How much personality should come through in a college admittance essay?

For an MBA, my personal opinion would be no, but I would love to hear from some University types in the know.

I do know in the corporate world, personality is not so much what you want to see in a resume.

My ex-husband went to an Ivy League Business school for his MBA. The admissions office looked at his college transcript, his testing, his work experience and his ability to write an analytical essay with no mistakes and lots of substance.

Let her personality come out if there is an area on the app. that asks about hobbies or free-time activities.

I agree with Marina and Gail (surprise). I imagine these essays to be more of an opportunity to fail (i.e. write something so bad or grammatically incorrect) than an opportunity to impress. Unless she is banking on the essay to carry her due to weaknesses in the rest of her application, my feeling would be to keep it simple and clear. In short, unless she is a highly capable writer (and few of us are), she should stick to the mundane (for lack of a better word) and allow the rest of her application to be viewed positively.

I’ve worked in college Admissions and I know that you need to have something that jumps out. The Admissions counselors are going to be reading THOUSANDS of applications and essays….even with an MBA they want the people that are going to show something extra. Admissions offices are always looking for people that have something more than the typical “I want to do business because business is good” essays. They DO look for something that’s you, without being FORCED…they don’t want the trite stories and anecdotes, but they are looking for natural and REAL. It’s hard to find that balance, but if you really want to make an impact it is worth it to put the effort in to doing that.

Thanks for the answers, my wife has a great GPA and probably more solid work experience than the majority of her competition. Your comments have been very helpful!

Good luck to her!