“The man - shirtless, grease all over his body with a facemask jumped on to the window, barely holding onto the bars. He scanned the room from right to left. I sat at the left corner, two feet away from the Window. We looked at each other with shock and surprise waiting to see who will start the conversation.

5 seconds passed.

Who are you?

“I heard a burglar was in the neighborhood. We were just checking.”

After completing the reasoning, he disappeared. Shocked at what had happened, I slowly opened my door and shared the bizarre conversation with my housemates.

“I think I had a chat with a burglar.”

They rushed outside our villa, to start the pursuit, but it was too late.

Do you think this really happened to me?

Believability in an essay narrative depends on the description, the movement, and the epiphany. In novels, the author has the freedom in indulging in every minute details starting from the facial expressions, the fears and insecurities of the protagonist, the events leading up to the pivotal moment.

In MBA Essays, the lesser the description, the more believable it would be. The moment you use up words to describe the scene, more than what you had allocated for your worries, hope, and insecurities, the reviewer immediately goes into a ‘critique’ mode, dissecting every single detail you had captured. They would most certainly make a face, thinking, “another aspiring novelist.”

While reading a novel, we expect the author to create a world for the readers, but in essays, it is about you more than your surroundings.

Offer just enough context while describing the scene.

“The man - shirtless, grease all over his body with a facemask jumped on to the window, barely holding onto the bars. He scanned the room from right to left. I sat at the left corner, two feet away from the Window. We looked at each other with shock and surprise waiting to see who will start the conversation.

Note: The excerpt is fit for a blog not for essays, but just to illustrate my point, notice how the right mix of verbs pushes you to read the next sentence.

Applicants worried that they are not offering enough context, goes into describing the scene, often forgetting that ‘movement’ is the essence of a great narrative – in blogs, essays, and novels. Once you realize that, rewriting and editing, become much easier.

When I shared how movement is necessary to engage the reader, I could see the immediate impact of the advice on my clients. The 2nd iteration transforms the average essay into an interesting slice of life event. Some overdo the movement part just like the ‘scene’ by capturing too many verbs. Edit follows to balance the scene with the movement.

For the above narrative, the epiphany happened when I had a conversation with my housemates:

Shocked at what had happened, I slowly opened my door and shared the bizarre conversation with my housemates.

“I think I had a chat with a burglar.”

All the journey and scene would have no real impact if you as an applicant had no epiphany.

We are constantly undergoing minor epiphanies. When the event is relevant and life-changing – the kind you are likely to capture in an IMPACT table, the epiphany can be revealing for the admission team as well.

The more memorable the essay, the more likely you will stand out from the competition.

Read Winning MBA Essay Guide for Actionable tips, and memorable Sample Essays.

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In Neuroscience, there are two types of perspective-taking - cognitive and affective.

Before we go into why perspective-taking for MBA essays is important, you must think from the admissions team’s perspective.

Most essays are in a way a hero’s journey where the applicant is always shown in a positive light while other stakeholders are these one-dimensional characters.

The problem is that all essays sound the same.

In an extremely competitive application pool where everyone has a similar GPA/GMAT/GRE score, how will a reader root for you?

One way you can influence the admissions team is by demonstrating empathy in your thinking.

Cognitive Perspective Taking relies on your ability to interpret a person’s thoughts or beliefs.

Affective perspective Taking relies on your ability to interpret a person’s feelings or emotions at that time.

Only Columbia Business School has explicitly asked about perspective-taking through their PPIL essay. You may download F1GMAT’s Columbia MBA Essay Guide from store.f1gmat.com/columbia-mba-essay-guide to learn how I have incorporated perspective-taking into MBA essays.

Even to stand out for all top schools where your essay requires narrating interactions with stakeholders, learn to mix Cognitive and Affective perspective-taking.

Cognitive Perspective-taking or interpreting a person’s beliefs or thoughts works in essay examples where you had to negotiate for a deal or a decision and interpret the decision maker’s perspective. The least effective essays are where only the applicant’s thinking is shown in a positive light.

I edited an essay of a VC client, who had an interesting evaluation model and a suggestion to invest in a region that was considered saturated. The stakeholder – in this case, a partner opposed the idea. For us, the entire narrative was about changing his perspective. We didn’t demean his character, thinking, or perspective. Instead of that, we build a case around the stakeholder’s perspective by sharing with the reader how the person began to have this opinion not to invest in the region. One obvious reason was a previous failure. Again, the low-hanging fruit was to attribute risk aversion as the cause, but we dug deep and found an evaluation model that confirmed his position. So, then it became all about how the applicant found a dataset that revealed a new insight.

By balancing the partner’s skepticism and the client’s unique data set, we established a narrative with sufficient W-pattern to create an essay that took advantage of Cognitive Perspective Taking. And it showed the client’s maturity and empathy for the stakeholder.

The second kind of perspective taking is Affective perspective taking where you are assessing a stakeholder’s feelings or emotional state. The best examples I have read were all outside professional work. It is around helping a peer pick up a new skillset or overcome a cultural barrier or in some cases overcome a personal loss (death, or divorce/breakup) or feel welcomed in a group.

If you are strategic, you will mix both affective perspective-taking that assesses a stakeholder’s emotional state and then narrate their belief to establish why a person behaved or communicated in a certain way.

If you need examples of perspective taking, Download F1GMAT’s Winning MBA Essay Guide where I have included 240+ essay examples of Top 15 MBA programs.

You may also buy individual essay guides of Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Kellogg, MIT, Chicago Booth, INSEAD, Yale, Tuck, Darden and many more top schools from F1GMAT Store

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