Adaptability and Resilience are now the most bastardised traits that applicants highlight as their uniqueness.
In psychological contexts, there are nuanced differences between coping with stress vs adapting to stress, vs. remaining resilient throughout a stressful scenario.
All curiosity narratives are anchored around the applicant’s ability to think beyond the obvious, find insights that no one is looking for, and accentuate the solution’s impact.
The least impactful curiosity narratives are around technical solutions, where the applicant fails to connect the solution to the business impact. Even if the technical solution had an impact on the client, solo solutions have the lowest influence on the admissions team.
Every competent professional targeting top schools, including LBS, has committed to excellence in their profession. That doesn’t make an applicant unique. The top 1-5% performance will help them gain attention, but to highlight uniqueness, an applicant should lean into their belief and the passion that emanates from the belief.
An applicant is unique when their multiple lived experiences through professional and personal roles create a unique profile that is unlike any of their peers.
Most applicants choose to cite professional roles from their full-time or volunteering roles and articulate the influence of their diverse experiences on their thinking and decision-making.
The 1st lived role that differentiates an applicant are narratives that capture two roles.
With the incentive to cut costs by building a global supply chain, trade flourished around the world. Each country brought its unique strength to the products and services served in the marketplace.
The collaboration was not limited to skills. The cultures of the interacting countries are also transmitted while collaborating.
Under such global influences, a skilled professional can gauge the difference between innovation that works in any culture and that which needs careful tweaking.
In an LBS MBA class where more than 90% are international, bringing one’s unique identity to the ‘What Makes you Unique’ essay would be the only chance when competing with similar profiles from Finance, Consulting, and Technology.
Broadly, identity-based narratives fall into four themes:
Inclusive leadership is not democratic leadership, which, according to studies, is the worst kind of leadership in a crisis.
Asking for votes for every small decision is counterproductive. That is why in democratic societies, we have representatives to take care of the interests of the constituents.
Inclusive Leadership is much more nuanced.
Interestingly, what makes an applicant resourceful could also be a curse when the person doesn’t know when to quit and seek help.
Quitting a path of problem-solving is considered a weakness in our culture, where every tale of persistence and resilience is praised, while ‘seeking a mentor’ or ‘seeking help’ is seen as a weakness in all quant-heavy cultures (Finance and Technology).
Even during the worst job market, employers look for candidates who are entrepreneurial. The popular culture, unfortunately, has painted entrepreneurs as these superhuman beings who persist and stare at failure with a Zen attitude.
They are not.
What makes entrepreneurial applicants unique is their resourcefulness in turning limitations into their strengths.
In October 2025, Yale School of Management is hosting a total of 18 events, comprising 12 virtual events and 6 in-person events, offering prospective students multiple ways to engage with the school, learn about its programs, and connect with admissions representatives, faculty, and current students.
The virtual events include recurring Admissions Q&A sessions on 14-Oct-25, 16-Oct-25, 21-Oct-25, 23-Oct-25, 28-Oct-25, and 30-Oct-25, providing participants a 45-minute interactive platform to ask questions directly to the Yale Admissions Committee.