老美的essay指导系列教程

hsWang

Importance of the Essay
How would you feel if getting into the business school of your choice had nothing to do with your work experience, grades and test scores? Imagine for a moment that the only thing an admissions committee would ever see is your essay. The committee would have to make a decision that will change the rest of your life based on only a few pages of essays.
Since applicants with similar work experiences, undergraduate GPAs, and test scores are often compared to each other, the essay is often the crucial factor in business school admissions decisions.

Simply put, you must have an excellent essay. Without the essay, a selection committee would have to arbitrarily choose between two (or even two hundred) candidates with almost identical profiles.

As one admissions officer noted:
I personally remember times at Babson when everything else in the file was mediocre. However, because the essays were so good, we called the person in for an interview to get another look. - Former Babson Officer
Understanding the importance of the essays is a necessary first step toward perfecting your business school application. We are here to help you get through the rest of the process. Please choose a link in the left hand menu.

hsWang

Assess Your Audience
Have you ever tried to imagine what happens to your essay after you submit your application? For many applicants, this part of the process is a mystery, but it does not have to be.
First, your file (application, transcripts, test scores, recommendations, and essays) will be read in its entirety by at least one, and usually by two or three, members of the admissions committee. This means that your application will never be summarily dismissed based on any one factor such as your G.P.A. or G.M.A.T. scores. It also means that no matter how you scored-no matter how well or how badly-your essays will still receive some attention. An admissions officer stated,
I personally can remember times at Babson when everything else in the file was mediocre. However, because the essays were so good, we called the person in for an interview to get another look.
Admissions officers spend anywhere from ten to forty minutes looking at a given set of essays. One officer explained,
Essays are a huge part of the business school application. They are VERY important, so most counselors spend a lot of time reading and evaluating them. We might read twenty sets in a day, including what we take home at night.

Twenty sets translates into over 100 individual essays per day. This is why, when asked for their number one pet peeve, admissions officers answer, "Boring essays!" and "Essays that all sound the same!" When asked what their number one piece of advice for applicants is, they answer, "Put yourself into your essays, and make them interesting!"
Once an application has been given a first, quick read, it will go into one of three basic piles: accept, reject, and unsure.

A committee member stated,
Usually, two kinds of files go through easily and aren't read by more than two people: the truly outstanding because the file is so brilliant and the truly outstanding because the file is so poor.
If your application is in either the accept or reject categories, it will generally be read by one additional person for confirmation. If the application is rated acceptable, the second reader is usually the dean. If the second reader agrees with the first, the process is complete. All other applications-and this is usually upwards of 75 percent-fall into the unsure pile. That pile then gets subdivided into probably accept, probably reject, and unsure-and so on and so forth.

The longer your application remains in the unsure pile, the more similar your numbers and background will be to the others in the pile. When competition gets tough, your essays become virtually the only tool you have to make your background and experience come alive, distinguishing you from the rest of the homogenous crowd.

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-5 14:52:10编辑过]

hsWang

Eight Key Attributes
During that first, quick review of your file (transcripts, G.M.A.T. scores, application, recommendations, and essays), every admissions committee uses essentially the same questions:
Will this person succeed academically at this school?
Will he or she contribute and add diversity to the class?
How does this person compare with the other applicants?

When they read your essays specifically, the committee members look for much more than this. The eight items unanimously cited as "most important in a successful essay" by our admissions advisors follow. Still, be careful how you implement this advice in your own essay. You must not lose sight of the ultimate goal of the essays: to convince the admissions committee that you belong at their business school.
1. Givens
No matter which specific question you are answering, you need to accomplish a few fundamental goals when you write. Admissions committees do not specifically look for these basics because they are expected and should be transparent in good writing. These include:
Have I answered the question asked?
Have I made clear, precise, understandable points?
Is my writing natural, concise, and error free?
When you have finished an essay set, or all the essays required for one school, step back and take a look at them as a whole. Make sure that you have done all of the following in at least one of the essays:
Demonstrated your motivation
Targeted the school
Expressed at least one to three qualities, strengths, or attributes that make you stand out from the crowd
Presented at least one solid and succinct argument for why the committee should accept you

2. Writing/Communication Skills
The essays also function to showcase your language abilities and writing skills. One of our admissions advisors noted,
Your essay doesn't need to peg you as a future author or scholar but as a future leader in management. That said, the ability to communicate ideas and to present them skillfully is essential to success in the business profession, and good writing stems from good overall communication skills.
Again, admissions committees seek good writing skills-they expect them. A beautifully written set of essays will not get you admitted to business school, but a poorly written set could easily keep you out.

