stream

谢谢分享！

nieyuhang

LZ很有水平，学习了

tianya

very good

Bala

-------------------------------------------

Comments on the Essays

-------------------------------------------

1) Don't just "answer" the essay questions. Treat each essay as an individual piece of written art work instead of an examination paper. This means:

- No repeating of the question (even partially) in your opening sentence. For example, when the question is "What is your biggest professional decision so far?" don't begin your essay by saying "My biggest professional decision so far is ..." Makes you sound like a "repeat-after-me machine 复读机" (no offense!)

- The opening paragraph sets the tone of the full essay so be a bit more creative. Make a little drama, tell a story, describe a scene -- visualize your ideas!

- Use more powerful words. Vary the length of paragraphs (by the way, they look too long.) Don't be mono-tone. Use a little artistic writing techniques. Be interesting.

Like your CV, the essays serve as a vivid portrait of you and you don't want it to look like a thousand other people.

Think about your poor readers (adcom) who go through hundreds of essays a day. They need something that catches their eyes and keeps them from dozing off. Something that makes them want to read on, and better, makes them laugh or ponder.

Recollect your personal experience and bring yourself back to the day that important decision was made or that idea was created. Relive it in your essay and excite yourself and your readers!

2) Maybe it sounds contradictory to my first point, but your essays must "answer" the questions. Ie. tailor-make them for each school and each question.

- Don't repeat your resume. Your first essay was like an elaborated version of your resume. It does not go straight to the topic -- "choices". Giving a bit background is okay, but too much background makes adcom wonder if this was adapted from some generic "describe your professional experience" essay.

- Hit the most important point and hit it hard. Don't just give a list of things that you will only spend 1-2 sentences on. Since you cannot cover everything in 1/3 of an essay, it's better to cover 1-2 things only. What gave the biggest impact to your life so far? Write about that.

- Identify the key words in the questions. For example, "personal" experience with a school is not some presentation that maybe 200 people saw at the info session. It is who you talked to at the session, what you learned from him/her, etc. Why does the adcom emphasize the word "personal"?Because they don't want to be a back-up school that you only researched by browsing their website. They want to see your personal commitment.

- Think like a consultant if you aspire to be one. A consultant identifies clients' issues/needs and tackles their most important problems first. For example, a school in NYC does not want to be overshadowed by the glory of the city, although they probably sell their location hard on their website. They face the competition from nearby schools, so what does this school differ from all the nearby ones? That's the thing you are going after.

3) For most situational questions (tell us a time when you...) and achievement/failure questions, consider using a "STAR" (situation, target/task, analysis/action and result) approach.

Situation: Set up the background and identify the issue(s). About 10-15% of the space, no more than 20% for a really complicated issue. Don't drag on by including too many details. You'd be surprised to know how many people can get carried away by nostalgic emotions when they "relive" the memories that they forget the 500 word limit. If you cannot cover the situation part in 100 words, you may want to use another example.

Target/task: What you needed to do. Just a simple sentence will suffice. Sometimes this part is combined with the "situation" part.

Analysis/action: 50%. This is where you dig into your issue, find a solution and act on it. Be logical with the analysis and support it with facts/data/research. Don't jump into the conclusion like "it suddenly dawned on me that..." Business decisions are made based on facts and figures, not someone's light of wisdom (智慧之光).

Results/learnings: Another 20%. Rather than describing what awards you won or praises you got, focus on what you learned from it and how you'd do things differently in future. Adcom want to see someone who keeps making progress, instead of taking a nap on the glory (躺在荣誉上睡大觉) or sobbing over spilt milk.