EssaySnark

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Enjoy your turkey, Turkeys!

Everyone here is taking a much-needed break from the snarking. Things will be dark in Snarkville today and this weekend.

Also as a heads up, we aren’t planning any Black Friday specials this year. We’ve gotten very busy with the clients who have signed up already. It doesn’t make sense for us to artificially stimulate extra demand for our services right now. Hope that makes sense.

We are exceptionally grateful for all of you who come around reading the blahg and putting your trust in us to help make your MBA dreams happen! You are all so accomplished and amazing. Thank you for bringing us on your journey to the next steps of success in your life.

We will see you on Monday, after the food coma has worn off!

Enjoy your break, BSers. And yes, work on essays if you are feeling motivated to do so, by all means! We’ll circle back with answers to any questions or inquiries that come up when the lights are back on again in the offices here in Snarkville.

Happy Holidays!

Trading up rarely works.

by EssaySnark 2 Comments

We’ve had to be Doom-And-Gloom Snark with a few BSers recently, only based on the realities of the admissions environment we’re in and the challenges of getting in with flaws on the profile. Sucks, but better to be straightforward so you know what you’re up against, right? That way, at least you have a chance to redirect efforts and either buckle down for another try at the GMAT, or to adjust strategy for school targets.

And then on the other end of the spectrum, we end up being Negative Snancy on some BSers who are all excited about their progress so far in Round 1. They got some adcoms to bite, and they are flying high on the endorphin rush of the interview invites, and they’re starting to clap their hands and dream even bigger for Round 2.

“Woo-hoo, I’m a hot commodity! I got a Booth invite and a Berkeley invite – I’m gonna go for Harvard in Round 2!!”

And then the ‘Snark comes along and pisses all over that parade.

Here’s the deal, Chipmunk:

Round 2 is a different calculus, and schools like Harvard and Wharton are practically in different universes.

We really don’t hear too often about applicants who do the less-competitive schools in the first round and then leapfrog off the backs of those admits into the upper tier of program in Round 2.

Sure, it must happen for some people; after all, H/S/W are admitting big numbers of folks in Round 2 and it’s not like all of those people sat on their hands entirely in Round 1. A large chunk of them must have also gotten in somewhere in Round 1.

Or, probably at least as common: A large chunk of them got REJECTED everywhere in Round 1, and that wake-up call led them to redoubling effort and putting in the work of introspection and strategy that’s needed for an admit to a top MBA program.

We also know that every year, Round 2 brings a bunch of reapplicants who, for whatever reason, sat out all of Round 1 and all their reapps go in at this stage. And some of them do make it.

Regardless. Our point today is only a caution:

If you’ve got your confidence up now based on progress to date in Round 1, then GREAT! It’s truly awesome that things are going well for you so far.

But, please do not count those admits before they are hatched. Do not assume ANYTHING in this process. An invite to interview and a fun day on campus do not an acceptance make. Most schools admit only around 50% of those that they interview, so clearly you’re in a very good position if you’ve gotten to that stage at least with one of your apps, but we can’t start the dance party until December, when you will know that you’re in.

Every season, we hear of some BSers who raked in three or four interviews, and then come December, then end up shortchanged, with literally no admits in hand. That’s not the typical experience of anyone who manages multiple interview invites, but it does on occasion occur.

If you’re feeling all aglow from the buzz of the interviews and feeling like an in-demand candidate, then that’s awesome, you deserve to be optimistic, since it’s no small feat to make it to that place. Competition is fierce and there are many others who’ve not yet managed to score even a single invite. So definitely feel proud!

But if you’re currently dreaming of trading in your MIT admit (that hasn’t happened yet, but you just know that it will) for one at Harvard in Round 2…. Well, we won’t tell you not to try, but we’ll also say, let’s see what happens in a month’s time when the decisions come out, and hopefully you end up with at least one big win, and then you’ll need to do some planning around when deposits are due versus when you’ll be hearing back from those Round 2 schools.

Trying to scale up? It just really hardly ever works. If you thought you could make it into Harvard why didn’t you try in the first round? BSers sometimes get a little too big for their britches after getting in to a good school in Round 1. Should you not even try? No, of course not. But don’t let the bird in hand get away, either.

($) “How many apps should I be doing?” – Round 2 Edition

by EssaySnark

A common trait of procrastinators is, they’re optimists. In fact, it’s one theory behind why certain people are chronically late; they’re just overly optimistic on how long it will take them to get where they need to go. It’s not that they’re bad people. They just have trouble dealing with reality, in this one certain…

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Heads-up on availability here in Snarkville for the holidays

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Hello active BSer clients! Team EssaySnark is going to get a well-deserved full holiday break for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, starting around 5pm Eastern time on Tuesday.

This has been an especially hectic admissions season for a variety of reasons and we’re giving some true days off for all involved in the operations.

As has been posted in My SnarkCenter, active clients will need to get their materials in pronto if you want feedback before the break, otherwise we’ll be picking up on the snarkness tasks again after the return from the holiday on Monday. There will be occasional coverage of support questions throughout but please be patient if responses are slower than normal.

