How to Include Sensitive Topics in Your MBA Application

Politics. Religion. Race. Trauma. Identity.

In today’s polarized world, it’s no surprise that applicants aren’t sure how to include potentially sensitive or controversial topics in their MBA applications.

Over the years, we’ve worked with applicants who have written about everything from political work and religious exploration to deeply personal experiences involving discrimination, illness, loss, and hardship. And while there’s no universal “right” way, there is a smart way to approach these topics strategically and authentically.

Here’s how to think about it.

You’re in Control of the Narrative

The admissions committee only knows what you choose to share, so the ball is firmly in your court regarding how much you wish to lean into these topics and be forthcoming. Some applicants feel that these elements are defining aspects of their persona, and to shy away from them would be inauthentic. They feel strongly that they want to present their full story and if an admissions officer is put off by it, then perhaps they weren’t meant to be at that program in the first place.  For others, they feel these topics are tangential to who they are and their goals, and so they’re more willing to focus on other areas of their candidacy instead. 

It’s up to you to make the right decision for your applications. A good place to start is by asking how central these experiences are to your candidacy.

How Central Is the Sensitive Topic to Your Candidacy?

Some applicants’ paths have loosely touched on polarizing areas. Thus, they may have the latitude to choose whether they want to elaborate on these experiences at all in their resume, essays, interviews, and beyond. For example, maybe…

• You once worked on a project in a controversial area of the Middle East
• You campaigned for a Democrat or Republican in college for one or more semesters
• You sought out travel related to exploring religion for a finite period
• You were treated poorly on a particular occasion due to race, religion, disability, or any factor that made you an “other”

However, if an experience has had staying power for you, it’s likely that you can’t simply ignore it and still present a complete application. A few examples are…

• You have worked in politics at the local or national level for several years and have influenced policy
• You worked for a company marketing cannabis or alcoholic products and contributed to strategy
• You have campaigned for politicians or political causes as a key extracurricular 
• You feel that your religious values and/or community are central to your identity and have been a large part of how you “give back”
• Your personal and professional goals and trajectory have been defined by a traumatic event (think divorce, health challenges, death, abuse, etc.)

If you decide that these potentially polarizing areas are central to your story, differentiation, and perspective, then the next question becomes how best to approach them.

Choose Your Language Carefully

A great place to start is to assume that the reader(s) of your application is/are going to have opposing perspectives to your own. That will help protect you from writing anything that’s likely to ruffle feathers. It will ensure you remain focused on what you learned from your lived experience and how you grew from it. 

In other words, focus less on your opinions (though we are sure you have plenty!), and more on quantifying your accomplishments in these areas and what you learned about the value of diverse opinions and perspectives. 

Pro Tip: Take any fiery wording and make it a tad more general or less explosive. While you likely must call out political parties by name, you don’t have to say that you worked on “Abortion” policy, for example. You can instead state that you worked on policy for “women’s health advocacy”. That may seem like semantics, but the former is very likely to incite strong feelings whereas the latter is much less likely to do so. 

Solicit Input Widely

Wherever and whenever you choose to include content in your applications that could have unintended consequences, make sure you’ve tested it with multiple, diverse audiences. For example, if you know that both your resume and at least one essay touch on a sensitive topic, have at least two to three colleagues, MBA alums, or mentors review all your materials and provide feedback on whether they have any concerns. 

Pro Tip: It’s usually best not to bias reviewers up front by tipping them off that they should be looking to flag sensitive content! Simply ask those you trust to identify both positives and negatives about how your stories and anecdotes resonate and see what feedback they come back with. Don’t just give them the one essay with the sensitive topic to react to…provide the full package and assess whether it concerns them within the full context of your application.

Consider Your Audience

As a final check, take a step back and consider your audience. Admissions committees are made up of actual humans! Many have spent large portions of their careers in academia, which means that even when they’re doing their best to craft well-rounded classes and be unbiased, they inherently come to the admissions process with prejudices, opinions, and life experiences of their own. 

That said, the lens they’re typically evaluating applications through is one focused on growth, leadership, open-mindedness, self-awareness, and the pursuit of lifelong learning. So, ask yourself whether the admissions committee will walk away thinking about the issue itself , or what it reveals about you?

Case Study: Focusing on the Person, Not the Politics

To make this more concrete, let’s look at two examples of how applicants included sensitive topics in their MBA applications.

We recently worked with an American applicant who had spent three years training and serving in the IDF – the Israeli Army – before her pre-MBA role in non-profit work. She was understandably worried that admissions committees would read into her armed services experience in the Middle East through a political lens. At the same time, she couldn’t simply ignore three years of formative life experience in her applications. 

So, we coached her to focus on a few defining elements of her IDF experience that differentiated her from other applicants. 

1. The teamwork skills she developed through basic training and the trust she built through conducting high-risk operations. 
2. The value of the Hebrew language immersion she experienced in situations where communication was vital to successful outcomes. 
3. The cultural learnings of serving with a diverse group of young pre-college 20-somethings that included both Israelis and Arabs. 

But what she avoided sharing was equally important! She never discussed which controversial regions of surrounding territories she served in. Nor did she divulge specific operations she participated in, or what her views of the government were at that time. 

She was ultimately accepted to 3 M7 programs. 

Case Study: Addressing Trauma Without Making It the Entire Story

We’ve also worked with applicants who were survivors of sexual assault. In several instances, these experiences had profound effects on their undergrad GPA, extracurricular involvement, and future choices about job types and locations.

But rather than centering their applications on the traumatic event itself, they focused on how they responded to it and what they learned from the experience. Here’s what that looked like in practice:

1. Using the optional essay to explain personal challenges in specific semesters with a factual approach, then highlighting the upward trajectory in grades that ensued after seeking mental health support. 
2. Including on their resume and/or in their essays how they paid it forward so others are less likely to encounter the same challenges. Often, mentorship and/or leadership in public health, women’s health, or mental health clubs on campus (in undergrad) can become powerful stories of growth and service.
3. Expressing intent to give back to the future MBA community through clubs, pro bono consulting, and/or mentorship of undergraduates is also indicative of maturity and learning from one’s experiences. 

None of these applicants felt that carefully addressing traumatic events in their lives was detrimental to their candidacies, and all were successfully admitted to top 10 MBA programs.

Closing Thoughts

As you’ve probably gathered by now, there are few hard-and-fast rules when it comes to discussing sensitive topics in your MBA applications. Context matters. The nature of your experience matters. And perhaps most importantly, the role that experience has played in shaping who you are matters.

One of the benefits of working with an MBA admissions consultant is having a sounding board for these decisions. We’ve worked with applicants whose stories have touched on everything from politics and religion to military service, discrimination, trauma, and loss. Those experiences are deeply personal and there’s rarely a one-size-fits-all answer for how they should be incorporated into an application.

More often than not, our role is simply to help you determine what belongs in your story, what doesn’t, and how to communicate it in a way that feels authentic to you while resonating with your audience.

If you’d like help thinking through how a particular experience fits into your MBA narrative, schedule a free 30-minute consultation with a member of our consulting team.