MBA Essay Tips for describing a time when you went beyond what was defined, expected, established, or popular

Going beyond something definite, anticipated, traditional, or customary involve creative, innovative and initiative attitude. B-schools are places for those who are not traditional and are flexible in their thinking. If you are an unconventional person, a risk-taker, or simply exceptional in your approach, this MBA admission essay is an excellent opportunity for you. In this essay, show how you alter the basic rules of something that you have been a part of and had a positive impact as a result. Leadership is often tested most profoundly in situations where one has to go against "common sense," organizational tradition, and/or the interests of others. In one way or another show how you possess the courage to act in the face of opposition.

This kind of essay typically focuses on the motivational aspects of your life. You can use this essay to describe the extraordinary situations when you did something that exceeded everyone’s expectations or when you trailed a path that was not customary or popular. This essay answer will reveal your self-motivation skill. Using this essay as a platform you can demonstrate the factors that drive you to accomplish above and beyond your job description or responsibilities. This is a kind of behavioral questions that requires you to describe your past accomplishments and experience on a very sensible level. A key part of this essay is to focus on your perceptive and understand how you work, think and act. 

The essay asks you to provide a brief overview of the situation, and then follow the situation with a detailed description of what you did. SAR (Situation, Action and Result) is a good way to breakdown your essay. First, start with discussing the issue and its criticality to the organisation/society/your life. Then in action part write how you analyzed the problem and what motivational path did you follow to recognize a solution to solve the problem. Finally, discuss the results. How effective your approach was and did you achieve the expected result. Ideally, the end result would be one in which you reached a new insight or perspective, created a new process, took a firm stand in a professional or extracurricular setting. Try highligting your key learnings from the whole exercise and present how your ability to handle such situations have improved.