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Cambridge Judge Essays: Tips & Strategy For 2025-2026

The Cambridge MBA application includes four required essays: a 500-word career goals statement and three short-answer essays of up to 200 words each. In addition to outlining your short- and long-term post-MBA plans, you’ll be asked to reflect on a time when you made a professional mistake, describe the best team you’ve worked with and what made it successful, and share an example of when someone else positively impacted your life. 

Together, these prompts are designed to reveal who you are beyond your resume – your judgment, your values, and how you engage with others.

To succeed, each response needs to be focused, insightful, and reflective of your potential to contribute meaningfully to the Judge community. Given the range of topics, it’s wise to select a mix of professional and personal examples to show breadth and range. Cambridge also values diversity of experience and international perspective, so consider how those dimensions of your background can be woven into your essays. 

In the guidance that follows, you’ll find targeted strategies to approach each of the Cambridge Judge essays with intention and impact.

How to Answer Cambridge Judge’s Career Goals Essay 

Prompt: Please provide details of your post-MBA career plans. The statement should not exceed 500 words and must address the following:

  • What are your short and long-term career objectives? How will the Cambridge MBA equip you to achieve these?
  • Looking at your short-term career goal, describe the research you have done to understand how this industry/role/location recruits MBA talent and what they are looking for in a candidate?
  • How confident do you feel about meeting your short-term career goal? What skills/characteristics do you already have that will help you to achieve them, and what preparation are you doing now?

Start with Clear, Focused Career Goals

Begin your essay by stating your short-term and long-term career goals with clarity and conviction. Your short-term goal should include the specific role, industry, and location you’re targeting, while your long-term vision can be broader but should still show direction and ambition. Judge wants to see that you have thought strategically about your path and that your goals are grounded in both experience and aspiration.

Make sure your plans are ambitious but realistic – and that they reflect a coherent trajectory that an MBA can help accelerate.

Explain Why the Cambridge MBA is Key to Your Success

Next, articulate why the Cambridge MBA is essential to your professional journey. That could include referencing specific curriculum elements (like the Cambridge Venture Project, Global Consulting Project, or concentrations), student clubs, or recruiting opportunities. Go beyond a cursory review of the website – show that you’ve engaged meaningfully with the program. You might mention interactions with current students or alumni, insights from virtual events, or connections that helped you appreciate what makes Judge special.

Judge is looking for candidates who understand what makes the program unique and can draw a clear line between the school’s offerings and their post-MBA goals. Admissions readers should come away with the sense that you’ve done your homework and genuinely see Cambridge as the best platform to launch the next phase of your career.

Demonstrate You’ve Done Your Homework

Cambridge expects you to back up your career plans with evidence. That means demonstrating you’ve done the research to understand how your target industry, role, and location recruit MBA talent – and what those employers are looking for in a candidate.

Share how you’ve gathered this insight: through conversations with professionals or alumni, LinkedIn networking, reviewing employment reports, or analyzing job postings. Be specific about what you’ve learned and how that shapes your plan.

Show Self-Awareness and Proactive Preparation

Finally, reflect on your readiness to achieve your short-term goal. What do you bring to the table already? What characteristics, skills, or experiences set you up for success? This is your opportunity to highlight transferable capabilities – such as leadership, analytical thinking, collaboration, or communication – and how they’ll serve you in your post-MBA transition.

Be candid about any gaps in your skillset, and show what you’re doing to address them, whether through coursework, professional development, or stretch opportunities at work. Admissions also wants to see that you’re already thinking ahead about how you’ll engage with Cambridge’s recruiting ecosystem – whether by tapping into the school’s career development program, connecting with alumni, or leveraging the school’s strong employer relationships.

