Won’t take our word on b-school essays and admissions? We asked MBA students and business school admissions officers to share their thoughts on these matters. You might say we have the issue covered from every angle.
Q: Lisa, how many schools did you apply to?
A: Six. Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, UCLA, Kellogg, and Michigan. All in the first round.
Q: So all told, how many essays did you have to write?
A: Well they all have one common essay question. It’s a version of “Why do you want the MBA, why now, and why at this school?” so this was one essay with slightly different versions. Several of the schools had the “What are your three greatest accomplishments?” question. The rest of the questions were very different. I easily wrote at least ten-plus essays.
Q: Which essay did you work on first?
A: The leadership essay.
Q: Why did you choose that one first?
A: It was the easiest one for me. I had a very good example of clear leadership.
Q: How did you go about writing your stories?
A: First, I put everything down on paper. Then I reread it to see if it communicated exactly what I wanted it to. That was the hardest part, making sure that what I wanted to say actually came forth. Because sometimes you’ll write and write and write, but the point you’re actually trying to get across doesn’t come through.
In these kinds of essays, it’s easy to write too much and provide too much detail. But what you want to focus on is who you are, and not the details that capture the exact experience.
Q: Did you take a test-prep course?
A: Yes.
A: I was working as an investment banker, and my firm paid for the course. I was very busy at work, so I didn’t actually take the test until almost a year after the course. When I did take the test, however, it was six months before I worked on the essays and the rest of the application. I wanted to get the GMAT out of the way and focus on the application.
Q: What made you decide to apply in the first round?
A: I did a lot of research. Everyone seemed to say your odds were better in the first round. I also think that applying early in the filing period shows admissions that you’re very serious, that this is something you’ve thought out very thoroughly.
Q: What was the hardest part of the application for you to work on?
A: The essays, definitely. It’s so difficult in just four or five essays to accurately portray yourself and capture all your unique experiences.
Q: Which was the hardest essay for you to answer? Why?
A: I would say it was one of the Berkeley essays. Berkeley has two longer essays, then mainly short questions; this was very different from the other schools I was applying to.
The essay that I really struggled with was “Whom would you like to have over for dinner?” I found this question to be a little more creative, whereas the others had been straightforward. You don’t know what the admissions committee is looking for in this question, so I found it harder.
But if you try to write what you think the admission person wants here, you just dig yourself a hole. It’s always better to come from who you really are. I’ve gone back and read friends’ essays who are here at Berkeley and at other schools. The ones that really stand out are those that are genuine. If you pose as someone you’re really not in these essays, it’s very easy for the admissions committee to see through it.
But back to the “dinner” question. I guess the best way I can tell you how I answered this question is to tell you how I went about the entire essay-writing process.
I got some great advice from a friend: Before working on any [of] the essays, sit down and make a list of the five or six qualities about yourself that you absolutely want to get across to the admissions committee. Then, go through each essay and make sure that you address one of these five or six big ideas in each one so that you create a complete picture of yourself. The application should really be seen as a total package.
This particular tool really helped me, because at first I was just so overwhelmed by it all. When you have to pick five or six qualities about yourself, it requires a lot of introspection. In this way, instead of looking at each specific question in a vacuum, I focused on getting these qualities across. As I said before, I would write and write, then reread and realize I had left out that one very important characteristic or aspect that I had made a goal to highlight.
So by the time I got to the dinner question, I had covered what I wanted to in the other essays. I could have a little more fun with this one, show a different side of me.
Q: What about your recommendations? How did you handle that?
A: My schools requested only professional recommendations. I had already selected two bosses for this—one current and one past. I chose the boss from my previous position, rather than someone else supervising me in my current job, because he knew me very well, he was an excellent writer, he was honest, and I knew he would support what I was saying about myself in the essays. The person who knows you the best is the one who should write your recommendations.
Q: What advice would you give an applicant about to embark on this journey?
A: Don’t get overwhelmed. Look over the entire application and, as hard as it is, get everything down on paper. Step by step, list or outline what characteristics you want to highlight.
Have someone you don’t know very well read your essays and give you their take on each one. They should be able to immediately pick out the characteristic you are trying to portray. The fact that your reader doesn’t know you helps because they are not as inclined to just give their perception of you as a person.
