Round 2 MBA applicants! I am sure you must have spent the last couple of weeks writing, rewriting, revising, and editing your essays multiple times, making sure that you have addressed the essay questions effectively and persuasively within the prescribed word limits. You are now all set to submit your essays. Before you do, I would like to share a few proofreading tips for non-native applicants.
Wait!!! If you are a non-native applicant applying to the US Business schools, you also need to make sure that you have not used any words, phrases, or expressions that your readers, the Admission Committee members, are not familiar with.
There is no denying the fact that English is an international language used as a means of communication by people all around the world. However, it is also true that English spoken by people in India and the UK differs from American English in terms of spelling, grammar, and usage.
Therefore, after finalizing your application essays for US B-Schools in terms of content, organization, and sentence structure, you should identify words and phrases that American English speakers may not be familiar with and replace them with their American English equivalents. I would like to bring to your attention some of the words and phrases that I have consistently come across when reviewing student essays for US B-schools.
Use the Right Terms for Your Educational Background
To begin with, B-schools often require their applicants to write ‘life experience’ and ‘background’ essays for which they need to recall their childhood/teenage experiences. Having done their schooling and undergraduate studies in India (just like I did), they obviously use the terms popularly used in the Indian education system.
For example, in India we use the term higher 'secondary’ for 11th grade, ‘senior secondary ', or ‘intermediate’ for different stages of secondary education. In the US, grades 9 through 12 generally constitute high school, while grades 6 through 8 are commonly referred to as middle school or junior high school, depending on the school system. Therefore, instead of saying ‘I passed or passed out intermediate,’ you should say ‘I graduated from high school’; instead of saying ‘I went to a primary school,’ you may say ‘I went to an elementary school.’
Some other Indian English terms that you may want to replace with more familiar American English equivalents include ‘10th or 12th standard’ with ‘10th or 12th grade,’ ‘hostel room’ with ‘dorm room,’ and ‘fresher’ with ‘freshman’ when referring to a first-year college student. Instead of ‘topper,’ depending on the context, you may use ‘top student,’ ‘ranked first in my class,’ or ‘graduated at the top of my class.’ Please note that in India, students may say that they ‘pass out of’ college or university, but in the US, students ‘graduate from’ school or college. Interestingly, ‘passing out’ in American English means ‘fainting’ or ‘losing consciousness.’
Be Mindful of Everyday School Terminology
Let’s take a look at some other terms used in the American education system that you may want to know when sharing your background or life experiences and stories for American B-Schools. For example, in American schools, students may have a ‘lunch break,’ while ‘recess’ generally refers to a separate break, particularly in elementary school. American students may ‘turn in’ or ‘submit’ their papers; they ‘check out’ books from the library and ‘return’ them, while their Indian counterparts may ‘issue’ and ‘return’ them.
Again, American students may be marked ‘tardy’ when they arrive late to class, while Indian students are commonly marked ‘late.’ The teachers in American schools and colleges ‘grade’ student papers, while ‘check’ is more commonly used in India. Indian students may refer to the subjects they study in college, while American students commonly refer to individual classes as ‘courses.’ Lastly, and most importantly, Indian students may ‘write’ or ‘give’ the GMAT, while in American English, students ‘take the GMAT.’
Use Familiar American English Expressions
Another common usage that I have come across in a majority of essays is the use of the phrase ‘bring up’ in place of ‘raise’. For example, ‘I was born and brought up in XYZ town in India’. While ‘born and brought up’ is readily understood, ‘born and raised’ is more commonly used expression in American English. Hence, you may want to say, ‘I was born and raised in XYZ town in India’ to make yourself more comprehensible to the US Admissions Committee. The phrase ‘bring up’ can also mean ‘to mention’ in American English, as in ‘I brought up the issue during the meeting.’
Furthermore, if your story requires you to say that you ‘shifted’ to a new house or apartment, replace ‘shifted’ with ‘moved’. Also, if you need to write the plural of ‘person’ write ‘people’ instead of ‘persons’. Moreover, while discussing your professional history, replace the word ‘fresher’ with ‘new hire’. Instead of saying ‘I was a fresher at XXX company’, you may want to say, ‘I was a new hire at XXX company.’
Use American English Verb Forms
Some verbs may have a different past and past participle form in British and American English. Verbs such as learn, burn, dream, smell, spell, lean, and spoil commonly take ‘d’ or ‘ed’ in their past and past participle forms in American English (learned, burned, dreamed, smelled, spelled, leaned, and spoiled), while British English also commonly uses forms such as learnt, burnt, dreamt, smelt, spelt, leant, and spoilt. Therefore, we Indians may be more accustomed to some of these British English forms. Since most essay prompts expect the applicants to discuss the lessons they learned from their professional or personal experiences, the most common past- tense verb form that I have replaced with its American English usage in student essays is ‘learned’ instead of 'learnt'.
Takeaways:
When applying to US Business schools, be mindful of words and phrases that are common in your native variety of English and replace them with their American English equivalents.
I hope these tips will help make your essays more natural, clear, and AdCom-friendly.
Good luck with your applications 🙂
Note: For more details on the differences between American English and British English, refer to my article ‘American English vs. British English.’
For more MBA articles, visit the myEssayReview blog.
For questions, email me at poonam@myessayreview.com
Poonam Tandon, Ph.D. English
Founder & CEO, myEssayReview
Partner-GMAT Club
Consultant- AIGAC (Association of International Graduate Admission Consultants)
Contributor- Valley India Times
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