Thank you and we hope you too have opportunity to fully disconnect and unwind at this time!

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

by EssaySnark - Discusses Leave a Comment

Who can argue with the validity of that statement?

The thing is, anybody who’s ever said that to us did not make it into Harvard.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: We don’t think a “throw it at the wall and see what will stick” strategy will work out for you.

Why?

Because it’s not a strategy.

Despite what you may have heard from a wide range of so-called admissions consultants, applying to business school is not a numbers game.

We know plenty of people toss out an app to HBS even if they don’t believe it will work out for them. The whole “can’t win if you don’t play” mentality. But doesn’t that seem like a waste of time and energy?

Even more to the point: Doesn’t that actually represent a bald admission that you have no clue what Harvard is looking for?

We acknowledge, this whole getting-in thing is murky at best. Most people DON’T know what Harvard is looking for.

But if you spend some time here on the blahg (and if you pick up our Harvard MBA admissions guide) then you will KNOW what Harvard is looking for.

We write about it all the time.

Same with Stanford. Our Stanford MBA application guide in particular goes into great detail on how the Stanford admissions team approaches their process of selecting their students.

Read through the resources available here and educate yourself.

Pick the schools that are the right match to you and your goals – and your profile.

The process of developing a strong pitch takes time. That’s why you will constantly hear the drumbeat of “Get started essays NOW!” here on the EssaySnark blahg. You may be tempted to pick up your essay-writing project with your #1 school. After all, you really want to go to Harvard, why not dive in with that app, even if you know your profile may not be quite up to snuff for what Harvard standards show?

If you tackle those Harvard essays first, then perhaps it’s not a wasted exercise, even if you don’t get in, because it’ll get you into essay-writing mode earlier, and your later essays for other schools are likely to be much stronger. So there could be some value to applying to Harvard, if only because it makes you get up off your duff and start working.

But if you’re applying to Harvard just because of the idea that somebody’s gonna get in and maybe it’ll be me? and you don’t really KNOW if you have a true shot or not… well, we’ve gotta question that. (BTW, our Comprehensive Profile Review is very helpful in offering an objective view into your situation in that regard, or if you’re finished with your essays, our Sanity Check can let you know whether to click that Submit button or not – yes, we’re even doing those over this holiday weekend.)

Please don’t misunderstand, Brave Supplicant. We’re not saying to not go for your dreams. But the dream of Harvard is best made into reality when you know the landscape and understand the realities and have an honest assessment of your chances.

It’s also the best way to temper expectations and avoid massive disappointment.

Related to that: Here’s one from the ‘snarchives on how many apps you should plan for if you want to be more strategic on all of this.

To sum up:

Yes, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. But you also miss a high percent of the shots that you don’t train for.

Getting into HBS requires training. It’s not about luck.

Essays are not a writing test. They’re a thinking test.

by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

So much can be learned from an essay.

You may think it’s just a mechanical exercise that you have to get through, but honestly, an astute reader can glean so much about you from reading a simple essay.

Not only does presentation and professionalism matter, but what you say – and what you DON’T say – matter just as much.

What might matter most of all is how you organize your thoughts and express your ideas. You have to have a reasonable grasp of the English language to do a good job with this (which hopefully your college education gave you). Fancy writing is not the key. What will tilt your chances towards admissions success is how you construct your thoughts and lay them out for the reader – in specific response to exactly what was asked.

The problem of applicants not answering the question is so pervasive that it’s often the first thing you hear admissions people lament when they’re asked for application tips.

How to get into bschool?

Answer the question.

So that’s first. Be direct, and answer it quickly – usually in the first paragraph is best.

Then, the rest of what you construct needs to support that answer. An essay is presenting a position and backing it up. It doesn’t matter if that “position” is a statement of your short-term career goals, or if it’s your most significant achievement. In all cases, the purpose of an essay is to communicate something specific about you with enough evidence that the reader can go along with it. You’re taking a stand. You’re saying, in response to the question, “X is true for me, and here’s why.”

It’s also your duty to the reader to be consistent, and to manage expectations.

What we mean by that is, if you start the essay making a particular claim or statement, or including certain facts, then the reader is expecting you to follow through with that.

And, they’re expecting you to operate within the standard conventions of an application to a top business school.

We had a BSer submit an essay to us recently – we’re going to change the details here but yet use the same story to illustrate what happened. This person was trying to convey “fit” to the school and they introduced it by saying (this part is fictionalized) “Community.” OK great, that’s a pretty common topic for bschool-world. Community. We know what that means.

But then, the headliner statement in this section about “Community” was about the TV show (which EssaySnark has not seen but we’ve heard of it).

OK fine, we can make that leap with you, though we’re wondering why you as the writer are asking us to do so.

But THEN, the real problem hits when the actual story they presented had nothing to do with “community” – neither the idea relevant to the MBA cultural experience, nor the TV show. They actually presented a story about having to confront a colleague at work when a project wasn’t going well.

