mba application essays

The competition among MBA school applicants is quite intense, especially if you’re applying to a prestigious school.  One thing you can do to stay ahead of the competition is to come up with a winning essay.  If you have read sample MBA application essays, you’ll notice that they all have several things in common, and one of them is that they all have a clear thesis or topic supported by statements.  It’s very important to come up with an essay that’s coherent and presents a single idea.  Unfortunately, many applicants make the mistake of discussing too many things in their essay.

Why keeping your focus is important when writing your essay

Getting distracted when writing your MBA application essay is unavoidable.  Because you really want to impress your readers, you think of several ways to creatively write your essay.  You may have thought of including an experience that made you realize that an MBA degree can greatly help you achieve your goals.  You then start by telling that story or experience.  As you write your essay, you become so caught up in your story that you forgot to actually answer the essay question.  As a result, your essay is not that effective and the admissions panel will probably throw away your work and read the next entry.

To avoid veering away from the topic of your essay, it’s important to keep your focus.  One key here is to know when to include details about an experience you want to discuss in your essay.  Remember, the point of your essay is to convince the readers that you deserve an acceptance letter into the MBA school, and not to tell your life story.

Tips to stay on track in your essay

Now how do you stay on track as you write your essay?  One tip is to think of a catchy topic.  Then create an outline that’ll help give direction to your essay.  Throughout the personal statement, you should be able to come up with supporting statements that provide the right amount of details — enough to catch the attention of the admissions panel without veering away from your topic or thesis.

You can also let others read your essay and let them critique your work.  If a reader was somewhat confused as to what you are actually trying to say in your personal statement, then maybe you need to revise your work and remove some statements that are confusing or that don’t really contribute to the overall coherence of your essay.