As admissions consultants, we often hear college and graduate school applicants ask, “I’m applying to multiple schools, and each one requires essays/personal statements. Can I use the same essay for different schools?” Understandably, applicants want to maintain the quality of their essays and avoid burnout when having to write so many drafts. We can sympathize. Even better, though, we have some practical solutions for determining when and how to use an essay for more than one school. The good news is that what makes practical sense in terms of efficiency also makes sense in terms of quality – if you view the process as “adapting” rather than “reusing.” Reusing an essay more or less verbatim is very rarely advisable. On the other hand, the core content of some application essays – personal statements, in particular – includes information that is central to your candidacy and would naturally be relevant to share with multiple schools. And sometimes when you rework an essay/personal statement for additional applications, its quality improves as you reflect further and discover new subtleties.

So, if multiple schools ask similar questions, it’s logical to consider adapting some or perhaps even a significant portion of an essay you wrote for one program to fit another program’s prompt. One thing to keep in mind is that required essay lengths tend to differ from school to school, and your messaging will likely vary according to the nuances of each question. Most importantly, many application essays/personal statements demand some discussion of the specific program the candidate is applying to, so this content would certainly need to be revised for each school. 

When considering revising an existing essay for a different school, start by reading the new question out loud to make sure you clearly hear and understand exactly what the school is asking. Many times, an essay prompt will have more than one question within it, and you don’t want to overlook any of them and not deliver the information the admissions committee has requested. I also suggest highlighting key words in each school’s essay prompts and checking against them later in the review process to ensure that your essay touches on all the main points. Be guided first by the question and then, more broadly, by your understanding of the character of the school/program – and adapt your essay content accordingly.

Here are some additional tips to keep in mind when attempting to adapt an essay for one school into a submission for a different school: 

1. Create a list of the essays you need to submit and the qualities you wish to highlight in each one.

When juggling multiple essays/personal statements, consider using a spreadsheet to track each question, the school asking it, and which experiences, accomplishments, and skills you can associate with each question. This will help you see where you might be able to adapt one school’s essay for a different application.

2. If you do any name-dropping, always be sure to double-check the names!

Always check very carefully (and then check again) to make sure you have the correct school and resource names in your revised essay. You don’t want, for example, to refer to the University of Michigan in an essay you’re planning to submit to the University of Chicago. Sending an essay that discusses why you want to go to UPenn to the Yale adcom won’t be good for your chances of being admitted! And believe me, it happens.

3. Never simply cut and paste an entire essay, even if two schools have very similar questions.

As I noted earlier, some schools ask similar essay questions, but no two questions will ever be exactly alike. Whenever you are writing, adapting, or editing an essay/personal statement, keep the school you are writing for front and center in your mind. Tailor each essay as much as you can to discuss and apply to each program’s unique culture, personality, and “flavor.” And when you feel you are nearly done, reread the essay prompts and go back to those highlighted words to ensure that you have truly answered every question the adcom posed.

Do you need help writing (or adapting) your application essays? Could you benefit from an expert’s assistance in identifying the strongest elements of your experience and profile? Schedule a free consultation with an Accepted admissions expert. 

As the former executive director of admissions at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School and assistant dean of admissions at Georgetown’s McDonough School and the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz School, Kelly Wilson has 23 years’ experience overseeing admissions committees and has reviewed more than 38,000 applications for the MBA and master’s programs in management of information systems, computational finance, business analytics, and product management. Want Kelly to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources

• How an Admissions Committee Views Your MBA Work Experience
• Proving Character Traits in Your Essays
• Finding a Theme for Your Statement of Purpose

The post Can You Use the Same Essays for Different Schools? appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

In today’s world, where everything moves at lightning speed, we’re constantly making fast decisions. 

This applies to admissions committees, too. The pressure of their job forces them to make very quick decisions about whose applications they will invest more time in and whose will merit only an obligatory but cursory review before being set aside. 

Their reality is one of managing an overwhelming volume of applications with limited time for review, so when you’re applying to business school, medical school, graduate school, or college, you must capture your reader’s attention with the very first lines of your essay. Your opening sentence cannot fall flat. It needs to pull your reader immediately into your narrative. Every word counts.  

Engaging Your Readers Right From the Start

Think of your essay’s first line as the opening of a great novel. You want your reader to think, “I need to know more!” Let’s take a look at some good examples:

• Horns blare as tiny auto rickshaws and bicycle-powered school buses weave through the crowded streets of Old Delhi.
• After a near disaster on my first week as a case manager at a community center for women and children, I realized that to succeed, I’d have to suppress my anger at how poorly things were being run.
• My aunt’s cancer had spread throughout her body before anyone had diagnosed it properly – too late for treatment. That moment changed everything for me, making my interest in science personal.
• From the age of seven, while struggling with math but excelling in spelling tests and writing stories, I knew I was meant to be a writer.

Notice a trend? Three out of these four openers are personal stories. There’s no mention of GPAs or scientific breakthroughs. The first example is so vibrant and full of action that we instantly want to know who’s experiencing this scene. In each case, the reader’s curiosity is piqued, and that’s what you want. 

A strong opener will include three key elements:

1. A glimpse of your theme or story – who you are, what you’re passionate about, and the path you’re on
2. Creative details or descriptions – something that paints a picture and grabs attention
3. Energetic writing – language that makes the reader feel like they can’t stop until they’ve read the entire essay

Your opening should show a connection between where you’ve been and where you’re heading. Here are a few more examples:

• It was pitch black when we quietly climbed into the back of a truck, beginning our journey to freedom.
• Only six months after launching my start-up, I realized the money wasn’t flowing in – just out the window.
• Finding a green, scratched 1960s Cadillac in a junkyard last summer made me realize that mechanical engineering was my calling.

These lines pull you in. You can’t help but want to know the rest of the story. When done right, these kinds of personal anecdotes don’t just offer facts – they paint a picture, making your story more real and engaging.

Having read these examples, you might now have some ideas for your own essay introduction. Start by jotting down some key moments in your life that helped shape your career or academic goals. Maybe it was a job experience, a family event, or a “light bulb” moment that made you realize what you wanted to do.

For example, an electrical engineering applicant might remember the first time their home lost power and realize that that was the moment they discovered their career path. A future MBA student might recall a pivotal time when they helped a struggling person understand financial basics, which sparked their interest in nonprofit work. A law school applicant might recount witnessing a courtroom scene during an internship that inspired them to specialize in criminal law.

Once you’ve created a list of these defining moments, dig deeper. What stood out about each one? How did it make you feel? What sensory details can you include (what did you see, hear, or smell)? These tiny details will help you build a narrative that draws your reader in.

Still struggling to find that perfect hook? Our team of experts is here to help! We can guide you through crafting an essay that stands out, from brainstorming a compelling opening line to polishing the final draft. You’ve got a great story to tell. Let’s make sure the admissions committee doesn’t miss it.

Kara Keenan Sweeney has more than 15 years of experience in MBA admissions, having worked for some of the world’s top business school programs, including Columbia Business School, INSEAD, and The Lauder Institute’s joint degree MA/MBA program with The Wharton School and the MA/JD program with Penn Law at the University of Pennsylvania. Kara has guided, coached, and counseled thousands of MBA and EMBA applicants, reviewed innumerable applications, sat on admissions committees, and interviewed countless applicants, including while running Wharton’s Team Based Discussions both virtually and in person. Want Kara to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! 

Related Resources

• The Resilience Factor: How Flaws and Failures Can Strengthen Your Application
• Three Must-Have Elements of a Good Statement of Purpose
• Proving Character Traits in Your Essays 

The post Writing an Engaging Essay Introduction appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

A speaker recently told a story about traveling in Asia, where he saw a stunning emerald. Enchanted by the stone’s beauty, he decided to buy it on the spot.

He returned home and took the emerald to a jeweler for appraisal. The jeweler began examining the stone through his magnifier, and as he did so, his face went pale.

“What’s the matter?” asked the proud owner of the emerald.

“I can’t find a flaw,” said the jeweler.

“Wonderful!” said the stone’s owner.

“No, it’s not. If it’s flawless, it’s a fake. A phony. Nothing in the natural world is flawless,” replied the jeweler.

“Then find a flaw!”

After a few more tense moments, the jeweler discovered a small flaw, and the owner of the stone stopped worrying that he had been taken in by a piece of plastic masquerading as a gem.

What does this have to do with admissions? Just this: When the adcoms ask you to write about a flaw or weakness in your essays, and you either fail to offer any or the ones you come up with sound like you are just checking a box – mentioning something vague and generic and not of much significance – you will seem like a fake in their eyes.

Everything in nature has an imperfection or two (or three), including human beings. Don’t misunderstand: we’re not suggesting that you talk about every weakness you know you have and say, “This is me. Take it or leave it.”

But if you have learned and grown from your weaknesses or succeeded in overcoming obstacles, you are well positioned to flip those shortcomings into strengths in your essays. It takes honest self-reflection, a desire to improve, and hard work to break an unhealthy habit, pattern, or way of thinking. The ability to demonstrate self-awareness by working to minimize your flaws and develop new skills or talents to compensate for weaknesses will prove your maturity while also building your resilience. These are qualities that adcoms especially want to see these days. 

How Failures and Flaws Can Build Resilience 

Recently, we worked with a client who was applying to MBA programs and had once made the type of mistake that could have not only gotten him fired but also destroyed a lucrative business relationship between his employer and a major customer. 

Here’s the story: “Sami” was working in an analytics department and played a role in the incorrect interpretation of some key data. This incorrect reading led his employer to recommend a business strategy to the firm’s customer that was the exact opposite of what it should have been. What a disaster! Sami didn’t discover this catastrophic error until after the new strategy had been implemented. 

He could have watched from afar as the strategy failed and things fell apart. Instead, he came clean and waited for the blowback. Sami expected the worst and nearly began clearing out his desk.  

Instead, he was rewarded for his integrity, despite the risk to his reputation. Not only did he keep his job, but the relationship between his employer and the firm’s customer actually flourished. This experience clearly positioned Sami to write about a “failure” and the lessons he learned about owning up to one’s mistakes and accepting responsibility. He didn’t look smaller because of his mistake – his stature grew because of his honesty.  

“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”

Essay questions that ask you to discuss failure, risk, mistakes, conflict, difficult interactions, or overcoming obstacles often make applicants cringe. After all, you’re on a mission to show the admissions committee that you are on top of your game and ready to conquer the world. The last thing you want to do is call attention to the details of when and where you’ve fallen short. 

As Sami’s experience proves, however, questions about failure provide a window into your character. How resilient are you in the face of a setback? How did you respond to the situation? Did you shrink from the impact of your actions, or did you muster the courage to try to set things right, as best as you could, under the circumstances? What did you learn about yourself, about the world of business, about relationships, and/or about communication? What wisdom did you gain that you have applied in your life since then? Can you show convincingly that you view your stumble as an inevitable, vital, even transformative step on the road to achievement?

Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once said, “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.” So take heart: Writing about your flaws and setbacks is an opportunity for you to shine by showing your humility, commitment to growth, and determination to apply the lessons learned. Reading about your setbacks allows the admissions committee to understand what you’re really made of. 

Follow these four steps to transform your setbacks into achievements:

1. Demonstrate how your failure led to success.

The mistake you made might have led you to discover a new idea, strategy, or invention that you otherwise would not have discovered. Or, it might have given you the determination to strengthen your skills or knowledge base. It’s hardly a secret that some of the most successful entrepreneurs failed before achieving remarkable results. The late Steve Jobs was famously terminated from his own company before Apple became a household name. James Dyson created thousands of faulty, nonfunctional prototypes before patenting his best-selling vacuum. So, why do we forget the silver linings of these legendary failures when confronted with our own mistakes?

Be specific when you present your examples. A mistake you made in the lab might have cost you weeks of work. However, as a result, you learned something important about lab techniques, and now you’ve adopted more fastidious research practices. If you are discussing a personal failure, maybe you neglected an important relationship to the point where the relationship died. Feeling this loss keenly, you now make a point of treating people with greater respect. 

When writing about professional or personal failures and lessons learned, you cannot simply claim that you’ve changed without citing evidence. Clearly spell out what you learned and how you have changed. Offer true, believable examples of times when you behaved differently – more purposefully and sensitively – as a way of investing more deeply and wisely in your relationships.

2. Show that you truly understand why something went wrong.

Explaining what went wrong is only half the game in these essays. You must also explain why it went wrong. Doing so will show the adcom that you have taken time to really think about and reflect on your role in the situation and your understanding of the dynamics that led to the problem. Don’t play the blame game. Explain the process you went through to get real answers and solutions. Relate some of the steps you have taken to avoid making similar mistakes since. Perhaps you caught yourself about to repeat the mistake but realized that impulse was not the “new you” and saved yourself from making the error again.

Let’s look at an example. You pushed your colleagues hard to complete a work project, but your hard-driving nature made them resent you, and with no benefit to the project. Having realized your mistake – even though your sole intention was to get the job done on time – perhaps you could write about the focused attention you now pay to your colleagues’ suggestions, efforts, and capabilities. In other words, from that error, you have learned to turn lemons into lemonade. Offer at least one specific example of how your efforts have paid off.

3. Focus on what you’ve learned on a personal level.

Mature applicants view and consider situations and people differently – and make decisions more deliberately – after making mistakes. Prove that you are this kind of applicant. As the philosopher Plutarch stated, “To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.” Show how you grew by, for example, taking a course in time management to become better at effectively juggling all your responsibilities, starting therapy to help with your anxiety when work pressure feels overwhelming, or another significant step forward.

Add power to your explanations by describing “before and after” situations: the “before” stressed-out, not-well-organized person staying up till 3 a.m. to get everything done and delivering haphazard work, and the “after” person practicing time-management and mindfulness skills, and coping with responsibilities more calmly, deliberately, and competently. Demonstrating these changes through real-life examples presents you as more grown-up and emotionally intelligent. And you can bet the admissions committee wants to see these valuable traits.

4. Show the adcom how you’ve become more resilient.

“Resilience” has become a cliche, but it’s critical to appreciate the concept: it is the building of inner strength and fortitude in the face of conflict, pain, or disappointment. Successful adults must be resilient to cope with life’s rocky patches. Naturally, colleges and universities want to see evidence that you have this important quality. 

Earlier in this article, we said that a weakness or failure could be flipped into a strength, given the right attitude and effort. Similarly, a weakness can also be the flip side of a strength. For example, perhaps your tendency to be “too detail oriented” resulted in your discovering a critical error before it triggered a larger problem. Identifying your weakness and giving it careful thought might have prompted you to take steps to correct or minimize it.

Be thoughtful in your responses to questions about weakness or failure, and don’t shy away from them. Successful leaders must have honesty and integrity as part of their DNA and be able to identify and admit to failures and weaknesses. 

Nobody’s perfect, but a “perfect” answer to questions about flaws and failures just might get you admitted! To make sure your essays reflect you at your best, work with us. Every consultant at Accepted has years of experience in admissions and guiding applicants to gain coveted acceptances at top schools worldwide. Let them do the same for you!

Dr. Sundas Ali has more than 15 years of experience teaching and advising students, providing career and admissions advice, reviewing applications and conducting interviews for the University of Oxford’s undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition, Dr. Ali has worked with students from a wide range of countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, India, Pakistan, China, Japan, and the Middle East. Want Sundas to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! 

Related Resources

• From Example to Exemplary: How to Use Sample Essays to Make Your Essay Outstanding!, a free guide
• Three Ways Writing About Obstacles Strengthens Your Application Essays
• Writing a Compelling Accomplishment Essay

The post The Resilience Factor: How Flaws and Failures Can Strengthen Your Application appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Starting high school is an exciting milestone. You’re stepping into a world of new opportunities, challenges, and experiences. While college applications might seem light-years away, your freshman year is the perfect time to begin exploring your interests and developing your passions. By starting early, you can build a strong foundation not just for college applications but also for a fulfilling life. 

Here are some practical steps you can take to uncover and cultivate your passions as a high school freshman.

1. Explore a variety of activities.

High school is a great time to try new things. Join clubs, play sports, audition for the school play, volunteer, or sign up for a coding class. The key is to cast a wide net. You might discover that you love something you’ve never tried before, like theatre, debate, photography, or robotics. And don’t feel pressured to stick with every activity. It’s okay to drop what doesn’t resonate with you and focus on what excites you most.

2. Follow your curiosity.

Passions often start with curiosity. The Common App prompt “Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time” triggers this kind of introspection. Consider research topics that take you down the “rabbit hole” or YouTube videos you just can’t get enough of. For some, it might be astronomy, environmental advocacy, or even baking; regardless, dive deeper into what intrigues you. Read books, take online courses, or connect with a teacher or other students who share your interest.

3. Set small goals.

Passions aren’t born overnight. They grow through consistent effort and engagement. If you love art, set a goal to complete a sketch every week. If you’re interested in community service, aim to volunteer a few hours each month. Small, achievable goals can help you build momentum and confidence.

4. Seek mentors and role models.

Finding someone who inspires you can make a big difference. Teachers, coaches, family friends, and other students can offer guidance and encouragement as you explore your interests. Don’t hesitate to ask questions or seek advice; most people are happy to help when they sense your enthusiasm.

5. Document your journey.

Keep a journal, blog, or portfolio of your experiences, reflections, and achievements. Records like this help you track your growth and impact, which become valuable material for your college essays. For example, if you start a garden to learn about sustainability, write about the challenges you faced, what you learned along the way, and your results. For example, a statement like “I started with just ten seeds, but they yielded more than 100 tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots” demonstrates your impact. 

6. Find opportunities beyond school.

Your passions don’t have to be confined to your high school. Look for local workshops, summer programs, meetings, conferences, and internships that foster your interests. For example, if you’re passionate about writing, consider submitting to local contests or joining a community writing group.

7. Embrace challenges and failures.

Growth often comes from stepping out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to take on something difficult or to fail along the way. Each challenge is an opportunity to learn more about yourself and refine your interests.

8. Think about impact.

As you develop your interests, consider how they can make a difference in the world. Colleges are often impressed by students who not only excel in their passions but also use them to contribute to their communities. For example, if you love technology, you might create an app to help local nonprofits.

Looking Ahead

By the time you’re a high school senior, your passions will likely play a central role in your college applications. Admissions officers love to see applicants who have pursued their interests with depth and dedication over time. More importantly, developing your passions will make your high school experience richer and more meaningful.

Remember, it’s okay if you don’t have everything figured out right away. Freshman year is just the beginning of your journey. Stay curious, stay open, and most importantly, have fun exploring all the possibilities that lie ahead.

