Now there are questions about essays in every single school thread. While that is the right place to address school specifics and essay specifics. I feel that it would be nice to have a place to discuss generic essay information such as: formatting and gammar (how formal to be) I know in several areas we have talked about layout of the page, ie margins and also the font type and size. Instead of crowding tons of different threads with the same information and making it hard to find...if you have a general essay question not aimed at a specific school post it here. Lots of stuff will probably be debated but at least it will be easier to find. I can try and maintain this post to contain any "rules" ***Stickied if for no other reason than ncprasad's extremely useful post below.

Thanks but don't be too impressed. "See spot run." gets a 100. As you said, mostly for kicks.

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Essays best practices...

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DuckPond

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Schools:R1: Kellogg WL, Haas WL, Fuqua, Darden R2: Wharton

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13 Oct 2009, 10:46

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Wow, fantastic tool. Thank you.

In keeping with the Kellogg trend, I've noticed that my essays differ quite a bit.

Career Progress and Why MBA - 30
Leadership - 40
Peers Select You - 58
People Would Be Surprised to Learn That I... - 73

Not that it means much but it makes sense as the content gets lighter from essay to essay

Anyway, thanks again...

wiseguyMBA

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14 Oct 2009, 08:34

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DuckPond

73 is quite impressive...mine are in the 43-50 range, for all essays.
Pretty cool tool, even if it's just for kicks.

DuckPond

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Concentration: Healthcare

Schools:R1: Kellogg WL, Haas WL, Fuqua, Darden R2: Wharton

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WE 2: Health Economics

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15 Oct 2009, 08:22

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wiseguyMBA

DuckPond

73 is quite impressive...mine are in the 43-50 range, for all essays.
Pretty cool tool, even if it's just for kicks.

Thanks but don't be too impressed. "See spot run." gets a 100. :-D

As you said, mostly for kicks.

unhedged

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19 Oct 2009, 22:13

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My goals essays came nowhere near the cut. Putting club names and course names just made the sentences officially harder to read, but would be easy for an adcom. (i hope).

aj1545

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20 Oct 2009, 23:40

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This is interesting. It definitely points out the sentences that (if constructed poorly) would inhibit the flow of the essay. I scored a 74.3 on my essay written in first person present tense. It is definitely the most story-like essay and likely the most readable. Other essays got 48, 60, 52, 58 so I guess I am doing good on the readability scale. Now I just need to work on the my-essays-don't-suck-so-bad scale.

Thanks for the tool!

rao

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25 Oct 2009, 08:45

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For Schools that dont have a word limit but have a page limit, Whats the best "Margin" to use on the page?

thanks in advance!

MBAbot

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05 Jul 2018, 17:36

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