How to Stand out and be Creative on Essays

Question

I heard that 90 percent of the essays they read are the same and boring, so it is of upmost importance to be creative. What is too creative? And how to stand out?

aaudetat · Answer

I think it depends on the essay. There are many common essay topics and many common responses. Especially if you're a more typical applicant with a common backgrand, you might try to think a bit harder about your topics, and choose an angle that would be more particular to you.

And telling a story is another way to make your essays more interesting, rather than thinking of it as a recitation of your most recent great accomplishment.

Humor can work, but you have to be good. I avoided it like the plague, mostly. 

Books like Montauk's and Bodine's will discuss common pitfalls for different kinds of essays. 

I don't think there's a general answer to your question.

gmahn · Answer

Well,

I would be careful about trying to be too creative in the essays. Adcoms have read thousands of applications and I guess not so many things will really surprise them. So one must be careful about not screwing up what otherwise can be a great application. 

I don't think I was original, but I worked hard so my applications had strenght, passion and professionality, which were the main things that I wanted to show about myself. They weren't bestsellers, but I guess were interesting enough to get some admits and scholarships.

riverripper · Answer

For one thing the essays aren't for a creative writing course, so what is presented in them should be truthful. There is a fine line between standing out as a great/interesting applicant and being seen as someone full of it. In my opinion the real key is to be honest but also memorable.

The hard one for most people to set themselves apart is the career goal and why you want to attend our school essays. Also this is probably the most focused of the essays you should write since it is the one you are trying to convince them, that they are the only school for you. I do think you are right, that any one in an admin office can only read so many essays by a graduate of school X who works for firm Z and wants to work in banking who want to further their career in investment banking. I personally would read the majority of those as (no offense)...I want to go to your school cause its got the right name and will help get me a job with Goldman Sachs so I can become a multi-millionaire. So this isn't the spot to set yourself apart if thatâ€™s the situation you find yourself in. Unless you want to go work in something like socially conscious investing, you arenâ€™t setting yourself apart from the pack here.

The real key are the other essays. If they ask for an experience that tested your leadership abilities, come up with the most interesting story you have...not one that necessarily is the I lead our business to record profits this year speech they get. They see that on your resume give them something that is unique and that someone else hasn't done and it would be a lot better essay. Leadership is not necessarily directing work from a position of power, so you could write how you motivated your peers to do something. Or leading by example. You need to find something that sets yourself apart. I was involved with some hiring this year, and reading a couple dozen cover letters a day is mind numbing...I can only imagine what admins feel like after doing it for months.

rhyme · Answer

I took liberties with my essays in being creative. I even poked fun at the admissions staff in my Kellogg application. I used some self deprecating humor in my other essays, and made a point to talk evenly about my professional and non-professional interests. For instance, I wrote almost 1500 words for GSB's "Describe a significant study abroad... " question - which wasn't even technically an "essay" question - I used it to talk about all the things that I really enjoy -- things that had nothing to do with my professional goals, but all of which had to do with certain elements of the GSB.

johnnyx9 · Answer

I think it's best not to get too creative or too edgy in your essays if you think you are a competitive candidate for that school. In other words, if your stats and work experience are competitive for a given school, then play it relatively safe with the essays.

However, if you're applying to a school where you think you might be a bit of a long-shot, then getting more creative with your essays may be the only way that you can stand out. 

There is a pretty good book called something like, "67 Harvard Business School Essays That Worked," some really good essays. All of the essays in the book show an acute self-awareness. In other words, from reading these essays (most of which aren't very long) you get the sense that the person who wrote it knows themselves very well, and are comfortable with themselves. I know that probably sounds a little vague, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that really good essays make the person who wrote them sound very "tuned in" as opposed to oblivious.

gmahn · Answer

Johnyx9,

I read that book (and some others) and there were impressive essays there. However, I also got the impression that those people were impressive applicants, and most of times it wasn't about how they wrote it, but what they had to write about. You know, if you're an IB, have travelled to 30 countries, have three nationalities, founded your own Nasdaq start-up and helped to save a country in Africa, then obviously you will have outstanding essays.

Obviously, I'm exaggerating, but after reading the book I got the feeling that I would never make it, that I was too common to apply to most Business Schools. Of course, I overcame that feeling and I invested a huge amount of time in finding out the right material about my life and what I wanted to show to the adcom people. In the end, and I guess we all agree in this, what we write is the key for most business schools.

rhyme · Answer

I read that book too. Let me summarize every single essay for you.

