Guidelines and Info for Admitted Student Essays

kryzak · **Posted:** Wed Aug 22, 2007 4:44 pm

(This is a repost of the announcement in the B-school Application area, reproduced here for everyone's benefit. The forum is now beginning to accept entries.)

Hi Everyone,

We hope to strengthen GMATClub's B-school application services (so it grows as strong as the GMAT section), and thought that having essays from people who are admitted to b-schools will help the prospective students greatly! All we have today are those included in books like Bodine, Montauk, MBA Game Plan, and HBS 65 Essays. Those often contain "superhuman" stories that just don't help us "common Joes" much.

If we can get a greater sample of what good essays are from common people who do not have Olympic medals or saved the President from jihadists in Iran, it'll hopefully get more GMATClubbers into the school of their dreams!

Security/Privacy/Format:

- Remove all personal info from the essays and as many proper nouns as possible; so no names of who you talked to, who you are, etc... To protect your privacy

- Mention your status with the school's application: admitted, rejected, waitlisted, deferred, withdrawn, etc...

- Include the essay question at the top of each essay.

- Please try to submit in password protected PDF file if possible. You can then decide to give out the password on an individual basis (by PM) or post it in a thread.

- Praetorian controls who can see this forum at all, so that's another level of security.

- If you're worried about people associating the essays to you, please send Praetorian your essays and he can post them up for you anonymously.

File Name Format/Organization:

- Let's standardize the title of the post. Something like:

[Name of School] - [Question] - [Application Year]

Ex: Stanford - Essay A - What Matters Most - 2006-2007

- I have created threads for each UE/E/TE school, and NE/NEF schools as needed. Please post your essays in those threads to keep this forum organized.

Access:

For access, similar to GMATClub Challenges, you currently need 400 QUALITY posts to be invited by Praet to the forum. Here are Praet's words:

Praetorian wrote:

If you are an 09 applicant, you will need 400 quality posts to have access to the forum. If you do this right, this will take you about 3 or more months -- long enough for us to know that you are legit.

The link is here:

113

nervousgmat · **Posted:** Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:23 pm

kryzak,

I would like to submit my essays after I am done with all of my applications. Where is the forum for the essays though? I can't find any...

kryzak · **Posted:** Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:44 pm

good question, Praetorian might have taken it down?

Praetorian?

Praetorian · **Posted:** Tue Dec 25, 2007 12:32 pm

Hi kryzak and nervousgmat

I have created a admitted student essays forum. Only a few members currently have access. Let me know if you have been admitted and are interested in sharing your essays. I will enable access for you.

Some tips:

a) Post the document as a password protected PDF file.
b) Remove all personal information and as many proper nouns as possible.

If you are an 09 applicant, you will need 400 quality posts to have access to the forum. If you do this right, this will take you about 3 or more months -- long enough for us to know that you are legit.

thanks.

mNeo · **Posted:** Tue Dec 25, 2007 1:32 pm

Praet,

Where's the said forum?

Ozmba · **Posted:** Tue Dec 25, 2007 3:30 pm

mNeo wrote:

Praet,

Where's the said forum?

I don't see it either?

djhouse81 · **Posted:** Tue Dec 25, 2007 5:10 pm

Praet,

As an admit w/o 400 posts, do I (and those who are similar to me) get access? I would like to pitch in. Furthermore, should we follow Kry's quidelines, as stated above, or do you have any other suggestions?

Praetorian · **Posted:** Tue Dec 25, 2007 5:31 pm

activated access for mNeo, Ozmba and djhouse81.

djhouse81, we have provided guidelines. I will leave it to the contributors to decide how they want to post their essays.

thank you for your participation.

kryzak · **Posted:** Tue Dec 25, 2007 6:53 pm

Praet, add me as a contributor (and if you need any help with editing or moderating stuff).

Thanks!

Praetorian · **Posted:** Tue Dec 25, 2007 7:08 pm

kryzak wrote:

Praet, add me as a contributor (and if you need any help with editing or moderating stuff).

Thanks!

You are one of the moderators of that forum.

bsd_lover · **Posted:** Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:17 pm

Hi Preat,

I would like access too. Having been dinged twice, I have some interesting insights into common mistakes that people can make

Praetorian wrote:

activated access for mNeo, Ozmba and djhouse81.

djhouse81, we have provided guidelines. I will leave it to the contributors to decide how they want to post their essays.

thank you for your participation.

bewakoof · **Posted:** Tue Jan 01, 2008 8:34 pm

Hi,

Can I have the access too please?

toDoorNot · **Posted:** Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:12 pm

Can the post be made accessible to "Managers". I would definitely contribute a lot more once i get an admit, but to get to that, i might need some help from already successful essays.

Personally, i feel 50 posts do validate the person's commitment and authenticity.

ncp · **Posted:** Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:17 pm

I think it will be best if interested parties PM Praet or his designee directly, for access requests. Discussing access requests in the open forum is probably not the best option and can lead to resentments and arguments.

kryzak · **Posted:** Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:49 pm

currently, Praetorian is the only person who can give access. The rest of us are just mods who are helping him organize the forum and things like that. I would follow NC's advice and PM Praet to sell your case.

toDoorNot · **Posted:** Tue Jan 01, 2008 11:04 pm

Peace..

Have sent a PM to Praet.

riverripper · **Posted:** Wed Jan 02, 2008 4:11 am

I hate to say it but its pretty important to have a set number and not make exceptions. If you make exception for one person you have to make it for a bunch. The number has to be pretty high for obvious reason. I think its like the challenges, you need to earn the right to access them (I dont even have access to challenges). There are only a few essays there now so honestly there isnt anything that is going to help anyone this year.

kwam · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 3:57 am

Praetorian wrote:

Hi kryzak and nervousgmat

I have created a admitted student essays forum. Only a few members currently have access. Let me know if you have been admitted and are interested in sharing your essays. I will enable access for you.

Some tips:

a) Post the document as a password protected PDF file.
b) Remove all personal information and as many proper nouns as possible.

If you are an 09 applicant, you will need 400 quality posts to have access to the forum. If you do this right, this will take you about 3 or more months -- long enough for us to know that you are legit.

thanks.

I'd like to contribute, especially with GSB I think I have a good material. However, I still have some posts to get to 400, and not all of them are "quality posts" :lol:

. But hey I'm a 10 applicant. Jokes aside, I'm here to help...

Praetorian · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:10 am

kwam

I added you. Keep in mind that the post requirements are intended for 09 applicants. If you are writing to me to request access as an 08 applicant, there is not much available right now.

Remember that if you do not want GMAT Club to access your essays, you should post them as PDF password protected.

togafoot · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:26 pm

pm'd praet

Guidelines and Info for Admitted Student Essays

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