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

Owendreamer

Thank you for sharing!

小甲gg

thanks so much!!!!

JonFrank

2013-2014 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MCCOMBS ESSAY ANALYSIS
Essay 1:Imagine that you are at the Texas MBA Orientation for the Class of 2016. Please introduce yourself to your new classmates, and include any personal and/or professional aspects that you believe to be significant. Select only one communication method that you would like to use for your response:

(a) Write an essay (250 words)
(b) Share a video introduction (one minute)
(c) Share your about.me profile

Introductions can take place in a variety of ways. Standing in a circle of a few at a cocktail party. In a one-on-one interview. First day on the job.

The version we’re after here is much different. McCombs just handed you a mic, dimmed the house lights, and threw a spotlight onto you. This is your time not just to introduce yourself, but to perform. A performance is artful. And requires a special type of messaging. Your challenge isn’t to hold the attention of the guy sitting across the desk who is usually forced to tune in. Your challenge is to capture and sustain the attention of a room full of people, whose magnitude (by itself) tends to make it an uphill battle from minute 1.

Golden Rule: Dullness is deadly.

Don’t be dull. Don’t be quiet. Don’t be average. Don’t be monotone. Don’t be… safe.

Now’s your chance to tap your inner James Bond. Your inner MLK. Your inner Seth Macfarlane. Charm. Wit. Risk. Energy. A deviating from that safe, straight, center pathway.

Whether it’s an essay, or a video, or an about.me profile, the very first thing you need to do is grab your audience’s attention. There’s no real room for a slow burn here. If this were a two hour movie, and you had a proven track record, maybe an audience would spot you an unceremonious beginning, trusting in a future payoff. You have no such luxury here, my friend. Your cohort doesn’t know you. You need to be spectacular and attention-worthy from second 1.

What makes for a good opener? Well, practically speaking, “it” can be absolutely anything, which is to say it can take the FORM of just about anything. But what most great opening moments have in common is this: they knock the reader/audience off balance. For most of you, that may sound great, but it still may not mean much. “How the hell am I supposed to throw the reader off balance?” Well, one way to think about it is to leave some stuff OUT. The more buttoned up your opening is, the more likely your audience will feel secure. And secure—for now—is lethal. Bad.

“My name is Craig Blodgitsnick. I am 27 years old. And I’m a banker.” Great. Super clear. And therefore… too clear? It’s all buttoned up. The audience needs a reason to hear more. With an opening like that, however, we’re left with no such desire. Here’s an alternative.

“I make people cry for a living.”

Um, say what? What the hell does that mean. Did he just say that? I have no idea who this guy is, I have no idea how I feel about him, I have no sense of whether that’s a good or bad thing. What I do know… is that I’m dying to hear more. Success. This speaker has the audience in the palms of his hands.

“Pond. Cigarette. Abandoned BMW. These three things almost got me arrested, led me to my future wife, and ultimately set me on a path of world domination.”

Hunh? I mean, I couldn’t be more in. Who the hell says that? How on Earth are those three things connected? After everyone gives their boring standard speech, I can bet you money I’m gonna remember the guy who said THAT.

Throw your reader off balance. Give them a reason to want to read more. Now, not to scare you, but this isn’t easy. It is a touch risky, and it requires some finesse. But it is absolutely worth working toward. But just for a moment, let’s talk about the downside…

If you can’t quite pull it off, and it seems forced and inauthentic, then you run the risk of seeming like you’re trying too hard. And that’s a liability. So, get a gut check from a second set of eyes (doesn’t have to be a pro, could be anyone—see if they buy it). If it’s just not passing muster, there is recourse. Which is to tell a very honest, earnest story. Your story, a personal story. But, it’s gotta be a cool story. If it’s a straightforward, you are toast. There’s gotta be some GRIT in there, some adversity, some uniqueness. That can be equally compelling.

“Hi, my name is Goran Crevitz and I became an adult when I was five years old when I was separated from my parents and grandparents. My first job was…”

Yah, I’d listen to that guy. (But did you notice how even here, the author has thrown the audience off balance? This is not happenstance.)

