Tips for your Georgetown McDonough 2025–2026 Application Essays
Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business’s 2025–2026 application is one of the most flexible, with a required video essay, plus three options for your main essay. Which one should you choose?
The answer will be different for everyone, so focus on the question that you can most passionately respond to while providing insight into material you have not yet shared in the rest of your application. The adcom should walk away from your application with the confidence that you are an essential ingredient in their incoming class and precisely the type of leader they want representing Georgetown after graduating. To that end, ensure that your example exemplifies tenets of McDonough’s Jesuit mission.
Select one of the following three essays: (500 words, approximately two pages, double spaced)
Essay Option One – Georgetown community: Our mission is rooted in Jesuit principles of equality and respect for everyone and an ethos of caring for the whole person. Inclusivity and diversity are core to supporting a community of people with an intersectional understanding of themselves and the world around them. Share how your educational, familial, cultural, economic, social, and/or other individual life experiences will contribute to the diversity of perspectives and ideas at Georgetown University.
With this essay question, McDonough wants to hear about how your unique perspective will help unify — and significantly contribute to — your class.
This is your chance to share your deepest values and most arduous crucibles, along with where they came from. With each example, be sure to also highlight how it’s affected your actions and life today. Specificity equals credibility here; concrete examples will make this essay more memorable than platitudes will.
Before choosing what to discuss in this essay, put yourself in the adcom’s shoes. Consider how your essay will help them visualize where your presence will uplevel the McDonough experience for your classmates. Give enough background on what you choose to share so the reader understands how core the examples are to your character.
Given your unique perspective(s), you might also wish to offer examples of specific roles you plan on filling or teams you would like to lead while at McDonough, whether they are academic or club related. Use the space to connect the dots for the adcom so they can easily visualize you as an integral, exceptional, contributing member of the class. These examples can and should extend beyond the tenets in the story you share.
Essay Option Two – Cura Personalis: As the oldest Jesuit institution in the United States, cura personalis is a Latin phrase deeply ingrained within our community and translates to “care of the person.” It encompasses a profound sense of care and responsibility for one another, rooted in personalized attention to each individual’s needs, unique circumstances, gifts, and limitations, fostering the growth of each person. Please reflect on a specific instance where you exemplified cura personalis by supporting a teammate or coworker. Describe the particular actions you took to guide them, and explain the impact of these efforts. Additionally, discuss how you would leverage these experiences to contribute to the collaborative environment at Georgetown McDonough.
Before sitting down to write this essay, you should complete extensive research on McDonough’s clubs, classes, events, and other resources to identify ones that you wish to get involved with, and imagine how you plan on sharing your unique gifts with your classmates, both officially and unofficially.
When answering this question, start by identifying a specific situation in which you supported a teammate or coworker. Describe the context and your relationship with the individual, focusing on their unique needs and circumstances. Clearly outline the actions you took to guide and support them, demonstrating your genuine attentiveness to their particular gifts and limitations. For example, you might describe a scenario in which you helped a struggling colleague by providing mentorship, resources, or emotional support, ensuring that your actions were tailored to their specific situation.
In the second part of your essay, reflect on the impact of your efforts on both the individual and the broader team or organization. Highlight any positive outcomes, such as improved performance, enhanced morale, or stronger teamwork. You can also share what you learned from the scenario and how it affected your level of empathy in subsequent situations. Then, connect these experiences to how you would contribute to the collaborative environment at Georgetown McDonough. Emphasize your commitment to fostering a culture of care and responsibility within the community. Explain how your understanding of cura personalis will enable you to support your peers, contribute to group projects, and enrich the overall learning experience. By linking your past actions to your future aspirations at Georgetown, you can effectively convey your alignment with the school’s values and your potential as a collaborative and compassionate leader.
Essay Option Three – Achieving Excellence: Georgetown McDonough is committed to achieving greater excellence to enrich the legacies of our students and alumni. Please reflect on a professional experience from your resume where you achieved outstanding results. Describe why this experience exemplified excellence, highlight the strengths or skills you utilized that contributed to this achievement, and share how these qualities will help you leave a legacy at Georgetown.
