EssaySnark Essay Review! For UCLA Anderson's single essay
A few months back, after the whole MBA admissions world had absorbed the news that Harvard was going down to a single essay, EssaySnark was frankly a little shocked when we heard that UCLA was following suit. Anderson announced that they would have just one essay for their MBA application as well. This at first seemed either totally brave, since no other schools had followed in Harvard's footsteps, or totally crazy, since we knew how much BSers were struggling with the single HBS essay. We were skeptical that UCLA would be getting good content from its applicants, if there was only one question for them to submit in support of their profile.
And then we saw what UCLA's single essay question was, and we breathed a sigh of relief.
The UCLA essay question is the same one that they've had for something like five years ago – in fact, UCLA originally swooped the wording from Columbia. It's the quintessential, penultimate, absolutely fabulouso career goals prompt that any BSer is sure to do well with:
What are your short-term and long-term career goals, and how will an MBA from UCLA Anderson specifically help you achieve these goals? This truly is our favoritist essay question. It's direct, concise, and clear, with no funny stuff. We got a brave Brave Supplicant sending in an essay for this, and let's see where they took it.
First up: We got 806 words, which is sort of pushing it. There's very few schools left that are so permissive with their word limits – this UCLA prompt allows for 750 words. When you're given that much space to talk about yourself, you really shouldn't need to go overlimit. The schools don't count words so it's not like you're going to get rejected for being a little wordy, but this essay could be pared back. Don't outstay your welcome.
Here's our opening:
10-15 years from now, I’ll provide affordable eco-friendly homes of quality for better living of the middle-class in eastern India. This is my calling, but I didn’t find it overnight.
In my first year at XXX [‘an US IT MNC’] in 2010 as an Analyst, managers trusted my leadership while I motivated and encouraged teammates, successfully leading a million dollar assignment with prior high-level escalations, helping XXX grab further projects from client and recording 200% growth in 6 months. Moving forward, my current 3+ year leadership stint in XXX’s multi-million dollar project for client’s mortgage business enabled me to grow more gritty and determined, navigating uncertain situations like an unplanned successive product release. I met stringent production deadlines, identified the right resources while my direction and coordination among stakeholders helped cut the cycle execution time in half, saving at least 33% cost for clients.Well that's a rather rocky start. We hate to get so hung up on the technicalities of the essays but we always seem to do that... and that's what can happen when your adcom reader picks up your draft, too.
The first thing out of the gate in this BSer's essay is a number. They have started the first sentence of the essay with “10-15 years from now...”
Sorry dude. That's sloppy.
You're not supposed to start a sentence with a digit (this is like English Grammar 101). You need to either reword it so that the number of “10-15” isn't the first thing that comes, or you need to spell it out: “Ten to fifteen...” We prefer the former solution.
Why do we get so hung up on these little tiny details? Because your essays are about COMMUNICATION – and every tiny detail matters. You are forming an impression in your reader's mind. You are presenting yourself as a certain kind of person – either one who is in command of the English language, who knows the rules of grammar and sweats the details and worries about the little tiny things... or one who is not. These things matter. The adcom is not going to reject a solid candidate over such issues, but it absolutely impacts the perception that they are forming of you in their mind when they are going through your materials.
OK, let's look at the content.
The first paragraph is carving out some high-minded goal in real estate development (we think). We'll give the BSer the benefit of the doubt and go along with this for now, but already in the back of the mind there's a little alarm bell going off. Is this person going to be able to adequately substantiate something so ambitious? We will need to be convinced.
Then the second paragraph is good in terms of intention but not so good in execution. It's pretty tough going, to try and interpret – even without the oddness that's being introduced in trying to anonymize the essay so that it can be posted here publicly. We are ignoring the weirdness in how that was done. Just in trying to read and interpret the meaning of the sentences, we get a little jambolayaed. (That means, confused.) This is not written in a clear, succinct, easy-to-follow manner. We're not really able to follow it.
It sounds like this BSer has been involved in some important projects, and it sounds like maybe those projects are in a relevant field or industry that could provide backup to the goal. But we're just not sure. We're guessing. We do not actually know what all of that is about. The size of project doesn't matter; we need to know WHAT YOU DID.
Note to all you BSers out there: the word “stint” makes the thing you're describing sound trivial. (Go Google it if you don't believe us.) We're seeing this word in essays all over this year and it's officially become a new EssaySnark Pet Peeve. (There's quite a collection of those Pet Peeves rattling around at this point.) If you say that you had a “stint” then it's odd to then learn that it was three years long, and even odder to discover that you say it was a “leadership” one. These ideas just undermine and contradict each other.