3. A Real Person
What the committee really seeks in the essays is simple. More than any specific background, characteristic, or skill, they want to see a person. Admissions staff are adamant about wanting to feel that they know the human being behind the numbers. One explained,
We are searching for some intangible quality in the application that no number could ever reveal. We hope to find it in the essay. Never squander the chance to tell us who you are in the essay. It helps us to reassure ourselves that the process is human and that what we do for a living matters to another human being.
Knowing this, it might not surprise you to learn that the number one piece of advice from admissions officers and business students regarding the essays is almost always the same. Although they expressed it in many different ways (be honest, be sincere, be unique, be personal, and so on) the advice is always the same-be yourself! An admissions officer explained,
Business applicants get so caught up in wanting to seem like something: a leader, mature, or, God forbid, "businesslike," that they forget to be something. We never get to know them.

4. A Personal Approach
The only way to let the admissions committee see you as an individual is to make your essays personal. When you do this, your essays will automatically be more interesting and engaging. They will help you to stand out from the hundreds of others the committee will be reviewing that week. One committee member said,
Personalize your essays as much as possible-generic essays are not only boring to read, they're a waste of time. They don't tell you anything about the applicant that helps you get to know that person better.
This Sloan applicant wrote an intensely personal essay and did it well. Nevertheless, a good personal essay does not have to be touchy feely as this applicant demonstrates.

5. Details, Details, Details
Each and every point that you make needs to be backed up by specific instances, examples, and scenarios from your experience. These details make your story special, unique, and interesting. Most of the sample essays in this course use detail sufficiently.

6. Something Different/Unique/Interesting/Funny
An admissions committee member explained,
Business applicants should not be afraid to go out on a limb and be themselves-even when that means incorporating humor or being a little bit controversial. They are so often concerned with making the correct impression that they edit out anything that would help their essay stand out. They submit a "safe" essay that is, in reality, sterile, monotonous, and deadly boring.
Still, what makes you different, should be your experiences and you should not take a gimmicky approach to your essays. In general, you should not attempt humor, but your essay should be interesting.

7. Honesty
Admissions officers will not tolerate hype. Do not try to create a larger-than-life impression of yourself or of someone you think the committee would accept. Let your stories relate your qualities.
Honesty can also help your personality to come through in your essay. For example, in this essay, the applicant admits that she was, "Never much of a student," and indulged in the "occasional prima donna fit." While we caution against this risky approach in general, this applicant did a decent job and was admitted to Sloan.
Drawing attention to negatives is not a requirement of truthfulness -- you can be honest and still be completely positive about yourself and your qualifications. If you do call attention-in any way-to your drawbacks, you must be confident that you have addressed these weaknesses with finesse and have not weakened your stance. In other words, those former weaknesses should now be strengths.

8. A Story
Admissions officers also look for essays they can enjoy reading. Some have explained,
Make sure that your essay is readable. Don't make us work. Give your essay momentum-make sure the parts work together and move to a point, carrying the reader along.
Humor is a powerful tool, so use it wisely. Gimmicks are a big mistake, and a sarcastic or flippant tone will often offend. Real humor, inventiveness, and dry wit, though, are always in good taste.
Ultimately, in all essays you are telling a story about an accomplishment, your reasons for attending business school, etc. You can go further by writing your entire essay in the form of a story as this Kellogg applicant did. This HBS applicant also relied heavily on story. Heavy reliance on story is a risky approach because most people are not good writers and because it can undermine the seriousness with which you approach the application. After all, you will not be admitted simply for being a good storyteller.
These risky essays are the exception: this applicant successfully used a more standard approach. If your essays flow well, follow an internal logic, and contain interesting experiences, they will be a success.