For this essay, ensure that you are following the prompt by sticking to an example from a professional experience. Pull out your resume, and take note of all the examples that showcase you performing far above average. Before you even begin writing, narrow your list down to example(s) that you can directly connect to enriching the McDonough experience, for both yourself and your future classmates.
You can structure your essay using a simple CAR framework: Context, Action, Result(s). If your results are quantitative as well as qualitative, be sure to mention both. And don’t shy away from sharing how you could have been even more effective; the fact that you are able to identify ways to take the idea to the next level, even in retrospect, is a powerful indicator of the rigorous analysis you’re willing and able to apply. You could also use this opportunity to highlight how a McDonough MBA would help you offer an even better solution to a similar problem you encounter in the future.
Do the work for the reader, and connect the dots on their behalf. What specific clubs, organizations, events, classes, or other resources would you contribute your unique characteristics to? And how exactly would you do so? To paint this picture as clearly as possible, ensure that you have a multitude of data points regarding McDonough beyond what you could glean from a cursory Google search. You’ll want to get to the heart of the program’s culture, so go deep in your one-on-one conversations with students, and really do your research.
Video Essay: We believe a vibrant community is built on diverse and unique individuals, and we want you to bring your whole self to Georgetown McDonough. We’ve learned about your professional and leadership qualities throughout the application, but now we want to know more about you beyond work. Whether it’s a new hobby, a fun adventure, or a simple pleasure, in one minute, share what has recently brought you joy outside of work.
Before you jump into planning your video essay, take a look at these tips. This video component might feel “easier” than the written essays at first glance, because it is only one minute long, but there is a great deal of planning that should lead up to that minute. At the same time, a video essay offers a unique opportunity for you to showcase a side of you that does not necessarily come to life in the rest of your application.
McDonough’s video essay is a chance for you to show an unscripted (but methodically planned) and fun aspect of who you are beyond your resume. What lights you up? What makes you stand out? Be sure that your authentic passion comes through as you are recording. Once again, connect the dots for the adcom in showing how this aspect of your personality and leadership will allow you to make meaningful contributions to your future MBA class. How do you see yourself spreading your inner joy from this hobby to your classmates?
You have a great deal of latitude to be visually creative here when compared to what you can do in a written essay, so use that leeway to your advantage. Ensure that you make an appearance on screen, but feel free to get creative by adding in other people or images.
Don’t forget to include your “why” in your video — this will help the viewer feel a more personal connection to you as they are hearing your story. In a lot of ways, this video essay serves to provide insight into how you would perform in an interview; be sure it feels natural and represents you well.
Optional Essay: Please provide any information you would like to add to your application that you have not otherwise included (300-350 words, approximately one page, double spaced).
The optional essay is one that should always be used judiciously. If you feel your application conveys a complete, accurate picture of who you are as a strong McDonough candidate, then you’re likely best off not submitting this optional essay. There’s little to be gained from adding to the adcom’s workload by asking them to read another essay that doesn’t add anything crucial to your profile.
However, if you do have an issue of some sort in your candidacy that could benefit from additional explanation (e.g., a difficult undergrad semester, a significant gap on your resume, not having your current supervisor as a recommender), then this is your chance to expound on and clarify it as necessary. Check out this article on Optional Essay Dos and Don’ts.
Re-Applicant Essay: Required for re-applicants. How have you strengthened your candidacy since your last application? We are particularly interested in hearing about how you have grown professionally and personally (300-350 words, approximately one page, double spaced).
As a reapplicant, you should provide specific examples of how you have improved your profile from the previous time you applied, whether you have taken on additional responsibilities at work, earned a promotion, increased your test score(s), learned a new skill, or picked up a new activity that has helped you grow. Be sure to express your continued interest in the McDonough MBA program by sharing any steps you have taken to learn more about the school and its community.
Remember, Georgetown McDonough is all about collaboration. It is a place where lifelong relationships are built between classmates and between students and professors. Each student is there to help another succeed. Your ability to show how you can help do this in your essays might be the difference between being invited into this highly collaborative, service-committed, internationally focused community — or not.
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