By Natalie Grinblatt, a former admissions dean/director at three top business schools. Natalie has reviewed more than 70,000 applications, interviewed more than 2,500 candidates, and trained nearly 700 admissions directors and alumni volunteers to select outstanding candidates for admission. Her clients gain admission to top programs, including those at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Cornell, Columbia, Berkeley, Chicago, Northwestern, and NYU. Natalie holds an MBA from Michigan Ross. Want Natalie to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• Four Tips for High School Students Interested in a Career in Medicine
• Taking the Road Less Traveled for High School Seniors – Six Ways to Spend a Gap Year
• Six Last-Minute Common Application Tips – 2024-2025

The post High School Freshman Year Game Plan: Eight Ways to Kick-Start Your Passions appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Maybe you’re familiar with the concept of macros, which are the nutrients your body needs to function. Achieving the proper balance of macros in your diet leads to optimal health. When it comes to writing your MBA personal statements and application essays, it might be helpful to think of your accomplishments as the macros that can make your submissions the best they can be. A fascinating discussion among Accepted’s admissions consultants revealed that MBA applicants don’t always understand how the adcoms define an accomplishment, so we wrote this post to help remove the guesswork on your part. Here are the kinds of accomplishments you should strive to include in your essay:

• Examples of impact and initiative
• Evidence of having overcome obstacles
• Demonstrated leadership

Examples of Impact and Initiative

In your accomplishment essay, offering examples of when you have had an impact and/or took initiative are what will show the adcoms that you have the “right stuff,” that you have had a meaningful influence on a person, organization, or entity.

For example, maybe you proactively stepped up to boost membership in a group or to lead a team to victory. Perhaps you built a coalition in student government. Or you might have increased sales, cut costs, or found a solution to a problem that paved the way for a critical deal to go forward.

When you are assessing whether an achievement belongs in an essay about your greatest accomplishments, consider the level of impact it had and/or initiative it demonstrates. 

You might now be wondering whether awards count. It depends. If you won an award for a story you wrote that was published, your performance in an athletic competition, or some other “personal best,” then yes, those would be excellent choices for an essay about a personal achievement. More often, however, you will be asked to write about a significant achievement that involves impact beyond your own personal growth. In these situations, an award that would be appropriate to write about would be one that resulted from an effort – either academic or professional – that involved a team or people other than yourself. This is the kind of achievement that transcends a “personal best.”  

By now, you can probably see the difference between a primarily personal achievement and a career-related one. And you might already recognize some of your accomplishments that would be notable enough to write about. 

A good place to find potential experiences for your accomplishments essay is by reviewing your resume. Ideally, it will be loaded with quantifiable achievements, from both your professional and extracurricular roles. If you work in marketing and clinched four new accounts in a single year, leading to a promotion, that’s an achievement. If you work for a social service agency and developed a new intake system for clients that the agency adopted, leading to a more organized and streamlined process, that’s an achievement. In college, you might have been involved in a student organization that promotes career development and leadership among minority students, and even became president of that organization. That’s an achievement.

Which experiences on your resume stand out to you now? No doubt you’ll start to see things popping out at you.

Seemingly small achievements can actually be big. The following sample essay offers a great example of an impact that initially seems limited to one person but that ultimately radiates outward: 

From the first day I was tasked with mentoring a new hire, Thomas, it was a challenge. He had strong work experience in product development from his previous job, but he was soft-spoken and reserved, and had a strong stutter. I felt pain for him as he struggled to complete a word or a sentence, but it was also awkward for both of us as I waited for him to finish his point. During a department meeting, someone actually rolled her eyes as Thomas was answering a question. I just glared at her for being so cold. At our weekly department lunches, which were meant to be a relaxed social time for everyone, Thomas hung back quietly, seeming like he was a million miles away. 

I didn’t understand why Thomas seemed a little slow to catch on to the ways of our department. He was clearly very intelligent. It was taking longer for me to complete my own work because of the extra time I was spending with him on his assignments. One afternoon on a whim, I invited him to join me for dinner at a popular burger place. He looked surprised but agreed.

That night broke the ice. Thomas relaxed and enjoyed his dinner, and I noticed his speech was more fluid. We discovered a mutual love of soccer and political thriller novels. I really enjoyed his company and told him so. We went out again the following week to an Italian place that he chose. On our third “date,” Thomas opened up about a broken engagement that happened just before he started this new job. He was aware that his grief was distracting him, clouding his thinking, and making his stutter worse. 

“I know I’ve not been easy to train,” he told me, “but I’m starting to come out of it now.” After that night, Thomas’s work improved rapidly. He risked speaking up more at the weekly lunches and at meetings, and everyone was patient when he struggled to say something, though those occasions were less frequent. 

I consider this mentoring experience one of my greatest accomplishments, because in trying to befriend a coworker, I not only gained a true friend for myself but also helped him gain confidence and perform to his capacity at work. It was the first time in my life I felt I had such a strong and positive impact on another person. It showed me the power of small gestures of friendship and understanding. 

This writer’s decision to offer a listening ear to a coworker who was clearly in some sort of distress became an inspiring achievement that was both personal and professional. His actions had impact that flowed outward beyond just Thomas to the entire department and organization. 

Evidence of Having Overcome Obstacles

Showing the adcom that you have , such as a lack of resources (e.g., time, money, talent, people), magnifies your accomplishments. Our best-laid plans rarely go smoothly, so make sure you discuss any difficulties you faced. Be aware that obstacles can often work “double-duty,” not only by representing a setback that you experienced and found a way to navigate, but also by showing that you emerged from the experience wiser and more capable. When discussing obstacles, never blame other people or circumstances, or complain about the unfairness of the situation. Pointing fingers makes you look small and as though you are trying to avoid accountability. State the facts simply, and the situation will speak for itself. 

Here’s an example of how one applicant dealt with a significant obstacle: 

My book launch had been planned for nearly one year. This was my first book, a biography about my great-grandmother, a trailblazing homeopathic physician who lived at a time when even regular women MDs were a rarity. I wanted to self-publish but knew there was a huge amount of work involved that I didn’t feel suited for. There was editing, design, layout, marketing, getting the book accepted into the book distribution system, logistics, and more. Most published books are quickly forgotten and sell few copies. I didn’t want that to happen to mine. 

My solution was to sign an agreement with my friend Haley to publish my book. She was a talented graphic artist who had set up her own publishing company to publish her husband’s book. Our agreement spelled out our individual financial obligations and responsibilities, but I had a nagging worry. Her marriage was tumultuous, and she could make impulsive decisions. 

Six weeks before the publishing date, a popular book blogger promised a 5-star review on her blog. I also sold an excerpt to a women’s magazine with more than 4 million readers. I was still doing my “happy dance” when Haley called to tell me that our deal was off. She was leaving her husband and driving to stay with her mother, who lived in another state. She said she’d be in touch to work something out. She didn’t say when.

I was furious and anguished. My biggest problem was that the book’s ISBN (identification) numbers for print and digital downloads were assigned to Haley’s company and could not be reassigned to anyone else. Haley also had the distribution and payment agreements in her name. I could have kicked myself for not listening to my intuition, which warned me against working with someone whose life was so upside-down.

I researched my options. The ISBNs could not be transferred to me, but if I bought her publishing company, I would also own her ISBNs. I had no idea whether Haley would agree to my proposal or how we would work out terms, but the only way to save my book was to do the very thing I had tried to avoid: become a publisher myself. 

The following week, Haley agreed to sell me her publishing company for a token amount. It had no assets, and I had already paid for all book-related costs, except for Haley’s time. She also promised to help me with the transition of all the accounts. I decided not to look too far ahead and just focus on giving my book the best send-off into the world that I could. I named the publishing company after my great-grandmother. 

This story about a close call with a publishing disaster reveals the applicant’s achievement of stretching beyond what she thought she could do and finding a way to keep moving forward to achieve her goal. Making lemonade out of lemons this way is certainly an achievement worth sharing.        

Demonstrated Leadership

Leadership accomplishments that work well in application essays usually involve one’s ability to influence, motivate, persuade, direct, and work effectively with others.            

To identify good examples for your accomplishment essay, think about how you have worked with other people – how you led a team, what you learned, and so on. What specifically did you do in your role as leader that can demonstrate your leadership skills for the adcom? What did you learn about leadership, and how did you grow as a leader through the experience?

In the following essay example, the applicant’s leadership-related accomplishment seems almost accidental but had a profound influence on her career path:

My job teaching in a private school began uneventfully. I had a class of bright 4th graders, with only a handful expected to be “challenging.” I loved my supervisor, Monica, who was a gifted teacher but new to her role as a team lead overseeing the 3rd and 4th grades. In addition to having one class of her own, Monica was supposed to create interventions for struggling students, incentivize specific behavior or achievements, plan events and trips, and offer guidance to teachers. 

Monica quickly showed that her skill set was strong in the classroom but not in administration. She let requests from teachers for interventions or advice pile up, and she got testy when I reminded her that I was waiting for her feedback. I wanted to work with her, not against her, so I offered to help. I suggested we meet twice a week after school to review her inbox, which was when I discovered that she focused much better just by having me sit and listen to her discuss the situations. Although I only had two years’ experience as a teacher, Monica still seemed to value my opinion on handling awkward situations, such as when a wealthy parent who was on the school’s board of directors refused to face the reality of her daughter’s chronically aggressive behavior in class. This case was bigger than the both of us. We agreed that Monica needed to bring it to the headmistress of the school for her intervention.

About halfway through the year, Monica and I were still meeting regularly. It was an unexpected partnership, and it was clear to both of us that she wanted to return to full-time teaching. I realized that the administrative tasks and decision-making came more naturally to me than to her, and that after a few more years of teaching experience and a master’s degree in education, I might enjoy having a job like hers. 

Another person in her situation might have simply become angry or resentful at my trying to play a role in her job. She could have shut me out completely. But Monica and I became friends, and I learned a lot from watching her dynamism in the classroom. Additionally, she courageously told the headmistress about our arrangement and asked if the school could pay me for my extra hours – which it did. 

This was a totally unexpected situation that helped me realize that I wanted to take a fork in the road of my career in education. 

Finding the experiences in your life when you have shown initiative and impact, overcome obstacles, and demonstrated leadership will help you write an essay deserving of a chef’s kiss!

Are you thinking about what you could include in a winning accomplishments essay? Team up with an Accepted consultant for help identifying your best material. As your partner and guide in this process, we will ensure that your selections make you stand out for all the right reasons!

Dr. Sundas Ali has more than 15 years of experience teaching and advising students, providing career and admissions advice, reviewing applications and conducting interviews for the University of Oxford’s undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition, Dr. Ali has worked with students from a wide range of countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, India, Pakistan, China, Japan, and the Middle East. Want Sundas to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! 

Related Resources:

• From Example to Exemplary: How to Use Sample Essays to Make Your Essay Outstanding, a free guide
• Four Ways to Show How You’ll Contribute in the Future
• Four Ways to Highlight Your Strengths in Your Application Essays

The post Writing a Compelling Accomplishment Essay appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Check out the other posts in this series:

1. Identifying the Ingredients of a Winning Essay
2. Writing Your Career Goals Essay
3. Starting Your Application Essay: Three Tips
4. Revise and Polish Your Application Essays

All original essays have a unique and distinctive theme, and it can take time and careful thought to identify what yours should be. If you go back to the essays we examined in the previous post in this series, you will see that the public health program applicant opened her essay with her theme, which she cleverly presented as a question: “What if people lived healthier lives, practiced preventive medicine, and took precautions against illness and disease?” This theme was her passion for finding answers to significant public health issues. 

In contrast, the law school applicant’s theme was his yearning for greater intellectual challenges while remaining in the healthcare field. While he persuasively built his case in his initial paragraphs, he saved the clincher for the final one: “I feel that my successful work experience and rigorous scientific training will allow me to debate with the best attorneys. Since medical technology and the law in this area are developing rapidly, I am also confident that this field will be constantly challenging.” 

Today, introspection isn’t as popular an activity as, say, yoga or streaming TV and movies, but it’s an invaluable part of this process. Give it the time it deserves. Your essay will be much better after it. If you are beginning to think about what the themes should be for your essays, the following questions will help you identify and define your essay’s main message. Your answers will also guide you toward expressing your goals, values as they relate to your career choice, motivations for pursuing a graduate degree, and professional dreams.

• Why are you passionate about – or at least committed to – your career choice?
• Exploring the previous question more deeply, what experiences in your life (personal, educational, professional) have influenced your career goals most powerfully?
• Has any individual played a major role in helping you discover these goals or values?
• What do you hope to achieve in your career?
• Can you visualize what career success will look like in five years? Ten years?
• What personal strengths, such as communication skills, empathy, and persistence, do you bring to this career?
• What professional skills, such as organizational abilities, clinical knowledge, teaching, and mentoring, do you bring to this career? 
• What experiences do you have that will showcase these strengths?
• After the admissions committee reads your essays, what three words do you hope they will use to describe you? How about “driven,” “intelligent,” and “creative”? Or “dedicated,” “leader,” and “focused”? Whatever the image is that you want to create, identify experiences from your life that will illustrate those qualities.

As you think through these questions, some of the answers will come to you quickly, while others will need time to percolate. Write down your ideas, memories, and insights as they come. Eventually, they will build into a satisfying little inventory, and you will be able to identify the ones that are colorful or dramatic enough to become your essay introduction. 

If you are writing multiple essays, such as for different MBA programs, each one must have its own theme. The admissions committees want to see you as a multifaceted individual and have, therefore, crafted their essay prompts accordingly. These questions provide you the opportunity to display various aspects of yourself, your values, and your personality.

Summary Tips

• Carve out some time for introspection about your career goals, values, and motivation. (That means your phone is in another room or at least in “do not disturb” mode.)
• Develop a distinct theme for each essay required by any program that demands more than one. Use each essay as an opportunity to show yourself as a multifaceted individual.

In the next post in this series, we’ll share insights into how to write an exemplary MBA career goals essay.

Work one-on-one with an expert who will walk you through the process of creating a slam-dunk application. Our admissions consultants have read thousands of essays and know the exact ingredients of an outstanding essay.

Dr. Sundas Ali has more than 15 years of experience teaching and advising students, providing career and admissions advice, reviewing applications and conducting interviews for the University of Oxford’s undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition, Dr. Ali has worked with students from a wide range of countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, India, Pakistan, China, Japan, and the Middle East. Want Sundas to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! 

Related Resources:

• From Example to Exemplary: How to Use Sample Essays to Make Your Essay Outstanding
• Three Ways Writing About Obstacles Strengthens Your Application Essays
• Admissions Straight Talk podcast 

The post Finding a Theme for Your Statement of Purpose appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Teacher recommendations are an important part of your college application, with most schools requiring one or two letters supporting your candidacy. These recommendations offer additional insights into your personality, intellectual curiosity, and potential impact on your college community.

These letters of recommendation (LORs) are only one element of your application and probably won’t make or break a school’s decision. In my experience on the admissions side of the desk, I know that an LOR will not actively hurt someone’s candidacy, unless it raises a red flag. Your LORs can, however, boost your candidacy if the evaluation reveals outstanding qualities and shows that you are a cut above your peers. “Boilerplate” recommendations that are generic and lack enthusiasm generally fail to add anything of value to your candidacy. While you can’t help what a recommender writes, you should try to select teachers who you are confident like and admire you and will provide a meaningful endorsement.  

Here are a few things to consider as you solidify your teacher recommendations — and one thing you should do once they’ve been submitted:

1. In most instances, your recommendation(s) can be written by any teacher who has taught you in a core academic course in 10th, 11th, or 12th grade. What do I mean by a “core academic course”? Any class within the disciplines of math, science, English, social studies, or foreign language. Religion, for example, would not be considered a core academic course in most instances. Eleventh-grade teachers and those who have taught you for multiple years are often the best candidates for a teacher recommendation.

2. Check each college’s requirements carefully. Some schools will require recommendations from specific teachers – for example, math or science teacher recommendations for engineering applicants or art teachers for art applicants. In general, it’s preferable to ask teachers from two different disciplines to write your recommendations.

3. The Common Application Teacher Evaluation form asks about intellectual promise, enthusiasm, and initiative, as well as such specifics as “written expression of ideas,” “effective class discussion,” and “disciplined work habits.” Think about which teachers might respond most positively and directly to these questions. Who might best convey different strengths and dimensions to your personality? 

4. Give your teachers as much time as possible to complete their recommendations. If you are applying early decision or early action, forms might be due as early as October. A month before the first deadline is not too early to ask a teacher; a week before is too late. Popular 11th grade teachers might write several dozen recommendations each fall and devote a great deal of time to each letter. Get in line early.

5. Make your teachers’ tasks easier by providing them with a digital folder with all the forms you need filled out, and ensure that your information on those forms is as complete as possible. Make sure the forms are well organized – added points if you attach a schedule to the outside of the folder, highlighting the date of the first deadline. This is especially important if it’s prior to November 1.

Teachers have many demands on their time, and organizing your items this way will make a good impression, encouraging them to submit your letters on time. Still, it’s not pushy to remind the teacher of a deadline a week before it arrives; if the date has slipped their mind, you’ll both be glad of the reminder.

6. Some teachers have specific questionnaires for students to complete prior to writing their LORs. But if the teachers you have asked do not give you a questionnaire, share your reasons for asking them, either in person or via email. Why did you enjoy their class? What did you gain from it? Remind your teacher about some of your most memorable work in the class. Do you still have copies of papers or exams that you can provide? Think about which classes taught you the most; the best teacher recommendations aren’t always from the class in which you earned the highest grade. You can also highlight how you are a “good fit” for the course you are applying for at college.

7. The purpose of the teacher recommendation is to clarify your academic contributions and learning style. A strong LOR from a teacher will focus on these ideas (perhaps including how you overcame any challenges). If the teacher has also worked with you in a club or extracurricular capacity, your involvement there can provide additional insight.

8. The best teacher recommendations do not restate information found in other parts of your application. As an admissions person, seeing this kind of repetition was the most frustrating part for me. I really wanted new insight and fresh anecdotes to help me understand the applicant. It’s tempting for many teachers to summarize your activities, clubs, and organizations in their letters, but you’ve already included that information in your application. It’s reasonable for you to ask that the LOR focus on your performance and unique contributions within the context of the class or classes.

9. You can assign which teacher LORs are sent to which schools. You must provide your teachers’ email addresses in your Common Application and invite them to upload their letters to your account.

10. The Common Application will ask you whether you waive your right* to see the recommendations. By all means, the answer is yes! If you don’t believe the teacher you are asking will write a candid, positive LOR for you, you should choose a different teacher! Colleges will place less weight on an LOR if the applicant hasn’t waived the right to access the letter.

11. If any teachers tell you that they are uncertain of how to write a thorough, positive letter detailing your strengths, share a link to Accepted’s very helpful post “Ten Tips for Writers of Letters of Recommendation.” This post is also helpful for coaches, employers, and other supplemental references. 

