While
graduate, law, and medical schools tend
to request just one or two rather long
essays, college and business school
applications generally include several
questions with more restrictive word
limits. Though more prompts may require
more brainstorming, they usually make
for easier writing and editing. Indeed,
you should consider this sort of
application a welcome opportunity to
tell the admissions committee about all
the different qualities and activities
that make you who you are. Rather than
stuff everything into one essay,
carefully inserting transitions to craft
a cohesive structure, you can expound on
a variety of topics whose principal
common feature is you.
This is not to say,
however, that your essays need not
relate to one another at all. To the
contrary, you must consider the
admissions officer's probable response
to your essay set as a whole. If it
seems that you spent more time on your
"extracurricular interests" essay than
you did on your "intellectual passions"
essay, the admissions officer is likely
to infer that you prefer involvement in
student groups over academic
coursework. To look at an extreme case,
a student could conceivably write about
the same activity for an
"extracurricular interests" essay, a
"most significant accomplishment" essay,
and a "role model or influence"
essay-but such a student would run the
risk of presenting her interests as
excessively narrow. It is important to
strike a series of balances in your
essay set: between academics and
extracurriculars, between intellect and
personality, between creative and
traditional structure, and so on.
A common mistake
that many applicants make is to assume
that a 100-word essay is less important
than a 250- or 500-word essay and
accordingly give it less attention.
Always remember that admissions officers
are using the essays to get an overall
picture of the applicant, and you must
put effort into every brushstroke to
make that portrait as compelling as it
can be. For instance, rather than
quickly writing 100 words on a subject
(which would take less than an hour),
spend a bit more time crafting a
250-word essay on it. Then, you can
choose only the most effective parts of
that longer piece to include in a
shorter, denser version of the essay.
Finally, remember
that the admissions officer is looking
for analysis, not simply description.
Even if the question seems to prompt you
for a straightforward story (for
instance, "Tell us about your most
significant non-academic
accomplishment."), the essay should go
beyond a simple narrative of the event,
including at least a sentence or two
about why it was so important and how it
has affected you.
For an
example of a short essay set,
click here.
