Secrets of a Successful MBA Personal Statement

A successful MBA personal statement is one that is persuasive and very engaging. This helps you secure a slot in the MBA school of your choice. But what does it take to write a personal statement that could give you better chances of success in the application process? SAS:Student Zone has some interesting ideas on writing an excellent admissions essay.

Your MBA personal statement should have a core idea

That essence or central point becomes the driver of all content for that essay. When responding to specific questions, your core must directly and elegantly answer the question. When writing a less-directed essay, you still need a driving concept; you just have more choice as to what your concept should be. Everything else in the essay should support that concept.

This core idea is your thesis. The thesis statement is what gives direction to your admissions essay. It is also the one that weaves your essay to make it a unified whole. The core idea is the driving force that makes your essay strong and well-directed. Without one, readers will be lost as to what you’ve been meaning to say. There will be no binding theme, and some details may seem irrelevant or out of place. Surely, the admissions panel won’t wait too long for them to fully grasp what you’re trying to convey.

Your essay must include only relevant details

Essays that are resumes in prose or that attempt to tell your entire life story descend into the mishmash category. MBA essays replete with irrelevant detail stray from their central mission. They are not engaging or persuasive. In fact, they bore.

Your MBA personal statement is your means to reveal who you are and what led to your character formation. However, you have to avoid writing details about yourself that are not really relevant to your application. These details can bore the readers. Remember that the essay have limits, especially in terms of wordcount. This is why you only have to focus on relevant information. You also have to keep in mind some things that you need to avoid on your essay. This article has some great ideas on the common mistakes when writing your personal statement:

Perhaps the most common personal statement writing blunder is to include an expository resume of your background and experience. This is not to say that the schools are not interested in your accomplishments. However, other portions of your application will provide this information. Strive for depth, not breadth.

Focus on your purpose for writing the essay. This will help you put together ideas that can help back up your application and support your claim for a much-coveted spot.

Another excerpt says that:

Finding help on your personal statement is not limited to the specifics of writing, such as grammar, style, and details. Choosing a topic that won’t offend readers is just as important.

You have to be sensitive to your readers. You cannot just write about any topic that may have serious repercussions on how they perceive you as an individual or candidate for admission.

In addition to this, the author also believes that:

Sometimes the same writer who relies too heavily on generalizations will also provide too many irrelevant details. The problem is that writers often don’t consider what is actually necessary to include in the graduate school personal statement, or they repeat points freely.

Aside from telling irrelevant details, listing down your accomplishments like you do in your resume is a no-no in writing your admission essay. You should not waste the limited space by stating what is found on your resume. You have to include more self-reflection because this is what the admissions panel wants to hear from you.

Your MBA personal statement should be almost flawless. It should have a central idea to make it a unified whole and it should only talk about details that are important and relevant.

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