Tell Me Your Story

Dog gets existential on that higher ed grind

Longtime readers of this Substack will know that I’ve been writing for fun for a long time – since high school, even. Some around me even say I’m good at it (doubtful). Reputation being what it is, people pretty regularly ask my help to write their letters, proofread their documents, and help with things where writing is a key requirement, and working with others is perfectly acceptable. In particular, there is one key high-stakes application which I’ve been able to make money off of thanks to people in my circle looking for a little extra pep in their figurative step.

That application is itself an application – to post-graduate educational programs. In my case, both of my clients were aiming to get into a Master’s program, where my goal was to edit/rewrite their application essays. I must admit, it was pretty fun trying to impersonate someone I’ve never met or even read based on the directions given by the aspiring student.

Unsurprisingly, I like money. So I eagerly tapped away at the commissions, refining the ideas submitted to me and spinning them into a thread of ideas that forms the backbone of any good essay, making sure to tie them together to form a coherent whole across the whole application. It dawned on me that I had perhaps been taking writing for granted. What surprised me most, however, was the anxiety that writing gave my contractors – who were universally worried about writing a “good” essay. Easily stringing ideas and experiences together into paragraphs, they were already surprisingly complete stories, if hidden. One essay had sentences all eerily close in length, like the synchronized stomps of an army on the march. Another was an avalanche of declarative sentence – the diamond of a great story hidden in a pile of rocks. All I had to do was give the words rhythm and polish, remove anything I felt was unnecessary, and check the word and character counts if they fit the requirements.

These were my most important rules.

Do Due Diligence

Application essays usually ask about past experiences or why you want to apply to the school, leading to two key questions you need to answer:

Why do you want to be here?

Why should we take you?

Answering these two questions to the admissions committee should be your primary objective. Criteria will differ from school to school based on their particular advocacies, ideals, histories, and reputation, which will all shape how you answer the question. You’ll want to start at your chosen institution’s Admissions page (Harvard MBA used as an example). Under “Who Are We Looking For,” we read the following:

Our students share the following characteristics: a habit of leadership, analytical aptitude and appetite, and engaged community citizenship.

Let’s boil that down to normal-speak:

• A habit of leadership = takes charge

• Analytical aptitude = good at figuring things out

• Analytical appetite = likes to figure things out

• Engaged community citizenship = takes charge and figures things out as a community figure.

A good start, but we’d appreciate some more details. Clicking on the “Class Profile”, we get to this page – which then proclaims:

A truly diverse student body – in background, nationality, interests, and ambitions – is the foundation of the HBS experience.

This is the admissions committee giving you a list of what you should be looking to include – your background, nationality, interests and ambitions. These things should show that you can do the things from the previous section – take charge, figure things out, and work with your community to solve the problems you identify. Along the way, you should call out your background, nationality, interests, ambitions, and sum up with why you want to go to the school, as a natural culmination of your previous experiences, usually in a thousand words or so.

Those up to one thousand words have to be some of the best words written in your life – which is what I’ll help you do here.

Start from One Sentence

It begins with your motivation – why do you want to go to that school for that program, anyway? Starting from something simple helps you build up to something grand – and really, if you can’t answer this question, you shouldn’t be applying, anyway. Let’s practice with a simple goal:

“I need an MBA to qualify for better jobs and earn more.”

A very mercenary motive, and one unlikely to convince an admissions officer. Turning it into a better motivation will require a few substitutions to make it more interesting. “Better jobs”, for example, usually means more demanding ones that are not easily filled. Let’s call them “greater challenges”.

“I need an MBA to take on greater challenges and earn more.”

Starting to look better, but “earn more” isn’t exactly a winner either. We’ll need to substitute that for something important – say, “having a greater impact”. After all, people get paid to do things, and if those things are pointless, the money would be wasted. It’s inconceivable that someone would just waste money like that, so let’s sub that in.

“I need an MBA to take on greater challenges and have a greater impact.”

Okay, now we’re on the right track, if somewhat vague. We need to get more specific, starting from the institution. Taking the Harvard MBA above as an example, we want to portray ourselves as highly analytical community leaders – someone who can intelligently lead a community, navigate problems, and lead them to solutions. Depending on what field you’re in, this will change, but you could do something like this:

“I need a Harvard MBA to take on business challenges in the field of <insert field here> and have a greater impact in leading my team in the current business environment.”

Cleaning that up to shorten it:

That looks like a pretty good sentence. It explains what you want (the program), why you want it (to solve problems in your field) and what you’re going to do with it (lead your team well with your new knowledge). This sentence will form the core of your essay.

Build a Narrative Backbone

You need to make both logical and emotional arguments as part of your application to stand out from the crowd. While your transcript and other academic requirements such as the GRE or the GMAT will tell your academic story, the essay’s goal is to make the emotional arguments that will complement your academics and convince the admissions officer that you are a good fit.

