The 3 Biggest Mistakes in Choosing MBA Essay Stories – And How to Fix Them

UPDATE: This article was originally published on April 16, 2019. It has been updated with new information and tips below. 

Writing your MBA admissions essay may feel like an intimidating task. With precious little space, how can you showcase your strengths and convince the adcom that you are the right fit for their school? What examples should you use, and how much detail should you include? Whatever you do, it is important to use the space you have effectively.

Our expert team at Ellin Lolis Consulting knows just how to help you craft your ideal MBA admissions essay and can tell you which strategies work best depending on the school, your personal background, and your goals.

This is why we’ve brainstormed the top three mistakes many applicants make. These errors are common, so making sure you know how to avoid them is key to writing an essay that makes you stand out from the competition and shows you are a good fit for your program of choice. 

 

Mistake #1: Trying to retell your CV

Of all the mistakes we see candidates make in their MBA essays, this is one of the most common. 

All too often, candidates see their essays as an opportunity to go into more detail about their employment history. Or worse – candidates fear that if they do not mention all CV bullet points in their essay, the adcom will think they overlooked something. However, either of these would be a complete waste of space in your essay.

Your MBA admissions essays are not a narrative retelling of your CV. To reiterate: Your MBA admissions essay is not a retelling of your CV.

The adcom already has a copy of your CV, which functions as an outline for your professional history, sitting in front of them while they are reading your essay. You don’t need to tell this to them again – and they will not appreciate it if you do!

Your essays are there to explain to them what cannot be read in your CV: the motivations, passions, and values behind those career decisions.

For example, while they may see that working for an international NGO is important to you through your CV, they cannot see why it is important (for all they know, it is because working for a large NGO looks good on your CV!).

When the reader can identify the larger importance behind the items on your CV through your essays, they will understand more clearly how you fit into their school, how you have developed, and how you might use the MBA in the future. Therefore, it is important to illustrate your passions in your essays in thorough detail to supplement your CV.

 

How to fix it

Avoid listing

Do not use your essay to “list off” the accomplishments on your CV. Take this example:

“Because I liked the sciences in high school and always got good grades, I decided to go into engineering for my bachelor’s degree at USF. I specialized in mechanical engineering. After that, I worked for a company in the logging industry for a few years designing logging robots before I realized that I could go into consulting, which is how I ended up at BCG.”

While this example may be giving the reader a lot of information, it does not tell the reader anything they could not see from looking at the writer’s CV. By simply describing your accomplishments in full-sentence form, you have not gained anything in the eyes of the admissions committee. An essay like this is also neither compelling nor memorable and will quickly be set aside.

If you insist on talking about each of these events in your essay, try to write a whole paragraph about each of these and go into greater detail about the motivation behind each of these decisions, specific events that showcase important things about your work ethic and approach, and the achievements and lessons that resulted. 

Mix and match

To avoid reiterating your CV, we encourage applicants to use a variety of personal and professional experiences in their essays. This will help reveal how your motivation and values have remained consistent in different areas of your life.

Personal stories in MBA admissions essays can be very effective if used wisely. In fact, by showing connections between your personal life and career passions, you can deepen your authenticity and memorability. As long as they align with your overall argument, you can choose almost any personal story.

For example, you may want to include a story about how learning to scuba dive as a teenager was one of your most important lessons on teamwork. Or, maybe seeing close friends from different social classes or ethnic backgrounds struggle to overcome bias has made you learn to value advocating for diversity. We have seen successful candidates use seemingly minor personal anecdotes – such as solving a Rubik’s cube – and others use life-changing experiences – like having a baby – as the entire basis for their essay. 

Just remember: as long as your personal stories help you build a cohesive argument, you can’t go wrong here.

Focus your stories

You may be tempted to tell a full-blown story about each major aspect of your CV. Even if each story you come up with is excellent, the hard truth is that you likely just won’t have the space for this in your average 500-word essay.

Of course, this does not mean your essays can’t be persuasive (for more details about this, check out this blog post). 

One of the keys to a compelling essay is choosing the right stories. This means that, after you have looked at all the stories you have collected, it is best to choose only the most relevant and strategic ones. 

