The admissions committees at top business schools want to meet the real you, the man or woman behind your GMAT scores, transcripts, and résumé. They want to know who you are now—what motivates you, what sets you apart from others, and who you'd like to become—what career goals you have and how you'd like to achieve them. Revealing your inner self, your hopes and dreams, is the purpose of the business school application essays. "The essays are windows into who you are as a person, your heart," says Stacy Blackman, president of Stacy Blackman Consulting in Los Angeles. Your No. 1 priority is to communicate just how much your entrance into this business school means to you, and what you bring to the table.
Before you even think about writing your essays, you should take time for serious self-reflection by focusing on your strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations. Try to look at yourself objectively and contemplate what you'd be bringing to a business school and where B-school might help you improve. Also, reflect on the career you'd like to create for yourself after the MBA and how you could realistically achieve such goals. Finally, you must thoroughly research the schools, their programs and courses, and the campus culture.
After you have scratched all the above tasks off your to-do list, then you can start writing your application essays. Without getting hung up on what you think the admissions committees want to read, you should try to make your essays lively and fresh.
Whatever you do, don't get into "term-paper mode", warns Paul Bodine, senior editor at Accepted.com, an admissions consulting firm, and author of Great Application Essays for Business Schools (McGraw-Hill, November 2005). "Make it about self-discovery," he adds. "Make it fun." Keep in mind that the committee members read thousands of responses to the same questions as they consider applications, so you don't want to bore them. Using anecdotes, including vivid details, and avoiding spelling and grammar mistakes that could distract the reader are key.
GET REAL
One of the biggest mistakes applicants make, say admissions consultants, is failing to do what is asked of them. "The answer to the question being posed should be in every single essay," says Linda Abraham, president of Accepted.com. "It's not always there, and that's bad news." Having someone proofread your essays and then guess the original question is one way to stay on task, says Shelley Burt, director of graduate management enrollment at the Carroll School of Management (Carroll Full-Time MBA Profile) at Boston College.
Keeping it real is the golden rule of application essay writing. "You need to approach the essays with a certain level of integrity and sincerity," says Abraham. "What the adcomm wants to do is learn about the applicant, so if you try to hide yourself, then on some level you're failing." Abraham adds that you must recognize yourself in your work and that you must be the one to write the essays, even if others look them over for you or give you advice on how to improve them.
MAP YOUR CAREER GOALS
Sending the right messages about your candidacy throughout the application is imperative, and the essays are your chance to make certain points stick. For starters, you have to express your career goals and how you hope to achieve them. Many programs have a specific essay question that asks outright about your plans. One interesting way to approach the question in an essay, suggests Abraham, is to write about a typical day in your life as you imagine it to be five years down the road.
Before you even think about writing your essays, you should take time for serious self-reflection by focusing on your strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations. Try to look at yourself objectively and contemplate what you'd be bringing to a business school and where B-school might help you improve. Also, reflect on the career you'd like to create for yourself after the MBA and how you could realistically achieve such goals. Finally, you must thoroughly research the schools, their programs and courses, and the campus culture.
After you have scratched all the above tasks off your to-do list, then you can start writing your application essays. Without getting hung up on what you think the admissions committees want to read, you should try to make your essays lively and fresh.
Whatever you do, don't get into "term-paper mode", warns Paul Bodine, senior editor at Accepted.com, an admissions consulting firm, and author of Great Application Essays for Business Schools (McGraw-Hill, November 2005). "Make it about self-discovery," he adds. "Make it fun." Keep in mind that the committee members read thousands of responses to the same questions as they consider applications, so you don't want to bore them. Using anecdotes, including vivid details, and avoiding spelling and grammar mistakes that could distract the reader are key.
GET REAL
One of the biggest mistakes applicants make, say admissions consultants, is failing to do what is asked of them. "The answer to the question being posed should be in every single essay," says Linda Abraham, president of Accepted.com. "It's not always there, and that's bad news." Having someone proofread your essays and then guess the original question is one way to stay on task, says Shelley Burt, director of graduate management enrollment at the Carroll School of Management (Carroll Full-Time MBA Profile) at Boston College.
Keeping it real is the golden rule of application essay writing. "You need to approach the essays with a certain level of integrity and sincerity," says Abraham. "What the adcomm wants to do is learn about the applicant, so if you try to hide yourself, then on some level you're failing." Abraham adds that you must recognize yourself in your work and that you must be the one to write the essays, even if others look them over for you or give you advice on how to improve them.
MAP YOUR CAREER GOALS
Sending the right messages about your candidacy throughout the application is imperative, and the essays are your chance to make certain points stick. For starters, you have to express your career goals and how you hope to achieve them. Many programs have a specific essay question that asks outright about your plans. One interesting way to approach the question in an essay, suggests Abraham, is to write about a typical day in your life as you imagine it to be five years down the road.
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