Toronto: Rotman Commerce: written response

Typed, timed (about 20 minutes per written question); a representative prompt, drawn from a question bank

Describe a time you took initiative or showed leadership, and what the experience taught you about working with others.

What it’s really asking

Rotman Commerce includes two timed written responses plus a recorded video question, with prompts pulled from a question bank, so you will not know the exact wording in advance. This representative prompt asks you to show initiative or leadership through a real situation and reflect on what it taught you. Expect roughly 20 minutes to answer.

Why they ask it

Rotman is a business program inside a large university, and it is selective. The committee wants evidence that you can lead, work with people, and reflect maturely, the soft skills that grades do not capture. Because the prompt is random, they are also testing whether you can structure a clear answer fast.

Three ways in

Pick a real outcome

Choose one situation with a concrete result you can describe in numbers or specifics, not a vague group project.

Show your own actions

Make clear what you decided and did, rather than what 'the team' did collectively.

Be honest and reflective

Name what was hard and what you learned, including any mistake, since reflection is what they are grading.

✕ Weak opening

“I am a natural-born leader who has always been passionate about business and helping others succeed.”

✓ Strong opening

“Our school fundraiser had raised forty dollars in two weeks, and as treasurer I had to decide whether to admit it was failing or change the plan.”

✦ Annotated example · The schedule nobody wanted to make. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →

Our robotics team had eleven members and one shared problem: nobody knew when anyone would show up. Practices collapsed because the programmers waited on a robot the builders had taken home, and two weeks before our regional competition we had logged maybe four usable hours of testing.¹I was not the captain. I was the person who got quietly frustrated enough to do something about it. I made a shared calendar, asked each member to block the hours they could actually commit to, and color coded who needed to be present for which task.²The first version failed. People ignored the calendar, and one builder told me flatly that he resented being managed by a teammate. That stung, and my instinct was to defend myself. Instead I asked him what would actually make it work for him.³His answer reshaped the whole thing. He did not want a schedule imposed on him, he wanted to know that his time would not be wasted sitting around. So we changed the rule: nobody was asked to come unless their specific task was unblocked. Attendance was now a promise the team made to each person, not a demand made of them.⁴In the final ten days we logged nineteen hours of testing and qualified for provincials. I am proud of that, but the number I remember is one: the single conversation I almost avoided.⁵What I learned is that leadership without a title depends entirely on consent. You cannot order peers, you can only make it obvious that following the plan serves them too. The hardest part of working with others is not organizing them, it is being willing to hear that your good idea is annoying, and changing it.⁶

1Starts with a concrete, slightly messy situation and real numbers. The prompt rewards initiative shown through evidence, not a polished self-portrait, so leading with the dysfunction is the right move.
2Defines leadership as initiative rather than title, which is mature and more credible than claiming an official role. This directly answers what the prompt is testing.
3Shows a real setback and a moment of self-control. Admitting the impulse to get defensive, then choosing differently, is exactly the kind of honest reflection the question asks for.
4Turns a conflict into a concrete process change driven by listening. This demonstrates working with others, the core of the prompt, through action rather than assertion.
5Quantifies the outcome, then deliberately undercuts it to point at the human lesson. Specific evidence plus a clear takeaway is precisely what Rotman is screening for under time pressure.
6Closes with a generalizable insight about collaboration that is earned by the story rather than tacked on. The plain, slightly self-critical voice reads as genuine clear thinking, which the school values.

Stuck? Start here

When did I change a plan or start something rather than wait to be told?
What was the measurable result, and what was my specific role?
Where did working with people get hard, and what did I learn?

Before you submit

Is this a real situation with a concrete outcome, not a generic 'I am a leader' claim?
Did I show my own actions and decisions clearly?
Did I reflect on what I learned, including the hard part?

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