How many essay edits do I have to do?????

Question

The whole app essay is getting ridiculous. I am already on my 5th draft today - and I have been writing essays since August 1.

Does it get any worse? I spent this whole Saturday editing my goals essay when my goal was to rub shoulders with some mamacita calientes at salsa night.


Anybody on 6th.9th.. 23rd draft yet???

adcxaway · Answer

I think some of my essays have already hit the 13th draft.... but then they're nearly finalized so i'm hitting the clubs on saturday nights

heh. but then I've got to get down and dirty with Tuck... so I guess I'll be sitting tight at home for the next month or so... think on the bright side, writing essays does help you save a lot of money....

I'm expecting between 10 to 15 drafts before I think the essay is good for submission. But I think rhyme holds the record for essays...

a zillion edits or something like that

aviroop · Answer

Writing essays cuts down on expenses - I have been eating salads, fruits, drinking water and running up and down the hill to focus.. sounds so cliche!!!!

Tomorrow its draft no. 6 for goals essay. I now feel like a woman who cannot be satisfied and needs to find Mr. Perfect!!!!!!!

kryzak · Answer

aviroop, you put me to shame

I was proud of myself for a sudden realization (with the help of an entrepreneur muse friend of mine) of how to write my intro and conclusion paragraphs for my goals essay for Haas. Right now it's like hot Biryani, tasty and great... we'll see how bad it smells tomorrow. The rest of the essays are in outline form, though I'm already at 1800+ words for a 1000 word essay!!! In OUTLINE form! I guess that's better than not having things to say. Elements of Style, here I come! So yeah, I don't think I'll go through that many drafts. Be warned not to revise it too much, lest it appears like Michael Jackson and you scare the adcom people away...

I'll probably do draft 1, revise it to make draft 2, and then show it to people (like rhyme, my MBA friends, etc...), and based on the feedback do draft 3 and 4, do a second round of reviews, and complete with draft 5 and 6...

abhishek.sardana · Answer

Thats my strat too......I have had 2 reviews with my MBA friends but looking forward to someone from gmatclub to have a look at them once.....

adcxaway · Answer

I was told that the Why MBA essay is the most important... 75% emphasis.. and the remaining essays just make up 25% of the consideration - filler stuff to round you out....

And for extra curricular... you don't need anything spectacular, they just want to know that you have a life outside work... ?

Any ideas on that info?

aurobindo · Answer

I think for extracurricular, spectacular stuff will definitely help, but not so spectacular stuff might not harm..

I think the objective of knowing about extracurriculars is to see whether we are individuals, and not some robots in workplace.

In my opinion, essays that look for diversity angle are as important as Why MBA essay.

my 2 cents.

kripalkavi · Answer

I seriously don't believe that. I guess this sounds like a broken ad-com record but: I think  all  the essays are equally important as they help paint a *complete* picture of us. Anyway, I feel it would be too great a risk to assume that only one essay (whichever that is) carries most weight.

I guess this depends on the school you are applying to. If you are applying to the ultra-elites, more so to HBS and Standford, you better have some kicka$$ extra-currics.

mNeo · Answer

I completely agree with kripalkavi. On one hand, by believing that other essays weigh only 25%, you will unintentionally give less importance to other essays. On the other, believing that the goals essay weighs 75%, you may end up refining that essay a little too much .. making it lose the personable touch. 

Adcom are (hopefully) going to read all the essays and try to understand who you are. In such a case, irrespective of 'in which essay' you paint a picture about a certain aspect of you, you should ensure that your picture is complete by the end of the last essay. In other words, although it's good if a person has good reasons to do an MBA, this by itself can not be a good enough reason for an ultra-elite to admit the said person.

Now, since the goals essay is perhaps going to be the first essay, it is automatically very important. A poor goals essay can make us lose so much ground, that it won't be possible to cover that up in other essays. But so can other essays. If I screw up my 'ethics' essay, then I will lose an equal amount of ground .. irrespective of how well-defined and well-put my goals are.

riverripper · Answer

I think the goals essay is a make or break. If you have a terrible essay you stand no chance. The other essays are a collective picture that are what will get you in to the program in the end. But if you can't clearly talk about why you want an MBA then you aren't getting in.

