Different business schools have different opinions about the importance of essays in the admission process. Some schools say that personal records speak louder than the words and others feel that essays are the heart and soul of your application. Getting into a top business school entails much more than having a GMAT score and an undergraduate academic record. Even with years of professional work experience in your resume, you may still fail to capture the attention of the admission committee.

Writing a B-school essay is neither about being the best English writer nor about being able to showcase your work experience in 500 words. It is a unique blend of strategic thinking and ordinary English skills. Applicants should carefully bear on certain crucial points while drafting their application essays, which can help make their profile impressive. Here are some pointers that you can keep in mind while writing the essays:

• Start with strong introspection and analysis; you will never be short of experiences and stories. Think harder about your career goals and why do you want to do an MBA now
• Keep up your thinking cap and start this process well in advance and do not do a hurried job just before the deadline
• Understand the question; do not beat around the bush and be direct while handling the responses
• Do your home work; and let the school know that you have gone beyond the website to know about their community and school. Do not parrot out whatever is written in the public domain, while answering school specific questions. Understand school’s mission or vision and interact with students
• Mention specific examples where possible; it gives authenticity to the claims that you make in your essays
• Tell your story honestly and reveal enough about yourself
• Do not leave anything for the admission committee to guess, revisit your essays for clarity
• Do not try to be funny when you are not; humor is good but do not try too hard to introduce humor
• Take the advantage of the additional essay and use that space to highlight the aspects of your personality which have not been covered anywhere else. Here, you can address some obvious weakness like low grades or gap in employment
• Do not bank on your writing skills only, ask your friends or mentor to give you a second feedback but do not lose your voice while revising the essays
• Finally, proofread your essays and close your essays in prescribed word limit. Do not take totally unnecessary risk of exceeding the word limit by 10-20 words. If you can write in 530 words, you can surely wrap up in 500 too