An average human makes 27 decisions per day, from selecting the tie, to choosing grocery, to making life-altering commitments. Decisions that demonstrate courage in leadership has one thing in common: lack of information.
World limits for your MBA essays is a topic that is quite confusing. Here are some pointers that might be useful for you. Keep your essays 10% higher or lower than the word limit provided. But be very careful not to fall short by 10% in more than two essays. Do not try to manipulate with line and paragraph spacing, margins, indentation or alignment.
Read Complete MBA Application Essay - Word Limit Tips
Transcripts verify your academic performance, and recommendation letter affirms your competency at work, but your involvement with non-profit through volunteering and your entrepreneurial initiatives need much more than a certificate of participation, or a ‘single line’ in a resume.
There is a thin line between a Manager and a Leader. As a leader, you are expected to have worked with more than one person, persuaded them to follow your suggestions and impact the team in a positive way.
Emotion is everything in an essay. We are not talking about the over sentimental account of how your Dog died, and how that led to your non-profit initiative. “Where are the phrases that show your emotions?” The applicant was silent for 1-minute, and replied “What?” Business School will reject the recommendation letter like essays that are to the point but like thousands of other essays - bland.
Take the risk, and capture emotions in equal measure when you describe the actions you took
When you are writing your MBA Application Essays, don’t just randomly write about your leadership experience. Instead, check whether your experience falls within the four leadership examples that the MBA Admission team is expecting.
Read: Four Examples of Leadership (MBA Essays)
The applicant had wonderfully weaved a story of failure and retribution with high points and low points marked carefully in the 500-word essay. One glaring problem stood out in the essay. The Boss, who was the opposing force in the essay, was described in just three words. The characterization felt one-dimensional in an otherwise masterful essay.
You can avoid creating clichéd Villain Characters in the essay with these three techniques
Who are you - Superman, Peter Parker, Rocky, or Frank Abagnale Jr.? What we learned reviewing hundreds of essays during Round 1 and Round 2 deadlines is that almost all applicants fall under four categories: Superman, Peter Parker, Rocky and Frank Abagnale Jr.
Who are you?
If you have seen Memento, you know the power of Chronology, to be more precise – the reverse chronology. What the peculiar narrative does to the audience is that it forces them to miss the loo break. Every scene, clue, or characters in the sequence create questions in our mind. Did the new character kill the wife? Is the guy who is helping the hero, the real villain?
Find out how to use Chronology, Vividness, and Active Verbs in MBA Application Essays
It is impossible to write freely from the heart when the word count is restricting your creativity. Forget word count for the first draft, and silence the analytic mind. Most applicants targeting top MBA programs are gifted analytically, but essays require your right brain to function at an optimum, capturing honest emotions.
How do you do it?
Here is how…
Most MBA Application Essays are filled with hyperbole about small achievements, the applicant often taking credit of key team members. We had to warn an applicant that his chances of impressing the reviewer are low if he keeps hogging the credit on every other line. He replied, "I was the smartest of them. I made sure that the team performed.” We tried to put some sense into the self-obsessed applicant, but it did not work.
Learn How to switch Point of Views Interestingly in MBA Application Essays
The essays that do not leave any mark are the ones where the experiences do not connect with the reviewer’s experiences. Unless you can inspire the reviewer, you are at the mercy of numbers (GMAT, GPA and Experience), and competition (Round 1 vs. Round 2 Application volume).
Find out how Mental Association determines the Winning MBA Essay
Starting with a catchy paragraph, adding elements of storytelling, translating your unique experience to engaging narrative, using numbers without boring the reviewer, avoiding clichés, and finally creating a coherent MBA application essay is no mean task. In our essay review service, we have seen applicants trying to meet all these requirements in the first draft itself. A better strategy is to use iterations, each iteration adding elements of a Winning MBA Essay to the first draft.
Here is how it is done
Hypnosis has received a bad reputation from the multiple stories about the individual losing conscious control over their actions, or doing something outrageous under this state of mind. We don’t intent to force the message, ‘I am your best pick’ to the essay reviewer, but hypnosis by definition involve forcing the admission team to lose a sense of peripheral awareness, and focus completely on your essay.