Whichever medium suits you best, take advantage of it. Don’t choose the video if all you do is read an essay. If you use video, it has to be because there’s something about your look and body language and visible energy that communicates something a written essay can’t quite capture. If you choose an essay over video, it’s gotta be because there are certain things you’re able to do with the written word that would be MORE effective than a video version.

Keep your audience on the edge of their seat, though, by throwing them off balance.

Hope this helps folks and keep in touch!

Jon Frank

JonFrank

Hello,guys,How are you doing?

JonFrank

HAAS MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS, YOUR 2015 APPLICATION

Haas MBA Essay Analysis: Essay One
Describe an experience that has fundamentally changed the way you see the world. How did this transform you? (400-500 word maximum)
95% of applicants will potentially have great stories to tell here, but the mistake they usually make is focusing on the CHANGED or slightly ALTERED worldview. The most effective response here contrasts the ORIGINAL worldview with… the CHANGED world view. This is a BEFORE & AFTER essay. This is what I used to think about X. Then this THING happened that changed my outlook. And my outlook went from X to…….. Y. Here’s why it changed, and this is how I changed as a result. I went from A to B.
Unless we know the “before,” NONE of it is interesting. At the end of Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader emotionally embraces his son, Luke Skywalker. Big deal. A father being nice to his kid? What’s interesting about that?
Well, only that “fifteen minutes prior, the same-said father tried to turn his son into an agent of evil, or… eviscerate him.” That’s a bit of a twist wouldn’t you say? Kinda need to know about THAT before you can be impressed about what happens after the change. Also, we are now begging to find out how did the guy go from wanting to “kill his son” to “saving him”?
The starker the contrast between the BEFORE and AFTER, the stronger the essay. We need to know the following elements:
•        I used to think THIS about XXX.
•        Then this THING happened—an event, a person who influenced you, some agent of change, doesn’t matter what form it takes.
•        I then went from thinking XXX to thinking YYY, on account of that agent of change.
•        Personally, I changed from being AAA to being BBB, and this is why this is worth writing about.
Haas MBA Essay Analysis: Essay Two
What is your most significant professional accomplishment? (200-300 word maximum)
Your CHOICE of accomplishment here will say something. The admissions committee will have access to the full slate of your biggest achievements through your resume. The one that is “most significant” will reveal something the resume is not likely to convey. For example, perhaps you talk about a small achievement during your very first job that inspired you to embrace RISK. Or you can talk about a virtually consequence-less accomplishment of turning a company adversary into your greatest ally through some kind of tactical brilliance. The most significant accomplishment may not have anything to do with “the bottom line.” Consider the accomplishments that make us the most excited about your future ability to succeed.

