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Unedited Version (the "Before")

1. While recognizing that no day is typical, we ask that you describe a representative work day. (300 word limit)

8:00AM arrived at work. Check email messages and check calendar for appointment. Reply to people's message and confirm the appointments.
8:30AM start working in the Lab. Start a new reaction as planned yesterday and record the experimental details. Observe any new results.
9:30AM meet with the R&D manager to go over today's plan quickly and to make any change if necessary. Discuss progress of the whole project briefly.
10:00AM Search chemical database for all the necessary information for the current reaction running. Estimate any possible results from the reaction and design methods to deal with them to get the desired lab product.
11:00AM Meeting with analytical chemist (supporting group) to discuss the current project. Identify the analytical difficulties for new chemistries. Discuss the ways to solve the problem on site.
1:00PM analyze the ongoing reaction's progress. Stop it when ready. Use different methods designed to try to isolate desired product.
2:30PM Meet the analytical staff again to analyze the experimental results and reach a conclusion (Did the reaction work? What should be improved)
3:30PM Meeting with information management staff to discuss database problem encountered.
4:00PM Plan for tomorrow's reaction

2. Please describe your most significant leadership experience. Feel free to draw upon work experiences, extracurricular activities, or your personal interactions, describing a period of formal or informal leadership. Please focus less on the specific situation and more on what caused you to be effective. (300 word limit)

I was elected the president of the Association of Chinese Scholars and Students while I was in graduate school at the University of Toledo. Each year the association holds a celebration party for Spring festival new year among the Chinese scholars and students. After I became the president, I initiated the idea to celebrity the New Year together with a number of other Asian Student's organizations. I envisioned that this event not only should be a cultural revival, but also should be a great chance for cultural exchange among different student bodies and the local community. I brought together the leaders of the student's associations from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan and persuaded them to participate in this joint effort. I dealt with the university officials to get enough funds for our project and to invite the school officials and prominent local figures. I was elected the chairman for the working committee for the event. I carefully planned how to proceed the whole project. Each committee member was assigned to an appropriate post according to his or her interests and specialties so that everyone was motivated and efficient. I convened meetings often to communicate and to help each other with hurdles we encounter as a team. I insisted on doing everything such as food preparation, entertainment programs by ourselves. This would reduce our cost and fulfill the purpose of the event. I mobilized the whole Asian student body in the university to work on this project. I digged up some very good amateur Asian art performers and organized people to prepare a variety of genuine Asian cuisines. The event was a huge success. Many local people experienced a genuine Asian cultural event for the first time. The students enjoyed the whole process and this celebration became the most memorable event in their abroad study. Careful planning, organizing and motivating people and problem solving abilities enabled me to achieve the success.

3. Recognizing that successful leaders are able to learn from failure, describe a situation in which you failed. (100 word limit) Why did you fail? (200 word limit)

My family is running a private pharmaceutical company in Tianjin, China. In April 1998, I went back to China hoping to assist my family to expand the business. There were many business issues that I had to deal with, such as creating new marketing strategies, negotiating with distributors and local hospitals, consolidating starting material suppliers, expanding manufacturing operations and dealing with advertising agencies. I put in a great deal of effort but achieved much less progress than I expected. I also met with several parties from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia. They either were interested in joint ventures to manufacture and market the product locally or wanted to distribute the product through their networks. However, we were unable to reach any deals.

My unsuccessful venture to expend the business operation and to open up new markets is due to my lack of business training. In the past few years, I had the opportunity to expose myself to various operations in the pharmaceutical industries both in China and in the United States. I supervised a quality control lab in a pharmaceutical manufacturing company in China; I worked on developing target pharmaceutical products in a biomedical research group at an American university. I have contributed significantly to the growth and development of a high-tech pharmaceutical company in Silicon Valley. I have had extraordinary professional experience as well as practical knowledge and experience on how to manage research-intensive organizations. When I set out to reach my goals, lack of comprehensive business and management training put up hurdles to my progress. There were so many issues on the management of a private enterprise and business operation that I do not have good knowledge to address. I realized how urgent I need a top quality business training.

