Afraid of the readers’ reactions and misunderstanding the purpose of the essays, many readers consciously edit out all personality and all honesty from their early drafts. The result is tedium.
Business schools don’t want tedium. They don’t want you to sound like an annual report. They want to hear your voice and your opinions. Let them come through. Take some risks. You can always cut Back in the final drafts, if you think your writing is too controversial or edgy. But if your early drafts are bland and impersonal, the final
drafts will be even worse.
Be aware of length limits, but don’t be hamstrung by them in the early drafts.
If the school wants 500 words, then you’ll give them 500 (or, better, 475). But to get to those 500 words you might, at first, come up with 1,500. Don’t stifle your own creativity. The time for strict adherence to length limits is the final draft, not the first one.