GMAT might be the only hurdle that is devoid of any biases as the computer selects the next question according to your ability. While evaluating Essays and Interviews, human perception has a much bigger influence. Unfortunately, Automatic Biases are triggered by characteristics in the environment or stereotypes associated with a person (race, gender, age)
Interesting Findings about Essay Review Biases
If you understand the rationale behind your firing, it becomes much easier to explain the event in your MBA Application essay. Mark Cuban remembers getting fired from Your Business Software after closing a deal instead of opening the retail store. He provides an interesting narrative about the event.
Find out how to narrate the event without Whining
If you had seen the keynote address that Steve Jobs delivered during MacWorld Expo and other Apple launch events, you will notice four things in his communication: Emotional Connection, Focus, Minimum Jargons, and Creative Solutions. You can highlight these four traits in your essays. Learn how!
When AdCom wants to learn about an applicant’s ability to lead, communicate, and work with teams from diverse backgrounds, they are looking for events or evidence of creativity, and resourcefulness. The word ‘Creativity’ flashes us with images of brilliance and ‘out of the box’ thinking but AdCom is not expecting inventors but applicants who can excel with limited resources.
Learn How to include instances of resourcefulness and creativity in MBA Application Essays
With the word limit going down for most MBA Application essays, applicants have to be judicious with the use of words. The acceptance rate of top schools is in the 5-8% range, and applicants cannot rely on the general advice that experts offer, and stand out from the competition. They have to find strategies to be more persuasive. We have compiled a list of five steps that would make the essays more persuasive:
Like -> Understand -> Agree -> Remember -> Enthusiasm
Find out more about writing persuasive MBA Application Essays
During the orientation session in a leading Business School, when MBAs were asked “Who among you are clueless about your short-term goals?”, 87% of the participants raised their hands. So much for clear post-MBA goals. AdCom would rather admit candidates who can articulate their goals than an aimless wanderer who look at professors or classmates for inspiration.
Find out the truth
When MBA Applicants are asked to write about conflicts and how they resolved it, they confuse conflicts with challenges. We have faced both in a professional environment, but challenges are more frequent in our daily work schedule. Learning about accounting is a challenge for someone new to the job but learning about accounting in two weeks or risk losing the job is a conflict – not with another person but oneself.
Here are three categories of conflicts that are worth mentioning in an MBA Application Essay
When was the last time you saw a movie and felt emotionally connected to the story? I bet the movie that you were impressed breaks away from the routine that we are all used to.
If we capture the same routine in our narrative, would it look interesting? 90% of writers cannot do it. How can you then include the routine or the obvious in MBA Application essays and expect to connect emotionally with the Admission Committee?
You can - Find out how!
“I was always good with numbers” - a promising MBA Aspirant wrote for The University of Chicago Booth School of Business MBA Application Essay. Agreed – the word limit has halved by 50%, and the numbers of essays have come down by 75% but that does not mean you communicate your strengths in 4-7 words.
Here is how you follow the “Show Don’t Tell” Approach
Admission Committee (AdCom) might squirm if you sound like a religious fundamentalist not because they do not respect your belief in a higher power, but MBA Application Essays are the last place that you expect a serious applicant, promoting his faith.
Some applicants have argued that their core values have been influenced by their religion. Fair Enough but with word limit, essays offer little space for explanation. Find out why spirituality works in MBA Application Essays
MBA Admission committee (AdCom) analyzes essay for two things: how you see yourself, and how you see the world.
For the applicant, the essay is his sales letter but for the Admission team the essay is just another attempt by the applicant to prove his fit for the school. With the acceptance rate in the range of 5-10%, AdCom is expecting a mediocre essay.
Your job with the essay is to break the expectation. Here is how you should include the Turning Point and Impress the Admission Team
Authority sparks images of God like figures dictating commands, and the obedient followers taking every word as the truth. For MBA Admissions team, this is not the definition of respecting authority. They are looking for your response to truth.
Lack of respect for authority can make you a great Entrepreneur, but Business Schools are conventional educational institutions with clearly defined authorities – professors, faculty members and school representatives.
Here is why Respecting Authority is Important in MBA Admissions
Maintaining a consistent writing style – use of active verbs, paragraphs after every 3-5 lines, and ban on flowery phrases increases the ease of reading the essays. Just by easing the reading level of the essay, the AdCom will find your essay more favorable.
