Conveying certainty in Admission Essays - quick question!

[jsl]

In my admissions essays, I have been trying to find the balance between conveying certainty and coming over as too overconfident.

For example, which of the following would you advise me to use?

"Developing my career, I will broaden my network at London Business School"

or

"Developing my career, I hope to broaden my network at London Business School"

Which of the above is preferable and why?
Thanks!
JSL

[Cindy Tokumitsu]

Hello,

An interesting question! For that particular point, I suggest the first one, which shows certainty. However, overall in the essays, it’s nice to have a balance between the two, not because you don’t want to sound over-confident, but because sentence after sentence of “I will” starts to sound like a jackhammer. Sometimes you should modulate with “I hope to” or “I look forward to” etc. for matters of tone and conveying graciousness. That means you should select the most important points, and/or those points about which you truly are certain, for using the straightforward “I will.” In this case, it seems warranted; I don’t think there’s really a question of whether that would happen.

Cindy Tokumitsu
Senior Editor, Accepted.com
www.Accepted.com