There is an increasing tendency among b-schools to set offbeat MBA essay question that neither deal with your goals and aspirations nor your past career, questions like:
It is said that, these days, admissions officers devote a lot of time and effort to think up appropriate offbeat questions. What is the point? What do these questions have to do with your MBA?
In this context, a remark made by Soojin Kwan, director of admissions at Michigan’s Ross School of Business, makes interesting reading. She says that, in many cases, admissions officers are “reading essays created by somebody else,” though she carries on to say that there is “still a good portion of applicants out there who still do their own work.”
One can see where the concern is. There is a sameness and an artificiality to many of the responses to the standard application questions – a phenomenon that, to a great extent, is triggered by the fact that a large number of applicants overly rely on admissions consultants to help them out with their writing. Adcoms want to hear the applicant’s authentic and original voice, something that will enable them to know the applicant more intimately at a personal level. They hope that perhaps, by setting a quirky question, they will be able to evoke a genuine and first-hand response, rather than a borrowed or formulaic one. They have seen enough of the latter, and they look forward to refreshing responses that give them a peek into an unknown and fascinating side of the applicant’s personality.
Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. One particular year, for instance, when Haas applicants were asked the ‘whom they would want to share dinner with’ question, they came up with responses the adcom found disappointing. Stephanie Fujii, executive director of full-time admissions at Haas, puts it this way: “Everyone wrote about having dinner with themselves or their grandkids in 30 years. It didn’t reveal anything really about themselves and what shaped who they are.”
Her observation throws up a clue as to how you should approach the offbeat essay: it should throw light on some hitherto unexpressed (that is, elsewhere in the application) facet of your personality. If what you reveal about yourself harmonizes with the values and ideals of the school you are applying to, so much the better.
It is important in these essays to be your true self, and not try to impress by sounding grand or pompous. Your favorite place, if you are asked about it, doesn’t have to be the city or town where your target b-school is located (such flattery is counter-productive), but may well be a village far from the madding crowd where you feel a closeness to nature that you find rejuvenating and creatively inspiring.
The mantra, then, to writing the effective offbeat essay is to be genuine. Your genuineness comes through in how you express yourself, and acts as a magnet that grips the reader’s attention. The scene or situation you describe and the words you use may be simple, but they will surely make their way to the reader’s heart.
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