Here is how it is done
When the Admission team is reading your essays, they are not expecting writers who can take them to a world far far away. What is the point anyways? Post-MBA, your job would be to cut the fluff, and focus on the problem. Memos, reports, and emails expect you to stay as far away from narrative and backstories. Then why do MBA Admission teams expect applicants to write interesting narratives?
Here are the three reasons why MBA Admission team expects you to write interesting Narrative
More than emotions, evaluating an essay is an intense exercise. With the tiny 3-pounder brain taking up 20% of our total energy, it is no wonder that as humans, we don’t want to waste our mental energy on trivial activities. We would rather spend most of our energy on survival – getting food and avoiding danger. There is no difference between the diligent reviewer and the quick reader. Both would like to avoid the trivial essays.
Why? It gives them a better social status
How you analyze failure, summarize the lessons learned, and explain the comeback reveals a key characteristic of someone with a high emotional intelligence: the ability to bounce back.
Show your Emotional Intelligence Trait in MBA Essays: Ability to make a comeback
MBA Applicants dread October 1st Week and January 1st week. For Round 2 applicants, say goodbye to the winter break. You will obsessively rewrite the essays, and triple check the required documents, but it is worth the sacrifice. Even if you have all the soft copies of your certificates, transcript, and other awards, DO NOT UPLOAD YOUR ESSAYS, RESUME & RECOMMENDATION LETTER ON THE DEADLINE DATES.
Consider these 10 items before submitting your MBA application
When an MBA Admission Committee member is reading hundreds of essays, one factor that allows applicants to stand out is the readability of their essay. The focus on readability began in early 1940s with Dr. Rudolf Flesch, who introduced the ‘The Flesch Formulas’ that factors in average sentence length and average word length in syllables. Subsequently, there have been several readability formulas that have been integrated into word processing Softwares.
Let us look at the factors that influence readability the most
MBA Application Optional essay has stayed the same despite the change in the word limit, and the number of essays. The word limit for optional essays is in the 300-500 word range and comes at the end of the application. The space is reserved to explain the weakness in the profile, even though other explicit questions about weakness exist in most MBA Application essays.
Here are 7 reasons to write the MBA Application Optional Essay
GMAT might be the only hurdle that is devoid of any biases as the computer selects the next question according to your ability. While evaluating Essays and Interviews, human perception has a much bigger influence. Unfortunately, Automatic Biases are triggered by characteristics in the environment or stereotypes associated with a person (race, gender, age)
Interesting Findings about Essay Review Biases
If you understand the rationale behind your firing, it becomes much easier to explain the event in your MBA Application essay. Mark Cuban remembers getting fired from Your Business Software after closing a deal instead of opening the retail store. He provides an interesting narrative about the event.
Find out how to narrate the event without Whining
If you had seen the keynote address that Steve Jobs delivered during MacWorld Expo and other Apple launch events, you will notice four things in his communication: Emotional Connection, Focus, Minimum Jargons, and Creative Solutions. You can highlight these four traits in your essays. Learn how!
When AdCom wants to learn about an applicant’s ability to lead, communicate, and work with teams from diverse backgrounds, they are looking for events or evidence of creativity, and resourcefulness. The word ‘Creativity’ flashes us with images of brilliance and ‘out of the box’ thinking but AdCom is not expecting inventors but applicants who can excel with limited resources.
Learn How to include instances of resourcefulness and creativity in MBA Application Essays
With the word limit going down for most MBA Application essays, applicants have to be judicious with the use of words. The acceptance rate of top schools is in the 5-8% range, and applicants cannot rely on the general advice that experts offer, and stand out from the competition. They have to find strategies to be more persuasive. We have compiled a list of five steps that would make the essays more persuasive:
Like -> Understand -> Agree -> Remember -> Enthusiasm
Find out more about writing persuasive MBA Application Essays