We saw a lot of this happen even before our series of posts on telling stories in your MBA essays, but unfortunately it’s gotten worse.
We need to state this for the record:
DEVELOPING MBA ESSAYS IS NOT A CREATIVE-WRITING ENDEAVOR.
Since most of you have no experience with creative writing, that should be good news!
However, this post is directed more at those of you who believe yourselves to be good writers.
Writing a (good) business school admissions essay is unlike any writing you’ve done before (probably).
If in your spare time you currently dabble in poetry, or short stories, or you’ve got the Great American Novel in the works – awesome! That little tidbit might even be worth mentioning somewhere in your apps. That’s unique – especially if you’ve been published (even if it was for something small).
But that type of writing does not belong in your essays.
If at work you write research reports, or you’ve contributed to some type of peer-reviewed publication, or you develop sales proposals or marketing collateral – great! That totally should be featured on your resume. All of that is going to be valuable for your adcom reader to know about.
But that type of writing does not belong in your essays.
(Especially the breathlessly hyped-up marketing shtick that we often see.)
Bschool essays need to be fact based. They need to focus on what you did in a certain situation, or what you want to do in the future with your goals.
Your objective is not to show the reader that you are a fabulous writer.
You should not be trotting out fancy words and super long, convoluted sentences as a way to sound smart.
Most people don’t do this intentionally – but what happens is, you open up Word and you’re staring at the screen and trying to figure out what to say, and you look at the essay prompt, and you type out one tentative sentence of what you think the answer should be… and you type out another… and then pretty soon you’re in full-on Essay Writing Mode, and without even realizing it, you’ve turned into this pretentious wanna-be poseur person where every word you choose is made of marshmallow and Cool-Whip. As in, fluff, and lots of it.
It’s not your fault. Most schools don’t teach how to put together a thought on the page. It’s the trap of the Smart Kid, and all of you BSers are smart. This stuff is hard.
The main cause of this is not necessarily a lack of writing ability – it’s a lack of THINKING ability. And often that means a lack of focus. And, if you consider yourself “A Writer”, well, in our experience, this process is going to be even more difficult for you. Your habits of creativity may get in the way. You may sabotage yourself quite severely.
In order to have an essay with substance, you need to know what the answer to the question is BEFORE you start writing. The words don’t matter; the IDEAS do. If you start writing without knowing what you’re going to say, then your draft is going to wander off into the woods and you will end up getting lost like Hansel and Gretl – and you won’t even know it, because you’ll be dropping those fancy words like bread crumbs along the way, thinking you’re safe. Because you can write!
This is the kind of thing we can warn you about, but most people are unable to diagnose this ailment in their own work. You are too close to it; you would never try to write mind-numbingly ridiculousness unto the page. It just happens. And once it’s happened, well… that draft is DONE. Why would you want to rip it apart? It’s the right length, it looks all bright and shiny, sitting there on the screen smiling at you without any of Word’s red squiggly lines announcing a problem – it must be great!
Nobody ever sends in drafts for us to review knowing that they suck (OK, every now and then people do … sometimes for a halfway decent reason, typically not). When someone sends over a draft they believe that it’s done. Most people, their first time out with this process, probably even expect us to come back telling them how good their essays are.
Nope. Hardly ever happens. Even with those who are “good” writers (or maybe especially not for those).
This is a different type of writing. It can be a shock to get back a reviewed essay from us, with how ripped-to-shreds it typically is. But that’s what happens for most people. From there, most people are able to reflect on the feedback and look back at the essay question, and take a deep breath (and maybe some gummi bears) and dive in again. And more often than not, the second drafts we see are kinda good. It’s a process.
But don’t assume that just because your friends think your essays are really good, that they actually are.
And if YOU think the drafts you’ve come up with are really good…. well, we certainly hope that you’re right!!!!
Tell us what you think.