Why Good Narrative Matters in MBA Essays?

When the Admission team is reading your essays, they are not expecting writers who can take them to a world far far away. What is the point anyways? Post-MBA, your job would be to cut the fluff, and focus on the problem. Memos, reports, and emails expect you to stay as far away from narratives and backstories. Then why do MBA Admission teams expect applicants to write interesting narrative?

Experience what the Applicant Experienced

Empathy is not a learned skill. It’s part of our DNA where we feel what others are feeling. The study on empathy took a hysterical high with “Mirror neurons,” when Graduate Students at the University of Parma, Italy, accidentally found out how empathy is ingrained in monkeys. The students were conducting studies on macaque monkeys by implanting electrodes in their brain. During the lunch break, they accidently kept the electrodes on the monkey and came back with food. As one of the students was reaching out for the food, the neurons in the monkey started firing signals in the same region of the brain that is responsible for planning and movement. By merely watching humans eat, macaque monkeys were able to experience the hand movement.

I am not suggesting that the MBA Admission teams are like monkeys, but interesting narrative helps us experience movement, and for the essays reviewers, narratives that help them experience movement, make the review process interesting. Without evoking interest in your profile, you don’t have much of a chance.

Guard the Brand

There are very few people in the world who can narrate stories like Nolan or Spielberg, and even few MBA Applicants who can write interesting narratives in a Quant oriented world. The few who try to emulate the great writers, fall for the grandiose of the writing process, and starts creating stories that magnify their achievements, or fudge facts to make the journey of the hero interesting. The admission team knows that it is a privilege to be included in an elite Business School brand. The reviewers understand the privilege, and they know that with a few bad choices, the brand value can dilute. The applicants will no longer consider being part of the brand a privilege.

Remember BlackBerry - the darling of the Enterprise world. It was a privilege to own a blackberry phone, but with iPhone’s entry, and a small dip in the market share, the owners of BlackBerry began to panic, and started making models for the masses while Apple focused on their core market – the hip tech savvy crowd. By accepting the ‘commoners’ to experience BlackBerry, the brand no longer catered to the Managers and CEOs, and the sales started dropping. The loyal customers switched brands to the ‘elite’ Apple iPhone. The Admission team will continue to keep the 5-10% acceptance rate in 2008 like depression or 2000 like boom. No matter how much fun you make of the Apple Customers, boy wouldn’t you love to have loyalty like that. “Be like the Apple Customer. Believe in the MBA brand. It will reflect in your narrative.”

Spot the Liar

When you write essays with just facts not evoking any emotion, the Admission team has to do two things: do fact checking, and do due diligence to make sure that your profile is not like hundreds of other applicants. With volume goals, the reviewers don’t have the luxury to run fact checking through each sentence. Narratives, on the other hand, entertain the reviewer and make it easier for her to spot the inconsistencies.

That is why being a movie critic is the easiest job. You have to spot inconsistencies in behavior – for both protagonist and antagonist, inconsistencies in the plot or inconsistency in motivation. When you narrate your achievements, imagine that your story will be adapted to a movie. How will the movie critic rate your story? Will they find inconsistencies in the hero’s (you) journey, behavior or the external circumstances that forced the hero to change?

To make your MBA Application Essay narratives interesting we have a written an extensive How to guide. Download it here.