Haas MBA Essay Analysis: Essay Three
What is your desired post-MBA role and at what company or organization? In your response, please specifically address sub-questions a., b., and c. (500-600 word maximum for 3a, 3b, and 3c combined)
The breakdown here implies a clear desire for sharper responses. Not surprising at all. We see thousands of first instincts here of addressing short-term goals that suffer from nebulous plans, supported by dubious assumptions. That’s the headline here: be super specific and super well researched. Let’s go line by line:
a. How is your background compelling to this company?
Great question. One we’ve been secretly dying for schools to ask, because it cuts straight to the question future employers will ask and base much of their hiring decisions on. You simply have to be able to articulate a crystal clear connection between your past experiences and the job you’re claiming to deserve. What is it about your background that virtually guarantees your ability to succeed in this new role you’re applying for? This requires some research into the company and role you’re hoping to win over. Tap your network, reach out to people who knows the industry and this particular company and role extremely well. Get your facts straight. THEN, draw show how key aspects of your background align with whatever is needed to succeed at the new job. At the end of these arguments, the reader must be able to say, “well, it’s clear that—on paper—you’re a perfect fit for us.” The only thing that remains is “what is this guy like in person”? But to get that interview, those connections can’t be speculative, or ambiguous.
The clearest version of this involves no industry switch. You’re applying for a role in an industry in which you’re already proven, competent, expert, etc. It gets a little tougher when your background doesn’t quite match. (Talk to folks about this if this describes you—this argument will require considerable thought and finesse.) But if this the argument you need to articulate, your aim is to eliminate RISK from the mind of the future employer. If they are left worrying about your ability to handle the job, it means that you have somehow not demonstrated a strong enough connection between what you know, what you’ve seen and done, and what skills are required to succeed in this future role.
b. What is something you would do better for this company than any other employee?
The biggest danger here is to highlight something that most others will ALSO talk about—thereby eliminating its value. This forces you to dig deep and isolate something very UNIQUE to your skill set that is hard to find in “just anybody.” Alternatively, if there is something common that you do uncommonly well, and have a long track record to prove it, you can talk about it—but it had better be a truly exceptional version of what others are already doing well enough! Something that would be meaningful to the company.
In terms of the structure, a great way to approach this is first to articulate very clearly what the company needs, not at large per se, you should focus this however you need to support what comes next. Step 2 is to then prove why your attempt at addressing that objective will surpass someone else’s. This must be as evidence-based as possible, as opposed to just speculative. It can’t be “no seriously, I promise I’ll be better than the next guy.” It would be more like “the typical X employee has Y years of experience. I, on the other hand, have only Z years of additional experience, but additionally, I’ve seen this and done that, which will enhance my ability to blbalbalbal.”
c. Why is an MBA necessary and how will Haas specifically help you succeed at this company?
You don’t just want an MBA, you need one. Why? What happens if you don’t get one? How does that affect your plan? How will an MBA accelerate your plans? How will it improve your ability to achieve your goals? How… specifically?
The “why Haas” part is something we have talked about—nothing has really changed here… your argument must end up being true for Haas, and FALSE for just about every other program. If your response here can work just as well for another school, time to set that response on fire and rework! That’s a good test—after you’ve taken a crack at it, try to replace HAAS with another school. See if it works. (It you’ve done it correctly, it should collapse with EVERY other MBA program out there, because your argument is SO delightfully Haas-specific.)

JonFrank

WHARTON MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS, YOUR 2015 APPLICATION

Are you ready to dig into your essays? Application essays are specifically and cleverly designed to get into your head. We like to turn the tables on the admissions committees and get inside their heads. Why are they asking these questions? What are they looking for? Read on as our experts break down application essay questions to help YOU plan the attack.

This year, Wharton cut down it’s MBA Essays to just one question. So the message is obvious – be clear, concise, compelling, and under 500 words. They know what they’re looking for and they’re not wasting any time to find it.

Let’s get into it.

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Wharton MBA Essay Question 1

Essay 1: What do you hope to gain both personally and professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words)

A slight twist on the typical goals essay. To misquote Ferris Bueller, if you don’t stop and think about it carefully, you could miss it.

It’s all about that word “personally.” Kind of a head-scratcher, and good for Wharton. Have you ever thought about it that way? Typically, we are conditioned to define success in every way EXCEPT for how it affects us personally. Kudos to the folks here for getting y’all to think this through now. They may have just done you a huge favor simply by READING this question.

The “what you hope to gain professionally” is a touch easier, isn’t it? Maybe it comes in the form of a position, THROUGH WHICH you’re achieving something cool (remember, a position by itself isn’t an end—it’s a means to an end). It’s not that you want to be the CEO of Apple just to be the CEO of Apple. It should be more like this: AS THE CEO OF APPLE, I would like to change the way people… XXX YYY and ZZZ. The professional goal here is the XXX YYY and ZZZ piece, not “being the CEO of Apple.” See the difference? Fair enough, you’re all probably comfortable with that distinction by now. Let’s get to that tougher piece, the personal aspect of the goal. It’s a doozy.

