As a follow-on to the recent “What are my chances??!?” post, we thought we’d mention a few ways you can actually get started on your apps now, even though you can’t really REALLY get started for many more months. But for those of you who are the planning-ahead types, who want to make this MBA thing happen this year, we’ve got some services we’ll quickly introduce you to, in case you’re rarin’ to go.
First is a what not to do:
Regardless of how motivated you may feel, you don’t want to start writing actual essays until the school has released its essays. Sure, you can take a look at the essays that the school used last season, but many schools change their questions each year, so actually starting to write them now will only end up being wasted effort in most cases. Plus, if you’ve just showed up in Snarkville recently, you won’t know what you’re doing when it comes to writing good essays; we haven’t been in “blahg about essays” mode since December. You’d need to be digging into the ‘snarchives to be understanding those skills. Writing essays without knowing how to write essays is not going to get you any closer to where you need to be when it comes time to actually writing some essays. If you have too much energy and time on your hands and you don’t know what else to do with yourself and you’re an odd bird who feels like it would be fun, then sure, type out some drafts — but don’t get attached to them. They’re likely to be off target six ways to Sunday, and anyway, you have all spring and summer to further improve your profile and build out more goodness that might end up being even better stories to be using. The way you think of answering an essay question in March is highly unlikely to be the way you end up answering that question effectively in July.
So when will the schools release essays for the Class of 2026? Columbia and Harvard will more likely than not be first out of the gate with essay questions and app info sometime in May, with most other schools popping questions in June, and one or two laggards the first week of July. You have some time before any of that really gets started.
Now before we wrap this post, we need to be super duper 100% clear on the advice that we’re offering:
Just because we said it’s too early to start writing essays now does not mean that you should not be planning to write essays early!
What we mean by that is, as soon as essay questions come out, start working on them.
The #1 mistake we see is BSers not giving the essays enough time. No, you don’t have to begin yet, but there will come a time when you do have to begin — and that time will be sooner than you may think! The end of June or early July is the latest that you should be starting. (Don’t worry, we’ll be issuing plenty of reminders as the weeks go by!)
Vucla says
Couldn’t agree more with the value of getting started early. I started working on essays with the help of school-specific guides in late summer and started the Essay Decimator process a couple weeks before round 1. That wasn’t nearly enough time to take full advantage of the service – this stuff call for serious reflection and introspection, which isn’t something you can rush. Completing the foundations work ahead of time will get you more than halfway there. If you can develop your career goals and generate a menu of accomplishments to pull from, essay writing will be way less painful.
The process is also way less painful when you leave yourself more time to digest the feedback. I learned that I need at least 24 hours after writing to really be ready to hear feedback on something as personal as essays. Doesn’t matter if it’s friends, families, or EssaySnark themselves, if I’m still too close to it I’m going to be sensitive. If it’s a few days later, it’s much easier to hear and see that what I’ve written is an unfocused mess.
essaysnark says
So much wisdom here! Yes! Spoken like one who has traveled far.
We may be linking back to this to newcomers who are in the flailing state, in the August-ish timeframe. 🙂
Hopefully many here today will see this and recognize the value of your advice! Now, when there is still plenty of time. It may simply be one of those things, though; until we go through it, we just go “pshaw, can’t be THAT bad” and move on. But perhaps hearing it from you instead of from the ‘Snark will make a dent!!
Vucla says
Ha, you’re probably right that everyone just has to go through it and discover for themselves. Would I have listened to this advice if I read it at this time last year? Mmmm, probably not 🙂