MBA Admissions Tip: Essay Polishing
The deadline is looming and you’re making one final pass through your application before hitting submit. This isn’t the time for drastic changes – but there might still be an opportunity for small improvements.
Read on for three big picture, “crunch time” tips!
Keep It Professional
It’s true that many schools ask “fun” questions and most urge applicants to be themselves rather than submitting “overly polished” material. But it’s important to remember that this is a graduate school application, and you should approach your essays with a degree of formality.
You do want your unique narrative voice to come through, but even professional writers know to vary their tone based on their audience. Before you submit, scan your materials for slang or overly conversational speech patterns in your writing.
Emphasize Action
Lapsing into the passive voice is a common essay-writing pitfall. This means constructing sentences about how some unseen force or agent acted upon something or someone else (e.g. “we were required to” or “the project was completed”).
Instead, make sure that you’re putting your own thoughts and actions at the fore. By making a conscious effort to write “I/he/she did x” rather than “x was done to y” you can make your comments more informative, dynamic and, often, more concise.
Avoid Repetition
It’s often a good idea to give the reader a sense of an essay’s direction through an introduction, and to sum up the key ideas through a conclusion. Ideally, though, each sentence of an essay will add some new information to the document or build the reader’s understanding of what you’ve already written. And for shorter essays (e.g. 250-300 words), you can probably dive right into the content rather than giving the reader a detailed road map at the outset of your response.
So if a sentence isn’t saying anything new, it’s probably safe to cut it. This rule can be particularly helpful with last-minute edits if your responses are running over the word limit. It also helps to ensure that you’re including as much relevant information about your candidacy as you can within the allotted length.
Good luck with those finishing touches!
MBA Admissions Academy
In addition to the MBA essay tips above, learn more from Clear Admit’s Admissions Academy below.
Episode 12: Essays I: The Basics
MBA Applywire
I am a 29 yo black brazilian woman. I am civil engineer by the oldest civil engineer school of Brazil with full scholarship. I have been working with data since 2015 and now I am coordinator of a data team I the biggest Latin American Bank. Currently I am studying for toefl and improving my English. My main purposes joining a top tier mba are to improve my leadership skills and to learn with different people from different backgrounds (I am working in the same business since 2017).
I am originally from the UK (now a permanent resident) and went to community college (3.6 gpa), then transferred to a top 25 undergrad and severe health issues due to a disability causing me to get a 3.1 gpa. I then stayed there and did a master’s in finance with a 3.8 gpa. I am very passionate about giving back, especially about the homelessness epidemic. Before college I spent a year in Switzerland volunteering at homeless shelters. During college I led a campus ministry with a focus on helping the unhoused. After my experience with my disability, I started a nonprofit that has consulted with several shelters and foodbanks to help those with similar health issues as myself. I also personally raised capital to purchase and preserve an affordable multifamily property. My career has been in real estate since I graduated, but I have job hopped. My first job was 5 months, then I moved to be closer to family. My next job was for 7 months, but I quit as they were taking actions to make housing unaffordable for first time buyers. My next job was in acquisitions but I was laid off with about half the company due to the rising interest rates that affected the industry. I have been at an impact real estate private equity firm for almost 2 years in an acquisitions, development, and asset management role with a promotion. All my roles have been for REITs or PE firms. My post-mba goal is banking to better learn capital markets and long term to start an affordable real estate investment firm, perhaps in London. I would love to be a wire tap candidate, fingers crossed.
Applying for deferred programs at the mentioned schools. African woman studying Comp Sci and Math. GMAT Focus 98 %tile. Substantial community involvement and some experience at big tech working as a SWE. Thinking of consulting or product management post MBA.
MBA LiveWire
Wow. Totally shocked. Waitlisted R1 and was shaking when I got the call! So grateful!
Call received at 7pm EST
50K scholarship!! I'm torn between this and a full scholarship at Stern...