So, that story that we got could very well work in an MBA essay. In a vacuum, it was an appropriate topic to be presenting in an app.

The problem is, it had nothing to do with what the writer said the essay would be about. The BSer was being too cute with the presentation. It was a clear abuse of the flexibility of the question that the adcom had asked. It was a case of style over substance – and style ALWAYS loses to substance in this battle for getting in. (And unfortunately here the “style” was as jarring as seeing the old dude with the plaid shorts and white knee-high socks with sandals; in another context, the individual elements could work, but all put together, just, no.)

What you’re doing with your MBA admissions essays (or trying to do) is to prove to the adcom that you can think. That you can take a vague assignment and wrestle it to the ground and come up with a solution. That you can deal with ambiguity and come out a winner.

You know that thing called the case method?

That’s when you take in all this data and spit out a cohesive opinion.

It’s kinda like what you need to do when writing essays.

It’s true. The Harvard Admissions folks say it all the time. Getting into bschool is not an essay-writing contest.

But until they invent something better, the essay is what we got.

And writing is one of the hallmarks of being human. It’s one of the things that separates us as a species. It reflects our ability to think.

If you write it well, your essay will let you show that you can do that.

($) The very best messaging for handling an issue with low GPA

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One of the most common statements that MBA admissions committees hear from applicants who have rocky academics is, “My GPA does not reflect my ability.” We have cautioned against this before as not quite the ideal.

So then, what is?


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Critical tip on TONE for optional essay!
 
 

 
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Mental health and top universities

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UPDATE: And then of course we have the tragic news this morning of another shooting in the U.S., this time on the campus of the University of Virginia…
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In the long-ago past here on the blahg, we routinely cautioned candidates to be careful of overdisclosing personal information in their MBA applications. This was a time when stigma against mental health diagnoses was very high in American society, and talking too much about issues of depression, anxiety, or other such afflictions could make an admissions committee take pause.

More recently, we’ve softened that stance and have been able to advise applicants that they can disclose the truth of their situation transparently in their apps, because the admissions teams have a more human understanding of the realities of stress and will not overreact to such disclosures any more.

Well, we’re now not so sure what the right answer is.

We had thought that, given the extreme challenges that all of us have gone through with nearly three years of a pandemic and economic hardships and probable recession and seemingly out-of-control inflation (not to mention the marching grim realities of global warming and the ongoing wars in so many parts of the world) that it would be fine to talk about mental health issues in an application, because the schools are well aware of what students frequently go through, and they get it. Stuff is hard. People struggle. We shouldn’t be holding the struggle against anyone.

Not so fast.

Check out this damning article by the Washington Post on how Yale has handled student distress (trigger warning: significant discussions of mental health crises including suicidality and loss of life from suicide). The PDF posted here in case you can’t get past the paywall.

We’re appalled at the process that Yale requires students in distress to go through in order to be “reinstated’ including the additional essay, letters of recommendation, and classes taken elsewhere. This is outrageous.

Given the extreme measures that they are apparently taking to protect their brand (for what else could it be?? they clearly don’t want the negative publicity of another student suicide on their hands) then we have to issue caution to all of you applying to MBA programs, at Yale SOM or anywhere else.

If this is how the school treats current students who are suffering, it seems highly likely that admissions teams are going to be reluctant to admit a candidate who shares prior or existing mental health struggles in their application.

Obviously the schools do admit folks who disclose mental health challenges to their MBA programs; we’ve had many clients share such struggles in their applications, and go on to be admitted.

However, we are issuing caution here to all of you, to consider this strategy carefully, rather than our more recent advice that such stories can be powerful parts of an app strategy.

Sorry to be delivering this change of recommendation from Snarkville. It goes against all that we believe in, in advising that applicants be transparent, honest, and authentic in their applications. However, apparently the schools don’t really want the liability, which is causing us to change our tune to you all.

($) Trying this year anyway – even with holes.

by EssaySnark

Some of you BSers have been reading the posts around here recently and it’s gotten you agitated. You’re chomping at the bit because you want to apply to bschool NOW. You took the GMAT or GRE. You’ve got your transcripts in hand (who cares that they don’t reflect super academic excellence?). You HATE your job…

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($) Writing tip from the trenches: “When something feels forced…”

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Writing MBA essays is haaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrdddddddd.

It’s highly unlikely that you’ve ever done this type of writing before.

After an extended back-and-forth exchange with a BSer about the way they were coming across — tone, content, all of the things — they gave us this short comment:

I’m learning through this process that when something feels forced, it’s not good. I’ll just keep going along the path that feels right and trust that it will serve me well, no matter the outcome.

 

And to that we say: YES!!

Here’s a post from the ‘snarchives going into greater depth on this exact idea (which is well worth reading).

We thought it might be interesting to see some real-live feedback offered to a BSer in the throes of their content-strategy-development process:


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Just a quick glimpse of the ‘Snark in action…
 
 

 
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