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Before you read examples of real essays here the top 25
most common essay writing mistakes. These are mistakes that
students commit every year and that have a disastrous effect
on their chances of getting admitted. Learn from their mistakes
so you don't commit any of these errors in your own essays.
So without further ado, we present to you our list of the
25 most common essay writing mistakes:
1. Not answering the question. It may seem like
an obvious mistake, but many applicants don't answer the
question. Or they answer part of the question but not all
of it. If you are asked about a time that you've been a
leader and the impact that your leadership had, don't just
describe when you've been a leader. Make sure you also address
the impact of your leadership. This is a mistake that many
students make when recycling their essays or using the same
essay for one school for another. If you do recycle your
essays, edit them carefully to make sure that they completely
answer the questions asked.
2. Showing that you know nothing about the school.
Business schools take pride in the fact that they each have
their own strengths. They want to see you address those
strengths and how you will benefit from them. While it can
be tempting to copy and paste your essays from one school
to another, you'll want to instead make sure that each essay
addresses the strengths of each school. Admission officers
can tell when your essays are so general that you have used
them to apply to multiple schools or haven't done your homework
about the strengths of their program. In at least one of
your essays, be sure that you show how the school's particular
strengths match your needs.
3. Parroting back what's on the website or brochure.
To try to show their knowledge about a particular business
school, some applicants go to the school's website or brochure
and copy text from them into their essays. Admission officers
are oftentimes the ones who write this material and it does
not impress them to see their own descriptions of their
schools in essays. You need to do your own research. Visiting
a school and talking to some of its students and faculty
is critical. By doing so you can include in your essays
what you have learned from sitting in on classes, interacting
with students or observing an activity. This kind of insight
demonstrates that you have taken the time to research the
school and understand what it has to offer you.
4. Assuming the persona of whom you think the school
wants. Some applicants try to be who they think the
admission officers want them to be. They may say that they
want to go into a field that they are not excited about,
exaggerate strengths that they think will impress the school
or even try to flatter the admission officers by declaring
that their school is the only one for them. Unless you mean
it, the admission officers will see through this hyperbole.
It is better to reveal your honest intentions, strengths
and opinions. You will produce more genuine and believable
essays that will ultimately help you get admitted.
5. Not revealing enough about you. The questions
you answer may be about your family, a figure you'd like
to have dinner with or international travel you've done.
But the bottom line is that the admission officers ask these
questions as a way to learn about you. So instead of writing
an autobiography of a historical figure or a detailed travelogue
of the places you've been, make sure the focus is still
on you. If you were writing about a historical figure you
may write about what you would want to learn from him or
her and why this is important to you. If you were writing
about travel, you would want to spend on how it has affected
you versus your daily itinerary. In other words, regardless
of the question remember that the essay is still about you.
6. Trying to be funny when you're not. It takes
a very skilled writer to write a humorous essay. If you're
not this type of writer your business school essay is not
the place to try to be. You can't miraculously change your
writing style overnight. Often your attempt at humor may
appear trite or plain silly. It's better to stick to your
own style.
7. Going overboard with creativity. The business
school essay is not a creative writing project. While creativity
is not necessarily a bad thing, you should not make it the
focus of your writing style. The business school essay is
really business writing, which is more focused on content
and ideas rather than delivery. Don't sacrifice the clarity
and content of your essay in order to make it creative.
8. Failing to see your essays as part of the larger
picture. You can think of each of your essays as a chapter
in a single book. While each is important, it's also important
how the chapters go together to form the book. In other
words, think about the overall impression that your essays
convey. Do they provide a consistent picture of your accomplishments
and goals? While essays do not need to be closely tied to
each other, they should not be so divergent or contradictory
that the admission officer is confused about who you really
are. Write your essays with the understanding that they
will be read together along with the rest of your application.
9. Not knowing why you want to go to business school.
As you answer the essay questions, you will need to explain
why you want to earn an MBA and how you plan to use the
degree to advance your career. The more you understand your
motivations for earning the degree, the stronger your essays
will be. This is something that you need to think about
and try to tie into at least one of your essays. You don't
need to have every step of your future career worked out
because admission officers understand that a business school
degree will help you figure this out. But you do need to
have some good reasons about why you want an MBA at this
point in your life.
10. Not showing a continuum from past to present.
In your essays, admission officers are looking for your
story. They want to see the past, present and glimpse of
the future. From your past, you should explain what you
have studied or learned from your employment to prepare
you for a business school education. From the present, you
should describe why you want an MBA. For the future, you
should give some hint at how you plan to apply your degree
in your career plans. These questions do not have to be
answered in one essay. In fact, you will probably choose
to address each in a separate essay. However, you should
make sure that after reading all of your essays you get
a sense of each of these three important parts of your life.
In you are missing any of these parts, there will be a hole
in your story.
11. Forgetting to tie in your goals with the school.
It's important that you not only explain your career goals
but also elaborate on how the business school will help
you to achieve these goals. Admission officers want to see
a connection between their school and how it will help you
meet your personal and career goals. This helps them to
see what you will gain from attending their school.
