福利贴攒人品，非常有用的教怎么写Essay的文章！

lindalibinbin

转自：http://www.amnesta.net/mba/essays.html
原作者：Tim Darling

虽然是7，8年前写的，我觉得还是非常有价值。Best of luck in writing kickass essays everyone!!

So, your future hinges on a few pages of your writing. Assuming that you meet (or exceed) the basic requirements for admission for the schools you're applying to, then your essays and résumé are the most important part of your application. In fact, since you have little control over your GPA, work experience, and GMAT -- and since the MBA admissions committees really only use GPAs and GMATs as a first glance -- you should consider essays and your résumé to be the core of your application. Your essays will win or lose you admission, regardless of anything else in your application.

After all, President George W. Bush earned a C-average at Yale and still got into Harvard Business School. So clearly they will overlook grades if the other parts of your application is strong. (Or if your father is a Senator..)

Overview of the essays

Essentially I would suggest you spend a couple months just writing for an hour a night. Don't write to answer essay questions; just write about what you've done, how you did, interesting moments in your life, and interesting things about you. As you're writing, read some of the notes I have here. Most of the information here is to help you start writing and thinking about these things. The rest (especially on the following page) is on how to focus, amend, update, and revise your writing to make it stronger in the eyes of the admissions committee.

My personal thought is, if you sit down and try to type a response to the question: "Tell us about a time when your thinking was different from others," then your essay will be horrible. The real secret is to have hundreds of snippets of your life already assembled. You can read over each one and think if it can be molded into answering the question. You'll get surprising and refreshing responses that way. It's probably also more fun: would you rather write about yourself for a while or answer a tough academic essay like the ones mentioned? On the other hand, you will probably end up with 3 times as much writing as you'll ever use in the essays. But this is why your essays will be 3 times better.

What every school is really asking

First, answer the question they asked. If the question is a multiple part question, have sections in your essay that explicitly respond to each part. Beyond that, however, this is what the admissions committee is looking to get from your essay set, phrased as questions since you might as well consider these as you consider the actual questions they ask:

• Please give examples of clear leadership and teamwork experience
• How do you differ from the other applicants? What makes you unique? This is key to being admitted. I talk about it more at the end of this section.
• How do you meet people, stay connected, and build on and learn from your network? Even if you're not a social butterfly, are you at least not a hermit?
• What are your key accomplishments? How have they helped others? Note that showing that you helped 10 people may is more impressive than being a part, or even a leader, of a multi-million dollar deal.
• What are your short and long-term goals and how do they follow smoothly from what you have done so far? (If you're looking to change careers, make a point of that). Read the 'More than anything else, you need a clear, specific, and noble career goal' section on the 'Introduction: Why, How, and When to Apply' page. The key is that you need a specific career goal: don't just say 'I want a position of increased responsibility' (it's OK to say that but only in the context of arriving at a specific long-term goal).
• Why do you need an MBA? Why now? Why from our school? (Note: this is really an extension of short and long-term goals since in order to get from where you are to where you want to go, there should be a key piece missing - an MBA).
  

STEP 1: Make a list of your interesting stories

The real key to writing winning essays is simple. Don't sum up the boring details on your résumé - instead elaborate on them by providing the real andinteresting stories behind them. The first thing to do is to brainstorm in general about the interesting things you can say about yourself. Forget the essays and essay questions. It may take a few weeks to get a good list - you'll be surprised how many exciting things you've done that it takes a while for you to remember. Think about work-related experiences, hobbies, famous people you've met, the interesting things about your hometown or your family. The ultimate goal is to make every one of your essays personal. In some cases, you'll be able to sum up these stories in one sentence and drop a few of them around your essay set to make it stand out from others' essays.

Stories are 'slices of life'- colorful anecdotes. They should encompass the events of a minute or an hour. They should not encompass the events of months or years. You should talk about how you progressed over the years in some cases, but focus on the details of a few defining moments.

Harvard has asked the question: 'Define Success'. This is a great opportunity to start by describing a vivid story from your life - anything at all - add flavors - and eventually come back to a one sentence summation that success is an enduring contribution to a community (or something, use your own definition). A bad essay would define 'success' in boring academic terms. Don't 'take a boring photo' when you can take one full of ice cream colors.

What's the difference between this list and the second list below? In this list, you want to think of specific instances or facts: moments in time. In the second list we'll create, you can say 'Hobby: Rowing'. In this list, mention the time that your boat capsized in a big race. In other words: list the stories of your life and forget the big picture -- don't try to think of things that will impress -- just write down what you'd tell a friend who you haven't seen in a year. Those types of things.

(If it helps, you can think about stories that have caused you trouble. These will be helpful in some essays, but certainly don't limit yourself to thinking about stories that will answer essay questions. This list is not necessarily for that: it's to help you bring out color in your writing in unexpected ways.) This list won't be easy to put together; it'll take a lot of thought and time. Here's an approximation of some of my list:

Stories about things I've done Took photos for Sister Hazel at the 9:30 Club in August, 2003 I was accosted by two angry men while traveling in Morocco in June, 2002! I had to pay them $50 for a walking tour of the city to keep them and their friends from causing trouble. My truck got a flat tire miles from anywhere on the Pan-American highway in Chile, November, 2003. I can probably tell some stories about starting my tie business Things about where I live, etc I live a mile away from F. Scott Fitzgerald's grave

Some of these are the stories you may want to tell in essays. Note - don't force irrelevant stories into your essays just because they would be fun to tell! The key is to tell relevant stories which are both fun and prove that you have unique experiences that have provided good foundation for an MBA education. Overall, the key to writing good essays is to tell stories, not facts. This exercise is just to get you started thinking in that mentality.

STEP 2: Make a list of 'Selling Points' about yourself. Make sure your résumé and essays cover all of these points, regardless of what the essays explicitly ask for!

