Want to let your funny side show in your application essays? Here is what Linda Abraham has to say about humor in admissions: Related Resources: • Linda Abraham’s Admissions Assortment • So These Two Grad School Applicants Walk Into A Bar . . . • First Drafts Of Personal Statements: Let Yourself Go
Personal Statement Tips
Linda Abraham’s Admissions Assortment
Admissions season is going strong and the application questions are pouring in. Listen in as Linda Abraham answers some of the most common questions of the season and shares her formula for giving your application the ultimate last check before you hit submit. 1:31 – MBA applicant dilemma: Round 1 advantage vs. improving credentials and…
I’m About to Make Your Day…
…by giving my essay a catchy opening line that doesn’t turn you away or bore you to tears. See, I could have started this tip post with “Today I am going to tell you how to create a compelling essay opening,” but you probably would have skipped over something as drab as that. How about…
March Madness and Story Time
Is your bracket busted yet? (Probably.) One of the things that draws even casual sports fans to March Madness is the storylines—the last-minute excitement, the players’ personal stories, the upsets, the Cinderella runs deep into the tournament. And during the tournament, absolutely everything becomes a story. As I write, one of the top stories on…
Writing About Your Experiences Abroad
You’ve done it – you studied, worked, or volunteered abroad and now you want to include part of this in your personal statement. Maybe you want to show that you’ve experienced a different culture or that you’ve managed to go outside of your comfort zone. Maybe you’ve had interesting experiences – met people, climbed mountains,…
The Biggest Application Essay Mistake [Video]
What is the very worst thing you could possibly do in your application essays? Watch Linda’s answer and add your own comments below: Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best
Get a GRIP on Team Questions
I took away a lot of wonderful concepts, frameworks and strategies from my MBA education that led to a successful admission career. In fact, one of the most powerful lessons I learned at Michigan (now Ross) was how to lead and work effectively on teams. Professor Noel Tichy, one of the gurus of Organizational Behavior…
Two Ways to Reveal Leadership in Your Applications
Leadership is one of the of the most valued attributes in admissions. In this short video, Linda Abraham discusses two main ways you can show the adcom that you are a leader. For more tips on revealing leadership in your applications, check out: • Leadership in Admissions, a free special report. • 4 Ways to…
Personal Statement Fatal Flaw #1: Lack of Substance
Writing about nothing tends to bore, like a trite sitcom or movie with no plot. They lack substance and so will your essay if it isn’t based on: • Substantive self-reflection. • Use of specifics, examples, and anecdotes. • Willingness to reveal your thought processes and feelings. So start your writing process with self-knowledge. You…
4 Tips for Writing about Last Minute Extracurricular Activities
You want to write about all your fantastic non-school and non-work endeavors so that you really stand out from your competition, but when you start to think about it…you draw a blank. There must be SOMETHING you can show for how you use your free time, but what? Have you found yourself in a last…
How to Edit Your Application Essays
In an exclusive interview with… well, herself, Linda Abraham shares some advice that she’s learned over the course of almost two decades of application essay editing. Listen to the full recording of this excellent episode to learn concrete steps you can take right now to ensure that your essays are working for –and not against…
Approaching the Diversity Essay Question
Many applications now have a question, sometimes optional, geared to encouraging people with minority backgrounds or unusual educational or family histories to write about their background. If you are an immigrant to the US, the child of immigrants or someone whose ethnicity is a minority in the US, you might find this question an interesting…
5 Keys to Concreteness
I like to apply the principles established in Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick to personal statements and application essays. In this post I focus on concreteness. The third of Made to Stick‘s six key principles, concreteness, doesn’t seem to apply to intangibles like leadership, achievement, teamwork, or character – the topics you…
Resourceful Essay Recycling
You’re applying to six different schools and each one requires 2-7 essays/personal statements which equals…a whole lot of writing. How can you draft so many essays and still maintain a fresh and original voice in each? Did you know that you can probably adapt one essay from a given application to another essay on another…
4 Do’s and Don’ts for Presenting Yourself in Your MBA Essays
Here are some helpful DO’s and DON’Ts that will help you create a distinctive MBA application essay: DON’T write an essay that simply discusses what you think the adcom wants to hear. INSTEAD… DO write about a topic that truly interests you, something that you’d genuinely like to share. *** DON’T pressure yourself to write…
4 Application Strategy Tips: Stand Out AND Fit In
It can be confusing: Half of the advice you read urges you to stand out in your application, while the other half advises you to explain how you’ll fit in. So which is it? Should you stand out or fit in? The answer, unsurprisingly, is BOTH. You need to show your distinction and demonstrate fit…
Personal Statement Tip: Story Time
The moment I found the lump, I suspected my life was about to change—in a big way. Good enough for an opening line? Want to read more? I hope it’s yes on both counts. Because I’m going to tell you a story. A short one. A true one. Not so much for the sake of…
Weakness, What Weakness?
I saw it. The question was looming in an essay and hiding behind a corner in the brain and/or instruction sheet of my interviewer. “So Natalie, tell me about your weaknesses and what you did to overcome them”? Gosh, there are so many, I don’t even know where to begin. Ding! What do you do…
UGH! THOSE @!#$* WORD LIMITS!!!
Now, now. Don’t get angry. Deal. Use writing techniques that convey your message and stay within the word limits. First and foremost, focus. Additionally, poor writing habits can make your writing wordy and flabby; good writing techniques make it powerful and concise. To give your writing a healthy diet and exercise routine incorporate these techniques:…
“I’m Smart, Really I Am!” How to Prove Character Traits in Essays
When you write an application essay or statement of purpose, you’re trying to accomplish several goals at once: You are trying to prove your worthiness to be accepted to your target school, while also trying to impress upon the adcom that you have desirable character traits that your program values. But how do you prove…
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