Essay Questions 
1. What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)

Competed on China’s National Starcraft Team

I was the first non-professional player selected for China’s national Starcraft team. Starcraft is a virtual battle e-Game that requires strong dexterity and strategic thinking. For a college student, joining the team was nearly impossible, like a fan of American basketball might fruitlessly dream of joining the NBA. In the beginning, I ranked 23,000^th and failed the game 80% of the time. Unlike professional players, I had to balance my college study.

However, these formidable challenges simply motivated me to stretch my limitations. I squeezed 3 hours a day to practice mouse clicking to improve my dexterity, and studied Sun Tsu's Art of War to sharpen my strategy. Thousands of repeated failures didn’t deter me, but taught me how to turn around unfavorable situations.

After 400 consecutive days of focused practice, my ranking soared to top-10 and I was selected from 5000 contestants for the 20-person national team, all while laying a solid foundation for graduate study. This hard-won success motivated me to set ambitious aspirations, taught me how to translate experience from my experienced area to a new one, and inspired my career vision of being a business leader in the e-Game industry.

Saved my team under crisis

In 2008, my team faced dissolution as part of company-wide restructuring at Intel, but my boss offered me another position for my top performance. I was suddenly at a crossroad. I would better off accepting the offer, but my teammates would likely be laid off. On the other hand, if I stayed with my team, I was likely to lose my own job. After seven days of deliberation, I publicly declined the offer and had two months to convince management that my team was valuable to Intel.

Wasting no time, I led my team—top group for software testing at Intel—to explore possible solutions. After extensive research and discussions, I discovered that China’s software volume had soared, but we had to certify software in our centralized center in Israel, which resulted in low efficiency and high costs. However, our team’s strength in software testing indicated that we could manage most of the certification in China.

With powerful data, survey results, and successful pilot projects, I proposed and eventually convinced top management to establish the first certification center in China, an unusual $10M investment in the economic downturn. It not only saved $6M for Intel annually, but also saved my team, which later grew five-fold to accommodate increased needs.

I am proud I chose to lead my team out of crisis rather than jumping to a safer boat to secure my job. I earned the trust of my staff and a firm-wide reputation for accountability. This experience taught me that leadership involves responsibility and strategic thinking. It served as an important professional turning point, inspiring me to shift my focus from technology to business.

Initiated new business model to turnaround dying project with Chinese Government

As a fresh consultant, I took over a software project from a 24-engineer team dismissed after Intel’s restructuring. The project was dying for no progress after the team notified the dismissal months ago. The client – Sinorail, owned by Chinese Government and controls China railway system – threatened to stop business with Intel unless project resumed progress in one month. However, we are business unit and have no capability to handle product implementation. Thus, I was expected to propitiate client to wait until engineering unit would take it over in three months.

However, through conversation with client and clue from news that government invested 1.5-Trillion in railway foundation, I found its potential more than single $2M project and decided to seek solution rather than unless waiting for others to take it over. With thorough analysis, I proposed outsourcing of implementation to Intel software vendors whilst I controlled procedure and quality as project leader. With potential market and intangible impacts in government side, I convinced division lead to approve this win-win solution. I organized a complex “team” from several companies soon and eventually accomplished the project in advance. Thereafter, Sinorail enhanced partnership with Intel and placed following $300M-contract to us. And the new business model involving Intel software vendors was regarded as best practice to expand our deal in China and rolled out in our business unit.

As a breakthrough to me personally, it also boosted my determination and confidence in transforming from engineer to business leader.

2. What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)

As a member of China’s National Starcraft Team, I was amazed by the huge success of private Starcraft Clubs in Korea and the United States. These clubs had grown quickly and profited from fees charged to both players and advertisers.

I believed that I had the right background and expertise to create the first private Starcraft club in China, so when I retired from the national team, I invested all of my savings to launch what I hoped to be the “Manchester United” of China’s E-Game industry.

However, my passion soon encountered cold reality. Few players were willing to pay to join my club, so it was difficult to attract advertisers with such small membership. Without revenue, further promotion was impossible. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to borrow from friends, the vicious cycle drained my cash and I was forced to shut down the venture after six months.

Upon reflection, I realized that I made several mistakes. First, my strong passion blinded my judgment, which led to a hasty decision without assessing the market carefully in advance. At that time, China’s E-game market was in primitive stage and most players were not ready for a fee-based model. Unlike Korea and the U.S., Starcraft players were far more geographically dispersed within China, which caused difficulty attracting advertisers. 

Second, my experience on the national team, which attracted legions of competing advertisers, left me with the illusion that advertisers would come naturally as my club materialized. However, without “National” status, my club was far less attractive than I expected.