The list should look like the one below. Here you should forget about what's 'interesting' and instead focus on what will impress the committee. Highlight the 1-2 key points you want to emphasize. As a general rule, your 'key' points should show leadership but also show that you helped many people and made a meaningful change. Make sure you pick your key points well - they should be ones that show leadership and uniqueness. They should be ones that you can build off of in your essays and can explain colorfully from a couple different angles (in other words, if you refer to building a new dolphin tank in three essays for the same school, you should talk about different aspects of it as it relates to each specific essay question -- ethical questions that arose, the teamwork element, etc).

• Teamwork and Leadership in Work Experiences)
  
  • Oversaw the building of a new $5,000,000 tank and brought together all of the Sea World staff in my effort  - KEY Point!
  • Trained 2 dolphins
  • Taught a junior trainer how to feed the dolphins   - KEY Point!
    
• Extra-curricular and Service   NOTE: Chose your extra-curricular and Service activities to complement your work experiences. (*)
  
  • Play the harp in a local folk quartet. We play 2 times a month at coffee houses.
  • Since 2002, have played in a kickball team once a week.
  • Volunteer at the local 'Save the Whales' community office.
  • Run a soup kitchen one Saturday a month.
    
• (International)
  
  • Anything you did in the above 3 categories (even if it's not directly listed already) that involves other countries. You need to show that you have a 'world-view'.
    

(*) If you are an engineer, counter the stereotype that you are not very social by highlighting extra-curricular/service activities that involve teamwork and other people. Likewise, if you are a venture capitalist, complement that with an example of caring volunteer work. If you can't think of anything, start volunteering now.

Some thoughts on explaining your work experience

If your work experience is non-standard, then your essays should focus on selling your career choices and your success. If you have international experience and a strong career at a top firm like Morgan Stanley, then you need not sell your career choice. If, however, you're like me, then you will have to. I worked for six years at the University of Maryland, College Park -- the school I graduated from as an undergraduate. Therefore I had to sell the admissions committee that I didn't stick around just because it was the easiest course to take. I had to sell why I chose to work there; I had to sell my success there. Note that this can be good: you have the advantage of not being like most of their applicants.

Be honest about what you have not done. No experience working in the private sector? Start off by saying so. Then go on to say how the experiences that you have had instead are unique.

Note that when writing about your work experience, it is probably best to sell the consequences of your actions and projects rather than the complete details of them; this applies to both your résumé and essays. The reason for this is simple. The admissions committee can't read about what you've done and determine its value. Especially if you're in the technology sector: they will think, "Is connecting 100 clients to a central server daemon difficult? How does it compare to this other applicant's achievements?" Instead, say that you did something and it earned millions of dollars (only if that's the truth, of course..). Then the admissions committee will think: "Oh, someone paid $5,000,000 for the work that this applicant did. OK, now I know that it was difficult and worthwhile." Further, the committee member now knows that you can sell your ideas and projects to other people which is just as important to them. On the other hand, be careful not to rest on large dollar values alone: they make a great foundation, but then you have to expand upon them to show how you made a positive impact on other people's lives at the same time.

The main thing that the admissions committee is looking for is: leadership.

MBA programs exist for the sole purpose of creating future leaders. They do not create astronomers, artists, or engineers. You can be the most brilliant engineer in the world and not have a chance to be accepted by a Top 10 MBA program simply because you don't pass the 'leadership test'. Read every paragraph and entry on your essays and résumé to make sure it shouts, 'I'M A LEADER!', 'I'M AN INNOVATOR!' from every conceivable angle.

There are varying degrees of leadership which the committee will look for. Usually, the further down this list you fall, the better your leadership rating will be and the better your chances of being accepted. If your essays and résumé fit into the first two or three categories, you will not be accepted by any MBA program, least of all by one in the Top 10.

Reject Borderline Admit! Essays display no interest in or experience in being a leader. Essays display an interest in, and a determination to be, a leader. Applicant has little or no leadership experience. Applicant has some leadership experiences either at work or at an outside extra-curricular activity (*). Applicant has leadership experiences both at work and at outside extra-curricular activities (*). Details and facts of experience and consequences are missing or unclear. Applicant clearly articulates, citing facts and specifics, how each of their many leadership roles have made a difference to their community (**). At least 3 distinct leadership roles are preferable. Applicant can cite specifics about how the people they led later went on to show leadership qualities.

To get into a Top-15 business school, all of your essays, résumé, and recommendations have to clearly be in the bottom two categories.

The 2nd main thing that the committee is looking for is: clear goals for the future and a good reason why you want an MBA from their school.

The committee will assume, unless you convince them otherwise, that your only reason to want to earn an MBA is to get an instant salary raise which you could not achieve otherwise. If they believe this is your reason for applying, you will be rejected.

Read Bouknight and Shrum's 'Your MBA Game Plan' for details about what each school offers. You'll be in the top 50% of all essay writers if you use the specifics in their book as reasons why you want to go to their program. Make sure your references are relevant though: "I want to use the Entrepreneur Incubator program" is nowhere near as good as "I want to incubate my new business selling nylon socks in your Entrepreneur Incubator program."

The committee will assume, unless you convince them otherwise, that if you are accepted by them, there's a chance that you won't go to their school- maybe you'll go to another school or not go at all. If they think this, you will be rejected. The 'yield' rates for each school are very high. In other words, they only accept people who they know will attend if they are accepted. You have to convince them that you are in this group of applicants.

Most important here is that you don't want your goals to be the same as everyone else's. Start your own company and say you want to use the school's programs to incubate it. I can't think of a better or more unique reason. Of course, to have a unique reason for attending, you may have to think up something new...

The 3rd main thing that the committee is looking for is: A consistent story that ties together all of your experiences and goals.

Some MBA admission books call this a 'theme'. So you have 5 key points that you want to make to every school you apply to. Say it's a work experience where you showed leadership, an extra-curricular, a volunteer, a traveling experience, and some facts about your undergraduate career. Now if you throw them all into an essay in a 'list' fashion, they won't be very impressive. Instead, you have to create a thread that links all of them. It can be a simple transition: "My traveling experiences made me realize how important learning new languages can be, so that's why I started volunteering teaching Spanish to inner-city youth..." Or it can be a more over-arching theme such as painting all 5 experiences as different angles on the same idea: helping others, entrepreneurial ventures, etc.

