Admit Engine 申请答疑

Jameswynne

Greetings MBA Candidates,

My name is James Wynne and I am a Columbia Business School grad from the Class of 2010.  Over the past few years, I have helped dozens of students gain admissions to top business schools and have now co-founded a consulting firm called Admit Engine with several other professionals so that we can help even more applicants.  We work with a number of international students and I find that many of them have the same questions about the process and about how to differentiate themselves.  I will now be posting here to answer any and all questions that Chase Dream users may have about the process of applying, paying for, and navigating business school.

My advice on this forum is completely free of charge and I am open to any types of questions from admissions stats to application strategy to the ins and outs of recruiting.  

祝大家申请顺利！
James Wynne

samwzhang

Hi, James!

Thank you for starting this topic! Do you think it's a good idea that I ram one or two fresh personal stories into the Chicago optional essay? If so, how long should the optional essay be?

Thanks!

Jameswynne

Hi Sam,

You should only use the optional essay to explain weaknesses in your application such as a low GMAT or not having a recommendation from your manager.  As a rule, optional essays should always be short - ideally under 100 words and to the point.  Admissions committees read a lot of applications and will appreciate it.  Remember that the most important aspect of your application is telling a complete and concise story about what you want to accomplish and how an MBA will help you get there.

Thanks for your question!

祝大家申请顺利！
James Wynne

kasulty

Hi James,

Thanks for helping out.

I have a question regarding the third-person/first-person story approach in essays. The question starts to emerge as I was trying to decide which perspective I should choose to layout my story. After writing out a draft for each, I found the third-person perspective seems more natural and unique, but probably too creative and story-like. And I also have difficulty turning the third-person view back into first-person.  

Do you have any sugeestions on the situations I encountered above?

Thanks!

Jameswynne

Hi Kasulty,

I usually recommend writing in the first person for grad school admissions essays. The biggest problem I see in most essays I review is a lack of passion in the writing style. I like for my clients to give the admissions committee a clear vision of not only where they want to go in their careers but also why those goals are important and what drives them to be successful. When you write in the third person, it can come off as being stilted and pretentious which is not the impression you want the adcom to come away with.

Now, if third person is your more natural writing style and you think that you will be able to make a stronger case to the adcom with your essay then you should try writing a draft. Once you've written one draft of your essay, it's fairly easy to change a third person into a first person.

I hope this helps! Feel free to email me or post here with any more questions.

祝大家申请顺利！
James Wynne

baiyun86

Mark Mark MArk~

entry2011

建议lz换个帅点的照片。比如Jon Frank的那种照片，就更容易吸引mm申请人。
别忘了，大部分中国申请者是mm

goafterdream

楼长这张照片不错啊，感觉很踏实

renxiaochun

Hi James, how should I handle the length requirement in writing an essay?  I prefer not to sacrifice my depiction of story over the words requirement, so my essay may exceed the words limitation.  Is this acceptable? And how much is not too much?

Thanks,
Xiaochun

Jameswynne

Hi there, sorry for the late response. Thanks for everyone's comments on my photo You will see the updated one soon!

To Renxioachun:

I always recommend that, if you have to go over the word limit, you only exceed it by 10% at the most. Although it is important to get your story out, you must be careful not to overburden the adcom by going too far over the limit.  Remember that they are reading thousands of essays - you want to make yours memorable for telling a great story and providing clear thoughts on your background and future goals. So manage the word limit and don't stress out if you have to go over it by 5%-10%.

Hope it helps!

James Wynne