Stanford essays - how do you deal with repetition?

Question

• Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why?
• Essay 2: What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them?

For obvious reasons, there will be a lot of overlap between 1 and 2. What matters most to me is clearly what I want to do in the future and why I want to get an MBA.

Anyone have ideas on how to avoid this? How did you deal with this and avoid repetition?

I know I can focus more on the 2nd part of Essay 2, but I don't think it makes sense to write an entire essay extolling the virtues of Stanford

MBAgirl2010 · Answer

Hm, in my opinion these two are a Why and a How question.

The first one would be an excellent place to show what you are passionate about, what makes you tick, and how well you really know yourself, what motivates you, etc. Thats what makes it one of the toughest ones out there.

The second one you can use to talk about how you want to utilize what drives you, strap it into a career and make it go at high speed. And naturally the why Stanford for that goal question can make it all tie up nicely together.

snowhappy · Answer

Hi! I don't claim to be an expert as I am also feeling my way through these essays but for Q1 I'd think about:

- Why are you passionate about X that you want to pursue in your career (vs. Q2 which focuses on what is X)
- Is there something/someone/some event that drove you to be interested in that particular area and what was it about that person/place/thing that helped define who you are

The way I thought about it was, if I woke up and thought about my day, what would make it the most amazing day ever and WHY.

For me, I'm only able to get excited about my answer to Q2 (and think it's feasible) because of my answer to Q1.

javaexe · Answer

Hi 
I am applying to Stanford and I am following the same pattern presented before this. I am hoping to use Q1 to show what experiences generated/polished the skill and why it is important. I am hoping to use Q2 to explain how I am planning on using it in Stanford and how that will help me in future. 
Shiva

garbus222 · Answer

Sorry for being pain in the *** but shouldn't this question be part of "Calling Stanford 2010..." thread? Otherwise the board will get messy.

swbluedevil · Answer

I agree the two topics are pretty interrelated. My opinion is Essay 1 should be very deep and get at the very essence of your soul. What drives you (money, power, helping others, etc) and why?

Essay 2 can be much more straightforward and formulaic: "My current experience is A. My short term career goal is B. My long term career goal is C. I need Stanford because I lack skills X,Y,Z and only Stanford can give me the skills I need to achieve short term career goal B and subsequently long term career goal C." Of course, everything should tie together and your goals should be realistic given your experience.

Stanford essays - how do you deal with repetition?

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