Texas McCombs MBA Essay Tips 2025-2026

The following essay tips examine Texas / McCombs (McCombs) MBA admissions essays for the 2025-2026 admissions season. You can also review essay topic analyses for other leading MBA programs as well as general Essay Tips to further aid you in developing your admissions essays.

Texas McCombs MBA Essay Tips 2025-2026

Let’s take a closer look at the McCombs MBA essay prompts.

Preamble

The essay prompts serve as a powerful storytelling tool, allowing you to share narratives and insights that may not be captured elsewhere in your application. The essay section has been refreshed for the 2025-2026 cycle, now featuring two prompts with a 250-word limit for each response. These are purposefully designed to elicit thoughtful and introspective responses that reveal your motivations, values, and aspirations.

Please complete the required essay prompts below and upload them to your application prior to submission.

Essay 1

Imagine yourself at the completion of your MBA journey. Why was pursuing your MBA at Texas McCombs the right decision for your personal and professional growth? Reflect on how you made the most of your time in the program—academically, through hands-on learning opportunities, and within the McCombs community. 

Highlight how you contributed to the McCombs community and used its resources to grow both professionally and personally. (Limit: 250 words)
Despite the creative twist of picturing oneself at the completion of one’s MBA journey, this is a fairly straightforward career goals essay. Applicants should establish their post-MBA plans and motivation, and elaborate on how they were active during the Texas MBA to enable those goals. To tailor this to McCombs, it would be best to frame this briefly in the setting of being at graduation—perhaps you are sitting next to a cohort member, or listening to an address from a professor whose class you found particularly meaningful. Then, establishing one’s goals and motivation first will set the stage for the deeper dive into the value of the Texas MBA.  Applicants will also want to weave in their personal goals, whether a broader social impact, some sense of ongoing personal growth, expanded community involvement or pursuing a passion outside of work.

In the course of discussing why the Texas MBA is your ideal program, briefly explain what you got out of the program; however, more of an emphasis should be on how you would have engaged the community and fellow students in the course of the MBA program. For example, rather than listing off courses whose content would help you advance your career, it would be more strategic to focus on your ability to contribute to class discussions in areas in which you already have some foundation. It would also make sense to comment on how you would participate—or assume leadership—in student organizations of interest, both those related to professional interests as well as more personal interests.

Prospective students should also note that the adcom is looking for applicants who feel very strongly about attending McCombs and are likely to have pride in the school. To write convincingly on this point, it will be necessary to conduct very thorough research on the school and student culture, and to identify programmatic elements that are unique to the UT Austin MBA. Taking the time to learn the ins and outs of the school’s special programs and extracurricular activities—whether through an event, or conversations with students or alumni—will pay dividends here.

Essay 2

Reflect on a core value that defines you. Share a specific example of how it has guided your decisions and actions, and explain how it will shape your contributions and growth as a McCombs MBA student.

Highlight how this value has influenced your leadership style and life path, and how it will shape your MBA experience. (Limit: 250 words)
This is a chance to tell the adcom who you are, where you come from, and what you care about. It is also a good place to highlight instances of resourcefulness and persistence, especially discussing how far you’ve come, if you were a bootstrapper or first generation in your family to attend college. You can provide insight into your personal and professional maturity and collaborative nature over the course of a narrative. An effective approach might be to identify your core value, describe the related experience and its broad implications in a few sentences, followed by a brief illustrative example before concluding with a reflection on how the experience has shaped who you are today.

The adcom also wants to know that you’ll be supportive and collaborative while on campus at McCombs and be a good addition to the student community. Creating a link between your past and your potential future at the program will enable you to present a consistent and clear picture of your candidacy, as well as your professional and personal interests. The more information you can provide about how exactly you would contribute (playing a certain role in organizing a particular annual event, for example), the more reason you’ll give the adcom to admit you.

Optional Essay

Please explain any gaps in work experience, choice of recommender, and/or academic performance issues that may help the admission committee in reviewing your application. (Limit: 250 words)
Both the tone of this prompt and the examples of potential topics the candidate might address suggest that this essay will be best used to address liabilities or extenuating circumstances related to one’s application rather than to provide “bonus” information to the adcom. Candidates with questionable quantitative records, gaps in employment, or unusual recommenders should take advantage of this opportunity to offer explanations or outline plans to address potential issues. As is always the case with this sort of response, the comments in this essay should be straightforward and fact-focused, offering explanation without making excuses and humbly suggesting other areas of your candidacy that might compensate for identified weaknesses.

Clear Admit Resources

Before you start crafting your UT Austin McCombs essay responses, check out some of our resources to help you along the way:

• UT Austin McCombs School of Business Profile on the Clear Admit website: up-to-date advice and admissions information
• Clear Admit LiveWire: admissions updates submitted in real time by applicants to McCombs
• Clear Admit DecisionWire: school selections in real-time by admits to McCombs