One way to conserve words in your MBA application essays and short-answer responses is by pluralizing nouns whenever possible. Singular words often require an article such as “a,” “an,” or “the.” These words can add unnecessarily to your word count, thereby cluttering your page without contributing to your argument or style. Consider the following example:
“A manager with an MBA can ascend the corporate ladder faster than a manager who lacks an MBA.” (18 words)
Now consider this version, in which many of the singular nouns have been pluralized:
“Managers with MBAs can ascend the corporate ladder faster than managers without MBAs.” (13 words)
As you can see, both sentences present the same idea, but one sentence is five words shorter than the other. Given that essays can include dozens or even hundreds of sentences, pluralizing wherever possible is helpful in meeting word count requirements and decluttering the text.