4. What specifically have you done to help a group or organization change? (300 word limit)

My father invented a new pharmaceutical for nephritis in the early 1990's. The pharmaceutical product presented a great chance to our family. The great opportunity also represented significant risks. My parents would have to quit their decent and secure jobs to register a private company. Even thought the climate then encouraged private owned businesses, but the political uncertainty and lack of laws and regulations to protect business owners made everyone think twice before open up his or her own business. There were also problems such as dealing with health authorities, raising funds and how to distribute the product. I was the driven force for starting on our own and helped my family analyze the situation. Even though there were a lot of adverse circumstances, the key was that the product was sound. It has proven to be safe and very effective. There were no alternative drugs available at that time. And nephritis is a major disease in China. The greater the risk is, the greater the reward will be. I persuaded them to quit and register a business entity. I helped my father build a distribution network using his connections in the local medical community. I collected data from clinic trials and helped gain approval from the local health authority. I helped my family raise funds from our relatives and friends and even my college classmates to cover the initial cost. After I graduated from college, I went into my family business and opened up more distribution channels. I came to the United States to study pharmaceutical science hoping to improve our technology and introduce the drug to the global market. I made contacts with interested parties from Taiwan and Malaysia to start the process to open up other markets. Due to my efforts and determination, the drug has become the most popular product again nephritis in China. Our family business is generating $350,000 annual profit and growing.

5. Describe a situation when your values and/or beliefs were challenged. What did you do, and why? (300 word limit)

In the second half of 1996, our chemical development department had a corporate goal of making 150 new chemical identities to support our drug discovery programs at Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. At the end of September, we finished about 60 of such compounds. We were despair because we were running out of time. We worked 12 hours a day and very often on weekends. I made a compound and it was going to be counted as one more toward our goal. But just before I filled out all the paperwork, I ran one more test for the product. I discovered that the compound's purity is slightly below our required standards. In chemistry to further purify a compound is always challenging and time-consuming. We did not have enough time to concentrate on this one project for too long. If we abandoned it, my work is wasted and we had to make this one up somewhere. It is very tempting to just submit and count it toward our goal, because it is just one out of 150 and the chance to detect this error was very small. Under the circumstance, that tendency was actually encouraged. I had a commitment as a team member to deliver as many as I can. I also had to be responsible for the users. Because when people use our products, they assume that our products all have higher purity and they rely on that to draw conclusions and to make important strategic decisions. It is very hard to build a reliable reputation. But one bad incident can destroy it right way and it is even much harder to restore the confidence again. I did not count it as one of our products at the moment and continue other projects as planned. I spent many of my after hours to further purify the compound. Eventually I was able to clean it up and submitted toward our collection.

6. Describe your three most substantial accomplishments and explain why you view them as such. (600 word limit)

My first accomplishment is that I helped my family start our business and turn it into a fast growing company. At the beginning, the risks were significant: unpredictable business environment; lack of initial investment; uncertain nature of pharmaceutical product, and the family had to give up much. Even though I was a college senior then, I was able to analyze the situation logically and see the potential through many complicated issues surrounding it. I had the courage to take on the great risk with my family to explore our opportunity. Meanwhile, I had clear and concrete plans to move forward and was able to achieve most from the very limited resources.

My second accomplishment is the significant scientific progress I made at the University of Toledo. I joined Dr. Julian A. Davies's biomedical program to develop a new drug for preventing cancers. My diligent research work resulted in the discovery of a series of promising drug candidates. This result moved our whole project forward and attracted pharmaceutical industry's sponsorship from Sheering AG of Germany. I valued this success very much because several researchers before me attempted the same goal unsuccessfully. My creativity, intelligence and handwork eventually led to the achievement of "the impossible" and pushed our once frustrating project ahead. Besides the endorsement and recognition from the pharmaceutical industry, what is more gratifying is the fact that my research accomplishment may one day lead to a drug to prevent cancers. This represented one more step toward my ultimate goal of bettering human lives.

