Both candidates  tried to stand out from a considerable quantity of applicants and to show the originality, and if to tell in marketing language - correctly to position themselves. The process of entrance to business school is anything other, as the offer oneself as a candidate, and from the side of school business it is a choice of the best candidate. This is similar enough situation for experts in marketing when they position the goods in the market. Marketing in the company Procter&Gamble, and also the similar companies, begins when experts in marketing study the consumers (target group) and also what they require. In our case, our target group is an admission board which as well as all consumers has a criteria  which should you correspond if you want to be chosen.

Every business school searches for educated applicants, potential leaders with high ethical standards since a business school's task is  to prepare you, to develop leadership abilities in yourself, that you would bring positive changes in the world surrounding you.
Your main task is to understand needs (criterion of selection) of each of schools where you apply documents. On covers of glossy brochures of business schools, ideal candidates on opinion of schools are almost always described. Thus they wish to find a leader who is able to work in a team, able to study on another's mistakes, open to the international multinational environment, and also last technological innovations etc. However by closer consideration we will find out almost inaudible distinctions between descriptions of each school. These nuances can be visible at various levels:
First of all, you should crystallyze as much as it is possible, qualities which are searched by schools as they sometimes very vaguely state the thoughts. For example, leadership qualities are often mentioned, team spirit etc. which are perhaps very familiar to us, whether could you describe more accurately what is team spirit and leadership qualities?! If you are not assured of definition, you should continue your research that you could support accurately your statements with concrete examples of behaviour of the person in each of situations. Do not spend time  for visiting of sites of business schools, call to admission board on the telephone - they will not help you to receive answers for these questions.

To explain what it is meant when one speaks about specification of each of qualities of successful applicant, we suggest to consider such an example: such quality as leadership abilities can be broken into some certain abilities of the person including:
•  Ability of adequately thinking (strategically and in respect of the purposes). To define accurately, what is  necessary to be done in each of situations, a leader should be able to analyze qualitative/quantitative data to see an overall picture.
• To be able to present this picture to people. To inform them about importance/unimportance of  something
• To motivate workers round this purpose or strategy. Besides, it is very important to be able to listen and find a correct way to mind of each worker.
• Constantly to train workers in order they could reach aims the most effectively. To share the knowledge.

As you see, any of the qualities can be broken into set of smaller abilities easily. And so you should make with each quality which you wish to describe in the essay. If you are not assured what a school searches,  you have very small chances to correspond to their expectations!

It is necessary to notice also, that when you one essay written for defined schools, direct to all schools chosen by you there is a very high probability to merge with a lump of submitting documents. It is because, you were too lazy to understand, that it is important for this or that school. And, besides, key qualities of applicants  at various schools are strongly different. For example, Harvard will necessarily pay attention to your individual achievements, ability to resist to the general opinion and to achieve the object, while Kellogg has much more attention to a team spirit, group projects, ability to reach the purposes in the big collective.

To show you a good example where the principle of own positioning is very accurately observed, and also taking into consideration needed qualities for a school, we offer you a fragment of a following essay:

Harvard,
Discuss two situations in the past four years where you have taken an active leadership role. How do these events demonstrate your managerial potential?
While I have had many opportunities to serve in the capacity of leader in both my personal and professional lives, there are two occasions that I feel clearly demonstrate my managerial potential. During my first few months as an analyst for a large consulting firm, I was participating on a study with an extremely tight-time-frame. It was the afternoon before the deadline and my project team and I were supposed to present the results of our cost benchmarking study to the client hospital the following morning. As we were reviewing materials for the presentation, I noticed that one of the calculations on which we based our primary analysis was incorrect. As a result of the miscalculation, the financial savings that client hospital would realise by altering its Nursing department skill mix was grossly misstated. After I informed the senior project manager of the mistake, he told our project team to ignore it. As his reasons, he stated that project was “worth that much” and that client would never discover the mistake.
Even though I felt unprepared to supervise the rebuilding of the analysis, I realised the gravity of the situation and decide to take the lead. Not only did the client hospital’s viability depend on the accuracy of our work, but my company’s reputation could be in jeopardy as well. After explaining the situations to teammates, I asked for volunteers who felt, as I did, that the problem should be fixed prior to the presentation, and who were willing to work all night to correct it. I took the lead in dividing up the required tasks among the remaining team members so that the work would be completed in an efficient and timely manner. Furthermore, I monitored each person’s progress throughout the night, answering technical questions to the best of my ability and verifying that the analysis was re-run correctly. The next morning out project team was able to present accurate findings of which we could be proud.

The comment: In the given fragment the interrelation of the leadership abilities of the applicant, with high ethical standards is very accurately traced. Besides it is magnificently described a quality highly valued in Harvard - ability to protect the point of view if you are assured that it is correct.