Pay attention to this. It's a simple idea that will make all of the difference. The best essays probably have a mix of local transitions and an over-arching theme. And the theme should propel you into your career goals and why you want to study/contribute to the given school that you're applying to.

---

The 4th thing that the committee is looking for is: energy.

Successful people are not neccessarily the smartest people or the best people persons even though those traits are helpful. They're simply the people who do the most, work the hardest, and seem to have an unlimited supply of energy. They're people who can sleep 5-6 hours a night, travel 4 days a week, get up at 5:30AM, work 14-16 hour days, stay energized through 3 hour meetings; they're the first to arrive and the last to leave. As Albert E. N. Gray wrote:

-- from The Common Denominator of Success -- The common denominator of success --- the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful --- lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do.

Taken one step further, all of the things I listed above are things probably no one likes to do. What does that mean for you in your essays? Simply naturally convey unlimited energy and have a wealth of stories to tell that show you're someone who is always active and always doing something exciting.

---

The 5th and final things that the committee is looking for are: humility, friends/connections, focus, and diversity.

Humility - Let me put it this way: you're not going to "impress" the admissions committee - they're probably MBAs themselves and they see 1000s of applications of amazing people who have accomplished 1000s of interesting things and you're just another one. They don't want to hear you brag on and on about how you were elected class president and were elected treasurer of the polo club and how you've traveled so much. Instead they will be touched by how your essays aren't boastful - how you're a nice, real, and fun person. They want to read about how you'll fit in there. Who would you admit (knowing that your students will be stuck with them in a study group at 3AM on a Tuesday night): a hot-shot full-of-himself rich-banker or an energetic yoga instructor?

Don't try to over-impress. A Michigan student told me about his friends who didn't get in: they wrote about their billion-dollar contracts and funds that they were managing and he knew that they were rejected because they'd already (supposedly) done so much that the committee didn't see why they needed an MBA. Instead, talk about the impacts that you've had on specific people and organizations. Don't be pretentious!

After my interviews and campus visits, I finally understood something that I had no concept of before, despite all of the MBA admissions books that I'd read. That was that the admissions committee is a few regular people who are so bored with the usual stories that they've heard millions of times. They have full control over the incoming class and they are not going to fill it with simply the smartest and most accomplished people. Instead, they will fill it with whoever strikes their attention as different, unique, colorful, and everything that everyone else they see is not. Don't mistake me- you have to be smart and accomplished, but only to a point. After that, be an oddball. If you don't believe me, sit in on an MBA class for a top-15 school. I did. I talked to who I was sitting next to. One ran a coffee store, another a firehouse. One ran an online auction site. Another was a lacrosse coach.

Friends/connections - Most successful people in business and politics are great people-persons. There are a lot of great engineers and scientists who are not good around other people, don't appreciate the importance of having connections and a network, and, if they came to business school, wouldn't change. If the school is looking for people who will have lots of connections in the future as a barometer of success for them (and their fellow students), they'll be looking for signs of that in their applicants. Don't drop big names, but read your essays and ask: do they make me look like a loner who's solving problems in my computer in my office, or do they paint a picture of someone who mixes with lots of different people in many different circumstances? If you're introverted and you can claim this, even better: perhaps it's a "weakness" you overcame. Keith Ferrazzi's book Never Eat Alone is a great resource for appreciating the importance of this and getting some tips on how be a better networker.

Focus and diversity - In my first 2 MBA interviews, everyone I met commented on my tie immediately and when I explained that I owned a tie company, my interviewers were really excited and wanted to hear all about it. Then, when I talked about my engineering projects that I'd been working on for the past 5 years - what I thought was the 'core' of my application, - their attention waned, as if they'd heard that story 1000 times before (they had). Then I talked about how I was an editor of a journal in college and had traveled a lot in the last few years and they practically fell asleep. Then I talked about my rock band which I'd been in for the past 3 years (something I wasn't sure if I needed or should include in my essays) and they became excited about me again.

What did I take away from this? I went back to my essays and threw a few things out that weren't part of my major 3-4 focus points (they were still listed in my application and résumé anyway) and I highlighted the couple things that made me different from everyone else: neckties and my rock band. They don't want to hear about someone who's good at everything. They want to get a picture of you in a couple unique areas.

So cross out those small boastful items from your essays. Talk about yourself as a unique and real person. Another student I met at Michigan gave me this advice. He said, "Write a key paragraph in one of your essays with these exact words: 'How will I will bring diversity to Ross? I...' Italicize the first sentence. Knock them over the head with why you are different." Montauk in his book How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs talks about a 'positioning statement' that should sum up your 2-3 key points. I think this is your best presentation for a position statement. In other words, don't just tell them who you are in 2-3 sentences, as Montauk suggests: tell them who you are and how you are different from their other applicants. These don't have to be outrageously different things. Even the effort to try to explicitly position yourself as unique and diverse will go a long way.

---

Why are they reading my essays?

Believe it or not, the committee looks forward to reading the essays on some level - at least early in the admissions cycle. It's fun to look into the lives of hundreds of interesting people. So make sure your essays are just that: a quick, bright, easy to read insight into your life. They do not enjoy reading wordy, academic, preachy, lifeless essays though. Take the reader with you.

---

Don't confuse me with those people!

Maybe you're an engineer and you have a few engineer friends who sit in front of their computers all day, writing code or designing something in AutoCad. Maybe they're really good at what they do and really smart, but (at least by now) you know they would not get into an MBA program. They're not exciting enough: not well-rounded, not multi-dimensional, not go-getters, not people persons, not unique, too focused on the small picture and the immediate task at hand. They're too focused on the world as it currently applies to them and there are thousands of others just like them and there's no big difference between them. Read your essays. If someone didn't know you, would they confuse you for one of these boring people after reviewing your application? Figure out what you're saying in your essays and résumé that any of these thousands of people could say and remove it, change it, or focus on a different angle of it.

Where they would say "wrote 90,000 lines of Java code and built a custom XML+XSLT transformer module", you say "brought together hundreds of diverse customers with a unique engineering solution." Think about your actions and achievements from the point of view of your boss and your boss's boss. How would they describe you and what you have done? They don't care about the technical details: they appreciate you for the big-picture impact that you have on their organization.

