Marketing yourself

I borrowed Richard Montauk's How To Get Into the Top Ten MBA Programs and Brandon Royal's 88 Great MBA Application Tips and Strategies to Get You Into a Top Business School from the library about a week ago. Browsing through both books, I realize what an uphill task this whole application process is going to be - how can I differentiate myself from the thousands of consultants applying this year??

International experience? Breadth of experience having done both tech and strategy? Haha that's what most people will say anyway. Will need to really think through this...

Another thing that worries me is my lack of extracurricular activities... sure I have some of the "recreation club", "golf club" type of activities, but nothing significant and substantial. I did read that there's less of an emphasis on EC's for international applicants, but guess I'll have to work on this area as well.

One thing that really struck me was how eloquent all the sample essays are. There're actually MBA applicants out there using themes, motifs and other "advanced writing techniques" in their essays!! Where do these guys come from?? Man, it's gonna be tough...