Essay Writing

HOW TO START WRITING YOUR FIRST MBA APPLICATION ESSAY

HOW TO START WRITING YOUR FIRST MBA APPLICATION ESSAY

The first school could take around eight to ten draft iterations, again this is at a bare minimum. You the MBA applicant are going to touch it around 5 times and the consultant is going to touch it another five times. Each week you work on a set of MBA application essays for days one to three, and then you flip it over.

Why You Shouldn't Shop Your MBA Application Essays Around Too Early

Why You Shouldn't Shop Your MBA Application Essays Around Too Early

Shopping your MBA application essays around to your friends, family, and colleagues may seem like a good idea - but be careful. For several reasons. You have every right to show your MBA application essay around. Most admissions consultants should want you to do that. But here’s the thing - do it at the end.

Start B-school Apps in Order of MBA Application Deadline Date

Start B-school Apps in Order of MBA Application Deadline Date

You have that list of five business schools you really want to apply to. Now, list your five target MBA business schools in order by the application deadline date. The earliest date should be the first MBA application to be worked on. You may be tempted to work on similar essays in parallel, but this is not advised.

Why Aristotle's Poetics is relevant for your MBA application essay

Why Aristotle's Poetics is relevant for your MBA application essay

Here’s why MBA applicants should know Aristotle’s guidelines: If a story, in this case your MBA application essay, is not working, and you can’t put your finger on why — the reason usually is that you left one of Aristotle's rules out, or you broke them. Let’s try to diagnose why with these ten structural tips.

What are the MBA application readers looking for?

What are the MBA application readers looking for?

What are the MBA application readers looking for? Get into the mind of how MBA application readers think. Avoid too much jargon. Understand how the admissions committee is constructed. Remember that you are APPLYING to attend b-school & not yet graduated. Do NOT submit the same resume you would for a job opportunity.

Playing the MBA Yield Game

Playing the MBA Yield Game

Business schools are a business.  They have budgets, revenue, expenses and most importantly, a target for the number of students they take into the program.  This time of year, the game is afoot. Will you be a beneficiary or a casualty of the yield game?

Writing a Personal Statement

Writing a Personal Statement

Summertime is essentially MBA application prep season. While most people are jetting around the globe to sit by a lovely beach or visit a trendy city, MBA applicants are busy organizing themselves in anticipation of application release dates.  Writing a personal statement is a great way to kill the time.

Balancing Round Two Deadlines With the Holidays

Balancing Round Two Deadlines With the Holidays

The yearend holiday season is typically the busiest time of the year for just about everyone, but layering on MBA applications can make it downright insane.  You need a strategy to make it through it all without losing your mind, and hopefully in the process, also earning a spot at your desired school.

Who is Reading Your B-school Application?

Who is Reading Your B-school Application?

One mistake applicants often make is to misunderstand their audience.  When crafting a winning MBA application package there is much to consider, but how much thought have you given to who will actually read your essays?  Who is analyzing your resume? Common sense may dictate that an essay about going to a top MBA program should be crafted for an MBA crowd, but did you know that most essay readers at the top schools never attended an MBA program and don’t have an MBA themselves?  Remembering this in the application process can help you communicate your story in a much more effective way to the adcom.   Read on for tips…

The Value of Your Unique Perspective in MBA Applications

The Value of Your Unique Perspective in MBA Applications

I was working on our Michigan Ross Strategy Memo over the weekend, when it occurred to me just how overlooked a "unique perspective" is when it comes to MBA applications.  Even here at Amerasia, where we work hard to push our clients away from thinking in terms of "impress the reader" and towards "connect with the reader," we sometimes lose sight of how just what an easy and effective way that can be to frame introspective writing.  Because Michigan Ross has the MAP program and everything funnels towards what perspective you bring to the class, it became a good reminder and something that felt worthy of passing along. 

Columbia Business School Strategy Memo Excerpt: How to Write Essay Question 2

Columbia Business School Strategy Memo Excerpt: How to Write Essay Question 2

Every so often, we like to put an excerpt out there from one of our school-specific Strategy Memos.  Full disclosure, the main reason to do this is to show off how we approach the process and to give potential clients a sense of what they might get (across the board, with all their schools and all the questions) if they become clients.  But we also try to coordinate these with moments where we can get some really helpful strategy out there - basic, core ideas that will help people avoid pitfalls, even if they don't have help in executing perfectly.  In this instance, Columbia Business School's Essay Question 2 is a nice overlap that allows us to do both.  So let's dive in.  

Personalizing Your Interest in an MBA Program

Time for a quick blog post that comes from what I'm seeing each day, which is really rigid, hard-to-read Why School X sections.  I give the same note to every single client so now I'm giving it to everybody: the simplest and most important thing you can do to improve your Why School X portion of career goals essay is to personalize any and all content.  

What do I mean by "personalize?"  Simple: make anything you write about the school specific to you, your experience, your desires, or what you require from a program.  Never just state absolutes, generalities, or even known truths and facts - always make them personally-held viewpoints.  Examples are the best way to understand this (after the jump): 

MBA Candidates: Knives Down!

MBA Candidates: Knives Down!

PSA time. 

To all MBA Candidates out there, especially those of you racing to hit the HBS deadline on September 9th ... please, for the love, know when to set your essay down, put your hands in the air, and say "time."  I borrow from Top Chef and call it "put your knives down!"  It's that moment in the show when the buzzer has sounded and they have no choice but to put the chef's knife down, put their hands in the air, and accept that their dish is finished.  In our situation, there isn't a buzzer (yet), but we can still use the principle.  In fact, one of the great ironies of the Top Chef "quick fire" challenge that gave me this expression is that some of the best dishes on that show come because there IS a buzzer - it keeps the contestants from noodling and tweaking and, basically, ruining a great plate of food.  So ... how can we use this for our MBA apps? 

Thoughts on MIT Sloan's 2014-15 "Essays"

Thoughts on MIT Sloan's 2014-15 "Essays"

Quick post today, because time is short and nobody wants to read the screed I had in mind for MIT's new "essays." Why the quotation marks? Because writing your own letter of recommendation is not an essay. It's a gimmick at best, and, if I'm being honest, a bit of a mockery at worst. Yes, people write their own employee assessment reports, which is a great cheat for supervisors (heck, I had a high school "world studies" teacher who figured out that he could just the class to teach itself - no joke), but that also precedes a discussion that can (and usually does) flesh out the exercise. It's hard to imagine a company making huge promotion or bonus decisions based solely on a self-written employee report, with no discussion to follow. I mean, come on. Yet that is what MIT is basically suggesting when they draw a comparison between what takes place in the office and what they are asking candidates to do on the application. It's such a weird, weird assignment. (Okay, so I went on a bit of a screed.) That said, there are three things to keep in mind that can make it not only doable, but a chance to shine.