Most MBA applicants use the opening line as a shock element. They start with something tragic, violent, anxiety-inducing, or scenery that gives the reader perspective that they are living a much more comfortable life compared to what the applicant went through. This approach works if your story truly has something unique – war, trauma, coming back from a life-threatening illness, or a challenge related to your identity.
For everyone else, use these 3 strategies:
1) Create a Gap
This is what most novelists do. They take you to a slice of time in a story that is not predictable, nor is it in the first part of the story arc. As curious beings, we tend to complete the puzzle once we start in a particular direction. That is why productivity experts ask you to write down the tasks and start the task. Even entrepreneurs give the same advice – start. Once you start, you will figure it out. The same principle applies to creating a gap in your opening line. The reviewer will be forced to read the story to make sense of what you meant by the first line. While creating the gap with the opening line, don’t make it so abstract that the admissions team loses complete interest in your story. There should be some hints on what to expect.
2) Avoid Cliches
Any narrative around explaining something physical happening from the first-person perspective, like a movie or a video game, is the most overused form of narrative in an MBA application essay. I have read unintentionally funny accounts of trivial events dramatized as an opener. This immediately takes away all credibility around your accomplishments. It is much better to start with a conservative opening, build up the narrative, and then share an impactful event than starting with a cliched opening line.
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3) Set the Right Expectations and Meet Them
When you create a memorable opening line, the tendency is to continue and expand on that narrative. For example, if you start with a dialogue that looks out of context, the reader is expecting some hint about it in the next line. An amateur writer will immediately not only offer context but kind of reveal the whole story in the first paragraph itself. The second, third, fourth, and even fifth paragraphs become supporting evidence about what is captured in the opening paragraph. The overall impact of the narrative is weak.
Create a memorable opening only to hook the reader.
