EssaySnark

($) Test extensions: Should you submit your app before you take the GMAT or GRE? And which round?

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Let’s talk about GMAT and GRE, and the still-changing policies for test taking and test acceptance for top business schools for applications for the Class of 2023.

We’re also going to go into our recommendations around Round 1 versus Round 2, with considerations for whether you have a test score in hand or not now.


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Oooo there’s some good stuff today!
 
 

 
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Obviously everyone’s situation is different! (Our Comprehensive Profile Review can shed light on yours if you’re interested!) There’s lots of moving parts right now – and so many ways for things to be hard, or unfortunately for some BSers, to become EXCEPTIONALLY hard based on decisions made now at the beginning of the season. How you set your strategy of which schools, which round, with which test score will totally affect how things play out. Is it better to try for a better test score in Round 2 than to submit with the score you have now? Wellllll…. maybe? But it is all completely dependent on the actual specifics that you’re dealing with, and when we see a Brave Supplicant planning to play all their cards on the future, we just get a little nervous.

Not trying to be doom-and-gloom ‘Snark today. Just trying to help you with some flags on the trail so you can find your way out of the forest.

We’ll be here all the way through — and there’s lots of help on the blahg with questions like how many apps and how to get started!
 
 

($) Citation needed.

by EssaySnark

No no no no no — not really. We may have titled this post “Citation needed” but PLEASE do not include footnotes or references or links or what have you in your essays!!! No no no no no. HOWEVER: You do need to establish from whence comes the statements you make!! Premium content starts here……

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($) Stanford GSB: Optional (not optional!) stories of impact

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Once again this year, the Stanford GSB has an “optional” assignment as part of their MBA application: Write up to three statements of how you’ve made an impact in some area of your life.

There are many questions of strategy that must go into your decisions of what to write about. The first one which we hope is obvious: Don’t skip out on this opportunity! You’ll really want to consider including at least one solid story in response to this “optional” question. Same thing with the other “optional” question on how your background influenced your participation. That one might even be more important! Provided you have a good story to offer up, of course.

We go into much more detail on these two “optional” questions and the other Stanford essays in the SnarkStrategies Guide to the Stanford MBA Application however today we thought we’d offer up a few ideas today gleaned from all the years we’ve done this and the many, many attempts at “impact” stories we’ve seen from the huge numbers of BSers who’ve gone before.


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Let’s talk more about Stanford — and “achievement” essays in general — today!
 
 

 
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Another excellent resource if you’re struggling to choose between possible stories and are looking to learn how to craft your example in the strongest way is our Accomplishments & Achievements App Accelerator.

And of course you can get your “impact” stories reviewed if you go for the standard full-set Essay Decimator! Along with your Stanford “matters most” and “why Stanford” and the other optional question too.

There’s great potential to really show the GSB who you are through these application requirements. No matter what, you’ll come out the other side feeling proud of the work you’ve done and quite likely, you’ll have gained new self-awareness and personal understanding from the experience as well! Check out our Stanford MBA Essay Questions page for a list of essay critiques on these challenging essays if you’re looking to study more before you tackle your project.
 

 
 
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($) The MBA app dataset: A real opportunity

by EssaySnark - Discusses

If you haven’t already done this, then do it now: Go create an account to start an application at one of your firm targets. Or if you have already done so, then go log onto that app and actually read it. Like, read it carefully. Don’t just skim. Do you see all the fields there?…

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($) Stress-test your sentences.

by EssaySnark

We’ve offered before that your MBA essays are a pitch. Each individual essay is presenting an argument in response to the question that the school has asked, and the collection of essays and your other application assets must combine together into a meaningful whole that convinces your reader to issue an interview invite and eventually…

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How to flatten the (essay writing) curve

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Yes we desperately need to flatten the damn coronavirus curve again, but EssaySnark is not going to go down that rabbit hole. You (hopefully!) are keeping on top of the news, and you (hopefully!) are wearing a mask every single time you have to venture out, and you (hopefully!) are not falling prey to those conspiracy theories that are running rampant all over social media, and you are (hopefully!) living a life of kindness and compassion for all, which means you are (hopefully!) paying attention to SCIENCE and rational minds in how to navigate this absolutely awful and totally avoidable tragedy that we are all living in where people are actually dying and it didn’t have to happen this way.

Phew.

No, we’re sticking to essay-writing advice. You can get staying-healthy advice from any reputable provider of science-based news. (Not sure if your preferred source of the news is biased, or how? )

We got a great question from a BSer recently asking what the best approach should be to engaging EssaySnark on services to help with MBA essays.

They asked, should they make their first drafts absolutely perfect before sending them in to be decimated? Or should they get their ideas down as best they can in those first drafts, and get input from the ‘Snark earlier in the process?

The main thing to keep in mind is that everyone’s first drafts pretty much always suck – and the point of writing first drafts is to move through that mandatory first stage as efficiently as possible, knowing that there will be more revisions.

