You made up your mind. You studied Rotman’s website thoroughly, thrilled by the Integrative Thinking approach, and you know this new thought process will help you advance your career. You also attended an information session and spoke with a current student. You are convinced that Rotman is for you and now it is time to work on your application. You checked the admission requirements and saw that one of the requirements is to write four mini essays. How hard could that be? The first essay question is only 500 words, and the rest are 250 words each. You have longer Facebook messages. Once you start organizing your thoughts, you realize how challenging it could be to communicate them in a limited space.

We can help you!

As someone working in the admissions department of the Rotman School, I would suggest first trying to understand the questions. When you look at them, you will see that they are all about you. What is the Admissions Committee looking for? We simply would like to learn more about you in order to be able assess if there is a fit. The first step to write a good essay is to brainstorm ideas. You can start by asking yourself this question: If I were reading admissions essays, what would I expect?

I would expect to learn:

• more about this person’s professional and personal experiences
• what brought him or her to this stage and what s/he is doing currently
• why does s/he think an MBA would be beneficial
• some of the things that make him/her unique; at the end of the day I am looking for someone who will contribute to the class discussions, school and society
• if s/he has goals
• s/he can admit weaknesses

If you have answers for all of these points, then you are half way there. The second step is to match your answers with our questions. Once you have completed these two steps, you are ready to put fingertips to computer keys.

Needless to mention: Write something you are passionate about…

Just because you are writing admissions essays for a business school, it does not mean that you should focus solely on business. At Rotman we are looking for creative and innovative individuals. Your biggest accomplishment may have occurred outside of the office.  Maybe you organized a fundraising event for the underprivileged kids in your neighborhood or you might have organized an event in your community, these would also tell us a lot about you. First of all, it shows us that you have a life outside of work (good time management!) and you are willing to contribute to the growth of your community. Having extracurricular experiences and charity work under your belt will have a very positive impact on your application. Also, these experiences will be handy when you are considered for a scholarship upon submitting your application or you apply for one later on in the program.