What does it mean for you… personally? Let’s get inside it. What does it even mean to have a personal goal? Try this on—what if at the end of the day, you were operating from inside a sensory deprivation tank, and had NO IDEA whether your efforts were succeeding or failing. {It’s a strange conceit, try to go with it for a second.} Imagine it. You’re slaving day in and day out, pushing, grinding, with a very clear objective in mind, and you believe you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing to make it all happen, but… somehow, there are NO clues available to you to indicate whether it’s actually working or not.

Are you sated? Is there something about the work itself that fulfills something… personal? You’ll know when you’ve dialed into the perfect career here when even the belief/hope that you’re succeeding fills you with some kind of internal satisfaction. Otherwise, you may be pinning your prospects of “happiness” on purely external forces which is… dangerous. And Wharton is wise to wanna look into this and catch it early.

So then, what gets you internally fulfilled? What is it that you wanna be doing—regardless of the outcome—that will deliver a sense of “achievement”? Identifying that is gonna be a huge battle won.

After that, shaping this sucker shouldn’t be too hard. Maybe it can go something like this:

Walk us through the vision, same as you normally would. Quickly invite us in, show us the opportunity that you see, the problem you wanna fix, the thing that spurs you on. Then, with broad brush strokes (high-level), a glimpse into what you wanna do. (75 words or so)
Now give us the professional goals. Walk us through the plan—perhaps first in the short term. (100 words or so).
Part II of the goals, but longer term, where it’s headed. What you wanna achieve (not just in job title, but what happens because of it). (100 words or so)
And now, dip into the forgotten child of “personal” fulfillment. (100 words or so)
How does Wharton give you BOTH those things? Focus on the how, and use specifics. Make an argument here, not in the abstract—treat it like a mathematical proof. (75 words)
In a neat twist, it may be strong to CLOSE with a solid, assertive justification of why you need an MBA. Restate your personal and professional goals, and explain why this is a must for you at this time. (50-75 words)
There are a few ways this essay can take shape. This is just one example to get you going if you’re stuck.

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Wharton MBA Essay – Optional

Optional: Please use the space below to highlight any additional information that you would like the Admissions Committee to know about your candidacy. (400 words)
Here’s everything you need to know about writing the Optional Essay… the right way.

Reapplicant Essay:
All reapplicants to Wharton are required to complete the Optional Essay. Explain how you have reflected on the previous decision about your application, and discuss any updates to your candidacy (e.g., changes in your professional life, additional coursework, extracurricular/volunteer engagements). You may also use this section to address any extenuating circumstances. (250 words)

JonFrank

STANFORD GSB MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS, YOUR 2014-2015 APPLICATION

Are you ready to dig into your essays? Application essays are specifically and cleverly designed to get into your head. We like to turn the tables on the admissions committees and get inside their heads. Why are they asking these questions? What are they looking for? Read on as our experts break down application essay questions to help YOU plan the attack.

Stanford GSB has been asking pretty much the same questions for years without much tinkering, which means one important thing… they KNOW what they’re looking for.

This year, for the Stanford GSB MBA Essay, they cut the total word allotment from 1600 to 1100 words for two personal essays. They suggest 750 words for the first essay and 350 for the second, but remember, these are just suggestions. These numbers tell you about how much they’re expecting for each essay, but their directions give you some leeway.

Okay, now let’s examine each of these suckers:

Aight, I’m pumped! Where to next?
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Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why?

Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why?

This may be the hardest of all b-school essays to write, and to write well. Why? Because it’s so open-ended. They haven’t just given you a hunk of clay and asked you to mold it. They’ve given you canvas, paint, wood, sheet metal, circuit boards, copper wire, and a hundred other elements and have asked you to “generate something awe-inspiring.” While you’re painting a blue sky on your canvas paper, the guy in the station next to you is creating a computer that can communicate with aliens. Intimidating. What are others writing about!? What are the guys who are GETTING IN writing about?

Well, let’s start there—if that’s plaguing you, you’re asking the wrong question. It has absolutely nothing to with WHAT others are writing about, but HOW they’re writing. Don’t misunderstand us here; this isn’t about writing skill. B-school essays are never about mastery of prose. The “how” here refers to the manner in which the successful candidates are able to introspect, and walk around an experience, and assess and interpret different points of view, and offer new and intriguing points of view, and reveal deeply personal tales that offer key insights into what they’re MADE of—it’s any number of those things. It’s not the story itself.

