>We got a couple emails asking for the same thing recently, one of which went like this:
I am an Indian IT guy and considering the huge competition from this sector , could you please give me a few pointers on how i could distinguish myself from the rest . Because with so many applicants , most of the tricks in the book must have already been applied by one or the other applicant .
Do you have links to essays that would be closer to what an ideal essay would be like.
Sorry, but no. We don’t do that. It would be irresponsible of us and it would not help you. And also: Don’t you see the flaw in your reasoning?
You don’t want to use the “tricks” that you’ve heard of elsewhere because they’ve been done before.
But you want to see an “ideal essay” because… ?
Don’t you think that whatever we might publish as “ideal” would be instantly copied and reused and in other ways appropriated by dozens of other desperate folk?
(Oh wait. You wanted us to tell JUST YOU what an ideal essay looks like. You want pointers from us that we’ve NEVER GIVEN to anyone else. Hm.)
The reason we don’t post samples of “ideal” essays is for the same reason you cite: they would be “applied” (to use a polite word) by applicants looking for a leg up.
We’ve heard admissions directors complain that whenever they release new questions, a good portion of the essays they get are nearly identical, because inevitably, some “admissions consultant” (yes that’s in quotes for a reason) posts some “trick” about the essay or tells people how to answer it, and everyone does that. And it’s not what the schools wanted to see anyway. (In an interview recently, Stephanie Fujii at Haas said that they used to have a question asking something like, “If you could have lunch with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?” and they got all these essays that said “I would want to have lunch with the person that I will be in 25 years.” Ugh.) This year we saw a published article from some “consultant” telling all Columbia applicants not to choose the “outrageous business plan” essay question. Say wha?? Why the h3ll would the school ask the question if they didn’t want people to answer it!?? This is so misguided it makes our head spin.
Brave Supplicant, we are absolutely not going to do anything that would hurt you like this. EssaySnark would never want the material we present here to be a cause for people NOT getting into bschool!
Yet that’s what would happen.
Us providing “good” essays would be just too tempting.*
Now probably, anyone who is the type that would copy or reuse a sample essay probably won’t get in anyway, regardless of whether EssaySnark provides samples or not; that type of Brave Supplicant is not brave, they’re lazy, and they’ll probably make a gazillion other mistakes that people make when they’re not thinking for themselves.
But the whole philosophy of this-here blahg is the “teach ’em to fish” strategy. This is what we do:
- Talk about common mistakes and gotchas
- Dissect actual essays to see how others make those mistakes
- Talk about how a good essay is structured (we do a lot of this in the SnarkStrategies Guides)
- Talk about what needs to go into specific essay types
- Give resources for further self-instruction
And of course with the 30 Days of Essays Guided Tour, we have been offering day-by-day assignments and writing exercises to help Brave Supplicants identify their theme and create their own message.
We are certain that this was a well-meaning request. We hope the sender of this message now understands the issues with it and why we are declining.
If we were to post someone else’s “ideal” essay, it would be in one of these categories:
- An essay that EssaySnark thinks is good but has yet to go through the review cycle of the target school, and thus we don’t know if it’s really good since the verdict from the one that matters — the adcom — has yet to be rendered. And it would be unfair to the Brave Supplicant who wrote it because if the adcom gets multiple essays that look suspiciously similar, who can tell which was the original? If we’re in the midst of a current application cycle, well that would just suck.
- An essay that has gotten an interview, or better yet, an offer of admission for the author — yet we don’t know if it was because of the fab essay, or some part of the profile that was overwhelming awesome, or maybe the applicant was the daughter of the best friend of the University president. In this case, the original author would be safely on the other side of this nasty process and so would theoretically not be penalized in any way… except if the adcom saw a suspiciously-similar essay come in later that season, it could still raise eyebrows about the original author.
- An essay that EssaySnark ourself wrote to try and create an example of an “ideal” essay for our needy audience — but which has never gone through any validation of being actually accepted or rejected (besides, EssaySnark already wrote essays that were accepted — we’ve already been admitted to bschool — why in heck would we want to go through THAT again??). What good would this do for anyone? This doesn’t get you any closer to the goal of learning to think for yourself. And it sounds like work for us. Ick.
It’s like the poor souls trying to beat the GMAT verbal or TOEFL by memorizing a bunch of rules about English. You’re not gonna win that way. Best case, maybe you get a decent score on a test, but you still flail on the AWA, and your application essays are lousy, since you don’t understand the way the language actually works.
Everyone is unique. There is no one way to write an essay. There is no such thing as an “ideal” with this. By publishing what EssaySnark calls an “ideal essay” we would be doing everyone a disservice. We would be stiffling creativity. We would NOT be helping you better express yourself.
We offer a gazillion resources that are designed to steer you in the right direction, like those essay guides, and the 30 Days dealio, and our daily postings (and occasional rant). What we WILL do is review YOUR essays to see how they shape up against the elements of what make for a good essay which we are constantly trying to espouse here on the blahg.
If this Brave Supplicant hasn’t gotten totally PO’ed at this here ‘Snark by now, then he is welcome to send along an essay for a free review and posting, and we’ll see what we think.
*And sorry, we also don’t give one individual person something that we would not publish to the world. And we most definitely don’t do it for free, in response to a private request for same. Sheesh.