---

End with a sentence that will knock their socks off

On the following page, I reference the opening sentence of George Orwell's "England Your England". His closing sentence is a strong example too - as he refers to the perseverance of the British people in the war, and among other forces over time, to maintain their national identity - a place where "The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener":

"The Stock Exchange will be pulled down, the horse plough will give way to the tractor, the country houses will be turned into children's holiday camps, the Eton and Harrow match will be forgotten, but England will still be England, an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past, and, like all living things, having the power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same."

I was pretty happy with this opening sentence to a paragraph which (in one form or another), I ended all of my essays with:

-- Final thoughts -- I live across the street from F. Scott Fitzgerald's grave. The resigned last words of The Great Gatsby, "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past," are etched into his headstone. The quote refers to Gatsby's dreams that he could never realize, yet always appeared to him to be just within his arms' reach. Regrettably, Gatsby did not have 150 close friends and colleagues faring those currents with him. I would like to add my strengths, support, generosity, and goodwill to your group of students, not just in the classroom, but on a personal level for many years to come.

How to write your essays

There are a couple of 'questions' that you should answer in your essays, even if the schools do not explicitly ask for it. You'll have to find a way to bring them into the framework of another question if that's the case. The biggest of these is probably "How have you impacted a particular organization?"

There is a secret to describing your key accomplishments. First (and perhaps most important), is to set the scene to make your actions sound as big as possible and to create drama. Do this in the first paragraph. This will also serve to spark the reader's interest: "It was 2002 and the dot-com crash had left thousands unemployed; no one was investing in technological startups anymore..." Then tell what you did and how you did it: I formed a startup and convinced investors to join me. I organized many people from different cultures. Then discuss the end result: We made millions of dollars. And finally, spend a couple sentences talking about what you learned and how you grew. Don't assume that your achievements alone will impress the readers: explain how they affected and transformed you personally. One sentence at the end explaining how this experience helped you learn to organize a large and diverse team (for example) is a good way to wrap up the story on a personal note.

Here a few other suggestions, based on the question type.

• What are your strengths and weaknesses?:
  
  • For weaknesses, they want subtle character weaknesses or things that can be worked out during an MBA degree (not your 'application' weaknesses, like a low GMAT score). For example:
    
    • "I've grown very quickly in the last four years and I need the foundation of a management program to help me better adjust to these changes" might work.
    • impatience; to be idealistic when a pragmatic perspective may be best; like to take on the largest challenges without proper consideration to everything that is required in a project's lifecycle; to expect as much from others as you offer and get frustrated when they don't live up to your standards; to be very self-critical; to talk too much when listening may be best; to not take enough risks; to be tactless sometimes when discussing differences of opinions; to prefer revolutionary changes when a few small fixes may keep everyone happy for at least a while.
    • Do not choose a weakness that is really a 'strength' in disguise such as "I work to hard". Even "I'm a perfectionist" is risky unless you really explain how it has gotten you into trouble.
    • Think unique: "I'm good at this team-sport, but not good at this individual-sport." Not only would something like that stand out, but it also highlights that you're a team player!
      
  • For strengths, read over the rest of your essays and application and see what strengths you haven't already addressed thoroughly. If you've already spent 2 essays on your leadership experience, then write about your strengths simply being part of a team here. The ability to listen is a strength and it's one you probably won't be able to elaborate upon elsewhere. For example:
    
    • to be enthusiastic; energetic; always open to new ideas and learning new things; to go after every project as best as you can without hesitation; to be respectful, professional and well-liked; to have international ambitions and an appreciation of people who are different; to communicate well.
      
  • Show (or at least say) that you are working on your weaknesses.
  • Note that often, weaknesses and strengths are different perspectives on the same ideas. Enthusiasm is a strength, but if you're too enthusiastic, you may not be careful or prudent enough in your haste. A good essay will encompass a dozen strengths and 5 or 6 weaknesses (or 3 strengths and 1-2 weaknesses, depending on how much you want to discuss each) and interweave them in that manner. If you have a few short anecdotes that can highlight a few strengths and weaknesses, then use them. Look over the collection of your 'stories' and see which ones you can tell in a few sentences and be applicable here. In other words, in most essays, you will have to tell one (or maybe 2) clear stories that have to fit into a specific mold. Here you can tell a dozen quick stories from any time or place in your life -- use this opportunity to make yourself look as colorful and dynamic as possible! You'd be surprised how much a couple stray sentences can do that.
    
• Setback or failure
  
  • Think outside of work: language problems, problems while traveling in an unknown place, extra-curricular activities, working with difficult people.
  • End on a positive note. Show that you experienced a setback, realized what you did wrong, and adjusted ultimately to either achieve some degree of success, or to learn a lesson. Don't write an essay where you 99% succeeded but had a small obstacle along the way.
  • This is a leadership question: show that you appreciated the learning experience and how it helped you succeed as a better leader at a future occasion.
    
• Ethical dilemma
  
  • Everyone else is going to write a 'they asked me to adjust the numbers' story: those may work best for this essay, but can you do anything more unique?
  • Don't tell just the story, tell who you were trying to 'protect'; did you make the wrong choice initially and accept your mistake?; what were your thoughts when you were wondering about the 'right' decision -- remember the key to an ethical dilemma is that there is no 'right' or 'wrong', simply, 2 conflicting detrimental choices.
  • Think about the times when you and someone else were trying to figure out what to do - whether to tell other people about something or not - to include other people in something or not - to present different versions of the 'truth' to different audiences - etc. Did you ever feel pressured to go against your own judgment?
  • Give details; make the reader empathize for your situation by taking them to the time and place. What are your personal beliefs and how were they challenged?
    