I think the first few essays are the toughest to get right. The more you do the easier they are going to become.

baer · Answer

The admissions person at NYU, at the info session, explicitly stated that the goals essay is the most important that that one should spend the most amount of time on it. Needless to say, all other essays must tie into this one to make the whole application make sense.

kryzak · Answer

I think I'm in the camp of "goals essay being the most important", but I probably wouldn't say 75% vs 25%. You need to talk about all aspects of your personality and experiences over all the essays, but the goals one needs to be the most convincing. The others are there to give a well rounded picture of yourself.

As for spectacular extracurriculars, I don't have much, and for Haas, I haven't found the right question to fit one in. grr...

aviroop · Answer

I havent climbed Mt Everest nor did I go scuba diving in the coral reef - so my extra curriculars are out. Unless you want to count repairing computers or dropping people off to the airport on a motorcycle.

I totally agree that the goals essay is the most important essay. The school reads it to see whether you are worthy enough to take up a seat in a MBA classroom.

How important.. that is an abjective judgement. 75%-25% sounds high, but maybe feasible. Somebody who has a crystal clear answer of why MBA will have a really good chance of getting in, even though the only community service he or she may have done is clean the dorm room and throw the garbage.

BTW . I am making essay edits in my sleep. I am behaving like Seinfeld when he wakes up to write down some stuff he dreamt about in his sleep. This is going great. One more month and I can be diagnosed as mentally ill. :wink:

riverripper · Answer

My kellogg #2 essay is 4 pages and I am not out of college in my story yet. I think being unique actually is hurting this essay. I never went to a party at my school and drank beer while trying to pick up girls, there was no drinking, getting caught doing so would mean a hell of a lot of trouble and there were maybe a dozen girls in my class and I knew way to many terrible things about each one. So instead of talking about normal college stuff I have to describe being in a military regiment, sailing around the world on ships, and also being invovled in activities...while still leaving out tons of important stories. I can't even go into detail to site examples without making it 2 pages for freshman year.

Cutting this down is going to be impossible. Think they would mind if I handed them 8 pages because thats what I feel I need to get across who I am.

router79 · Answer

you guys are speed writers! :shock:

I'm still on paragraph two for my first essay wishing i had a draft to critique. The real weight for is 75% surfing gmatclub forum and 25% actually writing the essay.

mNeo · Answer

I think you're doing pretty good. In my case, everyday I "refresh" the "B-School Application" section as many times as many words I type in an essay

kryzak · Answer

Read more of the Bodine book, and I think my Haas Optional essay will discuss my volunteering/community involvement aspects. I'll probably focus it on "teaching/mentoring" as something I really enjoy doing and have multiple evidence to back it up. I'm kinda glad to find this extra 500 words to talk about it, as I'm starting to have the same problems as riverripper in terms of keeping the word count down.

But in the end, some of the most unique, extraordinary, and special people are able to get into HBS, Haas, Kellogg, and other schools with only 300-500 words, so we can do it too!

oh yeah, I'm 75% GMAT Club and 25% essay writing too...

aviroop · Answer

kryzak,
dude you need some sleep. You been posting on forums at 2 am, 2 pm... man when do u catch a wink.

I am watching movies and refreshing the forum page. 

router79
you read my mind..... I am following your footsteps.

aviroop · Answer

I strongly believe talking about some of the chicks is gonna be an unique experience - never played beer pong with them??? Sailing around the world on ships - that is cool. Which school did you go to, no partying - sounds like a Catholic school to me. I almost got kicked out of high school for reading a porno mag in literature class, and this was catholic school - whew tough times :twisted:

kryzak · Answer

haha... I did sleep... the 7 hours I didn't post on the forums

just finished my optional essay outline, more info here... https://www.gmatclub.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... 355#358355 now to watch some tennis on TV, and then maybe write the draft essays tonight... I'm on my "up" cycle right now (feeling happy) :-D

How many essay edits do I have to do?????

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