Gonna lift some words from Stanford’s bullet points. Values, experiences, lessons. Written from the heart. Influence.

We’ve talked about this Stanford essay a bunch before, so this time around, we wanna focus on these concepts above.

Especially that word influence. What has shaped you? Who are you today, and what process has brought that forward? If you’re the grand canyon, don’t tell us the specs of how big you are, and how deep your canyons are. Instead, focus on the way WATER and WIND eroded and molded you. It’s the shaping, the influencing, the MOLDING we wanna know about. This is more revealing than “the result.” “The thing.” It’s all in the shaping.

Consider the following statement. “I just landed a commercial jet containing 300 passengers.” Impressive? Maybe. Let’s consider two authors of that statement. Author 1—a 58-year-old veteran pilot with military experience, and 20 years of experience as a professional pilot. Author 1 has flown hundreds of flights every year for the past 20 years. Let’s consider the same statement, but introduce a new author, Author 2. Author 2 is 13 years old, scared of heights, and has a crippling fear of flying. He needs to be sedated every time he flies, in fact. One day, he wakes up mid-flight, due to his sedation unintentionally wearing off. He notices all of the passengers beside him unconscious, the captains of the plane incapacitated, and he turns out to be the only person on board who can communicate with air traffic control. The kid puts on the headset, now fueled by a will to survive that trumps all of his phobias, is guided by folks on the ground, and successfully lands the plane, saving the lives of hundreds on board.

Now ask yourself, which “landing of the commercial jet” feels cooler, more revealing about THE PERSON WHO PERFORMED THE FEAT? The answer is obvious, and the example was purposely absurd to demonstrate a point. The stuff Stanford wants to know about isn’t the “landing of the aircraft.” They wanna know about the phobia. The decision to walk into the cockpit in spite of the phobia. They wanna know how someone with these fears, with zero experience, etc. etc., could pull this thing off. They wanna know about the WATER and WIND folks… that shaped the grand canyon. Not the canyon itself.

So, let’s bring this back down to Earth. When you’re figuring out what matters most to you, think about polarities in your development. The strongest stories are the ones that have the most intense and compelling “arcs” where your starting point is here at point A and then somehow, things, people, circumstances, experiences, etc. SHAPED you… MOLDED YOU (like water and air) to travel to point B where you ended up—essentially—a different person. We need to understand all that CONTEXT. If you’re talking about an experience that “changed” you, or that “made you who you are,” it’s only as effective as our understanding of who you were BEFORE that experience so we can contextualize the change. If a person affected you significantly, same deal—we need to know who you were BEFORE that person affected you.

“Before & After” is an incredibly powerful tool for MOST b-school essays, and never more powerful than here for Stanford’s famous essay.

Grand Canyon, ladies and gentlemen. But not the canyon itself—water and air. Water. And air.

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Essay 2: Enlighten us on how earning your MBA at Stanford will enable you to realize your ambitions.

Essay 2: Enlighten us on how earning your MBA at Stanford will enable you to realize your ambitions.A strong response to this essay question will:

Explain your decision to pursue graduate education in management.
Explain the distinctive opportunities you will pursue at Stanford.

Same deal, gonna borrow some KEY words from Stanford. Your decision. Distinctive opportunities. Stanford.

This is what I want to do—and here is why YOU should be excited about it. (This doesn’t require a ton of backstory or setup—some setup, yes—you need our buy-in. If your idea is uninspired, guess what, so too are “you.” Sell it. Give us just enough background and then in simple terms, walk us through your aspirations. With surgical efficiency.)
I’m confident I’m gonna succeed because I’m good at it, I know what it takes to succeed, and I frickin LOVE the thing to death. Lemme show you what I mean, this is how it’s all gonna look, step by step. Notice how each step as I’ve laid it out SNAPS into place perfectly. I understand the logic behind all of it because I “get” it, I “get” my vision, only people who get it so keenly are likely to succeed.
This confidence comes from careful consideration of how it’s all gonna go down, which has led me to recognize the importance of not just why an MBA is key, but why Stanford in particular supports my vision the BEST—I am, in effect, turning down Harvard, Wharton, Booth, etc., you name it, because none of these places can do XX YY and ZZ to catapult me toward my vision like Stanford can.
That’s the essay. In a nutshell. That’s what we call “the subtext.” Underneath the actual stuff you write, this should be communicated.

