First: This is not a subpost! Please don’t read this and think that it’s directed to you. We don’t want to trigger shame in Brave Supplicants or make you think you’re doing it wrong with how you’re trying to present yourself, but this is an important topic — because the way you write determines how you will come across in your essays.
There’s a fine line between being boastful, and demonstrating proficiency, confidence, expertise, and achievement. Essays require a particular kind of writing, where you’re showing yourself to be worthy of consideration for a top-tier school with high standards, while also coming across as the kind of person that people actually want to be around. It’s really really easy to slip onto the wrong side of that slope.
Sometimes this issue is cultural — and it can be so confusing! The current occupant of the White House brags about his accomplishments (even when there is no accomplishment) and everything is inflated. When you see that as supposedly representative of “leadership” in America, then you might think that Americans like people who spew falsehoods and inflate their value (literally and figuratively) and attempt to distort reality.
That is really not what you want to be doing in your MBA essays.
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Of course, that’s what we’re here for — to prevent the pomposity from overflowing thy cup and into the lap of the reader.
These posts are also related to this important issue of tone and presentation:
Tell us what you think.