• What matters to you most and why? (Stanford's first question)
  
  • Apparently, the most common answer is 'balance in life'. Maybe you should try something different..
  • There are no right or wrong answers or approaches to this; it was my favorite essay question actually for this reason. You can write just about anything. However, I would suggest you look over the accomplishments that you want to talk about in your essays and you career goals. Then find a basic thread that can intertwine all of them. This will be something vague but poignant: 'helping other people' or 'taking on new challenges'. Then there's your essay structure: open with how you like to take on new challenges and use all of your essay material as proof of that. If you write something too specific such as: 'What's most important to me is bringing potable water to this village in eastern Africa' then a good part of your essays will probably be irrelvant to this thesis statement.
    
• Why an MBA here? Why now? / What are your short- and long- term goals?
  
  • First, this is one question you should answer in your essays, even if they do not explicitly ask it.
  • "This is a truly critical essay... Start with this essay." - Montauk, 'How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs'.
  • Check that what you write will match your 'Objective' in your résumé.
  • Start by stating your specific short- and long-term career goals. Then spend sometime giving you guess at the future of the world. Talk a bit about where you've come from and how the MBA will join your past and future.
  • If you want to talk about your undergraduate career for some reason (to mention that you double majored, or that your school is better than the committee may think for whatever reasons - maybe you majored in a program that is highly ranked in US News and World Report's guide), this is a good place to do that since you can tie it back into what you're looking for in an MBA program. Maybe you like smaller, close-knit, team-based programs and you can make the connection between their school and your UG school that way.
  • Don't be vague! Read your opening paragraph - is it something that any applicant could have written about any school? If so, you'd better change it so that it can only come from you. For example: "I'm at a turning point in my career and an MBA.." is generic. How about: "I'm moving from being an underwater yoga instructor to my lifelong goal of running an organic grocery and an MBA.."
  • For you to complete your career trajectory from the past to the long-term goal, what are you missing? It should be something the school can offer you. Choose things unique to each school. Follow that up with what you can uniquely offer the school and the students in your class and teams.
  • Say your goal is to manage increasingly large projects and take on increasingly critical responsibilities. If your goal is a 'dream', it's OK to say that too.
  • "I have a lot of diverse real-world experience: from leading a large team on a highly successful and profitable four-year project to starting and building my own company, Bill's Flowers. These skills and accomplishments will provide a great reference point as I advance into management positions and continue to grow Bill's Flowers in my spare time. However to truly excel in these future endeavors, I will also need the foundation that can only be acquired from a more formal training environment. The ... classes at Stanford will best provide me with this foundation."
  • End on an up-note if you like.
    