If someone rushes through just to get words on the page, then their second drafts also will suck. But at least they’ll be feeling some accomplishment of having made progress!

One trick in the process of getting your apps together: Find a way to build in some dopamine rewards. One of the hardest parts about procrastination is when you let it snow you under. One of the best ways to combat procrastination is baby steps. Find a way to have a win today and it’ll be easier to continue working on the hard task again tomorrow. If you don’t even try anything right now, then the task ahead of you tomorrow will be even more daunting, and that cycle can overwhelm you until you are staring at the deadline with literally no time left, and all you can do is work off of panic and adrenaline.

Much much more powerful is letting dopamine work in your favor. How do you get dopamine? By accomplishing something — anything. By crossing a task off the to-do list. By putting one foot in front of the other, and letting that create some forward momentum. It’s that first step that is so difficult for most of us.

It’s like that advice when you are sitting there, not wanting to work out, dreading the workout, feeling lazy and not caring, but knowing you really need to work out: Put on your running shoes.

Once the shoes are on, the run is going to happen. The hardest part is putting on the shoes.

This is sort of like that. If you’re someone who knows is a procrastinator, then enlisting the help of the ‘Snark earlier on may be useful because it forces you to take action sooner. However, if you’re someone who tends to be really sensitive to getting any sorts of feedback, where it feels like a personal attack when someone makes a suggestion to you about how your work could be improved, then the feedback from the ‘Snark may send you backwards, if it takes you off track and demotivates you.

So it’s a balancing act: You’ll want to have done enough thinking and studying upfront that you feel like maybe your first drafts aren’t that bad — but you need to be prepared for the high likelihood that we’ll come back and tell you that you need to start over anyway.

That’s what happens with first drafts: They are the stepping stone to the better drafts, but it’s highly likely that those first drafts may need to be thrown away.

If the first drafts suck so bad that all we can do is point out the obvious suckiness, then you’ll be missing the opportunity for next-level feedback. When we review people’s revised drafts in the second step of the Essay Decimator, they are usually improved to the point where our feedback can be much more strategic. But, sometimes drafts don’t evolve sufficiently between the two revision steps and we’re stuck with repeating more standard or basic-level feedback again.

If you’re already doing the legwork required to make your first drafts maybe not suck completely 🙂 then that means you should focus on that — write your heart out in getting the first drafts to be as dog-gone good as you can get them, to the best of your ability, and then get them decimated, and you’ll be maximizing the learning process.

Also recognize that the longer you wait, the higher the likelihood that a) our prices will go up again, which they do the busier we get, which happens when deadlines come close, and b) the less time you’ll have to digest the feedback, to regroup and prepare your next attempt at a strategy, through the revision cycle. The best essays come out of having time to reflect, so you’ll want to ideally budget at least a couple days to process what we say in returning the first-draft review, before deciding what direction to take things from there.

And, it helps to know thyself:

Sometimes people get so bummed by all the “nope this ain’t it” feedback from the first draft review process that it puts them back on their heels and makes them dread the rewrite, and then they get caught in an emotional loop that they can’t get out of. Procrastination takes over, in the form of a fear of failure, or a paralysis around not being able to face the changes that need to be made.

Getting ideas reviewed before they commit to full drafts could help for this personality type.

Other people are able to weather the emotions of the first draft critique just fine and have an attitude of “Bring it! I know I have to get through this so let’s get dirty and do it!” First drafts are pretty much always difficult to get through, so this is gonna be about knowing your own style, and where you might get tripped up, and navigating around that.

And oh yeah: WEAR A MASK!! And that means wearing it OVER YOUR NOSE too. Sheesh people we toldja back in March to wear a mask. If only everyone had stuck with it from then, we’da been out of this mess long ago. 🙁

 
 
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($) “Should I write about this horrible personal experience in my essays for business school?”

by EssaySnark - Discusses Leave a Comment

To continue the subject we started yesterday about disclosing personal stuff in MBA essays, but today on a different aspect: The difficult life event.

If you’re coming from the military and have been deployed to combat, then it’s likely you have seen some awful things.

Many people are currently dealing with the absolute tragedy of losing a loved one due to coronavirus.

Sometimes people experienced life-changing events, such as an accident that resulted in a fatality, or a serious injury skiing. Or cancer.

Maybe there was violence in the home growing up. Maybe a brother or sister OD’ed on heroin.

Do these experiences belong in an essay?


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As we said when we began this two-part series: Whether or not you choose to include such a topic in your essays depends on many things. It depends on your comfort level in disclosing it to a complete stranger. It depends on whether it’s appropriate to the essay question that you’re considering it for. It depends on why you want to include it. Everyone has had difficult things happen to them in their life — not always horrific events of violence, but there’s been something bad that’s happened to all of us. The fact that it happened doesn’t automatically mean you should talk about it in your app. However, if it became a pivot-point for you, where everything changed after that and you grew into a new person because of it, and you feel that it’s important for the adcom to know about this because it’s so fundamentally a part of you… Then yes. It may make sense to include it. With proper detail, and connecting it into the topic that you’re being asked to write about.

