All MBA applicants have a purpose. Some are scared; some are embarrassed; some are not sure if such deep introspection is required, but all of them would love to share their core story when the right person asks them.
This is one of the common reasons why a GMAT 750 or someone with an excellent GPA gets dinged. They don’t ask themselves, “What is my Purpose?”
Every forum will have an Applicant quoting with abbreviations IB/M7/Male IB/American IB/Indian IT/Chinese Hardware/Tier-2 Undergraduate – all a shorthand to evoke an association of traits.
I discourage clients from starting with the motivation in the opening line, except for schools where the goals essay is limited to 250 or 200 words. In such cases, you don’t have much of a choice but to be direct and then expand on the circumstances that led you to believe that your goals are important and why an MBA is the tool that you need now to achieve those goals.
Many applicants obsess over opening lines instead of the entire narrative. So much so that they forget that the purpose of the opening line is to spark curiosity about your story.
Here are 5 Openers to create a memorable MBA Application Essay
Breaking stereotypes can go in surprising directions in an MBA application essay.
Indian-origin applicants in Rugby, American White Applicant with interest in Chinese Art, Chinese Applicants with virtuoso skills in Guitar are some that made me pause and think.
There is an insightful chapter on cultures in Erin Meyer’s best-selling book Culture Map, where she demonstrates how professionals from different countries choose to offer more context or less context in conversations.
This is the one quality that separates each culture.
While editing MBA Application essays, I noticed a pattern of writing that requires a complete rewrite. These are applicants in the top 5% with measurable impact and visible career progression validated by promotions.
So what happened?
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.
Welcome to F1GMAT’s #askAtulJose series. I am Atul Jose. If you recognize that storytelling for essays is not your strength, March is the perfect time to start a personal blog. Today’s question is related to storytelling. The question is:
Reasons for the Change
If you could give one piece of advice to your 18-year-old self, what would it be? (up to 200 words)
Studies have shown that it is only by the age of 25 that your brain will fully understand the dynamics of risk vs. reward. The prefrontal cortex – the area of the brain that matures at this age, performs the critical function of impulse control.
INSEAD captures a broad range of personal, academic, and career traits with their comprehensive MBA application.
In this application breakdown of the INSEAD MBA program, we cover:
Atul Jose (MBA Admissions Consultant, F1GMAT): I get approached early on by applicants who want to target the Top 10 MBA programs in the world. One time, a person reached out to me with just one year of experience. With F1GMAT’s Career Planning Service, we created a plan that will help him brand himself as a person who has technical skills, cultural sensitivity, and experi
Interview Invites in October should be the first feedback about your Round 1 efforts. If you have followed our Strategy of targeting at least 3, 5 to 10 ranked schools, and then use the feedback to target Harvard or Stanford, prepare with these 3 action items:
For a $200,000 MBA program, statements like ‘find your true passion’ has no particular meaning. Life experience has shown that chasing happiness has a financial cost. Less stressful and happy jobs have a low pay. So we take the pressures of the ‘popular’ job on the chin and assume that it is normal to feel down in our daily routine. This is a myth that has been propagated by previous generations, masking it in the form of ‘paying one’s dues’ and ‘you have to put in the work’ and ’10,000 hours of BS’.
Writing about long-term career goals is an essential part of any MBA application goals essay. Having read hundreds of essays, I have seen a few common mistakes.
Here are 3 strategies to improve long-term career goals narrative:
For the Darden, the thing that you want to share with classmates that is not on your resume essay, include one of the three examples:
When MBA re-applicants reach out to me, they talk about the missed opportunity in writing authentically. Before you assume that lack of great stories was the issue, address these stereotypes and weaknesses:
1) Government Affiliation
Booth MBA, Personal Growth Essay requires you to shortlist examples that demonstrate a growth in your skills and mindset. Here are three strategies to create a persuasive Booth MBA personal Growth narrative:
1) Discipline
Ross MBA Group 1 and Group 2 prompts are designed with two major themes. Group 1 talks about experiences from your professional and personal life that lack context in your resume or can’t even be completely captured with other application questions because of the limited space.
Group 2 is about your Emotional Intelligence and Resilience.
I have read essays of applicants who were on the periphery of a startup’s growth, but the goals that they cite are ambitious and often mismatched with their skills and exposure. Here are 2 tips to improve the feasibility of your post-MBA goals.
1) Humbleness Myth