Some update first. Lot of things happened last week. Some big screwups at work, a laptop which went bad, some good chats with incoming GSBers, and a unique expression of surprise i saw when i let my team know i that would be leaving sometime soon. That's for the update.
But the intention of this post is different. I was helping this guy with his GSB R2 WL, and I thought I would share a point which I remembered while working with him on his WL letters.
So let's dedicate this post to "Differentiation".
I think for all applicants coming from an over subscribed applicant pool, this is always a problem. So if you are a management consultant, IBanker, Indian IT guy, Chinese tech expert, you probably know what I am talking about. Differentiation is important because it helps you stand out among the many others who have similar stats, and concentrating on differentiation in your application package is vital. Over doing it, might be harmful.
The big question now comes - how does one differentiate oneself ? The first thing is to understand what makes you similar (not-different) to your brethren community - that's the stereotype people talk about. You need to take care not to fall prey to the stereotype. If I try to remember my very first set of essays from way back in 05, I think they were very stereotyped - because that was what came naturally to me. Thankfully, I had some good advisors, and they helped me spot the stereotype.
Then came the more challenging next step - to search for stories in my life which will help me break free of the stereotype, and elucidate the unique me. I think I probably used to stare at the starry sky (not literally ;-) thinking about which incident from my life would be worth writing an essay about, which incident would have the meat to convey my actual personality, which incident will be unique to show the adcom a different face of Forrest Gump. By my attempts to define and capture various different interesting aspects of my own self, I tried to differentiate myself. You might question if this is the right way to do things, so take your pick.
Coming back to the person who asked me for help, things sadly didnt work out for him, but he always knew the importance of articulating how we are unique and what is that which makes us special. This, I think should be the goal of your essays, how you do it is entirely upto you - as they say, there's no one right answer.
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5 comments:
good post!
mind giving us some examples of the incidents you have used, though?
just curious :-)
tell me about WLs and trying to differentiate ourselves :)
Vital post - this is something that no applicant should forget, WL or not
You know, I think you're already unique. Maybe the important thing is not to be so but to be able to realise it, and from self observation be able to explain it. Thats tricky, but that's important and useful too.
It's self knowledge not self invention.
Best regards :)
Whenever you want, I'd be happy to :) take care.
The drunken text message is the highlight of the season, till this point. I'm sure they'll come up with something much more hilarious before school starts :)
BTW - how long am i gonna address u as "Forrest"??? :)
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