Here are some useful tips for you
Writing about conflicts is a balancing act. Your MBA application essays can turn quickly into a whining competition. It can even turn preachy with character flaws highlighted in the first paragraph, and conflicts portrayed in black and white terms.
Here is how can you offer a balanced narrative
For working professionals, especially someone working in mid-level management or technical roles, getting dedicated time for essay writing is a rarity. But if you squeeze into the daily schedule, there are chunks of free time that you can turn into productive time for essay writing.
If you are driving, writing is not a feasible option, but if you have a recording app in your phone, dictate your thoughts.
Learn how to squeeze in the writing time
Most MBA AdCom members will have a resume, side by side with the essays, and they are verifying exaggerations, or dubious claims while reading your essays. The verification process is not limited to the information offered in the resume; student database, Wikipedia, job portals, blogs and Linkedin, offer copious amount of information about organizations, universities, companies, and job roles.
Here are 5 Common Exaggerations & Lies
Mental blocks are not limited to creative professionals but are common among MBA applicants. Mental blocks are primarily driven by the fear that your work would be mediocre. Some of the best writers would attest to the fact that the first few lines that they poured into paper were not their best. It’s the commitment to the craft, and the process of rewriting that differentiates a professional from an amateur.
We have shortlisted 5 tips to overcome mental blocks during MBA Application Writing Sessions
The third week in December is often the most productive week for most professionals. With a clear holiday break on the horizon, the hope that there is something to look forward becomes a strong motivating force. For MBA applicants targeting Round 2 deadlines, this period can be the most stressful time. Read Tips
If you have ever reflected on stories and movies that had the potential but just could not live up to the novel idea, one thing becomes very clear – “lack of relevance.” The writer is so focused on making the story an intelligent one; she starts including sub-plots into an otherwise interesting narrative. This trend is not limited to movies and novels but also prevalent in MBA application essays. Read how to remove irrelevant details.
A common mistake that several Essay reviewers do is to over analyze the sentence structure, and edit sentences in such a way that the message is conveyed more succinctly. During the first iteration, this process might not be harmful for the essay, but when the reviewer completes the 2nd or 3rd iteration, the voice of the author will get lost.
Here is how you can maintain author's tone while editing
For Business Schools, the Failure Essay is an integral part in evaluating an MBA Applicant. AdCom wants to know how you reflect upon the sequence of events that led to failure, and how you handled the event. There are several reasons why AdCom wants to read attentively about your failure.
Find out 4 Reasons why the Essay is important!
Applicants assume that the AdCom will figure out the context, and understand the rationale behind the behavior, and the learning opportunity that the situation offered.
Not TRUE!
Read More about Contexts in MBA Application Essays
With the new Business School Admission season starting, and the early deadlines, and essays announced, MBA applicants are wondering what Business Schools are trying to measure with questions about strengths, weakness, failure, success, conflict, leadership and teamwork.
One answer – Emotional Intelligence.
When you are part of a big organization, innovation is a buzzword for selling products. Other than that, you follow the rules of a traditional company with strict adherence to processes and quality guidelines, but even in a strict controlled environment, ideas sprout. Explaining the ideas devoid of any jargons and industry terms is a challenge.
Here is how to address innovation in your essays.
F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay guide will teach you how to transform your essay into a life journey with trials and tribulations that will move the admission team.
+ Over 245 Sample Essays (Read Previews of F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay Guide Sample Essays here)
F1GMAT's Essay Guides
Harvard MBA Essay Guide (20 Sample Essays)
Example #1: Persistence Narrative
Background Information: The applicant – a design and music talent, shares her journey through several setbacks. She attributes curiosity to her growth.
Curiosity: Philosophy
Curiosity (Explained): Curiosity as a philosophy is tough to translate into a narrative unless you are from the creative industry or your contributions had an influence on a solution or an initiative.
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to capture the humanity of the applicant and her influence in music instead of just highlighting how she overcame multiple roadblocks to gain attention as a designer.
Theme: Persistence
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Life Starts at NO (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #2: International Community Building
Background Information: The applicant, a Machine Learning (ML) entrepreneur specializing in healthcare diagnostics, shares how his curiosity to learn other ML algorithms’ evolution in diagnosing Alzheimer’s, cancer, and heart disease transformed his platform into a global community.
