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GMAT Club Legend
Status: Um... what do you want to know?
Joined: 04 Jun 2007
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Location: SF, CA, USA
Schools: UC Berkeley Haas School of Business MBA 2010
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Word Limits! Help! [#permalink]
 19 Aug 2007, 22:28
Alright... I've already asked avi for some help, but this may help everyone... I'm writing the first draft of my Haas Goals essay, which has a 1000 word limit... Here's my breakdown... I only have 248 words to talk about my career progression and why I need an MBA now... Any idea on what I can do to shorten things?
Intro + Long Term Goal: 217 words - the "being specific" part is killing me since I have to mention specific regions, industry, and things so it doesn't sound vague... but those take up words.
Short Term Goal: 159 words - being very specific, listing names of possible companies, job titles, and what I will do for them to lead me to my long term goal...
Career Progression/Why Now: I have 248 words to work with... NOT good at all...
Why Berkeley Part: 259 words - trying to show that I know the classes they're talking about and the clubs I will join and contribute. The other 250 words in the short answer I will drop names of who I spoke with at Berkeley... I can probably trim this down to 200 words if I move some stuff over to the "What steps have you done to learn about Berkeley?", but that one is only 250 words also...
Conclusion: 117 words... - should be a good length...
Any help?
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Manager
Joined: 08 Jul 2007
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You might want to trim down on the "SHORT TERM GOAL" and the "Career History" part.
I am facing the same problem with the Columbia Question 1. It has only 750 words to play with.
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CEO
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Yup Columbia Essay 1 - 750 words. My essay - 900 words. I cant work out what to edit out ...
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Senior Manager
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I seriously though Columbia's 750 words were plenty to play with... I'm touching about 790 on my final version.
I only spent about a brief paragraph on my past history, and all the rest of it on what i want to do, and why columbia...
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Manager
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adc_away wrote: I seriously though Columbia's 750 words were plenty to play with... I'm touching about 790 on my final version.
I only spent about a brief paragraph on my past history, and all the rest of it on what i want to do, and why columbia...
Goals + Why MBA + Why Columbia = 850 words for my essay.
After including the past history total essay = 1150
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Manager
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@ bsd_lover & adc_away
How about Columbia Essay # 2? For that essay it is the other way round for me. I have less words and more limit 
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Senior Manager
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Including a quotation from Glenn Hubbard, I'm hitting about 540.. 560 words... I was told to include the quotation because the question specifically mentions it... I'm still on the fence on that one though.
Did you include a quotation?
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Director
Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 980
Location: Singapore
Concentration: Finance, Economics
Schools: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) - Class of 2014
GMAT 1: 740 Q48 V44
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adc_away wrote: Including a quotation from Glenn Hubbard, I'm hitting about 540.. 560 words... I was told to include the quotation because the question specifically mentions it... I'm still on the fence on that one though.
Did you include a quotation?
A lot of forum members said here not to use any quotation. Perhaps you can use extra words in your intro instead of the quotation.
My 2 cents.
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Senior Manager
Joined: 08 Feb 2007
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That's what I thought too. But the essay specifically references the speech.
Can anybody advise on this please?
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CEO
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Unlike you ED guys, I am targeting J-Term. Essay 2 is slightly different for me. Its about Leadership - a manager that I have observed .... My current essay is 530 odd words long.
Perhaps the worst one is the Essay 4. The one about my passion in 250 words. If I could write about it in 250 words, just how passionate am I about it ???
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Senior Manager
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I think the passion essay is like the infamous dot com elevator ride presentation... if you can't sell your idea by the time it takes tshe VC to ride up to his office, it's not going to happen....
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GMAT Club Legend
Status: Um... what do you want to know?
Joined: 04 Jun 2007
Posts: 5463
Location: SF, CA, USA
Schools: UC Berkeley Haas School of Business MBA 2010
WE 1: Social Gaming
Followers: 49
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Well, from the looks of it, the Columbia essay doesn't explicitly ask you to answer "How do your professional experiences relate to these goals?"
So while I'm not going to describe my past experiences, there needs to be at least a paragraph talking about what professional experiences I had that led me to my career goals. I think I may be able to do it after re-reading Stacy Blackman's tips... talk about what I learned from my past experiences that leads me to the goals... do NOT talk about your career and what you did, even if it's a vivid and colorful description.
BTW, I'm using a quote from a friend, and I explicitly call it a "matter-of-fact" quote and why I included it as to not sound cliche.
After some tweaking, here are my word counts:
Intro: 116 words
Long + Short Term Goal: 233 words - being very specific, listing names of possible companies, job titles, and what I will do for them to lead me to my long term goal...
Career Progression/Why Now: Now I have 301 words to work with...
Why Berkeley Part: 229 words
Conclusion: 121 words...
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GMAT Club Legend
Joined: 10 Apr 2007
Posts: 4319
Location: Back in Chicago, IL
Schools: Kellogg Alum: Class of 2010
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Passion seems to be the new buzz word in applications, it was ethics for a few years. I like the idea of it since people that are sucessful in their careers generally have a passion for what they do. The more you love what you do the more you put into it and the more you accomplish.
I know some people here are going to school to find their calling and to get a job that they find more rewarding (overwhelmingly this seems to be an engineers reason). If thats why you want to go back, sell the adcoms on that reason. I think that reason for wanting an MBA is something would win over an adcoms any day over someone who just wants to have a seven figure job in 10 years.
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GMAT Club Legend
Status: Um... what do you want to know?
Joined: 04 Jun 2007
Posts: 5463
Location: SF, CA, USA
Schools: UC Berkeley Haas School of Business MBA 2010
WE 1: Social Gaming
Followers: 49
Kudos [?]:
309
[0], given: 14
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you hit the nail right on the head riverripper! Yes, after introspection and writing these essays, that is exactly why I want to switch jobs. I've exhausted all the possible positions that I would enjoy at my company, even as a business development person, and realized that the root problem is in the industry I'm in, not what I'm doing.
I'll spend more time talking about my passion and what industries I want to work in for my essays... hopefully that will shine through!
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GMAT Club Legend
Joined: 10 Apr 2007
Posts: 4319
Location: Back in Chicago, IL
Schools: Kellogg Alum: Class of 2010
Followers: 68
Kudos [?]:
679
[0], given: 5
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My goals essay at schools is pretty much my passion essay...my future career goal to me is more about the impact I hope to make on the world around me than what I want to do for myself (ie, big salary and fancy title). Obviously if you attain the fancy title you can accomplish more so that plays a role. The hard thing is my passion is something someone may not agree with, its based on a relatively polarizing topic so I am hoping personal opinions are kept at bay.
The personal opinions of those reviewing your essays is one reason to be cautious about belittling your past industry because you never know who is going to read that. If a student whose career goal is that industry or someone whose wife/husband runs a company in that industry is on the committee and reads it that may immediately be a strike against you.
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GMAT Club Legend
Status: Um... what do you want to know?
Joined: 04 Jun 2007
Posts: 5463
Location: SF, CA, USA
Schools: UC Berkeley Haas School of Business MBA 2010
WE 1: Social Gaming
Followers: 49
Kudos [?]:
309
[0], given: 14
|
good point about the negative stuff... I'll keep it at a very "professional" level of discussion then.
my future career goal is more about enjoying what I'm doing, and hoping to make an good impact for the society (through technology conveniences). Might not be as altruistic as a non-profit, but I think it's still not as superficial as just the salary and title.
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