12. After your LORs have been submitted to the schools, thank your teachers for their time (you should also thank them before they start writing). Don’t just dash off a one-sentence “thanks” that could have been written by anyone. They made time in their busy schedules to think about and write a carefully drafted LOR to help launch you into your college career — and beyond. A thoughtful and meaningful thank-you note will make them glad they made the effort. And expressing gratitude is a healthy, feel-good activity. Finally, don’t forget to let them know where you’re admitted and where you’ll attend!

Dr. Sundas Ali has more than 15 years of experience teaching and advising students, providing career and admissions advice, reviewing applications, and conducting interviews for the University of Oxford’s undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition, Sundas has worked with students from a wide range of countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, India, Pakistan, China, Japan, and the Middle East. Want Sundas to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! 

Related Resources:

• Four Mistakes Successful College Applicants Don’t Make
• Three Don’ts When Asking for Letters of Recommendation
• Three Tips for Parents of Applicants

The post Twelve Reflections on Teacher Recommendations appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Landing on a school’s waitlist can be disappointing and even nerve-racking. As a result, waitlisted applicants sometimes let their anxiety or disappointment cloud their thinking, but if you’re waitlisted, try to stay calm and focused.  

Remember, if you’ve been waitlisted, you have not been rejected. If you play your cards right, you still have a fighting chance of getting into your dream school. 

In this post, I will explain how to make the most of this opportunity. But first, I want to tell you about some common but unwise actions that really turn adcom members off. 

1. Reacting emotionally

One thing adcom members really cannot stand is having to deal with waitlisted applicants who – perhaps without even realizing it – become demanding, rude, disrespectful, or otherwise inappropriate. This behavior can show up in emails and calls, and even in the form of unscheduled drop-in visits to the adcom’s offices. These types of responses reveal immaturity, self-absorption, and lack of judgment. If you react emotionally and engage in any of these unpleasant tactics, they will be duly noted and could easily eliminate your chances of moving from a “maybe” to a “yes.” 

2. Not following instructions

As a waitlisted applicant, you’re still a contender. Don’t blow your chances by ignoring the school’s exact instructions on managing your new status. Follow the adcom’s directions precisely. Send the schools what they ask for, and don’t send what they don’t want.

For example, if the school states explicitly that it doesn’t want to hear from you, leave the adcom alone. Contacting them isn’t smart perseverance; it’s arrogance, and that will hurt your case.

If your target program is open to further communication, tilt the odds in your favor by writing a well-crafted waitlist update letter or a letter of continued interest. If the program allows, you could also submit a few letters of support written by others on your behalf. These letters should focus on three areas: your enhanced qualifications, the steps you’ve taken to overcome any shortcomings, and the ways in which you are a perfect fit for the school.

Five Rules for Writing a Winning Waitlist Letter

1. Keep it short – no more than two pages, double-spaced. 

How are you a stronger candidate now than when you first applied? That’s what you need to focus on. As you brainstorm about the content of your letter – and then again after you’ve written the letter – double-check that you haven’t repeated material that is already in your application. The adcom has read that already, so don’t waste their time.

2. Update your qualifications.

What is new and improved about your profile since you submitted your application? Ideally, you will be able to convey these new elements and link them to some of the themes or experiences you addressed in your essays.

Have you earned a promotion? Scored A grades in relevant courses? Taken on a leadership role on a project or assumed additional work responsibilities? Volunteered or taken on other initiatives in your department, business, club, or community? Be specific when describing these roles and achievements.

3. Explain how you have strengthened areas of weakness or mitigated other shortcomings.

Show the adcom how you have upped your game in areas where you might have originally come up short. Rather than dwelling on a specific shortcoming, focus on what you have done to become stronger in that area, personally or professionally. For example, if you had weak communication skills, discuss how you joined Toastmasters and are now a more confident, fluid speaker as a result.  

Also, if you have plans to take additional classes for work but have not yet begun to do so, state when and where you will take them, as well as your willingness to enroll in any additional courses the school recommends or to follow any other instructions it provides.

4. Thank the school for continuing to consider your application.

Restate your commitment to the program and your belief that its philosophy and approach make it an ideal fit for your educational objectives and goals. For example, if you are 100% sure that you would attend if accepted, say so. The message you want to get across is this: You were born to attend this school, and the program was created just for you. 

Other ways to prove your “fit” include explaining what specifically you have done to expand your knowledge of the program and how you have worked to build your network there. If you mentioned in your application or interview how the school’s philosophy and approach match your educational objectives and goals, in your waitlist letter, you could cite new examples that support your argument. For example, if you have visited the campus (post-submission), share which class you sat in, who taught it, and what your impressions were.

Similarly, refer to any recent email exchanges you’ve had with alumni or students. What else have you learned about the program through these connections that align with your interests? Offering this evidence proves that you are invested in attending the program and drives home the message that the school is the best place for someone with your goals.

Admissions directors want waitlisted applicants to show passion, not obsession. Follow these steps with professionalism, maturity, and courtesy, and you can be sure that schools will respond favorably to this extra bit of personal effort.

Writing Effective Waitlist Letters: A Quiz

1. Waitlist letters can be three or more single-spaced pages long…

(a) if you have a lot of accomplishments to talk about. 

(b) never. They should never exceed two pages. 

(c) only if they are law school waitlist letters.

(d) if you are not including an additional letter of recommendation.

2. Expressing frustration or disappointment in the waitlist letter about not being immediately accepted is…

(a) okay, if the school is really your number-one choice.

(b) appropriate if it reflects how you honestly feel.

(c) never a good idea.

(d) useful in the letter’s conclusion to elicit sympathy.

3. During the waitlist process, you should generally aim to contact the waitlisting school…

(a) a few times a week if it’s really your number-one choice.

(b) weekly by email or mail.

(c) only when prompted by the school.

(d) every three to four weeks (if the school allows contact).

4. The main topics of a waitlist letter should be…

(a) developments in your work life since applying that underscore professional achievements.

(b) supporting evidence that the school is a good fit for you.

(c) updating the school on ways you have strengthened areas of weakness in your application.

(d) all of the above.

5. It’s acceptable to repeat wording from your application essays in the waitlist letter…

(a) never.

(b) if you are in a rush to get the letter done on time.

(c) if it was an especially strong part of your application.

(d) if you think it’s important enough to reinforce.

[Answers: 1b, 2c, 3d, 4d, 5a]

So, how did you do? 

I hope this post has helped you understand the purpose of a waitlist letter and how to make yours stand out in a positive way. Still, there’s nothing like having an expert who can guide you in drafting a winning letter that will turn the school’s “maybe” into a resounding “yes.” Our admissions experts have helped hundreds of waitlisted applicants do just that, and we can help you, too. From developing a waitlist strategy to identifying key areas you can highlight to your advantage to helping you edit your letter so that it makes the strongest case for your admission, we provide personalized, supportive guidance at this critical juncture. Sign up for a free consultation to discuss your waitlist options. Let’s get started!

Dr. Sundas Ali has more than 15 years of experience teaching and advising students, providing career and admissions advice, reviewing applications and conducting interviews for the University of Oxford’s undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition, Dr. Ali has worked with students from a wide range of countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, India, Pakistan, China, Japan, and the Middle East. Want Sundas to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! 

Related Resources:

• The 9 Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make on an MBA Waitlist
• The 9 Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make on a Med School Waitlist
• The 9 Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make on a Law School Waitlist

The post Get Off That Waitlist! appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

When crafting application essays – whether for graduate school, business school, or any other competitive program – applicants often focus on highlighting their accomplishments. And it’s easy to understand why. Most candidates are eager to share their significant achievements, such as leading a groundbreaking project, making a meaningful impact through research, or spearheading a successful community initiative.

While these accomplishments are no doubt important, many initial drafts of application essays are missing a critical component: obstacles. In this post, we’ll explore why addressing obstacles head on in your essays can significantly strengthen your application and provide valuable insights for the adcom into who you are as a candidate.

Here are three reasons discussing obstacles can elevate your application.

1. Showing that you have overcome obstacles demonstrates your problem-solving ability.

We all frequently encounter obstacles: the traffic detour, an incompetent customer service representative, a disagreement with your partner, the approval you expected on a project unexpectedly turning into a no.  Every single person faces challenges, but people deal with them in wildly varying ways. Those who are more successful in life come out on top because they understand that obstacles are to be expected. They learn how to navigate them with patience, creativity, and a problem-solving attitude, and by – to borrow a phrase – “keeping calm and carrying on.” 

But too often, when asked to discuss their accomplishments, applicants selectively and completely forget the things that got in their way en route to their achievement. When they experience this kind of amnesia, they are shortchanging themselves. Triumphing over the hurdles they encountered might have been just as difficult as executing all the anticipated elements of their plans – and is therefore worth sharing.

2. Discussing obstacles adds depth to your story and highlights your character.

Read the following examples and see if you don’t agree.

First we have the “stop-putting-me-to-sleep” example:

As the leader of my product research group, I came up with a plan for a new widget that would save us 10% in costs. After I communicated my vision to the team, we worked hard for four weeks on a prototype, completing it by the deadline, to the delight of management. Today, my widget is still the standard for my company, saving us over $300K annually.

Okay, this sounds like a solid accomplishment, but it’s hardly memorable. How did the candidate communicate her vision? What specific example does she offer of the hard work that was done over four weeks on the prototype? We have absolutely no idea.

Now let’s look at a “dazzle-is-in-the-details” example:

As the leader of my product research group, I came up with a plan for a new widget that would save us 10% in costs. But when I explained my vision to the team, two senior engineers immediately argued against it, saying that there were key flaws in the design. After revisiting my design and realizing that they were correct, I revised my plan and was able to eliminate the flaws. We worked on a prototype for two weeks before discovering that the cost of the material we had planned to use for it had increased by more than 30% in recent months. I worked many late nights that week, researching alternative materials before finding one that was both appropriate and cost-effective. By the skin of our teeth, we met our four-week deadline and presented the prototype to management, but the VP of Manufacturing argued that we would need to purchase major new equipment to produce the widget. I convinced the team to work overtime on a manufacturing proposal that proved we could craft the product with existing equipment. Today, my widget is still the standard for my company, saving us over $300K annually.

There’s no contest here, is there? The second example, loaded with specifics about what went wrong and what almost derailed the project, is mighty impressive. The details highlight the applicant’s creativity, thoroughness, tenacity, communication skills, and leadership potential. Spelling out the story of an obstacle this way can make your essays shine by conveying the drama of the situation and associating you with lively elements and images. For example, in the second example, it’s easy to visualize the two dissenting engineers, the surprise of discovering the price hike for the materials, and the VP’s frown. In the first, we get only the haziest impression of an employee smiling about a job well done.

3. Discussing obstacles makes you more relatable and shows your full potential.

Think through the examples we just offered and consider how including specific, key obstacles in your essays and explaining how you negotiated them can showcase your ability to overcome the unexpected. This will assure the adcoms that you can capably execute a well-defined plan, even when you encounter unexpected bumps in the road. Moreover, it shows the school how you spring into action when the chips are down. This facilitates a fuller understanding of who you are as an individual – and as someone the school would like to have in its next class.

Obstacles are an inevitable part of life and an essential part of your story. By sharing how you have overcome challenges, you not only enhance the depth of your application but also give the adcoms a clearer sense of your ability to thrive under pressure, adapt to change, and keep moving forward. And these qualities will serve you well in any graduate or professional program.

Kara Keenan Sweeney has more than 15 years of experience in MBA admissions, having worked for some of the world’s top business school programs, including Columbia Business School, INSEAD, and The Lauder Institute’s joint degree MA/MBA program with The Wharton School and the MA/JD program with Penn Law at the University of Pennsylvania. Kara has guided, coached, and counseled thousands of MBA and EMBA applicants, reviewed innumerable applications, sat on admissions committees, and interviewed countless applicants, including while running Wharton’s Team Based Discussions both virtually and in person. Want Kara to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! 

Related Resources:

• Admissions Straight Talk Podcast
• Four Ways to Highlight Your Strengths in Your Application Essays
• The Resilience Factor: How Flaws and Failures Can Strengthen Your Application

The post Three Ways Writing About Obstacles Strengthens Your Application Essays appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

It’s November, and we are starting down the home stretch of the college application season. As we enter the regular admissions cycle, additional deadlines are looming. Congratulations if you applied Early Action or Early Decision using the Common Application. Now you can turn your attention to Regular Decision deadlines, which will vary somewhat over the next few months. Remember to check the specific deadlines for each school to which you plan to apply. Although your first instinct might be to panic, it’s important to keep a level head. You are not the only person in this position; many high school seniors across the country are in the same situation!

The key to success is to effectively focus your time on preparing your most compelling college applications. It is important to put your best effort forward now, because your work will determine which colleges you will have the opportunity to select from in the spring. The Common Application can be fairly straightforward, but leaving any portion until the last minute will result in a more rushed effort – and likely a sloppy result. Here are a few tips to help you manage your applications in the upcoming weeks.

1. Allow yourself time to write. 

Regardless of which application you are completing, thoughtful, well-crafted essays evolve through multiple drafts and careful revisions. For a college that doesn’t require a supplemental essay, the 650 words of your personal statement are your sole opportunity to breathe life and personality into your electronic file. This is your chance to convey who you are and what is important to you. Don’t waste this opportunity! If you are stumped as to how to begin, take a look at my blog post with Tips for Answering the Common Application Essay Prompts. 

2. Think about your application from an outsider’s perspective.

Is all your information clear? Which aspects of your life experience and aspirations have you communicated? Is anything significant missing? Have you explained what ABCD means and your role in the ABCD organization in the extracurricular section? Keep in mind that you are limited to ten entries with the following character limits (including spaces!): 

• 50 characters per position/leadership description
• 100 characters per organization name 
• 150 characters per activity/role description 

Use the position/leadership area to include a brief description of your activity and the organization name area to provide details about the goals of the organization so you will have more space available to describe what you did in the activity/role description section. With each entry, consider how you can demonstrate meaningful impact. You can use standard abbreviations to save some characters. Double-check to make sure you haven’t omitted any important information. And remember to list your most impressive activities toward the top. If you feel the space provided was inadequate to communicate your involvement in a particular activity, consider using the Additional Information section to elaborate, but keep your explanation succinct (this is not the place for another essay). 

3. Request letters of recommendation. 

Your counselor and teachers can add value to your application by providing their perspective on your performance and abilities. If you have not already done so, now is the time to ask these individuals for letters of recommendation. Consider sending them a short note the week before your deadlines as a gentle reminder to submit your letter on time, and then be sure to write them thank-notes once they have submitted your letters. 

4. Proofread your entire application.

Don’t skip this step! Anytime you enter text directly online, it leaves room for mistakes. Consider writing even your short answers in a word processing program. Then, be sure to edit them and your personal statement yourself, or ask a parent or teacher to read over your writing for you. Next, copy and paste the text into the appropriate fields. Finally, preview and review your final application before submission to ensure that everything looks the way you expect.

5. Review your school choices and score submission requirements. 

Although many schools are test optional, if you decide to submit your SAT/ACT scores, review the list of schools you plan to apply to and compare your numbers with the Freshman Profile information for each school. (Also, check each school’s admissions website to see whether they accept self-reported scores or require that scores be sent directly from the testing organization.) Make sure you have a balanced list of school options:

• Reach – Your GPA and SAT/ACT scores are slightly below the average range for students admitted to the school last year.
• Good chances – Your GPA and SAT/ACT scores are comparable to the average range for students admitted to the school last year.
• Likely to be admitted – Your GPA and SAT/ACT scores are above the average range for students admitted to the school last year.

Although these numbers make up only a portion of your overall application, they are a starting point for adcom members in their evaluation of your candidacy. Other factors taken into consideration might include demonstrated leadership, unusual circumstances (COVID related or otherwise), extracurricular involvement, demographic information, alumni ties (to a lesser extent today than in the past), and outstanding athletic/musical/academic talent. 

6. Don’t wait until the last possible minute.

Uploading and submitting takes time. Some schools might ask you to complete additional Self-Reported Academic Record forms that will take extra time both to access (you will sometimes need to wait a day or so before you receive the link to the form) and to complete (about an hour). Unexpected setbacks could occur in your personal life. Servers slow down when lots of students are trying to submit work. Browsers crash. Technical glitches happen. Sometimes, colleges will cut you some slack, but sometimes they won’t, so don’t depend on it. Your stress level will be high enough without these extra challenges. Finish early.

Need help meeting those deadlines? Schedule a free consultation today! Our professional admissions consultants know just what it takes to create an outstanding application that will get you accepted!

Marie Todd has been involved in college admissions for more than 20 years. Marie has both counseled applicants to top colleges and evaluated more than 5,000 applications for the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; College of Engineering; School of Kinesiology; School of Nursing; and Taubman College of Architecture. Want Marie to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch.

Related Resources:

• Four Mistakes Successful College Applicants Don’t Make
• Twenty-Five Scholarships for Latino and Hispanic Students 
• Three Tips for Parents of Applicants

The post Six Last-Minute Common Application Tips— 2024-2025 appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Langston Hughes begins his poem “Theme for English B” in this way:

The instructor said,

Go home and write 
a page tonight. 
And let that page come out of you — 
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?

“Tell Us about Yourself”

When colleges give you the instruction “Tell us about yourself,” that might sound like a simple task, but it is not. Former Harvard educator Sarah Myers McGinty conducted a study on the college application essay and students’ ability to complete one successfully. She found that admissions officials viewed an applicant’s essay as “somewhat important” in the admissions process, yet students generally felt unprepared to write it. In her article “The Application Essay” for the Chronicle of Higher Education, McGinty says, “I knew that students felt comfortable writing about the most significant event in the life of Jay Gatsby. But many felt ill at ease when asked about the most significant event in their own lives.” After all, as many students will attest, they have never had to write anything like it before. Students are rarely asked to write personal narratives.

So how do you tell admissions officers about yourself in a true and convincing way? First, you must mine the various parts of your identity to discover what makes you stand out as an individual. We’re not talking about strip-mining, where you focus on whatever’s on the surface. We’re talking about digging deep to find what’s below the surface. That takes time and commitment, but in the end, you just might strike gold.

The foundation of writing is discovery. You cannot write an essay without first discovering what you have to say. You are setting out to uncover the people, places, experiences, and influences that have made you who you are today. Keep a journal as you explore your past and present. Some of these jottings and written wanderings will ultimately serve as building blocks for your essay. (Others might be valuable points for you to reflect on more generally!) 

Nine Key Aspects of Identity

Some areas of your identity to explore include the following:

Here are some ideas for exploring these aspects of yourself in preparation for responding to your target schools’ essay prompts.

Events in a College Essay

The events of your life, whether big or small, successes or failures, shape you as an individual. 

In other words, your identity is, in part, formed through a series of events that can be narrated to tell a story that gives the reader a glimpse into who you are. Telling a good story involves strong description (including the colors, sounds, and smells of your life), action (including movement, dialogue, and/or internal monologue), and reflection (including decisions you have made, thoughts or feelings you have had, and your reflection after events). 

