Source: Financial Times
by Laura Melina Loeven, Nanyang Business School,
10.7.2016.
I only applied to one school, but thankfully my writing earned me a place on Nanyang Business School’s MBA programme. Though gambling on only one college gave me several sleepless nights.
Back to the drawing board
I must have impressed in my essays, but lacking any comparison, I am unable to tell why. Looking for the secret formula for an application essay, I turned to an MBA friend who wrote handfuls of applications to schools. With confidence, he stressed that it is key to present how an aspiring student plans to create value not just for oneself, but for the school that accepts them.
While elaborating on your personal value proposition, what matters most is a coherent story line that gives the admissions office an idea of the applicant’s unique personality, and how this was formed by a lifetime of experiences, achievements, and failures.
My brand is crisis management
Investigating the range of essay topics requested by top business schools, a clear pattern emerges.
As a would-be MBA student, you have to submit anything between one to five essays, ranging from 500 to 2,000 words. A serious effort, but by no means an insurmountable task.
The typical essay requests are repetitive: school officials want you to be able to present yourself as a leader, with a sense of community, team spirit, and a convincing idea of why you are interested in a particular school and location.
The lead school in the FT’s Global MBA ranking, Insead, poses fairly straight-forward questions on personal strengths, weaknesses, achievements, and extra-professional experiences.
Stanford Graduate School of Business is keen on understanding what matters most to their future students, to get a feeling for their values and priorities. Ceibs, in Shanghai, seeks an assessment of future trends a student has identified and demands recommendations for appropriate behaviour in a complex world. HEC in Paris, meanwhile, pulls out a tricky query by requesting applicants to critically analyse the success of an internationally recognised book or movie that the student deems undeserved.
Admissions departments seem to be in search of a student’s personal brand. Assessing different approaches towards application essays, I have concluded that these write-ups simply challenge us to define what cannot be reflected in grade points or standardised test results.
Reflecting on my own writing, I delivered the typical job interview sermon. I was concerned that too much of a personal touch could make me seem feeble, and that revealing subjective motivations for the pursuit of higher studies could be interpreted as unprofessional. So the question I pondered was how to stand out from the crowd, but still comply with the admissions criteria?
Yet the essay needs to leave a lasting impression on the reader and ideally deviates from the norm.
Everybody who aims for a graduate degree must be able to prove that he/she knows what makes him or her unique, and how s/he can make the most of his or her attributes.
Personally, I am a daughter, friend, writer and professional who has overcome multiple emotional and physical challenges. Thus, I have grown into a solid crisis manager.
What we can learn from the Pope or Kardashians
Looking back, I can only recommend to take a good look at yourself, and define your personal brand. Properly reflecting on the story of your life up to the point of application, and scripting the desired path beyond will help develop a personal brand, which is not only a prerequisite for a wide range of essay topics, but also ensures an applicant presents a coherent picture of him or herself. Know your style, and how you can make an impact.
Writing application essays, we can learn from the Pope, and even Kim Kardashian West and Donald Trump. All three are certainly controversial personalities, but they excel in developing unmistakable personal branding. Not everyone likes them but they transformed their names into trademarks and have the power to penetrate the world with their brands’ messages.
If I had to write my essay again, I would embrace the opportunity to present myself rather than scramble in fear and self-doubt. I would point out unique identifiers, show off ideas, stress the traits that are inimitable, and most importantly, I would not hide anything that might be seen as different from the norm.
