My husband\u2019s comments reminded me (as usual) of the challenge many of you face when writing your essays, be they multi-part MBA essays, medical school secondaries with tight word limits, or an open-ended personal statement where you choose to cover more than one topic.<\/p>\n
Here are a few tips:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Eliminate the extraneous and the less important, but do cover all the sub-questions in a multi-part question.<\/li>\n
- If the question is theoretical, remember that the application is about you. Try to ground your response with an example from your experience.<\/li>\n
- Look for the common thread tying the parts together. That\u2019s your theme or core idea.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
If you are over the word limit by more than 30%, you're looking at surgery -- not editing.\u00a0 You probably need to eliminate a less-important topic. If you are less than 30% over and need to remove the chaff from your writing, review the following tips:<\/p>\n
- \n
- UGH! THOSE @!#$* WORD\u00a0LIMITS!!!<\/a><\/li>\n
- Yikes! My Essay is Too\u00a0Long!!!<\/a><\/li>\n
- Personal Statement and Application Essay Tip: Tightening\u00a0Language<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"\"](\"\/universal\/images\/manager\/wysiwyg-script.png\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I just got back from an almost two-week vacation crowned by our younger son\u2019s joyous wedding to a wonderful young woman. We couldn\u2019t be happier. My husband once again faced…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3,6,8],"tags":[90,83,60,144,85,82,140,39,84,87,86,308],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-b-school-life","category-current-events","category-fun-stuff","tag-application-essay","tag-college-admissions","tag-emba","tag-fellowship","tag-grad-school-admissions","tag-law-school-admissions","tag-llm","tag-mba-admissions","tag-medical-school-admissions","tag-personal-statement","tag-residency","tag-secondaries","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\t\t\n
- Yikes! My Essay is Too\u00a0Long!!!<\/a><\/li>\n
- UGH! THOSE @!#$* WORD\u00a0LIMITS!!!<\/a><\/li>\n