“failure” essays

($) When you’re asked to identify a weakness

September 16, 2022 by EssaySnark

A perennial angle on many schools’ MBA essay questions is an angle asking about strengths and weaknesses. That typically comes up not as a direct question, but instead they ask you to present a challenging experience or your key leadership story or maybe your biggest failure and then discuss what you learned from it. Some...

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Super Secret SnarkStrategy: How to write a multidimensional essay

August 5, 2022 by EssaySnark

The most sophisticated essays are ones where the reader reveals information about herself through the way she tells a story. Here’s an example: In a “mistake” essay, the Brave Supplicant is trying to explain to the reader how she screwed up on a project, and she inserts the line “One reason that I was rushed...

We were gonna talk about getting into Columbia today but

September 13, 2019 by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

…getting a gift like this dropped from the heavens cannot be passed up. You probably did not watch the Democratic debates last night but apparently there was…. an essay question asked of the candidates? A classic format for many top schools is to ask you to talk about a significant challenge and what you learned […]

($) “Lessons learned” in MBA essays

September 26, 2018 by EssaySnark - Discusses Columbia Leave a Comment

Columbia has an essay this year that asks you to discuss a team failure, and then says: “If given a second chance, what would you do differently?” That’s basically a different form of a “lessons learned” kind of question — and as we’ve written before, “lessons learned” are difficult to handle in an MBA essay. […]

($) Columbia’s MBA essay 3 – “team failure”

September 10, 2018 by EssaySnark - Discusses Columbia Leave a Comment

This essay is proving challenging for many people! Please provide an example of a team failure of which you have been a part. If given a second chance, what would you do differently? (250 words) We mention a variety of high level tips on the Columbia MBA Essays page and our Columbia SnarkStrategies Guide goes […]

($) How not to confuse your adcom reader

September 19, 2017 by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

Writing essays is hard. There are many common mistakes that pretty much everyone makes — which we cover all the time here on the blahg, but we know that some of our posts are fairly far back in the snarchive at this point and unless you’re a total obsessive, you probably won’t read the half […]

($) Look back over your life

September 1, 2017 by EssaySnark - Discusses Kellogg, Dartmouth Tuck Leave a Comment

Writing essays may be akin to navel-gazing. You need to understand who you are and where you’ve come from. One of the most difficult parts of writing many essays is coming up with the “lessons learned” out of a story. Schools like Tuck and Kellogg specifically ask you what you learned from an experience. It’s […]

($) Lessons learned in essays: “This experience taught me…”

August 3, 2016 by EssaySnark - Discusses Dartmouth Tuck, Yale SOM

Ah those well-meaning BSers. They’re always trying to say the right thing in their essays. Here’s a snippet of an essay that we get all the time: When I started being a better listener, and not being so assertive with my opinions, I started realizing that my teammates were guided by different values and experiences....

($) Darden’s “most important professional feedback” essay

December 1, 2015 by EssaySnark - Discusses Darden

Oh hey. Did you notice that it’s December? How did THAT happen? Since many of you are (or should be!) gearing up to write some essays, we’re gearing up to spend more time on details of specific schools. We did Booth last week (simple advice for handling their PPT and is it OK to do...

($) essay critique/recommendations: The most important piece of constructive feedback…

June 22, 2015 by EssaySnark

Many top MBA programs ask your recommenders to discuss a time when they had to give you feedback. The single Darden essay this year is asking YOU to discuss this. This is not a trivial question. As you think about who to ask to do your recommendations this year, you should carefully consider how your...