Monday Morning Essay Tip: Multidimensional Brainstorming

We always tell our candidates, “You can’t turn a bad idea into a good essay.” We insist on taking our candidates through a lengthy brainstorming process (which begins with a thorough questionnaire) in order to discover the stories that make each candidate distinct. Even as you uncover your stories, it is still important to consider them from as many different angles as possible. While this will help ensure that you understand the various “weapons in your arsenal,” this will also provide you with the maximum flexibility (as MBA Admissions Committees ask questions which vary dramatically from schools to school).

For example, a simple experience about coaching a baseball team at an underfunded high school may have multiple dimensions. This may be the story of:
creatively motivating this underachieving team and changing attitudes — despite losses

• initiating and leading fundraising efforts so that each player can afford proper equipment/jerseys
• mentoring a struggling player and seeing an improvement in his on-field performance
• helping a player deal with a family issue off the field
• recruiting other coaches and then working with a team to improve the team’s on-field performance  

These are just a few stories that can be gleaned, which serves to reinforce the point that considering stories from various angles is quite beneficial and will help you discover many unique stories.

Anyone who has written an email that has been misunderstood, let alone an MBA application essay, is no doubt aware of the subtleties of language and the simple nuances that can change the meaning behind a message. Well, these nuances need not only be negative. Indeed, it is entirely possible to invigorate a simple sentence by choosing a more active verb, such as ”earn.”

By using “earn” in the examples below, instead of the more passive approaches, we change one word and also change each sentence’s meaning. Suddenly, you are in control — suddenly you worked hard and, as a result of your efforts, attained great accomplishments. 

Bad:  “I received my PhD in Nuclear Physics from the University of So-and-So.”
Good:  “I earned my PhD in Nuclear Physics from the University of So-and-So.”

Bad:  “I was promoted from junior to senior analyst.”  (Also bad because of passive voice.)
Good:  “I earned a promotion from junior to senior analyst.”

Bad:  “As a result of obtaining my MBA, I will be able to….”
Good:  “As a result of earning my MBA, I will be able to….”

Once you have finished your essays, review them and check to see how often you can replace certain words with the word “earn” or a form of the word “earn” – you’ve earned it!

In the past, we have advised MBA candidates to exercise caution in choosing to write the optional essay (see our Monday Morning Essay Tip: The Optional Mistake). Well, our philosophy has not changed, but we do want to make MBA candidates aware of certain circumstances, outside of those in which they might be discussing a problem area, which may necessitate writing an optional essay.

If you have achieved something absolutely extraordinary that is relevant to your candidacy — something that truly strikes at the essence of who you are — but simply will not fit as an answer to the essay questions posed by the school, then you may use the optional essay to illuminate the experience and its importance to you. We would only advise a candidate to make this exception in the most unique of circumstances and remind candidates that they should still be quite conservative in their use of this space. Again, this is not the place for a 500 word “extra” essay, but may be the place for a few sentences, illustrating the extraordinary experience and its significance. Such an experience will indeed stand on its own; so you do not need to belabor the point and agitate the admissions committee with a long essay detailing a variety of themes and accomplishments.

When writing about your career, it is important to inspire the reader by showing that your goals are ambitious, but not so ambitious that they are implausible. You should strive to find a middle ground between goals that are easily achievable and those that are naïve or entirely fantastic.  So, for example, stating that in the short term, you want to return to your existing position at your firm would be an example of an unambitious and thus unwise approach; stating that in the short term, you want to become CEO of the New York Yankees would be shooting unreasonably high and is therefore unrealistic.

Generally, with respect to short-term goals, you should be able to identify a reasonably precise position that you would expect to take upon graduating from your MBA program. (If you intend to start your own firm, you should have a clear understanding of what the firm will be, the direction you will take and how you will steward it to achieve its short-term goals.) With respect to the long term, we suggest that candidates pick a goal that is derived from an existing career path or a logical transition from it and one that represents an ideal of sorts. Essentially, we recommend that you consider writing about goals that would be within your grasp if everything went according to your plans.

As all good journalists will tell you, the key to writing a good newspaper story or opinion piece is to make sure that the very first line grabs the reader’s attention. Many authors also employ this tactic in writing books. Few of us have read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, but many of us know that it begins with three famous words: “Call me Ishmael.” A powerful first line can also stick with readers long after they have finished reading – we all recognize the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night,” but few of us know that it comes from the opening line of a book by an obscure writer (Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton).

While it is “normal” to begin each essay with a very short introduction, sometimes a punchy opening line can grab the reader’s attention in a useful way. Consider the differences between these pairs of openers. Which one captures your attention?

Example 1: A “Why MBA?” essay:

A: “After I graduate with my MBA, I want to work in the wine industry.”
B: “Blood runs in the veins of all humans, but wine runs in mine.”

Example 2: A “What are you most passionate about in life?” essay:

A: “There is nothing I enjoy more than playing ice hockey.”
B: “As soon as the nearby river freezes, I wake at 6am each day and join my teammates for a prework scrimmage.”