My third accomplishment is that I was recognized as core member for our group's "Outstanding Achievement Award" in 1996 at my current employer, a biomedical research institute owned by Glaxo Wellcome, Inc.. I was the youngest member in the team and stared only in the second half of 1996. At the end of the year, I not only contributed 20% of our annual corporate goals and objectives, but also help other members in our group to improve their productivity and helped move our overall projects forward. I also helped organize joint efforts with other departments to achieve their annual goals. This achievement gave me a good running start at Affymax Research Institute. As I take on more responsibilities and challenging projects, I established an excellent professional image among my colleagues. I was elected to participate in several global strategic operations within the Glaxo Wellcome organization in 1997, and once again our results became the pioneering work within our field an contributed significant to the competitiveness of Glaxo Wellcome. My efforts also helped our group grow. We became the only group at Affymax Research Institute that expended significantly in the past two years.

7. What are your career aspirations and why? How will you get there? (300 word limit)

My family is running a successful pharmaceutical company to market the drug my father invented for nephritis in my hometown, Tianjin, China. My first career goal is to expand the market substantially in China and to open up new markets in certain Southeastern Asian countries. Then I will invest heavily in research and development programs for new pharmaceutical products. I will utilize my acquired expertise in management and marketing to help my family business grow to be a powerhouse in the pharmaceutical industry in Asia.

My second career goal is to introduce the drug to the United States and make it available to kidney disease patients, especially to the 181,000 end-stage renal disease suffers. I plan to start my own pharmaceutical company. The first project of the company will be to refine this specific product to American standards and manufacture and market it in the U.S. Using the success of this product as a locomotive, I will recruit the most talented scientists into my team and acquire more cutting-edge technologies in pharmaceutical science to deliver new products to the market and to expand the company quickly. My long-term goal is to push ahead aggressively with new products to a larger global market and compete with other pharmaceutical giants. My ultimate goal is to foster groundbreaking science and technology advancement and transfer them into innovative and effective pharmaceutical products to address a variety of human health issues.

My mother, who suffered nephritis 10 years ago and barely made it through, inspired me. I experienced the fear and pain when one is going to lose his loved one. I made it the mission of my life to search for the cures for nephritis and other life-threatening diseases. Now my family has been granted the privilege to be able to help nephritis patients and their families, I want to combine my professional expertise with a first class management to bring the benefits of the drug to more people around the world.

8. (Optional) Is there any other information that you believe would be helpful to the Board in understanding you better and in considering your application? Please be concise.

My decision to pursue an MBA education at Harvard University now is based on the urgent family business needs. My father and bother have been running our private pharmaceutical company very successfully. The drug my father invented has become the most popular and most effective drug against kidney disease in China. The success of my family so far is largely due to their significant technical advantage, specifically the lack of an alternative effective drug for nephritis. The potential market for this specific product is much bigger and the revenue could be much higher. But without a well-trained management talent on board, gaining a larger market share and sustained growth is very difficult to achieve, if not impossible.

Given my future plans, an MBA education becomes even more important. My Ultimate goal is to become a business leader who can think, operate and compete globally. The best place to refine a global vision and to acquire the necessary skills to implement such a vision is a top-notch business school. Now is the best time for me to finish such an education. I have meaningful and substantial real world experience to get the most out of an MBA program. I am extremely motivated because I know what basics I need to learn and what qualities I need to strengthen. I have already gotten a real project in my hands to work on throughout my two years in the program. My goal is that by the time I get out of the Harvard Business School, I will be ready to materialize a detailed and concrete plan for the project, and from there, I will reach my goals one by one.

