Your MBA personal statement is a tool through which you can sell yourself to the admissions committee. Through your MBA personal statement, you can show the admissions officers that you deserve to be given a slot in the MBA school you’ve chosen. Below are some tips from experts that you should consider when you write your personal statement for MBA.
Don’t just summarize your accomplishments
Your MBA admission essay should portray a four dimensional image of you. This means that the essay should be more than a list of your accomplishments. It should also show how you come up with those achievements and the obstacles you have faced. You have to share some of your thoughts and emotions as well. Your goal is to make the admissions committee see your personality, and that includes how you think, feel, and react to your problems.
Be passionate about your goals and interest
One of the effective ways to convince the admissions officers of your worth is by showing passion on your essay. You can discuss about your goals and plans to achieve these goals in your personal statement. Doing this would give an impression that you are a goal-driven and passionate individual. You can also include your interest in learning more. Passion for learning is really a big factor in your application success.
Be real and sincere
Talking about your good qualities and achievements is an excellent way to sell yourself, but you have to do it subtly. Aside from this, you also have to make sure that you’re telling the truth in your essay. Keep in mind that the admissions officers have read thousands of essays before. For sure, they have a way of seeing through your lies. They can sense if you’re too good to be true or just a strong candidate for admission.
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Your personal statement for MBA is not your autobiography. MBA admission essays have a page limit. This is why you really have to choose the best things about you that you should include in your essay. No matter how interesting all your experiences are, you should make it a point to limit the topics to be included. Below is a guideline on how to make your essay short:
Focus only on one or two relevant field experiences
The best way to keep your business essay short is by selecting one or two experiences or plans relevant to your application. You can choose an experience that motivates you to pursue a business study. Some schools would require you to include experiences that happened in the past three years. Aside from experiences, you can also talk about the main reason you want to be in a business school as well as your career plans. Talk about your work experience and what you can gain from the MBA program.
Delete unnecessary details about yourself
You have a lot of good things to say about yourself for sure. But unfortunately, you have no opportunity to say everything on your essay. So, you have to be content in focusing on details about yourself that is relevant to your chosen field. In choosing the details to be included, ask yourself if these can boost your chances for admission to the MBA school or strengthen your qualifications.
Keep your paragraphs short and clear
In writing your MBA admission essay, you have to be straightforward in delivering your points. You should not beat around the bush; otherwise, you will risk boring your readers. The most important thing is that you communicate your thoughts clearly. You can use simpler words and transitional devices to make your essay concise and clear.
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The introduction is a very important part of your MBA personal statement . With all the essays the admissions officers have to read, piquing their interest and grabbing their attention could really be a challenge. Through an excellent intro, you can urge them to read further. This is why you really have to put an effort in writing your introduction. To write an eye-catching intro, you have to know first the qualities of a bad one. Below are some of the qualities of a lousy intro.
Starting with cliches and meaningless prose
Cliches and meaningless prose are a major turn off for the admissions committee. They can be an eye sore to your readers. This is why you really have to avoid lousy beginnings. An attention-grabbing intro should be fresh and unique. You can make a better intro by using simple words that appeal to the emotion or to the intellect of the readers, instead of using trite expressions.
Using a quote or analogy that is irrelevant to the essay topic
In the effort to make their essay creative, some applicants incorporate quotes and analogies. This is good. However, there’s a grave danger in using quotes and analogies that are not related to the content of the essay. So before you use a quote and analogy, make sure that you use them the right way, to tie up all the other ideas in your essay and present arguments for the theme of your essay.
Sounding like a desperate salesman or another sleazy ad
Your MBA personal statement is your chance to sell yourself. But you don’t have to sound desperate in selling your qualities to the admissions committee, especially in the intro. You have to be subtle as possible. Instead of telling the readers about your good qualities, why not show instances in which you have exhibited these good qualities?
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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.
Photo credit : Orin Optiglot
