You should approach the Haas Feels Alive essay with two strategies– one to show the admissions team an aspect of your personality that is not clear in your resume or through a narrative on Leadership, DEI, and Goals essays.
Two, through the Alive essay, suggest how you will contribute to the Berkeley Haas community.
In this in-depth ‘How to write MBA Essay’ tutorial for Haas MBA What Makes You feel alive essay, I cover:
• Branding Strategy for Haas MBA Feels Alive Essay
• Haas MBA Feels Alive Essay - Writing Strategy
• Openers – How to Write Openers for Haas MBA Feels Alive
Branding Strategy for Haas MBA Feels Alive Essay
In my editing services, I evaluate the essay first on branding.
If the applicant is from a demographic with certain stereotypical qualities – like Finance with low EQ, and Technologists with narrow focus on Technology solutions, the Haas alive essay is a great opportunity to dispel such stereotypes.
Technology Applicants – Choose a Solution with Beneficiary as the Focus of the Narrative
One of the most satisfying aspects of reading the Alive essay is experiencing the vulnerability that the applicant felt while assisting a beneficiary. I remember a technology candidate with extensive experience in Machine Learning sharing an example of helping visually challenged children read best-selling children’s books in braille, just by translating word by word the traditional English format. She mastered braille over a period of three weeks.
Stereotypical expectations would have been for her to run the texts through some ML model and generate a braille script, but she starts with the time period of the narrative – a year when ML was in its infancy.
Just by showing that her motivation forced her to do the hard work required to serve the underserved, we could showcase – learning and a ‘Beyond Yourself’ leadership principle.
Finance Applicants – Choose Personal Stories
Another example I remember is a finance applicant who, through sheer grit, ran a small business that funded his education. This was a typical dry-cleaning business but his influence in the region was verifiable with a few Google search. The business also employed Latin American families who had recently migrated to the US. The impact of his business – to self-sustain his career and to support low-income families, expanded his profile from just another Investment Banker to someone who is changing lives with his Entrepreneurial skills.
Admissions Consultant’s Note!
We could have used this example for the DEI initiative but his contributions through a Latin-American club in his firm was noteworthy. An example, 5-6 years back would have been wasted and not leveraged in any part of the Haas MBA Application
Haas MBA Feels Alive Essay - Writing Strategy
For the Haas MBA Feels Alive essay, I have applied five strategies.
1) A Globally Known Challenge
For this strategy, we take the reviewer to a global challenge that was in the news cycle for a prolonged period of time (more than a month). Typically, news with such longevity tends to get rehashed or picked up on social media. The subject also gets broken down into multiple socioeconomic angles. When such a wide readership exists for a topic, it becomes much easier for an applicant to connect with the reader.
Climate Change is the best example of such a cause.
2) Industry Challenge
The industry challenge example in Haas Feels Alive works for applicants in the Oil and Gas industry or a function that requires regulation (Finance, AI). The challenge to make this example believable for Haas Feels alive essay is in capturing a sincere tone. Many of the manufactured narratives on a person working in high-polluting industry or industry known to have several bad apples feel forced. There are no indications on the person’s thinking beyond the narrow pursuit of a career in the industry.
Volunteering and examples of serving those affected by climate insecurity or insecurity from a disappearing industry or those left behind by systemic inequity are excellent ways to improve the sincerity of the essay.
Editor’s Tip
Education is a good theme for the Haas Feels Alive Essay that works for applicants working in the Oil and Gas industry or in roles where there are limited opportunities to showcase a ‘caring’ aspect of their personality
I have captured an example in Education – a reinvention of curriculum for rural students in Africa, where none of her responsibilities in her day job is mentioned. This presents a holistic perspective on the applicant’s journey instead of her superior technical skills as a remote engineer in the O&G industry.
3) Random Experience to Professional Experience (Both Similar Feelings)
This MBA Essay Writing strategy depends a lot on the art of segue. Once you know the themes of Segues that are effective in MBA essays, switching from a random experience to a professional pursuit will not look forced. It needs a lot of practice. I have seen applicants wasting hours to get this transition right. A better strategy is to focus on the overall essay and the theme of what makes you feel alive and then work on perfecting the transitions in the 3rd and 4th iterations of the essay.
