Written essays…

Essays! The bane of all applicants, maybe except for those who genuinely love writing or are good writers. I am not one of those unfortunately. Below were my key observations from this experience.

Identify who will be your essay review panel and inform them. You will need to ensure they know what will be expected of them and that they have your time. I chose 5 people to be my reviewers. A couple disappointed and were not as helpful as I would have hoped but the others went over and beyond to ensure I was able to deliver my essays on time. You want people who won’t just tell you ‘I don’t like the structure’ or ‘it doesn’t read well’ but who will also tell you why and proffer suggestions i.e. constructive feedback.

You also need to know how to take constructive feedback. Do not argue or dismiss what you are told. You might not agree and it is fine to have a discussion about this but you do not need to be aggressive about it. After all, these people are taking time out to help you.

You however do not need to incorporate all the feedback you are given. It is your essay and it is important you are happy with what you are writing and how you are portraying yourself.

Most of the essays focus on trying to find out who you are, what you will contribute to the program and how you will do so, your fit with the culture and values of the school and fundamentally what sets you apart from the other applicants. It is very very hard to present all this in a coherent manner while answering the question/prompt. This is why you will constantly find yourself making adjustments. I cannot tell you how many edits I made to the structure of my essay! Always make sure you have a notepad on you to jot down ideas as you never know when this will be. I have woken up in the middle of the night to write down ideas!

The first thing I did was to write down all I wanted the business school to know about me.

• A brief background on who I am (just a brief line or two on where I was born and where I have lived).
• What led me to this point where I want to do an MBA with a focus on energy and why it is important to me.
• Why I feel the program at the school I am applying to is best placed to help me achieve this.
• What I will be bringing to the learning environment
• Other activities outside the professional environment I am involved in that provide more of an insight into who I am

You also just want to have one or two examples for each of the above. Most of the long MBA essays are between 300-500 words. You will realise when you do your first draft how little 500 words actually is (I am currently on 488 words at this point in the blog!).

Be careful to avoid listing things e.g. “I am good at problem solving,” “I work well under pressure.” Provide an example of where you solved a problem, explain what the problem was, what you did to resolve it and what the impact was of you solving this problem.

 

Short essay questions/prompts

The MBA programs also have short questions or prompts (usually 50-100 words) and they vary. Some of these require you to say your short and long term goals. These literally involve you saying something like “Post MBA, I want to work as a pricing analyst at ConocoPhillips.” You do not have to specify the company but you are encouraged to be as specific as possible.  While some of the prompts, like those from Ross Michigan, specified how you started your response e.g. “I made a difference when I:” Read through all the blogs of the schools you are applying to as they let you know what they expect you to show in your responses. You should also go through their websites to get an idea of what the school is like and what they look for in students so you know how best to present yourself to them.

There are also a lot of platforms that provide advice on how to answer the questions such as GMAT Club, Clear Admit, Veritas Prep who have proved very useful to me. I will strongly advise against getting someone to write your essays for you. Not only are they expensive but there is a strong chance it will show in your essay.

I had to come back after publishing to include this paragraph. You need to do a word search on all your essays before you submit to ensure you have not mentioned the wrong college i.e. do not talk about how you will contribute to the McCombs classroom in an essay to Ross. I cannot emphasise how important this is. All admissions teams always talk about how this is an error they regularly see and one there is no come back from!

I am always happy to steer you to the right forums/sites for any essay questions you might have and also provide you with my insight/advice where possible.