MBA Application Essay Tips : How to prepare for Business School essays

Question

MBA applications are sum of many parts - GMAT, essays , recommendations, grades, interviews among others. Out of that essays are one of the more important deciding factors in your application. Candidates with good grades and GMAT scores are denied admission over candidates who have not excelled academically or have poor GMAT scores.

Why?

Because of their essays. And it is not because the standard of english of one essay is better than the other. Essays are vital to communicate to the admissions committee about who you are and what you stand for.

Business schools are striving to create successful leaders for tomorrow. So they are looking for a good mix in each class from various industries , domains and experience.

Most importantly they are looking for candidates who show leadership potential and possibility of achieving high professional success. Schools are in a way selfish and are singularly focussed in this need because only if you are successful will the school be known for creating leaders of tomorrow….there is a reason why Harvard Business School is in every applicants’ list !

It is mainly through these essays that they will gauge whether you possess these qualities or not.

So? How do you go about approaching these essays?

In this blog we have detailed the general traits that all schools look for in some way or the other. Schools may ask you about your thoughts on a picture , your reaction to a video or the tried and tested essay questions that are more direct. Either way they will be looking to analyze certain basic traits in you. We have listed the points that underline essay questions in most applications. Your job is to think through these points and make notes pertaining to these points. Once you sit down to write essays for any school, you should be able to refer to these notes and have ready material to attack your essays.

Before listing down the points, we want to discuss briefly on the approach you should take while jotting down your notes.

Lets start with an example. One of the points in the list will be about strengths and weaknesses.

This is how you should go about it.

List down your strengths. As many as possible. Focus on those that demonstrate leadership qualities, ability to inspire others and strong ethics. For each strength that you have listed, note down an incident in your life that demonstrates how you used that particular strength during that incident , e.g. navigate a difficult situation, inspire a colleague or a friend , achieve success in a difficult task etc.

“note down an incident in your life that demonstrates….”

- this will be a constant for everything you write in your essays. Whatever be the fact you mention about yourself, you will need to demonstrate that through real life incidences/successes or failures. There is no two ways about it.

“Also tell us how”

Just mentioning “I am great at leading people” won’t do. You HAVE to tell HOW you do what you claim.

At first these “real life example” stuff will not come easily to you, sometimes you will not even relate a particular incident as a demonstration of your strength. At times you will just not remember any incident at all that relates to a particular strength. So you will need to think, think and think. It works, really. Suddenly you will remember an event, a success, an incident that can serve as an example. The more you do this, the better you will get and things will start clicking. You should also discuss about this with your family and close friends in case they remember anything.

The same goes for your weaknesses.

Actually, weaknesses are tougher to write about. MBA applicants are competitive people (generally) who like to win. So thinking about and acknowledging weaknesses are difficult for them.

But of course none can be without weaknesses. So you will have a few as well. Make sure you mention some worthwhile weakness and not something frivolous, something like “I am a late riser” will not make it. Go get an alarm clock!

However, here is the thing, when you are jotting down your weaknesses, also write down along with it, what corrective action you have taken to overcome that weakness. Example, if your weakness was to stammer while speaking in front of a group of people, you should have done something about it. Like enrolling for a public speaking class or getting your family members together to practice and overcome the inhibition of speaking in front of a group of people.

Admissions consultants do just that, ask you questions, prod you to think, jog your memory so that there is more meat to your essays than just mere claims in the air.

So scan your work, you experiences, your achievements, your failures, both professional and personal and note them down , relate them to the strengths or weaknesses you have made a list of and keep them handy.

When you start to write your essays, you will have enough substance to start on.

You can also do the reverse. Note down your successes and relate them to your strengths. Whatever works for you.

The complete list of points generally underlying admissions essays are given at the end of this article.

However this is something you should NOT do. That is being dishonest.

“Honesty is the best policy”

Don’t cook up experiences that you think admissions committee would like to hear. It will just not hold ground.

First, application evaluators can easily spot something that is made up. Even if you get past the initial evaluation and is invited for an interview, you will be caught.

Interviewers will grill you about things that you write in your essays, so it will be difficult to go on making stories about something that really did not happen.

Honesty and passion will come out in your essays only if you talk about things that you really feel about or those that actually happened. These make the essays more convincing and brings out the uniqueness in you. That is what the admissions committee is looking for.

You can however add some extra zest to what you write. You are marketing yourself after all and the essays are your marketing tools. So present everything very nicely.

Be concise.

You will have to be. Some essays have a word limit of 250 words. Its unthinkable is it not? How can you mention your strength , describe and incident and give a good conclusion in 250 words !!

Actually its a good thing.

It forces you cut the flab, gives you opportunity to be more creative in your writing and pack a punch.

Though this does not apply to the initial step of preparing for the essays, still we thought this is a good point to include here.

When you are making the general notes about yourself, write whatever you want to write. Even the first draft of the essay should be like this. Write whatever you want to write to answer the question.

Once you have got everything down, then you should start checking for unnecessary sentences that does not say anything about you, is a weak point that can be eliminated to highlight the other strong ones or is not connected with the story at all.

The “goals” essay

Another important recurring point in every essay is your short term and long term goals. What do you want to do immediately and 5-10 years after your MBA.

Its perfectly okay not to have any clue now. However that does not work while crafting an application. When you are drafting your essays you should be clear on what you want to do after your MBA. Even if you want to explore options during the tenure of your program and then decide what to pursue next, right now, when you sit to write your essays, you should be clear in your mind on what you want to do and how you want this MBA to help you achieve that.

There must have been some thought process that went behind when you decided to do an MBA. Maybe to make a career shift, make a jump to an executive level faster, to explore entrepreneurial opportunities, you may be sure of your goal or it may been an initial reason. If it is the latter, convince yourself for now that it is what you want to do. Its important that you convince yourself because that conviction needs to come through in your essays.

Now figure out what you want to be in the long term, create a million dollar business, work at a CXO level in a multinational company, start a non profit.

Once you have decided on that, then think what you need to do right after completing your MBA that will help you reach that position in 5-10 years time. This will be your short term goal.

Now you will need to research schools well, look at their faculty, club activities, curriculum details, alumni profile to figure out whether it caters to what you need for fulfilling your short term and long term goals.

We have listed 10 points that we think all candidates should prepare notes on as most Business schools look for these in some way or the other. Given below is the list

1. Mention two strengths

2. Mention two weaknesses

3. What do you want to do immediately after your MBA? Or What are your short term goals?

4. What do you want to do 5 years after completing your MBA? Or what are your long term goals?

5. Short stories about your experiences and what you have learnt from them

6. Give two instances where you have displayed your leadership skills

7. Why MBA?

8. Why now?

9. What drives you the most?

10. What are your hobbies? What have you learnt from them and how have you applied them to your personal and professional work?

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MBA Application Essay Tips : How to prepare for Business School essays

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