ISB PGP Essays: Analysis & Tips for 2025-26
If you are planning to apply to the Indian School of Business’ (ISB) PGP for the 2026 intake, you must know that their application essays are introspective and nuanced. The ISB PGP essays are your opportunity to demonstrate alignment with ISB’s values and show the admissions committee who you are beyond your scores and resume.
According to ISB’s official admissions page, the school is looking for candidates who demonstrate analytical thinking, leadership potential, and a strong commitment to growth. Their application essays are carefully designed to help you highlight these traits.
Let’s break down each essay prompt and explore how to approach them.
Required Essay 1: Leadership
What unique experiences have shaped who you are? What have these experiences taught you about leadership and the kind of leader you aspire to be? (400 words)
What ISB is looking for
This prompt is an invitation to reflect deeply on your personal and professional journey. ISB wants to understand how your life experiences have influenced your view of leadership and the kind of impact you seek to make in your future.
- Depth over breadth: One or two formative experiences that influenced your values or leadership style
- Authentic voice: “Unique” means it need not be grand—just genuinely yours
- Leadership insights: Situations with real stakes—drive change, navigate complexity, influence others
How to approach it
- Choose one or two defining experiences that shaped your leadership qualities. It could be a work project, a personal challenge, or a community initiative
- Follow a clear structure:
- Set the context
- Convey your decisions and leadership style—did you empower, mentor, coordinate?
- Quantify results: e.g., improved compliance by 20%, rallied a demotivated team, etc.
- Be reflective. What did these experiences teach you about leadership? How have they shaped the leader you aspire to become?
- Flow into “the kind of leader I aspire to be” by linking back to that learning (e.g., inclusive, change-oriented, empathetic, data-driven)
Leadership and managing people are not the same thing. Even if you do not have managerial experience, pick incidents where you have positively impacted someone’s life. Focus on outcomes, navigating ambiguity, and making a meaningful impact.
Read this detailed guide on how you can showcase leadership skills in your MBA application.
Need Help With Your MBA Application Essays?
Required Essay 2: Learning Approach
What intellectual experiences have influenced your approach to learning and have led you to pursue an MBA? Please describe using anecdotes from your own experiences. (400 words)
What ISB is looking for
This essay is about your intellectual curiosity and how your learning journey has evolved over time. ISB values candidates who are curious, adaptable, and self-driven learners.
- Analytical mindset: Your capacity to challenge assumptions, synthesize knowledge, seek deeper insight
- Curiosity and growth: Intellectual self-awareness and learning agility
- Why MBA?: Connect it to your learning approach
How to approach it
- Share one or two specific anecdotes that highlight your approach to learning —could be rigorous academic work, a reading that reframed your understanding, a complex problem that required cross-domain learning. Describe the spark and personal strategy – how did you learn, adapt, overcome?
- Reflect on how these experiences shaped your thinking and contributed to your decision to pursue an MBA. Perhaps you curated a data analytics model, led knowledge-sharing sessions, or picked up financial frameworks to improve business decisions
- Reflect on insights. What methods work for you—structured research, peer learning, experimenting, feedback loops?
- Why PGP, why MBA? Tie in how this one‑year intensive ISB programme, with its global faculty and diversity, will let you refine these learning methods and help you prepare for your next career milestone
Show that you are not just a passive recipient of knowledge, but someone who actively seeks out learning opportunities and applies them.
Optional Essay
Share with us any intellectual pursuits, unique perspectives, or experiences that you pursued that have shaped your worldview. How could they potentially contribute to our learning community? (250 words)
What ISB is looking for
This optional essay is a great space to highlight diversity of thought or experience. It’s also a chance to show how you plan to contribute to ISB’s collaborative and global learning environment.
- Community value: What you bring beyond your professional profile
- Diversity & Perspective: Fresh voices improve peer learning
- Commitment to Growth: Showcase how you diversify your thinking
How to approach it
- Select 1–2 experiences like intellectual pursuits – maybe you self‑studied machine learning, learned an obscure language, wrote a blog series analyzing geopolitics. Or talk about unique experiences – exposure to different cultures, non‑mainstream interests, social engagement
- Reflect on how it shaped your worldview; show its personal impact
- Explain how you will add value to your cohort at ISB. Propose real‑life contributions—lead a study‑group, publish posts in campus magazine, mentor juniors, start a special interest club, or challenge perspectives in class discussions.
Use this essay strategically. It can be a great place to show cultural fluency, unique life experiences, or intellectual passion. Do not use this essay to repeat highlights from your resume. The adcom already knows your accomplishments – this is your chance to show them who you are beyond the numbers.
I have discussed several strategies to differentiate your MBA application in this post.
Get Your Profile Evaluated
Tips Across Essays
- Be story‑driven but concise: stay within the word limit, stick to key scenes, clear actions, and powerful reflection
- Evidence-backed statements: Don’t make generic statements; demonstrate through concrete examples
- Quantify outcomes: Even small impacts (15%, 5 months saved, ₹1 L cost savings, etc.) show your potential
- Connect experiences with goals: Be reflective – “So I learned X, and that’s why I aspire to Y”
- Avoid overlap: Each essay needs a distinct focus—don’t recycle anecdotes verbatim. Use fresh stories or different angles on a single experience
- Be purposeful: Each essay must tie back to ISB’s core attributes
- Show evolution: From early experience to current learning and future aspirations—show consistent growth
- Show fit: Understand ISB’s mission to groom globally-minded, analytical, impactful leaders; align your narrative accordingly
- Demonstrate community ethos: ISB thrives on peer-to-peer learning—show you will contribute to that ecosystem
- Link essays: Taken together, the three essays should form a coherent profile. E.g., your leadership style emerges from analytical learning; your worldview extends into community contributions
Have More Questions?
