Calling Berkeley-Haas Fall 2008 Applicants!

most impressive! Now I know how hard it is to cut down to 1000 or 500 words. My OUTLINE is longer than the word limit right now...

How did you do it? Did you have to really cut out anecdotes or did you just emphasize one and mention the others in brief passing?

I had one anecdote that was like 400+ words by itself. Its still in there, but I think its down to 175 words, and I added and important lesson that I learned and how it helped my career. It was probably a better story when it was 400 words, it certainly was more descriptive. But it still has all of the important points and its much shorter now. I wanted to be able to use 4 anecdotes, but I found that I couldnt fit four in.

I think I am still over on every essay except this one though, between USC an Berkeley thats like 8 essays over the length limit. Sigh.

I'm actually kind of looking forward to writing Chicago's goals essay now that I have done Berkeley's. The 500 extra words should allow me to add the 4th anecdote back in, flesh out the other 3 better, and allow the language to flow better. The flow of my Berkeley essays are a bit rough right now, but I am going to work on Michigan's for a while and then come back to Berkeley's. I've been staring at Berkeley's too much and I think I am getting tunnel vision.

bherronp, great tips, thank you!

Yeah, looking at my Berkeley essays, I realized I wrote *3000* words (well, once I get it within word limit)!!! Using Word, 12 pt Times Roman, double spaced, I found that it's roughly 400 words per page for Stanford's essays (450-500 if you use 1.8 spacing and 0.8" margins ), so with Berkeley's essays, I already have enough material to re-vamp into Stanford's essays, and if I do apply to Chicago, I will definitely appreciate the 500 extra words.

You're right in that you can probably be more concise and get the point across better with fewer words (paradoxical, but true)... hopefully I can manage that. Oh yeah, my transitions are very rough right now, between paragraphs... kinda glad that Haas essays are broken down into 250-500 word chunks so I don't have to worry about transitions as much (except for the goals essay)

Was able to just get the "Dinner" essay in at 278 words... It's insane... one sentence to say "I will invite X to dinner", one to say what that person did, and a few more sentences to mirror my personality and my achievements (just listing them) to my dinner guest's. Then one sentence contrasting myself from my guest, and then one conclusion sentence...

No space to elaborate on anything, but I'm using this essay as my "introduction" to the rest of the essays... I think everything mentioned in this essay will be elaborated in the other ones... hopefully that will work.

Thanks mNeo.

I attended an in-campus info session this June. But in line with my "no stone left unturned" war cry, I have this ingenious idea of going to every single one of these Haas info sessions. The ad-com will soon grow so sick of me that she will guarantee me a seat just to get rid of me.

mNeo : I just realized that I edited your post instead of quoting it. My brain's clearly not working. This reminds me, I need to go get coffee. Can you please repost the info session dates? Pretty please...

For Berkeley PT MBA:

Please join us for an Evening & Weekend MBA Information Session:

Fremont (Marriott): Wednesday, September 5, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Burlingame (Hyatt Regency SFO): Thursday, September 6, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Sacramento (Hyatt Regency): Tuesday, September 11, 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Oakland (Marriott City Center): Wednesday, September 12, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

San Francisco (The Palace Hotel): Tuesday, September 18, 6:00 - 7:30 pm

Santa Clara (Hyatt Regency): Tuesday, September 25, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Santa Clara (Hyatt Regency): Wednesday, September 26, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Santa Rosa (Hilton): Wednesday, October 3, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

San Ramon (Marriott): Thursday, October 4, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

RSVP now. Space is limited. Please register at https://www.haas.berkeley.edu/EWevents/

You'll learn about:

*
The benefits of the Berkeley MBA
*
Our convenient evening and weekend schedule options
*
How to create a strong application

How to apply: ewmba.berkeley.edu

For more information, contact us at ewmbaadm@haas.berkeley.edu or 510.642.0292.

The application is online:

https://ssl.haas.berkeley.edu/Admission ... /index.cfm

Wow, I thought they said september 1st... oh boy!

Question... Haas Short Answer 4 asks you to list all the people/clubs/events you talked to/attended, but in the Why MBA/Why Haas essay, you need to talk about why you want to attend Haas again. Since many of the clubs, student names, and events take up words in the word limit scheme, do people think it's wise to not be as specific about the exact clubs you talked to in the Long Essay and only talk about how it can help your education or how you can contribute to them?

For example, if in the Short answer you said:

"I talked with alums A, B, and C of club X, Y, and Z"

Can you just say "Talking with the enthusiastic alums of the relevant student clubs, I found Haas to fit my interests in I, J, and K perfectly." without having to list the ABC and XYZs again?

Thanks!

The specific "Why Haas" essay is so short, I am going to include one of the EC interests I have at Haas in both my "goals" essay and the specific "Why Haas "

yeah, in the end, I put the specific club names in the short answer, and just referred to "entrepreneur clubs" in my long essay's "why Haas" section.

I hope that's specific enough to show that I know Haas quite well and really want to get in!

2008 Evening & Weekend MBA application is online now. All the best to you, ncprasad. May you and kryzak join my ever increasing list of Golden Bears crazy friends. Oh, but kryzak is already Bears crazy. Nevermind !

Saw someone decked out in Tennessee gear during lunch. I promptly booed them.

Thanks happy feet! I hope Haas comes through for me.

Cal kills Tennessee, woohoo!

BTW, for Cal's Part-time/Full-time work experience in college, do I have to list EVERYTHING? I have random grading for classes and things like that, so insignificant that I don't really want to list...

For my part-time work experience, I'm listing internships, but I'm not listing the jobs I took (Blockbuster, paint crew) to help pay rent while I was working for nothing at the internships. There wasn't enough room, so I figured pick the part-time experience that's most applicable.

edit: I may just list everything, and let them judge what's important.

I was going through filling out all the online application stuff today because my brain was starting to melt down after about 5-6 hours of essay editing and writing. For the Berkeley transcripts, it sounds like you can have an official transcript sent to you, and then you send it on to Berkeley, so long as it is sealed. Is this correct? I know that some schools require that the transcripts be mailed directly to them from your undergrad institution. While it doesn't sound like Berkeley does, I dont want to screw myself.