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| All of us have a story to tell; a story of our own; a story of our unique experiences, choices and dreams. Your life too has been fashioned by specific aspirations, special relationships, and particular situations and people: this is your story. Your application carries your story to the Admissions Committee members who read thousands of similar-looking applications. Since you do not want to lose yourself in a sea of applications, you must ensure that your essays rivet the attention of the committee to your application. Ask yourself, What in my application will make the Admissions Committee sit up and take note of me. Are your essays written so as to leave an indelible impression upon the committee members? Do they highlight your uniqueness and project you as an asset to the school. No one will remember a person who worked for xyz company and met all targets, but everyone remembers the person who worked in the oil fields of conflict-torn Algeria. Who can miss that Chinese interpreter who endeavored to implement state-of-the-art technology in office or the boy who missed basketball to help his sister compose herself just when she was falling apart? Impressive one-line descriptions can also strongly impact the admissions committee and eventually influence their decision-making process in your favor. What makes you unique? You are the best person to answer this question. Juxtapose yourself with others you know and write down how you differ from them. You could try a small exercise. Imagine that your company had hired some friend of yours in your place. Would he/she have achieved the same goals or progressed in exactly the way that you did in your company? Probably not. What then makes you different from them? While thinking on these lines, you are likely to discover some traits that are unique to you. Some aspects of your past experiences or certain values and beliefs dear to you could also make you stand out in the crowd. Look outside of your work environment at your interactions with friends and family, and your extracurricular activities. Do the moments that bring back fond memories say something about who you are or what you would like to be? They probably will, if you look hard enough and long enough. One aspect that is common to all successful applicants is their ability to portray themselves faithfully. Unless the admissions committee gets to know you fairly well, they are certainly not going to offer you a place. To tell them who you are, you yourself need to know who you are. For your identity to emerge as part of your consciousness, you need to introspect. The way in which you speak and face situations often reveal who you are. Think of occasions when you were faced with personal or corporate challenges. How did you overcome these situations? What specific personality traits made you tackle these situations successfully? Did you learn anything new? Juggle these (and similar) questions in your mind until you are able to portray your achievements and traits with clarity. You will then need specific stories to project these traits. If your essays are catchy, intense and lucid, the one-line differentiators will (on their own) make their way into the minds of the Admissions Committee members. >>>>>> Chapter 5: Weaknesses, setbacks and failures
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