The Application Process

Assuming you already have the recommendation letters and you only need to write your essays, can you write the essays in less than 3 weeks? The EWMBA program asks for two short essays and one main essay.

Also, ideally who would you ask to review your essays? And how many people do you ask to help you review the essays?

Hi there,

Although it will be quite tight, if you have the bulk of your application ready - GMAT score, recommenders lined up, resume ready - you should be able to complete your essays in 3 weeks. Hopefully, you have already given the essays some thought and have a sense of how you want to respond already. Make sure you start with creating an outline for each essay answer (and you may want to get feedback on these) before you start drafting out responses. With our clients, we have them focus on content first and ensuring that the key messages are clear, before doing edits and revision for language and style.

It's a good idea to ask someone to read through your essays, preferably someone who has attended b-school or a professional MBA consulting firm that has such expertise. If you opt to go with friends/family, I would suggest you only get a few people to provide input; otherwise, it may get too complicated and you may get conflicting advice.

Good luck!
Gopika

Fortuna Admissions
www.fortunaadmissions.com

I would recommend giving at least 4-6 weeks (assuming you have a full-time job and a life outside).

saintforlife wrote:Assuming you already have the recommendation letters and you only need to write your essays, can you write the essays in less than 3 weeks? The EWMBA program asks for two short essays and one main essay.

Also, ideally who would you ask to review your essays? And how many people do you ask to help you review the essays?

This is a very subjective question, and frankly, there's no good objective answer!
How long it takes you to write your essays depends on how much thought and research you have already put in - if you have already introspected long and hard about your post-MBA goals, and researched your target school/program well, you would have answers to the standard questions B-schools ask:
1. Your goals
2. Why an MBA?
3. Why this particular school/program?
4. Why you?

3 weeks is an adequate period of time to write your essays, provided you have the answers in your mind. Here's a step-by-step approach to writing better:
1. Begin with an outline for every essay
2. Expand this outline by writing everything you want, without worrying about the word limits.
3. Keep this aside for a couple of days and come back to it. On reading what you've written, you will find that you can trim out many of the details you've put in, and include other points.
4. Keep repeating steps #2 and #3 a couple of times till your essays are more or less in place.
5. Show the essays around - to friends, colleagues, family or experts. Each will have a different perspective. Don't show it to too many people because too many inputs will just confuse you. When you pick reviewers, make sure that you pick a good mix of people who know you at work, outside of work, and who do not know you at all. I would say, 3-4 reviewers is a good number to go with - not more than this.

Do remember that you do not need to incorporate all the feedback you get - the final decision is yours. So, rather than take feedback verbatim, think of the underlying problem the reviewer is pointing out, and try to address that. For instance, if someone asks you to include a specific incident in your essays, before going ahead and writing about it, ask yourself why this incident is significant. Does it bring out a certain quality or trait of yours that will add value to your application? Then perhaps there is a better way to bring this out, other than by citing the suggested incident.

I hope you get my drift.