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-5 14:52:59编辑过]

hsWang

Basic Requirements
Most applications will be read by at least two people, and then will be seen by two to three more readers depending on whether the case is borderline or clear-cut. The committee can consist of admissions staff, faculty, administrators, alumni, and students. Business school admissions committees have arguably the highest expectations for their applicants' essays because they place so much value on them.

"The essays require serious reflection. They play a critical role in placing other parts of the application into context. Among qualified applicants the essays serve the purpose of revealing who is most deserving, most appealing, and the best match for us."
- UCLA Graduate School of Management

"Frankly, 80 percent of the people who apply to very competitive, top-tier MBA programs can handle the workload. So the question often becomes not "Can the student make it here?" but [rather] "how is the student going to contribute here, how is he going to make us stronger or make an imprint on the classroom and the out-of-classroom experiences?" - and that's what students have to think about a little more when going through this process [of writing their essays]."
- The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)

Take this advice to the next level: what you have to contribute should be something only you can contribute. Therefore the most important question to ask yourself as you begin the process is this: how can I make myself stand out? The bad news is that you may be dealing with short attention spans and a cursory read. The good news is that many of your competitors will make the mistakes that you will have learned to avoid by reading this guide and using our editing services.

This course will cover many tips and guidelines for themes and ideas for you to explore, but this section will mainly outline two principles of the utmost importance that have to do with writing audience-friendly essays.

First, be concise. Nearly all the admissions officers we interviewed stressed this point, and the reason is obvious. They have too much work on their hands to be spending extra time on your application. Moreover, longwinded writing will not sustain their interest and can potentially hurt your chances. A good essay will make its point within the required space, or stay close to the suggested length.

Some students fail to communicate their message succinctly. This is important because they're trying to communicate a message and extraneous information can dilute or diminish that message. - The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)

Second, be interesting. Now there are many factors that will go into making an essay interesting, but at the same time, everyone has a basic idea of what that entails. If you didn't already know about the exciting particulars of your life, would you find the essay, on its own terms, enjoyable to read? Keep in mind that no matter how strong or fascinating your content is, the reader cannot appreciate this if he or she has stopped reading or paying attention.

"Tell us your story using interesting and lively essays. Please understand that people, not machines, read the essays. If you had to sift through 15-20 sets of essays every day for six months, what would you want to read? Interesting, lively, occasionally witty stories, right? Us too."
- Stanford University, Graduate School of Business

So these are the two principles you must keep in mind when evaluating your results and trying to determine how the audience will respond. If you can be concise and interesting, you will have gone a long way toward winning the reader's sympathy and standing out from your competitors.

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-5 14:54:01编辑过]

hsWang

Key contributions

The great challenge of the business school application essays is how to discuss the themes that everyone else will be dealing with in a fresh way. Later sections of this guide will provide you with tips on how to make your essay stand out, but for now we will outline the key qualities and abilities you are expected to demonstrate.

As we will stress throughout, the essay is meant to convey the personal characteristics that the rest of your application cannot communicate. So we will preface our list with a warning about what not to include: anything that is fully covered by another part of the application. For example, do not tell the reader what your GPA was or list the awards that you won. Avoid simply listing your extracurricular activities. If you bring any of these issues up, you should have some significant insight to add that is not evident from another part of your application.

Sincerity

Believe it or not, admissions officers rank sincerity highest in importance, above any quality seemingly more specific to business. They ultimately just want to know about who you are, and in that sense, the best way to sell yourself is to be yourself. Don't focus too heavily on what you think they want to see, at the expense of conveying your own message in your unique way.

What I would love to have people do in preparing their essays is to do a great deal of self-assessment and reflection on their lives and on what's important to them because the most important thing to us is to get a very candid and real sense of the person. I think people do themselves a real disservice if they think too much about what they think Harvard would like to hear or if they think about what might have been successful in the past in being admitted to Harvard. -- Harvard Business School

My advice to the applicant is to be honest in your essays, lay it out, and be as specific as you can, but don't try to second-guess what the admissions committee wants to hear. -- J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Northwestern University)

Sincerity is important to stress because it's hard for most of us to achieve, despite the fact that it seems so simple. The pressures and anxieties of the situation have locked us into a mindset that prevents us from writing honestly. Further, because we are not used to writing about ourselves and being so close to the subject, we cannot assess the sincerity of our own writing. Thousands of students every year will read this same advice, whether in a guidebook or even in the application instructions themselves, and they simply cannot put it into practice. If you can be one of the few who truly understand what it means to be sincere, then you will already have separated yourself from the pack in one crucial way.

