“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

To sign up for F1GMAT’s Essay Editing service and work with me Atul Jose, Subscribe

For any questions about F1GMAT’s Editing and Consulting services, reach out to me, Atul Jose, at editor@f1gmat.com

Before you write your essays for M7 and Top 20 MBA programs, understand these 7 identities:

1) Identity based on social categorization

2) Identity based on permanent traits

3) Identity based on profession

4) Identity based on skills

5) Identity based on values

6) Identity based on responsibilities

7) Identity based on preferences

To see how I have prioritized identities before writing essays, Download F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay Guide

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9 leadership traits you must capture in M7 MBA Essays:

1. Passion
2. Sacrifice
3. Team before Self
4. Socially Conscious
5. Emotional Intelligence (Calmness under Pressure)
6. Vision (Long-term thinking)
7. Customer-centric excellence
8. Risk Taking
9. Ambition

To see how I capture leadership traits in M7 MBA Essays, Download F1GMAT's Winning MBA Essay Guide

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One aspect of the MBA Application that is beyond your control is the recommendation letter.

GMAT/GRE – you can retake and improve the score.

Essays, you can dramatically improve the quality of the narrative with the support of Admissions Consultants like me. But for managing supervisors who are 3-30 years older than you, it is not a straightforward process.

I have created a 10-step checklist for you

1. Round 1 vs. Round 2 vs. Both

2. Nudge the Supervisor towards a Narrative Direction

3. Persist with Open Communication

4. Coach, when all Fails

5. Professional Relationship vs. Mentorship

6. Vacation and Holidays – Planning Ahead

7. Adjectives – Find the Balance

8. More Examples with Competition in Mind

9. 5 Star Rating by Default

10. Essays and Recommendation Letter – Is it the Same Person Check

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High-stakes problem solving is one of the most common and effective style of narrative. This style is not just limited to MBA essays. Even in movies, the reason why you are not hooked to a narrative is because of the predictability of the ‘high stakes’ problem.

Superhero movies are one such genre that is now getting saturated because it is almost always about the ‘end of the world’.

Why Applicant’s Essay Don’t Stand Out - Harvard MBA Leadership Essay

For Harvard MBA leadership essay, the reason why the essay is not impactful is because of the applicant’s inability to offer context around the problem.

The context is not just about the details. It is capturing the scale of the problem.

Scale: And when I talk about scale to a client, the first thing that they introduce into the essay are multimillion or billion dollar deal size in the narrative. This is a repetition of the resume, which might seem lazy for the admissions team.

Secondary Impact: If you are in finance, the secondary impact of the deal – either in helping your company’s brand position or growth or impact on a community/industry are much better narrative threads for your leadership essay. And luckily for applicants, the stakes if captured with the right emotion is not dependant on the size of the deal.

A million dollar deal could mean a lot for a startup, but for an established firm, it might just be a small change. So understanding the size of the company, the size of the team, the deal size in the industry, but most importantly capturing the ‘problem’ that is a direct hindrance from getting a deal through should be the core of the narrative.

Incentives: Some of the best hindrances in a problem that you should capture are around incentives. Why certain stakeholders continue to offer remarkably poor level of service or why the culture perpetuates certain power dynamics. All these insights will elevate your standing in a crowded Harvard MBA application pool.

Dilemma: Another great way to capture the challenges governments face (if you are working with the government through non-profits or directly), is by citing dilemma. And if you are offering advisory service, first capture the dilemmas before you introduce your solution. This way, you won’t trivialize the problem.

For the access to Education in rural south Africa Harvard MBA Essay example that I had captured for F1GMAT’s Harvard MBA Essay Guide, the focus is on capturing ‘why’ children from rural south Africa are behind in educational milestones, the tools that could solve the problem and the stakeholders who are perpetuating status quo.

I have also captured dilemma the government and stakeholders are facing so that the solution looks truly innovative and not just something that anyone can do it.

I have shown how to capture the high stakes problem with nuance. You may download it with F1GMAT’s Harvard MBA Essay Guide

I have advised against using exploration of career through MBA as a narrative. One reason is that schools don’t like applicants who have not dedicated their time in exploring careers or finding a fit in an industry or a function.

Your due diligence and commitment for career growth will be questioned if you are coming from a traditional background.

Modern Creative Careers

But in our modern careers - a technology person can very well have a loyal following through YouTube or TikTok, or a travel enthusiast could have 1 million followers and a traditional career.

Not Just Subscription Count

I remember a year ago when a potential client from China reached out and the only thing she shared was her TikTok subscription count. She was breaking down complex finance jargon into bite sized learning videos. It was highly engaging for the audience. Her day job as a banker in a global brand was not remarkable. It had all the traditional career milestones.
If I had worked with her, the first thing I would have thought about would be to connect these two stories.

Connecting Creative and Traditional Careers

For the Harvard MBA Career Choice or Business Minded essay, I have shared a narrative of an applicant, who is working in Private Equity. But the path to enter private equity was not straightforward. She shares how even as a kid she was really into rock music and guitars. I really wanted to capture that passion in the opening line itself. Then the build up was all about the dilemma of choosing a career.

This works because she continues to have over 50,000 patrons supporting her music, downloading her albums or spreading the word about her new releases. You should not use a dilemma narrative if the only metric that you can share is the subscription count. Because as anyone in modern Video streaming platforms would share, you could acquire followers at a faster pace through advertising. Schools know that. But if you say that over the past 5 years, "I recorded let us say 20 songs, and through each song, I built an audience" – that is much more believable.

For F1GMAT’s Harvard MBA Essay Guide, I have captured a unique story of an applicant facing dilemma of continuing in Private Equity or her music career. And if you are using a similar narrative, you must understand the background of the applicant. She is in the top 1 percentile in Private Equity.

The dilemma is a dilemma because she is doing incredibly well in Finance and for a one-person band with limited marketing, her music career is also impressive.

You can’t use such an example if one of your creative, sports or passion career doesn’t have verifiable milestones like awards, recording, albums, and finally subscription or download counts.