Below are some important tips for creating excellent admissions essays -

DO

• Know your audience. Businesses fail when they don’t know their customer. Writers fail when they don’t know their reader. A number of people may your MBA admissions essays, including admissions staff, students, alumni, and faculty. Before beginning your essays, be sure to find out everything you can about a particular school and tailor your essay to a particular MBA program. You can find out about a particular business school’s character from a variety of places, including the school’s website, alumni, magazines, and interviews with school officials.

• Give your essays to others to proofread. Of course, you will want someone who can serve as a good editor to check the mechanics of your essays. However, you also want someone proofread your essays that is close enough to you to know your personality and background. This person can make sure your true personality is showing through in the essays. They may also remember specific examples from your past that you forgot to include in an essay. It is also helpful to have a stranger read your essays. Sometimes it is hard for those who know you well to give you honest feedback. Also, an essay may make sense to someone who knows you well, but a stranger may find it difficult to follow.

• Be sure to answer the question. This might seem obvious, but some MBA applicants answer a question the way they WISH the question was asked. While this strategy may work well for politicians, it does not work well for business school applicants. MBA essay questions are not always going to be easy to answer and may require lots of thinking any reflection. However, you still need to answer the question. For instance, many applicants cite dilemmas in ethical dilemma essays that really aren’t ethical dilemmas.

• Use specific examples. Any business school applicant can speak in platitudes about their background. You want to be sure you use specific examples when answering questions. It is even better if you use measurable examples. For instance, "I have been recognized for giving back to the community” is not nearly as strong as saying "In 2005, my community efforts were honored when I selected from 5,000 nominees to receive a community reward for an after school program I developed for local high school students."

• Keep it interesting. People reading your essays will likely also be reading the essays of lots of other applicants. You want to write in a tone that is engaging and that will keep a reader interested. If you are passionate about a topic, you want to be sure you use words that convey that passion in your essay.

• Follow these general writing tips. Have a theme for each essay. Use transitions between paragraphs. Write in the active voice, not the passive voice. Make sure your writing "flows." Don’t be redundant. Stay within the word limits of the essays.

DON'T

• Be someone you’re not. It is difficult to write a compelling essay if you are not letting the real you show through in the essay. Also, it goes without saying that you should not lie or exaggerate in your essays.

• Recycle your essays. Remember, every school is looking for different qualities in an applicant. Be sure to give yourself enough time so that you can tailor your message in each essay to a particular school.

• Repeat information elsewhere in the application. Business school essays should not be a dumping ground for everything that is on your resume.

• Use a lot of buzzwords or technical jargon in your essay. Be sure and don’t use meaningless MBA phrases like "value proposition." Also, it is likely that your readers won’t know technical jargon that may be common in your industry.

• Rely on the spelling and grammar check in your word processor. A word might be spelled correctly, but it might not be the word you intended to use in the essay.