In order to NAIL this essay, you must understand Stanford and what they’re all about. This may take some research on your end, and this is what Stanford is hoping—that after a TON of research, you have determined that THIS place, unlike any other, is your best fit. Articulate THAT not just when you address the “why Stanford” piece, but even as you articulate your goal. The folks who get into Stanford demonstrate a synergy with the school in every fiber of their application. It’s gotta come through everywhere. Evvvvverywhere.

But so, after you’ve walked us through points 1 and 2 above, let’s dig in a bit to point 3.

How to understand Stanford well enough to approach this? Spend time on the website. Read about the school elsewhere—articles, anything written by current or former students. Talk to former students. Talk to current students. Visit the campus. Los of ways to engage—where there’s a will, there’s a way. Read stuff by current or former professors. Notice the trends of what kinds of professors came from Stanford. Notice what kinds of companies were started at Stanford. Get a sense.

Now, whatever you do, please don’t think that there is a magical phrase or a set of classes you can name drop that will trigger a successful outcome. The demonstration of “fit” here is a wildly organic one. It’s in between the lines, never the lines themselves. Stanford’s assets have to match YOU in a way that won’t necessarily apply to the guy sitting next to you. This is the whole point about “individuality” and “uniqueness.” Stanford is curious to see how aspects of its program and culture uniquely affect your appetite for an MBA, or for your career goals. It’s not “mentioning a class,” folks. Or “a club.” Or “a professor’s name.” It’s much much much more than that.

It’s an argument.

An argument that PROVES connectivity. Proves that there is something about Stanford that not even a place like Harvard or LBS or Wharton or Top School X can quite satisfy in the same way. That’s a great conceit to adopt here. You have a free ride to HBS. Why would you PAY to go to Stanford instead? Convince me, as though I’m your spouse, why this is not an insane decision. A great essay here can be between 400-500 words, no need for it to live outside that range.

JonFrank

CHICAGO BOOTH MBA ESSAY ANALYSIS, YOUR 2014-2015 APPLICATION
Presentation/Essay: Chicago Booth values adventurous inquiry, diverse perspectives, and a collaborative exchange of ideas. This is us. Who are you?

Presentation/Essay Guidelines

Be reflective. We’ve learned a lot about you throughout the application, but what more should we know?
Interpret broadly. “Who are you?” can be interpreted in many different ways. We encourage you to think critically and broadly about who you are, and how your values, passions and experiences have influenced you.
Determine your own length. There is no prescribed minimum or maximum length. We trust that you will use your best judgment in determining how long your submission should be, but we recommend that you think strategically about how to best allocate the space.
Choose the format that works for you. You can design your presentation or compose your essay in the format that you feel best captures your response. However, please consider the specific technical restrictions noted below.
Think about you, not us. Rather than focusing on what you think we want to hear, focus on what is essential for us to know about you. Simply put, be genuine.
Technical Guidelines

File Size: Maximum file size is 16 MB.
Accepted Upload Formats: Acceptable formats are PDF, Word and Powerpoint.
Multimedia Restrictions: We will be viewing your submission electronically and in full color, but all submissions will be converted to PDF files, so animation, video, music, etc. will not translate over.
Preserve Your Formatting: We strongly recommend converting your piece to a PDF file prior to submitting to ensure that everything you see matches what we see.

The famous Chicago Booth Presentation. The Booth essay that has confounded many, and brought out the best in others. What it is… is a golden opportunity to make Al Pacino in Heat very happy, and “Give em all you got.”

