Business School FAQs
Questions
- General
- How important is it to have leadership or management experience?
- Does your service ever write the essays for the students?
- Are there services out there that actually write the essays? Is this good or bad, if it gets a student into a school?
- Does myEssay.com review essays?
- The Essay: General
- What sort of essay questions will I be asked?
- How do I prepare to write my essays?
- What practical advice would you give student beginning to write their admission essays?
- The Essay: Content
- What can I do to get started?
- How should I describe my work experience?
- What kind of additional information should I offer?
- What kind of brainstorming tips do you have for the planning period?
- What should the applicant remember while choosing a topic?
- What should the applicant remember when writing the conclusion?
- The Essay: Style
- The Essay: Mechanics
- Should I title my essay?
- How long should my essay be?
- Should one avoid using quotations?
- Is an introduction absolutely necessary?
- The Interview
- Do all schools require personal interviews?
- What should I wear to the interview?
- What are some common mistakes that people make during interviews?
- What questions should I expect to be asked?
- What questions should I ask?
- Recommendations
- The Application: General
Answers
General
- How important is it to have leadership or management experience?
Business schools expect to produce good managers. As such, admissions committees search for students who have already demonstrated an ability to lead. - Does your service ever write the essays for the students?
No, myEssay.com does not write essays for students ever. - Are there services out there that actually write the essays? Is this good or bad, if it gets a student into a school?
There are services that actually write the essay, but we do not recommend using them for three reasons.
1. No writing service can write a successful application essay. How can a third party write a personal essay where the applicant's character and personality shine through?
2. Admission officers can spot a phony from the other side of the room. They will know immediately that it wasn't the applicant who wrote the essay.
3. It is fraud. If you are caught you will automatically be denied admisson. And even if the school finds out years later, you may risk expulsion. - Does myEssay.com review essays?
No, myEssay.com does not provide an essay review service.
The Essay: General
- What sort of essay questions will I be asked?
Business schools typically ask about your achievements, your future goals, the reasons why you are pursuing an MBA, and the challenges you have faced in the workplace. - How do I prepare to write my essays?
First, think very carefully about your future goals. Like all schools, business schools think of their students, in a way, as investments — and if they are using their time and resources to prepare you for the business world they want to know that you envision yourself working in the field indefinitely. Secondly, think about how an MBA will lead you to realize your future plans. Thirdly, think about why now is the right time for you to pursue an MBA. Finally, review your past experiences and accomplishments — both personal and professional — and think about how they have defined who you are and what you value, whether inside or outside the business arena. - What practical advice would you give student beginning to write their admission essays?
1. Begin early. Start working on your essays in the summer.
2. Visit our site (www.myEssay.com). Within the world of the application essay, we really do provide you with everything. The application kits are the best products by far available in the market today.
The Essay: Content
- What can I do to get started?
Try some stream-of-consciousness exercises. Pick any topic and fill up a piece of paper with words as fast as you possibly can, essentially writing down your thoughts as they come to you. You may find it helpful to impose a time limit on yourself. At this stage, don't worry about content, style, or grammar; just get the words going and you might be able to find a usable topic in that mess of words. Also try myEssay.com's innovative interactive tool, The Brainstormer™, to help generate essay topics. - How should I describe my work experience?
Write about the things you have done and the contributions you have made over the course of your career, and discuss what you have learned and how you have grown from your professional experience. Do not fall into the trap of laundry-listing your past jobs. Think about a theme that runs throughout your employment history and use specific experiences to illustrate it. - What kind of additional information should I offer?
Offering additional information is purely optional. If the application provides a space for additional information, you may take the opportunity to add important information which does not fit into other sections of the application, or to explain weaknesses in your application. Do not waste this opportunity by reiterating a point about yourself that you have already conveyed. Only provide information that will help you better position yourself for admission. You might want to discuss a major obstacle you have overcome, or a non-work activity or experience that offers a more complete picture of who you are, what you have to contribute to the school of your choice. - What kind of brainstorming tips do you have for the planning period?
Brainstorming is an integral part of writing the essay. Most students spend zero to very little time brainstorming and as a result, end up sitting in front of a blank computer screen for hours.1. Be willing to invest a significant amount of time (time unit is days) brainstorming. Get started early so time will not be an issue.
2. But create a deadline. Don't spend weeks brainstorming, or rather daydreaming.
3. First spend time thinking about yourself and the question. You must reflect thoroughly. Ultimately you will want to focus one to two themes and develop those thoughts. Then spend time thinking about approach and style.
4. Try free writing for ten minutes at a time. Choose a topic and do nothing but write for ten minutes. Try to stay with your topic, but if you can't, just continue writing. The important thing is to keep writing and avoid any interruptions that could hinder your flow of thought, such as editing what you've written. Save the editing for later.
