Ask Jason@沃顿 (my essays inside!) Free essay advice again~

Paradox16

mark~

zzvincent

Hi Jason, thank you for sharing information here. I have a question for you.

I work in NYC and my wife studies in U Penn. So I come to U Penn very often.

Is it possible for me to attend some classes at Wharton and get some Wharton experiences ? Is so, how can I do that ?

Thanks.

cannedpineapple

Dear Vincent,

Just go to the admissions office and sign up for a 'class visit'. There will be a list of classes there, and student volunteers will bring you to classes. Some classes are open for visits, like the strategy/ case-study heavy classes. These require a lot of participation after reading the case, and professors build upon concepts from previous weeks, so they frown upon ad hoc participation.

The more lecture-based classes are okay, however. Still, go the class-visits route. That way, the students can bring you into the class, and help introduce you to the professor beforehand.

Apart from classes, there are many other activities you can do (pub on Thursday, for example). Again, just sign in at the admissions office, and take your pick!

Have fun,
Jason

william_acca

Hey Jason:

  I got two years experiences in the Board Secretariat (Investors Replationship,Capita Financing,Corporate Governance) in a Leading Stade-owned listed High-tech manufacturing compnay in Peking. I was planning to apply Wharton in the coming year( 3 working experiences)
  But the problems is ,a HBS MBA graduate told me it is better for me to get 5-6 years in Manufacturing filed to apply Wharton ,HBS, etc. coz onely 5-6 years working experience could garantee that i have some management experience..
  Do you have any suggestion? thanks a lot!

JUDAL

Hey there,

Don't know if you are still reading this post.

I am currently undergoing the pain-staking process that is essay writing! My intended school calls for 4 short essays, each with a maximum of 300 words. And this length requirement is killing me!

I agree strongly that it is essential to demonstrate your thought process during essay writing. However when the words are in short supply, I find it extremely difficult to incorporate the self-examination process after the state-of-fact story telling, especially since I like to take my time to develop a story in a chronological order so that they seem organic and convincing.

I would like to ask for your insight on how to write short essays and still manage to make an impact.

Thanks for your time! It is not easy to keep engaging on an almost 2 years long post!

cannedpineapple

william_acca: That is an example of why you shouldn't believe everything you hear. Most people can only tell you about what worked for them, or for others whom they know. In the universe of b-school applications (thousands and thousands of applications every year), that's a very small and insignificant number.

What matters most is the quality of applicant, and your personal readiness. When I applied to the Lauder programme I was the only student that they had ever taken in that had come straight out of a college education that was not Wharton. But if I had listened to others I wouldn't have applied, and wouldn't have gotten in.

Having said that, different schools have different policies. Wharton is very open to reapplicants; HBS less so. If you're worried, perhaps skip HBS for now.

JUDAL> Don't get fixated on "chronological correctness". Rather, go by "story importance". Leave in the facts necessary to demonstrate the difficulty of the situation, and the action that you executed (making sure to include analysis of WHY you did that) to solve it. The end of the essay, the result, should take up the least space. After all, results can only be accomplishments or failures. Your accomplishments should already be on your resume; your failures are not things you want to dwell too much on. (BTW, this is the SAR framework- situation, action, result).

To cut down on the words, remove the flowery descriptions that simply take up space and frankly, have no business being on a business memo. For example, "the situation was tense. My heart was racing. We needed to complete this in three hours." can be shortened to, "We had only three hours- too little."

In general, leave out the feelings, opinions, and so on, and let the facts of the situation speak for itself when you are describing the situation. The situation is merely there to show how challenging of a problem you faced, nothing more. No feelings should come attached to such descriptions, because everyone can recognise a challenging problem if you describe it clearly and concisely.

When you are analysing your actions, you can and should bring in more of your own thoughts. Always make sure to answer "why" you chose this course of action. The way to think of answering this is as follows: Answer this question. "There are a million possible courses of action. Analyse the situation like a talented and accomplished manager would, showing how you came to the conclusion that this action, and not some other course of action, is the appropriate one."

This should be the meat of your essay. They want mainly to see your thought process, to understand that your accomplishments did not come by 'by luck'. Rather, they want to see that you are analytical, logical and reasonable. While you (and everyone else) will always make mistakes and fail, by virtue of your talent, you will have a higher success rate than others.

cannedpineapple

Keep the questions coming!

Come Sept 1, I'll be joining a company that is looking to enter the Chinese market. It's a free online classifieds company (like Craigslist). I would appreciate all the help I can get with research input, focus groups, market surveys, etc. Hope you guys can support!

Jason

cannedpineapple

I've decided to read some essays with my limited time. In return, I would like anyone who wishes to get my help, to post in my thread with some learnings from the process so that everybody can benefit.

I will choose essays with a specific question that you are stuck with. For instance, "I'm concerned that this failure essay doesn't properly address who I am. This is who I am, this is what I'm trying to accomplish, but I'm not sure I'm succeeding."

I think that will benefit others better than simply asking 'how is this essay?'.

Priority will also be given to those who had asked questions in my thread, since again, your questions benefit others.

Good luck for your applications.

k_swiss

I've been reading and following your threads for a while. Really nice of you for providing such great support for us!

Q: Is there an opportunity still, if I can only come up my essay with questions for a  bit long time later? (not recently)

Thank you anyway and really appreciate your help!

cannedpineapple

When? Just 站内信 me, we'll work it out. In that case, if you have questions in the formulation process (eg what to write), it may be better to first ask questions on this thread, to make sure you don't waste your time writing using the wrong approach.