It used to be a three to four page Powerpoint presentation. Today, it has become a touch more open-ended. Present yourself, however you want. This can be as frustratingly directionless as it is liberating.

Let’s help it to be a liberator…

Be reflective. We’ve learned a lot about you throughout the application, but what more should we know?

Hint: don’t tell us stuff we already know. Why would you? If there are pieces you can fill in, stuff that you couldn’t possibly lace into a resume, then maybe. But, it can’t just be “the fifth bullet point that I left off because I ran out of space and had to fit it all to one page.” Instead, it has to be the “human” moment that changed your perspective, or somehow defines something fundamental about you. Something NEW. Folks, take this suggestion very seriously. To repeat something isn’t to reinforce it, it’s to not only reveal that you’re not really embracing Booth’s recommendation, but also to suggest that you’re… kinda unimaginative, and boring.

Interpret broadly. “Who are you?” can be interpreted in many different ways. We encourage you to think critically and broadly about who you are, and how your values, passions and experiences have influenced you.

Here’s a strange test you guys can administer yourself, as a potential gauge for how well you’re hitting THIS piece. If you show this to a bunch of people who know you, they can respond in one of a few ways.

Response #1 – “Wow, this is AWESOME. You did an AMAZING job.”

Contrary to what you might think, this isn’t particularly great feedback. (It may be, but it’s not NECESSARILY great feedback.)

Response #2 – “Wow, this presentation is SO YOU!”

THIS is a very good sign. If your presentation has captured something uniquely YOU, you have struck some kind of emotional chord with someone who knows you well—and that just means that the chances are great that will reveal that thing to someone who doesn’t know you (aka, the adcom).

So, it’s not about “doing a great job at creating a presentation.” It’s about doing an amazing job as distilling what’s YOU about you… IN the presentation.

Here’s another potentially amazing response:

Response #3 – “Hunh, I never knew that about you!”

Amazing. Why? Because the person’s focus was on YOU as the subject, AND presumably knows you well and managed to learn something. All amazing feats.

Determine your own length. There is no prescribed minimum or maximum length. We trust that you will use your best judgment in determining how long your submission should be, but we recommend that you think strategically about how to best allocate the space.

Bold, Chicago Booth! Bold. This may almost be a trap (haha). Folks who take this “no maximum length” concept and OVERSTAY their welcome may be signaling that they “don’t have great judgment.” So, please seek feedback here from trusted sources on what’s too much. Economy of words, pictures, whatever is a signal of EXCELLENT judgment, and clarity in communication skills. Do, um, that. In fact, once you get your concept nailed down, don’t communicate that story in “however long it takes,” Communicate it as QUICKLY as you’re able to communicate it.

Choose the format that works for you. You can design your presentation or compose your essay in the format that you feel best captures your response. However, please consider the specific technical restrictions noted below.

How to pick a winning format? Well, this is actually a fascinating question. Think of your presentation as an experience… that can be viewed as a presentation or PDF, or read as a Word doc. Doing it one way over another must present an ADVANTAGE to you. Are you able to articulate what that advantage is? Your choice of medium here must correspond to an advantage that makes the other version inherently LESS SUCCESSFUL at “capturing you.” For some, who have an unusually strong voice that POPS through with their writing, an essay or some type of prose piece in MS Word may nail this best. For others, who are artists, have graphic design chops, excellent presentation skills, or have pictures of them or that they have taken, or some other variation that a presentation format allows you to take advantage of… the PDF or PPT is the obvious choice.

Here’s an exercise. Consider some ALTERNATE versions of the story you’re trying to tell—i.e., via the alternative media choices available to you. What does the essay version of your presentation look like? What does the pictures-only version look like? What does the hybrid some-pictures, some-text version look like? What does the graphic design-heavy version look like? Which one captures “you” best? Some should start to pull ahead very clearly when you consider all the possibilities and even map a few out if you’re having trouble imagining all of it.

One thing’s for sure, if your STORY (i.e., your MESSAGE) is compelling, the format won’t matter quite so much. Get that part right. Figure out the WHAT here. The HOW will be the easy and fun part.

