In this MBA Application Essay Writing Tips Series, I will share 4 shortcuts for Creating MBA Essay First Drafts.
1) No Word Limit Writing
A big misconception applicants have is around the value of an Admissions Consultant.
I get this question quite a lot – are you an MBA?
The question shows that the applicant is at the early stage of researching consultants.
This is the #1 mistake I see while editing resumes of high-performing applicants. These are your typical Type A candidates who truly have achievements in the top 1 or top 5%, but they also have experiences as individual contributors that are not as significant. But it had a huge impact on the learning curve and their growth as a specialist.
I see 3 insecurities that are driving the exaggeration.
This Strategy is not for those who are only targeting HSW schools. That is Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton. The Strategy applies to anyone who thinks that HSW schools are stretch schools and require considerable planning.
Let’s go back to the 2:3 or the 3:2 Strategy
Typically, applicants target 5 to 7 schools. Of the seven schools, 5 are schools in the top 10, with 2 or 3 from Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton. A big mistake that applicants make is to target Harvard and Stanford in one round itself.
The change essay can be approached in two ways. The first is by aligning with the historical perspective of how Stern branded its experiential learning and the second with what the phrase suggests.
The first strategy might have led to the forced matching of stories to themes with less than spectacular results. That is why the Stern MBA Admissions team expanded its slogan to include:
In this MBA resume tip, I will share two approaches to position your resume into a traditional profile or a profile with leadership and entrepreneurial experience.
I want to start with an insight that not all schools want an entrepreneurial or a profile with diverse leadership experiences. Although if you have had such experiences, it is important to highlight them. Many top 10 schools want to see how you have progressed in a company or a function.
My uncle shared a story about a watchman who was overseeing a property, and there was a huge plumbing issue. In an hour, the apartments started flooding. In another hour, the hallways began flooding. Finally, when the Watchman reached out to the maintenance engineer, he asked, “Why didn’t you report the flooding earlier?” And the response was, “My job is to watch who enters and leaves the property and not to report on the maintenance inside the property.”
Atul Jose (Admissions Consultant, F1GMAT): I will start with the motivation behind writing F1GMAT's Essay Guides. When I started consulting and offering editing services – officially – way back in 2012, there was no one offering any sample essays – free or otherwise. Even blogging like how we are seeing now was not prevalent in the MBA admissions market. The first version of Winning MBA Essay Guide or any school-specific Essay Guides had no samples in it. But after reading the 100th book about writing, I noticed that apart from a couple of books, no one showed the work.
Describe the most significant challenge you have faced. How have you confronted this challenge and how has it shaped you as a person?
You can describe the significant challenge in three contexts – personal, professional, and community. Because there is a community essay, focus on personal or professional challenges.
Unlike other M7 and T20 schools, Harvard MBA has only two application deadlines. The first is September 4th, 2024, and the second is January 6th, 2025.
If you are targeting Stanford and Harvard, prioritize the ‘What Matters Essay’ first, as you are likely to gather unique stories from your life that could be used for Harvard’s leadership essay. See our sample essays to understand the narrative style expected in leadership essays for HSW and M7 schools.
Haas MBA has three rounds of deadlines. The first round is on Sept 12th, 2024, 2nd is on Jan 9th, 2025, and the third by April 3rd, 2025.
There is always a risk of turning your MBA Application resume, essays, and interview answers into a technical narrative. When the interviewer is from your industry, take the risk. For anyone else, your depth and tendency to go technical should be curbed. But even with such warning, there are scenarios where specific narratives and examples work over generic boilerplate answers or entries.
Apart from the intended goal of the Stern Change Essay, you can also approach the phrase at its face value.
I have also been fascinated with death as a theme in many of my Sample Essays - from capturing a road trip of a family in Stanford MBA What Matters Essay – Savor Every Moment to facing death in the Family in Harvard MBA Sample Essay – War and Starting Over Again to writing about
When you read MBA Essays like me for editing, you begin to see the vast range of consciousness poured into the paper – all to get the coveted seat in an M7 or T15 school.
We have the instinct to understand themes in paragraphs. The first paragraph is about a certain topic; the second is about another, and so on. But when writing an open-ended essay, like the What More Harvard Essay or What Matters Stanford Essay, applicants are confused about the themes to choose. Many choose projects from their professional career, while some choose values, and many are stuck in childhood victories that often don’t translate well in MBA application essays.
A big reason applicants can’t persuade the admissions team with their essays is the choice of personal and professional ‘examples.’ Many skim through branding and marketing ideas from consultants and assume that inserting a hero’s journey to mundane milestones from your resume is the answer.
While editing Harvard MBA Essays, a common challenge I faced as an editor was the transition from the personal to the action part of the essay.
All MBA applicants have a purpose. Some are scared; some are embarrassed; some are not sure if such deep introspection is required, but all of them would love to share their core story when the right person asks them.
This is one of the common reasons why a GMAT 750 or someone with an excellent GPA gets dinged. They don’t ask themselves, “What is my Purpose?”
Every forum will have an Applicant quoting with abbreviations IB/M7/Male IB/American IB/Indian IT/Chinese Hardware/Tier-2 Undergraduate – all a shorthand to evoke an association of traits.
To understand how ingrained our beliefs about universally appealing traits are, we must go back 1000 years before the birth of Christ and read Homer. Greek Literature is the originator of all the heroic qualities that we value in our peers and modern culture.
In a high-volume application evaluation like MBA Admissions, the battle to take the mind space of the reviewer requires attention-grabbing narratives, a confident but objective choice of words, and a clearly defined strategy. To break the stereotype, you need a much more forceful strategy.
When I evaluate a profile for F1GMAT’s Career Planning Service, within the first 5 minutes, I have a sense of whether the person should apply this year or the next year. It all comes down to factors that are not often shared in forums and blogs.
Atul Jose (MBA Admissions Consultant, F1GMAT): I get approached early on by applicants who want to target the Top 10 MBA programs in the world. One time, a person reached out to me with just one year of experience. With F1GMAT’s Career Planning Service, we created a plan that will help him brand himself as a person who has technical skills, cultural sensitivity, and experi