UPDATE: This article was originally posted on October 1, 2018. It has been updated with new information and tips below. 

With the number of applications to elite business schools increasing each year, admissions committees need increasingly powerful tools to separate candidates they want to learn more about and candidates who just don’t fit the culture of their school. 

For that reason, many MBAs have instituted video essays as part of their application. 

Video essays give you the chance to show your personality to the admissions committee – and make a stunning first impression. In many cases, such as at INSEAD, this will be the only time the admissions committee has direct contact with you. As such, the video essay is not just another box to tick but is an essential part of the application and an unmatched opportunity to show you belong. 

Doing so, however, can be challenging, which is why we have prepared this guide to help you ace your MBA video essays and earn a spot at your dream school!

 

Why do business schools require a video essay?

Though many applicants see video essays as a major headache, they have become increasingly popular, with more and more schools adopting the practice each year. 

Considering the stress the video essays cause applicants, why do business schools seem to love the practice?

Niki da Silva, former Director of Admissions at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management (the school that started the whole video essay trend) said that the video essay allows the admissions team to screen for different skills and competencies in the admissions process.

That’s because the video format gives the admissions committee the chance to truly “meet” candidates – as well as identify red flags in applicants. 

According to INSEAD’s admissions committee:

“The video should be seen as a unique opportunity for you to share your passions, your motivations and who you truly are. The MBA Admissions Committee is interested in obtaining an authentic view of you as a person, to see how you think on your feet and how you convey your ideas.” 

With that in mind, it’s extremely important to make sure you fully understand this component of the application. 

 

How does the video essay work?

Though the specifics vary slightly from school to school, the general elements of the video essay are relatively similar. 

In all cases, you will sign into an online platform (most often you will receive the link to access the platform via email after submitting your application). 

After signing in, you will receive a set of questions (usually ranging from 2-4) on a variety of topics ranging from why you want to attend a particular school, to ice breaker questions, to standard interview-type questions. 

For all schools, the timing mechanism will be slightly different, but you can expect to have between 20-60 seconds to prepare your answer and between 45-90 seconds to deliver your answers. 

In all cases, you cannot redo questions. 

If you’d like to get ahead and start preparing for your Kellogg, INSEAD, or London Business School, or Yale video essays, you can find articles with real questions to practice by clicking the links. 

 

The difference between a good and great video essay

Given the importance of the video essay in your MBA application, it’s crucial to make sure you don’t just have a good video essay, but that you have a great video essay. 

Now that you’ve learned how the video essay will work, we’ve gathered our top 5 tips to ensure your video essay performance brings you one step closer to reaching your goal of attending an elite business school. 

 

Video Essay Tip 1: Choose your background and attire wisely

Though you don’t need to wear a full suit and make a trip to the office to record your video essay, consider your setting and attire carefully. 

You should record the essay in a relatively quiet area. If your apartment is located near a busy street with audible traffic, you may want to find a different place to record. Similarly, if you choose to record at your place of work, make sure to find a time when few people are likely to interrupt you. Remember – no redos. 

To ensure the best results, set yourself up in front of a relatively neutral background. We recommend you do not use a Zoom background filter, as this can be very distracting. A piece of art or organized shelf with few items in the background is ok, but busy or distracting backgrounds will pull the attention away from the main attraction (YOU!) and should be avoided. 

When setting up, make sure the camera shows your entire face and that you can be easily heard by your device’s microphone. iPads and iPhones tend to be trickier to record on for these reasons (as well as for potential software incompatibilities or glitches), so we recommend you record from your desktop computer or laptop. 

Finally, though you don’t need to “dress up” for the interview, you should look presentable and professional. If you feel most comfortable wearing a suit and tie, however, this is also acceptable. 

We also suggest you remove your glasses since wearing them makes your eyes difficult to see. If you don’t have contact lenses or can’t reasonably see your screen without your glasses, make sure you play with your lighting in advance to find a configuration that avoids any type of glare appearing on your glasses. After all, not being able to see your eyes has the same effect as making poor eye contact. 

 

Video Essay Tip 2: Be personable on camera

This is quite a specific skill to master, but with a bit of practice will get much easier. 

My best tip for you is to practice recording yourself and time yourself as well. Go through the questions you have, take your planning time to think and plan, and then record yourself for the time given to respond. 

If you mess up, keep going. You can’t stop and try again in the real thing, so don’t do it now. Continue your answer and fake confidence if necessary!

Then watch yourself back. Were you making eye contact with the camera? Did you smile? Did you look friendly? Bored? Annoyed? Scared?

Chances are the first few you do won’t be great but keep going. Remember that business schools are looking for friendly people to join their community, so make sure you’re showing your true colors on camera. 

You might also like to pretend you’re something of a TV presenter. This can help you to bring your personality forward and be more engaging. You don’t want to seem flat in the recording, so be a little bit brighter and friendlier than you think you need to be, and see how big of a difference it makes to your recordings.

Furthermore, be extremely careful with your tone of voice and body language. If you’re slumped over or look bored, the admissions committee will get the impression you’re not engaged with the task or, worse, that you’re not passionate about their MBA! 

This also goes for your tone of voice. Passion is contagious, but the last thing we think of when imagining a passionate person is a monotone, bored voice. So vary your tone of voice and make sure to project your passion for your interests and for their business school. If you’re not naturally good at this, you may want to seek out help from friends or record yourself multiple times until you’ve nailed the brief. 

