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Accepted.com Odds 'N Ends
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What's New at Accepted.com |
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Best Wishes for the Holiday Season
The entire staff at Accepted.com would like to thank you for your
patronage and wish you a joyous Holiday Season and great New Year!
New Accepted.com Book
Paul Bodine, Accepted.com senior editor, has just published his
first book with McGraw-Hill,
Great Application Essays for Business School.
You can't gain acceptance to top business schools without reflective,
genuine, well-written application essays. Accepted.com editor Paul
Bodine shows you how to write outstanding essays by revealing both the
right moves and the mistakes in
Great Application Essays for Business School.
Ebook Sale
Oh yes!
Another holiday sale. You can save 25% off all Accepted.com info
products purchased by December 15, 2005. So don't wait. Hurry to get
these gems while you can save.
(Discount will be taken at check out.)
Time Marches On
'Tis the season when time marches at double-time. It's hard to focus
on essays and keep all the personal, professional, and educational balls
in the air. Those application deadlines somehow manage to creep up
mysteriously out of nowhere. Now is a great time to work on applications
due in January. Don't delay. Help us help you.
Sign up today
for Accepted.com's services
or contact your editor.
Admissions Chats
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Dec. 5 |
10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/6:00 PM GMT |
London Business School |
David Simpson, Marketing & Admissions Emma Bond,
Marketing & Admissions Julia Hope,
Career Services
LBS Students |
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Dec. 14 |
10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/ 5:00 PM GMT |
INSEAD |
Leila Murat, Admissions Manager
Christina Vincensini, Admissions Manager INSEAD Students
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Dec. 20 |
5:00 PM PT/8:00 PM ET/1:00 AM GMT |
Great Application Essays |
Paul Bodine, author of Great Application
Essays for B-school |
And of course, last month's chats have generated must-read
transcripts:
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Essay Tip |
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Lack of Substance
Last month I identified 5 fatal flaws in your essays:
5 Fatal Flaws:
- Lack of substance - nothing demonstrates the qualities claimed.
- Failure to answer the question.
- Clich�d.
- Superficial.
- Lack of thought.
Let's explore them over the next several months, one by one, starting
with Lack of Substance.
Writing about nothing tends to bore, like a trite sitcom or movie
with no plot. They lack substance and so will your essay if it isn't
based on:
- Self-reflection.
- Use of specifics, examples, and anecdotes.
- Willingness to reveal your thought-processes and feelings.
Start your writing process with self-knowledge. You don't have to
search the Internet or the library. Begin with your experiences and your
dreams. Search your head and your heart. They store the substance of a
good personal statement.
Then use anecdotes, specifics, and examples to reveal what's inside
of you and show that your dreams are grounded in experience.
Furthermore, good examples can bring your essays to life and engage the
reader.
At the same time, recognize that essays with only examples and anecdotes
don't reveal your motivations and consequently are also superficial.
Make sure you balance your stories with insight and analysis.
Avoid Fatal Flaw #1. Let your essays portray reflection and astute
use of examples balanced by analysis.
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Resume Tip |
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Be Strategic
When preparing a resume for an admissions application, you need
to be strategic in deciding what content is absolutely essential
so your resume complements your whole application. You may well
find you have to jettison one of your proudest accomplishments
because it doesn't support the theme of your essays or the
culture of the school you're applying to.
For example, suppose that you're particularly proud of a
highly specialized and innovative bit of code you wrote for a
mission-critical application. But it was in no sense a team
project-you wrote it entirely on your own, its dollar impact on
your organization is unquantifiable, and it was essentially a
technical not a leadership achievement. In this case, if you
have been using your essays to escape the "techie" pigeonhole
and are applying to a school, like Kellogg, where interpersonal
skills are highly valued, you should probably omit this
"proudest moment" altogether.
Instead, include a bullet about the new process you initiated
that increased group productivity by 5 percent or the time you
led a team of four programmers in completing an understaffed
project on deadline. These kinds of achievements will do a
better job of positioning you as a leader rather than a
cubicle-dweller. This is where "techie" applicants who simply
cut-and-paste their work resumes--with all their specialized
languages, acronyms, and industry-speak-into their applications
run into trouble. They risk projecting the "propeller-head"
image they've worked so hard in their essays to escape. Be
strategic.
By Paul
Bodine, Senior Editor at Accepted.com
Author of
Great Application Essays for Business School
(forthcoming).
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| Wrap Up
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Our Services
Writing a personal statement is a tough challenge. A former
client, an NBC journalist with over twenty years of experience
in the field, once said that his personal statement "was the
toughest thing I ever had to write." He sought our help.
Shouldn't you?
Accepted.com's editors are here to help you write your best
essays -- eloquent, compelling essays that distinguish you from
the competition and transform you from a transcript and test
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Check us out. Complete information on our services, including
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If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at
info@accepted.com or 310-815-9553.
We look forward to serving you.
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