Think about you, not us. Rather than focusing on what you think we want to hear, focus on what is essential for us to know about you. Simply put, be genuine.

You’re either gonna have this instinct, or not. It’s hard to convince some folks to “be honest and earnest and not overthink it” when this is in their DNA. But we will continue to fight the fight and try!

Dear “all of you out there who think it’s possible to say what the adcom wants to hear…” – if your goal is to “earn admission to Chicago Booth to earn your MBA” and you believe that you can “talk to an insider and determine the kinds of things they want to see and hear,” and you just fold that stuff into your presentation, you will burn your chances of earning admission to Chicago Booth. Trust us. It’s transparent, and it has never worked.

So, pull aside a trusted friend, sibling, etc. If they review your presentation and say “this doesn’t really sound like you” and your response is “oh that’s okay, this guy who has his MBA from Booth said that as long as I mention a few things like this, I’m golden!” – then you’re doing it wrong! Create this presentation not to impress an admissions committee member, but to wow a friend by presenting the truest and coolest and most interesting summary of who you are and what makes you INTERESTING. Do that first. No matter what.

(It is possible to take THAT rough stone, and then to sculpt it and refine it in a way that is b-school-friendly. But enlist the help of a trusted friend/mentor for that stage, if you are so inclined. Not always necessary, but do not let that friend/mentor encourage you to reverse-engineer your presentation based on your anticipation of what will work best. Start BY yourself and… FOR yourself.

Check out some thoughts we’ve had on this particular essay in previous application seasons.

JonFrank

SIMPLIFY YOUR WRITING BY AVOIDING BUZZWORDS

This utilitarian manuscript will optimize your data-processing ability via enhanced legibility and optimal noise reduction.

If you didn’t quite understand that last sentence, you’re not alone. It sounded fancy, sure, but it made no sense. And this is a problem we see faaaaaar too often. There are so many applicants out there who will litter their essays with similarly useless buzzwords and needlessly complex language to sound smart, impressive, and appealing for the adcom.

We’re here to put a stop to that.

The key to successful application essays is simple, direct language. Why?

It improves your storytelling by improving your flow of words.
It ensures that the reader INSTANTLY “gets” what you’re saying.
It makes you stand out from the hordes of misguided buzzword users.
With that in mind, here are a few examples of what to avoid and how to state the same information so that your reader won’t have to reach for a thesaurus.

From: “I have to restructure my practical working experience through systematic academic education that will renovate my business perception.”

To: “I need to complement my work experience with an academic foundation in business.”

This is a relatively simple idea made needlessly complex. The only thing that needs “restructuring” here is the flowery vocabulary. “Renovate my business perception” is a particularly meaningless phrase (that the adcom will see RIGHT though) that could safely be removed entirely.

From: “This inspired me, one of the four software R&D specialists managing these ‘Construct and Render’ (C+R) projects, to create a culture and system that enabled my greater Gaming applications Global Business Unit to become Nexsoft’s open innovation leader.”

To: “This pushed me to improve my division’s corporate culture at Nexsoft, encouraging feedback and new ideas for the “Construct and Render” projects I was then managing.”

This one’s so full of buzzwords, acronyms and unproductive bragging that it’s initially hard to make heads or tails of it. By simplifying the vocabulary and sentence structure, the writer expresses the same idea in a way that a reader unfamiliar with Nexsoft can understand.

From: “To initiate and propagate a cultural change, I knew I needed to take a systematic approach—starting with understanding the key barriers to open innovation’s wide acceptance and adaption, then engaging the decision makers and influencers of the process, finally proposing a win-win solution that required minimum resources to yield maximize impact.”

To: “To shift company policy, I needed to convince management my solution was best.”

Short, sweet, simple and direct: we’ve lost practically no information but the result is infinitely more legible (and friendly to those tight word limits!)

So remember:

Simple direct language trumps corporate buzzwords any day of the week. And twice on Sundays.

linda52

Frank，thanks so much for sharing these!!