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A Few Tips
For Writing Strong MBA Essays
1. Introspection
Before beginning the long and painstaking process of writing
each essay, we strongly encourage you to take a bit of
time out for yourself. No, we don't mean that you should hide
out on a small Greek island far from the rest of the world, but
more so that you should take the time to go through a process of
self-reflection.
Most importantly, the idea is for you to take the time out to
think about the reasons motivating you to do an MBA and to
conclude what you will get out of it. On the other hand,
considering what doing an MBA is going to cost you, not only the
financial and professional implications (from interrupting your
career), but also the consequences for your social and personal
life. After this
first stage of reflection (the cost-benefit analysis), we
encourage you to reflect on your leadership style and skills.
You have to understand that most business schools' primary
selection criterion is the leadership potential that the
Admissions Committee sees in you. So it makes sense the you
should start thinking about your leadership potential. Don't
worry if you have not officially been a team leader or
responsible for a department. The Admissions Office is aware
that you professional experience is limited and that you might
not have had the opportunity to be in an official leadership
position. But it is waiting to see that you have been in
"unofficial" leadership situations, such as being responsible
for a project in which you collaborated with or supervised other
individuals. Once you have come up with such a situation, we
encourage you to analyze it to better understand exactly how you
lead the project (Were objectives clearly established? How did
you determine your objectives? How did you communicate them to
others? What techniques did you use to motivate people? How did
you follow along with the evolution of the project?)
Above all, this self-reflection may seem like a waste of time,
but you will gain from it mature thinking and generate a wealth
of examples and situations. Play the game, because this
introspection is indispensable for you to be able to talk about
and reflect on your personal experience. It's this reflection
that is going to make your essays stand out and the Admissions
Committee will reward your mature thinking. It's obviously
hardly worth mentioning that the worst thing you can do is to
copy someone else's essays.
Beyond the final goal of being admitted in to an MBA, I find
that it's healthy to put aside the time to take stock of your
professional experience and what sense you are trying to give to
your life by your choice of careers. Start thinking about this
as soon as possible because you will be asking yourself such
questions throughout your MBA.
2. The Strategy of Positioning
Writing the essays really seems to be an exercise in marketing
in the sense that the image that you communicate through your
essays has to make you stand out from other candidates. Most
candidates have similar experiences (there is a plethora of
consultants, bankers, marketing executives and so on who apply
each year). This means you will talk about more or less the same
things! It is critical, therefore, that you come up with a
specific positioning in order to distinguish yourself. For those
among you who are not familiar with the concept of positioning,
the idea is to make your personality stand out by choosing a few
distinctive qualities. These qualities can be your
distinguishing factors, areas of expertise or your passionate
interests. You need to be on the lookout for building up these
themes throughout your entire application (during the essays,
letters, and resume). The positioning of a candidate should be
summed up in three or four chosen themes.
Positioning
isn't helpful unless it enables you to show that you are what
the consumer wants (here the consumer is the school because it
chooses!). Be careful, because having a theme is not the goal in
itself. A theme is looking for (leadership potential for
Harvard). For example, if one of the themes you choose is
multiculturalism, don't hesitate to show that your knowledge of
other cultures has permitted you to refine your ability to
listen to others or even to form a solid value system which
guides you during ambiguous situations - these are the qualities
of a leader.
3. Don't forget the results.
For most of the MBA essays, you are asked to describe and
analyze your actions (examples: Describe your three most
substantial accomplishments and why you view it as such" or "How
have you helped a group to change?"). For this type of essays,
it is absolutely indispensable that you talk about the results
you attained. For example, if you explain that you have led a
radical change in your department, do not forget to discuss
precisely what the results of your actions were. On this point,
I encourage you to not only indicate your results numerically
(with "hard date" such as the figures on increased sales) but
also the human results (the "soft date" such as a better working
environment). It is important you show that you know how to
"make the numbers", but not to the detriment of others.
4. Form and format
Respecting certain rules about the form of your essay is
important because if you do not follow the given guidelines you
will distinguish yourself from others, but not to your benefit!
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Respect the
word limit: an Admissions Officers explained to us that the
number of words per essay is not counted. Readers look only
to see if the essay seems to be more or less within the
guidelines; they are not, therefore, going to realize that
your essay is 10% over the word limit. However, if you go
way past the limit (more than 20% over) this will be noticed
and held against you because it will be perceived as an
inability to synthesize your ideas in a limited among the
space.
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Your essay
should be well structured and concise. Get right to the
point and do so in a very structured manner. Use linking
words to indicate your different ideas (First, Second,
Third, etc.) and to show the logic of your argument
(therefore, but, yet, on the other hand).
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