If you were in a leadership capacity, then we would expect that it was one where you added value – not a “stint” which is usually just a short-term little gig or something.
And, if you were in such a leadership capacity, then we would need to KNOW ABOUT IT.
That second paragraph is all over the map, it's not providing enough of anything – it's not a useful summary (summaries are actually hardly ever useful in essays, actually) and it's not providing specific-enough detail that we can follow along and interpret much from it. It's sort of a jumble of wasted space. You would need to do more to show us how you're actually QUALIFIED for anything.
Which brings us to our biggest suggestion:
When the adcom has so clearly asked you to describe your “short-term and long-term goals” then we STRONGLY recommend that you actually do so.
Like, in the first paragraph.
Or even, in the first sentence.
It's not wrong to talk about the long-term goal first, but if you do that, then you may be cheating yourself – or more precisely, your reader – by not giving them the proper context and understanding within which to evaluate them.
The UCLA adcom cares a LOT about the goals – lots of schools do, and UCLA is broadcasting that priority loud and clear by only asking you to discuss the goals, and nothing else, in this year's application.
You should honor that request that they've made of you, by actually discussing the goals.
Doing so right upfront can often help you stay focused and on track, and best communicate to them why you need an MBA.
That's the whole point of this essay.
Let's look at one more paragraph, to see if this BSer redeemed himself:
During these four years of success at XXX I was concurrently involved in my family’s real estate development business in Kolkata, overseeing the budget and growing the bottom line from $120K to $500K. When I delivered the keys of new homes to our delighted customers, their smile of satisfaction invoked my passion for RE.I plan to use my strengths – reliability under pressure, strategic sense and risk taking attitude – to expand our family business and start my own RE venture in India 10-15 years post-MBA. The $74B+ Indian RE market is estimated to grow to $180B by 2020, as per Economic Times and IBEF. It has witnessed around 20% of average appreciation in last few decades and quadrupled in last decade as per Economic Times. My firm will leverage the opportunity and make the living better for 100M middle-class community going forward.Not so bad. Here you've triggered our pet peeve about no acronyms; this one is more than a pet peeve though since this actually affects how the reader perceives you and how easy it is for them to understand you. While you may feel that the abbreviation of “RE” is super obvious – and maybe it is – it still puts barriers between you and the reader's brain. The reader must stop and puzzle over that – even if only for a nanosecond – before figuring out what you mean. That's just not ideal, and it's so avoidable. You can afford to write the whole thing out - “real estate” - see how easy that is? It makes the essay come across as much more polished and professional. It's a more formal presentation, which is always what you want.
In terms of the content, this has some good elements and it's doing more to explain/expand on the first paragraph where there is a lofty goal of working in real estate development – this helps fit the pieces in place. However there is basically nothing here that discusses WHAT YOU DID. You say you worked in the family business... OK great, but doing what? That seems like it would be helpful information to, like, include.
The latter half of the paragraph should just be deleted. Nobody cares about the growing real estate market; it's inconsequential for the purpose of an admissions essay. By devoting all that space to the industry sector and laying out all this stuff that's “not you” you are cheating yourself of the opportunity to go more in depth and personal on things that ARE you. This is non-strategic and not helpful. Ditch that and keep the focus on literally what you want to do and why you want to do it.
We see from this BSer's fourth paragraph that they finally start to go into a discussion of the short-term goal – but that's pretty darn late in the essay. That sentence doesn't hit until we're at 300 words in. That just seems like missed opportunity, given the fact that it's the very first thing that the adcom actually asked you for in the question. It's not illegal to do it as you have done it, but it doesn't seem like the clearest, most straightforward presentation that one could make.
We are seeing some goals that may be viable for UCLA, and UCLA is a good school for real estate. The “why I'm qualified” content needs to be done more thoroughly and more focusedly (yes we know that that's not a word). We don't know if the rest of the profile is in line with what UCLA needs to see but the rough strokes of this essay appear like they might be suitable – if cleaned up and tightened into a more communicative pitch that helps us see what you've done that shows how you're ready for this big next step.
Thanks for submitting the UCLA essay, BSer! Good luck with it!
EssaySnark reviews essays here and on the EssaySnark blahg – for free!Personally identifiable information in your essay needs to be removed and won't be published – don't worry, you'll be able to stay anonymous if you prefer.
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17 Sep 2013, 07:50
Good luck with that. 
