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
Hi Alex and Graham, huge fan of your podcast. Love the work that you are doing, especially with the candidate profile reviews
- Female from outside the capital city in Bangladesh; 23-year-old; to accumulate 3 years of full-time work experience at matriculation in Fall 26. Also completed HBS CoRE with high honors (99th Percentile). Prepping for the GRE now and expecting a score of 330 ish, with a skew towards quant.
- Graduated with 4.0 in Econ (Minor: Finance and Math) from an international women's college in Bangladesh; extensively involved as Tutor (Math and Science Center) and Teaching Assistant (for 8 courses) during my undergrad; Secretary at the SDG Club. Have done internships and global mgmt. programs internationally, but remotely given it was during peak Covid.
- Working as an Assistant Vice President in one of the largest multinational banks; I manage the largest client of my office and oversee accounts; I also work actively on several CSR projects of my organization, including a major initiative that involves my Alma Mater. Managing a team of 3 at work now despite being the youngest in the team
- Target is to get into Top 15 MBA programs at the US with a substantial scholarship. I recognize that the Work Exp will be a major barrier. Please suggest ways in which I can maximize my chances. My goal is to do consulting with an MBB firm in the Short Term and then move to Non-profit/Social Impact (either in Consulting with orgs such as Dalberg, or at the likes of Gates Foundation etc.) focusing on women empowerment/ education.
- Planning to apply in R1 to 5 ish schools (Mix of M7, Top 10, 10-15 range) and then in R2 to 3 ish, targeting a total of 8 applications
Would love to get covered in one of your future episodes. Happy to share more about my profile and ambitions. Thanks a ton!
I have primarily worked with venture funds and startups covering a range of tax advisory projects from M&A, due diligence, venture fund setup etc. I want to go beyond tax and step into strategy consulting roles, with a focus on fund strategy and portfolio acceleration in private equity.
Extracurricular : Involved with Rotaract for 2.5 years, taken part in multiple corporate responsibility initiatives at the firm , volunteer in pet rescue initiatives for the community
- South Asian (Non-Indian), Male, 25 year old
- Bachelor in Finance and Economics (1st in Class) Graduated May 2023
- Activities:
Debating (Coached National Debate Team to its best performance in the World Championship, 3x Asian Top 10 debater, won/competed in finals of Oxford Intervarsity, UCL Intervarsity, Durham-Oxford-Cambridge Open, and many more prestigious competitions, Mentored 100+ debaters across 15 countries and advised Debate Organizations in Australia and China).
Non Profit (Founding member of a student org; Conducted 5 city-wide projects on Food Security, Clothing for the poor in Winter, and Improving sanitation in slums that received national coverage)
- More on Work: My focus is on Growth Tech (Startups and fast scaling businesses) and Public Sector practice area. I have led the writing of a report we co-published with a client (my name is on the acknowledgement section). The client and Partners loved my work and have now staffed me in writing another report for the same client. Evals are highly positive and have endorsements from 2 Senior Partners in the org (who are happy to write my recc)
- What I am doing outside of work now: I had a merit scholarship offer from LBS for its MiM program upon graduation. I have been helping folks from my country get into top tier early career master's programs pro-bono (Most people here cannot afford Western Admissions consultants as the charges are exorbitant for us given the country is an LDC). Since joining work, I have continued to work as a selector for National Debate Team and I take pro-bono sessions for disadvantaged schools. I have also taken sessions at local consulting firms to teach them what I have learned from my MBB experience (I am the first from my country to make it to an MBB after a local undergrad; MBBs do not have offices in my country)
- Future Plan: Continue at MBB and specialize in Venture Capital/ Startups. I have a very good network with VCs and founders in my home country. I would love to raise a fund to help the startup ecosystem of my country in the future or work in the capacity of mentoring founders.
- Target: Full-rides to top schools such as HBS, Wharton, CBS, Sloan. Looking for tips to develop my profile for 2027 Fall entry. I believe that I have what it takes to make it to an M7 but would love to take the 2 years to solidify my profile so that I can be in the mix for a good scholarship
Interests: Martial Arts, Reading (I have read books from Wharton Professors such as Adam Grant, Angela Duckworth, and Katy Milkman) Weightlifting, Marathon Running (I am aware this is super cliche haha)
Side-note: My GRE split is 166 Q (84%ile), 169 V (99%ile), and 5.5 AWA (98%ile). I can improve my Quant to 169-170 but I doubt the extra effort needed now will make a material difference. Would love to have your thoughts
Background in design. Graduate degree in design from Harvard. Transitioned public sector consulting and planning work.
MBA LiveWire
Former pro athlete with board experience
- Applied 1/6
- Received Kira Assessment 1/07
- Completed on 1/12, received Community Assessment same day