how many rounds of essay review is enough?

Question

How many rounds did you guys ask (or plan to ask) your friends to review the essays?

I'm feeling kinda lost after two rounds... too many comments...

Class2012 · Answer

It depends on the individual but a good stopping point would be when you don't have anything new to add and simply rewriting.

dynabook · Answer

I'm starting to think the same. My friends said that content-wise my essays are good now, but they are commenting on a lot of the sentence structures and wordings. I feel like I'm changing those forever, and will never be able to make everyone like them. It's eye opening to see that people have so many different tastes in writing styles! just like they do for women (or men)...

So maybe I should just stop thinking about my essays and set them aside?

On the other hand, I'm starting to worry because who knows what the writing style the schools prefer?! What if they don't like mine at all?? They may hate my essays and hence my application just because of that. This makes the whole application process sounds so random and... discouraging

Class2012

dynabook

How many rounds did you guys ask (or plan to ask) your friends to review the essays?

I'm feeling kinda lost after two rounds... too many comments...

It depends on the individual but a good stopping point would be when you don't have anything new to add and simply rewriting.

Deepauk · Answer

Dynabook, The schools, much like yourself, will have multiple eyeballs looking at your essays. So the odds of all of them hating your writing style is lowered. And then there are some of the school of thought that content is more important than style, so the odds that you will be rejected on style alone is still lower. My 0.02$... I'll just share what has happened with me so far. I spent about 1 week on my Kellogg essay and had 2 people (one a Kellogg student to be, another my sister both recent applicants fresh off writing a lot of essays

) and I still got back corrections on different essays on both. I've decided to set it aside and work on my next set of essays (considering I have 4 sets to write it seemed prudent to do this). I am sure when I revisit the essays at the end of the month I will be able to look at what I wrote more objectively and incorporate some of the changes the both of them suggested.

isa · Answer

I had about four people read my essays for two schools - Kellogg, Booth. I asked each person to identify their top three changes, and more importantly, why they thought that change was needed. That helped me understand whether feedback was based on personal preference of the reviewer, something missing in terms of content, etc. Since my writing style is fairly consistent, I just cross-applied their comments across my other essays, without needing additional feedback.

nink · Answer

My essays were passed around only once to about 6 friends. Some of them were also applying to bschool so it was mutually beneficial.

1) Concentrate on content of the essay first. If they have comments on the content of your essay and you agree with those comments, then go ahead and work to revise those concerns.

2) After that, worry about grammar and the structure of the essay. This is more of putting icing on the cake. The contents of your essays will lay out firm foundation to your essays. Comments that address your grammar and structure can only be addressed after STEP 1 mentioned above.

3) Just because your friends have million different comments, not all of them are valid points. Different people write differently and chances are, you might be a better writer compared to your friends. If you can be brutally honest about the quality of your essay and keep an open mind, then you can identify the comments that you should take seriously.

4) If you apply to Yale SOM, hell, I will review your essays. :lol:

j/k....maybe not.....who knows? That reminds me. My classes start Monday and I have my own issues.....

j/k....maybe not.....who knows? That reminds me. My classes start Monday and I have my own issues.....

sm332 · Answer

Some good advice already in this thread but will put in my .02 cents.

My plan is to get essays reviewed by 3 sets of individuals:

1. Person who is intimately familiar with you and who has no trouble taking you to the cleaners. In my case, my wife who can point out if the story makes sense. Whether there are other stories I should be considering, etc, etc. This is a content discussion.

2. Person who understands the MBA rigmarole. In my case, I have some colleagues at work/people associated with MBA programs to read through the essays to see if it paints the MBA story. This is an important step and I think can be valuable in pointing out logical inconsistencies, inadequate detail, and a lack of a cohesive narrative.

3. Finally, I have lined up a previous boss (English PhD) to work through style, grammar, flow, etc type issues.

The bonus review is from students who have already been admitted to the program you are applying to or alternatively someone who has been part of the Admissions process at your chosen program. Hopefully, the GMATClub community will continue to do what it does best and help each other out!!

However - remember to trust your gut. Complete overhaul of essays which leave devoid of personality and a certain rawness wont make for great essays. This is advice from a good samaritan at GMATClub who was generous enough to read my outlines.

dynabook · Answer

thank you guys.
I agree. One, or at most two rounds seem to be enough.
After all, reviewing is just another tool of assistance. I guess I was taking the comments too seriously.

how many rounds of essay review is enough?

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