10 Steps to Writing Killer Essays
1. Tailor different essays to different schools. Writing essays can be a taxing process, time-intensive and exhausting, but it’s important to take individual care with each one you submit. Each business school has a different mission and different admissions criteria. Take note of the differences, and tailor your essays to reflect them.
2. Invest time in brainstorming. Finding the right structure and language to make your essays stand out should take time and effort, but it should be relatively easy compared to the time and effort you put into picking the right stories to tell in the first place. Good ideas will breed good, interesting writing, so spend a lot of time thinking about and discussing with others the ideas you want to build your essays around. The early investment will pay off in a big way.
3. Show, don’t tell. Don’t write that you are a hard worker; show it by telling the admissions committee about a time you worked harder than anyone else. Don’t say that you are creative; show it by writing about a problem you solved in an interesting way. The worst essays are laundry lists of adjectives, clichés, and platitudes. The best are stories that capture the admissions committee’s attention by recreating the moments that shaped your character and ethic.
4. Answer the question. Write the essay question you’re answering at the very top of the page you’re writing on, and make sure you answer it directly in your first few sentences. Even reuse the language embedded in the question to clearly call the reader’s attention to the answer. Admissions committees invest a lot of time and resources in picking the few questions they want you to answer; straying too far from them is a clear sign that you either can’t or don’t follow directions.
5. Essays are opportunities to highlight strengths. Every candidate has weaknesses, and in some situations those weaknesses require explanation, but don’t let them overwhelm your essays. No amount of explaining your weaknesses will get you admitted into business schools. To get admitted, you need to sell the schools on your strengths, on the reasons why they should want you. The essays are first and foremost the place to do that.
6. Keep it focused. There are several reasons why schools provide word limits, and of late it seems like those word limits are getting smaller and smaller. In such a short space, they don’t expect you to tell your life story or cover all of the strengths that you’ll bring to the program. Trying to do so will only dilute your best opportunity to make your case. Rather than trying to build a list of credentials in your essays, focus each essay on a single idea or strength. Make it a powerful idea, and don’t stray from it.
7. Have others read your work. Have at least two or three others read your essays. Ask some to focus on story and structure, and ask others, especially those with the strongest editing skills, to focus on grammar and style.
8. Enlist strangers to edit your essays, too. Try to have at least one person that doesn’t know you particularly well – perhaps another applicant you met during an admissions tour – edit your essays. Friends, family, and colleagues can be great resources, but because they know you and your background, they may fill in some gaps that aren’t obvious to an admissions committee member.
9. Proofread. Proofread. Proofread. It should go without saying, but typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors are admissions killers.
10. Be honest. The admissions committee will get a great picture of you and your experiences through the application, interview, and background check process. Hyperbole and outright falsehoods are application killers, so be honest about your accomplishments.