The essay component is arguably the most crucial piece of your business school application. When done right, a compelling story can help counterbalance weaker aspects of your candidacy. Unfortunately, the AdCom member reading your materials has only about 15-20 minutes to form an impression of your candidacy. Great MBA essays can move the needle in your favor.
Ultimately, you don’t want them to merely like your application when they finish reading it. “What you really want to be is the applicant they’re thinking about as they drive home that night, as they’re chatting with their spouse over spaghetti that evening,” explains SBC consultant and B-Schooled host Chandler Arnold.
B-Schooled Podcast Episode #118: Tackling Your Main MBA Essay
Before you start working on your MBA applications in earnest:
Think through and articulate your career objectives.
Assess your strengths and weaknesses.
Ensure you have researched the business schools that best fit you as much as possible.
Through our work with applicants, we’ve learned that it’s best to begin brainstorming by sifting through various life experiences to identify a core strength.
But what can you do if you’re seriously stumped on what to write about? When you feel blocked, don’t panic. Inspiration is everywhere in your daily life. Try these unconventional approaches to help spark great MBA essays.
Want some help drafting a killer MBA essay? We’ve got you! Request a free MBA advising session to learn how we can help with your complete MBA applications.
Ask people around you for their insights
Sometimes, it’s hard to see what makes us unique, so ask a coworker, mentor, or friend for inspiration. Different people may notice different aspects of your character, skills, or experiences. Collecting feedback from a variety of sources can provide a more comprehensive understanding of what sets you apart.
A refreshing conversation with a good friend can stir up new ideas and get your creative juices flowing. To jump-start this process, gather friends and family and have them share what they think is most interesting and memorable about you. Ask what values they see you demonstrating in your life, career, or personal choices.
Dig deeper and ask yourself how you would want your future classmates to see you. What are some of the personal stories you would share with a new friend?
What would your future professors want to know about you? How might you contribute while in school and after graduation?
Hearing others’ perspectives on what makes you unique can validate or challenge your own self-perception. This process can help you refine and articulate your understanding of your strengths and distinctive qualities.
Record your first thoughts
What do you wake up thinking about in the middle of the night? Looking back at your life, what will you admire and regret about your choices? These are the kinds of questions you should ask yourself as you approach a variety of common MBA essay topics.
Keep a notebook by your bed so you can record your first thoughts or dreams upon waking up—these might help you understand your passions. Writing can reveal genuine emotions and perspectives. It allows you to explore your thoughts in a more intimate and unfiltered way, fostering authenticity in your essays.
Brainstorming at a different time of day or in a new environment can help break mental blocks. A change in surroundings can stimulate new ideas and perspectives that may not have surfaced during your usual routine.
Here’s another unconventional strategy: Set your alarm for an odd hour, wake up, and read an essay question. Contemplate the first things that pop into your head.
Often, the act of doing something simple in a new way or at a different time will get you out of your rut and allow you to see things from a fresh perspective. Take a new route to the office, switch up your workout schedule, skip the nightly Netflix binge, and end the day with an intriguing novel instead. See whether these simple changes boost your essay ideas.
Keep a journal
In the weeks before writing your application essays, keep a journal and jot down moments that impact you, such as a great meal, an amazing sunset, or a funny video. Then, when you begin to write, look through your notes and see where inspiration strikes.
Engaging your auditory senses can also stimulate creativity. You can conveniently dictate your thoughts into your phone while you are out and about. Listening to your recordings later on can trigger additional insights or perspectives you may not have considered at the moment.
Often, a casual speaking tone translates into a more authentic and personable version once written on paper. This can be a great launching pad for the first drafts of your essays.
Another useful technique is documenting your life as it is now on a storyboard with various categories, such as personal, professional, extracurricular, and academic. As a starting point, you may want to consider the choices that have led you to your current career path.
Focus on the inflection points that have inspired you—whether college coursework, early exposure to running your own business, or watching a family member pursue his or her dreams—to help clearly outline the reasons you have made certain life choices thus far.
Berkeley Haas Tips for Great MBA Essays
This year, one of the Berkeley Haas MBA essays asks applicants to describe, “What makes you feel alive while doing it, and why?” We think this question is a useful launchpad for the myriad MBA essay questions you’ll encounter. Here is their advice for brainstorming possible answers.
Choose one of the below prompts that resonates with you, set your timer for two minutes, and strive to write down at least 10 responses to each. Work quickly, focusing on quantity over quality.
If you only had 2 free hours a week to spend doing something for you, how would you spend it?