Bring your reader into your story by showing them what the situation you’re describing was like. And tell the reader what the anecdote says about you as a person.

Which experience should you pick? Looking at a few essay questions might give you some ideas:

• The Common Application: Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
• Harvard College: The mission of Harvard College is to educate our students to be citizens and citizen-leaders for society. What would you do to contribute to the lives of your classmates in advancing this mission?
• Dartmouth College: “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” wrote James Baldwin. How does this quote apply to your life experiences?
• Columbia University: Columbia students take an active role in improving their community, whether in their residence hall, classes or throughout New York City. Their actions, small or large, work to positively impact the lives of others. Share one contribution that you have made to your family, school, friend group or another community that surrounds you.

The experience you share in your essay does not have to have been massively life-changing (not all of us have had huge turning points in our lives) but can be one of the many little events we experience that make us see ourselves and the world a bit differently – perhaps the time your classmates offered you a stolen test and you refused it, seeing the ocean for the first time at age 15, or learning to drive, ski, or swim. Notice that the essay questions typically ask you to both tell the story of an experience and reflect on the significance or impact of the event.

Passions in a College Essay

Your passion for certain causes or issues, as well as your hobbies and interests, show who you are. How do you spend your free time? What excites you? Concerns you? Enrages you? What have you done to translate this passion, concern, or rage into action? I know a student whose concern over the Middle East conflict led him to distribute, to all of his classmates, bracelets commemorating those who have died as a result of the fighting. His essay on the topic worked because his passion led him to action, and his writing conveyed his passion. Another student explored how his childhood Lego hobby was a springboard to his building robots for national competitions. I taught a young woman whose frustration over male-female relations in her school led her to start a gender issues discussion group. I know people who could write fascinating essays on their obsession with beads, their rock collection, or bike riding. Perhaps you think it’s less-than-admirable to say that you spend every Saturday afternoon watching classic movies, but if you can intelligently reflect on why you love old movies and what that love reveals about you, it could be a worthwhile topic.

People in a College Essay

Begin by listing people in your life who have nurtured your identity. You might list family members, instructors, coaches, mentors, or neighbors. After you have made your list, decide which person or people you could write about most engagingly. Some applications ask you to write about a person, while others leave your options open by asking you to explore a topic of your choice. You might begin your exploration by reflecting on your family and how it has influenced who you have become. Focus on the details of one or two members of your family – their appearance, habits, activities, and interactions with you. Think of a story that encapsulates a relationship. Consider exploring your family’s cultural heritage, traditions, or foods. Bring the people you depict to life, and give them color, personality, and a voice. Provide anecdotes about these family members or other important people in your life.

Places in a College Essay

Perhaps a place has gotten under your skin because you’ve spent so much time there. Maybe, for example, you’ve worked on your grandfather’s farm in Wisconsin every summer since you were ten. Perhaps you attend a school unlike most schools in the nation, one in an unusual setting or with an uncommon philosophy. Maybe you spent a semester on sabbatical with your parents in Zimbabwe, and after you came back, everything looked different. Place can be a character, and you can tell a vivid story about how one in particular has helped shape you. Conversely, you might have spent time in a place only briefly (one night on a camping trip, for example), or the place you visited or lived in might have been lousy: decrepit, dirty, scary, upsetting. All of these options are fair game: the point is to use the experience as a vehicle for writing about who you are and how you experience the world around you.

Religion in a College Essay

For some people, religion is integral to their lives and identities. But you might consider religion a “touchy” subject and fear that the admissions reader won’t like or agree with your religion. Don’t let that fear stop you if you have honest stories and reflections to share that relate to your religious beliefs or experiences. Consider writing a personal statement that reveals your thoughts about religion through a vivid story or series of anecdotes.

Race in a College Essay

For some, their racial identity – and perhaps the persecution they’ve experienced or the minority status they’ve had – is an important part of who they are. Writing about related challenges and what you did to be a leader, to hold your ground, or to educate others can give the reader a glimpse of your strongest qualities. Colleges seek students who come  and possess strong characters, so don’t be afraid to let both of those qualities shine through.

Gender in a College Essay

Does your gender identity feel significant to who you are – to your experiences, community, and identity? For some individuals, being a woman, transgender, or genderqueer is essential to who they are and their experiences. You might write an essay about going to an all-girls Catholic school, being the only boy in a household of many sisters, or experimenting with multiple pronouns. Just remember, your essay should be about more than a certain experience; it also needs to be about what your thoughts, decisions, and actions say about who you are and what is important to you.

Disability/Different Abilities in a College Essay

While so often viewed as a setback, your life with a disability – whether you have had it since birth or it is due to an illness or an event later in life – can help distinguish you among a sea of similarly abled peers. How have you embraced, overcome, or given voice to your disability or those of others? What abilities have you cultivated or discovered because of it? How have you both coped and strived with your disability, and what does this say about your character and commitments?

Sexual Orientation in a College Essay

Perhaps your sexual identity has played a role in your life, inspiring you to develop an interest in certain writers or ideas, to work on an inclusive marriage campaign, or to lead your school’s gay-straight alliance. Whether you discuss your identity or that of a loved one, be sure to keep yourself center stage in your essay as you use the idea of sexual orientation to speak to your values, passions, and interests.

This exercise of thinking hard about your essay might help you get into your dream college, but you will also gain in other ways: self-realization as you step across the threshold from childhood to adulthood, a sense of who you are and what has made you that way, and insight into your desires for the future. Enjoy exploring your identity!

If you would like the guidance and support of an experienced college admissions consultant as you explore your identity and develop an application strategy, Accepted is here to help. Schedule a free consultation with an Accepted expert to help you gain admittance to the college of your choice!

Dr. Sundas Ali has more than 15 years of experience teaching and advising students, providing career and admissions advice, reviewing applications, and conducting interviews for the University of Oxford’s undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition, Sundas has worked with students from a wide range of countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, India, Pakistan, China, Japan, and the Middle East. Want Sundas to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! 

Related Resources:

• How Personal Is Too Personal In Your Application Essays?
• The Diversity Essay: How to Write an Excellent Diversity Essay
• Fitting In & Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions, a free guide

The post College Admissions: Exploring Your Identity for Your College Essays and Personal Statements appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Have you been invited to interview at the graduate school of your choice? Great news! This means the program is seriously interested in you, and you are one important step closer to acceptance. To make the most of this opportunity, preparation is essential. Your goal is not only to demonstrate your enthusiasm for and knowledge of the program but also to show that you are well prepared for graduate study and have strong communication skills. You want to come to the table ready to answer questions, some of which might be questions you answered in your application, some of which might build on those responses, and some which might be unexpected. You should be prepared to ask the admissions staff, faculty member, and/or alumnus/alumna conducting the interview intelligent questions about aspects of the program that you were unable to find on the website or through other research. Don’t ask questions for which the answer is available online.  

There are many formats for graduate school interviews. In addition to individual interviews (a one-on-one conversation between an applicant and a school representative), there are series interviews (a number of one-on-one meetings between an applicant and different individual interviewers) and panel interviews ( in which an applicant is interviewed by a group of individuals at the same time). Another format is the group candidate interview, wherein several applicants are interviewed together by admissions representatives or faculty members. (Group candidate interviews are more common at graduate programs in the fields of clinical psychology and counseling.) Your interview day might include meetings with students and, if it is an in-person interview, a campus tour.

Before we discuss ideas for questions you could ask at your interview, consider and plan for questions your interviewers might ask you, such as the following:

• What would you like us to know about you?
• Why are you interested in this program?
• Describe an accomplishment of which you are proud.
• What personal attributes would you bring to this program?
• Is there any area of weakness in your application that you would like to address?
• Tell me about a time when you made a mistake. How did you fix it?
• What are some of your interests outside of work and school?
• What do you think would be the most challenging part of this program for you? How might you prepare for that?
• Describe your long-term career goals.
• Is there anything that you did not share in your application that would be useful for me to know as I consider your candidacy?
• What questions do you have for me?

Although you might have already addressed some of these topics in your application, be prepared to discuss them with your interviewer(s). This is an opportunity to go a bit deeper in person and expand on topics you might not have had room to write about in detail, or even at all. It’s also an opportunity to share additional examples and new insights.  

Mock interview prep is the best way to ensure that you are well prepared both to answer questions and to ask your own questions of the interviewer. With strong preparation, you should be able to minimize your stress, allowing you to present yourself as relaxed, confident, and appreciative of the opportunity. Practicing your answers, without memorizing them, is an essential part of interview preparation.

Here’s how to begin your prep work for your interview. 

1. Review the program’s website thoroughly.

This will help you discover where you have gaps in your knowledge, with respect to such topics as career support, internships, faculty members’ research interests, and teaching or research assistantships. Read about the program’s values, review faculty profiles, and learn about co-curricular opportunities, including graduate student organizations. Review data on recent graduates’ employment opportunities. When you identify faculty members whose research is of interest, read one or two of their publications, and write down some notes. If you selected a particular specialization or focus area in the program, review its features. If you attended an admissions open house, read the notes you took during that session.

2. Review the details of your application.

Reread your application to refresh your memory about the content and specifics of your essays, short answers, and other data. So, if your interviewer asks, for example, “What are some of your interests outside of school and work?” or “Tell me what you learned from a failure,” you will remember which interests you indicated in your application or the details of the failure you wrote about, including what you learned from it.  Just because you described an anecdote in your application doesn’t mean you have to repeat it, but be thoughtful in deciding what stories to tell in your interview. 

3. Review the interview schedule. 

Most programs will send you a schedule prior to your interview. Look up your interviewers on the program’s website and LinkedIn to learn about them and their background(s). Make notes about whether they are admissions staff, faculty, alumni, or students. In-person interviews might include lunch or a campus tour with one or more students. If your interview is to be conducted virtually, test the platform ahead of time. You might have experience using Zoom, but that doesn’t mean you know how to use Google Chat.

4. Create a list of questions for your interviewer(s).

After you have reviewed your application, reread your essays, and gone through the program’s website with a fine-tooth comb, make a list of questions that relate specifically to your personal interests, experience, and goals. Jot down whatever comes to mind. You don’t need to ask your interviewer every question on your list, but make sure you have a good number of options available. The best questions will help highlight how well suited you are for the program. In other words, you want to connect the dots between the features of the program and your particular objectives, needs, and interests. Because everyone’s questions are individualized, it’s difficult to offer specific examples, but here are some general ones that might inspire your more personal queries:

• What do you think is most distinctive about this program?
• Tell me more about _______. (Fill in the blank based on your website research; some examples are opportunities for teaching and research assistantships, opportunities for starting graduate student organizations, networking with alumni.)
• Describe the kind of career support available to students and alumni.
• What is something I would not know about this program from reviewing the website?

You might develop additional questions based on what you learn during the interview.

If your admissions interview is with a recent graduate or a student, ask about their personal experience in the program. As the conversation flows, other questions might naturally arise, such as the following: 

• What are/were your favorite classes? Professors?
• Are there any activities, clubs, or competitions that should not be missed?
• Do you wish you had done anything differently while in the program?
• For alumni: Tell me about your career path since graduating from the program.

Final details

Part of making a good impression at your interview is dressing appropriately. Business attire is recommended, and avoid any distracting accessories. If you’re doing a virtual interview, make sure you will be in a quiet place without disruptions, and that your background doesn’t detract from the focus on you as a prospective student. Your light source should be in front of you so that the light falls on your face. For in-person interviews, comfortable footwear that looks professional is important, given that you might be walking long distances. 

Bring your materials, including paper and pen, in a folio that is easy to access, and make sure to have extra copies of your resume with you. Turn off your cell phone as soon as you arrive at the interview, and remember that your interview starts the moment you get to campus (for in-person interviews). Even casual interactions with individuals on your way to the interview location could end up being important. 

After your interview, send thank-you emails to everyone you met during the process.  Ideally, include references in these notes to topics you discussed during your interview, and reiterate your enthusiasm for joining the program.

You can do this! Go ace those interviews now!

The best way to feel confident going into your interview is to be absolutely sure you’ve taken the right steps to prepare. A mock interview and feedback from an Accepted admissions expert can help you put your best foot forward on the day of your interview. Schedule a free consultation today to get started!

By Alice Diamond, former associate dean for career and community service at Lesley University. Alice has a BA from Colgate University, an MA from Bryn Mawr College, and an MS from Cornell University. She has more than 35 years of experience in career and admissions advising for undergraduate and graduate candidates. Alice’s clients have been accepted to top programs in a wide range of fields. Want to work with Alice? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• Acing the PsyD Interview: The 3-P Plan
• How to Prepare for Your PhD Interview
• The Anatomy of a Post-Interview Thank You Email

The post Ask Away at Your Admissions Interview! appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

As simple as this advice might seem, avoiding preventable mistakes is the best way to improve your outcome in the increasingly competitive college admissions process. The preparation of a successful college application does not happen overnight. In fact, it is the culmination of years of work throughout high school. The most successful college applicants take several components into consideration as they approach the application process. 

Here are four mistakes these candidates don’t make:

1. They don’t underestimate the importance of completing a rigorous curriculum and determining how standardized test scores will factor into their application. They push themselves to explore their interests by taking increasingly challenging courses while maintaining strong grades. They plan to complete both geometry and algebra II in preparation for the SAT or ACT exams. They know whether they perform better on one test format over the other. They allow themselves enough time to prepare for and take standardized tests twice and make sure to get their results before the application deadlines (usually by the end of junior year). This way, they know where they stand if they’re applying to schools that require test scores and can consider whether to submit their scores to schools that are test optional. 

2. They don’t blow off essay responses or required documentation. They know that having a strong GPA and above-average test scores is not enough. They invest time and thought into their essay responses. They don’t wait until the last minute to submit their applications, and they keep the schools’ deadlines in mind. They request letters of recommendation in a timely manner to allow their teachers/counselors sufficient time to reflect before writing their recommendation. They use their essays as an opportunity to demonstrate their specific interests, life experience, and aspirations – not just to repeat information found elsewhere in their application. They share information and stories that help fill in the broader picture of who they are and how they can contribute to the overall environment at the college. 

3. They don’t neglect to consider appropriate college fit. These applicants might begin with an initial list of colleges that family members or friends have recommended, but they don’t stop there. They apply to a range of schools that are a good fit for them, including fallbacks and dream schools. They invest time into researching which schools are the best matches for them on many levels (considering the following: size of student population, distance from home, financial obligations, academic interests, special programs, clubs, alumni ties). They use online resources to gather information and insight into the sorts of programs and activities available at each college. They schedule campus tours (in-person and virtual) and reach out to college counselors whenever possible. They speak with students at the schools as well as recent graduates. They ask their tour guides/hosts questions about how/why they selected the college and about experiences they’ve had there that matched their expectations. They also ask whether the guides/hosts might do anything differently in hindsight. Successful applicants can articulate why each school they’re targeting is a good fit for them.

4. They don’t take it easy their senior year. They maintain a rigorous curriculum throughout high school, demonstrate an upward trend in academic demands, and engage in ongoing extracurricular involvement with increasing leadership responsibility. They don’t blow off senior year. They still have fun, of course, but they always keep their goals in mind. They make sure to stay on top of assignments and prepare well for exams. 

Although these points might all seem logical, if not obvious, these are nonetheless common oversights. Successful college applicants take care to avoid these mistakes. 

Marie Todd has been involved in college admissions for more than 20 years. Marie has both counseled applicants to top colleges and evaluated more than 5,000 applications for the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; College of Engineering; School of Kinesiology; School of Nursing; and Taubman College of Architecture. Want Marie to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch.

Related Resources:

• Tips for Answering the Common Application Essay Prompts
• Tips for Answering the University of Pennsylvania Supplemental Essay Prompts 
• Five Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your College Application Essays, a free guide

The post Four Mistakes Successful College Applicants Don’t Make appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

The University of Pennsylvania, or Penn, was established in 1790 and is one of the oldest universities in America. This prestigious Ivy League school is known for its top-notch research as well as its undergraduate programs that focus on practical applications grounded by a strong liberal arts foundation. Penn accepts both the Common Application or the Coalition Application and requires several supplemental essays as well. Your supplemental essays help the Penn admissions committee form a more holistic view of you as a potential student. Penn states: “We look for students who are inspired to emulate our founder Benjamin Franklin by applying their knowledge in ‘service to society.’” Through your Common Application, the admissions committee is aware of your grades and test scores, and understands the level of rigor in your curriculum within the context of your high school environment. Use the supplemental essays as an opportunity to demonstrate how you are an ideal match for Penn and how Penn will help you to accomplish your life goals. Illustrate how you engage with and think about the world around you. Communicate your thoughts, values, and perspectives so the school can understand what is important to you!

Penn offers a binding Early Decision option, with a November 1 deadline, and a Regular Decision option, with a deadline of January 5. Consider applying Early Decision if Penn is your first choice, because the rate of admission is higher during Early Decision. In addition, if Penn is your first choice and you have alumni ties, Early Decision might be your best approach. In the past, applicants with alumni affiliation received the most consideration during the Early Decision round. Keep in mind, though, that applying to any school via binding Early Decision will limit when and how you can apply to other schools. You are allowed to apply Early Decision to Penn and Early Action to other nonbinding or nonrestrictive Early Action programs. Always check with the specific schools for guidelines. 

Before you sit down to begin writing your essays, do your research to learn as much as possible about Penn’s approach to education. Familiarize yourself with the unique character of the school, go through its website, get a sense of the campus and academic atmosphere, visit the campus (if possible), speak with students, and imagine yourself as a student at Penn. In short, identify what makes the school a good fit for you. 

Penn is located in the city of Philadelphia and offers an exceptional education in a diverse urban setting on a primarily residential campus. Penn provides many opportunities for students to investigate various areas of interest. The availability of learning hubs is an example of how the school fosters an active and dynamic exploration of ideas. Think about how you might embrace this approach and the overall academic climate at Penn.  

It should come as no surprise that Penn is steeped in tradition. Although Penn’s curriculum is flexible, it is grounded in a high-quality liberal arts and science foundation. The four undergraduate schools (College of Arts and Sciences, School of Engineering and Applied Science, School of Nursing, and The Wharton School) pride themselves on providing an integrated and functional education.  

Ready to get to work on your University of Pennsylvania application? Read on.

• Penn application essay tips
• Penn application deadlines
• Penn class profile

Penn application essay tips

Write a short thank-you note to someone you have not yet thanked and would like to acknowledge. (We encourage you to share this note with that person, if possible, and reflect on the experience!) (150-200 words, only required for first-year applicants)

First, consider your overall application to Penn, because you want to shed light on something you have not already mentioned elsewhere. The person you write to should be someone who has had a positive impact on you, your life, your way of thinking, your identity, your interests, or in any other significant way. This is a short submission, so use concise language to explain what you are thanking the person for, how what they did (intentionally or not) affected you, and why you are grateful.

