Top MBA Essay Analysis from Jon Frank---P11: THE MOST IMPORTANT THING MBA APPLIC

JonFrank

Ready to rock your MBA application essays? The essays are your golden opportunity to differentiate yourself from the competition and show the admissions committee a unique, lustrous version of you. But MBA essay questions are often tricky, cryptic, and more complicated than they seem. Game plan is everything. In our essay analyses, our MBA experts break down each question and divulge the best strategies for attack.

ladyjb0607

好贴必须要顶一下！

narcisuss

CBS's Christina, assistant director, addressed in Beijing information session, that they do not want another essay for the optional essay.

yizyang

If I have sub-par GPA, should I address it in the optional essay? Or should I just avoid mentioning it?

JonFrank

If I have sub-par GPA, should I address it in the optional essay? Or should I just avoid mentioning it?

-- by 会员 yizyang (2010/8/28 10:13:20)

Hey there!  It would be my pleasure to answer this question for you.  The answer is that it depends on how low your GPA is!  If it is below a 3.0 (on US-based scales) then yes, you will need to address it in the Optional Essay.  If it is not—a 3.3 for example—then you are just fine!  Just make sure that your GMAT score is strong, and you wont even need to bring it up.  If you were applying to a law school in the US then it would be a big problem—but business schools don’t care.  So long as youre above a 3.0 you don’t need to address it.  And if you are below a 3.0, a well-crafted Optional Essay will solve the problem.  Hope this helps!



Jon Frank
HBS Class of 2005
Co-Founder, Precision Essay
HBS, Class of 2005

yoshimihoku

Do you mean it is better to write another real essay instead of explanation of weakness and concerns when applying for Johnson Cornell?

samwzhang

Jon,

great advise! But I thought the Chicago application is pretty short too. Can I ram one or two stories into the Chicago optional essay as well? If so, how long?

Thanks!

DeltaDawn

Do you mean it is better to write another real essay instead of explanation of weakness and concerns when applying for Johnson Cornell?

-- by 会员 yoshimihoku (2010/10/1 21:07:31)

yah Jon, same question for CBS.  But the post above says that CBS doesn't want 'another essay' so I guess that means the optional one should be used to explain rather than demonstrate another dimension of you?

JonFrank

Do you mean it is better to write another real essay instead of explanation of weakness and concerns when applying for Johnson Cornell?

-- by 会员 yoshimihoku (2010/10/1 21:07:31)

Nope—if you do have weaknesses to address, then you should use the optional essay to address them.  eriod.  It only gets interesting if you DON’T have any weaknesses, but you are interested in perhaps a veeery short additional snippet from your life.  But if you do have a low gmat, work gap etc., then for sure—THIS is where you should address that.

Hope this helps everyone—Good luck!



Jon Frank

JonFrank

Jon,

great advise! But I thought the Chicago application is pretty short too. Can I ram one or two stories into the Chicago optional essay as well? If so, how long?

Thanks!

-- by 会员 samwzhang (2010/10/1 21:48:12)

Honestly…we would not recommend it.  What you might want to do with Chicago is “ram” those stories into your PPT!  I saw one interesting PPT this year—the client had actually written veeery short essays.  Maybe 75 words or so.  but he put the essays against a pretty picture.  It was kind of like a free flowing stream of consciousness.  So if I were you, trying to squeeze something into Booth, I would use the PPT.

But that’s just me!  J

Good luck!


Jon Frank