Reflect on times when your schedule has been so busy that you felt you didn’t have time for anything else. What activities or pastimes were you not willing to compromise?
What if the word “alive” was replaced by: “fulfilled,” “inspired,” “invigorated,” “connected,” “safe,” “challenged,” “balanced,” or “happy”? Then how would you respond?
Look at your list. It may be a collection of single words or actions, such as: trail running after work, hiking by the ocean, baking my grandma’s famous cherry pie, meditating every morning, skiing with my family, volunteering at my church, singing in the car, dancing in front of the mirror, building sandcastles or reading to my children. This is a great start, but let’s go further.
Choose your favorite five responses. One at a time, go through the responses and recall a specific time when you engaged in this activity (the operative word being specific). As you reflect, strive to suspend your attention and really focus on experiencing that moment again.
Take down notes on the following:
What prompted you to do this activity? Was the decision active or reactive?
How were your senses engaged – what did you see, hear, smell, and feel?
What feelings are you experiencing – excitement, calm, relief, connection, challenge, love, etc.
If you were to draw a picture of this scene, what details would you make sure to include in the image?
You should now have several possible ideas for your alive essay.
Great MBA Essays Don’t Happen Overnight
Once you’ve tried one or more of these unconventional but effective exercises, you should start to develop a few intriguing ideas for brainstorming essays. Afterward, most of the writing process should seem more manageable.
Remember to plan ahead and leave plenty of time for rewriting—truly great MBA essays aren’t crafted overnight. Author Stephen King once said, “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” The hardest part is starting. And after that, everything gets easier. Best of luck on your MBA adventures; we can’t wait to read what you create.
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Stacy Blackman Consulting offers multiple services to meet your MBA application needs, from our All-In Partnership and Interview Prep to hourly help with essay editing, resume review, and much more! Contact us today for a free 15-minute advising session to talk strategy with a Principal SBC consultant.
Here’s a snapshot of the caliber of expertise on our SBC team.
Ashley
HBS Admissions Board
at Harvard Business School
HBS MBA
Kerry
HBS Admissions Board
at Harvard Business School
Kellogg MBA
Pauline
Director HBS Admissions
at Harvard Business School
MBA, the Wharton School
Geri
HBS Admissions Board
at Harvard Business School
Laura
HBS Admissions Board
at Harvard Business School
HBS MBA
Andrea
Director HBS Admissions
at Harvard Business School
HBS MBA
Jennifer
Admissions Officer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB)
MBA, Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB)
Erin K.
Asst Director MBA Admissions
at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB)
Director MBA Admissions
at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business
Susie
Admissions Officer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB)
MBA, Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB)
Dione
MBA, Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB)
Minority Admissions, the GSB
Diversity Programs, the GSB
Anthony
Associate Director MBA Admissions
at the Wharton School
at the University of Pennsylvania
Meghan
Associate Director MBA Admissions and Marketing
at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute
Amy
Director, the Wharton School
at the University of Pennsylvania
Professional Writer
Ally
Assistant Director MBA Admissions
at Columbia Business School (CBS)
NYU Admissions
Erin B.
Assistant Director MBA Admissions
at Columbia Business School (CBS)
M.S.Ed, Higher Education, U of Pennsylvania
Emma
Associate Director MBA Admissions
at Columbia Business School (CBS)
Ashley
Ashley is a former MBA Admissions Board Member for Harvard Business School (HBS), where she interviewed and evaluated thousands of business school applicants for over a six year tenure. Ashley holds an MBA from HBS.
During her HBS years, Ashley was the Sports Editor for the Harbus and a member of the B-School Blades Ice Hockey Team. After HBS, she worked in Marketing at the Gillette Company on Male and Female shaving ...
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Kerry
Kerry is a former member of the Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS).
During her 5+ year tenure at HBS, she read and evaluated hundreds of applications and interviewed MBA candidates from a wide range of backgrounds across the globe. She also led marketing and outreach efforts focused on increasing diversity and inclusion, ran the Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP), and launched the 2+2 Program during her time in Admissions.
Kerry holds a B.A. from Bates College and ...
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Pauline
A former associate director of admissions at Harvard Business School, Pauline served on the HBS MBA Admissions Board full-time for four years. She evaluated and interviewed HBS applicants, both on-campus and globally.
Pauline's career has included sales and marketing management roles with Coca-Cola, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, and IBM. For over 10 years, Pauline has expertly guided MBA applicants, and her clients h ...
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Geri
Geri is a former member of the Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS).
