Essay Update: Key Learnings Thus Far

  • If I had the time, it would be possible for me to spend an entire year writing my essays.  And I still wouldn’t be happy with them.
  • Deadlines are important.  My first deadline is still about a month away, but I’ve set a “soft” deadline to get a draft to my reviewers to ensure I don’t waste too much time nit picking my own work.  Other people can do that for me.
  • The “career path / why do you want to go here” question is pretty much part of every essay package I need to write.  The problem is the word length is different for each.  I basically need to tell the same story in 200, 400, and 1000 word count versions.
  • Low word count limits suck.  It’s really frustrating when you have a great essay to write, but only get to use 250 words to do so.  C’mon, this is my ringer essay!
  • I scored pretty well in Sentence Correction and I’m feeling the after effects of it on my essays.  I now notice all of my errors in parallelism, dangling modifiers, and subject verb agreement and feel the urge to immediately correct them.
  • Speaking with alumni makes essay writing easier.  Writing essays is like trying to impress someone on a date.  It’s great when you can do some recon beforehand and figure out what he or she likes.  That way you can tailor your essays and write them with confidence and precision.
  • My GMAT score feels like it happened 10 years ago.  I know I should gain confidence from it, but the essays have a way of cutting you down to size.

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