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A portion of Dan's winning essay:
The choices I have made thus far in my career reflect my
strong entrepreneurial drive and desire to build organizations alongside
energetic, talented people. I have learned a lot about business in the
years since my liberal arts college education in philosophy, and I will
benefit greatly from the chance to continue my business education in an
academic setting. Having launched into real estate by purchasing a
two-family house, I have decided to pursue a full-time career in real
estate. Coupling a top MBA program with a strong real estate offering,
Kellogg is my first choice for business school. My reason for choosing
business school over other educational opportunities is clear: business
school will provide me with the real estate education and leadership
development to enable me to successfully open my own real estate fund in
the future. My undergraduate experience at the University of Virginia
was rich and rewarding. In addition to my regular course load and
part-time employment, I audited multiple classes, participated and took
leadership roles in many organizations, and maintained a balanced social
life. I thrived in the environment, and took advantage of every
opportunity I had to get the most out of the experience. After school, I
decided that consulting would be a good introduction to the business
world because I enjoyed solving problems and helping organizations
improve. I found a start-up strategy consulting firm that was a great
fit – I would have the opportunity to work with two senior professionals
with blue-chip consulting backgrounds and help to build a new company. I
was eager to benefit from their tutelage and the real-world experience,
and I worked unpaid for three months setting up the office, creating
marketing materials, and helping with business development until we
landed our first client and I was given a paid position. I loved what I
was learning and I worked long hours to make sure I was doing everything
I could to contribute to our success. Since that time I have further
developed my analytical skill-set on numerous successful consulting
engagements. One project that I particularly enjoyed was a strategy
review for a $50MM sporting goods retailer with more than 200,000
customers. Catalog and internet sales accounted for the majority of
revenues, and I took the lead in designing and implementing a
100-question web survey to better understand and segment the customer
base. We received over 10,000 responses, resulting in a large and
complex data set, and I was excited to rise to the challenge and
synthesize the information and identify areas of opportunity. At the
next client meeting, I presented some of our key findings to the
management team, and handled questions about the data. The survey
revealed several important insights.
For example, an unexpectedly high 30% of customers in the top spend
category were buying for youth aged twelve and under, and the web site
did not even have a defined “youth” section. Management acted on this
information immediately, redesigning their web site according to our
suggestions. I had become an expert on the data set, and was able to
confidently walk through the analyses. Having the CEO ask for my opinion
on the implications of our survey was tremendously gratifying. I was no
longer simply a junior team member; I was a respected contributor. While
I have enjoyed consulting, what I have found most engaging from a
professional standpoint has been my own real estate venture: buying,
renovating, and operating the two-family house in which I currently
live. I have learned many lessons from this taste of real estate
ownership, and I know now that this is what I want to do full-time, only
on a larger scale. I have pursued discussions with real estate
professionals in many different roles, in many different organizations,
and in many different stages of their careers. I have spoken with
landlords who have built their own businesses from the ground up, and
professionals who have worked their way up in large real estate finance
and development firms. In my conversations I was surprised to learn that
few real estate professionals have an MBA. Real estate is an industry
that tends to value experience over pedigree; in fact, many smaller
firms lack sophisticated financial capabilities. While I have the same
entrepreneurial spirit that many landlords possess, I also know that I
want the formal training and experience that comes from both graduate
business study and the opportunity to work for an established real
estate firm. In the future, I plan to start my own real estate fund, and
in addition to hands-on experience I will need a top business education
to make it successful. In researching how best to get this education, I
have spoken with students pursuing a Master’s in Real Estate Development
as well as students in real estate clubs at a variety of top MBA
programs nationwide.
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