Five Ways to Ruin an Application Essay

Looking to write an application essay that will push you to the bottom of the applicant pool? Here are some good ways to do it

by Alison Damast

Admissions officers at top business schools like to say they've seen it all when it comes to B-school application essays. Still, they sometimes come across an essay that surprises them—and not in a good way. One of these landed on the desk of Isser Gallogly, the admissions director of New York University's Stern School of Business a few years back. The applicant used the school's essay question on creativity as a platform to explain his penchant for writing and posting fake ads on Craigslist, which included an excerpt of an ad he had written for Valentine's Day.

"You start reading it, and it gets worse and worse and worse," Gallogly said, referring to the post's derogatory tone toward women and dating. "You finish it and sort of ask yourself: 'What is this person thinking who writes something like this, thinks it is funny, and also thinks it is appropriate to send to a business school?"

Mistakes like this are not the type admissions officers tend to gloss over. The two or three admissions essays required by each business school tend to be the area where most applicants struggle and where they can make damaging mistakes, admissions officers say. Just one blunder in an application can ruin an applicant's chance of getting in. "If you don't get the essays right, they can definitely offset all of your hard work," Gallogly said.

Fortunately, there are ways to avoid some of the missteps applicants make while writing their essays. Here are five of the most common ways applicants can sabotage their essays, along with some tips on avoiding them.

MISTAKE NO. 1: TMI

The applicant who included the questionable Craigslist posting in his application to NYU's Stern School is a victim of what Gallogly refers to as the "too much information" syndrome. "An essay is not a confessional and an admissions committee is not a group of therapists," Gallogly said. Carrie Marcinkevage, the MBA program admissions director at Penn State University's Smeal College of Business, has also come across this problem while reviewing applications. She said she sometimes reads essays where people put in too many details about a former relationship or family trauma. The excess of personal information in the essay frequently has little or nothing to do with what makes the applicant a good MBA candidate. "I do recall reading those and saying: 'Wow, I wouldn't put that in an essay," she said. "There is a little bit of the cringing and a little bit of the 'How could you possibly be that self-involved that you don't get this?'" She recommends applicants only share those details of their personal lives that resonate with the message they are trying to convey in their application about their potential as a business leader.