In high school, most American students are taught to write essays with a formal introduction, a body that supports that introduction and a conclusion that reinforces the central point proven in the introduction. While this structure makes for easily comprehensible academic work, business school application essays are constrained by word count, so candidates often have to find alternative openings, not having the luxury of “wasting” 100 words introducing the topic.

Depending on the context and pace of your story, we, at times, recommend the “non-introduction” introduction. If you have a gripping opener that places the reader in the middle of a scenario, we recommend that you launch right into your story to grab and keep the reader’s attention.

Traditional introduction:

“Throughout my career, I have strived to continuously learn and develop as a manager, frequently taking enrichment courses, seizing mentorship opportunities and seeking frank feedback from my superiors. When my firm staffed me on its $4.5MM ‘Oregon Project’ (our highest profile product launch in a decade), I considered it to be a tremendous opportunity to deliver and never imagined that it would become the greatest test of my managerial abilities.

When I arrived in Portland, I discovered a project deemed so important by our firm that it was overstaffed and wallowing in confused directives from headquarters in Chicago. I quickly surveyed the situation and began to create support for changes to….”

What if this essay, under the pressure of word limits, merely began with a slightly modified version of the body itself?

“When I arrived in Portland, I discovered that my firm’s $4.5MM ‘Oregon Project’– our highest profile product launch in a decade – was overstaffed and wallowing in confused directives from headquarters in Chicago. I quickly surveyed the situation and began to create support for change….” In this case, approximately seventy words are saved and the reader is thrust right into the middle of the story, learning how the writer jumped into the “Oregon Project” and ultimately saved the day. While the “non-introduction introduction” should not be used for every essay, it can be a valuable tool when used with discretion.

While it is important to put yourself at the center of your stories, a common problem essay writers have is beginning many sentences with the word “I.” As a general rule, you should never have two sentences in a row that begin this way. Consider the following example:

“I worked for three years at ABC Plastics, a small injection molding company. I was responsible for overseeing the overall management of ABC Plastics, from day-to-day operations to strategic planning. I was the manager of 100 people. I worked very long hours, but I learned more than I ever imagined.”

Now consider the same few sentences reworked, but avoiding the word “I” at the beginning:

“For three years, I worked at ABC Plastics, a small injection molding company. My responsibilities at ABC included overseeing the overall management of the company, from day-to-day operations to strategic planning. As the supervisor of over 100 staff, my days were long, but I learned more than I ever imagined.”

As you can see, the second example reads much better than the first – and none of the sentences in the second example begin with the word “I.”

When most candidates read an essay question, they interpret it quite literally. So, when Wharton asks, “Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect a Wharton MBA to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program? (1,000 words),” many candidates assume that they must answer each sub-question within the broader question, in the very order that it was asked. But that is not the case. These questions are indeed quite flexible, and at times, by pursuing your own structure, you can truly engage the reader.

We have found that when it comes to overrepresented candidates who have unique professional goals, one strategy which can be quite helpful is to lead with goals instead of professional history. After all, “typical” experience is not as captivating as unusual (but realistic!) ambitions. So, the Indian technologist who intends to open a boutique hotel or the male investment banker who aspires to start a competitive windsurfing circuit can use these bold goals to stand out from the start.

Again, we emphasize that such candidates need to have a compelling connection to the goals themselves, and we do not suggest that overrepresented candidates strive to imagine or create “wild” goals. However, if you have a profound connection, then reordering the question and ensuring that your goals are out front can make a difference.

While MBA programs certainly want to know that you identify with them, this need not be a consistent theme throughout your entire application. So, unless explicitly noted (as in Kellogg Essay 2 or Columbia Essay 2), we almost always recommend that candidates only discuss their connections with schools via personal statements (“What are your short- and long-term goals and how will (our school) enable you to achieve them?).

As a hypothetical example, in HBS’s leadership essay and Columbia’s entrepreneurship essay, even though these are essays about core values that each school embraces, it is not necessary to discuss how the school will enable you to further build such skills when you are a member of the Class of 2010.  While we cannot assert this as an “absolute,” we find that in most cases, such statements come across as insincere or fawning – the very opposite of the intended effect.

Because it is incumbent on candidates to offer MBA Admissions Committees a variety of experiences, we encourage our candidates to truly reflect on their lives and consider all potential stories—academic, professional, community, extracurricular, athletic, international, personal and more. However, questions inevitably arise:  Can I use stories from high school and college? Can I use a story from four years ago? How far in the past is too far in the past? While there is no clear rule, generally, with the exception of questions that specifically ask about personal history or family background, schools want to experience the mature you—the individual that you are today. So, we ask facetiously, “How long have you been the you that you are today?”

When considering experiences that occurred long ago, you should ask yourself, “Would this impress an MBA Admission Committee today?” If you ran a few successful bake sales while in college six years ago, this clearly would not stand the test of time and impress strangers today. However, if, while a student, you started a small business that grew and was ultimately sold to a local firm when you graduated, you would have a story to tell that would likely impress the AdCom.

Inevitably, there is judgment involved in these decisions. Nonetheless, we offer this simple test as a starting point for you to make your decisions. 

Many MBA candidates struggle as they try to define their long-term goals. While short-term goals should be relatively specific, long-term goals can be broad and ambitious. Regardless of what your short- and long-term goals actually are, it is most important that you present a clear “cause and effect” relationship between them. The MBA Admissions Committee will be confused by a long-term goal that lacks grounding. Still, you should not interpret this to mean that you need to choose one industry and state that you will stay in it for your entire career. You can present any career path that excites you, again, as long as there is a logical path to achieving your goals.