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to show the applicant’s contributions in diagnostic from 2020 to 2024 by citing two events. Such examples build credibility instead of engagements that were recent. The evolution of the platform from an AI development community to a community for discussing the application of AI in diagnostics is captured through a ‘curiosity’ angle.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Growth through Collaboration (AI in Healthcare) (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #3: Culture
Background Information: The applicant, an Entrepreneur from India narrates his first entrepreneurial experience – facilitating exchange of stamps in the late 1990s.
Theme: Culture
MBA Essay Strategy: Instead of addressing the biases in the investor community that could turn preachy, I wanted to focus on the applicant and his entrepreneurial journey by citing two entrepreneurial experiences – a platform(club) for stamp collection and his Grocery delivery App.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – The American Dream (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #4: Addiction
Background Information: The applicant – a beneficiary of the foster home system, captures the sacrifice his adopted grandparents made to save him from a path of addiction. Paying it back through early intervention among teenagers and community engagement is the curiosity narrative.
Theme: Addiction
MBA Essay Strategy: My strategy is to capture a gratitude narrative in the first one-third of the essay to demonstrate motivation for starting the venture and dedicate the latter part of the essay to the unique solution
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Drug Addiction and Gaming (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #5: Scarcity
Background Information: The applicant, an education major, recognizes that 70% of all students in Kenya don’t have a computer. The curiosity that drives him to pivot from one solution to another is the growth narrative.
Theme: Innovation
MBA Essay Strategy: Often, innovation is captured with a ‘hero’ narrative where the applicant is the sole originator of an idea. I wanted to break that cliché and include a person from whom the applicant learned to use a concept called ‘scaffolding.’
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Scarcity (Growth-Oriented HBS Essay Example)
Example #6: FinTech
Background Information: The applicant captures a vulnerable moment of a beneficiary to compare his journey of side hustle before a technology giant noticed his talent. Although cryptocurrency is not a flavor for the year, capture niches where innovation is still happening.
Theme: Education, Child Welfare
MBA Essay Strategy: Empathizing with a techno solution is tough without a strong backstory around the beneficiary. For the essay, I wanted to clearly establish the beneficiary – Rami, before the applicant narrates the similarities to his journey and finally shares the solution that emerged from his curiosity.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – FinTech as a Tool for Good (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #7: Learning from the best
Background Information: The applicant – a Remote Engineer in the Oil and Gas industry, reflects on a value that has helped her learn from the best regardless of her geographical limitations.
Theme: Learning
MBA Essay Strategy: The effectiveness of the case-study method depends on the assumption that peers in a Harvard MBA class will help elevate your learning experience. For the essay, I have highlighted the applicant’s recognition of this value proposition with three examples.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Learning from the Best (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #8: Military & Search for IMPACT
Background Information: The most common narrative for US military applicants is to quote 9/11 and the reaction your immediate family had while watching the events unfold. The horrifying moment is captured as a motivation to join the Military. On digging deeper, most applicants would share that their motivations were diverse.
Theme: Career Choice
MBA Essay Strategy: I wanted to quickly highlight that the applicant had the choice of entering any industry. One achievement to demonstrate his curiosity that I shared in the first half is the invention of a game. Since the game is mentioned in the resume and verifiable through search, I didn’t quote the name. By clearly highlighting the person’s curiosity and career options, the family legacy is used as a factor in joining the military.
Read: Harvard MBA Curiosity Essay – Career Choice after a Military Career (Growth-Oriented HBS MBA Essay Example)
Leadership-Focused Essay: What experiences have shaped who you are, how you invest in others, and what kind of leader you want to become? (up to 250 words)
Example #9: Small Business Values
Background Information: The applicant - a second-generation Asian American, is familiar with the values of fiscal conservatism, building relationships, and understanding the daily struggles of the community through his family’s department store.
Theme: Customer-Centric
MBA Essay Strategy: The applicant’s role in developing an App for the store is highlighted in the essay at a crucial part of the narrative so that the essay is not all about his father. I have also humanized the journey – by sharing how upset the father was when the revenues fell by 40%. The essay is about the transformation in the applicant’s value from a person chasing productivity and optimization technique to someone who is truly thinking about the customers.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Small Business Values (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #10: Breaking Away from Family Business
Background Information: A unique challenge that applicants whose parents are public figures or CXOs of businesses or entrepreneurs are the pressure to live up to the parent’s standards or milestones. For the leadership narrative, the burden of legacy is established before the narrative addresses his leadership principles.