Key Takeaways

  • Be clear, focused, and specific about your short- and long-term career goals, with an eye toward credibility and impact.
  • Show engagement with Judge – demonstrate that you understand how the program and community will support your aspirations.
  • Back up your goals with research, including outreach, employer expectations, and industry insights that show you’ve done the legwork.
  • Highlight your strengths and transferable skills while demonstrating self-awareness and a concrete plan to address any gaps.
  • Show that you’re proactive – already preparing for the MBA and thinking ahead about how to leverage the Cambridge community and resources.

Want more insight on the Cambridge Judge MBA?
Watch our video with Emily Brierley, Head of MBA Admissions at Cambridge Judge, and alumna Mansa Scroff, hosted by Fortuna’s Matt Symonds.

Inside the Cambridge MBA: Tradition, Innovation & a Truly Global Network
Hear how Cambridge blends 800 years of academic heritage with cutting‑edge business skills in a fast‑paced one‑year format. From cross‑college collaboration and diverse international cohorts to real‑world projects and a rich UK ecosystem, discover how the Cambridge MBA equips you to accelerate your career and broaden your global perspective.

How to Answer Cambridge Judge’s ‘Professional Mistake’ Essay

Prompt: Tell us about a time when you made a professional mistake. How could it have ended differently? (up to 200 words)

This essay often makes applicants uneasy. It can feel counterintuitive to highlight a failure in your MBA application. But here’s the truth: if you haven’t made mistakes, you likely haven’t challenged yourself enough. (Just ask Richard Branson about Virgin Cola.) Mistakes are part of growth – and how you respond to them says far more about your potential than a perfect track record ever could.

That’s why this prompt is a powerful opportunity to showcase humility, maturity, and self-awareness. These are essential traits for strong MBA candidates and effective future leaders.

How to Choose the Right Mistake

A common misstep is choosing a mistake that’s too minor – or framing it as a veiled strength. Avoid clichés like “I worked too hard” or “I cared too much,” or pointing the finger at your perfectionism. These responses are overused, inauthentic, and likely to trigger eye rolls from seasoned admissions readers.

Choose a real mistake – something that had stakes and taught you something important. Be honest and take responsibility.

Structure Your Story with Clarity

Use the STAR framework (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure your response. Start with a concise description of the context and your role. Then explain what went wrong – what you did (or didn’t do) that led to the problem. Avoid overexplaining the situation and focus instead on your decision-making and behavior. End with what you learned and how the outcome could have been better had you handled it differently.

Because of the 200-word limit, you’ll need to be efficient with your storytelling – get to the point quickly and devote ample space to reflection, not just setup.

Show Insight and Growth

Use the second half of your response to reflect. What led to the mistake? Was it a rushed decision, a lack of confidence, or a failure to communicate? Identifying the behaviors or blind spots that contributed to the outcome will add nuance and show depth.

Then, briefly explore what you learned and how you’ve applied that insight since. That growth mindset is what Judge is really looking for.

Key Takeaways

  • Choose a real, meaningful mistake – not a trivial error or a disguised strength.
  • Use the STAR framework to present your story clearly and efficiently.
  • Demonstrate accountability and focus on your own actions – not external factors or excuses.
  • Reflect on what led to the mistake, and show how you’ve grown from it.
  • Use this essay to show humility, maturity, and your capacity to learn and adapt.

How to Answer Cambridge Judge’s ‘Best Team’ Essay

Prompt: Tell us about the best team you worked with. What made the team successful?
(up to 200 words)

Cambridge Judge places strong emphasis on collaboration – and with good reason. As an MBA student, you’ll constantly be working in teams across projects, case studies, and global assignments. This essay gives the admissions team insight into your interpersonal style and how you contribute to group success.

It’s also another opportunity to show what you’ve learned from experience, a consistent theme across the Judge application.

How to Choose the Right Team Example 

Think carefully about the team you highlight. A professional context is perfectly appropriate, but if you are writing about professional experiences in other essays, this may be a chance to draw on a different kind of experience – such as a university project team, volunteer group, or athletic team.