Many candidates discuss ambitions in Management Consulting—could an individual with such aspirations justify any of the following long-term goals?

A) Climbing the ladder and becoming a partner in a consulting firm
B) Launching a boutique consulting firm
C) Leaving consulting to manage a nonprofit
D) Leaving consulting to buy a failing manufacturing firm and forge a “turnaround”
E) Entering the management ranks of a major corporation

The answer is that this candidate could justify any of these long-term goals (and many others), as long as he/she connects them to experiences gained via his/her career as a consultant. When it comes to your goals, you need not feel constrained—you just need to emphasize that your goals are logical/achievable and ambitious.

When MBA Admissions Officers read your application, they want to complete your personal statement feeling inspired; they want to feel that you have a strong sense of purpose and that you will aggressively work toward your goals. So, you need to ensure that you are not presenting generic or shallow goals. While this problem is not industry specific, it appears most often with candidates who are proposing careers in investment banking or consulting but do not have a true understanding of what these positions entail.

It is not enough to merely state

“In the short term, when I graduate from Wharton, I want to become an Investment Banking Associate. After three years, I will climb to VP, and then in the long term, I will become a Managing Director.”

The faux candidate above does not express any passion for his proposed course, does not show any understanding of the demands of the position and does not explain the value that he can bring to the firm. Thus, we suggest that you conduct a simple test: if you can substitute another job title into your career goals (“In the short term, when I graduate from Wharton, I want to become a Consultant. After three years, I will climb to VP and then in the long term, I will become a Managing Director.”), you know you have a serious problem on your hands.

You need to own your goals, and this means personalizing them and finding your own angle into why you might be a success in this position and why there might be an opportunity for you to contribute. By way of example, a former Forestry Engineer could make a strong argument for joining an environmental impact consulting firm (Note: He will still need to explain why he wants to join one); a Financial Analyst in the Corporate Finance Department at Yahoo! could connect his/her goals to Tech Investment Banking. While the connection need not be so direct (especially for those seeking to change careers), it is important that you relate your past experiences and/or skills to your future path. This approach will add depth to your essay and ensure that you are taken seriously.

Many candidates—whether they are working as bankers or lawyers, in internal corporate finance or corporate strategy—feel it necessary to tell a “deal story.” While discussing a deal can be a good idea, it is vital that you show your distinct impact on it—it is crucial that you, not the deal, are the central character. As we have discussed before (Monday Morning Essay Tip: Conflict Is Good), the story of how you dutifully completed your work and steadily supported others as a deal became a reality is not likely to be interesting. Further, it is important that the Admissions Committee experience your personality, not your spreadsheets.

So, you might ask yourself some of these questions to ensure that your story is about you:

• What did you do that was beyond the expectation of your role? Did you grow into additional responsibilities at a crucial time?
• Were there any particular interactions in which you used your personality to change the dynamic so as to ensure the deal’s progress or success?
• Did you need to take a principled stand at any moment or speak out on behalf of a needful party?
• Were there any corporate or international cultural barriers that you helped others overcome?

These are just a few questions, but the point remains: it is important not to simply offer any deal but to provide insight into your deal.

Monday Morning Essay Tip: Multidimensional Brainstorming

We always tell our candidates, “You can’t turn a bad idea into a good essay.” We insist on taking our candidates through a lengthy brainstorming process (which begins with a thorough questionnaire) to discover the stories that make each candidate distinct. Even as you uncover your stories, it is still important to consider them from as many different angles as possible. While this will help ensure that you understand the various “weapons in your arsenal,” this will also provide you with maximum flexibility (as MBA Admissions Committees ask questions which vary dramatically from school to school).

For example, a simple experience coaching a baseball team at an underfunded high school may have multiple dimensions. This may be the story of

• creatively motivating this underachieving team and changing attitudes — despite losses
• initiating and leading fundraising efforts so that each player can afford proper equipment/jerseys
• mentoring a struggling player and seeing an improvement in his on-field performance
• helping a player deal with a family issue off the field
• recruiting other coaches and then working with a team to improve the team’s on-field performance  

These are just a few of the stories that could be gleaned from this experience, which serves to reinforce the point that considering stories from various angles is quite beneficial and will help you discover many unique approaches.

Anyone who has written an email that has been misunderstood, let alone an MBA application essay, is no doubt aware of the subtleties of language and the simple nuances that can change a message’s meaning. Well, these nuances need not only be negative. Indeed, it is entirely possible to invigorate a simple sentence by choosing a more active verb, such as ”earn.”

By using “earn” in the examples below, instead of the more passive approaches, we change one word and thereby change each sentence’s meaning. Suddenly, you are in control—suddenly you worked hard and, as a result, attained great accomplishments. 

Bad:  “I received my PhD in Nuclear Physics from the University of So-and-So.”
Good:  “I earned my PhD in Nuclear Physics from the University of So-and-So.”

Bad:  “I was promoted from junior to senior analyst.”  (Also bad because of passive voice.)
Good:  “I earned a promotion from junior to senior analyst.”

Bad:  “As a result of obtaining my MBA, I will be able to….”
Good:  “As a result of earning my MBA, I will be able to….”

Once you have finished your essays, review them and check to see how often you can replace certain words with the word “earn” or a form of the word “earn”—you’ve earned it!