Describe the achievement of which you are most proud and explain why. In addition, describe a situation where you failed. How did these experiences impact your relationships with others? Comment on what you learned (maximum 400 words). *

Describe the achievement of which you are most proud and explain why. In addition, describe a situation where you failed. How did these experiences impact your relationships with others? Comment on what you learned (maximum 400 words). *

Growing at Andersen

“Salud!” In February 2019, we clinked glasses with our Mexico-based client director to celebrate implementation of the second global shared-services center I’d worked on. That engagement, and the client’s previous service-center in Japan, represented 1.5 years of work for me. My role had spanned nearly every domain: gathering requirements for their proposed HR-self-service portal, holding workshops with global client representatives from 30+ countries to customize design; meeting with local SMEs to draft desktop and system procedures. I became skilled at navigating localized issues—such as an SME’s preferred way of working—and finding the right balance between high customer usability/satisfaction and keeping processes and systems efficient, streamlined, and accessible. I also managed a 5-person offshore team supporting the launch, and became a go-to team member based on the agile-development knowledge I picked up as scrum master. Andersen partners and client executives were thrilled with the results, and I was entrusted to represent our team in Japan and Mexico as a rising leader and thought partner.

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Family Challenges

Last year, when we learned Dad’s cancer had returned, we wept. He had been our role model, our glue, an ambitious man who worked hard to rise from a Chilean farm town to a high-level executive, taking us to exciting new lands and opportunities. “I can beat this,” he assured us as the disease progressed. However as he struggled to survive, so did our family bonds. Dad had always been our mediator and, while I tried to take on that role as the middle sibling of three, it wasn’t easy. The night he lost his final battle, our collective stress boiled over, with a flashpoint between my siblings who held longtime resentment. My mother and I tried to step in, without luck. Over the weeks that followed, our once-harmonious family became fractured, pushed to the limit by Dad’s passing, the pandemic, and a national political divide reflected in our own home. After backing off initially, I worked quietly to address the gap, planning a family

barbecue, meeting with attorneys to ensure legal matters didn’t compound the issue. We miss Papa deeply, and there are no easy answers, but we are healing now, slowly. My highs and lows demonstrate that relationships are about earning trust by being there for others—whether a client, teammate, or sibling—and giving people space and time as needed, all as part of mutual support and growth.

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Analysis: 

• In both of the short-answer responses above, the student does a great job of directly responding to the prompts while continuing to offer details that position themselves as being very much aligned with the global emphasis of the program to which they are applying. 

• The first paragraph, describing their achievement helping a SME (in Mexico) to implement a global shared-services center (in Japan), does a great job of both colorfully and concisely explaining the key role they played in helping their company to become a success. I would recommend very small edits of spelling out SME the first time the abbreviation is used: while the professionals working on a business school admissions committee will typically know they meant “Small Medium Business,” SME also has other common meanings like “Subject Matter Expert,” and given the global audience, it’s best to err on the side of clarity. I’d also recommend they omit the slash mark in, “high customer usability/satisfaction” replacing it with the word “and” or even “and/or,” rather than a more informal slash mark.

• The student’s second paragraph responds to the prompt, “describe a situation where you failed.” The student chose to write about dealing with and working to overcome a challenging situation, helping the reader to understand their personal strengths of commitment, persistence, and compassion when navigating the loss of their father. However, I’d assert that this challenging situation was not a “failure.” They mention that they “tried to step in, without luck”—so one can see that perhaps they feel like they “failed” in that way, but it’s clear that the situation is more complicated than what one person’s action mig

  
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