Owen is a small program by design. Around 175 students per class, two required essays of 500 words each, and a culture that genuinely sounds like the brochure once you visit. The essays are not where you impress them with scope. They are where you show you fit.
Most applicants we work with overwrite the goals essay and underwrite the personal one. The committee reads thousands of paragraphs about wanting to be a strategy consultant. They read fewer that sound like a specific human deciding what to do with the next ten years.
What Owen actually values
Owen leans on healthcare, finance, and increasingly entrepreneurship. Nashville sits inside a healthcare ecosystem most cities cannot match, and it is also a music and tech hub on the rise. The class is small enough that the program reads as a community rather than a network. If your essay never references that you have noticed any of this, the reader assumes you are applying to ten programs with the same draft.
Essay 1: career goals (500 words)
The prompt asks for your immediate career aspiration, why, and how Owen helps you get there. The structure that works:
- Brief context. A short paragraph on the path that brought you here. Not a resume recap.
- The role, in specifics. Industry, function, target companies. "Healthcare strategy at a payer or health system" beats "leadership in healthcare."
- Why this goal. The actual reason, written like a person.
- Why Owen. Specific courses, faculty, treks, or the Health Care MBA structure. Not "small class size."
If you can swap "Owen" for another school's name and the essay still reads, it is not done.
Essay 2: a life experience (500 words)
Owen wants a life experience that shaped who you are and how it will shape your contribution to the community. The mistake most applicants make is treating this like a second goals essay. The committee already has your resume. They want to know what you are like.
Strong topics tend to share three traits. They predate business school. They are specific enough that no one else could have written them. And they end in a behavior, not a feeling. The story should leave the reader able to predict how you will act in a study group or a club leadership role.
The contribution paragraph is short. A few sentences naming clubs, treks, or initiatives where the trait you described actually applies. That is enough.
Common mistakes
Treating Owen like a backup.
Readers can tell when an essay is recycled. Specificity about Nashville and Owen is the cheapest way to signal real interest.
Skipping the healthcare context.
You do not need healthcare goals. But not acknowledging the strength of the program reads as inattention.
Writing two professional essays.
Essay 2 should reveal something the resume cannot. If both essays could appear on LinkedIn, you have wasted one.
Vague contribution language.
"I will bring diverse perspectives" tells the reader nothing. Name the club, the trek, the initiative.
The short version
Be specific about the role you want and how Owen gets you there. Use the personal essay to be a person. The reader is not looking for the most accomplished applicant. They are filling 175 seats with people they want to spend two years near.
Helpful resources
- GMAC GMAT - Official GMAT exam information
- US News MBA Rankings - Business school rankings and data
- Poets and Quants - MBA admissions news and analysis