While editing Harvard MBA Essays, a common challenge I faced as an editor was the transition from the personal to the action part of the essay.
Transition in Harvard MBA Essay – Personal Motivation to Action
Every narrative in open-ended essays has a point where the motivation drags too long or the paragraph is too short to leave an impression. If you linger too long on a personal narrative, you will not have sufficient space to explain the actions you took.
When should you make the personal motivation shorter?
The actions you took can be broad if you had oversight on investment decisions or strategic partnerships.
The actions you took could be specific if the responsibilities were in marketing, operations, consulting, or technology.
In both cases, if the solution was unique or the stakeholders were many, or explaining the technology requires more than one paragraph, shorten the personal motivation and expand on the solution.
Editor’s Note: The Harvard Business School MBA Admissions team has specifically mentioned adding additional information not captured in the application and resume as examples for the open-ended essay.
I was watching the Al Pacino movie – Sea of Love and noticed the editing misstep. The first half (spoiler) lingered too long on the female lead – the suspect. And that made it obvious that she was unlikely to be the killer.
I analyzed the story pattern, and nowhere in the first half of the movie was Al Pacino in serious danger. Nothing was personal.
In essays, you don’t have such elaborate pages to build suspense. The first 45 minutes is equivalent to your first paragraph.
How you make it personal in the first paragraph will offer the motivation for the transition to the action part of the narrative.
Harvard MBA Essay Example: Volunteering for Mental Healthcare
Maintaining mental health in the modern digital economy is a popular theme in MBA essays. There are multiple versions of why the applicant chose to invest most of the time in this cause.
Often, there are personal connections, and, in some cases, the connections can be catastrophic.
For this Harvard MBA Sample Essay, I had to build a narrative on why creating mental health awareness was important for the applicant.
Challenge: The non-profit the applicant founded had to deal with a complex problem in a culture that had different solutions for different socio-economic backgrounds. Coming from an upper-middle-income family, the applicant had to address many assumptions before reaching a solution. The first paragraph had to clearly establish the motivation for starting a non-profit as the solution was complex.
Unique: Starting a venture- – profit or non-profit is atypical even for M7 MBA programs.
Theme: Solution for Mental health crisis
Read: Sample Harvard MBA Essay about Starting a non-profit to address the Mental Health Crisis