It is also good to have people who know you well read your essays. These readers would say, wait a minute, you’re not giving yourself enough credit for something, or you left out some of the specifics in this story that are meaningful to the point. It’s not easy to brag about yourself and your accomplishments, and people who know you well can help you draw the line between bragging enough, but not too much. So both sets of readers were especially helpful.
I probably had five different sets of eyes look at my essays to see if they got what I intended. If the feedback was that they didn’t, then I knew I was off my mark. I would scrap the entire essay, no matter how hard I had worked on it, and rewrite it completely, sometimes with entirely new topics.
Q: Jenni, how many schools did you apply to?
A: Just four. Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and Kellogg.
Q: Where did you get in?
A: I got in to all four.
Q: What was the most daunting part of the application process?
A: The essays.
Q: Why?
A: The sheer quantity of the essays I needed to write was overwhelming. To deal with it, I first organized all of the applications together by creating a grid in Microsoft Excel. Then I wrote an essay question in each cell and looked for where there might be overlap.
Q: So your first strategy in the application process was to organize and examine all the essay questions for similarity?
A: Well, first I took a test-prep course. I took the class the spring before. The course ran from approximately January through March. Then I took the GMAT test in May with the knowledge that if I didn’t do well as well as I wanted to, I could take it again and still have time to apply early for next year.
Q: Did you do well enough?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: How did your time line evolve from that point?
A: Well, I got to breathe a sigh of relief for the summer, which was nice. But by late August, as soon as all the applications were out, I had them in my hands—I had put my name on all the schools’ lists so they would be sent to me immediately.
I also used the time in late August to contact all the admissions offices at each of the schools to schedule campus visits. I wanted to visit each of the campuses so I could figure out for myself what was different at each of these schools.
The gist of the visits was that I wanted to attend class, meet the people, meet the professors, and see the campus, so that I could write to that in my essays. Part of this process is figuring out which schools are right for you. I had figured out all were great options, but I needed to differentiate them for myself and in the essays. I also wanted to articulate what unique contributions I could make at a particular school. To do that, you need to do more than just read a brochure.
Q: So before you even put pen to paper, you had already done a tremendous amount of legwork and preparation?
A: Absolutely.
Q: Going back to the essays, how many essay questions did you have to answer?
A: Stanford [had] two. One of their questions was, “What is most important to you, and why?” and the second was, “Why do you want the MBA, and why here?” I think this last one is used at “X” school everywhere. So I got to recycle that last essay question, but I articulated unique differences at each school.
The Berkeley application was probably the most difficult in that there were six to eight short questions. Somehow that was harder than having to answer one long question. The question I found the most interesting to write—it was on Berkeley’s application—was “Who would you most want to have dinner with and why?” That was fun.
Q: Whom did you pick?
A: Oprah Winfrey. She has been amazing in terms of how influential she has been. And while she is not known for this, she is an incredibly savvy businessperson.
After I got in at Berkeley, I learned that Madonna and Oprah are among the most common answers. Madonna is awesome because she, too, has built an empire. She has her public persona, as does Oprah, but these women are highly astute. They have built extraordinary businesses.
A number of people pick out a compelling figure from history as well.
Again, after I got in, I heard that with the Stanford essay, the most common answer to “What’s most important to you and why?” is “balance in life.”
Q: How often did you do a rewrite?
A: I probably did at least three or four rewrites of each question. Often what I would do is work on a question for a day. Then I would shelve it, leave it alone for a few days. Then I’d get perspective and go back and read it and work some more.
Another thing I did was to purchase three different books—one was a guidebook on the MBA, one was how to get into the top MBA programs, and the last one was a book with sample b-school essays, which proved very useful in getting ideas on how other people had done this.
Q: What would be your final piece of advice to someone about to start this process?
A: I applied in round one at three of my schools and round two at Kellogg. My advice is to start early. Figure out where you want to apply, and then map out your priorities. What needs to happen first at what school? When you say you want to apply to five schools in the first round, you might not be able to do that. I credit that I got into all four of my schools by applying early.