What matters most is that your story has substance: the team had a clear goal, and you can explain how it achieved success. Strong essays will quickly set the scene, then move into how the team functioned and what made it excel.

Focus on What Made the Team Great

Be thoughtful about the ingredients behind the team’s success. Consider including elements such as:

  • Clear communication and shared goals
  • Complementary strengths and mutual respect
  • Inclusion and psychological safety
  • Creativity through collaboration
  • Resilience in the face of challenges

Don’t shy away from mentioning moments of friction or challenge – no team is flawless. If you can show how the group overcame tensions or setbacks, it will add depth and credibility to your story.

Highlight Your Individual Contribution

Although the prompt is about the team, Judge also wants to understand your role. What did you contribute to the team’s dynamic or performance? Did you help build consensus, resolve a conflict, inspire momentum, or bring a new perspective? The most effective responses will show your impact without overstating it.

If you played a leadership role, great – but this isn’t only about leading from the front. Peer leadership, empathy, support, or a strategic insight can be just as compelling.

Key Takeaways

  • Choose a team experience with clear goals and successful outcomes.
  • Keep the setup brief – focus on what made the team successful and how it functioned.
  • Dig into the team dynamics – communication, collaboration, trust, inclusion, and resilience.
  • Don’t romanticize it – mentioning a conflict or challenge can strengthen the story if you show how it was handled.
  • Be clear about your own contribution – Judge wants to see what kind of teammate you are.

How to Answer Cambridge Judge’s ‘Person With Positive Impact’ Essay

Prompt: Provide an example of when someone else positively impacted your life. What did you learn from this experience? (up to 200 words)

This question invites reflection on the relationships that have shaped you. Judge is looking to understand what you value in others – and, more importantly, how their influence has made you who you are today.

This is a Behavioral Question

This isn’t a general reflection about someone you admire – it’s a behaviorally framed prompt that asks you to describe a specific instance when someone positively impacted your life. That framing is intentional. Judge wants evidence of how you respond to meaningful experiences in the moment, what you took away from that encounter, and how it shaped your behavior or mindset going forward. Your response should be anchored in a concrete story, not an abstract relationship or personality profile.

Choose Someone with Meaningful, Lasting Impact

You likely have many people who’ve shaped your thinking, values, or choices – mentors, coaches, colleagues, friends, teachers, or family members. What matters most is that the person’s influence has been truly significant, and that you can point to a clear personal transformation or change in mindset as a result.

This is a chance to tell a story that reveals something important about your character, priorities, or growth – so choose someone whose impact helps you do that.

Avoid Writing a Tribute Essay

You also need to be careful to get the balance right. Don’t be tempted to focus everything you write on the other individual, no matter how important they are to you. This is a short word count, and while the reader needs to understand why that person mattered to you, they are far more interested in how their influence has shaped your actions, values, and behavior since.

Make the Impact Personal and Reflective

Use this essay to show what you’ve internalized from the relationship. How has it changed the way you lead, communicate, take risks, or relate to others? Did it spark a new direction, deepen your empathy, or inspire you to take action?

Go deep – not wide. The strongest responses are introspective, emotionally intelligent, and focused on who you’ve become.

Key Takeaways

  • Recognize this as a behavioral question – tell a story about a specific moment of impact.
  • Choose someone with lasting personal influence – and focus on how they changed you.
  • Avoid writing a tribute essay – this is about your growth, not their greatness.
  • Show how the experience shaped your mindset or behavior, and connect it to who you are today.
  • Use this opportunity to demonstrate emotional intelligence, maturity, and values in action.

Let’s Get You Into Cambridge Judge

Fortuna Admissions is a dream team of former MBA admissions decision-makers from top schools. We know what it takes to stand out because we’ve made the admit decisions ourselves. Whether you need help refining your story, strengthening your essays, or navigating interviews, we’ve got you covered.

Our free consultations are consistently rated the best in the industry – and they’re a great way to get personalized advice and honest feedback on your profile. Book your free session with us today.

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