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($) “Should I write about my ADHD in my essays for business school?”

by EssaySnark - Discusses ,

More and more, the schools are asking their applicants to get personal in the topics they choose for their MBA essays. We previously talked about aspects of your identity such as being Republican or Democrat, or religion, or being vegan, or a meat-eater so you can start with that post, especially if you’re trying to…

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It’s time

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Can you believe that tomorrow is the first day of August?!!

 
 

And it comes with a gift!!!!

Red Pen Black Pen

 
 
 
 

So that’s where we’re at.

 
 

Perhaps more useful is this wisdom:

 
 
 
 
 

There’s some utility in this one, too – especially in this era of super-short essay requirements!!

 
 

 
 
 

Yessiree BSer, it’s time!

Time to get started on those essays!!!!

This weekend seems like as good a time as any!

If we can help, we’ll be around!

 
 

A pre-emptive warning post about who will not make it into Harvard this year

by EssaySnark - Discusses 3 Comments

There’s probably three categories of folks who don’t get into Harvard Business school:

1. The qualified but not differentiated

2. The qualified who thought they were differentiated (ouch)

3. And perhaps the most frustrating category: The differentiated who didn’t leverage the app

People in Category 1 will likely land at a good school in the end, but it’s also likely to be a real blow to the self-esteem when they’re cut loose from Harvard in October. These folks usually have been successful compared to their peers in life, such as getting into a good college, following the path laid out for them by going to work at a brand-name firm after school, etc. They are the play-by-the-book types who assume that Harvard will be in range since they landed a 760 GMAT. But for Category 1 folks, no matter how hard they work on the essays for Harvard, they are not likely to be enough to tilt the scales in their favor. We try to gently offer this feedback to them from the Comprehensive Profile Review to the Essay Decimator process, and we also try not to be overly discouraging — because after all, it’s not up to EssaySnark to decide your fate. That’s only for the Harvard Admissions Board to decide. It would suck for an admissions consultant to be so discouraging on your chances that despite your own enthusiasm and motivation, you decide not to apply at all. Because if you really want to try for Harvard, you need to try for Harvard! Regret sucks. It would be awful if you skated straight into schools like MIT and Tuck and Kellogg and didn’t even put your hat into the ring for HBS. You’d have a hard time reconciling that, especially if you only opted out of HBS because some schmuck on the internet told you you’d be wasting your time.

Category 2 is a tough place to be. This is basically the same as the Category 1 folks, except that nobody has offered any input to help manage expectations, and/or the person has a higher opinion of his or herself than reality justifies. This is often the “HBS or Bust!” type who washes out in the end as a bust. The good news is that this person, although often a bit cocky, is still very qualified and very smart, and will inevitably land on their feet and end up in an amazing place in their career later on, building great success for themselves without the MBA. Because the MBA is really not necessary to get where you want to go, if you’re motivated and work hard. Right? Right. And, the other good news is that if this person has humility and self-awareness to know their limitations, and they are able to accept feedback, and do so early enough, and be flexible enough, that they are able to change course with the path that they are pursuing with their Harvard presentation, then it’s very possible that they can turn it around and make the essay do more for them. This often entails throwing away the essay that they thought was close to being “done” and starting over. And, even then, it does not always pan out. But we do often see candidates in Category 2 who actually are differentiated, based on how they change direction and showcase that differentiation much more effectively in the presentation that they deliver in the end. (Shameless Self-Promotion: The Harvard Essay Decimator will let you know if you’re in good shape with what you have, based on a full profile review in conjunction with essay critique, or if you need to go back to the drawing board and try again.)

Category 3 is the land of heartbreak. This is the candidate who really does have some interesting elements to the story, but they didn’t recognize the amount of work that’s needed to get that Harvard essay to say the things that they wanted to say. They are the ones who shy away from introspection, or who become victims of their own procrastination, and often they are those who simply listen to the wrong advisors for help. They put together a passable attempt at an application, but they’ve left all their money on the table and not maximized the opportunity that this Harvard essay truly is.

(As we’ve cautioned before: The essay isn’t as much a determining factor at Harvard, the way it can be at certain other schools. But the essay is a real opportunity and it can take a borderline-consideration candidate way over the edge and down the waterfall to an interview invitation when done well.)

Harvard has been changing its admissions strategy in recent years, so be careful who you are asking for advice on the “how to get in” front. There is no one cookie-cutter answer for Harvard the way there (sort of) is for some other schools. If the admissions consultant you’re using does not have a long track record of success, and a RECENT track record of success, with Harvard Business School, they may not be helping you maximize your own opportunity. Please be careful about who you leverage for advice. We’re not saying that we’re the only one wise enough to give valid input. We are saying that you’re going to have one chance and (for most of you) one chance only. You don’t want this to extend to a multi-year app cycle due to misunderstanding the stakes and underestimating the workeffort.

If we can help, you know how to get us on board!