What the MBA Essay Actually Does — and What It Can’t

You have a deadline in September. It’s June. The plan is to wait until prompts drop, study last year’s questions, figure out which stories make the most sense, and start drafting. That’s the plan. That’s what most people do.

And then August comes.

You’re writing. You’ve got a draft. It technically answers the question — but something’s off. You can feel it. The story made sense when you picked it. Now it’s not coming together the way you thought it would. You rewrite the opening. You try a different angle. You ask someone to read it and they say it’s good — but good isn’t what you need it to be.

Here’s what’s actually happening: you chose a story to answer a prompt. But the prompt was never asking for a story. It was asking for a position.

The prompts at M7 and T10 programs are open-ended by design. Not because the schools couldn’t be more specific, because they don’t want to be. They’re not looking for the right answer to a defined question. They’re watching what you choose to say when almost anything is fair game. And that choice — which story, what angle, how your profile gets positioned for this specific school — that’s a strategic decision. It has to be made before you open a document.

The essay delivers that strategy. It can’t create it.

If you sit down to write without having built the strategy first, the draft will feel like what it is: someone trying to solve a strategic problem through writing. It doesn’t work. And by the time that becomes clear, the deadline is close.

In this live session, Sia Admissions Founder Susan Berishaj walks through what the essay actually does in a competitive application — and what it can’t:

• Why the prompt won’t tell you what to write — and what has to be decided before you open a document
• What strategy-first applicants resolve months before a deadline that most candidates are still working out in August
• Why a well-written essay built on the wrong strategic choices produces an application that doesn’t land — and how that happens without the applicant realizing it

This session is for applicants targeting M7 and T10 programs with a deadline three to six months away.

If you want an honest read on where your candidacy stands before the session, request a written profile evaluation from Sia Admissions.

If you want to talk through what strategy needs to be in place before you start writing — and whether you have time to build it — a strategy consultation is where that conversation starts.

Learn more about the Sia Method.