500 words!?

Question

Is anyone else struggling to construct a goals essay with 500 words or less? I have a strong outline and know everything I want to touch on, I just can't seem to get it to fit within the given parameters. 

Just venting, but this is driving me crazy. I am going to have to skimp on an important area, and I just don't want to do it.

amorica · Answer

yeah me too!..its crazy..

check out this georgia tech question..

What are your expectations of the MBA program? What do you hope to gain from your study at Georgia Tech? What contributions do you think you will make? 

The instructions say limit your response to one page!... but... there is a text box where we are supposed to type in the essay (where they say there is a 4000 character limit..but one double spaced page is approximately 2500 characters). Am I supposed to type it out on one page, then paste into the text box? I called the school and they said yes...and to double space!.. I'm venting too!!

venky1979 · Answer

I have done that. infact I took my 1500 word essay, I trimmed it to a 500 word essay.
basically you need to chip out your accademica and early phases of your career and get started with your recent achievemnets and tie future plans with skills you have and dont have and hence this MBA program at xyz 
I know it hurts a lot not to mention all that you want to. but cant help those rules are common to all

aaudetat · Answer

Cornell is 400 - they're evil. i'm down to 462 and am just going to have to take a deep breath and chopchopchop.

A good way to cut things out: adverbs! Were you very excited? That's fine, but being just excited (and not very excited) probably works just as well.

Also, if you can find a sentence that is perhaps interesting, but not crucial, pull it out - that'll be a chunk all at once.

Pulling a couple of shorter sentences into one can also save some verbage.

Remember, you're usually better off saying more about a few things than less about many. They KNOW you can't say everything that's relevant. Look at things in terms of balance - which is more important? which is less?

And let go of it - these are your accomplishments and dreams, and it's hard to cut them out. They're important to you. You've gotta take a step back to be able to do this. Also, show it to someone else. They're not as invested in the inter-departmental beer pong tournament you organized. I know you put your heart into that tournament, eazyb, but ya gotta let it go.

Good luck man. Yeah, it sucks for sure.

eazyb81 · Answer

But I worked so damn hard for that title belt!!!

rhyme · Answer

HEres another way to cut.

Do a search for the words "able to" ... pretty much everywhere you find those words, you can remove em.

i.e. Thanks to my huge brain, I was able to convince people I dont suck. 
becomes
Thanks to my huge brain, I convinced people I dont suck. 

And lots of people use able to everywhere.

jd04 · Answer

I have been sticking to a "depth over breadth" strategy in these 500 word Goals essays. Not only is this an easy way to manage the length of your response, but it allows you to focus (perhaps illustrating with a fun story) on WHAT EXACTLY makes the specific program attractive to you (which is necessarily related to your stated goals) and WHAT EXACTLY about your personal/professional experiences will be additive to the MBA adventure of your classmates.

These may only be one or two facets of the program and/or your background, but I think it makes more sense to hone your case on what is most compelling rather than create a shallow laundry list of qualities that you feel obligated to mention, devoting only a few sentences to each. These "attractive traits" (extracurriculars, leadership training seminars, alumni networks) are likely strong at ANY top 15 school. Mentioning that you plan to join the Jousting Enthusiasts Society as part of a weak-sauce-obligatory-paragraph-on-extracurriculars-that-you-shove-in-right before-the-conclusion-so-you-appear-well-rounded says squat. If joining the Jousting Enthusiasts is  that  important to you, make it your whole essay. Tell them from soup to nuts how it relates to your career goals of starting a rondel-manufacturing firm, past experience slaying dragons at Renaissance Fairs, and, most importantly, WHAT YOU CAN ADD to the program in terms of innovative sword combat techniques.

To emphasize, if your other essays/resume/activities divulge that you are a Sonics season ticketholder who played D-1 college basketball and has been on some form of organized hoop team since age three, IT IS SIMPLY GRATUITOUS TO MENTION (as a side paragraph) IN THE GOALS ESSAY THAT YOU PLAN TO JOIN THE BASKETBALL CLUB.

I could be wrong and my essays could suck b/c of lack of breadth, but that's the chance I've taken. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of others on this.

necromonger · Answer

Those applying to INSEAD will face the same. 250 word and 500 word essays. The key is

1. Write the essay without bothering about the limit.
2. Read it, remove every redundancy, meaningless, pointless, weightless sentence.
3. Trim it again by rephrasing sentences.
4. Get it to within 10% over the word limit.

I managed to do it with a lot of slice n' dice - and at the end of it, I do believe that I've said what I wanted to. You would be surprised how much you can say with how little :)

aaudetat · Answer

Good point, necromonger.

I was talking to my co-worker who used to be in publishing. She said something she used to see all the time is writers who load up their sentences with prepositional phrases - mostly "of." These sentences are way longer than they need to be - simply shifting the phrases around and combining them will go a long way toward shortening your work.

gmahn · Answer

Hi there,

I guess the most difficult essay I've found is the MIT cover letter. 500 words to mix goals, passion, values, professional and job experiences. I've managed to reduce it until 598, just summarizing absolutely everything, except why MIT. And only two days remaining!

Good luck people!

pelihu · Answer

A helpful thing to remember is that everyone must adhere to the same limits. You might think that you are missing a lot of stuff when you hack up your essay, but it's reassuring to know that others have had to do the same thing. Also, the reader will be reading dozens of essays that are the same length, so he'll know how much information can be crammed into the given length and won't expect more.

aaudetat · Answer

Good point, Pelihu. Your comments really put it in perspective.

500 words!?

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