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International Institute for Management Development (IMD) Essay Tips

The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) requires two 400-word essays of its applicants. The first essay’s topic—“tell us your story”—is so open-ended that it will likely be challenging for some candidates, especially considering the limited word count. IMD’s second essay is more traditional, asking applicants what they hope to gain from the program. Candidates … Read More  

2025-2026 B-Schools Outside the Top 15 Business School Essays MBA Essay Tips

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Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business Essay Tips

Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business has only one required written application essay, and applicants are given a choice of two prompts to respond to. The first asks candidates to discuss a time when they navigated a complicated situation, and the second tasks applicants with explaining how they will use the Tepper program to … Read More  

How to Use Parallel Construction in Your MBA Application Essays—and More on Being Appropriately Personal

Longer and more complex sentences often require parallel construction. Simply put, parallel construction ensures that any given longer sentence has a balanced rhythm or structure. With parallel construction, each pronoun corresponds with another pronoun, each verb corresponds with another verb, each adjective corresponds with another adjective, and so on. Parallel construction can certainly be found … Read More  

Essays

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Avoid Negativity and Overusing Quotes in Your MBA Application Essays

Sincerity. Honesty. Candor. We encourage MBA candidates to incorporate these attributes into their applications, and when they do, the result tends to be successful essays. But can an applicant go too far? The answer is “yes,” especially when candor turns to negativity. Sometimes, when MBA candidates believe they are just being candid, they are actually … Read More  

Essays

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MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed: I Can Use the Same Essay for Multiple Schools

You have poured your heart and soul into your business school applications and taken the time to craft the perfect essays. Now you are eagerly looking forward to finishing up a few more applications to your target schools. You have heard that you can expect to spend as much time on your second, third, and … Read More  

Admissions Myths Destroyed

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2026–2027 MBA Essay Tips

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