---

50+ ways to write good essays

• "More than anything else, you need a clear, specific, and noble career goal" - See the 'Introduction and When to Apply' page on this site for more information. To reiterate a key point from there: "The admissions committee members see each applicant as who they will be in 10 or 20 years. They don't see them as much as who they are now or who they were 5 years ago. In other words, use your previous experiences and accomplishments not to paint a picture of the past, but to support your clear and specific trajectory into the future. That's how you will be accepted."
• Overall, do your essays display management potential? Go out of your way to make each section of each résumé shout 'I'm a leader!' - even if you didn't manage large teams, talk about the ideas that were yours, how you influenced others, and how in the future, you'll be a natural manager.
• Tell stories. Don't just say all the great things you did; don't just try to impress. Be real and stir emotions. Be personal in every essay. Don't be boring and academic (remember the Harvard 'define success' essay we talked about earlier). Stories should be about minutes or hours, not months or years. Discuss things you did wrong and what you learned. You will not be the most impressive candidate they see this year. But your essays can be the most compelling.
• Over the course of all of your essays to a school, you have to have one key, unique, and special story to tell. Your essays taken together should read like one coherent picture. This doesn't have to be an Olympic-sized feat, just something that helped people and had a meaningful impact on an organization. Figure out what this unique story is for you and wind the other stories and answers to your essays around it! If you are an engineer, then counter the stereotype of engineers by making your unique overall story being how you care about others. Be a real person; your résumé and some of your essay paragraphs can sum up what you did. Make the overall theme of your essays a personal story.
• Choose your stories wisely. Most important is that your essays explain why you are unique; what you can bring to an MBA program. Stories from your previous work experience are most valuable although you should include- in the course of all of your essays to a particular school - a story or 2 from your extra-curricular/hobby/service experiences to add some depth and flavor.
• Don't just tell stories. Tell how the stories shaped you; how they affected you; what you learned; how they changed your outlook. For instance, explain how the events described made you start thinking about something you'd never thought about before. Explain how the events made you consider going back to school to study entrepreneurship, etc.
• Know who you are, what your strengths are, and be honest about it (wording taken from a previous page)
• Your essays should sound like you. As Keith Ferrazzi says "don't be afraid to be vulnerable" - a personal story is more memorable than a boring cathartic safe story.
• Bring your friends, co-workers, contacts, even family into your stories; show you are someone who people can connect with without bragging about the number of people you know or dropping big names.
• Your essays should demonstrate that you have successfully worked with difficult people in the past and have taken criticism from your boss and handled it maturely and constructively. (At the most basic level, that you're a 'team player').
• Were your born in a different country? Traveled in any? Studied in any? Lived in any?
• Be fun! Do not be boring and academic. Use an exclamation point once or twice! Write with gusto and enthusiasm.
• Have someone else read all of your essays for each school, though they should read all of the essays for any given school as if they were one unit.
• Backup your work regularly to a CD. Imagine you've been working on your essays from March and it's now October. You're just about to finally apply to 5 schools with 100s of hours of worked already put into perfecting your essays... and your hard drive crashes.
• Answer the question. It's a good idea to divert a little bit off of the question for a paragraph or 2 to differentiate yourself from the other applicants. Maybe open with something completely unique but make sure you tie it back into the question very quickly.
• Find a faculty member in the program and say in your essay that you're excited about learning from them. Choose someone who is currently teaching classes relevant to your area of interest (i.e. entrepreneurship or finance) - not someone who is retired, only doing research, or who hasn't taught a class in the last 5 years. Read one of their papers from their personal website and mention how you have used their ideas already (if you can - don't stretch this obviously).
• Be honest.
• Read the different sections of your essays. Are there any parts where you say 'I' a lot? Can you rephrase them to sound more like team experiences? Keep the details where you took key leadership roles, but otherwise, sound like you are a constant team player.
• Don't bore your reader with unnecessary details. Don't list people's names when you can just refer to them by title or as a group.
• Use details that take the reader to the time and place you're describing. A few key details in some places can make your writing come alive and makes the reader believe that this is a real story that they won't see from 100 other applicants.
• Use a custom font or 2. See the 'Résumé' section above for details. Obviously use the same font in your résumé as in your essays regardless of whether you use your own personal font, or the free fonts everyone has: Times New Roman, Tahoma, etc.
• Put the page number and your name at the top of each page. In Microsoft Word, go to 'View' -> 'Page Header/Footer'.
• Don't have 1 specific example that you want to use in a given paragraph or question? Try a rapid-fire list. For example, maybe you don't have one compelling story from your travels, but can sum up 6 of them in a sentence each with a common theme.
• Everyone says to show professional growth in your résumé and essays. How do you do this? One way is to explicitly mention how many promotions and merit-based raises you have earned. Maybe even name all job titles and the years in a line in your résumé: Analyst (1999-2001) -> Senior Analyst (2001-2004) -> Executive Officer (2004-). Some suggest that you should break your résumé's employment sections up into different entries for each new title even if you stayed in the same company doing mostly the same thing. Use your discretion here: it may confuse and clutter things too much to use this as an absolute rule - it's just one option. Be sure to mention how, over time, you have taken on more responsibility and bigger projects in both your résumé and essays.
• Try uploading your essay on the school's online application and then view it in the 'Print/Preview' option. See if the school adds any headers or footers to each page. ApplyYourself (used by Stanford, CMU, and others in 2005) adds your name and a code for example in 'Arial' font. Build your page headers so that they tie together nicely with the automatically-added ones (for example, put 'Page 1/5' in the right place in the page header so that it appears just below your name on the Print/Preview version of your application).
• Try repeating the questions at the top of the first page of each essay. Try putting the questions in the school's colors. When you upload your file, see if the school automatically adds a header or footer to each page. Fit your format to look the best given those additions. (Stanford adds a header, for instance. Adding a line to the top of your pages so that it separates their header from your writing looks nice).
• Consider using (centered / italicized) 'headlines' in large essays. Write 500 words, skip a couple lines for a short header which may reference another part of the question, and continue. This helps your essays look organized and keeps the reader focused. For any essay over 2 pages, split it up into about 3 parts.
• Do use italics occasionally to really make your essay come off the page. Do not overuse it though.
• Spell the name of the school correctly. If you're applying to Oxford's Business program, spell it correctly: Saïd. If you're in Microsoft Word, go to 'Insert -> Symbol'.
• Similarly, if you spell the word 'résumé' anywhere, try to get the accent on it too. Same for fiancé (if you're marrying a man) and fiancée (if you're marrying a woman). And clichés...
• Speaking of fiancé(e)s, if you're married or in a relationship, why not casually mention it? It's an example of a team you're a part of and it helps to show that you're someone other people want to be around. Of course, it's probably best not to make your fiancé(e) too big a part of your essays - if there's a way to quickly mention them, that's OK, otherwise maybe it's best not to.
• Try not to bring your family into your essays in the usual clichéd ways, for example, if you have a 'Who is the person you admire most?' essay question to answer.
• Do a search for these words/phrases and try to remove them as much as possible: rather, quite, somewhat, probably, possibly; which is, that is, who is; can, could, would, might, may; not; I believe. (See other bullets especially in the 'How to write better essays' section below for more information on why they are bad when overused and how to replace them).
• Use correct grammar and write dazzling, vigorous sentences. Buy a copy of Strunk and White's 'The Elements of Style' (its $8). See my notes in the related section below.
• Make sure you answer the question in the best way possible. See 2 books: Bouknight and Shrum's 'Your MBA Game Plan' and Montauk's 'How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs' for information about what the question is really asking and how to best answer it. Montauk's book has lots of example essays.
• Stick to the word limits. It's probably OK to go over by a few though.
• Double-space all essays! Especially if they ask for double-spaced essays; Not 1.5-space, double-space. UCLA and Stanford asks for this; others may too. It makes your essays easier on the eyes for someone who is reading hundreds of them.
• Put your name on each essay page and number each page.
• Make sure you re-emphasize the 1 or 2 key points about yourself. In other words: you train dolphins at Sea World and that's your key selling point. You should mention it in one essay no matter what they ask. Maybe mention it in 2 or 3 if you can. That way, after reading the essays, the committee will have a well-framed picture of you. A week later, you'll want them to think, "did we remember to admit that dolphin trainer?".
• Use a good thesaurus but don't overuse it. Your words should be direct, not flowery. But they should not be boring. thesaurus.reference.com is much better than the thesaurus that comes with Microsoft Word.
• Make sure over the span of all of the essays for a given school that you include a mention of all of your selling points - not just your top 2-3, but all of them. Use the list created above of your selling points. In other words, mention your top 2-3 in all essays. Mention the rest in at least 1 of them.
• If the question asks for information about your family, then spend a paragraph or 2 talking about their stories and then focus back on yourself. Otherwise, tell your own stories only-- not someone else's!
• Make your essay unique and interesting. Most applicants will write about how their achievements in high school and college sports gave them confidence. Many will write about the death of a pet or backpacking around Europe or tell some boring story about their youth. Make sure you don't. (Note- it's OK to mention your travels in Europe, but don't spend too long on it and don't try to draw a grand moral from it about how the world is a diverse place. As mentioned already, it's even better if you can pick a specific story from your travels and simply write a good story about it as part of your essay.)
• Do not mention anything you did in high school (unless you were a Junior Olympic champion, in which case, spend at most a paragraph on it). That was over 10 years ago -- have you really not done anything worthwhile in the last 10 years?
• Maybe use a couple of quotes throughout your essay sets and elaborate on their relevance to you?
• Make sure you mention as many specifics about their school as possible as reasons why you want to attend. Make the specifics relevant to your own application: you work well in teams and you have mentioned examples of this in your essays. Then tie it together by saying: "Thus the teamwork-based case-studies system of your school would be a perfect match for me." See Bouknight and Shrum's 'Your MBA Game Plan' for help.
• YES, the admissions committee readers know what the essay questions are for the other top schools. So don't transparently reuse one answer for another school asking for something slightly different.
• Don't use one really good essay that you wrote for one school in another school's 'optional' essay section.
• For the Optional Essay: remember "STEP 1: Make a list of your interesting stories" on the previous page? Why not fit a good, telling story in here? There's no limitations, you don't have to bring it around to explicitly 'sell' yourself; just show an insight into your life that you could not do otherwise. From Brandon Royal's 88 Great MBA Application Tips and Strategies to Get You Into a Top Business School: "Do not let something that you feel passionate about get reduced to just a single sentence or a one-line entry hidden away in your essay.. [talk about it in the optional essay section]"
• Check if they school you're applying to has any books or magazines and read them. Most are available online so you don't even need to pay for a subscription. Reference something you recently read something in their journal in your essays. At the very least, they're interesting publications which will give you a good idea of what the schools are like. Not sure what the 'case-study' method of Harvard is like? Then you haven't read an issue of the magazine they publish..
  