12. Not writing about individual achievements. While
it's important to show that you can be a team player, it
is also important to define your individual accomplishments.
Some students only write about their accomplishments as
a part of a team but never address what they contributed
as an individual. This is a big mistake. If you are writing
about a group accomplishment, make sure to describe how
you individually contributed to the success of the group.
13. Writing a resume in paragraph form. Your essays
should be more than glorified resumes. In other words, don't
just list your accomplishments. Describe the importance
of them and what you have gained from the experiences. Analyze
and reflect on their value. Whether you have been a management
consultant or a chef, you need to explain how your work
experience fits into your path to an MBA and how you hope
to apply your experience in the future.
14. Failing to use good judgment. Your biggest setback
in life may have been when you didn't get chosen as the
lead in a high school drama production or when you were
unfaithful in a relationship, but these are not the kind
of setbacks that business schools need or care to know about.
Ask yourself if what you are writing is an appropriate subject
for a business school essay.
15. Not explaining what you have learned. More important
than your actual accomplishments is what you have gained
from them. This is the key piece of information that admission
officers want to know. As you're writing your essays, think
about what you have gotten out of the experience, how you
would approach a similar situation differently and how you
have applied your knowledge to other interactions.
16. Running out of time. It is a mistake to think
that you can develop meaningful essays overnight. Thoughtful
essays take time. Thinking about your goals, the meaning
of an MBA and your life's accomplishments takes a lot of
quality time. Give yourself enough time to think about what
you've done and what you believe in to develop the strongest
essays possible.
17. Not taking advantage of the optional essay.
For a lot of business schools, the last question they ask
is whether you have anything else that you'd like the admission
officers to know about you. In most cases, you should take
advantage of this essay question. You can use it to highlight
a strength you haven't highlighted elsewhere or you can
use it to explain a blemish in your academic or professional
record. This is the first essay that some admission officers
read when looking at the essays because they believe that
this open-ended question is where you can really describe
what is important to you and what makes you unique. There
are no guidelines for what you need to write about so you
are free to write about whatever is meaningful to you that
you want the business school to know about. Take advantage
of this opportunity.
18. Not addressing an obvious weakness. You might
think that if you have less than perfect grades or if you
were unemployed for a period of time it's best to hide it.
This is a mistake. Admission officers will see your transcript
and the dates of your employment. It is better for you to
offer an explanation for these weaknesses than for them
to wonder what happened and assume the worst. Remember that
you should provide an explanation, not an excuse.
19. Not having a point. As you are writing your
essays, it's not enough for the essays to be well written
and tell a good story. They also need to convey the message
that you want the admission officers to know about. In other
words, what strengths do they reveal? How do they portray
you? What impression do they leave? Try to take a step back
to examine the message that you are sharing with the reader
through your essay. If you can't find it then your essay
is probably lacking in focus.
20. Weak introspection or analysis. Admission officers
don't just want to know about your actions. They want to
get inside of your head to understand your thoughts and
motivations. Try to share what you are thinking to give
them a better idea of who you are. Admission officers expect
to see both self-reflection and analysis in your essays.
21. Skimping on editors. It's difficult to edit
your own essays when you are so close to the material. One
of the best ways to improve your work is by having someone
else give you feedback. Find business school students or
graduates, friends and family members who are strong writers
to look at your work. Ask them to point out weaknesses,
to check for continuity and to make suggestions on how to
strengthen your messages. Their feedback is a necessity
to write a successful essay.
22. Losing your voice through the editing process.
While it is critical that you get feedback from editors,
it is equally important that you use the feedback as a guideline
for your writing but that you still retain your own voice.
You don't want your work so heavily edited that it no longer
sounds like you. Similarly, if you blindly accept everyone's
suggestions you might end up with an essay written by a
committee rather than by you. Editing should enhance your
writing not take the place of it.
23. Not proofreading. Almost every admission officer
can point to an essay each year in which an applicant writes
the wrong school's name. A little proofreading can go a
long way. It's not enough to use your computer's spell check.
Take the time to read each word of your essays and check
grammar, punctuation and spelling. Or if you aren't skilled
in copyediting, find someone who is.
24. Exceeding the word limit. When the business
schools ask you for a 500-word essay, you don't want to
give them a five-page paper. Yet, that is what some students
do every year. While admissions officers are not going to
count every word that you have on the page, they do give
word limits for a reason. They have hundreds of essays to
read and if each applicant includes a couple hundred extra
words that can result in many hours of extra time. If you
don't want to be penalized for not following directions
or, worse yet, have an admission officer stop reading in
the middle of your essay, stick to the word limit.
25. Not taking some time away from your writing.
Like a fine Napa wine, essays take time to develop. Often
the best way to improve your essays is to take a break from
writing them. So write your essays and then allow yourself
some time away. When you return to look at them you'll have
a fresh perspective and will be able to see how you can
improve them.
These are the most common essay writing mistakes. Keep
these in mind as you write your own masterpiece. Simply
by avoiding these mistakes you can save yourself a lot of
unnecessary aggravation and you will insure that you have
the strongest essay possible.
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