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Frankly, your need to start with reflecting purposefully enough to have some directional goals for your life and what you want to accomplish/impact (besides getting a prestigious MBA, of course).
If your sole purpose is to get into an 'elite' school just for the sake of it you can guarantee the rejection letter. hour MBA is a means to get to something bigger , not the end
*your
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Others may disagree but I don’t think you can/should be super strategic about pursuing a path just for business school story purposes. If you are self motivated enough (which I imagine you are, based on this Q), do the things that you enjoy doing, crush it at work, and get involved outside of work - and there will be a narrative that flows from that.
The adcoms will know if you’re not passionate about the story you put down on paper, so I truly think that pursuing what motivates you on the day to day will be the best path to success in admissions.
PD1 is exactly right. You should have an understanding of where you want to go in life (doesn’t necessarily have to be a single career, but at least clear short term or long term goals) and what you need to learn/gain from an MBA to get there. Even if you’re not 100% sure which career path you wanna take, choose one for the application. Show them that you can tell a story for why you want to move into that role and how it is a realistic goal, given what you’ll gain at the school.
do to create a compelling narrative that can get me into top schools?
There is a book called Designing Your Life which helped me immensely in terms of designing and iterating on the trajectory of my life. Written by Stanford professors for what it’s worth.
The foundation of your story should be authentic so you can speak about it honestly and passionately. From there, you can tweak it slightly to align with what the schools value.
Get involved in some extracurricular community activity ASAP. Even better if it aligns with your story but it doesn’t have to e.g. big brothers big sisters. My biggest regret in the app process is waiting until Jan of this year to get involved with a community activity