I have an acquaintance who calls to check on how I am doing professionally. But when the conversation switches to anything personal about family or life, he pivots strategically to the juicy growth trends, income, salary, stocks, and trades.
When I shared the struggles of losing two father figures in a span of 2 months, he had nothing to say. He froze.
Freezing is a good sign in an essay.
Personal Stories should freeze the reader
The moment shocking or tragic or heartfelt information is shared the reader should freeze in some form. Their identity should metamorphize from someone evaluating your competency, emotional intelligence and fit for the school to a human who connects with what you went through. The identities need not merge. The person need not experience the exact circumstances to freeze. But a close enough encounter of emotions – isolation, pain, uncertainty, and human’s tendency to look at the uncertainty with helplessness, is a moment that the admissions team want to see.
The vulnerable side. Only for a moment. Then the actions you took in an act of resilience will find takers. But often, essays lack such personal touch.
Editor’s Challenge
When I give edit notes to MBA application clients, to make the essay personal, there is a big silence. First - what will this Admissions Consultant think if I share something embarrassing.
It is a valid fear.
But if you don’t dig deep and find that is truly vulnerable - an event that is driving you to work hard, aim higher or collaborate in a community, the essay will be like the hundreds in the rejection pile. They all lack a personality. It is a version of what the applicant assumed the admissions team wants to hear. Not the actual representation of the applicant’s truth.
Our Mind’s Game
In our mind’s narrative, everything that happens to us is a tragedy for someone oriented to look at life events as only setbacks, or milestones for someone who only look at life as a swing reaching for the skies, or part of the human experience for the realist/stoic who has no emotion about the ups and downs. They aspire to be robots.
But we are humans who feel.
We feel down and out
We feel joyous and happy
We feel confusion
We feel isolated
We feel sad
We feel empathy
We feel inspired
None of our private life events have the plethora of emotions.
It is either one or two dominant emotions.
That is how you know that the example you cited is a private story and not a personal story that freezes the reader.
The reader should feel multitudes of emotion.
Choose examples wisely.
If you need help with choosing the right example, building a story around the example and creating a persuasive MBA application essay, Subscribe to F1GMAT’s Essay Editing Service where I coach you through the entire writing and editing process.
