You have two objectives when you are preparing your MBA essay as part of the admission process. Firstly, you need to persuade the admissions officer that you are worthy of admission. Secondly, you need to bring your application to life to make the admissions officer or committee aware that you are not just another “standard” applicant. Whilst this can be easier said than done, every prospective MBA student should be able to write an MBA essay that catches an admissions officer’s attention.
Tips on Writing the MBA Application Essay
It may be only 500 words, but the admissions essay portion of a business school application could make the difference between acceptance and rejection. How you write your MBA essay shows the admissions committee why you are different from everybody else. It provides information about your that test scores, grades, and extracurricular pursuits.
You can use the MBA essay to describe whatever you want but make sure that it touches their imagination — show that you are exceptional
Take your time to find out what are your preferred MBA essay subjects. Some questions to consider:
Who are you?
In your essay you should motivate why you apply for the Business School, why they should pick you and what you are capable of. You can consider to write about how friends characterize you, what are your major accomplishments, what was the most difficult time in your life, how do you solve problems, what are your future plans, in what situation are you performing best, give examples about being a teamplayer and show them what you can contribute to the MBA group.
Select a topic for your MBA Application Essay
After the brainstorming, you will select an amount of topics. The best way how to decide which topic to take is to write them down on a large paper and write in keywords around the topic where you would like to write about (so what pops up in your mind). Grade these keywords in how much they will impress the reader from 1 to 10 and if they are usefull in convincing the reader. Count (up) the score of each topic. The topic with the most (valuable) keyword score will have the best chance to result in an intersting essay. By defining topics and writing your essay, think about:
- How to impress
- Be original
- Don’t repeat information
- Don’t summerize to much
- Clear examples
- What will they remember after reading your essay?
Write your MBA Essay
Taking the above mentioned information in account, it comes down on twho main pillars: persuade the admissions officer and grab his or her attention.
The Introduction
The introduction is actually the most important part of the essay due to the factthe admission officer probably will not read your whole essay if it is not interesting enough. Try to create an intrigue or a mystery in the first part of the introduction. Try to convince the reader by your story to read till the end.
An example what I have read was a student who got an heavy injury being 18 years old and was told to end up in a wheel chair. After finding out that the doctors made a miscalculation and that he would be fine, he realised that he got a second chance in life. He completely changed his lazy students life and became an active involved students who is willing to take chances and tries to create as much chances as possible. He still has this drive and convinced the admissioner that he is the exceptional student who knows that if life treats you well, you have to take all the chances in life and that he goes for the 100% in life. After his university, all his extra curriculair activities and business experiences, he wants to change his carreer due to the fact there is more in life, resulting in the motivation to do an MBA. And the best MBA due to reason x,y and z is the MBA X he applied for.
The Body
- Relate the body paragraphs to the introduction.
- Try to use a ‘theme’ in your whole essay.
- Use simple language, big words are not always impressive
- Use specific examples
- Impress!
Finishing Up
- In this section you have your last chance to BOOM!
- Expand upon the broader implications of your discussion.
- Make sure your last sentence is catchy.
- Take your time, review and let other people comment on your essay.