Instead of including everything, narrow down your focus by only including the stories that best align with each other or a central theme. 

Speaking of theme…

 

Mistake #2: Your MBA essay stories do not align with your theme

One of the keys to creating a cohesive and compelling essay is utilizing a central theme. Your theme is like your topic: it is the main impression you want to leave on your readers and represents your central argument. What’s more, it helps you create a streamlined, memorable story.

As far as your choice of theme, there are as many possibilities here as there are stories you can tell. As your theme effectively serves the purpose of your essay – and helps you focus your response – there are no limits to the imagination here. However, it’s best to choose a theme that properly encompasses all of your stories.

Many candidates choose a theme that they feel represents their values and personal brand. 

For example, a solid theme could be community, empowering others through technology, or leadership. For example, last year, one client used the theme of transformative impact through complex problem-solving. Another client decided to write about his passion for infrastructure.

Of course, there is plenty of room for more creative themes depending on the prompt. For example, one client used the theme curiosity to illustrate the value of challenging opportunities. Another client told the adcom of her struggles as a young, single mother to show how she learned to value determination and resilience. 

Your theme must be supported by the stories in your essay. For example, to argue his drive for strategic thinking, one of our clients discussed his experience of using machine learning to increase revenue for a telecom company. He then argued that companies today struggle with processing large amounts of data, which fuels his goal to become a leader in analytics.

As you can see, your choice of theme is only limited by one thing: the stories you tell to prove your point.

However, this is where we often see one of the biggest issues regarding a client’s chosen theme:  it does not align with the stories in the essay. Your theme might be great – and your stories, too – but if they do not fit together, you have no chance of creating a compelling argument.

 

How to fix it?

Often, there is a simple solution to this problem: if your stories do not align with your theme, you need to rethink your theme.

Although you may have a variety of stories to choose from when composing your MBA admissions essay, these will be limited by your experiences. You cannot make up new experiences and remain authentic (and honest). Therefore, your stories cannot be changed without sacrificing authenticity. 

However, you can choose your theme. 

 

Rethink your theme

If you realize your theme does not fit your stories, you need to go back to the drawing board. 

To do this, take another look at the stories you want to include in your essay. What do they have in common? 

Maybe it is a tendency for hard work or a drive to change your country’s environmental standards. Maybe they show how you developed from a timid individual into a self-confident professional leader. 

Try to brainstorm two or three ideas that you feel would work and try them out. What feels more natural and fits best to your overall narrative? If you can determine this, you may have found your new theme.

Keep in mind that you may have to sacrifice or replace some of your stories if there is a strong theme that matches most of your existing examples.

Of course, if you are still struggling to determine what your most powerful stories have in common, feel free to reach out. Our team of editors has extensive experience helping clients construct powerful, persuasive themes.

 

Put a different spin on it

Of course, another strategy to align your stories better – or identify a common theme in the first place – is taking another deep look at your stories themselves. 

Maybe you can find a lesson that you did not previously see before. For example, you could reconsider a story about working with a team to create an innovative new product at your company. However, instead of focusing on how your team innovated, maybe you can emphasize how you took the initiative to lead the team and reach unexpected results.

By looking at your stories in a new light, you may find a new path to a more effective theme. 

 

Mistake #3: Your stories are not compelling

Another mistake that is commonly made in MBA essays is that candidates fail to tell compelling stories. This is important because if your stories are not compelling, they will be neither persuasive nor memorable, which key to standing out amongst thousands of other candidates.

Many candidates attempt to tell stories that do not have the right amount of detail or do not properly illustrate passion and motivation. They might not clearly highlight what their role in their story was, fail to demonstrate a problem that needed solving, or not give the reader enough information to understand the context of the story in the first place. A compelling story must have all of these elements to keep a reader’s interest piqued until the very end. 

In other words, the key to a compelling argument is structure. 

 

How to fix it?

One of the most effective ways to structure your stories in MBA essays is by using the STAR method. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Results. By following this format, you can make sure you have all the elements to tell a clear, straightforward story with a solid conclusion.

