Writing Complementary Multiple Essays

by , May 12, 2010

You're applying to six MBA programs and each program requires 2-7 essays which equalsa whole lot of writing. How can you draft so many essays and still maintain a fresh and original voice in each?

First, it's quite likely that you'll be able to adapt one essay from a given application to another essay on another application. However, resist the urge to cut and paste no matter how similar the questions appear to be. While your past experiences will not change at this point, the significance you ascribe to them should differ depending on the question you are responding to, the other questions asked in the application, and the priorities of your target school. Address the nuances in seemingly identical questions. And always, always double check to ensure you have the correct school name in each essay (so you don't send "Why I want to go to HBS" to Stanford) By adapting and modifying you will both save time and ensure that the essays are appropriate for each school.

Within a single application, however, you want to present varied experiences, keep repetition as close to zero as possible, and refrain from recycling entirely.

While composing multiple essays can be time consuming, there are advantages to presenting a program with more than a single essay for review. By writing multiple essays you'll get more room to go into greater detail and depth about your experiences and qualifications. Each essay will give you a new opportunity to reveal difference influences and achievements in your life, as well as different aspects of your personality, interests, and values.

Here are some tips to help you manage the task of constructing multiple essays without creating overlapping content:

1. Make sure each essay (for a single b-school application) has its own theme. If you present two essays on the same experience, you'll probably end up with duplicate copy, and at least one of the essays will be boring.
2. If you have multiple essays to manage, consider making a chart and attributing certain experiences, accomplishments, and skills to certain questions so you don't end up using the same experience, accomplishment, or skill for more than one question at a given school.
3. While composing multiple essays keep in mind the different layers and textures of your personality. Try to present these layers in your essays so the adcoms receive a rich, multi-dimensional portrait of you as a human being.

Additional Accepted.com Writing Resources:

• Sample MBA Essays
• 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your Application Essay, an email course.
• "MBA Admissions: Application Essay Do's & Don'ts," an article.
• "Recipe for Disaster: Application Mistakes You Want to Avoid," an article.
• "Ten Tips for Better Writing," an article.