The best way to do that is to turn your life into a story. Take key experiences from your life and weave them into a cohesive narrative that will take the admissions officer from inside your head right to the school’s door. It should come across as a seamless next step in your life, one that admissions will be all too happy to give you. Let’s go back to your key sentence:

Take particular episodes from your own life (especially those included in your resume or CV) and use them to bolster your key sentence and fill in the details. Where did this motivation come from? Why did this propel you specifically towards this school and this program? Describe in detail how you see yourself improved by going through the program. Provide examples of your existing skills and weaknesses with an episode of your life. A personal example is below:

As a young puppy, I was always curious about how humans communicate. Barked commands such as “Sit”, “Fetch”, and “Good boy” were well and good, but those were only for dogs. As a particularly precocious puppy, I wanted more – I wanted to study the human language and learn how to bark the way the people do. My family was very supportive, allowing me to use their children’s books after their kids had grown out of them, learning the language from the ground up.

My undergraduate degree in creative writing was difficult, right out of the gate. My grasp of the English language was less than stellar, and I struggled to use my paws to write or type to get my thoughts out. With the aid of spherical keyboards making it easier for me to type with my paws, and the patient support of my friends and family in typing out longer-form content, I completed my degree. Even before graduation, I was involved in founding a dog-focused digital news platform, the Canine Chronicle, which launched after I graduated. Many considered us the underdogs, but we grew quickly and got plenty of local advertisers – talks with Alpo soon to be on the horizon.

Among my fellow founders, I was the one with the strongest journalistic streak, so I quickly found myself an investigative reporter, endowed with a nose for always sniffing out the next scoop. The publication grew fast, and I soon had a small pack of younger dogs under me, eager to get reports. I quickly got them up to speed in important tricks of the trade –sitting by buildings to get a scoop, fetching trash for clues, and shadowing people under investigation to get an interview. My little pups quickly grew up into sharp story-hunters, doggedly pursuing stories wherever they run.

Where I found myself lacking, however, was in the business side of things. I found myself muddling through articles on the finances of local dog pounds and the dangers of puppy mills, having a hard time wrapping my head around the business side of things. I didn’t know how puppy mills stayed in business, or how dog pounds sustained themselves as non-profits. Without an existing background in the legal and business world, I had to sniff out irregularities with a clogged nose, following second-hand trails in other people’s articles and, consequently, getting scooped.

A Harvard MBA would equip me with the business knowledge to improve my articles on local dog centers and the dangers of puppy mills and local dog pounds. This would improve living conditions for the local canine community and make me a more well-rounded mentor to my puppies.

While a short example, this little vignette shows the power of narrative. Starting as a young, curious puppy with a zest for learning, the writer grows into an ambitious creative writing student who works well with others, and then becomes an investigative journalist, mentoring younger pups on the tricks of the trade. However, he quickly hits a wall – his lack of business knowledge prevents him from being the best journalist and mentor he can be. As the Harvard MBA provides a lot of business knowledge, it would be an excellent next step both for our precocious puppy to grow both as a reporter and as a mentor. Combined with good grades from a transcript and a sufficiently high exam score, this makes for an excellent case.

Besides, who could say no to such a good boy?

Look at him about to bust another puppy mill! So cute!

Write More About Less

When confronted with a thousand-word limit and a high-stakes application, you may feel that it is a good course of action to cram as many of your life episodes into it as possible. More details are, after all, better, and your long list of achievements should certainly wow the admissions committee and let you in.

Achievements are important. But why you achieved them is more important.

In the previous example, I made sure to explain coherently how the dog’s life progressed from precocious puppy to dogged investigator. I could have included his pugnacious past as a prize-fighting dog in high school, or a puppyhood dog-show victory, but these achievements didn’t fit the overall narrative of analytically-driven leadership. If I had taken the angle of presenting our applicant as a fighter, I would have included prize-fighting and dug more into the struggles of starting a media site and breaking into the dog-eat-dog world of media. Since it didn’t fit the story, however, I cut it, and although it’s part of one’s life story, it doesn’t need to be part of one’s admissions story.

For those not confident in writing, keep it to three – three key stories plus honorable mentions makes for a strong narrative triangle, so you don’t talk about too much and explain too little. If space is a constraint, best to write more about less.

Tell Your Own Story

A month or so back, I quickly dashed off an essay on closure in media – in it, I talked about how different media handle closure reflects differences in how we conceive of life as a whole. We can take it like a book, opening and ending chapters with significant life events that “change everything” and “tell my story”. We can also be less regimented about it, treating it as a single stream of life, with events years prior touching and changing events in the far future.  

Application essays are a hybrid of both of these approaches – you pick key examples to show that your whole life leads up to this institution and this program. While this doesn’t come naturally or quickly to everyone, I believe that everyone can learn how to write a good essay about their life, and should. Whether to use it to promote themselves to institutions of higher learning, companies with better salaries, relationships with better benefits (wink), or just helping you get your life together, telling your own story is good for you.

Do it more often - if not in the form of an application essay, as a form of personal marketing. It works wonders, both for advancing one’s career, and figuring out for yourself who you really are.

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By the way, if you’re interested in a dog’s eye view or a second opinion of an essay or college application, drop me an e-mail at argomeditations@proton.me where I take writing consultation/editing commissions. Rates are negotiable based on the scope of work, but we start at 10 USD for writing and editing an application essay from bullet points or with a target institution and program in mind. Video calls and consultations are included in the price. That initial payment is money down, with any additional payments being upon completion or staggered during the process.

For more details on how, and why, I think people should tell their own stories, follow the link below to the companion piece on WhyNotThink.

2.A. Be Self-Centered