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Resume, Cover letter and Essays

Free advice from the world's top MBA consultants
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Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
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by mmayad » Sat Oct 04, 2008 10:50 pm
Hi everyone

I'm applying to a number of programs and my first question is this: Since I am already writing a few essays for each application, is it important for me to include a cover letter with my uploaded resume, or will the resume alone be sufficient?

My second question is concerning the career goals essay

In the stanford application, I found the career aspirations essay the most suitable place to explain my motivation for pursuing the mba and the reasons for choosing stanford, however this left me little space (in words - the limit is 500) to explain specifically what I intend to do. I say in my essay that my vision is to start my own healthcare management consultancy firm, but I am unable to go into much detail.

Can the optional essay (normally used for explaining gaps in employment or low scores etc.) be used to go into further detail about career goals?

Thank you for your kind help
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by Graham » Sun Oct 05, 2008 5:16 am
Dear MMayad,

Thanks for your post!

In answer to your first question, you should not include a 'cover letter' in your MBA applications. The only exception here is if a school specifically requests such a letter - as is the case with MIT-Sloan. The other schools will request a resume, but they do not need a cover letter, since they will read your essays to understand why you are applying to school, etc.

In answer to your second question, the Stanford essay you refer to has the following prompt:

Essay B: What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them?

As such, the school is clearly looking for a description of your plans - in addition to how Stanford might help you on that path. One could logically assume that this essay would be devoted roughly 50%-50% towards career aspirations/how Stanford will help. My advice is that you aim to cover each of these two parts of the question as thoroughly as possible.

As to using the optional essay to cover what you can't fit here, I cannot recommend that. The optional essay is really designed for you to cover something that couldn't have been addressed in the assigned essays.

For more advice as to how to approach the Stanford essays, as well as the optional essay, see the following pages:

Stanford Essay Topic Analysis
https://blog.clearadmit.com/2008/06/stan ... 2008-2009/

Admissions Tip: The Optional Essay
https://blog.clearadmit.com/2008/09/admi ... l-essay-2/

Best of luck,

Graham
Graham Richmond
Clear Admit, LLC
[email protected]
215 568 2590

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