Welcome to F1GMAT’s #askAtulJose series. I am Atul Jose. In today’s episode, I will cover what qualifies as an achievement in MBA admissions.

1. Professional Achievements

The initial brainstorming that I do with clients for consulting or essay editing, or resume editing service often involves breaking down the technical solution if the person is from the Technology or Engineering or Finance industry. I also ask questions about the team structure, the power dynamics in the organization, and the market conditions under which these projects were executed.

Business Schools want you to highlight professional achievements first. Many are under the impression that they have underperformed from a peer who has better numbers in terms of revenue, sales, project size, or even the reach of the product. All these factors are important, but if a person works in a Fortune 500 company, these metrics automatically come into play. That doesn’t mean the IMPACT is larger.

When you think about professional achievement, you must contextualize your role in that achievement.

If it is a 3-person team, what was your role?

How did your contribution help the team?

How did your intervention or team management help the company?

Was your solution or idea unique for your function or your industry?

Can the admissions team verify your achievement with a recommendation letter or a reference?

The problem I noticed is that either the client assumes that the achievements are typical and any person in that role also might have achieved similar milestones, or they try to create a narrative from an ordinary achievement. Both are wrong. If you need help shortlisting relevant professional achievements for your essays, interview, or your resume, contact me, Atul Jose.

2. Volunteering Achievements

I had seen applicants try to create a narrative around volunteering experience that felt inauthentic when they tried to bring too many story arcs into a simple project. Narratives that were believable had no such melodrama. It was subtle with heartfelt lines, but mostly the focus was on the problem the applicant was trying to solve. And it worked.

If you are wondering whether you need spectacular volunteering experiences to be in contention for top schools, you don’t need them. You just have to be precise with your wording on how you explain the larger mission of the non-profit, the particular challenges that the beneficiary faced, your solution or your team’s solution, your contribution to that solution, and the IMPACT of your solution. The impact line is where you have to be very careful. You can easily go overboard with the narrative. Use a neutral tone with an emphasis on how the solution sets a new foundation for similar solutions in the future. That always gets the attention of the admission team.

Volunteering experiences where the beneficiaries Include citizens of developing economies, cancer patients, children, the elderly, those affected by war, disabled in adulthood, or those suffering from genetic conditions all have a larger scope for narrative. A creative or Technology solution in itself reads poorly if you don’t personalize the background of the beneficiary.

3. Extracurricular Achievements

If you want immediate attention from the admissions team, mention state-level or national-level achievements in sports, acting, stand-up, musical performance, or even adventure sports, Any awards from nationally or internationally recognized organizations have a higher recall. Brands and the coverage in media do matter when it comes to extracurricular.

It is even more impressive if your extracurricular is in a domain that is completely different from your day job. That always leads to interesting conversations in interviews. Schools believe that such diverse experiences will add tremendous value to class discussions.

I hope you got value from my advice. For any help with admissions consulting, essay editing, resume editing, and interview preparation, you can reach out to me, Atul Jose.