5. Use myEssay.com's brainstorming workshop. - What should the applicant remember while choosing a topic?
The topic itself is not important. What is important is what the essay reveals about you. So if you choose your grandfather as the topic of your essay for instance, the focus of your essay should not only be about your grandfather; instead, it should be about your relationship with your grandfather and why that relationship in particular is meaningful or significant to you.Don't ask too much of your essay. Don't try to fit your life history in one page. Share a snippet instead, a piece of yourself with the reader. Give the reader an insightful glimpse into your life.
- What should the applicant remember when writing the conclusion?
Conclusions and summaries are for term papers; endings are for admissions essays. Don't use phrases like in conclusion or in summary. First, good writing doesn't require these kinds of clauses. Second, you have a stated or implied word limit and using clauses like these is wasteful. A good ending rounds out your essay, resolves any hanging issues, and provides a lasting impact so the admissions committee won't forget you. Remember...Schools want bright, active people-- not wet blankets. So finish on a positive note. Tie up and resolve any loose or hanging issues. You don't want to leave the reader hanging.
Beginnings can also make a difference. You need to grab your reader's attention, right from the start. Why? Because if the admissions officer doesn't get beyond the opening few sentences, you've missed your opportunity. Now you're just another face in the crowd, one of a thousand applicants. With the right beginning, you draw the reader in and have him or her not wanting to put the essay down until the very end.
The Essay: Style
- Is it acceptable to be funny?
Part of writing a good essay is making yourself memorable, and one way to do that is with a little humor. You should, however, be careful. If overused or used too flippantly, humor can make the writer seem too casual, too glib, or uninterested in getting admitted. - How can I sound self-confident without sounding arrogant?
The key to differentiating confidence from arrogance is your tone. Do not be overtly boastful about your accomplishments. Rather than telling admissions committees what you have achieved just for the sake of telling them, use your specific achievements as a springboard for more personal insights.
The Essay: Mechanics
- Should I title my essay?
The use of titles is acceptable, but is superfluous to most admissions committees, who are far more concerned with the content of the essay itself. Go ahead and title your essay if you think it would help communicate your message; otherwise, leave your essay untitled. - How long should my essay be?
Colleges will sometimes suggest a word limit for the main essay, usually five hundred words. While there is no definitive length that makes for a good essay, you can use five hundred as a rule of thumb. If you are given a word limit or allotted a specific amount of space on an application, adhere to it. You would be unwise to expect an admissions officer — who may review thousands of essays a year — to read extra pages, or to strain his or her eyes trying to make out your miniscule font. You should generally avoid anything smaller than a 12-point typeface. - Should one avoid using quotations?
You should quote sparingly. Using too many quotations can make your essay sound overly scholarly or, perhaps even worse, cliched. Keep in mind that your essay is supposed to reflect your ideas-what do you think it says if you use your one opportunity to express yourself in your own words to cite those of other people? - Is an introduction absolutely necessary?
Most essays require an introductory paragraph to identify the topic and present the theme. Exceptions to this include short one- to two-paragraph essays, which require only a few sentences to introduce the topic. An introduction is also unnecessary in an inductive essay, which takes the reader through a discussion without a clear focus, and reveals its intention only at the end. A third exception is a narrative essay, which could survive without an introduction. Most of the time, however, it is a good idea to provide some sort of introduction.
The Interview
- Do all schools require personal interviews?
No, but many schools find them valuable in determining an applicants communication skills, and strongly recommend scheduling one. - What should I wear to the interview?
Wearing the appropriate attire is very important. Dress professionally and conservatively (dark suits, tasteful ties, clean, shined shoes), keep fragrances and cosmetics to a minimum, and do not smoke or chew gum. - What are some common mistakes that people make during interviews?
Common mistakes include: excessive nervousness, lack of confidence, lack of enthusiasm about the school, not asking questions, complaining about your employer, and complaining about your grades and scores. - What questions should I expect to be asked?
A school is likely to ask questions about your personal and professional experiences, your career goals, reasons you wish to pursue an MBA, your achievements, your potential contributions to the school, and your reasons for wanting to attend that particular school's MBA program. - What questions should I ask?
Ask anything you want about the school, but be sure you really want to know the answer. Be prepared with three to five questions about the school that are thoughtful, sincere, and specific enough to the school that it is clear you have done your research. Do not ask any questions that are answered in the application materials you should have read prior to the interview.
Recommendations
- How do I ensure that my recommendations are good?
Ask your recommenders early, give them all the necessary materials (forms; stamped, addressed envelopes; a list of deadlines), and provide materials that will help them be as specific as possible about you (papers; presentations; your résumé). A good recommendation should relay insightful anecdotes about you and attest to your character and abilities. - Who should write my recommendations?
Ask people who know you well and who can write about your qualities sincerely and enthusiastically to write your recommendations. An employer or a professor are obvious choices. Whomever you choose, make sure he or she can speak to at least one the following traits: your intelligence, your character, or your business skills. And make sure that each one of these areas is covered among all your recommenders.