Nobody’s perfect. But your app needs to be.

People get so stressed out when they’re applying to bschool – and this post likely won’t help with that. For starters, let’s state the obvious fact which is frequently overlooked: Nobody’s profile is perfect. Everybody presents with some weaknesses and flaws. But you have some strengths, too, right? Your main objective with your app is…


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($) Messaging

Last season, Yale changed the language in one of their FAQs about the Behavioral Assessment that’s a part of their application process. Looking at the language change may be instructive as we examine the concept of messaging in your MBA apps.


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Wherein EssaySnark overanalyzes the minutiae of the adcom’s statements – so you don’t have to!
 
 

 
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($) “I don’t know what to do with my hands.”

We see a lot of essays that are kinda like this:

“First of all, where did you learn to drive like that?”

(mumbles)

“Can you speak up, Ricky?”

“The car. Handled real good. I felt like I was on a space ship, and uh… I’m not sure what to do with my hands.”

When we see an essay like this, it comes across rather similar, as if the Brave Supplicant is thinking, “I don’t really know what to say here so I’ll just write words.”

The essay has sentences in it, but they don’t mean much, and they’re not really in line with what has actually been asked by the prompt.


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Some common essay-writing blunders, usually due to lack of experience writing essays!
 
 

 
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($) Pro Tips for the resume: Highlighting promotions in the most effective way possible

We don’t suggest doing the resume at the beginning of your MBA application strategy development process. Circle back to this task LATER after you have your strategy fully mapped out.

When you do, you can take advantage of the advice that we’re sharing here, that we first gave to a BSer who was questioning how to structure their background on the page.


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The design and construction of your resume can help convey meaning to your reader
 
 

 
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($) “Good” post-MBA career goals for your business school application

Another title for this post could be:

Please don’t try to differentiate yourself as an MBA candidate based on your goals.

We sorta covered this many years back here and it came up again in this post a few years back (before most recent tech softening/meltdown/whatever is happening there) emphasizing the importance of career goals but it deserves a dedicated discussion.


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Oooo there’s some good stuff today!
 
 

 
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($) Every word matters: Language and positioning in your essays.

We’re reblahgging this from the ‘snarchives because it is oh so important! This concept can make a difference in moving a good essay into the category of great.

You can see this concept in action in this post where we focused on only the first few sentences of a BSer’s career goals essay.


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Learning to write – even in the era of AI – yes this is worthwhile!
 
 

 
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