How will you explore community at Penn? Consider how Penn will help shape your perspective, and how your experiences and perspective will help shape Penn. (150-200 words)

This prompt is meant to address the interplay of how you might contribute to and benefit from the extracurricular atmosphere at the school. How will you participate in the Penn community and contribute to it in meaningful ways? You have only 200 words with which to express what excites you most about the community at Penn, provide some insight into how you might engage with it, and reveal how you could both enhance and grow from it, based on your individual identity and perspective. Among other things, this prompt provides an opportunity to express your cultural background and unique interests. Consider the school’s diverse population of students and their experiences in light of your own identity and perspectives. Also consider the Penn community within the context of the city of Philadelphia. Remember that Penn’s founder, Ben Franklin, was focused on service to society, and that begins with the dynamic community around you and expands from there. Overlay your individual story with the community at Penn. Your response requires you to look at your identity and perspective and consider ways you mesh with the Penn community, along with how that might affect you and how, in turn, you might affect those around you. What do you bring to the table, based on your life experience? What might you gain through your potential interactions/opportunities/exchanges with those in the Penn community?

The school-specific prompt is unique to the school to which you are applying. (For example, all applicants applying to the College of Arts and Sciences will respond to the prompt under the “College of Arts and Sciences” section). Considering the undergraduate school you have selected for your single-degree option, please respond to your school-specific prompt below. 

For students applying to coordinated dual-degree and specialized programs, please answer this question about your single-degree school choice; your interest in the coordinated dual-degree or specialized program may be addressed through the program-specific essay.

For this response, you will address the school-specific prompt (School of Nursing, College of Arts and Sciences, The Wharton School, or The School of Engineering and Applied Science) in 150-200 words.

Although each prompt is slightly different based on the school to which you are applying, the underlying question is the same: how does Penn support your intellectual and academic interests, and how do your goals align with the specific mission of the school? Do your research on your school of choice. How will it prepare you to achieve your goals? You must demonstrate an understanding of yourself by articulating your personal connection to the program’s mission. Consider why you are a good fit for the undergraduate school (College of Arts and Sciences, School of Nursing, The Wharton School, or The School of Engineering and Applied Science). What specific academic, service, and/or research opportunities (available at Penn) might enhance your journey and help you accomplish your goals? Include examples of how your personal experiences make the program at Penn a good fit for you. How will the opportunities at Penn expand, nurture, and support your interests and aspirations? In closing, remember to address why you are driven to attend the program at Penn and how a Penn education will help you to effect change in the world.

Students applying to dual-degree and specialized programs should address the prompts above in terms of the single-degree school choice in your response. Your interest in the coordinated or specialized program can be addressed in your program-specific essay (400-650 words). 

Note that additional essays are required if you are applying to one of the coordinated dual degree or specialized programs offered at Penn. These responses have limits that range from 400 to 650 words. Although these individual prompts are not addressed in detail here, keep in mind that each one asks you to share specific examples and experiences that demonstrate your potential for success, along with your enthusiasm for and attraction to the particular program. These programs are a significant commitment, and you need to convey your genuine dedication. The admissions committee uses your essays to determine whether you will be a good match for the particular dual degree or specialized program to which you seek admission. 

This is a competitive application process, and you are up against an increasingly strong group of applicants. Although Penn is not requiring the submission of standardized test scores for the 2024-2025 application cycle, we can look at the middle 50% score ranges submitted by students in the school’s Class of 2028: 1510-1560 for the SAT, and 34-36 for the ACT. Here are a few more numbers to consider. For the Class of 2028, Penn received a total of 65,236 applications. Of those, 3,508 students were admitted. The overall acceptance rate was 5.4%. Of note, more than 8,500 students applied via Early Decision, and although Penn did not immediately disclose the acceptance rate, it looks to be around 20% (based on Penn’s admissions website reporting that 51% of the incoming class was accepted via Early Decision). Effectively communicating the intangibles of your candidacy through your essays is the best way to differentiate yourself in this prestigious crowd. Make certain that your essay content addresses what each essay prompt asks for. Use your essay responses to discuss what is meaningful to you, project the value you might add to the campus community, and convey how Penn is the ideal place for you to achieve your dreams for the future.

Take a deep breath, and try not to be intimidated by this process. Start early to allow yourself enough time to thoroughly research, prepare, and complete all aspects of your application. All the components must come together in a compelling way to present you as a highly competitive applicant. Penn is interested in your personal stories, life experiences, hopes, and aspirations. It seeks to attract and foster great thinkers and future leaders who will play constructive roles in society. Take the time and invest the energy necessary to reveal your best self!

Penn application deadlines

Source: Penn website.

***Disclaimer: Information is subject to change. Please check with the University of Pennsylvania directly to verify its essay questions, instructions, and deadlines.***

Penn class profile

Here is a look at Penn’s first-year students for its Class of 2028 (data taken from the Penn website):

Total applications: 65,236

Admitted Early Decision: 51%

Enrolled students: 2,396

Test scores

• ACT: 34-36
• SAT: 1510-1560

Nations represented: 92

International students (home addresses outside the United States): 15%

States represented: 47

Students from Philadelphia: 149 (6%)

First-generation college students: 19%

Identify as students of color: 57%

Underrepresented races and ethnicities: 23%

Identify as female: 53%

Identify as male: 46%

Identify as transgender, nonbinary, and/or gender questioning: 1%

You’ve worked so hard to get to where you are. Now that you’re ready for your next achievement, make sure you know how to present yourself to maximum advantage in your Yale application. In a hotly competitive season, you’ll want a member of Team Accepted in your corner, guiding you with expertise tailored specifically for you. Schedule a free consultation today.

Marie Todd has been involved in college admissions for more than 20 years. Marie has both counseled applicants to top colleges and evaluated more than 5,000 applications for the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; College of Engineering; School of Kinesiology; School of Nursing; and Taubman College of Architecture. Want Marie to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch.

Related Resources:

• Three Mistakes Successful College Applicants Don’t Make
• Three Tips for Parents of Applicants
• Should I Use AI for My MBA (Grad/College) Applications?

The post Tips for Answering the University of Pennsylvania Supplemental Essay Prompts [2024 – 2025] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

This will come as no surprise: Yale University is consistently ranked among the top universities in the world. It accepts the Common Application, Coalition Application, and QuestBridge Application, all three of which require a personal statement essay plus additional Yale-specific short answers and a Yale writing supplement. This prestigious Ivy League school prides itself on providing undergraduates with an exceptional foundation in liberal arts education that focuses on cultivating knowledge and leadership skills. The supplemental writing responses are a chance for you to convey how the Yale experience might augment your passions and perspectives in terms of learning, living, and preparing you for the future. 

If Yale is your first choice, it offers a Single-Choice Early Action program (also known as Restrictive Early Action) for freshman applicants; its deadline is November 1. If you choose this option, you may not apply to early decision or binding early action programs at any other school; though there are a few exceptions to this rule, so check the Yale admissions website for details. Under this program, Yale will notify you of its admission decision in mid-December. The submission deadline for regular action applications is January 2. 

Before you begin writing your essay(s), thoroughly research all that Yale has to offer, and consider how those opportunities bolster your objectives. This is the time to get excited about the prospect of attending Yale! Read through the website, visit its campus, speak with students and alumni, and envision yourself as part of its exceptional learning community. Yale’s curriculum is designed to provide both breadth and depth of study, giving students the foundation they need to pursue inspired lives and careers. The school strives to foster independent critical thinking. Yale is one of the only universities that allow you to try your classes before you finalize your schedule. The first ten days of each semester are an opportunity to visit a number of classes to determine which are most interesting to you! Also keep in mind that applicants are not admitted to a specific major and do not declare a major until the end of their sophomore year. 

Located in the small town of New Haven, Connecticut, in an urban setting that is primarily a residential campus, Yale offers a supportive community feel through its system of 14 residential colleges, complete with its own residential deans and masters. This configuration creates a sense of intimacy within the larger university. Residential deans serve as primary personal and academic advisors. Masters work with students to shape the residential community. This is a powerfully dynamic way of bringing together students and faculty. Think about how this structure can support your intellectual growth. 

Ready to get to work on your Yale application? Read on.

• Yale application essay tips
• Yale application deadlines
• Yale class profile

Yale application essay tips

Short Answer Questions

Applicants submitting the Coalition Application, Common Application, or QuestBridge Application are asked to respond to the following short answer questions (note QuestBridge applicants will complete the questions via the Yale Admissions Status Portal after the application has been received):

Students at Yale have time to explore their academic interests before committing to one or more major fields of study. Many students either modify their original academic direction or change their minds entirely. As of this moment, what academic areas seem to fit your interests or goals most comfortably? Please indicate up to three from the list provided.

This is not a trick question. With more than 80 majors to choose from, Yale is trying to gauge your unique interests. Indicate up to three of your top academic areas of study.

Tell us about a topic or idea that excites you and is related to one or more academic areas you selected above. Why are you drawn to it? (200 words or fewer)

This prompt allows you to explain how your academic interests relate to the fields of study available at Yale. The challenge in this response is to discuss your rationale for your selected areas in less than 200 words. Consider your experience thus far in these areas. What sparked your interest? What burning question or issue motivates you? How might these concentrations support your long-term goals? Provide some context to support your interests and convey your enthusiasm.

What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer) 

Here again, you are under significant word limitations. Don’t underestimate this prompt. It is extremely important to demonstrate good fit in your discussion — what unique aspects of Yale attract you? This is an opportunity to convey your enthusiasm for a potential Yale experience. Sometimes, making a list can help you get started. Then, review your list, and make sure that each reason relates specifically to Yale. Consider both what Yale has to offer you and what you might be able to offer the Yale community. 

Additional Short Answer Questions

Applicants submitting either the Coalition Application or Common Application are asked to respond to respond in no more than 200 characters (approximately 35 words), to each of the following questions: 

What inspires you?

This question touches on what motivates you as well as what you find valuable. Discuss something that makes a difference in your way of thinking and subsequently influences your actions and/or behavior. Think about what your response might convey about your character. 

If you could teach any college course, write a book, or create an original piece of art of any kind, what would it be?

Use your imagination! Consider a creative title to set the tone for your course, book, or art piece. This is a chance to infuse some fun and creativity into your response. Do you have a unique set of skills or interests that might contribute to some expertise on a particular topic? What is your specialty? Be careful to avoid any controversial statements. You never know how your suggestion might be interpreted, so try to steer clear of potentially offensive topics.

Other than a family member, who is someone who has had a significant influence on you? What has been the impact of their influence? 

You can select just about anyone — other than a family member! This could be someone famous (dead or alive) or your next-door neighbor. The essential component is your explanation of how they have influenced you and the extent of their impact. Is there something you admire about them? Did/do they motivate or inspire you in some way? Have they changed or incited you in some way? Keep the focus on you and the results of their impact. Remember to consider what your response might reflect about your values and character.

What is something about you that is not included anywhere else in your application?

Before you respond, take some time to review your overall application materials for Yale. You should share something meaningful about yourself here that you have not mentioned elsewhere. Your response will provide the adcom with a glimpse into the sort of person you might be within the Yale community; consider what you might contribute and what you hope to gain. You might mention something you have always wanted to explore or learn to do — or perhaps something you are not very good at but enjoy doing. Whatever you select will reflect something about your character. How might what you shared relate to attending Yale? 

Essay Options 

If you are using the Common Application or the Coalition Application, you will answer one of the essay prompts below. (400 words or fewer)

Reflect on a time you discussed an issue important to you with someone holding an opposing view. Why did you find the experience meaningful?

This prompt asks you to reflect on a time when you dealt with conflicting views. This discussion might have made you feel vulnerable expressing your viewpoint. How do you engage in a civil exchange about controversial or emotional issues? What was the issue, and why was it important to you? Explain both your position and that of the other person involved. What was at stake? How did you work through the conflict and come to an understanding of the other person’s perspective? Were you able to convey your perspective? What was the outcome? Did you change your stance? Or did you clarify and strengthen your original position? Most importantly, why was the experience important to you? What did you learn from it? Your response to this prompt helps to shed light on how you learn, the topics you are drawn to, how you interact with others with diverse perspectives, and how you process the world around you. 

Reflect on your membership in a community to which you feel connected. Why is this community meaningful to you? You may define community however you like.

This prompt asks you to place yourself within the context of a particular community. What is this community? Consider how being a part of this community shapes or supports you. The focus is on why you feel connected to this community. This is an opportunity to discuss your role in just about any community and the impact you’ve had on it, and vice versa. It also gives you a chance to demonstrate your ability to reflect on your community from different perspectives. Topics can vary from a school club to a larger cultural or religious community to the global community, but community is however you define it. Your goal is to explain your relationship to the community and convey why that community is valuable to you. What have you learned about yourself through your connection to this community? How might this community inspire, support, or ground you, and vice versa? What might this reflect about your character or place in the world? How might these experiences prepare you for the next stage of your life?

Reflect on an element of your personal experience that you feel will enrich your college. How has it shaped you?

If you haven’t already done so, take a detailed look at Yale’s residential college system. The 14 residential colleges strive to create a more intimate living-learning atmosphere that fosters a stronger sense of community connection. Incoming students are assigned to a college and remain affiliated with that college for the duration of their time at Yale. As stated on the school’s website, “Each college is a microcosm of the larger student population.” Identify something about your personal experience that might provide a different or unique perspective to enhance your college community. Then discuss how what you shared shaped you, motivated you, or influenced your sense of identity, or how it reflects something essential about you.

The tone of your essays should convey your drive and enthusiasm for learning in general and at Yale in particular. Share your perspectives in your own voice. Be thoughtful and reflective. 

Yale applicants have exceedingly competitive profiles. Yale received 57,465 undergraduate applications for its Class of 2028. The pool of applicants was the largest in the college’s history. Overall, only 2,146 applicants (3.73%) were admitted. Beginning with the Class of 2029 (applicants who would start classes in fall 2025), Yale will adhere to a test-flexible policy. This means that applicants must submit standardized test scores, but they can select from a variety of assessment exams, including the ACT, SAT, Advanced Placement (AP), and International Baccalaureate (IB). Although for the past few application cycles, Yale has offered test optional admissions, you can consider the test scores for its Class of 2024 — average SAT scores of approximately 1500 and average ACT scores of approximately 33.5 — to get a sense of your likely cohort. Beginning in the summer of 2025, you can check the Yale admissions website for AP and IB score ranges.

It is easy to get overwhelmed by the numbers. At this point, it is heartening to bear in mind that Yale is dedicated to a holistic application evaluation process. Your short answer responses and supplemental essay(s) facilitate a more comprehensive review of you as a prospective Yale student. The adcom takes the time to read your responses carefully. Make sure you allow yourself appropriate time for thoughtful reflection and effective writing. Use your writing supplement to set you apart from your peers. The best approach is to be true to yourself and communicate your thoughts, experiences, hopes, and dreams in a way that highlights your genuine enthusiasm for the extraordinary educational journey at Yale.

Yale Application Deadlines

Source: Yale website.

***Disclaimer: Information is subject to change. Please check with Yale University directly to verify its essay questions, instructions, and deadlines.***

Yale class profile

Here is a look at Yale’s first-year students for its Class of 2025 (data taken from the Yale website):

Enrolled first years: 1,789

Rate of admission: 4.6%

Students postponing matriculation (not included in following figures): 45

First-year applicants: 46,905

Single-Choice Early Action applicants: 8,015 

Regular Decision applicants: 38,890

Male-to-female ratio: 45 to 55

Identify as students of color (US Citizens and Permanent Residents): 51%

Pell Grant recipients: 17%

First-generation students: 16%

Legacy affiliation: 14%

Students receiving a Yale need-based financial aid award: 51%

Number of high schools represented: 1,221

Number of US states represented (plus Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico): 48

Average need-based scholarship for financial aid recipients: $61,500

Countries represented: 68

Speak a language other than English at home or as a first language: 44%

Geographic distribution by residence:

• Northeast: 29% 
• West: 17%
• Other (incl. international): 14%
• South: 12% 
• Midwest: 10% 
• Middle Atlantic: 9%
• Southwest: 7% 

Background 

The following is based on self-reported information students provided when they applied. A total of 51% of first-years are US citizens or Permanent Residents who identify as members of a minority group. Categories do not add up to 100% because 19% of domestic first-years indicated two or more ethnicities and are therefore represented in more than one category. 

• White: 50% 
• Asian American: 25% 
• Hispanic/Latino: 15% 
• African American: 12%
• International: 12%
• Native American: 3% 

You’ve worked so hard to get to where you are. Now that you’re ready for your next achievement, make sure you know how to present yourself to maximum advantage in your Yale application. In a hotly competitive season, you’ll want a member of Team Accepted in your corner, guiding you with expertise tailored specifically for you. Schedule a free consultation today.

Marie Todd has been involved in college admissions for more than 20 years. Marie has both counseled applicants to top colleges and evaluated more than 5,000 applications for the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; College of Engineering; School of Kinesiology; School of Nursing; and Taubman College of Architecture. Want Marie to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch.

Related Resources:

• Three Mistakes Successful College Applicants Don’t Make
• Three Tips for Parents of Applicants
• Should I Use AI for My MBA (Grad/College) Applications? 

The post Tips for Answering the Yale University Supplemental Essays and Short Answer Questions [2024-2025] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

So you’ve sat down and brainstormed, and you’re now ready to hit the ground running with your essays. Great! You might be wondering how to best convey your reasons for pursuing graduate school to the admissions committees. What kind of tone or approach should you use? A good rule of thumb is to project three key qualities: confidence, professionalism, and positivity. But how? Let’s drill down on each of these and think through how best to approach them.  

Confidence

Confidence is not the same thing as conceitedness or arrogance. You’ll need to practice self-awareness as you think through your abilities and how to communicate them effectively. What are some ways you admire how others express genuine confidence? If someone has to yell from the rooftops how wonderful they are, that should give you pause. Only world-class athletes can get away with saying, “I am the greatest!,” and even then, it’s only for a moment in time. Real confidence is projected through accomplishments and authenticity, not braggadocio.

Confidence lies in your ability to show what you did and how you contributed to your organization, team, or project. You can sound self-assured without diminishing your contributions. Write in clear, direct language that includes colorful and relevant details but avoids exaggeration or superlatives that could make you seem as though you are patting yourself on the back. 

Avoid making vague and unsupported boasts, such as “I have strong communication skills.” Instead, show those skills in action: “As a research assistant, I met regularly with all five members of the research team and made formal presentations of my findings each week.” Whenever possible, quantify your achievements, and provide relevant, impressive specifics. 