Tim says
This reminds me of an interview I read (maybe linked from ES) where an AdCom member at Stanford explained why he doesn't give out specific 'tips.' He said something along the lines of (paraphrasing) "In an interview I gave last year, I mentioned that Stanford is looking for that person who as a kid stayed up late to read a book with a flashlight under the covers." He went on to say that in the next cycle, they got a boatload of apps from people who "loved to stay up late and read books under the covers" as a kid.
While it would be easier to copy, having to think on your own allows YOUR voice, as opposed to a canned generic voice, to come through in the essays. Hopefully this gives the AdCom a better idea of who you are.
Anonymous says
Thanks Essaysnark. I hope i am able to send in an essay in time so that i can get your opinion on the same.I wish i were subscribed to your 30 day essay program . It sounds fabulous . I am the same guy who had put in the request for an ideal essay
essaysnark says
@Tim, don't think we posted that story but we know the one you're talking about – though it was a female adcom member of an undergrad program (in her story, she'd mentioned that "stay up all night" thing to a group of parents whose kids were applying – parents are probably the worst offenders re: "borrowing" stuff like this!).
@same guy – we are very loosely kicking around this idea of doing 30 Days again in December for those who missed the boat the first time… It's not ideally suited for a December project since it's a more leisurely pace, and most people get frantic with multiple schools during December… but we shall see. No matter what, we'll be on the lookout for an essay from you for the freebie review (tho if it's for ISB, you'd better hustle!).
ccatcher says
I want to see a humorous essay. Just to see how people pull that off.
essaysnark says
LOL ccatcher, we laugh at essays all the time!!!
Oh, that's not what you meant? 😉
astronomerpc says
Baha. I'd be interested in writing a humorous essay for you to critique for the betterment of all Supplicants, brave or otherwise… just for funsies. Give me a prompt!
Tim says
Well apparently I got all the details wrong re: the staying up all night story (too much research of b-schools jumbled up in my brain I guess) but at least the idea of the story was (sort of) the same!
essaysnark says
Uh… there's like a gazillion essay prompts available, astronomerpc – but who in heck would want to write an essay *for fun*?? We're surely not interested in reviewing one that's not intended for actual submission. Reviewing essays is *work*. We're not gonna do it just as some exercise. Sorry.
@Tim – regardless, it's totally impressive that you've done so much research that you've got multiple stories like this to get jumbled in your brain!!! And your point about letting your own voice come through for the adcom is spot-on.
astronomerpc says
Reviewing most essays is certainly a lot of work. But mine would just be a pleasure.
Ha! Just kidding. But I do wonder when/if humor is appropriate in bschool essays.
Anonymous says
On a second thought , EssaySnark I wasnt looking for a template to copy off . What i had in mind was to get the gist of how the specifics should fall in place . In other worlds , i was looking for something that would answer questions raised by ccatcher on another thread . Questions like : a summary of the career brief and then a transition to plans for the future . I havent applied before and havent written essays that would assume so much importance
essaysnark says
@astronomerpc, humor is tricky to pull off in essays; it often backfires. It's not inappropriate, it's just not always interpreted as intended. Remember, the reader does not know you – and, she's probably not expecting "funny" in an essay – so she may not get it. And that would be bad.
@same guy – in other worlds, we'd love to be able to give you that! but in this world, alas, we cannot. But there are lots of articles on this-here site in this-here world that should help! Start with the one linked in the article above as a good beginning.
Manoj says
i,
I would like to ask one thing here regarding Bolton's comment about admissions consultants. He says in an interview that the use of an admissions consultant is viewed on a candidate by candidate basis. I'm just wondering how adcoms come to know whether or not a candidate uses the help of an admissions consultant. Or am I being thick-headed here in that Duh! adcoms know because they've been doing this for years
Anonymous says
LOL "In other worlds " ; There was no way to edit the Typo
essaysnark says
@Manoj — in that interview, Derrick Bolton isn't saying that they EVALUATE use of an admissions consultant on a candidate by candidate basis — he's saying that whether use of an admissions consultant helps or hurts the candidate is an individual thing. Adcoms do know that admissions consulting is common; in fact, many of the admissions directors have started being much more open with consultants through AIGAC and doing chats and interviews with them, since they appreciate the value that a (good) consultant can add to the process, in helping the candidate select appropriate schools and in helping them present a strong message. Stanford has been a holdout in being anti-consultant, but even they have been changing their tune lately and giving some consultants the benefit of the doubt, as Derrick is doing in that recent interview.
But to answer your question: Sometimes schools can tell when a consultant was used because the candidate is sloppy and leaves revision marks on in essays (we've seen it happen!). Sometimes the AWA score is very low and the essays are too good to match it, so the school might suspect a consultant was used. Some consultants give formulaic advice, and the schools can detect the patterns. We've never yet seen a school ask if a consultant was used, but they certainly could do so. All the schools know that a growing percentage of candidates use consultants; it used to be estimated at 15% but EssaySnark is guessing it's much higher now.
To answer your REAL question: If you use an ETHICAL and EXPERIENCED admissions consultant then you have no problem.
essaysnark says
@Dan V – it's funny – the best writers have coaches, editors of multiple kinds, even writing partners — yet there's this weird stigma against getting an outside view into one's bschool apps. Yet the stakes are so high!! It's at least as hard to get into bschool as it is to get published (we're guessing… we don't have numbers to back us up on this but darn it, it IS hard to get into bschool!). And yes, the phases you went through and the emotional rollercoaster is pretty standard – they should put big disclaimers on the front page of every bschool website that says as much!!!
Here's to your success in this process and we can't wait to hear when you get the word. 🙂