Writing Essays - A no brainer...

Question

...is what I thought back when I was still worried about taking the GMAT. That was three months ago. Since taking the beast in February, I surprisingly (or not) have not accomplished as much on my applications as I now wish I had.

I do, however, have narrowed my schools down to 3 which I think is quite an achievement though. I know where I want to go and I know why I want to go to each of those schools.

However, putting this on paper and not sounding like someone fresh out of high school kiddo is a whole 'nother story. I have been writing for the past 5 years, mostly scientific research proposals and reports - so I am not a completely lost cause. However, my style of writing is blunt, straight to the point. Some might call that clear and concise, others would call it boring and unexciting. Having read some of the classic material on admissions essays, I fear Adcom might fall asleep reading my app. So I am soliciting ideas from our community:

How do you approach writing fresh, creative, upbeat admissions essays? 
Anyone experience with admissions consultants awakening the sleeping beauty in your essays?
How do you bridge stirring away from 'sleeping pill essays' to essays that are a joy to read and not to over the top?

shadow · Answer

i dont know if there's any one way to writing good essays other than to have your true self show in the essays. many times i've seen people write completely over the top essays in an effort to seem more "interesting" to the adcom. this resulted in an essay tone which was actually obnoxious or otherwise counterproductive to the applicant's goals (to give the applicant a good picture of you as a person). don't try and force humor or sarcasm in an effort to stand out. do, however, include metaphors or other subtle writing techniques that will help you stand out. just make sure your entire essay doesn't read like something you'd find in a high school english poetry class textbook

adude · Answer

I don't want to disagree with a future classmate, but since I come from a technical background, I inserted as much emotional appeal into my essays as I thought I could get away with. You want to keep it cogent and not use distracting, flowery language, but I don't think it hurts to spice it up by convincing the reader that you are a multi-dimensional humanitarian (especially if you have a technical background). This might be stereotypical, but in my experience, the admissions committee audience is more than likely middle-aged, female, and slightly progressive. That's who I wrote my essays for.

ThomasD · Answer

Thanks for your comments guys!

I think I agree with you adude - someone who comes from a very technical background should make an attempt to convey in his/her essays that there is more to the person than the technical field one has been working in. Clearly, the top schools look for top people, but they do not look for the top notch, introverted and reserved lone warrior, but the team player and leader that is not afraid to speak up. No matter if true or not, but given the adcom demographic (and again I feel you are spot on adude), I think people with a technical/scientific background are typically initially characterized as the lone warrior type - and to succeed I feel that given my application stats it'd really help me to convey that I do not fit that stereotype.

Putting it in the right words is still a challenge for me though...

shadow · Answer

adude, i don't think our points were necessarily opposites. in fact, i agree that you should appeal to emotions in your essay. what i'm not advocating for is making your entire essay an exercise in creative writing (which, by the way, i did read in an admissions essay once). im not an admissions consultant or expert, but from speaking to people who work in admissions at various levels, stuff like that is frowned upon.

Jerz · Answer

I'd echo this point. While it's important to use your essays to convey who you are on an emotional level, the style of writing preferred in business is very concise and to the point. Adcom is also looking at whether your written communication skills are up to par with what future employers will expect from students/graduates from that school.

highhopes · Answer

Much of the old essay material is dated and irrelevant. While you want a flair of something interesting in your essay, these days schools don't allow much room for extra imagery.

A couple things:
1) Make sure to use active voice (I felt, I learned, I inspired, etc rather than what I have learned). Not only does it save you words, but it reads a lot more personally. 
2) While schools will tell you not try and satisfy them, schools definitely have personalities and using a different style is probably justified. For example, there are touchy feely schools that I'd expect to have "fluffier" responses. Other schools are going to be somewhat more down to business. So "boring" probably will not hurt you.
3) What's going to make a difference is not your style, it's your content. So where someone tells their leadership story in what's basically a bulleted list put into sentence structure, you need to go past that and describe the why and how. That's where your essays will stand out.

If you're energized about writing them, they probably won't be as boring as you think. If you do look at them and think they need some spice, then pick out the points in your essay that you really want to stand out and concentrate on those. So instead of saying, after that I decided to take the next step and change teams to do xyz, spice it up and say because one of my strengths is that I love to push myself, I changed roles because it I knew it would force me to address my weakness of xyz. If you do that in a few extra words, you've told them a lot more about yourself.

quantjock · Answer

felt the need to reinforce #1 from highhopes. unless you had a very rigid english/literature high school teacher, most people tend to write a fair amount in the passive voice - it takes a lot of conscious thought to avoid. correcting this is one of the more subtle changes you can make that will improve your writing. and the bonus is that it reinforces that most sought after admissions schools characteristic - leadership. adcoms want people who make stuff happen, not have stuff happen to them.

quantjock · Answer

other advice on the original question

- the most important thing you need to do is get good content. spend plenty of time brainstorming and framing (i highly recommend richard montauks book for this). then just sit down and write. dont pressure yourself. dont worry about word limits. dont worry about school tones. answer the question as best you can. essay masterpieces for most of us normal folk come from editing and re-writing. 
- then you can worry about style. if youre not sure about it, head over to the bookstore and leaf through a copy of one of those successful business school essay books. that ought to give you a good feel of what works. its hard to describe i think. i understood better when i saw samples from my friends that had gotten into good schools.
- you have to imagine that as an adcom reading hundreds/thousands of essays, they all start to run together at some point. i really tried to be conscious of this. if you have them, pick and use stories that could really only have happened to you. or that are so specific and personalized that they are memorable. technically speaking, avoid common phrases, colloquialisms and cliches (+ grammar errors) - they give the impression that you havent put much effort into your writing.
- once you get a final draft, have a few select friends and family read your essays for content and style. try to pick the more intelligent, successful and charismatic ones. explicitly tell them to be brutally honest. let them know what youre trying to avoid/accomplish so they read with this in mind. heed their feedback as long as you dont feel your core message is being erased. this works even better if one of your friends/family attended the specific school. theyll have a better idea of the tone and message needed to get in.

i realize i didnt exactly answer your question directly ("how to write upbeat/fresh/joyous essays"), but having great content, avoiding common mistakes and getting feedback from knowledgeable parties goes a longer way to putting together your best essay set in my opinion.

quantjock · Answer

yesssssssssssss. i am totally dominating this thread! ha ha. kidding.

brushing up on some start-up material and have been reading a series of essays by paul graham (interesting guy btw - sold viaweb to yahoo, runs ycombinator, RISD graduate, harvard compsci phd)...anyway he has a post on good writing that i thought might help too.

https://www.paulgraham.com/writing44.html

ThomasD · Answer

uh quantjock, i like that link ! what you say makes a lot of sense too. i'll keep grinding on my stuff....

i do have montauk's book as well and do find a quite useful, but i need to make sure i do not stoically follow each of his suggestions to write sleeping pill essays... i find it useful for reminding of what points i need to bring across, but it is not that much help while actually writing.

Writing Essays - A no brainer...

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