In this MBA Essay example on a person’s hardship growing up, the experience looks random until the reader reaches the middle of the essay, where the applicant’s passion for serving the beneficiary makes sense. A technological intervention with AI as a tool adds to the theme of the MBA essay, we are likely to see this year. The mention of the technology solutions also dispels the myth around Marketing and Branding persons' limited Quant skills.
4) Evolution of a Person’s Outlook, a.k.a Growth
A great technique to show vulnerability, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence is through addressing a perspective you had before and comparing it with your perspective now. In one of the Haas Feels Alive Essays, I shared an applicant’s passion for flying, from her motivation to master the instrumentation technology. Later when the applicant began working on a Healthcare diagnostic startup, she realized the limitations of just relying on ‘technology as the only solution’. This evolution of her thinking could not have been captured in the Goals or the DEI essay. We strategically used two examples – Flying as an extracurricular and her experience in a startup to demonstrate her growth in outlook.
You should show care while shortlisting such examples. The growth should not look trivial. It should be genuine and meaningful in how you see the world now. One easy way to understand the evolution of your character is by monitoring your change in hobbies or interest in a topic over the past 5 years.
Ask Why? The answer will reveal your changing perspective on the world.
5) Influence of Mentors/Parents
The experience or extra-curricular that you mention in the Haas MBA Makes you Feel Alive Essay often involve parents or a mentor.
An example of fly fishing or hunting with parents to being a passionate supporter of preserving wetlands or forests has a logical connection if you carefully reconcile both the narratives. The challenge is not to dwell on one activity and learn to segue at the right moment.
It is an art that I obsess over every edit.
See what clients are saying about F1GMAT’s Essay Editing Service.
Openers – How to Write Openers for Haas MBA Feels Alive
There is no one-fit-all rule around openers for MBA Essays. Each prompt requires a different opening strategy. The strategy varies based on the nature of the question (open-ended or specific) and competition from similar demographics (profession, industry, function, nationality, experience and age)
For the Haas MBA Feels Alive Essay, I have used five styles of openers:
1) Self-Awareness
Starting the line with a self-awareness about an applicant’s limitations is the best way to standout from a crowd of essays where everyone is trying desperately to stand out. This strategy eases the ‘evaluator’ mindset of the admissions team and opens their hearts to your story.
2) Anxiety
This is perhaps an overused strategy. Amateur writers have ruined the style by starting with a ‘shock’ incident – often a grave danger to a person – either the applicant or the applicant’s kin. Even though this strategy is obvious for an experienced editor and writer, the ‘anxiety’ inducing opener is playing with our ingrained tendency to spot danger in the wild. You will get the attention. But if the second line eases the tension without appropriate segues, the reader will feel cheated by the manipulation.
3) Unique Activity – Break Stereotypes
From the hundreds of activities cited in essays, a unique activity that is atypical for your profile has the highest recall. Breaking the stereotype is an MBA application strategy that has worked for applicants in Asia who have consistently cited the violin as their favorite instrument. Add to the stereotype, the reference in popular culture – animation, movies, and the percentage of violinists from the region, makes it tough for you to stand out. The same challenge exists for Indian applicants when they mention anything remotely connected to Cricket. American white male applicants’ mention of Sailing or Marathon is another cliché that has limited the impact of mentioning such an activity in the opener of the Haas MBA Essay.
Once you understand the cliches used by your competitors as openers, you can strategically include an activity that breaks the stereotype.
4) Struggle
Another effective way to take the reader to a world outside your career is to share the struggle you experienced as a child. This strategy work only if you are coming from a socioeconomically challenged background or your family faced significant financial struggles (single parents, foster homes, war or forced migration). It is tough not to empathize with an applicant, who shares the darkest and weakest moments from their life.
5) Origin of Values
Sometimes the origin of values looks forced and disconnected if the events you quote in the opener cannot be directly correlated with the values.
A person’s sense of belonging to a community through sports can be reinforced with an opener about standing on the podium while his friends from the neighborhood looked at him with inspiration.
You must be careful in choosing an opener. There is a strategy behind it. And it is not just about getting attention.
