and outside the classroom.

Essay 3 LBS

Describe a professional or academic data-driven project you have been involved with. What did you contribute to the project?

As an analyst at Barclays Capital, a leading quantitative hedge fund, I was assigned to independently create, develop and implement a systematic long/short pair trading strategy using every identifiable global oligopoly. The goal was to develop a scalable plan implemented across Australia and EMEA with a significantly high risk-adjusted return yield (>20%) by firm standards. 

The first task to develop the desired strategy was integrating and cross-valid multiple generals and industry-specific databases, including FactSet, Bloomberg, IBIS World, and Global Data. Working alongside my portfolio managers and senior analysts, I was responsible for thoroughly researching the accuracy and relevance of each database, which was then exhaustively reviewed and approved by the team.

Next, I had to measure firms’ market power in oligopolies to determine their industry influence. As only a few industries had directly available market share information, the task was immensely complex. I used the firm’s percentage of total industry revenue and production as the market power index, which required analyzing the financial data of every firm to determine its market share. I created an efficient VBA Excel Macro that collected data on over 540,000 firms to determine oligopolies for over 150 industry classifications.

Afterward, I evaluated the selected firms to determine possible long/short trading pairs within each industry. I identified firms with a consistent pricing relationship after analyzing historical data of 10 years to develop an algorithm that evaluated this big data set and determined pairs using mathematical principles around cointegration. I also developed a proprietary trading signal based on the probability of the mean reversion on pairs. Each pair had over 1,000 trades during the chosen time window and created problems in efficiency. I handled this challenge of analyzing over 400,000 trades by researching academic papers like ‘Risk and Return on Convertible Arbitrage’ by LBS researchers Naik and Fung and learning concepts like volatility trend analysis from my expert colleagues. 

The developed algorithm yields a highly desirable annualized return of 33%. Moreover, this project has allowed me to challenge myself by learning programming and VBA excel macro despite little experience. I also developed a deeper understanding of the mathematical principles involved in financial data science. Overall, it was a great learning experience, and I hope to build upon this experience during my time at LBS.  

Essay 4 LBS

How will you contribute to the School community during your time as a master’s in Analytics and Management student?

During my time at LBS, I will pursue my personal and professional passions such that I can uplift the overall MAM experience for the entire cohort. In addition, I will leverage the diversity of my experiences to contribute to a practical MAM experience for the school community. 

During my time at UNSW, I co-launched Australia’s first intervarsity long/short investment fund, Australian Students Asset Management (ASAM) which now includes a network of 40 mentors from reputable industry partners such as Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, and Point 72. I will utilize this entrepreneurial finance self-initiative experience and the skills learned to bring hands-on insights to class discussions to improve the learning experience for the entire class. This will be especially valuable for budding entrepreneurs fancying their chances in investment and entrepreneurial finance.

I am intrigued by the “beyond-classroom” opportunities at LBS. With societies like the Private Equity & Venture Capital Club and the Social Impact Hub, I aim to contribute outside the class to the school community. As a member of the Private Equity & Venture Capital club, I plan to participate in conferences like MultipleX, where I can learn from successful CEOs and company partners. In addition, I was a consultant at UNSW Social Impact Hub, where I led a group of 5 to access and structure a Social Impact Bond valued at $500,000, the largest of its kind in UNSW history. Leveraging this experience at LBS, I hope to also create a similar impact in this sphere. 

On a personal level, I want to bring my lifelong personal passion for boxing to LBS. Currently, LBS does not have a boxing society, and I would love to lead the opportunity of founding the “boxing society.” As an active member of the UNSW boxing society, I understand the nuances of running a sports society which will help smooth launching of the society at LBS. In addition, along with regular boxing events, I can lead the teaching of free self-defense classes to the LBS community, which is a critical skill in the modern day and age to ensure personal safety. 

In conclusion, I hope to make the best use of the opportunities at LBS to build a solid MAM experience for the entire community by bringing diverse perspectives to the table both inside and outside the classroom.