You might question how a reader who doesn't know you can judge your statement's sincerity. The basis for judgment usually lies in the context your reader has developed from reading hundreds or thousands of other essays. Assessing your essay against others is one essential area where EssayEdge can offer a more critical eye than your friends, relatives, or teachers who have not accumulated the expertise specific to the personal statement. Moreover, our perspective in reading your essay is just as objective as your admissions reader's perspective will be.

hsWang

Writing Ability

As with sincerity, you must focus on demonstrating solid writing ability before you even start worrying about the specific issues you will tackle.

In general what we're looking for are people who have well thought-out ideas, can express those ideas in an articulate, concise way, and can follow our directions (page limits). -- The Stern School of Business, New York University

We're also interested in how they write. The form of the essays can be important, as well as the content. How applicants handle the English language is important - the ability to articulate their thoughts in a clear and concise way. -- Yale School of Management

The reasons for this emphasis on good writing are evident enough. First is the important role that written communication skills will play throughout your career, in business even more so than in many other professions. Perhaps your strength is in oral communication, but until the interview, the essay is your only chance to demonstrate your communication skills and clarity of thought. Second, a well-written essay makes its points clearly and forcefully, so your content benefits as well.

Good writing means more than the ability to construct grammatical sentences. You also must create a coherent structure and ensure proper flow as the piece progresses. Because the process of developing ideas and putting them down on paper is so intimate and personal, all writers end up needing editors to assess the effectiveness of their product. You should consult people whose writing you respect for advice or even more hands-on help. Having been trained specifically in the nuances of admissions essay writing, EssayEdge editors are the best equipped to provide assistance in this crucial area.

Focus

Nearly every school has questions about your long-term goals and why you desire an MBA at this stage of your career - often both are contained in a single prompt. Focus is another key attribute that only your essays can demonstrate, because it ultimately comes down to your ideas and plans rather than your past accomplishments. Of course, you should tie your goals in with your background wherever possible, and that's why focus should be a quality that underlies all your essays instead of coming up only in one answer.

We're looking for students who show good self-awareness and a good sense of career awareness. We want students whose motivation for pursuing an MBA is clear, who seem to understand well what the Kellogg program offers, and who make rational arguments about why it's a good match for them. Applicants need to convey strongly why they're going to give up a job and spend the time and money to attend, and they need to be able to address where they're headed post-MBA. -- J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Northwestern University)

I think first and foremost we want to get some sense of the inside of an applicant's head and in particular what it is that is prompting this person to pursue a graduate education in business - what has led them to this point, what they think the MBA will do for them in terms of their educational desires and objectives as well as their career goals. -- The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business

We're really looking for focus, for people who really do have a sense of where they're headed. That's very, very important … People who cannot fully define their short- and long-term goals (although they may not know the specific job) are probably not ready to apply to a business program. We need to know those goals to determine whether the applicants are realistic and whether Columbia is going to be able to help them reach those goals. -- Columbia Business School

As these quotations demonstrate, focus is something you achieve through self-reflection. You should perceive that as good news, because that means it's something you have total control over even at the writing stage, unlike the set of past experiences on which you are able to draw.

Potential

Although past accomplishments say a lot about where you're going, they don't tell the whole story. Admissions officers look to the essays to find evidence of spark that reveals what you will have to offer in the long term, as a leader or innovator. They're also looking to determine how you will contribute to the school community. Potential still needs to be closely linked to evidence, and so you cannot expect to succeed without valuable experiences. But how you interpret the evidence in writing can have a significant impact on how your readers judge this very subjective quality.

Character

Your readers will look for evidence of specific personal qualities to evaluate your potential as a student and business leader. There is no single list of useful qualities, and if there were, it would be foolish to try to duplicate that list in essay form. Depth is more important than breadth, and your readers are looking for a coherent picture rather than a list of buzzwords - hence this section's title being "Character" rather than "Characteristics." That said, the following quotation can give you an idea of how to get started in thinking about what characteristics are significant.

