{"id":8989,"date":"2011-10-13T11:10:49","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T18:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=8989"},"modified":"2012-06-11T11:49:31","modified_gmt":"2012-06-11T18:49:31","slug":"four-types-of-bs-that-wont-work-in-an-mba-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/four-types-of-bs-that-wont-work-in-an-mba-application\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Types of BS That Won\u2019t Work in an MBA Application"},"content":{"rendered":"

Putting the finishing touches on those Round 1 applications? Finally sitting down to get started on your apps for Round 2<\/a>? Great!<\/p>\n

Now\u2026stop.<\/p>\n

Before you send those things off or get too deep into your work, take a moment and make sure you\u2019re not committing one of the 4 cardinal sins of b-school applications.<\/p>\n

1)<\/strong> <\/strong> Writing all your own LORs\u2026in a hurry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, we know, in some cases you will have no choice but to write one of your LORs (and hopefully not more than one) for your recommenders.\u00a0\u00a0They are too busy, they aren\u2019t great writers, blablabla. But if you ARE forced to write your own LOR, do yourself a favor: take your TIME.\u00a0\u00a0Sloooow down the process, and make SURE that you have someone else\u2019s voice in there. Make sure that you aren\u2019t just\u00a0rehashing all the same examples that your recommender is<\/a>. \u00a0This is very hard to do, and it can NOT be done in 35 minutes.\u00a0\u00a0Work HARD to make it seem as though someone else at least THOUGHT of the ideas, even if he or she didn\u2019t write it\u2026<\/p>\n

2) Repeating your resume. Verbatim.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am a real estate guy, and this colors everything I do.\u00a0\u00a0I see business school apps the same way.\u00a0\u00a0That is, you are given only a certain amount of real estate to play with.\u00a0\u00a0So do yourself a favor, and use the resume to talk about some DIFFERENT items than what you write about in your essays, LORs, etc.\u00a0\u00a0It is to be expected that your recommender will bring some NEW stuff to the table.\u00a0\u00a0And he should!\u00a0\u00a0The same thing goes for your essays. Nothing marks a bigger waste of an opportunity than simply repeating your resume, first in your essays, and then in your LORs.\u00a0\u00a0Take advantage of all your real estate, my friends, and highlight something new, something different, something\u00a0else <\/em>that will wow the adcoms.<\/p>\n

3) Talking about the meaning of life, your process, etc. <\/strong> And not, you know, talking about the fact that you are applying to business school\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

We see this problem all the time.\u00a0\u00a0Folks like to talk about what they have been through, the sadness of life, their misfortune, their process, and all the things that makes them, well, them.\u00a0\u00a0And that is great!\u00a0\u00a0But let\u2019s not lose sight of one simple fact my friends: this is BUSINESS school!\u00a0\u00a0You need to paint yourself first and foremost as a BUSINESS person, destined to succeed in the world of business.\u00a0\u00a0This isn\u2019t \u201cmeaning of life\u2019 school, this is BUSINESS school.\u00a0\u00a0So while your background is important, and your hopes and dreams (and the fact that they were dashed when your YYY was diagnosed with ZZZ) are important, they are ONLY important as they make you into a better BUSINESS person.<\/p>\n

4) Cutting and pasting essays from elsewhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, a lot of business school applications ask similar questions\u2026 and business school applications take a lot of time. So why not save some time and use the same essay to answer the same questions on different apps? Of course it is okay in some instances, especially when it comes to the career goals essay. But if you are cutting and pasting, be sure to at least tweak the language in your response.\u00a0If the question is asking \u201cabout a RISK you took,\u201d and you write about the time \u201cyou took advantage of an opportunity,\u201d you COULD be just fine.\u00a0\u00a0After all, the answer may well be the same!\u00a0But the context is different\u2026and you need to work that into your answer. Don\u2019t be foolish\u2014make sure to reword the answer so that you are borrowing, specifically, from the NEW question. Reword it so that nobody would EVER think that you simply cut and pasted, even though sometimes it is perfectly appropriate.<\/p>\n

Get it? Got it?
\nGood.
\nNow you may get back to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Putting the finishing touches on those Round 1 applications? Finally sitting down to get started on your apps for Round 2? Great! Now\u2026stop. Before you send those things off or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,11,817,775,113,10,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-mba","category-admissionado","category-admission-consultants","category-applications","category-interviews","category-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8989"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12094,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8989\/revisions\/12094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}