MBA programs are about training leaders, not followers. Admissions committees look for people with character, who stand out from the crowd. The part of your b-school application where you can best demonstrate character is in your essays. The best way to do that, says business school admissions consultant Susan Shaffer, "is to be yourself."
"Too many people think they have to sound perfect in their essays," Shaffer says. "But it just comes across as contrived. They don't seem real." One of Susan's pet peeves when she worked as the Senior Associate Director of MBA Admissions at NYU was reading essays that "presented clichéd statements in stilted language." These essays not only added nothing to the case for admitting the applicant who submitted them, but also represented a wasted opportunity. The applicant behind the essay had passed up a chance to impress the admissions committee with who he or she really was.
Shaffer says honesty is the best policy in deciding what to write about, and how. "Let your personality show through in your essays. Show your strengths, but be honest." Don't exaggerate your accomplishments or claim to have done things you didn't really do, Susan cautions. There's a good chance you won't get away with it, anyway. Speaking from her own experience, Susan says that "Committee members can always see through a story that's put together just to project a certain image." | 
