UVA Darden MBA Application Essay Tips, 2025–2026
UVA Darden is looking to understand how you will collaborate with others to create impact as a Purpose Driven Leader through its application essays. And your past actions are the best indicators of your potential to make an impact in the future. Before you sit down and look at the school’s questions individually, take a step back and identify the key strengths you want to be sure are clearly conveyed in your overall application. Then think strategically about which stories you can tell — and how you might tell them — to highlight those chosen strengths. Imagine the Darden application as a kind of rug with different pieces woven together to make a colorful pattern, or perhaps as a sports team, with your stories as players taking on different positions and coming together to form a winning team. Focus in these essays on the stories that do not already appear in other parts of your application.
Essay 1 – Relationships Matter Here: What would you want your classmates to know about you that is not on your resume? (200 words)
Although this question appears first, we suggest approaching it last. What final bit of your story do you need to weave in so the admissions team can understand your whole story? This essay is a great opportunity to highlight your primary strengths or share a notable story or achievement that is not covered in any of your other essays. If you are a career changer and have a personal reason for making this change, offer an anecdote that helps explain why you want to take a different professional path. If your other essays have not effectively showcased your ability to collaborate on a team, share a story that demonstrates what collaboration means to you. Don’t take the prompt too literally and mistake it for an introduction only to your classmates; be thoughtful about what more you want the admissions committee to know about you and your candidacy after they have read the rest of your essays, and then leverage this essay to fill that gap.
Essay 2 – Community: Please describe an example of building community within your personal or professional life. What impact did this have on you and those around you? How will this experience contribute to the way you will build community at Darden? (200 words)
Community is an important part of any business school, but Darden, tucked away in Charlottesville, makes it a fundamental part of its on-campus experience. With the case method, your Learning Team becomes a strong community, and Darden wants to know that you will work to build community throughout your time in the program. A client this year who did an off-cycle tour with an admissions team member was blown away by how connected the Darden community felt across students, administration and faculty. It might come as no surprise, he’ll be starting there in the fall! You can think of answering this prompt in two parts: first, showcasing an example of where you have built community and highlighting the impact that community created, and second, explaining how you will contribute this experience at Darden.
Start with a specific story (consider using the STAR or CAR method) with which you can show how you built community and helped others feel a part of that community. Include the specifics of what you did to show your community-building skills. Were you on a sports team or a professional work team that wasn’t gelling and needed to be more cohesive? In your “R” (Results), give evidence to illustrate the impact you created: maybe you built a welcoming environment for an intern in your office and that experience taught you how empowering others can drive results.
In the second part of your essay, think about how the skills you showcase in your example could be leveraged at Darden. If you are highlighting your mentorship, where/whom might you like to mentor at Darden? Be thoughtful about how you would be engaged in a specific club or experience to show how you could leverage your previous experience.
Essay 3 – Careers With Purpose: At this time how would you describe your short-term, post-MBA goal in terms of industry, function, geography, company size and/or mission and how does it align with the long-term vision you have for your career. (200 words)
Here is where you get to share your plans for the future and showcase the self-reflection you’ve done to formulate this path. You can either start with your short-term goal and build up to your long-term vision or start with your long-term vision and work backward to reveal the skills, experiences, and relationships you need to possess to be able to achieve it. Either way, you will have to build a case that your post-MBA role will help you on your path to attaining your long-term aspiration.
When describing your post-MBA goal, make sure to include the specifics for which Darden is asking. A sample goals statement might be something like this: “Product Manager at a large established tech company like Google or work in marketing role at a mission-based consumer products company like Patagonia.” You can highlight the skills or experiences you will gain in this role that will help you achieve your long-term vision. Although you don’t have to have all the pieces worked out, you need to be able to explain your post-MBA goal clearly enough that admissions can assess whether it is a feasible one. If you are too vague, they will have a hard time determining whether you have set an ambitious yet attainable goal, and you would frankly not be answering the question.
If you are making a career change, admissions will want to understand why you want to switch and the background and abilities you already possess that you could leverage in your new career. Use a combination of this essay and the first essay to present and clarify that why.
In Stratus Admissions’ How to Get into UVA Darden School of Business, you will find information on a variety of the MBA program’s offerings, such as First Coffee, the Batten Institute, the case method, and Darden Worldwide Courses.