We’re resuscitating a post from the ‘snarchives today because it’s illustrative of something tangible that you can DO RIGHT NOW to begin working on your Round 1 MBA applications. The references are to some events in the culture that seemed to have occurred a lifetime ago, but only happened in the past five years. If […]
Continue reading...Proofread, people. (Like, with your own eyes and brain.)
We keep seeing really silly typos. Like, really silly ones. We’re too busy reading essays right now to go into detail but just let this serve as a warning: Spellcheck is not good enough! In fact, it’s even worse than that, people. Listen up: SPELLCHECK IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! Even that is not fully the […]
Continue reading...“I will exploit this opportunity to go on to build greater success.”
That sentence sounds innocuous enough, doesn’t it? At risk of turning into the hypersensitive language police, we have to offer a caution on it. Words like “exploit” or “dominate” or another word like “ammunition” are commonly used in the business world. “We’re going to exploit this market opportunity to dominate the competition.” Or: “We’ve got […]
Continue reading...($) This may be the most meaningful advice that we can offer for anyone trying to write powerful essays.
Yeah that’s a click-baity headline, and we’ve probably promised something similar in gobs of other posts in the past. But really, this one is important! Our advice is to… Premium content starts here… ———– ———– Premium content ends. Ha! Apparently there’s a whole opus on these most-important posts from The […]
Continue reading...($) Job titles can be their own form of jargon!
More and more admissions teams are becoming more and more directive in how they present information and guidance to applicants like you, and more and more we’re seeing them be quite explicit on something important: NO JARGON IN ESSAYS AND APPS We say this so many times here on the blahg but it’s worth repeating […]
Continue reading...($) What happens when you don’t answer the question
We have a bunch of essay critique posts in the ‘snarchive like this on Harvard essay where the BSer began by telling a story. That person executed fairly well, but as we discussed in some detail recently with this related post on stories and the MBA essay, our strong recommendation is that most (all?) bschool...
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($) Yet another “be specific!” post
When you’re writing about career goals especially, but also when answering other MBA essay questions too, it’s almost always best to go more specific than you have been doing. We can say that without even seeing any drafts you’ve written because hardly anyone goes specific — like, at all. Premium content starts here… ———– […]
Continue reading...Watch for throat-clearers (and apparently wan intensifiers? whatever they are?)
If you look for it, writing help is available everywhere. Just read sentences. Consume written material, especially material that’s been professionally edited. (Note: The EssaySnark blahg is not in the category! The writing here is in a colloquial style — that word means “informal or conversational” which is not quite the right tone you want […]
Continue reading...($) Writing tip from the trenches: “When something feels forced…”
Writing MBA essays is haaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrdddddddd. It’s highly unlikely that you’ve ever done this type of writing before. After an extended back-and-forth exchange with a BSer about the way they were coming across — tone, content, all of the things — they gave us this short comment: I’m learning through this process that when something feels […]
Continue reading...Do you really use that word?
Along the lines of “stuff we often say in essay reviews” we’ll offer this advice: Write like you speak. (Not like you text, though! There should be no &s and abbreviations and acronyms and shortcuts in essays.) Words like “partaking” are odd. Do you use this type of language in everyday speech? A less obvious […]
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