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EXCERPT FROM MBA Studio�s �MBA
ADMISSIONS STRATEGY: FROM PROFILE BUILDING TO ESSAY
WRITING,� McGraw Hill, 2005.
Understanding
what the essays really do for Admissions�
Essays are the �tie-breaker� between excellent
candidates
Business school is mostly a logical, quantitative,
rational kind of place. Much of it is about making
numbers work out and you�re never far from your Excel
spreadsheet. So you�d think that MBA admissions would be
a logical, quantitative, rational kind of process: take
an applicant�s GMAT and undergraduate scores, add a
multiple-choice personality test and a weighted average
for credentials and achievements, feed it all into a
computer, admit the top 10 or 20%, and voila!
Not only would this be quick and fair, but it would make
operational sense too, given the thousands of applicants
MBA admissions officers have to process each year.
But what really happens is that school asks applicants
to write between three and seven open-ended personal
essays on their life, achievements, goals, motivations,
failures, and so on and so on. These essays absorb an
inordinate amount of admissions staff time in assessment
and deliberations (some schools even pay adjunct essay
readers to deal with the extra workload) and introduce a
large dose of subjectivity into the applications
process.
So why do they do it? Why do they make the application
process longer, more subjective, and more resource
intensive than it apparently needs to be? Answering this
question is the key to knowing what you need to do to
write a successful essay set.
To understand what�s going on, put yourself in the shoes
of the Admissions Committee (adcom) � whose holy grail
is to (a) select the best applicants, and (b) balance
the skills, aptitudes, backgrounds and experience of the
incoming class. Any decent school can take half of the
applications it receives and throw them in the bin: �not
enough experience�, �luke-warm references�, �poor GMAT�,
�too old�, etc. That�s the easy part. The challenge is
what to do with �the top half,� that is, how to
distinguish between the quality candidates that remain.
If you are faced with a GMAT 720/ GPA 4.0 banker from
Chicago and a 720/ Oxbridge graduated systems analyst
from Glasgow, and a 710/ Chinese Fulbright scholar, and
you can only take one, who are you going to choose? How
can you choose?
Schools set hard, open-ended, searching personal
questions in order to be able to choose between good
applicants. Asking �what really motivates her, why he
needs an MBA, which of her achievements matters most and
why, how he copes with failure, how she envisions her
future,� etc., and reading the results over three or
four pages, gives Adcoms subtle distinctions between
those with an apparently equivalent good claim to
admission. Through the essays the truly compelling
candidates make themselves known.
Meeting the essay requirements
Given this specific role the essays play, it follows
that your task in writing them is to provide enough
differentiating, high-quality, material about yourself
so that adcom is motivated to make those subtle
distinctions in your favor. A non-communicative
statement will not put sufficient distance between you
and the competitors in the top half.
Differentiating, high-quality material is not hard to
recognize: it is anything that turns you from a set of
numbers and achievements into a unique, memorable person
on an interesting path.
If you have trouble knowing what it means to add value
to your file in this way, imagine yourself at a cocktail
party with 30 other competing MBA applicants and one
admissions officer. You all work for the same company
and you all have the identical Gmat score, but only
three can be selected. You each get about five minutes
to talk
to her � what do you say about yourself that is
interesting, insightful, provoking and memorable? That
is your essay material.
Your personal statement should open a window into your
single and unique life, and through it Adcom should feel
they have met you and come to know you and identify with
you, so that they can distinguish you from the crowd.
You achieve this by selecting and sharing personal
events and stories, and analyzing and reflecting on them
in an honest way, so they get to understand what you
stand for, are interested in or are motivated to do with
your life, and why.
You�ve succeeded when they no longer think �MIT
undergrad, science major, 3.8/710, ex-PWC,� but, for
example, �The guy who majored in botanical studies, left
consulting to create a successful small business in
exotic East Asian seedlings and now needs an MBA to
develop a community-friendly agribusiness worldwide. (By
the way, he also has big-6 consulting experience and
great numbers.)
The 5-point essay quality checklist:
- Don�t repeat information from your file. Use the essays
to develop, explain and positively frame the information
that is already there and develop the reader�s insight
into it.
- Be personal. Give adcom real insight into your
character, passion, personality and self-understanding.
Don�t think you can escape with the standard platitudes.
- Be unique. How do you know if a statement is not
unique? Easy: if what you say could be said by the next
applicant or the one after that, it�s generic. If what
you say could only have been said by you, it�s unique.
- Be yourself. Forget what MBAs are supposed to be like
and supposed to want. Talk about who you are what you
want. Talk about your real goals, motivations, dreams
and fears. Give voice to your own values and your real
ethical or personal struggles.
- Don�t say too little. Seize the opportunity the essays
present. If you give more than a muttered safety-first
statement, you�ll get more back. The reader can only get
out what you put in.
Extracted from MBA Studio�s �MBA Admission Strategy:
From Profile Building to Essay Writing,� McGraw Hill,
2005. No part of this document may be published without
written permission.
� The MBA Admissions Studio. All rights reserved.
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