Finally, my past success as a top Starcraft player made me overconfident in my ability, but running a real business was completely different from beating virtual enemies. The game had honed my ability to make quick decisions in desperate situations, but it didn’t teach me how to handle the ambiguities and uncertainties in real business contexts, where enemies were often not clearly defined.

I was fortunate to experience such a sobering setback early in life. It made me sensitive to situation change and I would update solution as situation changed. It also taught me that passion and confidence alone do not guarantee success and encouraged me to develop a habit of preparing well before taking action. The following summer, with careful preparation, I launched a successful translation firm that quickly recouped my investment and earned more than double what I needed to finance my graduate education.  

Please respond to two of the following (400-word limit each): 
1. what would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?

2. Discuss how you have engaged with a community or organization.

This June, I gained an unforgettable gift: for the first time, I was featured on television for my contributions to my community of Melong over the past three years.

In 2006, the booming Chinese stock market attracted many retirees in Melong, including my father. However, many of them were new to investment and lacked basic knowledge of finance; they were easily duped by rumors to make poor decisions and lost pensions, their only source of income. Although I was busy with an international project at work, I decided to devote my weekends to helping them.

So, I launched an investment club to coach retirees on computer-assisted investing. However, my optimism was damped when turnout dropped quickly from 60 to 8 after only several classes. Many retirees were first-time computer-users and half of them didn’t even have home computers, so it was difficult for them to grasp computer-based investment techniques. With a natural tendency to value seniority, they tended to distrust teachers of my young age. As a result, few took my classes seriously.

Frustrated, but I would become completely driven to achieve that aim which is worth pursuing for me. I decided to adopt a new approach. After assessing the situation, I quickly took actions. I showcased my investment track record to the local government agency in charge of our community and won their formal endorsement, which carried significant credibility. Meanwhile, I convinced two agency staff who were skillful in working with elders to join me as co-teachers. Finally, I cherry-picked a few fast learners who had achieved good financial returns by following my approach as role models. My praise made them feel respected and motivated them to convince their peers to join the club. Additionally, I reached out to their children, most of whom were my age, to facilitate communications with their parents. Finally, I persuaded Intel to sponsor 30 computers for my initiative, which significantly improved retirees’ access.

My efforts paid off quickly as our club attracted over 300 active members and became very popular among the retirees. I was even more proud my endeavor was recognized by local government as one of the top-10 community initiatives in our district.

The honor brought me enormous satisfaction, and the experience helped me understand that good intentions alone do not guarantee a successful project - persistence, creativity, and effective team-building were critical to our accomplishment. Further, it enhanced my ability to lead, engage, and motivate people whose backgrounds are very different from mine.

3. Tell us about a time when you made a difficult decision.

4. Write a cover letter to your application introducing yourself to the Admissions Board.

5. What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?

My vision is to be the business leader in China’s e-Game industry –Steve, PaulJobs in Apple for IT industry, leading international trends. Ten years ago, the passion for e-Games that earned me a place as an official competitor at the e-Olympics also fueled my first entrepreneurial venture - the first professional Starcraft club in China. The setbacks I experienced then didn’t kill my aspirations; they did, however, teach me valuable lessons about business. Today, after gaining technical knowledge and leadership experience, I am confident that formal business education will prepare me to enter the industry as a visionary leader.

After college, I gained professional experience in the e-Game industry, then pursued graduate school to extend my technical knowledge. As a result of my technical advantage and leadership inside and outside the classroom, I was selected for a highly competitive position with Intel and joined an emerging team to accumulate start-up experience. I became the youngest employee to gain the “Patent Star” honor and was even granted a global group award for ten employees who demonstrate outstanding performance. Along the way, I gained an astute understanding of importance of technology for a business unit. Intel’s reorganization in 2008 and my experience to save my team made me realize that even unbeatable technology alone wouldn’t make great company and business had much bigger impact on its success. Accordingly, I requested a transfer to our business department in early 2009, where I grasped the opportunity to build my business acumen and quickly made a breakthrough deal with our toughest client. Together, my technical savvy, my leadership and managerial skills developed at Intel were my foundation to stand out among contesters in future business.

Meanwhile, I have been actively tracking China’s e-Game industry, which has experienced dramatic changes. While other industries suffered from the recession, the e-Game market has maintained an astonishing 15% growth and became one of the top three worldwide with $200M in revenue, possessing the world’s second largest customer base of over 30 million. However, the industry relies heavily on several big events and lacks a truly innovative business model that would enable it to realize its full potential. By combining my technical skills and strategy insights with my passion for the industry, I am perfectly positioned to develop China’s e-Game market.

However, as someone lacking systematic business education, I need to build more comprehensive business knowledge, expand my international exposure, and further develop my leadership capabilities to make positive impacts on this increasingly global industry. Therefore, I seek an HBS MBA to accelerate my transformation from an engineer to a business leader, which I believe will prepare me well for a spectacular comeback to my early dream.