We look for [potential for future leadership] in terms of certain personal qualities and characteristics that we care about. I'm referring to things like honesty, integrity, maturity, commitment to others, and motivation - some of the things that you might expect and then also some things maybe not so expected like self-awareness, self-esteem, empathy, willingness to take risks, willingness to deal with ambiguity. These are things that we think have helped our graduates and some other business leaders to be successful. -- Harvard Business School

In preparing to write, you should focus on what characteristics are your greatest strengths and focus on conveying those in a deep and meaningful way. Your readers are much more interested in learning about those than in seeing a longer list dealt with more superficially.

Personal Details

Personal details are the means through which you should convey your character strengths. Always aim for specific, personal statements rather than grand generalizations. Avoid citing characteristics without evidence and examples to back them up. Details are necessary not only to justify claims about your qualities, but also to make your perspective personal and well defined. Without the context that these details provide, your ideas cannot go beyond the generic and the superficial.

hsWang

Common flaws

Careless Errors

There is really no excuse for careless errors, and having even one on your application can affect the way you are perceived. You have more than enough time to proofread and have others look over your essay. If an error slips through, your readers may assume that you are careless, disorganized, or not serious enough about your application.

Remember that spell check does not catch all possible errors, and even grammar check is far from perfect. In addition to typographical errors such as repeated words, you have to read the essay carefully to catch mistakes in meaning that might come in the form of a grammatically correct sentence.

Let these humorous but unfortunate examples be a lesson to read your essay carefully for unintended meanings and meaningless sentences:

It was like getting admitted to an Ivory League school.

Berkeley has a reputation of breeding nationalists and communists.

I'd like to attend a college where I can expose myself to many diverse people.

I was totally free except for the rules.

In a word, the experience taught me the importance of dedication, friendship, and goals.

I have an extensive knowledge of the value of intelligence.

I envy people with a lot of time in their hands.

Vague Generalities

The most egregious generalizations are the ones that have been used so many times that they have become clichés. For example, "I learned the value of hard work." That statement doesn't tell us anything insightful or interesting about the writer's character, because it has been said so many times as to become meaningless.

Generalities come in the same form as clichés, except with different content. They are always superficial and usually unoriginal but haven't quite reached the level of predictability that would make them qualify as clichés. Consider this before-and-after set to learn how to evaluate this factor in your writing:

Before: In the first project I managed, I learned many valuable lessons about the importance of teamwork.

After: In the first project I managed, I made an effort to incorporate all my colleagues as equal members of a team, soliciting their feedback and deferring to their expertise as needed.

Terms like "valuable lessons" and "teamwork" are vague and do not really convey anything meaningful about the applicant's experience. In contrast, the revised version explains the team dynamic in more detail, showing specifically how the applicant exercised teamwork principles. The passage should go on to include even more detail, perhaps by naming a particular colleague and discussing his interaction with that person.

Sounding contrived is a problem related to overly general writing. Applicants often have preconceived notions about what they should be discussing, and they try to force those points onto the experiences they relate. The best way to counteract this tendency is to start with your experiences and let the insights flow from there. Think about your most meaningful experiences and describe them honestly. Often you will find that you don't need to impose conclusions because the personal qualities you're trying to demonstrate will be inherent in the details. If you decide that clarification is necessary, the transition should still be natural.

Summarizing Your Resume

Perhaps the most common personal-statement blunder is to write an expository resume of your background and experience. This is not to say that the schools are not interested in your accomplishments. However, other portions of your application will provide this information, and the reader does not want to read your life story in narrative form. Strive for depth, not breadth. An effective personal statement will focus on one or two specific themes, incidents, or points. Trying to cram too much into your essay will end up in nothing meaningful being conveyed.

"One common "mistake" in essays is to narrate one's resume, or life history, without any reflection or evaluation or self-criticism."
- Yale School of Management

By narrating your resume, you not only lose an opportunity to bring your experiences to life for the reader, but you also ignore the task of self-evaluation, which is critical to business school admissions, as evidenced by comments quoted throughout this course.