To sound confident in your writing, do not use words or qualifiers that weaken your message, such as “seems,” “appears,” and “maybe.” Use strong adjectives, such as “compelling,” “notable,” “dramatic,” and “inspiring,” but only if the situations or people deserve such descriptors. (If you’re talking about provisional research findings, provisional-sounding words are okay!)

Crossing the line from confidence to arrogance is an application killer, so make sure to root out any whiff of the latter in your essays. Because so many grad programs rely on teamwork, adcoms look for candidates who will be good colleagues. Include anecdotes that show that you are someone who works well with others. Even if you aren’t going into a team-oriented program, nobody wants a haughty or arrogant person as a classmate.

Avoid arrogance

When describing your achievements and contributions, don’t minimize the contributions of anyone else on your team or in your group or make their work sound less important than your own. Don’t exaggerate or inflate your contributions, and do not explicitly state (or even imply) that you are smarter or better than your colleagues. If you think this sounds obvious, we can assure you that we have seen plenty of essays in which applicants wrote some variation of “I left this job because I was so much more advanced than my colleagues there.” Even if it’s true (and it might not be as true as you think), don’t write that or anything close to it. 

When writing about having left a position, express the decision in a positive way. It’s far smarter to write that you moved to a different position to gain new skills, increase your level of responsibility, and/or broaden your knowledge of the industry than to bad-mouth your former colleagues or companies. Don’t focus on what you left behind; focus on what you were working toward.  

You’re not the only candidate qualified for a seat in the class and are unlikely to be the very best of the bunch, so don’t say things like “I am the only one who has done X.” Avoid any words that could connote arrogance, especially if you use them primarily in reference to yourself and your accomplishments. If you are truly “superior,” “exceptional,” “creative,” “industrious,” and so on, it will naturally come through in the way you describe your experiences, without your needing to hammer the point home. 

This should go without saying, but never belittle other people, whether in life or in your grad school application! Don’t even hint that other people from your school or company were not as successful, ambitious, emotionally balanced, or prepared as you were. In other words, do not write something like this: “Coming to college was a revelation, because I had been surrounded by unmotivated and underperforming students all my life.” Instead, write this: “In college, I realized I was in my element, surrounded by other motivated students.” Remember, you never need to put others down to raise yourself up.

Confidence will allow you to convey genuine enthusiasm about the program that you know is the right place for you. Arrogance will tempt you to write as though the program should be lucky to have you. 

Last but not least, there is no need to boast about test scores, grades, or other achievements that probably shouldn’t be in your essay because they are already conveyed clearly on your resume/CV and application form. 

Let’s recap the main points in this section:

• Write about your achievements with clear details but without puffery or exaggeration.
• Avoid words that weaken your writing and make you sound uncertain.
• Find the source of your confidence: the reasons you’re applying to the program in the first place.
• Never belittle other people or the environments where you worked before.

Professionalism

Consider that you are writing for an educated, professional class of individuals: they could be admissions officers, professors, students, alumni, or a mix. While you do not need to sound stilted or overly formal, you’re also not writing an email or text message to a friend. Take a respectful tone, and remember that grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation all count.

Burnish your professionalism by following all the adcom’s directions. This means answering the questions as they are asked, keeping your essays and short answers to the stipulated length, and not submitting additional materials that haven’t been requested. Schools tell you what they want, so follow their lead.   

Show mature engagement with your field by describing your experiences, interests, and goals thoughtfully. For example, there is a difference in both content and tone between saying you want to study a particular language because it will give you the skills to work in international development in country X, and saying you want to study that language because you’ve always liked the way it sounds.

Professionalism also involves showing your positive, collaborative outlook. When you describe work you did with a team, write in a way that reflects that cooperation (“we”), show what you gained/learned from the collaboration, and discuss how it prepared you for graduate school. Acknowledge mentors, supervisors, teachers, and colleagues you have admired and from whom you have learned valuable lessons.

We also cannot stress this highly enough: your professional tone should extend to every interaction you have with the school, whether written or spoken. Each email, phone call, visit, interview – every engagement with every person you encounter who is affiliated with your target school must affirm their overall impression of you as a courteous, professional, positive candidate.

Let’s recap the main points in this section: 

• Without being stuffy, write in a respectful tone to your audience of educated professionals. 
• Write about fruitful collaborations by using “we,” and clearly explain what you have learned from your experiences. 
• Maintain a high level of professionalism and courtesy in every interaction you have with the school, whether via email, over the phone, or in person. 

Positivity

If you have followed our advice so far, your confidence and professionalism will shine through. Now let’s add the icing on the cake by making sure you are also conveying the image of a positive candidate, someone the program would love to accept!

Compelling and successful personal statements present a positive perspective on your experiences, even those with a lot of rough spots. For example, you might have left a job because of a very negative work environment. However, you should never trash-talk your former boss or company. Instead, explain that you felt it was time to move on and develop yourself personally or professionally. You can hint at difficulties, and the adcom will understand without your risking coming across as complaining about something (or someone).  

In the earlier section of this article about writing with confidence, we cautioned against using mealymouthed words and phrases that weaken your prose, such as “seems,” “appears,” and “maybe.” But many other qualifying words often end up as useless padding, too, especially adverbs (those “-ly” words). 

Deployed carefully, adverbs can be effective, but too often, they can drag a sentence down and create the opposite effect of what was intended. For example, compare “In the end, I found the experience genuinely enjoyable” with “I actually enjoyed it.”  To say you “actually” enjoyed something makes it sound as though you hadn’t expected to. A more positive phrasing would simply be “I greatly enjoyed the experience.”

If you need to address a weakness in your profile, such as a low GPA or test score, employ the same direct language that you have used in all other areas of your application. A positive attitude won’t let you play the blame game or make excuses. Take responsibility, and tell the adcom how you have worked to strengthen whatever weaknesses you’ve had, and detail the steps you have taken to avoid similar outcomes in the future.  

Finally, think and write in a positive tone about your reasons for attending graduate school, your goals, and what excites you about your program of choice. Adcoms are keen to see that applicants are genuinely interested in what their program offers as well as how a candidate will benefit from their program. Be sure to show genuine enthusiasm when communicating your “why” to the readers. 

Let’s recap the main points in this section:

• Don’t trash-talk a former employer or write negatively, even about negative experiences. Focus on lessons learned and how you have moved forward. 
• Avoid qualifying words that make you sound halfhearted or grudging.
• When writing about a profile weakness, explain what you’ve done to grow and improve. Show a consistent growth mind-set.
• Use a positive tone when explaining your reasons for attending graduate school and why you are excited to apply to and enroll at a given program. 

Read aloud as a final check 

When you’ve finished your drafts, read your essays aloud. Hearing the words is a different experience than reading them. As you listen to your words, ask yourself: Do I sound confident? Are my descriptions of my experiences clear, distinct, and compelling? Am I being self-referential, using “I” too much when discussing a team project? Do I give credit where credit is due and refrain from ever casting blame?

After you run this quality check for yourself, ask a trusted reader to also look at your personal statements. Ask them to pay special attention to your tone and mark any places that sound negative or uncollegial.

Keep this article handy, and use it as a checklist for when you’re drafting and polishing your statements. Follow our advice, and you will ramp up your chances of acceptance!

There’s nothing like personalized guidance when crafting your essays and statements of purpose. The expert advisors at Accepted can help ensure that you are projecting a voice of confidence, professionalism, and positivity in all your application essays. Schedule a free consultation with an Accepted admissions expert today.

Kara Keenan Sweeney has more than 15 years of experience in MBA admissions, having worked for some of the world’s top business school programs, including Columbia Business School, INSEAD, and The Lauder Institute’s joint degree MA/MBA program with The Wharton School and the MA/JD program with Penn Law at the University of Pennsylvania. Kara has guided, coached, and counseled thousands of MBA and EMBA applicants, reviewed innumerable applications, sat on admissions committees, and interviewed countless applicants, including while running Wharton’s Team Based Discussions both virtually and in person. Want Kara to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! 

Related Resources:

• Should I Use AI for My MBA (Grad/College) Applications? 
• Highlighting Your Leadership Experience in Your Application
• Four Ways to Highlight Your Strengths in Your Application Essays

The post How to Project Confidence, Professionalism, and Positivity in Your Essays appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Show Summary

This week, we hear from Marla Schechter, a US immigration lawyer with 20+ years of experience. Marla shares her expertise on various topics related to obtaining a visa for studying in the United States. She covers the process of obtaining an F-1 visa, the advantages of studying in a STEM-certified program, the H-1B visa for working in the US, and the Green Card process. She also highlights common mistakes made by student applicants and the potential challenges of obtaining a visa for individuals with criminal records.

Show Notes

Welcome to the 589th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me. The challenge at the heart of admissions is showing that you both fit in at your target programs and stand out in the applicant pool. Accepted’s free download Fitting In & Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions will show you how to do exactly that, both fit in and stand out. Master this paradox and you are well on your way to acceptance. You can download your free guide at accepted.com/fiso. 

It’s my pleasure to welcome to Admissions Straight Talk, Marla Schechter, an attorney since 1989. Marla has been practicing US immigration law for over 20 years. She earned her bachelor’s from UC Berkeley and then changed coasts earning a JD and LM from Duke Law. Marla is also a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. 

Marla, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk. [2:08]

Thank you, Linda. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

We have a lot of international wannabe students listening to our podcast. Let’s start with the basics. What kind of visa does a graduate student usually need and what is the process for obtaining it? [2:13]

Generally speaking, for most academic programs, a foreign citizen is going to need an F-1 visa. The normal procedure is that one would apply to the university or universities they’re interested in going to. When they get an acceptance and they want to go to that institution, one of their first calls is to speak with the designated student officer who is the individual at the school, the administrative officer responsible for international students.

And that’s at the school that accepted them, right? [2:58]

Yes, the school that accepted, the school they’re intending to go to. Okay? So they’ll speak to that individual, and they’ll have to pay what’s called the SEVIS fee. That’s the Department of State’s fee so that they can do all kinds of background assessments on that individual, and the officer will talk about finances with them. The person has to be able to pay for that education and they have to verify – the student officer has to verify that. So there’s a whole process that the DSO goes through. Once they’re finished, they will indicate the program of study, be it a bachelor’s degree or a master’s. In the case of this program, it’s usually a master’s degree that we’re talking about here. So they indicate a master’s or PhD, approximately how long it’s going to go for, and that’ll all be indicated on the I-XX form. That’s a state department form, and that form when it’s completed is brought to the consulate. This is where you have a situation where the individual has not attended university already in the US, so they’re a new foreign student the first time coming to the US as a student; they could have come here as a visitor. There’s a different procedure just so you know, and for your listeners, there’s a different procedure when the person is in the US as an undergraduate and they can switch their program of study over by again applying to and being accepted by the second-level institution at the master’s level, and they just talk to the DSO at the master’s level at university and they can switch their program over. It’s even an easier process if it’s at the same university and they’re not changing the level of the program.

But there is a way to do it within the US. It’s difficult. What is not a good thing to do, or it’s difficult at best, is to come as a visitor and hope to stay and then get accepted while you’re here and then just stay.

It takes a while to do it, and they don’t prefer that you do it that way and the moment you leave the US, in order to come back in, you’re going to have to go to a consulate anyway to get that F-1 visa stamp. So in my opinion, it’s best to just do it ahead of time. Everyone’s happy with how you’re doing it that way. And then you come in on the F-1, and they give you usually a few years, however long the program is, duration on your visa. And then when you come in, the ICE officer, so the Customs and Border Protection officer, at the border is going to give you what’s called an I94 record, and that’s how long the student is able to stay in the US. And for students, what they indicate on there is D/S. that stands for Duration of Status.

So because programs sometimes are longer or shorter than is originally indicated on I20, and there’s a lot of movement, they indicate as long as you’re a full-time student and you’ve complied with all the terms of the F-1, then you’re able to stay in the US legally. Okay. Once you become not a full-time student, if you take a leave of absence, all these things, any change of plan from the original plan, you must go to the DSO again. Talk to them. They may write a new I-20, you may have to file something if necessary. But the key thing is to go to the DSO. They’re very knowledgeable also in immigration law, and they can tell you exactly what you need to do. Sometimes they’ll say, “Go talk to a lawyer,” or “Have this done through a lawyer,” but they’ll certainly put you in the right direction.

Are there any restrictions in terms of travel while you’re a student on an F-1 visa? If you come in on an F-1 visa and you’re studying in the United States, can you take visits and go home? [6:34]

You have to be careful. It’s a good question because people in some situations can get into trouble.

Unfortunately, there’s country profiling, let’s just say. Certain countries like Western European countries, the person doesn’t even need a visa to come in. They use their ESTA. It’s a very easy procedure to get an ESTA. They don’t need a visa to come to the US. To come as a student, they do. Everybody needs a student visa with the exception of Canadians. Every other nationality needs to go to a consulate and get a student visa. But when it comes to a country that ordinarily it’s difficult to come as a visitor, and I think your listeners will know if that applies to them because a lot of times they may have applied and tried to get a visitor visa and the consulate will say “No, because we don’t really believe that you’re going to come back.”

There are a lot of people in the world whose circumstances aren’t great, unfortunately, and if given an opportunity, they will come to the US and stay. It’s a privilege that’s very frequently abused. And so customs and border protection is constantly on the lookout and consular officers in the first instance as well. But when you’re studying and you have the legitimate paperwork and you’ve shown that you can pay for this program and you’ve met the approval of the DSO at your university, it’s not so difficult. I would do it within the three-month period before starting because there can be delays. Sometimes there are administrative processing delays as they call them. If your name happens to be the same name as someone else on the no-fly list with the Department of State, you can get into trouble there. There are just innumerable types of trouble you can get into.

So just do things as early as you can and plan for the unintended, let’s just say. You just don’t know what’s going to happen, so you can definitely travel once you’ve come in, you have your student visa, you’ve come in, they’ve given you your DS, the I94 that says DS, at the port of entry. When you have a break from school, and you’re on vacation, you can certainly leave and come back on your F-1 visa stamp. I would always carry I20 with you in case the officer wants to see it. Okay? That’s something you should always have on you when you travel, but yes, you can come and go.

Now, there are some times when you shouldn’t be leaving the country. I just had a situation like this come up where the person had finished from Columbia University, her bachelor’s degree. This gets into another subject that we can go into in a moment, but after you’ve studied for at least one full year, you get what’s called OPT, which is Optional Practical Training, and you’re permitted to work for a full year continuing as an F-1 student, so you can continue in your student status and you’re able to work for a full year and be paid by a US employer.

Do you have to have graduated? [9:37]

You don’t have to have graduated. You have to at least go for a full year. So that brings up another issue, which is the OPT. That is part-time. You get one year of OPT for every level of school that you’re doing. So for a bachelor’s degree, which is typically four years, you get one year of OPT. You can break that up and do a few months every summer, but that will count against what you can get at the very end. Or you just save it all for the end. And that’s kind of a nice strategy because, very often you want to get to the next level, which I, say you’ve finished studying, say you finished your MBA, you have your OPT, you’re working for a year. You really like this employer, they like you and they want to sponsor you for an H-1B. So as many of your listeners may already know, H-1Bs are very hard to get. There’s a lottery and there’s a system you have to register for the lottery, and then only 1/3 to 40% of the people in the lottery will get selected.

You have a chance of getting selected in the lottery if you’ve gone to at least a master’s program or above at a US University. So you have a decent chance of getting it, but you may need a few years to try. So your first year of trying for it would be registering for it in March. The lottery is done by the end of March, and if you got selected, you can file in April or later. So they do kind of a rolling admissions kind of thing, but if you don’t get it that year, you might still be there the following year, depending on if you were STEM. We can get it into that later. You have several years, but you should try every year. I mean, I just had a guy who was STEM, he got it his first year, so he actually gave up two additional years that he could have just stayed in state on OPT, but he got the H-1B and so if you get it, you don’t give it up.

Is an interview necessary if you’re applying for the F-1 Visa and you’re going to the United States for the first time? [11:41]

So they often do interviews. It’s really at the discretion of the particular consulate you’re going to. They want to see who they’re getting. We’ve had problems in the past with people who are registered F-I students who have committed crimes here in the US, major crimes. I think the individuals, at the World Trade Center, were on F-I status. So they like to do interviews. I would say count on an interview if it’s your first time getting a visa other than a visitor visa, if you’ve gotten some other status before, say you’ve worked in the US, or you’ve had an H-1B in the past. So that means you’ve already been interviewed for the most… Not likely you’ve been interviewed before, so they would probably waive your requirement for an interview. Let’s just say, I won’t say probably, it depends on the consulate entirely. Depends on where the consulate is located, but they may waive it. Okay. So that’s the best you can do, expect to go in, but you might be pleasantly surprised and have it waived.

We’ve mentioned the F-I, we’ve mentioned H-1B, we’ve talked about permanent residency/Green Card, and tourist visas. Are there other visas? [12:52]

So the H-1B is the most common track though. The track from F-I to H-1B to Green Card is the most common track, I would say, for people to follow because you don’t have to have your own business, you don’t have to have started in a business, an international business that’s transferring you to a US office. Those are more niche, I would say, and those are more for people that are already solidly into their career. It could happen, but that would be kind of a special circumstance. In most cases, it’s H-1B, and there’s a lot written on that path from Green Card to OPT to getting the H-1B. And the key thing in my opinion, and if I were to give advice to anyone is don’t do too much in the way of OPT while you’re in school because it’s like two months during your summer break, did they really remember you and did you do very much in two months, you’re better off having that full year to get to know the employer, to get them really liking you and on board with hiring you.

Because a lot of employers in the US have a policy not to sponsor very expensive for the employer to sponsor. They’re just a lot of money and the employer under regulation, they have to pay the funds. It cannot be paid. There are a couple of things that can be paid if you choose premium processing that can be paid by the employee or getting their family members in, can be paid by the employee. But in most cases it’s all the employer paying all legal fees and a lot of the application fees and the application fees are higher than pretty much any other visa. So it’s a lot, and they’re not going to just give it out lightly. So once they get to know you, when you’re there on OPT status, that’s when they go to bat for you.

It’s interesting because certainly for MBA programs, many of the students are expected to do an internship between their first and second year. That’s usually a two-month internship, and it usually is a first look, if you will. [15:09]

If that’s the way that it works and then if the company likes you, you would go back there after and finish OPT there, then that could work. I see that as a good path.

We have had many international clients come to us who are applying to American graduate programs and their intention is to return to their home country. So then the F-1, OPT, et cetera, works great. What about those who are viewing a graduate degree as a way to facilitate immigration to the United States? Should they be following the same path or is there a different path for them? Should there be something that they should be aware of? [15:38]

That is kind of the default path I would say, and this is the F-1, OPT and then Green Card. I can get into a little bit more of how the Green Card works while you’re on H-1B and all that. But let me just also say that a lot of people at around that age now, some people will come in married with their spouses and/or children. Some people meet a spouse in the United States. So if that happens, and it’s always nice that way because it’s going to be a lot easier to immigrate. 

