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.