Losing Sight of the Big Picture

In the last lesson we emphasized the importance of including details. But as always, quality is paramount: the details you choose should be relevant and insightful. Some applicants will describe their work in boring technical detail without the necessary reflection and analysis.

"What I oftentimes see is that people use the essays to focus on lots of things that are extraneous to them, such as their individual work experience; what they do becomes more of a focus than who they are. I am really struggling to get to know the applicants as people and I frankly don't want to hear about the minutiae of their work. I want to hear why they chose to do what they do, why they chose to go to school where they did, what they value about those individual experiences and the impact of these experiences on their development as people."
- The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

"One of applicants' biggest mistakes is that they don't see the big picture; they only see the small picture so they get involved in minutiae. They get too focused on what they've been doing, detail by detail. They just regurgitate or reiterate what they've been doing without much thought as to where they see themselves going."
- The Amos Tuck School (Dartmouth College)

Long-windedness

Sometimes the same writer who relies too heavily on generalizations will also provide too many irrelevant details - and in this case we're referring to the truly irrelevant, not just the boring technical points. That's why most essays submitted to EssayEdge are returned with significantly reduced word counts and, conversely, suggestions for additions. The problem is that writers often don't consider what is actually necessary to include, or they repeat points freely.

Example of Irrelevant Detail: "After a meeting with my adviser, I returned home to think over the matter more carefully. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that my global interests would best be served by a double major in international relations and business."

In this example, we learn nothing about the applicant from the mention of his meeting with an adviser. What's relevant are his interests and the decision he made based on them. The details about how he arrived at the decision are not illustrative of his character in any way and are therefore superfluous.

Example of Redundancy: "The experience taught me a great deal about
hard work. I learned that hard work requires focus as well as pure effort."

The first sentence is unnecessary, because the second sentence makes the same point with more specificity.

In addition to superfluous content, you also have to watch out for wordy writing. Wordiness not only takes up valuable space, but it also can confuse the important ideas you're trying to convey. Short sentences are more forceful because they are direct and to the point.

Before: "My recognition of the fact that the project was finally over was a deeply satisfying moment that will forever linger in my memory."

After: "Completing the project at last gave me an enduring sense of fulfillment."

Certain phrases such as "the fact that" are usually unnecessary. Notice how the revised version focuses on active verbs rather than forms of "to be" and adverbs and adjectives.

Big Words

Using longer, fancier words does not make you sound more intelligent, since anyone can consult a thesaurus. Simpler language is almost always preferable, as it demonstrates your ability to think and express yourself clearly.

Before: "Although I did a plethora of activities in high school, my assiduous efforts enabled me to succeed."

After: "Although I juggled many activities in high school, I succeeded through persistent work."

hsWang

Brainstorming

Some people may want to use the following list as a springboard as they develop their own connections. You can browse the questions below without a specific structure in mind and see what results from that free-association process. On the other hand, some people prefer to have more guidance as they brainstorm, and for those people we have ordered and grouped the questions into a logical structure.

Each subtopic begins with a series of questions and then an explanation of their potential relevance to the big picture. You may find that some of the questions actually appear on your applications, but our purpose now is more to spark ideas than to think about specific essays.

Long- and Short-Term Goals

What draws you to business in general?
What is your ultimate ambition?
What short-term goals will help you to fulfill your long-term vision?
Describe what your ideal job position would involve.
What industries interest you the most, and why?
Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten years?
How can this academic program help you to reach your goals?
What attracts you to this particular school?

We have started with the question of what you hope to be rather than what you are because the former provides a broader context into which everything else should fit. You possess a wide range of skills and qualities, of which some are more relevant and significant than others to your candidacy for business school. Once you clarify your long-term vision (even if you haven't planned as specifically as deciding which companies and what positions, you should at least outline areas of interest), you will be in a better position to recognize how the details fit together.

The questions about your short-term goals and how the school can help you attain them also have additional importance because they may help you assess your current strengths and weaknesses, which will come up again in later categories.

Business is a very goal-oriented field. We saw several admissions officers comment on the importance of focus, and so your answers to these questions are important in themselves as well as in their impact on your thought process for the remaining sections below. You must have a thorough and practical plan, and you must present it convincingly even if you harbor private doubts. Your degree won't be revoked because you later fail to execute your plan. What your readers want to see is that you're mature and clear thinking enough for business school at this stage of your career.