In her 7 year tenure in HBS Admissions, she read and evaluated hundreds of applications and interviewed MBA candidates from a diverse set of academic, geographic, and employment backgrounds. Geri also traveled globally representing the school at outreach events in order to raise awareness for women and international students. In additio ...
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Laura
Laura comes from the MBA Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS) and is an HBS MBA alumnus. In her HBS Admissions role, she evaluated and interviewed hundreds of business school candidates, including internationals, women, military and other applicant pools, for five years.
Prior to her time as a student at HBS, Laura began her career in advertising and marketing in Chicago at Leo Burnett where she worked on th ...
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Andrea
Andrea served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Harvard Business School (HBS) for over five years. In this role, she provided strategic direction for student yield-management activities and also served as a full member of the admissions committee.
In 2007, Andrea launched the new 2+2 Program at Harvard Business School – a program targeted at college junior applicants to Harvard Business School. Andrea has also served as a Career Coach for Harvard Business School for both cu ...
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Jennifer
Jennifer served as Admissions Officer at the Stanford (GSB) for five years. She holds an MBA from Stanford (GSB) and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Jennifer has over 15 years experience in guiding applicants through the increasingly competitive admissions process into top MBA programs. Having read thousands and thousands of essays and applications while at Stanford (GSB) Admiss ...
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Erin K.
Erin served in key roles in MBA Admissions--as Director at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and Assistant Director at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB).
Erin served on the admissions committee at each school and has read thousands of applications in her career. At Haas, she served for seven years in roles that encompassed evaluation, outreach, and diversity and inclusion. During her tenure in Admissions at GSB, she was responsible for candidate evaluation, applicant outreach, ...
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Susie
Susie comes from the Admissions Office of the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she reviewed and evaluated hundreds of prospective students’ applications. She holds an MBA from Stanford’s GSB and a BA from Stanford in Economics.
Prior to advising MBA applicants, Susie held a variety of roles over a 15-year period in capital markets, finance, and real estate, including as partner in one of the nation’s most innovative finance and real estate investment organizations. In that r ...
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Dione
Dione holds an MBA degree from Stanford Business School (GSB) and a BA degree from Stanford University, where she double majored in Economics and Communication with concentrations in journalism and sociology. Dione has served as an Admissions reader and member of the Minority Admissions Advisory Committee at Stanford.
Dione is an accomplished and respected advocate and thought leader on education and diversity. She is ...
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Anthony
Anthony served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he dedicated over 10 years of expertise.
During his time as a Wharton Admissions Officer, he read and reviewed thousands of applications and helped bring in a class of 800+ students a year. Anthony has traveled both domestically and internationally to recruit a ...
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Meghan
Meghan served as the Associate Director of Admissions and Marketing at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute, a joint degree program combining the Wharton MBA with an MA in International Studies.
In her role on the Wharton MBA admissions committee, Meghan advised domestic and international applicants; conducted interviews and information sessions domestically and overseas in Asia, Central and South America, and Europe; and evaluated applicants for admission to the program. Meghan also managed ...
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Amy
Amy comes from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she was Associate Director. Amy devoted 12 years at the Wharton School, working closely with MBA students and supporting the admissions team.
During her tenure at Wharton, Amy served as a trusted adviser to prospective applicants as well as admitted and matriculated students. She conducted admissions chats with applicants early in the admissions ...
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Ally
Ally brings six years of admissions experience to the SBC team, most recently as an Assistant Director of Admission for the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School (CBS).
During her time at Columbia, Ally was responsible for reviewing applications, planning recruitment events, and interviewing candidates for both the full-time MBA program and the Executive MBA program. She traveled both internationally and dome ...
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Erin B.
Erin has over seven years of experience working across major institutions, including University of Pennsylvania, Columbia Business School, and NYU's Stern School of Business.
At Columbia Business School, Erin was an Assistant Director of Admissions where she evaluated applications for both the full time and executive MBA programs, sat on the admissions and merit scholarship committees and advised applicants on which program might be the best fit for them based on their work experience and pro ...
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Emma
Emma comes from the MBA Admissions Office at Columbia Business School (CBS), where she was Associate Director.
Emma conducted dozens of interviews each cycle for the MBA and EMBA programs, as well as coordinating the alumni ambassador interview program. She read and evaluated hundreds of applications each cycle, delivered information sessions to audiences across the globe, and advised countless waitlisted applicants.
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The post 3 Unconventional Steps to Writing Great MBA Essays appeared first on Stacy Blackman Consulting - MBA Admissions Consulting.