Published Jan 17, 2004
So, no new posts for a while. There’s one simple reason for that — essay after essay. Two for Stanford, three for Marshall, three for Stern, five for Kenan-Flagler. On top of that, Additional Statements, various permutations of resumes and work descriptions, and lists of various accomplishments. That’s a lot of writing!
It was an interesting experience to write these essays. At first, I didn’t feel I learned much about myself from my writing. But as I went along, I found myself calling on experiences and feelings that hadn’t sat at the front of my mind for, in many cases, years. There was certainly a lot to think about to get many of the essays done.
Also interesting was how much easier it became to write the essays as I got more applications under my belt. The two Stanford essays, which I wrote first, because the deadline came first, took a few days each. By the time I reached USC at the end, I was writing more than a page an hour. A high-quality page, too — friends editing my work made fewer changes to the later essays than the earlier ones.
Part of the reason for the speeding of my writing was simply comfort with the activity itself. But, of course, half of the reason for starting this blog was to become more comfortable with non-business writing and thus better prepared for the essays. Of course, writing an application essay is the best preparation for writing another essay. Semi-regular blog writing definitely helped, but I would say that buying a book of essays and writing responses to the questions mentioned therein (rather than simply reading the sample essays) would be the biggest help.