  • No matter where you're applying, you should read: Harvard Business Review.
  • Stanford publishes the Stanford Business School Magazine quarterly.
  • Wharton publishes the Wharton Journal.
  • MIT/Sloan publishes the MIT Sloan Management Review - they offer a free trial issue.
  • Oxford/Saïd prints the (more local) Business at Oxford.
  • If you're applying to Harvard, forget about mentioning the HBR- that won't set you apart. But mentioning Harbus might. Here are some student newspapers:
    
    • Harbus, Harvard Business School's Newspaper.
    • Berkeley/Haas has the HassWeek Online (although it seems to no longer be in publication..)
    • Chicago has the Chicago Business Online
    • University of Michigan/Ross has the Monroe Street Journal (named for a street in Ann Arbor).
    • Carnegie Mellon/Tepper has the Robber Barons.
      
  • Some schools don't have their own journal that I know of, but you might impress the committee if you dropped a reference to local Business Journals:
  • LA Business Journal
  • There are others..
    
• Don't just name-drop the school's journal or newspaper, tie an article from it into your essay. Make sure the connection is fluid and relevant though. Also, if you have experience writing articles or serving on a publishing/newspaper staff, say how "in the same spirit" that you'd like to get involved with the school's student-run paper. The committee wants people who will get involved.
• Find out what other clubs are available and say how you'd like to join or contribute to them. Find out about the interesting less obvious things about each school and mention them. Mention one or two things about the school and tie it into the rest of your essay; don't make it look like you're just listing what the school offers. For instance:
  
  • MIT/Sloan has:
    
    • Many clubs and events.
    • Center for eBusiness @MIT: Investigates the key changes that e-Business will affect on the world.
    • The MIT Entrepreneurship Center: has the MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition. Mainly focused on high-tech ventures.
      
  • Stanford has:
    
    • Study groups are a big part of students' lives.
    • Center for Leadership Development and Research (CLDR) - which has leadership coaching, seminars, and business simulations to help you learn to listen and become an effective leader. CLDR created a 'Leadership Development Platform'. Students work in small groups called Bridge Teams.
    • Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) - study and intern with startups.
    • Center for Global Business and the Economy (CGBE) - includes the 'Global Management Certificate', intern in international companies.
    • Center for Social Innovation (CSI) - includes the 'Certificate in Public Management', study and workshop with social organizations.
    • Global Management Program (GMP), which is part of the Center for Global Business and the Economy - it offers an academic certificate within the MBA. 25% of the 2004 class earned this. Even if you don't earn the certificate, you can take part in student-led trips to various countries, the 'Global Management Immersion Experience (GMIX)' international internships.
    • "Public Management Program (PMP), as part of the Center for Social Innovation, remains the premier program preparing MBA students to apply their management skills to areas of social concern."
    • 
      
  • Berkeley/Haas has:
    
    • Socially Responsible Business Leadership Initiative - a focus on ethics and corporate responsibility.
    • A number of clubs including: Entrepreneur's Association and the Haas Asia Business Conference.
    • International Business Development - 25% of students are selected for international consulting assignments.
      
  • UCLA/Anderson has:
    
    • They advertise themselves as having one of the top entrepreneurial programs in the world.
    • The Center for Management in the Information Economy -- research e-commerce.
    • A of clubs including the International Business Association
      
  • Cambridge/Judge has:
    
    
    
    
    • the Entrepreneurship Consulting Project
    • the Major Consulting Project
    • and the Individual Project
      
    • Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL)
      
  • Oxford/Saïd has:
    
    • Concentrations in: Entrepreneurship, Global and Comparative Business, others.
    • Electives in E-Commerce, Entrepreneurial Finance, and others.
    • All students are involved in the 'New Business Development Project' in the spring. A team works on a new business idea to get first-hand experience of its development.
    • All students are a part of the 'Strategic Consulting Project' where you consult as a team for an outside company.
    • 'Saïd Business School Venture Fund' helps students get experience in venture capital and investing.
    • The 'Peter Moores Lecturership in Chinese Business Studies' is one examples of teaching an understanding of global markets - China in particular at Saïd; there will be a new elective on business in China.
    • Saïd is very project-based.
    • In 2001, they accepted 30% of their applicants. It's a 1-year program.
      
  • University of Michigan/Ross has:
    
    • Over 60 clubs.
    • Entrepalooza
    • Rock and Roll B-School (where students perform songs for classmates).
    • Ross allows students to take electives in the second semester of their first year- almost no other school allows this. They also allow time during the second semester for students to interview for summer internships.
    • Is working on a 'Leadership Academy' in 2005 which includes a set of courses on leadership.
    • Has field projects as part of their core curriculum; no other school has this (as of 2005).
    • EMAP Entrepreneurial Multidisciplinary Action Projects - allows students to work with start-ups at various stages of development. It's a course that begins in the second semester of your first year. Michigan wants applicants who are excited about the MAP idea: you could be working in Prague at a Biotech startup; or in Denver at a ladder company. (There are other MAPs besides EMAP).
    • The William Davidson Institute is a leading center of expertise on emerging markets in places such as China or Brazil.
      