Edited Version (the "After")

1. While recognizing that no day is typical, we ask that you describe a representative work day. (300 word limit)

8:00AM:
Arrive at work. Check email messages and check calendar for appointments. Reply to people's messages and confirm the appointments.
8:30AM:
Begin working in the lab. Start a new reaction as planned yesterday and record the experimental details. Observe any new results.
9:30AM:
Meet with the R&D manager to go over today's plan quickly and to make changes if necessary. Discuss progress of the whole project briefly.
10:00AM:
Search chemical database for all the necessary information pertaining to the current reaction. Estimate the possible results of the reaction and design methods to isolate the desired lab product.
11:00AM:
Meet with a supporting group of analytical chemists to discuss the current project. Identify the analytical difficulties for new chemistries. Discuss ways to solve the problem on site.
1:00PM:
Analyze the ongoing reaction's progress. Stop it when ready. Use different methods to try to isolate the desired product.
2:30PM:
Meet with the analytical staff again to analyze the experimental results and reach a conclusion. (Did the reaction work? What should be improved?)
3:30PM:
Meet with the information management staff to discuss the database problem we encountered.
4:00PM:
Plan for tomorrow's reaction.

2. Please describe your most significant leadership experience. Feel free to draw upon work experiences, extracurricular activities, or your personal interactions, describing a period of formal or informal leadership. Please focus less on the specific situation and more on what caused you to be effective. (300 word limit)

While in graduate school at the University of Toledo, my peers elected me president of the Association of Chinese Scholars and Students. Each year the association holds a celebration party for the spring festival New Year among Chinese scholars and students. After becoming president, I initiated the idea to celebrate the New Year with a number of other Asian Student organizations. I envisioned that the event would not only be a cultural revival, but would also be a great chance for cultural exchange among different student bodies and the local community.

I persuaded the leaders of the Hong Kong, Malaysian, and Taiwanese student cultural associations to participate in the joint celebration. In addition, I cajoled university officials into providing the necessary funding, and I invited school officials and prominent local figures. As the event’s chairman, I carefully planned how to proceed with the whole project. To keep everyone motivated and efficient, my first order of business was to assign each committee member to an appropriate post according to his or her interests and specialties. I then convened frequent meetings to communicate and help each other with hurdles that we encountered as a team. To keep costs down, I insisted the organization itself do the food preparation and find entertainment programs, rather than outsourcing the projects to a caterer or a deejay. As the celebration approached, I realized I had mobilized the whole Asian student body to work on this project.

By digging up excellent amateur Asian art performers and organizing people to prepare genuine Asian cuisine, I helped make the event a fantastic success. Many local people experienced genuine Asian culture for the first time in their lives. The students enjoyed the whole process, and this celebration became the most memorable event in their study abroad. Through careful planning, organizing and coordinating, I motivated people to solve problems themselves and to help make the event a tremendous success.

3. Recognizing that successful leaders are able to learn from failure, describe a situation in which you failed. (100 word limit) Why did you fail? (200 word limit)

My family runs a private pharmaceutical company in Tianjin, China. In April 1998, I went back to China hoping to assist my family in expanding the business. There were many business issues that I had to deal with, like creating new marketing strategies, negotiating with distributors and local hospitals, consolidating material suppliers, expanding manufacturing operations, and dealing with advertising agencies. Although I put in a great deal of effort, I achieved much less than I had hoped. Even though I met with several firms from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia who were interested in either joint ventures to manufacture and market the product locally or in distributing the product through their networks, I could not reach any deals.

I attribute my inability to expand the business operation and open new markets to my lack of formal business training. In the past few years, I had the opportunity to expose myself to various operations in the pharmaceutical industries in both China and the United States. I supervised a quality control lab in a pharmaceutical manufacturing company in China, and I worked on developing target pharmaceutical products in a biomedical research group at an American university. I have also contributed significantly to the growth and development of a high-tech pharmaceutical company in Silicon Valley. Although I have much in depth professional experience and practical knowledge on managing research-intensive organizations, my lack of comprehensive business and management training impedes my progress. When trying to spearhead the effort to expand market share for my own family’s product, I faced too many issues in managing a private enterprise and business operation that I could not use my time effectively and recognized I would need to learn much to properly address this deficiency. In short, I realized my urgent need for top-flight business training.

