We run screaming from Frankenstein

The application process is overwhelming.

But you knew that.

You sort of figure out why you want an MBA, and then you start your research… and you are… >OVERWHELMED<–  There are so many decisions to make just to figure out what schools might be a match, which might help you reach your laudable and ambitious goals. Big city or tucked-away place? Right coast or left coast? Or, Europe? India? Hong Kong? Big huge cohort or tiny intimate class? Looking at my stats, do I even qualify for these top-of-the-charts programs?

So you pick apart all that, and you get excited. Inspired, even. You’ve got a list, and you’ve got a I-gotta-go-there school. You’re ready to begin.

Now what?

Those damn applications sure got a lot of stuff to them.

Believe it or not, here’s where some of the best value of admissions consulting can come in. Sure, you can tackle all this on your own, as we know many of you Brave Supplicants are doing. Or, sure, not to discount the other elements of the process, there’s tremendous value of getting personalized, “professional” advice on choice of schools (notice the quotes — it’s easy to call oneself a “professional” in this industry but all too often EssaySnark sees totally whacked advice being bandied about by such so-called “professionals” so as with all things, caveat emptor).

In our experience though, what many people value more than anything perhaps, and what they didn’t even realize they needed help with before they decided to go with admissions consulting, is just the basic sanity stick which a good admissions consultant can use to whack you upside the head guide you expertly through the application process.

This comes in many forms. The very first school’s app is the hardest since you don’t know where to begin. But voila! A good adm cons (and no hopefully they are not helping you “con” the “adcom” but they are admissions consultants) can take you by the hand and say Here! Do this! (usually that’s something to do with defining career goals), and Here! Do this! (usually that’s something to do with identifying the stories you’re going to be presenting to the school) and Here! Do this! (usually that means rewriting a gazillion times so that you’re actually COMMUNICATING something of VALUE in that damn essay). And they probably said Here! Do this! at the very beginning, to steer you in the right direction a la recommenders (who to choose/what they should say/what’s the appropriate level of interaction from you to them/etc.).

What so often happens when we start working with a client (even, alas, after having mapped out a precise set of directions for said client to follow, which does NOT include this step) is that we get a first draft of whatever first essay and it’s a globoluous* nightmare.

We then carefully and conscientiously redirect this obviously confused and –>OVERWHELMED<– client back to the reality of word limits and communicating in plain, everyday English. (Basically, we tell them to start over.)

What would happen to this person in the “real world” without that helpful advice? This person would probably plow straight ahead with that globoluous nightmare of a draft, trying to tweak and fritter and polish and pare it to death… and then have a friend or a mom read it and do some more tinkering… and then pull out some hair over the fact that it’s STILL twice as long as the school is asking for… and use a thesaurus to find a better more impressive million dollar word to use in the opening… and then find a fancy-sounding quote to slap at the top of it to sound all leaderly-like… and then submit the Frankenstein monster of a document. And it’s just a mess. And not a pretty little one. And then there are tears when the answer comes back.

It’s not that this person doesn’t know how to think. It’s not even that they don’t know how to write (actually, those of our clients who consider themselves “good writers” god forbid are often the worst offenders in this category). Usually it’s that they don’t know how to WRITE AN ESSAY which really comes down to THINKING THROUGH A STRUCTURE and taking things STEP BY STEP in a LOGICAL PROGRESSION (both with the thoughts you put down on paper to create your argument for the reader, as well as the actual process of generating said thoughts to put down on said paper — logical progression is our friend).

A good adm cons can be a life saver in this regard.

They have a sanity stick.

They can tell you what to do.

Hopefully you will listen.

EssaySnark loves it when our clients do that (we wish all of our clients would do that!).

The adm cons’s sanity stick is used for other things too. (“Are you sure you REALLY want to say that in this essay?!?“) which is a topic for another time.

You can do this on your own even if you don’t have a sanity stick but as Kenny said: You gotta know when to walk away, know when to run… Sometimes the best way to win is to surrender and start again.

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* “globoluous” in case you are unfamiliar with this term means “a fabujous-like glob” except that globs are not fabujous and fabujous is not a word.