If you remember, you helped our daughter-in-law immigrate after marrying our son. [16:46]

Yeah. So they’re able to go right to the head of the line, basically. They don’t have to do a lot of the stuff that’s required for your average employee of a US company while they’re a student or at any point during the process, the US citizen files for them with the adjustment of status and the whole thing. And the first thing you get is an employment authorization document and you can start working anywhere you want and you’re treated kind of like a first-class citizen. Those are the best. They’re just the easiest because they value family togetherness, right?

So they don’t want people to have to be separate, people have to go home that are here legally and doing everything right, and they’re married to a US citizen. They want to help facilitate them staying here. 

Do you want me to go through the process of what the Green Card part of it looks like after H-1B?

Sure. [17:25]

Just so people know because that’s mostly what they’re going to encounter, especially if marriage is not part of the equation. So there is something called PERM. That’s the process most people have to go through. For most occupations. There’s a few that are excluded, but for most people it’s a PERM process. So the employer takes it on. In every case they work with an attorney because it’s too complex for an HR department to go on their own. But the attorney works closely with the HR department in placing ads because you have to show that there’s recruitment, and the only way that you can get in on the PERM on the Green Card is if you show that there’s no one else, there’s no US worker who’s available and has the essential qualifications to do this job and to fill this position. So you can imagine everything is drafted very carefully.

It has to be the minimum requirements and you can’t tailor it to this person that they want, but so it’s a kind of bit of a dance to get it done properly. So there aren’t a lot of applicants. We have to test the US labor market. It has to be a legitimate test in the US labor market. There’s a lot of waiting involved. Now that category, the EB-RE category or the EB-2 category, people with masters, it’s usually the EB-2 category. It’s a bit retrogress, so again… But once you’re in the H-1B status and your petition has been filed at least a year prior, you can keep getting extensions on your H-1B. So that’s really nice. The key is getting H-1B. Yeah, you can stay up to six years on an H-1B three years at a time, which is a nice long period of time, and if you don’t get your Green Card within that time, but you’ve done the filing early enough, you can get extensions past the six-year limit. So it is a really nice track. The key is getting clenching that H-1B.

And as I said, for people that have masters from US universities, you have an advantage over the rest of the world. So I’d give it 50% on something like that for people with masters. A lot of my clients get it for whatever reason.

I assume if one does not want to use the OPT while studying in the United States and one does want to work, whether it’s a summer internship or just a part-time job, you can do that. Or does the F-I not allow for one to earn money while in the United States? [19:51]

There’s something called curricular practical training CPT, which is something you can do up to 20 hours a week while you’re a student, and you can do that throughout school. What you can’t do is you can’t really work off campus in an area that’s unrelated. Again, it all has to be approved with your DSO. They have to know. They have to make sure that it’s less than 20 hours a week, and then you can do…

Oh, the CPT, by the way, has to be part of the person’s program. So a lot of programs, I know Drexel University is famous for this, that they have co-op built in to their undergraduate program. I don’t know about their graduate programs, but it’s required part of the program. So that does not count against your OPT. Yeah, it’s a nice thing to be able to do instead of going to school full-time, part of getting your credits in the class is working. So that’s when you get CPT and OPT is when you’re basically working full-time, usually full-time. You can work up from half to full-time. So it’s either part-time or it can be full-time, but that’s where it can be full-time. And CPT it cannot.

What about a spouse or a significant other for that matter? One member of the couple wants to study in the United States, gets accepted, and applies. Can the spouse or significant other also get a visa? [21:21]

Unfortunately the spouse comes in as an F-2 as do any children of the couple. So they can come, they can be here. They cannot work, as F-1 spouse so that’s an F-2, F-2 spouse cannot work under that visa in some limited circumstances. I think if they really explain that and can justify that they are able to, they’re really not trying to cover the cost of living for their F-1 student that has to have been proven ahead of time or the program and their cost of living, but they’re just trying to do it to be able to take their kids on cultural outings or something like that. Then sometimes they can, the F-1 student also can work on campus without any special arrangement made that doesn’t come out of CPT or OPT. They can work on campus on a part-time basis getting paid probably minimum wage.

What are the advantages of studying in a STEM-certified program? [22:34]

So the key advantage is that you have more OPT time. You can get up to another two years past your first year, and then you go back to your DSO and say, well, I studied STEM and so I’m here to get my extra two years, and then they’ll give it to you. And so you have multiple chances to get to H-1B at that point.

By the way, I should mention also that you asked about different visa types. So for people that are entrepreneurial, I get calls from people that are going to Stanford all the time, and they’re in the tech world and they’re starting ventures up in Silicon Valley and they say, well, I didn’t get into the H-1B program, but I want to start this venture. And I’ve got partners and we have capital. So sometimes they can come in as an E-two, it’s a non-immigrant investor visa, and it usually requires that individual own, at least 50% of the company, they put in significant capital. Sometimes they have family members who are able to help them with that, and it can just be a gift. And that’s totally fine, and they can come in and run their own company. It does not permit them to work for anybody else though. And they’re working for their own company and that’s the only company they can be paid for. They can get clients for their company, obviously, but they’re not working for those other companies.

Is there a time limit on that visa? Or is it just as long as the company is in business? [24:11]

It depends on what the reciprocity table shows. So, Canada, for example, you can get five years on it. I know in certain countries you can get only one year at a time. In some, you can get two years at a time. It just depends on the country. But what that means is that you have to go, every time you leave the country, you have to go to that consulate and get a new stamp, which is a real pain. A lot of people from those countries. I had a client from Afghanistan who every time he left on an L-1, which is intra-company transfer, before he got his Green Card, every time he left and he had to go back to the consulate and make an appointment, get a new visa stamping, it added in an extra day or two to his… Then you got to wait for your passport to be returned. So it’s a bit of a hassle.

And I just will say, too, that it’s sometimes best for people from those countries that don’t admit a lot of non-immigrants, let’s just say, to not leave very much. When you leave the country, anything can happen. I mean, I had a situation of a client, it wasn’t actually a client, but I got a call. It was a friend of a client’s from Pakistan who was here as a student. He went to a very reputable school as a student. He got his degree, got an H-1B, was working in the US, hadn’t left the US for five years and finally wanted to go home and visit his family. So because he had gotten onto H-1B status within the US, he never got a stamp in his passport, which is fine. You don’t have to, you don’t have to [inaudible 00:25:44] stamp you get in your passport is really in order to gain admission to the US.

Once you’re here already, it goes to USCIS who then gives you the I-94, which shows you how long you’re able to be here. So the moment you leave, you need that stamp in order to reenter. So he goes back to Pakistan, has a lovely two-month visit with his family, and then is ready to come back. His employer’s like, “Okay, we need you, we need you back.” He goes to the consulate and they interview him. I mean, he’s already been accepted by USCIS, Department of Homeland security. They should not be re-adjudicating whether or not he’s eligible for the H-1B. He’s already been on it for like two years. And they don’t have to tell you much. They really don’t. They just will give you maybe a letter saying, we need more information. And they said that it’s an administrative processing, it had been an administrative, at the point he called me, it was an administrative processing for over six months. There was really nothing much I could do for him. I mean, it was Pakistan and they had his passport and they just were not giving details, at that point.

This was the US government, not the Pakistani government? [26:49]

It was the US consulate. But from certain countries, they’re just not that free and easy. I mean, honestly, he should have gotten his Green Card before leaving the… I hate to say that, that’s awful to not see your family for so long, but that’s what happens.

For which countries is it more difficult to obtain a US student visa? [27:15]

I would say the African countries. Australia’s super easy. They’re great. I mean, any country that had been in the British Commonwealth, Canada, Australia, UK, and most of Western Europe is very easy. For South America it’d be harder. The poorer the country is the more difficult it is, unfortunately. I had a client who’s Canadian, but was originally from Nigeria. She had an awful time. It was known in immigration circles that there was a lot of fraud committed by people coming from certain countries and one of them was Nigeria. Even though she was Canadian, they saw she was born in Nigeria. So they just wouldn’t accept anything at face value. We had to have every document certified more than other people.

What if one previously had an infraction in the United States when visiting, for example, a DUI or overstaying one’s tourist visa. You then return to your home country and now you want to study. Are you toast? [28:19]

So let’s talk about those two different options. They present different challenges. So one is an immigration violation. You stayed here too long, there’s no criminal activity or anything, but you overstayed. Now it’s a matter of how long you overstayed for. If you overstayed your visa, so if you came in as a visitor and you had, it wasn’t a visa waiver like Western Europe, but say you had a six-month visitor visa, which is what most people in the world get, you’re able to be here legally for six months. If you go over that by a few days or a few months, and then you get an F-1, you go through the process properly, it should be fine. They might give you a little bit of a harder time, but you should be able to get your visa. If you overstayed by at least 180 days, you are not eligible to come back into the country for three years. There’s a bar for reentry for three years, and if you overstayed by at least a year, there’s a 10-year bar. It depends. So if you’re coming to go on F-1 status, this has to be over the age of 18, you don’t have any bar against you even if you overstayed before, that is considered your parents doing not your own. But at the age of responsibility, then it’s on you. So after 18, so if it had been three years already, then you’re fine, but if it hasn’t, you’re going to have to wait that extra six months to come in. There is a waiver available that you can get, but it’s usually not for people coming for non-immigrant to study in the US. It’s unlikely that you would get it to come and study.

And now the situation with someone who commits a criminal offense, it depends on what the offense is. So what ends up happening, say a DUI in the US, and it depends on the state it’s in. I think it’s mostly a misdemeanor charge, but they usually will look at every type of criminal activity and they want to get the complete court and sometimes police records as well. But for sure the court record and the disposition. When I’m asked to work on these cases to apply for a waiver of some sort of criminal inadmissibility, you’re inadmissible if you had a situation that requires… Now statutorily requires someone to spend over one year in prison. If that’s the situation, even if you weren’t sentenced to that, if that is a typical what the guidelines say, then you will be inadmissible to the US and you would have to remain outside until you can get a waiver and the waivers can be a non-immigrant waiver. So not because you’re immigrating here just to come and set foot on US soil, you’re going to need that waiver.

It doesn’t go away. Just because you may have been pardoned in your home country, it doesn’t matter. You still are going to need that waiver and they know about it, just don’t expect that they don’t, they generally do. If the case is pending against you, and if there hasn’t been a final disposition, they’ll sometimes say, we need to see how this case is going to be resolved before we can allow you to come into the US. So you have to wait until and see what the final disposition is.

What if somebody has a criminal record in their home country? [31:45]

That’s equally a problem.

Again, they’ll need a waiver and all of that? [31:51]

Yeah.

What would you say are the most common mistakes that student applicants make when applying for a visa to the United States? What are some pitfalls to avoid? [31:55]

The F-1 area has so many rules. It’s pages and pages and pages with the CPT and the OPT and all the documentation and SEVIS and everything that’s involved. Don’t feel like you’re bugging your DSO. That’s what they’re there for. Call them on a daily basis if you need to, make meetings with them, just understand and do research yourself, understand what the rules and obligations are for when you go from finishing your program to getting onto OPT. There’s a specific timeline you have to follow. So you can apply up to 90 days before the end of your program, but no more than two months past your program. So you have a five-month window to get that job, and then apply for your employment authorization document. If you don’t do it within that timeframe, then you don’t get your OPT. And some people were like, what? I didn’t know.

I was starting to tell you before about this individual who had graduated from Columbia and she didn’t find a job right away. So she said, “Well, I’ll take this time and go home and visit.” So she hadn’t filed for the EAD and she left the country and now she was saying… I think she came back in as a visitor because they were not letting her come back in as an F-1. They don’t always know, by the way. The borders don’t always know what they can and can’t do. They’ll send you to secondary, I hate to call it an interrogation, but it’s like secondary inspection, that’s what they call it’s kind of a room to the side where they have officers who will keep you there as long as they feel like it. So just know what you’re doing before you go in, especially for anything that’s irregular like that. So because she didn’t apply for that EAD (Employment Authorization Document), and then she left the country. You need the EAD to actually be able to work on the OPT. Once you get a job offer and the I-20 says you can. That’s just the first step. The next step is actually getting that document from USCIS that shows your employer “I have this card. I’m able to work here.” Plus you’re able then to go to the social security office and get a social security number, which the employer will need to give you to put you on payroll and for you to get a driver’s license. If you don’t have one already. Yeah, you can get one as an F-1 too, but this allows you to get one into your working years here.

So those are all important things. Just know what you’re doing. Don’t leave the country. Call me, book a short consultation just to find out if you think something’s a little off, just find what your rights are first, because this woman could have still applied. She was still within that two year period, she could have been on track and then there was a question, how can she do that in the US from a bachelor… not even a bachelor’s, she finished her F-1, she’s now a visitor. So the easiest way to be able to start soon is to go back to the border and reenter. But the question is your visa stamp still valid?

So the visa stamp technically was still valid. She shouldn’t have had to go back to the consulate, but the airport wasn’t aware of that. They don’t always know the rules. It’s unfortunate that they don’t. These rules are super technical in every little situation and differences create a whole new set of guidelines, and they’re not necessarily experts. Sometimes you need to have a lawyer write you a letter with citations to specific laws, quoting the language, showing how it applies, and you bring that with you when you go.

What would you have liked me to ask you? [35:59]

I think we covered it. I think I made the point fairly well to start early with the H-1B process. If you’re planning to stay or you’d like to stay, start as early as you can because right now those categories are retrogressed. So when we’re talking about filing that PERM application with the Department of Labor, the date that that’s filed… And that doesn’t come very early in the process by the way. First you have to wait for the prevailing wage determination for the Department of Labor to tell you this is how much this job in this area needs to be paid. You can look up what the wage range is, but they tell you what level you’re at. Are you at a very junior level? Are you a senior level? And you can kind of suggest to them, but they make a determination that then you use to apply. So you generally are going to need that before you go further. That takes, I think, six months, eight months to apply, six, seven months to get that back. So then after you get that, then you start advertising. Advertising takes 60 days minimum, usually longer because no one’s that organized with all the different forms of advertising they have to do. Then advertising.

Then if nothing came back and there’s no eligible candidates, then the PERM is filed. Once that PERM is filed, that’s your priority date, then, okay, you’re still not ready. You can’t possibly immigrate yet, but that’s your priority date. That priority date is always compared then to the visa bulletin for any particular month. That’s put out by the Department of State, but it’s used internally to by Customs and Border Protection and Department of Homeland security. And that determines that for any particular category. For people in the EB-2 category, which were someone with a master’s education that’s going to work at an advanced level for a US company, that’s the level. You have to see what the date is that’s posted there as to the earliest priority date they’re accepting applications for.

You can’t file your Adjustment of Status, which is the package, so it’s complicated, but that’s the package that allows you just to be able to stay in the US on H-1B status, and move to Green Card seamlessly without having to go to an interview at your home consulate, which is highly preferable if you’re already living in the US. It’s just much less fraught, let’s just say.

And in order to do that, you need that priority date, but now it’s a couple years behind in that category, in the EB-III category for people with bachelor’s degrees, it’s even further behind. So it’s just you got to start early so you can keep getting those extensions on H-1B status because you’re going to need it. There’s no category for you to come in under.

I hear universities constantly say that if you’re applying for the F-I, which is the one that any international student will need, it’s important that you start that process the minute you get an acceptance. [38:58]

Right. That’s why I said: call that DSA.

That sounds like a very good warning. Marla, this has been wonderful, very informative. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you. Where can listeners learn more about you or seek your assistance with their visa and immigration needs? [39:48]

My website is getausvisa.com.

Relevant Links:

• Schechter Immigration Law
• Fitting in and Standing Out

Relevant shows:

• Applying to U.S. Business Schools from Europe, Asia, the Middle East
• Former Wharton/Lauder Admissions Director
• All You Need to Know About the New, Shorter GRE 
• Get Accepted to PhD Programs in the Humanities 
• How to Apply Successfully to STEM PhD Programs 

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The post How to Get a U.S. Student Visa – Even When There Are Complications [Episode 589] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Your application resume is usually the first opportunity for admissions readers to get to know you and learn about your experience and skills. Because of the number of other application components they need to review, most admissions committee readers will read your resume quickly. So, not only do you have to make a great first impression – you have to do so quickly!

Fortunately, there are many ways to craft an application resume that strategically highlights your skills and makes you stand out from the crowd. The following do’s and don’ts will help you craft a dynamic resume that will allow you to sail through the admissions committee’s initial screening process and earn your outstanding qualifications the closer look they deserve.

Ten Application Resume Do’s

1. Include a Professional Profile or Qualifications section in the prime space at the top of your resume, under your name and contact information.

This will give the admissions readers a quick summary of your achievements and skills. Write this section after the rest of your resume is complete and you’ve already focused on highlighting your strongest qualifications.

2. Select resume categories based on your experience.

If you have experience in different career fields, create a separate category for each one. For example, if you worked in social services and also in marketing, your first category could be Marketing Experience, and your second category could be Social Services Experience. 

Other potential categories include Publications, Patents, Presentations, Honors, Athletic Experience, Community Service, Skills, Languages, Professional Licenses, and Certifications. If you are applying to doctoral programs, you could insert a Research Experience category. Tailor your sections to your specific background.

3. Be thoughtful about the order of your resume sections.

If you have been in the workforce for more than five years, put the Experience section first. If you are a recent graduate, or if the degree you earned is more relevant to your future field of study than your experience, put the Education section first. 

Positions are listed in reverse chronological order within each category, but you can order your categories so that the most relevant category is at the top. This is particularly helpful for applicants whose most recent experience is not relevant to their intended field of study. Referring back to the example in Tip #2, if you have experience in marketing and in social services and you are applying to graduate school in social work, you should make Social Services Experience your first category, even if you are working in marketing now.

4. Give the most weight to your most recent professional position, especially if it is relevant to your intended field of study.

The section of the resume for your most recent position should contain more bulleted accomplishments than your previous positions. For each position, list the accomplishments in order of decreasing relevance to the field to which you are applying. Your first bullet should capture the essential elements of your role, so that the reader can understand what you do, even if that is the only bullet they read. Remember that specific accomplishments are more impressive than descriptions of routine job duties.

5. Quantify your impact on the organizations you have worked for.

If you increased services to clients, say by how much. If you reduced expenses or increased profits, specify by what percentage. If you supervised a project, note how many people were on your team. Always ask yourself how you helped the organization, and insert numbers that demonstrate your impact. Including information on the scale and scope of your accomplishments will strengthen your resume.

6. Start each statement on your resume with an action verb.

Your bulleted statements should provide an overview of your responsibilities as well as enough detail and specifics to convey a full picture of your accomplishments. Write concise, results-focused statements using action verbs such as managed, assessed, initiated, developed, designed, instructed, streamlined, and researched.