STAR helps the reader understand:

Situation – The context of your story and the background information necessary to understand its setting. The situation can be a personal or a professional one.

Task – The problem or challenge you faced. This can be an internal challenge or an external one.

Action – What you did to overcome that challenge or tackle the problem. This can be as simple as changing your mindset or as complex as leading a company turnaround.

Results – What were the results of your actions? This should include both external results (such as revenue increases, team cohesion, systemic improvements) and internal results or lessons learned (for example, “empathic leadership creates significantly better team efficiency”). 

You can use the STAR method to tell almost any story. For example, take my typical journey to work last Thursday:

“I left the house right on time and hopped on my bike to go to work, prepared for the chilly winter trek across town (Situation). Only about five minutes from the office, I stopped at a red light when I saw the train guards go down and lights begin to flash, signaling an oncoming train that would delay my crossing for another fifteen minutes. I knew that I would never make our Thursday team meeting this way (Task), so I decided to backtrack, taking me on an alternative route underneath the tracks (Action). Not only did I get to work on time – I arrived early. I knew I would always be going that way from now on (Results).”

As you can see, this format can be used as a framework to help you structure your story in a way that is logical for readers, reveals your proactive drive, and focuses on results. 

This format can be applied to your MBA story as well. Check out this story by our client Alice:

“Inspired by the social good engineering can achieve, I developed a special interest in urban planning (Situation) and wanted to solve a problem I saw daily in São Paulo: miserable living conditions for many of the city’s residents (Task). To tackle this problem, I invited two colleagues to collaborate. I suggested using our technical knowledge and abilities to design a new subsidized rent program that would minimize government participation by attracting private investors (Action). Handing over the final product to the mayor’s office was truly gratifying knowing that our project could inspire policy that would affect 860,000 families on the waiting list for housing units. The project confirmed for me that my career must make an impact on Brazil’s development – and that I will succeed in doing so if I continue embracing new challenges and choosing difficult paths (Results).”

Alice was able to structure her story about the housing project to show the reader how she made an impact and how she grew from the experience. By relating this, a story about increasing diversity at her consulting firm, and talking about her role in helping facilitate a customer service transition at a bank to parallels she saw in her chosen theme, travel, she successfully argued her case to Harvard’s admissions committee.

 

One more thing…

Your story must be authentic

Authenticity is extremely important in MBA admissions essays. If your story is not authentic, it will be immediately obvious to the adcom. 

Top MBA programs are looking for candidates with a true passion for their profession and a desire to make a difference in the world through their fields of interest. You may be a stunning writer, but passion cannot be faked.

Demonstrating motivation and passion in your essays will prove to the reader that you are a unique and committed candidate.

This is why, at Ellin Lolis Consulting, MBA essay editing is a feedback process. This means we cannot create your stories, passions, values or blindly fill in gaps in information – content and context must come from you.

We can help you shape your story to be compelling, fit your target school, and make your passions clear – a process we call strategic editing. Naturally, we can also help you make sure your essay is professional, error-free, and eloquent, a process we term technical editing. If you want to know more about the feedback process, these two types of editing, and how we can help you with them, check out our article on this topic. And, of course, don’t be afraid to reach out!

 

Our expert storytellers ensure your essays shine

One of the most common mistakes we see in MBA essays is that candidates fail to tell compelling stories. This is important because if your stories are not compelling, they will not be persuasive. At the same time, they must be backed by strong examples that establish a track record of success and prove to the admissions committees why you belong at their school. 

Striking this balance between content and creativity can be tough, however, as succeeding means not only choosing the right stories but ensuring they are told in an optimal manner. 

This is why our iterative developmental feedback process here at Ellin Lolis Consulting helps you mold your message through the application of our storytelling expertise until it reflects exactly what makes your profile stand out and show fit with your target program. 

Not only can you take advantage of our iterative feedback process through multiple edits – you can also benefit from it after a single review! If your budget is tight, our editors will be happy to help polish your text as much as possible and leave “bonus comments” so you can keep working on it on your own!

No matter how long we work with you, we will always ensure your essays shine. Sign up to work with our team of storytelling experts and get accepted.