4. What specifically have you done to help a group or organization change? (300 word limit)

My father invented a new pharmaceutical treatment for nephritis in the early 1990's. The pharmaceutical product presented a great opportunity for our family, although with the opportunity came significant risks. My parents needed to quit their decent and secure jobs to run a private company with an uncertain future in an unproven market. Even though the Chinese political climate at the time encouraged privately owned businesses, the political uncertainty and lack of laws and regulations to protect business owners made my father pause before opening up his own business.

We also expected to encounter problems in dealing with health authorities, in raising funds, and in distributing the product. However, I encouraged my family to start out on their own despite the expected problems, and I helped them analyze the situation. Even though there were a lot of adverse circumstances, I decided that the product was sound. The drug has proven to be safe and very effective in all testing. More importantly, at the time, there were no alternative drugs, and nephritis is a major disease in China. While the risk was great, the potential award made the project worthwhile, and we decided to become a family business in the pharmaceutical industry.

I helped my father build a distribution network using his connections in the local medical community, and I collected data from clinical trials and helped gain approval for the drug from the local health authority. In addition, I helped my family raise funds from our relatives and friends and even my college classmates to cover the startup costs. After I graduated from college, I joined the family business and opened up more distribution channels. I then decided to come to the United States to study pharmaceutical science with the goal of improving our technology. To help introduce the drug into the global market, I made contacts with interested parties from Taiwan and Malaysia to open up other markets. Due to my efforts and determination, the drug has become the most popular product combating nephritis in China, and the business is now taking in $350,000 in annual profit, and this number is growing rapidly.

5. Describe a situation when your values and/or beliefs were challenged. What did you do, and why? (300 word limit)

In the second half of 1996, our chemical development department had a corporate goal of making 150 new chemical identities to support our drug discovery programs at Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. At the end of September, we had only finished 60 such compounds, and we were in despair because we were running out of time. We worked 12 hours a day and very often on weekends.

Under these circumstances, I made a compound that would be counted as one more toward our goal of 150. But just before I filled out all the paperwork, I ran one more test on the product. I discovered that the compound's purity was slightly below our required standards. In chemistry, purifying a compound is always challenging and time-consuming, and we did not have time to concentrate on this one project for too long. If we abandoned it, my work would be wasted, and we had no time to make up the work on our demanding time schedule. I was very tempted to just submit the project and count it toward our goal, because it was just one out of 150 and the chance of anyone detecting this error was very small. Under the circumstances, I very much just wanted to submit it and move on. I had a commitment as a team member to deliver as many as possible, but I also had to be responsible to the users. When people use our products, they assume them to have high purity, and they rely on that to draw conclusions and to make important strategic decisions. Moreover, one bad incident can destroy a reputation immediately and make it impossible to restore the user’s confidence again. In the end, I decided not to count the product until I had further purified the compound. After much time working after hours, I cleaned up the compound and submitted it towards our goal.

6. Describe your three most substantial accomplishments and explain why you view them as such. (600 word limit)

My first accomplishment is that I helped my family start a business, and I helped to turn it into a fast growing company. In the beginning, the company faced many risks, including an unpredictable business environment, the lack of initial investment, and the uncertain nature of the pharmaceutical product. As a college senior, I analyzed the situation logically and saw great potential. Forming clear and concrete plans on how to move forward with limited resources, I convinced my family to become a business entity and helped make it successful.

My second accomplishment is the significant scientific progress I made at the University of Toledo. I joined Dr. Julian A. Davies's biomedical program to develop a new drug for preventing cancer. My diligent research work resulted in the discovery of a series of promising drug candidates. This result moved our whole project forward and attracted the pharmaceutical industry's sponsorship from Sheering AG of Germany. I valued this success very highly because several researchers before me attempted the same goal unsuccessfully. My creativity, intelligence, and handwork eventually led to the achievement of "the impossible" and pushed our once lagging project ahead. Besides the endorsement and recognition from the pharmaceutical industry, what is more gratifying is the fact that my research may lead to a drug to prevent cancer. This represented one more step toward my ultimate goal of bettering human lives.