Accomplishments

What significant challenges have you overcome, in your personal or professional life?

Describe accomplishments for which you have been formally recognized. What qualities did you demonstrate in your path to success? What does each accomplishment mean to you personally?

Describe accomplishments for which you have not been formally recognized but of which you are particularly proud. Take even more time to reflect on why these have special meaning for you.

Discuss an accomplishment in which you exercised leadership. How effective were you in motivating or guiding others? How did people respond to your leadership?

What did you learn that you can apply to future experiences?

What was an important risk that you took in your personal or professional life? Why did you take this risk? What was the outcome? Would you do it again?

Think of a time when you truly helped someone. What did you do? How did this impact the other person? How did your actions impact you?

Please give an example of when you exhibited creativity in a personal or professional setting. Describe your thoughts and actions.

Reflect on a time in which you failed to accomplish what you set out to do. How did you recover from that failure? How did you respond to your next challenge?

The important point here is that you develop insight into your accomplishments beyond their face value. Your essay should not merely list your most significant successes, nor is it enough to say that you're proud of them. You need to dig deeper to discover what these accomplishments mean to you, what they say about you, and how you learned from them. Also, reflect closely on your path to achievement rather than the result itself.

Significant Activities

To what non-work (or non-academic) activity did you give the most time over the past year? Or past several years?

What has been your most significant service activity? Your most memorable one-time volunteer opportunity? Your longest regular volunteerism commitment?

What has been your most significant cross-cultural experience? Why? How did it change your perspective?

Can you identify trends in your commitments? What do they say about your values and abilities?

Again, do not summarize your resume. Don't feel obligated to bring up every activity you've ever done, especially if it has been sufficiently covered elsewhere in the application. Remember that depth is more important than breadth. Your readers want to gain insight into what you care most about, and to see how you've devoted yourself.

Community service and volunteer work can be great ways to demonstrate such characteristics as compassion and civic concern, but you should not force the point if you don't have a significant track record. If you have one important experience, you can write about what that meant to you, but it shouldn't degenerate into a sermon about your moral commitment to helping others.

At the same time, you should not feel obligated to stress community involvement at all if that's not genuinely important to you. A lack of sincerity would likely shine through, and you're better off focusing on activities for which you have a real passion. Your readers want to know about who you are, and not about who you can pretend to be.

Skills and Characteristics

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

How would your friends describe you?

What skills are you most proud of?

What values are most important to you?

Think of a team situation in which you've been involved. What kind of role did you take?

What abilities did you contribute?

What skills do you possess that are most relevant to business? How have you applied them to specific situations? How have you continued to hone them?

What personal qualities have made you successful in business? How have you demonstrated these qualities in specific situations?

Try to come up with unique combinations of your skills and characteristics and consider how these have applied in past experiences or will apply in your future career.

In this section you should begin by thinking broadly. Don't just name skills that you know the schools are looking for, because that will detract from the unique portrait you're trying to paint. Also, you might be surprised about how you can tie a skill from one area of your life into your current goals in business. That's why we also suggested that you come up with different combinations of your skills and characteristics. This exercise will help you to see yourself from different perspectives and recognize all that you have to offer.

Just as listing accomplishments and activities is unfruitful, you won't accomplish anything by simply naming skills. That's why this section has emphasized the question how. How have you demonstrated your skills and characteristics? Where is the evidence? Here again it's important to remember the movement within this brainstorming section from broad to specific. Perhaps you showed a specific ability in activities unrelated to business. The evidence can come from this separate area and still be tied in ultimately to your current situation.

Turning Points

When and why did you first become interested in working in business?

How has that interest evolved?

How did you become interested in the industry or company for which you currently work?

Have you changed career paths? What was your motivation?

Describe a defining moment in your current career path. What did you realize about your prospective career and about yourself?

Who were your early influences?

Did you have any strong role models, general or business related?