Theme: Authenticity
MBA Essay Strategy: For the essay, I want to capture an entrepreneur’s journey to rise above his entrepreneur father’s image. But I didn’t want to make the entire essay about this complex dynamics. The narrative is around the applicant’s focus on customers and surrounding with teams who keeps him grounded.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Breaking Away from Family Business(Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #11: Creativity and Communication
Background Information: When the overall percentage of users with internet access is 62% in South Africa and the inequality accentuated by the rural and urban divide, the applicant endured the lack of digital infrastructure, and spending close to 22% of the family income on gaining relevant information on schools, global exams, and financial assistance.
Theme: Creativity, Communication
MBA Essay Strategy: The strategy is to share why the applicant values no distraction in a child’s home for optimum education experience. Then I highlight the many roadblocks the applicant’s non-profit faced in receiving fee waiver for their cooperative run ISP.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Non-Profit (Telecom) (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #12: Mental Health
Background Information: The applicant like most didn’t pay much attention to the mental health epidemic until tragedy hit home.
Theme: Communication, Innovation
MBA Essay Strategy: A question we frequently get from applicants is whether they should cite tragedy in the family as a motivation for a venture or a non-profit initiative. As long as you don’t linger too much on the tragedy and offer a balanced narrative, there are no restrictions on leveraging unique stories from your life.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Mental Health (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #13: Trauma, Healing & Finding Authentic Self
Background Information: The applicant narrates the absurdity of war in the narrative about the duties in Kabul, and the trauma. Instead of wallowing in on the horror, the applicant takes what makes military applicants strong and guides unprivileged children build life and leadership skills.
Theme: Resilience
MBA Essay Strategy: Capturing PTSD in an essay, the healing process, and the cues that helped the applicant are too sacred to be shared in a Harvard MBA application essay. However, with the right motivation and narrative arcs, you can capture the essence of your journey without sharing the darkest secrets. That is what I did by merging two stories – the horrors of the war with a non-profit engagement.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Military & PTSD (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #14: Addiction, Setback and Leadership Mantra
Background Information: In this narrative, the applicant captures Peru’s Silver mining boom of 2006. The growth experienced in her father’s business shifted the family’s economic status to a new stratosphere. Through the changing economic and family dynamics, the applicant finds her voice in a unique way, initially to record her unheard voice but later as one of the youngest subject matter experts in mining and commodities.
Theme: Failure
MBA Essay Strategy: For the essay, the strategy is to show how life’s unpredictability is a blessing. By narrating two setback events, the essay demonstrates the applicant’s resilience and her acknowledgment of people who made a comeback possible.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – Addiction, Setback and Leadership Mantra (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Example #15: War, Immigration and Starting Over Again
Background Information: Despite a raging war in Syria, the family of the applicant was unblemished by the chaos. The strategic government assets near the applicant’s house would have made the region an easy target, but it was not. The calmness of her journey is shattered in one event. From the privileges of a cocooned life, the applicant is forced to think about survival, her sister’s future, and her future in the US. The second half of the narrative captures the change that was forced on her.
Theme: Gratitude, Resilience
MBA Essay Strategy: I consciously chose not to start the essay with a dialogue or trauma. Two lines are allocated to set up the narrative before the trauma event.
Read: Harvard MBA Leadership Essay – War, Immigration and Starting Over Again (Leadership-Focused HBS MBA Essay Example)
Harvard MBA Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career choices and aspirations and the impact you will have on the businesses, organizations, and communities you plan to serve. (up to 300 words)
Example #16: Creative or Finance
Background Information: The applicant starts the narrative with the origin of her talents. The unbridled enthusiasm receives a reality check when in high school, the applicant’s father has a conversation with her about academics. While the applicant picked up her quant skills, she was reaching over 50,000 loyal fans, and her videos captured 1 million views.
Theme: Passion, Talent
MBA Essay Strategy: Capturing vulnerability is the toughest part for Harvard MBA applicants. For this essay example, I have captured the applicant’s uncertainty about career choice throughout the essay. Here the goal is to show vulnerability in the career choice essay while for leadership and growth essay, I could capture one example each from creative and PE industry respectively to balance the narrative. So don’t follow this example without a strategy.
Read: Harvard MBA Business-Minded Essay – Creative or Finance (Business-Minded HBS MBA Essay Example)
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