When MBA school applicants get started on their personal statements, they often concentrate on what makes a personal statement good. While it is definitely helpful to know what makes an MBA admission essay exceptional, it is also equally important to know what makes a personal statement mediocre. Knowing what makes a bad MBA personal statement will give you an idea of what mistakes to avoid while writing your own essay. Read on to learn about what makes a bad MBA personal statement, so you can be on your way to writing an exceptional essay.
A bad MBA personal statement has errors
One of the worst mistakes you can commit in your MBA personal statement is to have spelling, grammar, or syntax errors. The best way to avoid these mistakes is to carefully edit your personal statement to make sure that it reads well. If you don’t trust your own editing skills, then you should have someone else edit the essay. Perhaps a relative, colleague, or close friend who has excellent literature and English skills will be able to edit your paper to ensure that there are no errors of any sort. Some errors, such as providing erroneous information in your essay, can only be spotted and corrected by you, so make sure that you are truthful and honest in your essay to avoid such mistakes.
A bad MBA personal statement doesn’t distinguish the writer from other applicants
Another costly mistake that is common in bad MBA personal statements is that the statement does not make the writer unique from other applicants. If you want to truly interest and captivate the admissions committee, you should try to let your unique personality shine through in your essay. To set yourself apart from the rest, avoid some of these mistakes:
- using cliches
- writing about common topics
- not writing about your own feelings and perceptions
- concentrating too much on what you think the committee wants to hear and not what you want to say
- enumerating your achievements instead of telling a story
- not talking about your own goals and aspirations
A bad MBA personal statement fails to answer the question
Some people tend to get carried away writing about their experiences or feelings, leading to an essay that doesn’t completely answer the question being asked. To avoid this, it’s a good idea to make an outline focused on the question being asked. Only include topics and information that relate to the question. Try to do some research on the school, and try to reflect on your answer to the question to show your own thoughts, personality, and characteristics in your answer.
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Writing an MBA personal statement is not an easy task. Not only are you under the pressure of writing an interesting essay, but you are also expected to write something that is unique, school-specific, and exceptional. Writing an exceptional MBA personal statement has a lot to do with avoiding errors. An error-free personal statement will show the admissions committee that you took the time to write an essay that will meet and perhaps even surpass the committee’s expectations. Here’s how you can write an error-free MBA personal statement:
Use an outline
The first step is to make an outline to guide you through the writing process. First, focus on the question or questions being asked and think of ways to answer the question in a manner that reflects your unique personality, your interesting experiences, and your good traits. An outline will help you avoid the mistakes of not being concise and coherent. Once you have completed your outline, you can start writing your essay. Just be sure to stick to your outline to avoid going off-track.
Use MBA personal statement samples
A good idea would be to use MBA personal statement samples to know what an exceptional MBA personal statement looks like. Sample essays can help you understand what admissions committees expect in terms of essay quality, style, format, and topics. Just make sure that you don’t plagiarize other people’works, because plagiarism probably have the most serious repercussions.
Proofread, edit, revise, and edit again
Once you have written your essay, one of the most important steps to avoiding errors is to edit your essay. Make sure to read your paper more than once to ensure that you catch all of the simple errors, such as spelling, grammar, and syntax errors. Revise your paper as you go along, but make sure to keep multiple copies to see how your essay improves as you continue to edit and revise it.
It would also be helpful to have other people read your essay. You may read through your essay numerous times, overlooking certain mistakes because they aren’t very obvious or because your eyes are tired from reading the same passage over and over again. By having another person go over your paper, you have the advantage of having someone with a fresh pair of eyes and a different perspective to edit your paper.
Once you are satisfied with your MBA personal statement, get it in the mail along with the rest of your application package to ensure that you beat the deadline.
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Highlighting Your Strengths in Your MBA Personal Statement
A key to coming up with a well-written essay is writing one that properly focuses on your strengths without sounding too arrogant. After all, there is a big difference between an MBA personal statement that is so obnoxiously arrogant, and one that properly highlights your strengths. It is also a bad thing to present an admission essay that short-sells yourself, because such an essay would defeat your purpose, which is to convince the admissions panel that you deserve a slot in their school. Striking a balance between the
two is the challenge. Read the following tips on how to write an MBA personal statement that focuses on your strengths.
Discuss your academic achievements without being too redundant.
Having high grades can be one of your strengths. Take note though that having a high GPA won’t guarantee a 100% application success. What it can tell the admissions panel is that you, as a student, were able to really focus on your studies. However, discussing your high grades as strengths in your personal statement doesn’t mean you have to repeat what’s written in your transcript or other submitted documents. The trick here is to discuss having good grades as a reflection of your personality or traits such as discipline and perseverance.
Discuss your well-rounded personality by focusing on certain experiences.
The admissions officers are more impressed with somebody who is well-rounded. Thus, if you took on a part-time job such as waiting tables at a restaurant or selling shoes door to door, mention them in the essay. What these experiences show is that you have good time management skills, especially if you were able to maintain good grades despite having to work part-time. However, don’t make the mistake of discussing too many experiences in your MBA personal statement. Too many information or details can make your essay confusing. When writing your essay, it’s best to focus on experiences that made you learn important lessons in life, thus improving your character in the process.
Other tips
The personal statement is one of the most crucial parts of the application process. It is here that you
would ultimately sell yourself without sounding like the most arrogant person in the batch. Mention factually the things you were able to do, while at the same time incorporating life experiences. It is not sufficient to mention your strengths without linking them to your decision to pursue an MBA degree. An effective essay discusses the writer’s strengths while connecting it to his or her decision to pursue an MBA degree or explaining a response to a given essay question.
Selling yourself is the ultimate goal when writing an admissions essay. After all, you have to convince the admissions panel that you deserve to be accepted to their school. Once you have listed down your strengths, select a few that would make your essay stand out from the rest and grab the readers’ attention. Then discuss these strengths effectively without sounding boastful.
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