There is no formula for opening lines. In fact, the possibilities are endless, and each opener depends on the context of the story itself. Nonetheless, our point is that opening lines need to be carefully considered, because they set the tone of your essay and determine whether the reader will want to read more.

When it comes to writing a compelling story, conflict is actually an important element. Of course, we mean conflict in the literary sense, not in the physical or emotional sense (no one wants to hear about you instigating a hotheaded confrontation). In literary terms, conflict is the moment where an oppositional force helps shape the story. So, a story that presents you, the candidate and hero of the story, with a very smooth ride toward victory is usually not as interesting or exciting as a story in which you suffered some bumps and bruises along the way.

As an example, most people would find the story of a rookie challenger beating an experienced marathon runner at the finish line to be a lot more interesting than the story of a rookie who leads by a wide margin from beginning to end and never experiences any competition.

So, while you probably do not have a story like the one above in your arsenal, our point is that whether you are telling the story of refining a supply chain, getting a deal done, marketing a new product or accomplishing any other facet of business, you should identify the hurdles that you have overcome, because a smooth and easy path to success may not allow you to shine as brightly.

Several schools – Stern, Chicago and Berkeley, for example – explicitly ask about the steps you have taken to learn about their respective MBA programs. Via these questions, these schools are testing you: they want to know that you have a sincere desire to gain a place in their class, and thus they want to know that you have made an effort to get to know them. So, when answering such questions, it is important that you show your profound interest.

Explaining that you have read the school’s Web site is not particularly profound, as this step is available to all and frankly expected by the MBA Admissions Committee. While you could offer a Web search as a starting point only if something very particular or unusual caught your attention, it is best to quickly arrive at your a priori experiences. By discussing the details of your class visits and particularly your interactions with admissions officers, students, professors and/or alumni, you will “prove” to the Admissions Committee that you have truly been striving to learn more and understand your fit with the school. In essence, if you are showing the committee that you have extended yourself to learn, you have surpassed a minimum requirement.

Because writing can be so challenging, some candidates find it difficult to change their essay structures from essay to essay. For example, a candidate might choose to use a quote to create a sense of urgency at the beginning of an essay:

“Get me the file. It must be complete in ten minutes,” my manager shouted. “I need you in my office now!” My supervisor was in need of support and I…. “This cannot be fixed. This cannot be fixed!” I stared blankly, looking at the broken machinery and knew….

While using an attention-grabbing technique may be acceptable under certain circumstances, the writer might try it once, but definitely not two or three times in one application. By starting an essay the same way twice, the writer is effectively distracting the reader and sending a message that he/she understands a gimmick and does not truly know how to tell his/her own compelling story in his/her own way. We work with our candidates to ensure that ideas are presented freshly and differently, in order to captivate the Admissions Committee with each introduction and, indeed, each essay.

Longer and more complex sentences often require parallel construction. Simply put, parallel construction ensures that any given longer sentence has a standard rhythm or construction. With parallel construction, each pronoun corresponds with another pronoun, each verb corresponds with another verb, each adjective matches with a corresponding adjective, and so on. Parallel construction can certainly happen in shorter sentences as well, and to great effect.

Consider the example “To be or not to be” – Hamlet’s words, which are among the most famous in the English language. Shakespeare wrote this short sentence in perfect parallel form; “to be” is matched perfectly with its corresponding negative “not to be” and is separated only by the necessary word “or.” Another short example from history provides a similar example of parallel construction: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” With these words, Julius Caesar was speaking in perfect parallel construction – the grammatical form is a pronoun (the word “I”) followed by a verb in the past tense (“came,” “saw,” “conquered”).

If we were to change that famous phrase just a touch, the amazing quality that it has would be lost and it would become unremarkable. For example, if Caesar had said, “I came, I saw, and I became the conqueror,” no one would be quoting him today (because the rhythm would be destroyed – it would now be verb, verb, phrase). Keep this rule in mind for everything that you write, especially for longer sentences.

Some final examples:

Bad: There are three key reasons for this success: understanding our client, trying harder than our competition and teamwork.
Good: There are three key reasons for this success: understanding our client, trying harder than our competition and working as a team. (In this example, gerunds–i.e., the words ending in “ing”–all parallel each other, unlike in the example above.)

Bad: We are in the forestry business. We sell wood to hardware stores and paper to stationery stores.
Good: We are in the forestry business. We sell wood and paper.

Last week, we wrote about how important it is to thoroughly explore and access personal stories. Of course, there is always the case of too much of a good thing – Admissions Committees can be put off by candidates who go too far and become too personal.

Some stories are particularly challenging for Admissions Committees. For example, we have strongly discouraged candidates from writing about divorce as an example of a moment of failure. If an individual took responsibility for a failed marriage, then he or she would likely be revealing personal problems, rather than portraying him/herself as having learned from a constructive professional or personal challenge.

What you have to keep in mind is that in many ways, the Admissions Committee is meeting you for the first time. So, a simple guide for judging whether you are being too personal is to ask yourself, “Would I be uncomfortable if, immediately upon meeting someone, he/she were to share this sort of information with me?” If your answer is “yes,” then you might consider changing your approach.