7. Be judicious about what you leave out.

Look critically at each experience on your resume. Does including it contribute to your overall narrative? List short-term jobs or summer jobs only if they relate to your intended field of study and you do not have full-time positions that are more relevant.

For recent graduates, cocurricular (aka extracurricular) activities can demonstrate leadership, initiative, and team-building skills. Internships relevant to your field should be included; the Experience category can include both paid and unpaid work.

8. Pay as much attention to your resume’s design as you do to its content.

Use bullets or other appropriate symbols, and use a simple 10- to 11-point font for the text of the resume. Aim for one-inch margins. (If your target school provides any formatting guidelines, follow them.)

Be cautious if using a resume template. Some resume templates can limit customization, and your resume might end up not looking original.

9. Use a two-page resume, if appropriate.

Two-page resumes are fine (and in some cases, preferable) if you have been in the workforce for more than ten years or have particularly impressive work experience. Depending on your field and the degree you’re targeting, you might have a longer resume with a detailed list of publications and the like. (Once again, if your target school limits the page count of your application resume, follow its rules.) Recent graduates should usually have a one-page resume.

10. Edit, proofread, and proofread again. 

Edit your resume to reduce fluff and make every word count. Set your resume aside for a few days, and then come back to it again with fresh eyes. Misspelled words and grammatical mistakes in your resume are the proverbial kiss of death for your candidacy. Once you have what you believe is the final version, show it to a mentor or friend to get a second opinion. Be sure to proofread your contact information, which includes your name, phone number, email address, city/town, and state. Most people now leave off their street address. If you include a link to your website or LinkedIn profile, be sure it is up-to-date.

Ten Application Resume Don’ts

1. Don’t make things up!

This includes inflating your accomplishments, level of responsibility, skills, or education.

2. Don’t confuse your resume with your autobiography.

The primary purpose of your resume is to focus on aspects of your experience that are relevant to your application for admission. You’ll have the rest of your application to highlight your life’s most important stories.

3. Don’t use personal pronouns (“me,” “mine,” “ours”), articles (“a” or “the”), or the word “I.”

This detracts from your resume.

4. Don’t provide personal data.

Marital status, date of birth, height/weight, and similar non-work-related information can be used to illegally discriminate against applicants, and they rarely add anything of value to your qualifications. Don’t include a photograph unless the school’s application specifically requests it.

5. Don’t repeat the same action words throughout the resume.

Rather than repeatedly using the verbs developed or led, use your thesaurus, and mix in terms such as initiated, directed, managed, delivered, and accelerated. Avoid using the phrase “responsible for.”

6. Don’t use the wrong verb tense.

Your action verbs should be in present tense for the position you currently hold (create, analyze, supervise). Use the past tense (trained, designed, chaired) for former positions.

7. Don’t leave out dates.

Even if you choose the functional resume format to minimize frequent job changes or a lack of experience, include your dates of employment somewhere on your resume (usually at the end).

8. Don’t use more detail than you need to convey your accomplishments.

Dense, paragraph-sized bullet points make for difficult reading. A good rule of thumb is to limit each bullet to one or two lines of text, with three to six accomplishments for each position. Write concisely. 

9. Don’t use clichés such as dynamic and self-starting.

Let the details of your resume convince the admissions committee reader that you have these qualities without your having to state them outright.

10. Don’t overdo color or graphics on your resume.

Keep your design simple and streamlined.

Do you need help putting together a standout resume? Or do you have a professional resume and need help transforming it into one suitable to submit with your application? Schedule a free consultation and work one-on-one with an expert advisor.

By Alice Diamond, former associate dean for career and community service at Lesley University. Alice has a BA from Colgate University, an MA from Bryn Mawr College, and an MS from Cornell University. She has more than 35 years of experience in career and admissions advising for undergraduate and graduate candidates. Alice’s clients have been accepted to top programs in a wide range of fields. Want Alice to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• Fitting In & Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions, a free guide
• Eight Tips for Attention-Grabbing Resumes
• Admissions Straight Talk Podcast for Grad School Applicants

The post Do’s and Don’ts for Your Application Resume appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Tips for Answering the Common Application Essay Prompts 2024-2025

Whether you are applying to be a first-year student or a transfer student, you will find that many undergraduate universities and colleges use the Common Application. There are more than 1,000 Common Application member schools in the United States, Canada, European Union, United Kingdom, and worldwide. These institutions are united in their commitment to taking a holistic approach to the admissions process. This commitment means that they will evaluate you based on more than just numbers (your test scores and GPA). They pledge to consider your essay responses as a significant factor in their overall assessment of your application. Whether or not you submit standardized test scores with your application, the impact of your essays can be immense. Your required and supplemental essays are your chance to tell these schools more about you by providing additional context for your accomplishments.

The best way to ace your Common Application essay is to start working on it early. If you begin brainstorming and taking notes now, you’ll have plenty of time to develop your ideas and create a remarkable essay that’s well thought out, detailed, and interesting to read – a recipe for college admissions success!

Remember, your essays help round out the picture of who you are and what is important to you, and why. They also provide insight into the sort of student you might be in college. This year, once again, the prompts are the same as they were in the previous cycle. These essay options were created to provide countless opportunities for you to express your character, community, identity, and aspirations. Regardless of which essay prompt you address, it is essential to give yourself time to think about the information you are conveying and what it reveals about you. It is also important to invest energy into revising your responses. Although the process of refining your essays might feel time-consuming, each rendition of your essays should clarify your intentions while projecting something meaningful about yourself. Your goal is to tell the admissions committees something that is not already conveyed elsewhere in your application and express your individuality.

Common App Essay Prompts

Please note, in addition to the main Common Application essay, many schools require supplemental essay responses. Tips for those essays are the subject of other blog posts.

Common App Essay #1

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

Describe your unique background, identity, interest, or talent, and explain in detail what it reveals about what you value. Why is it so meaningful to you? This is an opportunity to talk about various topics that are unique to you: your cultural heritage, burning interests, outstanding talents, sense of identity, or unusual circumstances. Then, discuss how this information, revelation, reflection, experience, talent, or interest plays out in who you are and the way you look at the world. How does it shape who you are? What context does the information you shared provide about you? In short, why is the information you selected meaningful to you, and how is it central to the way you view yourself? How does the information you shared help to prepare you for your future? How does it influence how you interact with the world?

Common App Essay #2

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

In earlier years, this prompt asked about what you learned from a failure that might be fundamental to later success. The obstacle you discuss can be big, small, personal, or societal, but you must focus on the impact it had on you (how did it shape you?). It is possible that this obstacle was not completely resolved and presents an ongoing challenge. At the core of this question is this: How do you deal with adversity, and what does that say about you? Clearly describe the specific challenge, setback, or failure you experienced. Discuss what you learned from the experience and how it affects you in your day-to-day life, as well as its impact on your way of thinking. Don’t focus on the setback itself; rather, emphasize what you learned about yourself and how the event changed your perspective or behavior. How did you grow from the experience? Did it inspire or motivate you in some way? What lessons can you apply that might lead to success in the future? Maybe you learned that hard work pays off or that balance is important in your life or that you want to make different decisions in the future. If you can, discuss how you handled a similar, subsequent obstacle using the lessons learned and with a different, far more positive outcome. Or you could discuss how you are continuing to work through the obstacle. 

As you craft your essay and reflect on this experience, remember that your goal in this response is to demonstrate resilience.

Common App Essay #3

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

This is a more open-ended version of the previous prompt. It allows you to address something that didn’t sit right with your values but doesn’t require you to have actively challenged the belief or idea. The focus of this prompt is on your way of thinking and processing the world around you. You can either talk about your actions and impact or explain your rationale for not taking action. Recount a time when you stood up for something or seriously thought about it. Explain what created the conflict that motivated you to consider action. What was your thought process? What factors came into play as you pondered the issue? What was the outcome, and how did it affect you and others? Discuss why this is so meaningful to you. Remember to convey your passion for the issue. What do your actions and rationale reveal about you? Then, think about whether or not you would make the same decision again and why. Make sure you clearly communicate your values and beliefs. What did you learn from the experience?

Common App Essay #4

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

This prompt was introduced in the 2021-2022 application cycle and replaced the seldom-addressed prompt about solving a problem. The past few years have been unprecedented and have presented many challenges, but there have also been moments of clarity and goodness. This prompt is grounded in the concepts of gratitude and kindness. It is based on research that shows that reflecting on the positive influence people have had on you increases your happiness and likelihood of success. Choosing to address this prompt provides an opportunity for you to recognize humanity. It encourages you to share joy and appreciation. Your response to this question will allow you to focus your discussion on something specific that someone did that benefited you and how their behavior inspired you. As you write your essay, consider the impact of that person’s actions. It might have been a teacher, friend, family member, or even a total stranger. Why were you surprised by this person’s support/action/comment/gesture? Explain what made you happy or thankful. Why was this event significant to you? What were you motivated to do differently? How did it change your perspective about yourself or the world?

Common App Essay #5

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

This prompt expands your options for discussing personal growth. It asks you to reflect on yourself, to identify how you were prior to a period of significant personal growth and then consider that impact on your perceptions of yourself and those around you (family, community, world). Think about how you might have gained independence, become more self-aware, or internalized a sense of personal responsibility. Provide rich context as you detail your selected accomplishment, event, or realization, and then focus on how it demonstrates a significant transition in your life. Why was this event so important to you? You can consider this with respect to your culture, community, and/or family. Take it a step further, and discuss how this new understanding of yourself or others motivates you and how it might serve as a foundation in the future.

Common App Essay #6

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

This is your opportunity to discuss something that completely enthralls you! The scope is endless, but the underlying question gets at what you find interesting, as well as why and how you go about growing intellectual competence. Are there people/mentors in your life to support you? What sparked your interest? How do you go about acquiring new knowledge? How do you gather and synthesize information? What did you learn about yourself through this topic, idea, or concept? You need to make a case for why this topic, idea, or concept is so captivating to you. Your discussion should convey your enthusiasm, wonder, and passion! Consider how you might explore or delve deeper into this topic/idea/concept in the future. How might your plans for the future support your efforts?

Common App Essay #7

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Yes, this prompt is as open-ended as it seems. It really is an opportunity to write about anything you want! A word of caution to those who view this essay prompt as an easy way out of writing a new essay by selecting a previous work to use for this option: Do not simply upload the last essay you earned an “A” on in your English or history class. The goal is to convey who you are and what matters to you. No matter what topic you choose, allow some time for additional editing. This essay should be an excellent example of your writing abilities and should also spotlight something that is significant to you or about you. Think about what you want the admissions committee to know about you and your life experiences that you have not communicated elsewhere in your application. Consider what the content of this essay might say about you as a person. What does it reveal about your way of thinking, values, character, and/or perspective on the world? How might it enhance the other portions of your application?

Regardless of the prompt you choose, the word limit for your essay is 650 words.

If none of the essay prompts immediately jump out at you, give yourself some time to reflect on your life experiences. Talk with your parents and teachers about your ideas. Eventually, you will discover a topic that excites you and reveals something significant about you. The subject of your essay doesn’t have to be completely novel. However, it should reflect your unique perspective while clearly communicating your best self. Think about what is important to you and why. This is your opportunity to differentiate yourself from other applicants. Be thoughtful, and remember that this is your chance to make a compelling impression. Keep in mind that all the Common Application member schools are interested in learning more about you through your essays!

Marie Todd has been involved in college admissions for more than 20 years. Marie has both counseled applicants to top colleges and evaluated more than 5,000 applications for the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; College of Engineering; School of Kinesiology; School of Nursing; and Taubman College of Architecture. Want Marie to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch.

Related Resources

• Three Mistakes Successful College Applicants Don’t Make
• Twenty-Five Scholarships for Latino and Hispanic Students 
• Three Tips for Parents of Applicants

The post Tips for Answering the Common Application Essay Prompts appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

My answer to this question used to be a hard “No.” But now, it’s “Yes! Kind of.”  

We’ve gone through an admissions cycle during which applicants used AI tools such as ChatGPT, CoPilot, Gemini, and others with both positive and negative outcomes. Some colleges, graduate schools, and MBA programs might even have essay prompts soon that “lean in” and ask you to use AI. Others may request that you cite where you used AI!

Ultimately, you must use your human judgment as to when and when not to use AI.

My mantra when it comes to mixing AI and admissions now is this: Don’t sacrifice your authenticity to save time with AI. 

Here’s my list of do’s and don’ts for using AI in your applications.

1. Do create an application organization plan.

Prompt the AI with all the schools you are targeting, along with their questions and deadlines. Ask about potential overlap in essay topics so you can adapt certain essays for use with various schools. Ask the AI to create a schedule to keep you on track. 

2. Do prepare a one-pager for your recommenders.

Type in examples of professional impact that your recommender might have observed. Be careful about directly copying from your resume, because the recommender could use the same wording, and that might take away from the authenticity of their recommendation. If you do, prompt the AI to change the wording, and then edit the notes into five or six bullet points of three to four sentences each. Proofread, and then give the document to your recommender to reference. 

3. Do draft updates for your social media profiles.

Ask the AI to create job descriptions or professional blog posts. Make sure they accurately reflect your actual experience and expertise. 

4. Do draft a resume.

AI can create a resume very quickly. You can ask ChatGPT what good prompts are. Just make sure that you do not submit the resume until you or another human has proofread it. A resume for an MBA application is different from what you might use for a job search. 

5. Do use AI as a “word calculator.”

Ask the AI what a good structure for your essay might be. Then copy that structure, and paste it into a document that you write outside of AI. When you get writer’s block, ask AI to come up with alternative phrasing for what you are trying to say. Something could then shake loose! Using a text generator this way assists you with the writing process but gives you the reins to take over in your own voice so the essay remains authentic.

6. Do use AI as a word eliminator.

Essays have strict word limits. Paste your personalized essay into AI, and ask the tool to cut down the word count. Review to make sure the meaning wasn’t changed.

7. Do not use AI to quickly produce a “canned” essay response.

Getting from “Answer this essay question” to producing a strong, personalized essay takes deep reflection. You’re not going to stand out in a very competitive MBA field if you take the canned response AI comes up with. You can use a prompted structure as a base, but you must write using your personal examples and thoughts.

8. Do not memorize responses for in-person interviews

This can be tempting, especially if English isn’t your first language, but resist. Memorization is almost always an automatic ding. Interviewers want to know whether you’d be an engaging classmate and how you think on the spot. 

9. Do not use AI to quickly get a response to video interview prompts.

MBA programs that require video interviews have to watch thousands. It’s safe to assume that they’ll start recognizing people who’ve quickly typed the prompt into AI and gotten a perfectly fine, but ultimately robotic, response. Video interviews are a chance for you to be spontaneous and show your personality.

10. Do not use what AI generates if it does not authentically represent your original thought. 

Finally, make sure that you submit essays that represent you. If you don’t, you will be found out. If you’re able to remain authentic through AI prompts and save time, then go for it! 

A word of caution: To make an AI-generated essay specific to yourself, you would have to keep iterating prompts that include your personal information, just as you would in the regular writing process. The only difference is that the AI bot does not have the judgment to know whether you’ve answered a school’s essay prompt persuasively. 

In my opinion, relying on tools such as ChatGPT to write an effective, personalized MBA essay will take the same amount of time as – or longer than – it would to work with an experienced editor or consultant. 

Here’s my AI essay …

Let’s try to nail just the first paragraph of one of the most open-ended essay prompts (Stanford GSB) into really gripping, personalized writing. I’ll be the one applying. Here’s more about my background.

Offering up some great values there, ChatGPT! But I can tell you that any adcom member reading this would be bored to tears and suspicious that this was written by AI. It’s totally generic and could apply to nearly any thoughtful human. 

Here’s my second try.

After I pasted in the contents of my resume, here’s the result:

It definitely relates more to me and my personal experience. But does it capture my attention? Does it make the most of the word count I’ve been allotted? And most importantly, is it true?

I tried again, after sitting at my computer, thinking for about 15 minutes about a moment from my reporting career that really stood out to me.

This result is better but still not great. I think it’s a much more interesting opening, but ChatGPT used much of my own writing. It didn’t really save me that much time. 

If we drill down into the text, we can see that it’s repetitive: “transformative moment” versus “inciting moment,” for example. 

The anecdote also doesn’t really show how storytelling can inspire change, which is what I’ve said is most important to me. I’ll spare you the rest of the essay, which basically rehashed my resume in long form. 

Why to keep your essays in human hands instead

As a professional editor, I would estimate that it would take me probably three or four more hours (including a period of deep reflection) to come up with the content needed to fundamentally change what is a generic essay into a masterful, heartfelt story that’s truly tailored to the Stanford MBA essay prompt. 

ChatGPT has helped me get some words down on paper, but there are fundamental problems in the essay’s structure and content. It will require transformative surgery, because it’s fundamentally not right (and not human). 

Stanford (like other MBA programs) is looking for people who have examined their experiences and chosen to act in an impactful way to address the change they want to see in the world. 

But I’m not a good writer…

For those of you who believe that AI is a much better writer than you are, that’s like saying a cup, rather than the water in it, will quench your thirst. To keep going with this metaphor, AI is, for now, a shiny cup that you still have to fill with “water” (i.e., your personal experience) to make it work for you. 

Even if you take the time to prompt and re-prompt an AI tool, it still cannot tell you whether the resulting essay is any good, truly answers the school’s prompt, or is specific enough to the MBA program.   

I now believe that AI can assist you in your writing. But anyone can be a good writer when they have accessed their authentic voice. (This also applies to those of you for whom English is a second language!) Finding that voice takes deep reflection and assistance from an expert who can help you draw out transformative experiences. As an admissions consultant, I can help you organize your thoughts into a compelling, personalized story that will “wow” the admissions committee. You will save time by starting out on the right path, rather than doubting yourself and the story you tell. 

The future is full of wonder

AI could eventually trigger a complete overhaul of the admissions process. Who knows? I recommend experimenting with AI to see how it can help you! When it comes to writing your essays, though, let your authentic self shine through. 

Working on your application essays?

If you would like help with your application essay and strategy, book a free 30-minute consultation with a (human) Accepted MBA admissions expert.

Michelle Stockman has more than 17 years of admissions consulting experience and has had clients admitted to M7 and top 20 MBA programs. She taps into her background as a former admissions staff member at Columbia Business School and as a global journalist to coach MBA candidates to acceptance. Want Michelle to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

(“Portrait of a professional cat preparing an MBA application”)
AI art created by Michelle Stockman, using PicsArt

Related Resources:

• How to Write an Excellent Diversity Essay
• Four Tips for Displaying Teamwork in Your Application Essays
• Four Ways to Highlight Your Strengths in Your Application Essays

The post Should I Use AI for My MBA (Grad/College) Applications?  appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.