  • Looking for other schools? Read their websites and see The MBA Jungle's search page on each school.
    
• Get their attention. Make sure you start off with a sentence in each essay that you know the admissions committee reader will re-read three times just because they've never seen anything like it before. Something like:
  
  • Tell us something about your childhood.. When the hot air balloon started losing altitude over the lion-infested plains, I knew we were in trouble..
  • What may be one of the greatest opening sentences ever: George Orwell in the essay "England Your England" describing The Blitz on London in WWII: "As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me." (1941)
    
  If you add a unique twist to your essay, make sure it's relevant and make sure you bring it back into answering the question quickly. If you can't do this, then ignore this rule. On the other hand, don't try to be too cute - your writing should appear as a fluid and honest story, not a collection of clever 'angles'.
• Spend hours, days, weeks, and months on your essays. Write them and then come back and trim the fat. Re-arrange words so that they flow perfectly. Read them out loud to help with this. Spend as much time on any given sentence as you would usually spend on an entire paragraph. Make each sentence ring. Make your essays works of art.
  

---

How to write better essays

Some hints from Bruce Ross-Larson's 'Stunning Sentences' (or at least my interpretation of some of what he suggests):

• Order lists in sentences from short to long. "The largest, most effective, most transcendent ideas.."
• Generally do not use contractions in formal writing. However it is OK to use them occasionally as needed to not sound long-winded and boring.
• Write with depth!
• Start and end paragraphs with short, direct sentences (a suggestion; not a rule).
• Try 2 or 3 short sentences in a row. It helps pick up the pace of your writing.
• Example of an interesting sentence: "Add a bit of.., subtract a bit of.., throw in a bit of.., and the choice is clear.."
• Use examples instead of explaining generic terms.
• You can start a sentence with 'But', 'Or', or 'And' if it follows a related sentence.
• When to use a colon or a semicolon?
  
  • Both joined sentence parts must be able to stand individually as separate sentences!
  • If you have 2 parallel ideas, then use a ';'. Try making both sentence halves start the same way:
    "The benefits of Plan A..; the benefits of Plan B.." or "He said this happened; however, she said .."
  • If you have 1 idea and an example, detail, or elaboration, use a ':'.
    
• Use a long dash before details or examples- like this. (Use in place of 'such as' or 'for example').
• Try repeating sounds- 'an excellent equestrian', 'a political politeness'.
  

Similarly, some hints from Strunk and White's 'The Elements of Style':

• Only use 'can', 'could', 'would', 'might', 'may', etc in situations involving real uncertainty. Use 'shall' or 'will', etc. instead.
• Do not use 'etc' in formal writing.
• Make definite assertions. Do a search for 'not' (or 'can't'/'didn't'/..) in your essays and try to rephrase any sentence that uses it. Sometimes it's needed; often you can make a stronger sentence by removing it.
  An example: "I did not take a standard path.." -> "I took a unique path.."
• "Be specific, definite, concrete". Every sentence should show details. Read every sentence individually.
• Your writing should show accuracy and vigor. Give examples.
• Correct usage:
  
  • cannot ... or ...
  • can neither ... nor ...
    
• Correct: "To go boldly.." Not: "To boldly go.."
• Correct usage:
  
  • 'that' defines and restricts. It should be used if the following phrase is needed to know the exact object the sentence refers to.
  • 'which' simply adds a fact; it is not needed to know what is being refered to. You probably don't need many 'which'es in your writing- Strunk suggests you go "which hunting".
    

---

What do the admissions committee say about the essays?

Stanford's Director of MBA Admissions Marie Mookini in 1996 (from an issue of the Stanford Business School Magazine - link): Q. Why do you put so much stock in the applicant's essays? We get a good idea of an applicant's intellectual strengths from college transcripts and GMAT scores. We learn a lot about a candidate's professional accomplishments from the résumé. But it is through the essays that we learn more about the people behind the grades, scores, and job titles. Because we do not offer interviews, the essays serve as the applicants' opportunity to tell us who they are. The who is as important as the what in creating a community of people who will be living with and learning from one another for the next 18 months. Q. So what impresses you in an essay? And what doesn't? There are essays that mechanically answer the questions, and then there are essays that truly make the candidate come alive. The advice I always give applicants is borrowed from a former colleague of mine: "Tell a story, and tell a story that only you can tell." Most applicants are good at describing the people with whom they grew up, the college they attended, the activities in which they participated, and their current job. But "telling a story only you can tell" means going beyond describing the people and places in your life, and instead focusing on how these people, places, and events have shaped you and your perspective. A great essay answers the question we ask. For example, our second essay asks a three-part question. We ask applicants to describe their career paths, help us understand why an MBA makes sense for them at this point, and describe specifically why the GSB is a good fit for them. The most common mistake made with this question is that applicants do not answer all three parts of the question, or they do so in a superficial way that suggests that their essay is a one-size-fits-all that was used for all their business school applications. Not understanding the value of the MBA experience and not being able to articulate how specific elements of the GSB experience dovetail nicely with their personal and professional needs make a candidate less attractive to us. A great essay is told in a sincere, straightforward fashion. Unfortunately, there are far too many business school guidebooks that encourage applicants to find a "hook" or use a certain "angle" for their essays. We have grown weary of the essays that are interviews with the candidate as CEO in the year 2020, just as we have grown impatient with essays that are singularly focused on the one skill or quality the applicant thinks we want to hear about. The most successful essays are the stories that are told in an honest and natural way. They reflect a healthy amount of self-reflection and provide a convincing career focus and direction.

lindalibinbin

里面sample questions and analysis就不要看了，过时了。

pcm1000

thanks!!!!!!

小眨

mark mark!!

cjbbilly

Mark收藏

areslwh

Mark, 谢谢分享

shaominyyda

很有用！谢谢

qing3goal

感谢楼主分享！

永夜の翼

觉得写的非常好..很多思路和教训=。=

smilehalovely

非常有用!!! 謝謝分享! Thanks for sharing!