The Essays (back to contents)
For organizational purposes only, we divided the essays into eight groups:

Essays that Discuss Strengths and Weaknesses, Ethical Essays, Essays about Work Experiences, Essays about the MBA, Essays about Accomplishments, Extracurricular Essays, Personal Personal Statements, and Offbeat Essays.

Please bear in mind that this grouping is totally artificial. In fact, there is some overlap of topics; in some cases, an essay we placed in one category might fit just as well in another. You don’t have to write an essay that would fit neatly into one of these categories. You do have to write an essay that attempts to answer the question, and most business school applications require several essays, not just one.

We created the introductions to each grouping based on our own research and on comments from admissions officers and other admissions counselors. More than ever, applicants to B-school have had a variety of work experiences, and some of the essays collected here reflect unusual and/or outstanding opportunities students had before even considering an MBA. Your own experience may pale by comparison, at least in your mind. Nevertheless, the models provided here can help you see how to state your case with clarity and precision. Also, although we think these are excellent models, they are not perfect. Each essay represents one part of an application that probably asked for four or five essays. We urge you, then, to read all of the essays. If you do, you’ll be in great shape to compose your own application package.

Of course, the questions themselves will probably limit your range of responses. When you applied to college, you most likely had one vague, open-ended topic, such as “Write a brief essay that describes who you are.” Application essay topics for graduate school tend to be more specific. For example, UCLA has asked, “Discuss two or three situations in the past three years where you have taken a leadership role. How do these events demonstrate your managerial potential?” Although your answer to a topic like that must be structured, you will still have a great opportunity to present a unique, memorable, even imaginative image.

The essays that follow are reproduced almost exactly as they were submitted, though of course the typeface and spacing are different. In some cases, minor spelling or grammatical errors have been corrected, but rarely would such correction be needed for a successful essay. In this collection, we had some favorites from our past editions that remain great examples of successful essays. In those, we took the liberty of removing certain references to dates.

Since most of the authors requested anonymity, we have deleted some proper names and sometimes substituted a more general name in place of a specific reference. In addition, at the request of a few schools, we sometimes disguised the name of the school to which the writer applied. However, our substitutions never distort the intent of the author.

Read Them All (back to contents)
Let’s get one thing straight: The essays in this book are not standards that you have to meet in order to get into business school. Some of you might have essays in your head far better than anything here. (If so, let us read them! CLICK HERE for information on submitting your essays for the next edition of this book.) These are simply essays that worked, not the only essays that worked.

We hope that you will first read all the essays. There’s a wide range here; some are 500 words, some are 5,000. Some have dialogue, some are aggressive, some are reflective. The question you should ask yourself as you read is not, “Is this a good essay?” but rather, “Do I get to know this writer from this essay?” If you are an admissions officer, you will also ask, “Now that I know this applicant, does he/she match my school?”

Getting into B-school is not a writing contest; the competition is more subtle than that. More important than how well you write is how well you illustrate who you are and whether a particular school is right for you. Believe it or not, the admissions officer wants what’s best for you. With the ever-increasing quality of the applicant pool, most schools have little trouble filling their first-year classes. Your task is to communicate something new and meaningful about yourself to someone who knows you only by your numbers.

A Warning (back to contents)
While we know that no one would be foolish enough to copy any of these essays verbatim, some of you might be tempted to take an essay and “change it around a little” to suit your application. We hope you know how stupid that would be. For one thing, stealing a phrase or even an idea from an essay in this book is flat-out dishonest. Duke University, the University of Virginia, and many other schools maintain that the application is covered by their Honor Codes. Thus, cheating on the application will guarantee your rejection from those schools. In fact, Stanford recently expelled a student two months into the academic year when they discovered he had plagiarized his application essay. Remember, this has been a popular book for many years. Most admissions officers have read this book and are familiar with each essay. No admissions officer would ever admit a plagiarist.

A counselor from a prestigious prep school sent us this anecdote regarding Essays That Worked for College:

When I was Associate Dean of Admissions at Georgetown in the (late 80’s), we were asked to select memorable essays from among the applications of students who were being admitted. Two enterprising Yale graduates had requested samples of “essays that worked” to publish in a guidebook aimed at a high school audience. Because of our involvement in the project, we received several complimentary copies of the volume, which I read out of curiosity.

This background knowledge proved useful during my tenure on the George Washington University admissions staff in a subsequent year. Imagine my surprise when I reviewed an application, only to recognize one of the examples from Essays that Worked. Although the student had elaborated on the original theme, the initial paragraph was word for word part of an essay that appeared in the book.

The student who plagiarized was unequivocally denied, even though he would normally have been a good candidate. Instead of increasing his chances of admission, he instantly destroyed the value of all his academic achievements over three and a half years. I shared with his college counselor the reason for our decision, knowing that the message would be relayed to the student. What a shame! He didn’t trust his own ability to be impressive enough.

The following pages demonstrate the creative potential of the business school application essay. We hope these essays will inspire you when you begin to write, and we hope they will give you the confidence to write a bold, personal piece that is truly your own and that will help an admissions officer see why you are special. Enjoy the essays, study them, and let them be a catalyst for your own creativity.

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