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 fourth applications combined (!) as you did on your very first one. Encouraged, you might scan your third application and think, \u201cOh, look\u2014here\u2019s a \u2018failure\u2019 question. I can just adapt the \u2018mistake\u2019 essay I wrote for my first application to answer that one!\u201d or \u201cThere\u2019s a question about leadership. I\u2019ve already written an essay on that, so I can just reuse it here!\u201d<\/p>\n
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Not so fast. First applications usually do take longer to complete than subsequent ones. However, this is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0because once you have crafted several essays for one or two schools, you can then simply cut and paste them into other applications, adjust the word count a bit, change a few names here and there, and be done. Admissions committees spend a lot of time crafting their application prompts, thinking carefully about the required word limit and about each component of the questions. They present prompts they believe will draw specific information from applicants that will then help them ascertain whether those candidates would fit well with the program. Therefore, if you simply reuse an essay you wrote for School A for your application for School B because you believe the schools\u2019 questions are largely similar, you could easily miss an important facet of what School B is really seeking. For example, consider these two\u00a0past<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0questions:<\/p>\n Even though both essay prompts ask you to explore leadership experiences, they certainly\u00a0do not<\/em>\u00a0ask the exact same question. Kellogg wants you to share more than one leadership experience and outline the areas you want to develop while at Kellogg. Tuck, on the other hand, asks about only one leadership experience\u2014your\u00a0most meaningful<\/em>\u00a0leadership experience, in particular\u2014and wants to know what you learned about yourself as a result.<\/p>\nNorthwestern Kellogg: Describe your key leadership experiences and evaluate what leadership areas you hope to develop through your MBA experiences. (600-word limit)<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Dartmouth Tuck: Discuss your most meaningful leadership experience. What did you learn about your own individual strengths and weaknesses through this experience? (approximately 500 words)<\/strong><\/h4>\n