Not everybody needs an outline to write the essay. If you have a blog or your professional work requires regular written communication, writing might have become second nature to you, but even the seasoned professional need a crutch to navigate essays where the subject is not a client or a news release or a newsletter, but themselves.
Use outline if you have:
1. Low Motivation to Write: Allocate a schedule where you can write 200 words per day, but the reality is that after a long working day, the writing sessions might not go as planned. Outlining is a great disciplining tool. You will meet the daily quota even if the first draft is not the version that you would eventually upload.
2. Too Many Ideas: Sometimes the dilemma is not a lack of inspiration, but too many narratives trying hard to translate into words. An over-caffeinated mind can give the impression that you are raring to go, but an outline tames the unbound energy and forces you to work on the core of the essay question.
3. No Opening Line: One of the most cited reasons for procrastination in essays is the lack of an opening line. Outline beats this tendency by encouraging the applicant to ignore the catchy openers for the moment and focus on other parts of the essay. Most applicants modify the opening line by the second draft. Many wait until they reach the halfway mark.
Type of Outlines – MBA Application Essay
Paragraph
A big part of structuring the essay is about deciding the number of paragraphs for the essay. We spent a considerable part of our editing time on transitions, especially on how one paragraph ends and the next begins. In Novels, Authors and Editors make it a point to include cliffhangers at the end of the page.
Page Turners is not an exaggeration. We don’t have that luxury in essays. Paragraphs are our pages. Outlining the paragraphs on themes is a strategy that has worked for most applicants. Even within the paragraph, creating an outline for a beginning, middle and an end can drastically improve the narrative.
Example
Paragraph 1: Personal
P1.a: Childhood (How father’s creativity and entrepreneurship helped me see the world in a different way)
P1.b: Attitude towards failure
P1.c: Secret to bouncing back
Paragraph 2: Motivation
P2.a: How a mentor’s worldview changed with Harvard
P2.b: Intellectual curiosity and Harvard
P2.c: Courses that interests me
Paragraph 3: Post-MBA Goals
P3.a: Technology as a life changer
P3.b: Managing Product Development
P3.c: Meeting expectations of users
P3.d: Harvard MBA and a new way of thinking
P3.e: Consulting as a force of good
The above example is a fictitious profile.
The outline is a roadmap, not a blueprint that you cannot change. Sometimes, writing freely about your childhood (P1.a) might unravel new insights into how you think. Your goal with the essay is to slowly, but steadily reveal your thought process and problem-solving capability.
Life Events
We have demonstrated the power of storytelling in our Winning MBA Essay Guide. Outlining your life journey will help you cite events and life lessons on-demand even if the schools change their essay format: from creative(Booth) to open-ended (Harvard) to routine(Columbia) to holistic (Haas) to crazy (Tippie when they used Tweets as an Essay).
Use Chronology and summary of the event as Titles:
1) Made $5000 with my lemonade stand at age 9
2) Published my story in <children’s magazine> at 13
3) Lost my friend
4) First Start-up at age 15
5) Start-up didn’t take off the ground. Closed down at age 17
6) Traveled 10 countries in 2 months
7) Started a non-profit for waste management
8) Second start-up at 21
9) Sold my company for $2 million at 25
10) Joined Google as a Product Specialist
11) Scored 790 on GMAT
The above example is a fictitious profile.
For each event, you should be able to write a 500-word essay. If you don’t have a backstory, obstacles and a life-lesson, avoid shortlisting the event in the list.
Instead of reacting to an essay question, your life events are giving you a broad range of narrative options.
Story arc
The most useful part of the outlining process is in creating a story arc. If you write like everyone else with an introduction, the middle and a conclusion, your chances of getting rejected is high. We recommend the W-Pattern narrative, but applicant’s life event determines the pattern.
Learn how to create interesting narratives using Winning MBA Essay Guide
Use our Essay Review Service for performing life audit, developing interesting stories, and creating a Winning MBA Essay.