If you’re still struggling, you may want to do more research into what being personable is all about, or even schedule time with an interview expert to ensure you’re selling yourself well on camera. 

A good interview coach can not only help you match your answers to a particular school’s fit but can also help you communicate more clearly and make a winning first impression during your interview. 

You’ll also want to be strict with yourself about timing. Don’t go over, you won’t get to do that for real. If you find you’re running out of time, a good place to look is to see if you’re taking too long to get started with the answer, or if you’re trying to say too much.

Cut out long introductions, and stick to a few points per answer.

But most importantly, don’t forget to smile! Though this may sound cliché or outdated, smiling really is one of the best — and easiest — ways to be memorable and to create a positive first impression. 

 

Video Essay Tip 3: Be prepared to think on your feet

With the timer counting down and no option to check your interviewer’s body language for subtle clues about how well your answer is being received, video essays can be incredibly challenging. 

Even more so when you receive a question you weren’t prepared for!

Yet receiving a curveball question is no reason to panic, since the best way to handle this situation is through a mix of preparation and being spontaneous. 

A good way to avoid completely drawing a blank is to have a few solid examples you’re ready to speak about and adapt.

For example, let’s say you recently worked on a project in a foreign country. You experienced culture shock while trying to adapt to the new city, faced linguistic challenges both in the office and in your daily life, and also had to mix up your work style to align with local expectations. This experience would be a fantastic “stock” answer to have ready since it brings in so many different topics that you can adapt the focus based on what the question asks.  

So, think back on your life and career and write a list of defining moments that are broad enough to be adapted to various questions and that show your fit with the school’s community and its values. You may want to refer back to the personal brand you created before writing your application to ensure the examples you’ve selected are consistent with the image you’re working to portray. 

Then, during your thinking time, take a deep breath and plan out your answer. 

While delivering your answer, don’t let the admissions committee in on the little secret that you got caught off guard! Answer confidently, using your tone of voice and body language to show off your winning personality and you’ll have successfully overcome the challenge!

TOP TIP: The admissions committee knows you’ll be a little nervous during the video essay, so don’t beat yourself up if you feel you portrayed this in your video essay. However, if you tend to get extremely nervous or freeze up, make sure to practice extra hard to make sure this doesn’t happen during your official recording.

 

Video Essay Tip 4: Don’t wait until the last minute

Though we know applicants have many “to-dos” to finish around MBA deadlines, make sure you dedicate adequate time to both preparing for and recording your video essay. 

Many candidates do set aside adequate time to practice, then let nerves get the best of them and leave the actual recording for just an hour or two before the final deadline. 

This is a mistake. 

There are numerous things that could go wrong while recording (or preparing to record) your video essay and you want to make sure you have time to fix any issues before the deadline expires. Admissions committees will not feel bad that you left your video essay for the last minute and missed the deadline, after all. 

A few years ago, our client Elizabeth was passionate about attending Kellogg and diligently prepared with our video essay experts to ensure that she was ready to put her best foot forward. 

After recording her first question, however, a major storm rolled in, cutting power to her building for hours. The good news was that she still had more than 24 hours left before the final deadline, which gave her ample time to contact support and finish her video essay. 

Though you hopefully don’t experience such a dramatic problem during your video essay, remember that problems and interruptions do happen, so it’s wise to start recording with plenty of time to troubleshoot. 

Video Essay Tip 5: PRACTICE

As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. And if Barack Obama still practices his speeches, chances are you should practice too! 

For the video essay, we suggest several types of practice to ensure you really nail the actual recording. 

First, by joining our MBA resource library, you’ll be able to access a large database of real video essay questions, developing a cache of usable responses that can be easily adapted to fit similar questions. So make sure to take advantage of this opportunity to practice! 

Second, rehearse delivering your answers. We’ve all experienced situations where we had the perfect answer in our head, only to have it spill out in a disorganized mess when we tried to actually communicate the answer. This is more common than you’d think, so make sure you’ve “test-driven” your answers at least once. 

During this phase, receiving feedback from an expert can help you polish your answers, making sure they show you off and demonstrate you have a strong “fit” with your target school. Our team of experts has successfully helped 98.5% of our clients secure admissions to at least one target school, so you can count on our team of interview experts to make sure you’re camera-ready! 

Finally, many schools offer you the chance to go through two practice questions in the platform itself. This is a great chance to both make sure your equipment is properly set up and to get a feel for the timing and flow of the real video essay. Though we suggest you prepare extensively before reaching this step, make sure you don’t skip this extra chance to prepare!

 

Make sure you shine

You have stressed about every aspect of your MBA application, and now you are ready to record your video essay! With the right preparation, this can be your chance to shine and get a highly-coveted spot at a prestigious business school. 

However, maybe you don’t know where to start in preparing, or maybe you ramble on and lose your focus while answering. The problem is, when you try to apply these templates to your own story, it doesn’t quite work.

Our video essay prep focuses on helping you determine how to present yourself to the admissions committee while using appropriate, impact-driven language without being artificial, or worse, robotic.

Want to put the Ellin Lolis advantage to work for you? Schedule your preparation session with our team of interview experts today!