Hjort wrote:
There are certainly a wide range of opinions on the matter, but in my opinion many of the essays that one can find in the commerical essay writing books come across as very over the top. In my experience working with candidates, these sample essays are often more of a distraction than anything else. Applicants either feel that their accomplishments are insignificant compared to the sample essays or they feel that their essays should conform to the style of the essays in the book. I suggest putting the sample essays aside, and focus on telling your story.
I bought one of these books and its been on my shelf ever since. I read one or two essays and realized that they were going ot be ridiculous. People don't buy this book because they need help figuring out whether to focus more on "The summer I took off last year to go save baby seals affected by exxon-valdez" or whether its better to talk about "The non-profit I founded focused on bringing purified water services to Tanzania. Just last year, we finished our first pipeline, after raising $100MM, ..." That 760 GMAT, 3.98 GPA african american woman who founded the second largest gay and lesbian foundation on the east coast, and uses her vacation time away from her job as a Manager at Boston Consulting Group, to fly orphans home to their new foster parents thanks to her pilot's license, which she got at age 9 as the youngest woman in the history of US to become a licensed pilot, and thanks to her Cessna plane, donated to her by the President of Zambia who gave it to her after she saved him during a coal mine collapse in 1998 where they were both trapped for ten days and she was forced to learn another language in order to communicate and survive. Yea her. She's already getting in. She doesn't need the book.
These are already people who, from teh essays I've seen, have few gaps in their histories or extracurricular activities - if any. What the books should address (and again ive only looked a bit, but it seemed it didnt) is how to handle exactly these gaps.
Also, I think that everyone has these books. The last thing I want is my essays to read like everyone elses.