After nearly 20 years of reading, assessing, revising, and consulting on personal statements, I have seen every variety of mistake an applicant can make. More importantly for you, though, is that I am pretty good at identifying the upstream source of the problem and providing...

It’s a classic MBA essay question: Write about a time when you overcame a challenge. How did you handle it? What did you learn from the experience? Let’s start by easing one worry you may have. Not everyone has faced a significant challenge at work by...