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Submit a Stellar Application

MBA BlastOff: 45 Terrific Tips to Launch Your MBA Application to Acceptance.

How to Write Great College Application Essays and Stay Sane

How to Write Great College Application Essays and Stay Sane

Best Practices for
MBA Admissions

The Finance Professional`s Guide to MBA Admissions Success

The Consultant`s Guide to MBA Admission

The Techie`s Guide to MBA Admissions


The Nine Mistakes You Don`t Want to Make on a Law School Waitlist


The Nine Mistakes You Don`t Want to Make on a Med School Waitlist

The Nine Mistakes You Don`t Want to Make on an MBA Waitlist

Great Application Essays for Business School

Great Personal Statements for Law School

Write Your Way to a Residency Match

Write Your Way to a Fellowship Match

MBA I.V.: Mainline to Top MBA Programs MBA Interview Questions and Tips

Create a Better Sequel: How to Reapply Right to Business School

September 2006 Volume 9, Issue 9
Free monthly newsletter Subscribers: 4858
Archives ISSN: 1526-2316
Published by Accepted.com Linda Abraham, Editor
Subscriber self administration

Accepted.com Odds 'N Ends


In This Issue:
 
What's New at Accepted.com
 


What's New at Accepted.com

MBA BlastOff: 45 Terrific Tips to Launch Your MBA Application to Acceptance Available Now
In this instantly downloadable work, based on the MBA BlastOff series of teleseminars, we'll show you how to create a winning MBA application package including advice on:

  • Writing your MBA essays.
  • Crafting your MBA application resume.
  • Working with recommenders.
  • Preparing for MBA admissions interviews.

Plus we give you lots of tips for applying specifically to Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton.

Upcoming Ebooks
Sheila Bender's new ebook, Don't Let Writing the Application Essay Drive You and Your Family Crazy, will be available on or before October 1. Sheila's constructive advice and guidance helps applicants write their college personal statements and aids them and their families in surviving the process. She outlines a useful approach to essay writing and to staying clear on applicant and family roles.

Cydney Foote and I have been working on an ebook for fellowship applicants. It should also be available by October 1.

Upcoming Events

2006 MBA Admissions Chats

Blog Posts of Interest

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Essay Tip
 
 
Back to the Future
A participant in LAMP recently emailed me, "I understand the key to the essay is to link my past to my future and show how School X fits into the picture. However, talking about the future, in general, has no basis, and talking about School X does not make me unique."

These are great observations about the challenges facing applicants writing statements of purpose, MBA goals essays, and to a slightly lesser extent, law and medical school personal statements. You need to talk about the future and keep it real. You also need to distinguish yourself from your competition and introduce yourself as a human being and individual to the admissions committee while discussing your reasons for wanting to attend School X. How can you handle these challenges?

Talking about the future should have a basis. Your future goal should be based in your past experience. If you say you want to go into international business, ADR, or primary care medicine, then you better have international experience, dispute resolution know-how, or primary care exposure. If your goal has no basis, it is pie in the sky and won't fly. (pun intended.) Also, international business, just for example, is very broad. For MBA's in particular, specific goals are much better, and they also help you in the other fields provided they are anchored in your past. Specificity differentiates and reveals foresight and research. Use it to your advantage.

Talking superficially about School X or spitting back School X's marketing material and mantras does you no good. But if you can write about how specific classes or seminars with particular professors whose research or specialization is of interest to you and will help you achieve your career aspirations, then you have a winner. Show not that you have read their brochure, but that you have researched their program and given serious thought to how it will help you achieve your goals. By doing so, you will also demonstrate that you belong at School X.

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Resume Tip
 

Aligning Your Resume with Your Graduate Application Essays
MBA and other graduate school applicants frequently submit a resume with their application. Many schools require it, and some schools, such as Columbia Business School, even specify a given format. Providing the resume not only will present a valuable context for your other materials, but it also will give the adcom readers an easy point of reference as they read your essay(s).

To use the resume to the best advantage strategically in the application, you must align it with your essays. First, follow the basic rules of good resume writing for your MBA application resume. (See Accepted.com's resume section.) Beyond that, there are several points to consider in preparing your resume for your graduate school applications:

  • The resume can free up space in your essays. By summarizing your experience and achievements in the resume, you don't have to worry about cramming every noteworthy item into your essays or sketching out your career path. Rather, you can be very selective and detailed in the experiences you do elaborate on in the essays. These two components together, the essays and the resume, by complementing each other rather than being redundant, can help your message resonate.
  • Be consistent in your resume and essays: refer to companies, job titles, departments, technologies, and other items in the same way in both pieces. Not only does this prevent confusion, it also heightens the unity and coherence of the overall application.
  • Review your essays and determine whether there are particular skills, abilities, talents, or experience that you should reinforce. Then use your resume to do so. For example, if your verbal GMAT score was low, presumably you emphasized your verbal skills in your essays. Use the resume to further strengthen the impression of strong verbal skills.
  • Especially for MBA applicants, your goals are the anchor of your application essays; everything you write should directly or indirectly relate to them. So should the resume. In selecting the experiences and accomplishments to highlight, try to give the resume a slant that reflects your goals.

Cindy Tokumitsu
Senior Editor, Accepted.com
Member, Professional Association of Resume Writers

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Wrap Up


Our Services

Writing a personal statement is a tough challenge. A former client, an NBC journalist with over twenty years of experience in the field, once said that his personal statement "was the toughest thing I ever had to write." He sought our help. Shouldn't you?

Accepted.com's editors are here to help you write your best essays -- eloquent, compelling essays that distinguish you from the competition and transform you from a transcript and test score into a competitive applicant and unique individual.

Check us out. Complete information on our services, including prices, testimonials, and information about our top-notch professional staff, can be found at our services page.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at info@accepted.com or 310-815-9553.

We look forward to serving you.

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Copyright
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