My third accomplishment is that I was recognized as a core member for our group's "Outstanding Achievement Award" in 1996 at my current employer, a biomedical research institute owned by Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. I was the youngest member in the team, and I only started in the second half of 1996. At the end of the year, I not only contributed a full 20% to the stated goals and objectives of the group, I also helped other members in our group improve their productivity and move their projects forward. I also helped organize joint efforts with other departments to achieve their annual goals. This achievement gave me a good running start at Affymax Research Institute. As I take on more responsibilities and challenging projects, I established an excellent professional image among my colleagues. As a result, I was elected to participate in several global strategic operations within the Glaxo Wellcome organization in 1997, and once again our results became the pioneering work within our field and contributed significantly to the competitiveness of Glaxo Wellcome. My efforts also helped our group grow. We became the only group at Affymax Research Institute that expanded significantly in the past two years.

7. What are your career aspirations and why? How will you get there? (300 word limit)

My family is running a successful pharmaceutical company to market the drug my father invented for nephritis in my hometown, Tianjin, China. My first career goal is to expand the market substantially in China and to open up new markets in certain Southeast Asian countries. Then I will invest heavily in research and development programs for new pharmaceutical products. By utilizing my acquired expertise in management and marketing, I will help my family business grow to be a powerhouse in the Asian pharmaceutical industry.

My second career goal is to introduce the drug to the United States and make it available to kidney disease patients, especially to the 181,000 end-stage renal disease sufferers. To do this, I plan to start my own pharmaceutical company. The first project of the company will be to refine this specific product to American standards and manufacture and market it in the United States. Using the success of this product as a locomotive, I will recruit the most talented scientists into my team and acquire more cutting-edge technologies in pharmaceutical science to deliver new products to the market and to expand the company quickly. My long-term goal is to push ahead aggressively with new products in a larger global market and compete with other pharmaceutical giants. Ultimately, I will spearhead groundbreaking science and transfer technological innovations into effective pharmaceutical products to address a variety of human health issues.

My mother, who suffered nephritis ten years ago and barely survived, inspired me to go into this industry. I experienced the fear and pain of almost losing a loved one, and I realize that the pharmaceutical industry gives me the opportunity to cure nephritis and other life-threatening diseases. Just as my father watched my mother nearly die and then discovered a cure for her disease, so do I want to develop new drugs and bring the benefits of the nephritis drug to the entire world. By combining my professional expertise with first class management skills, I will be better prepared to achieve this ambitious goal.

8. (Optional) Is there any other information that you believe would be helpful to the Board in understanding you better and in considering your application? Please be concise.

My decision to pursue an MBA education at Harvard University now is based on urgent family business needs. My father and brother have been running our private pharmaceutical company very successfully. The drug my father invented has become the most popular and most effective drug against kidney disease in China. The success of my family so far is largely due to their significant technical advantage, specifically the lack of an alternative effective drug for nephritis. However, as the potential market for this specific product broadens, entry of other products is certain. Without a well-trained management talent on board, gaining a larger market share and sustaining growth would be very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

Given my future plans, an MBA education becomes even more important. My ultimate goal is to become a business leader who can think, operate and compete globally. The best place to refine a global vision and to acquire the necessary skills to implement such a vision is at a top-notch business school. Now is the best time for me to pursue such an education. I have meaningful and substantial real world experiences and can thus benefit most from an MBA program. As an extremely motivated individual, I know what I need to learn and what qualities I need to strengthen. My goal is that by the time I graduate Harvard Business School, I will be ready to create a detailed and concrete plan for increasing the market share of the nephritis drug, and from there, I will reach my goals one by one.

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