"In 2004, when I was staffed as Team Leader to the Ugadan Water Filtration Project for the Poor(tm), I travelled to Africa. Originally a Swedish Portguese immigrant to the US, I was curious to find this new land far away. I was worried that as one of the few swedish black jewish lesbian MENSA members in the world, I might not be welcomed into a new culture. On my third day there, I was caught in a mine collapse with the president of Burundi, Mr. Mobutu. For the next six days we were forced to learn each others languages and tunnel out of the collapsed mine, working together. When we finally reached the surface, I knew I had learned the meaning of teamwork. At the ceremony thrown in my honor by the president, he awarded me with a gold plated helicopter for "soaring like icarus" in ways he had never seen. I spent the next four weeks building a hospital for the poor with my own bare hands and after orchestrating the collapse of apartheid, I discovered a cure for cancer. On my way home to meet with Goldman Sachs about an early round funding idea related to my freshly launched consulting firm, I reflected on my experiences in Africa and learned that teamwork was all about understanding each other."

johnnyx9 · Answer

Gmahn,

You're right, those people were very impressive in terms of the experiences they had to write about.

While some of us don't have the top-caliber types of experience that those students have, we can write about the great experiences that we have had and communicate the lessons we have learned in such a way that shows ad-coms that we are intelligent, self-aware people.

ps_dahiya · Answer

Creative writing will help if and only if the story you are writing is creative or not. A story can be creative and it all depends on you what you want to highlight and how you spin that. Humor is OK but I would suggest that keep away from that until you are confident that it is formal. Don't be casual.
There is no one line answer to your question.

IHATEMELGIBSON1 · Answer

I'm not sure what type of leadership I can say. I've had tons of volunteer work, but nothing where I had distinct leadership. Does leading a really drunk friend home safely after a night of boozing count?

aaudetat · Answer

It's been a while since we've seen such antics from you. Finally, a good laugh!

rhyme · Answer

I've been INSANELY busy..... thats why I've been a little bit hard to find the last two or three weeks. I've...

1) Travelled to Miami for 4 days for a party
2) Put my house on the market, negotiated a contract and survived an inspection
3) Attended an admit weekend at the GSB
4) Been in a friends wedding in Washington DC 
5) Seen about 40 or 50 properties in and around Chicago
6) Placed a bid on one property
7) Gone to the inspection
8) Completed a mortgage application and lawyer crap
9) Updated a wedding registry to match the new planned space
10) Worked on the essay consulting business marketing materials 
11) Got sick with some kind of cold
12) Transitioned to a new boss
13) Finalized wedding plans
14) Finalized honeymoon plans

etc etc etc

IHATEMELGIBSON1 · Answer

getting married? Why do that? :-D

aaudetat · Answer

Oh dear. Your life sounds SO HARD! At least you don't actually have to work, or even really sit at your desk. I mean, IMAGINE if you had to do that!!

Lorenzino · Answer

rotfl!!! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing" />

crackfire2003 · Answer

I seem to following a trend of reviving old threads from 2007 and bringing out the old great lords of MBA Applications. Anyho just wanted to know that starting a essays with a description of post MBA work life, kinda like this one here from accepted.com

8:00 AM. July 1, 2010. The 23rd floor of the Bank of China building in Hong Kong. A woman sitting behind the mahogany desk calls a Shanghai trader to buy 200,000 shares of China Telecom's stock. Moments later, she dashes into a teleconference with Tokyo analysts. When the teleconference finally concludes two hours later, the woman rushes down the stairs, hails a taxi to the Chek Lap Kok Airport, catches a flight to Thailand, and ends her day with a meeting with the CFO of DynaTech Computers. I look forward to maintaining this busy schedule as a portfolio manager of an....

Will this kind of opening be called creative and is this a good strategy ?

highhopes · Answer

Oh my gosh, this get's bb's new funny tag, which I believe is just a collection of rhyme posts. Perhaps if I actually get any admits next week, I can turn my time to entertaining the masses. Also, can I just say it reminds me of that brady bunch christmas episode they always used to show where mike is stuck in some building and somehow carol's fabulous (in reality unfabulous) singing draws him out.

DuckPond · Answer

In my opinion (can't stress that word enough), no. While the above is okay writing, it basically says what every person applying to bschool wants (powerful, dynamic job). On top of that, phrases like "mahogany desk" come across as cliche.

There is not one thing personal in there. Why do you want to do all that stuff? Is there a reason it's all in Asia? Is there a personal connection there? What have you done to allow you to complete all those tasks?

For example, you could write something like:

"I get a call to buy to 200,000 shares of China Telecom's stock. While trading $BIG NUMBER still makes my heart skip a beat, I am used to that feeling. I've been trading XXX for Y years and can now process these transacitons witout losing focus on my next task. I head into a meeting and am able to block out the huge trade that could cause XXX. Now, I switch gears and engage people on a personal level. it's a different feel than the trade but I still draw from my experiance at YYYY."

Again, just my opinion.

crackfire2003 · Answer

Duckpond please have a look at this sample essay at accepted.com (https://www.accepted.com/mba/sampessay02.aspx) the introduction does tie into the background and future aspirations of the applicant.

What I was trying to get at was can one take a "day in the life of XXX" as a beginning of an essay and then demonstrate that XXX is wad you want to do post MBA and how XXX ties in with your background. The reason I am asking this is coz this kind of intro would be pretty engaging from a reader's point of view.

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