Sharing Smaller, More Meaningful Personal Stories in Your MBA Essay

At this point in your career path, you probably have plenty of accomplishments that you can use as personal stories in your MBA essays and MBA interview for your program application. It can be difficult to assess which ones will help you secure a spot in your top-choice program, and many applicants simply choose the ones that are the biggest and most brilliant. However, you might catch the admissions officers' attention more effectively by choosing accomplishments that, while smaller in scope or outcome, meant the most to your career development.

Here are some tips to help you find the right stories.

I often work with MBA applicants who want to use personal stories about their careers where there were massive budgets, multiple firms and government organizations involved, and where the outcome had a major impact. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, and there have been times when I agreed that this was the best approach. Just as often, in the course of our interactions it becomes apparent that the applicant's role in a big project was small and did not have a major impact on the project's outcome or their career development.

MBA selection committees are not looking for your company or your supervisor to join their cohort. They're looking at you to see if you fit the profile of their student body. Your personal story really needs to be about you. That can be difficult for some applicants because it seems a little arrogant, and this can be especially true of applicants who are not from Western cultures. However, for the sake of your MBA essays, application and MBA interview, choosing situations where you were able to make a difference helps the selection committee assess your potential for career development.