In your responses to these questions, you may want to draw on answers from previous sections. The purpose of this section is for you to begin synthesizing your previous accomplishments and activities into a coherent argument for your candidacy. Because there won't be room for you to describe every aspect of your involvement in an activity or job, you may choose to relate a particular episode that epitomizes the key points you want to convey.

One issue you must be cautious about is placing too much emphasis on one-time events. In most cases, you will be adding meaning to a scenario retrospectively. Few of us are ever in the situation to make life decisions based on epiphanies. You don't want to attribute too much significance to any one event, because that would detract from your purpose of demonstrating a well-reasoned, serious commitment to your goals in business. Nevertheless, detailing the most meaningful, significant episodes from your background can help ensure that your essay stays concrete and personal.

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Topic Selection

After brainstorming, you should have a lengthy list of potential topics to cover. Because questions tend to be very specific, matching a choice from your list of topics to the right essay prompt should be a straightforward process. This section instead discusses ways to evaluate the appropriateness of topics in a general way, ensuring that each one as well as the whole set put you in position to make the best possible impression.

Conveying Something Meaningful

Does your topic convey something meaningful about your personality? Will the reader walk away with an enriched understanding of who you are? If you can't answer "yes" to these questions, then you have probably chosen a topic that's too generic. Search harder to find a subject for which you can take a more personal, original approach.

Painting a Complete Portrait

Even in a series of essays, you can't be so comprehensive as to discuss everything you've ever done, but you can aim to offer a coordinated argument that details the full range of what you have to offer. When dealing with multiple topics, avoid redundancy, and choose topics that will build on and supplement each other. To an extent, the essay questions are themselves designed to solicit a varied set of answers, but when there is flexibility, try to take advantage of that by having a big-picture strategy.

If a question asks for your three most substantial accomplishments, try to choose topics from different realms of your life -- personal, professional, community involvement. At least one should be distinct from the other two in focus.

Standing Out

Is your topic unique? It's hard to have something entirely new to say, but you should at least have a fresh take on your topic. If you recognize a lack of originality in your ideas, try to be more specific and personal. The more specific you get, the less likely that you will blend in with the essays of your competition.

Keeping Your Reader's Interest

Will your topic be able to sustain your reader's interest for the entire length of the essay? It's true that good writing can make any topic fascinating to read about, but there's no need to start yourself off with a handicap. Choose a topic that will naturally be of interest to any reader. For this criterion, it's necessary to step back and view your topic objectively, or else consult the opinion of others. If someone described the basic idea to you, would you care enough to ask for more details?

Staying Grounded in Detail

You should make sure ahead of time that your topic is fundamentally based on concrete evidence. If you're choosing specific experiences or events, then the relevant details should be clearly available. But if your topic is more abstract, then you must be prepared to back up any claims with concrete examples and illustrative details.

What to Avoid

After you've determined that your topic meets the above criteria, you should do a last check that it also avoids the following pitfalls:

1) Resorting to gimmicks. While creativity is encouraged, there must be substance to make your tactics worthwhile. Don't expect mere novelty to win you any points, and realize that you risk coming across as frivolous. Also, there's a good chance that any gimmicks you come up with -- writing a poem, writing in the third person -- have been done already.

2) Focusing on the negative. There is a separate section of this course dealing with how to address negative aspects of your application. But as far as your topic is concerned, the main idea should be focused on your positive attributes. This does not mean, of course, that you shouldn't mention past weaknesses that you have learned to overcome, as the emphasis there is still on the strength you demonstrated.

3) Repeating information that's listed elsewhere on the application. We have already mentioned this point, but it's worth making abundantly clear. Your topic should not merely be a list of activities or synthesis of your resume. Rather, it should offer the kind of insight that only you can provide in a personal manner.

4) Being too controversial. If you get a sympathetic reader, a controversial topic might help you to stand out, but you risk offending others and severely hurting your chances. You would do better to search for a topic that makes you unique without resorting to cheap shots or obvious cries for attention.

5) Seeking pity. You can describe misfortunes or a disadvantaged background, but do not use them as an excuse for bad performances or to seek pity. Doing so not only could sound manipulative, but also means that you haven't emphasized your strengths sufficiently. Thus, as in the case of weaknesses, you should bring up obstacles in your past only to show how you have overcome them.

whitecloud

thanks!