1 answer
Hamsika
Student
Mountain House, California
1
Question
Updated
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How should I position my application for business schools (Haas, Ross, Marshall, McIntire, Kelley)?
Question writing tips
#Fall25
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1 answer
Theophilus Mensah
Discovery Intern @Deloitte |2x Founder | TMCF Scholar | Business + CIS @ GSU | Harvard ALP 25’
71
Answers
Grambling, Louisiana
Updated
Theophilus’s Answer
The first thing that will give you a real edge when applying to top business schools is knowing everything about the school you’re applying to.
Research is your biggest superpower.
Do you know what creativity really is?
It’s the ability to take two unrelated ideas and connect them meaningfully. That only happens when you deeply understand both sides. So the more you study Haas, Ross, Marshall, McIntire, and Kelley, their values, programs, student culture, teaching style, and career outcomes, the more you’ll have a wide range of things to pull from when writing your essays. The more data you gather, the more angles you can use to creatively align your story with the school.
And most importantly: let your voice be heard. Let your personality be seen.
How?
Storytelling.
Your personal experiences should translate into emotions on the page.
The moments that made you sad should make the reader feel the heaviness. The moments that made you cry should touch them emotionally. The moments that made you laugh should bring out a smile in them too.
That’s emotional intelligence. That’s intentional writing. That’s how you make an admissions officer feel who you are rather than just reading facts about you.
Don’t write to please people.
Write to show who you truly are : your values, your resilience, your curiosity, your leadership, your growth.
And finally, always come back to the prompt. What part of your life best answers what they’re asking?
How can you combine your story with your research to show why you belong there and how you’ll contribute?
If you can master research, self-awareness, storytelling, and intentionality, you’ll position yourself extremely well for every business school on your list.
Lastly, start with a hook.
That’s what pulls the reader in before they even realize they’re invested in your story. A hook can be anything that creates curiosity, a moment, a feeling, a question, a vivid memory.
For example:
1. “My hands were shaking the first time I walked into the orphanage, but I didn’t know that moment would change the next five years of my life.”
The reader will be interested in what happened in the next five years of your life.
2. “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry the day my small idea accidentally reached 11,000 people.”
The ready will ask, what idea?
That’s where the rest of the essay answers the question.
A hook doesn’t necessarily need to be dramatic. It just needs to make the reader think, Wait… what happens next?
And don’t forget to write with imagery.
Imagery is what helps the reader see you, hear you, feel you. It’s what brings your personality alive on the page.
Instead of saying: “I was nervous.”
Show it:“My heart raced as if it was trying to outrun my own thoughts.”
Instead of saying “I worked hard.”
Show it: “I spent late nights hunched over my desk, rewriting the same paragraph until it finally sounded like the truth.”
Imagery is how the admissions officer experiences your life instead of just reading about it. It’s how you make your story memorable.
Combine a strong hook, deep research, emotional storytelling, and imagery and your application will stand out anywhere.
Research is your biggest superpower.
Do you know what creativity really is?
It’s the ability to take two unrelated ideas and connect them meaningfully. That only happens when you deeply understand both sides. So the more you study Haas, Ross, Marshall, McIntire, and Kelley, their values, programs, student culture, teaching style, and career outcomes, the more you’ll have a wide range of things to pull from when writing your essays. The more data you gather, the more angles you can use to creatively align your story with the school.
And most importantly: let your voice be heard. Let your personality be seen.
How?
Storytelling.
Your personal experiences should translate into emotions on the page.
The moments that made you sad should make the reader feel the heaviness. The moments that made you cry should touch them emotionally. The moments that made you laugh should bring out a smile in them too.
That’s emotional intelligence. That’s intentional writing. That’s how you make an admissions officer feel who you are rather than just reading facts about you.
Don’t write to please people.
Write to show who you truly are : your values, your resilience, your curiosity, your leadership, your growth.
And finally, always come back to the prompt. What part of your life best answers what they’re asking?
How can you combine your story with your research to show why you belong there and how you’ll contribute?
If you can master research, self-awareness, storytelling, and intentionality, you’ll position yourself extremely well for every business school on your list.
Lastly, start with a hook.
That’s what pulls the reader in before they even realize they’re invested in your story. A hook can be anything that creates curiosity, a moment, a feeling, a question, a vivid memory.
For example:
1. “My hands were shaking the first time I walked into the orphanage, but I didn’t know that moment would change the next five years of my life.”
The reader will be interested in what happened in the next five years of your life.
2. “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry the day my small idea accidentally reached 11,000 people.”
The ready will ask, what idea?
That’s where the rest of the essay answers the question.
A hook doesn’t necessarily need to be dramatic. It just needs to make the reader think, Wait… what happens next?
And don’t forget to write with imagery.
Imagery is what helps the reader see you, hear you, feel you. It’s what brings your personality alive on the page.
Instead of saying: “I was nervous.”
Show it:“My heart raced as if it was trying to outrun my own thoughts.”
Instead of saying “I worked hard.”
Show it: “I spent late nights hunched over my desk, rewriting the same paragraph until it finally sounded like the truth.”
Imagery is how the admissions officer experiences your life instead of just reading about it. It’s how you make your story memorable.
Combine a strong hook, deep research, emotional storytelling, and imagery and your application will stand out anywhere.