Are MBA admission essays less important than ever before?
From looking at this upcoming year's applications at various schools, a lot of programs have curtailed the number of questions or at the very least reduced word count. This seems to corroborate what I've thought for some time and what my friend who served on student adcom at a top 5 school told me. I guess adcom is realizing that too many applicants are using consultants to polish their essays? After all, gpa/gmat/where you worked at, can't be faked or glossed over. Will this lead to admission consultants' business drying up in the future? I personally think the whole "essays are critical" meme has done a lot of damage to applicants by giving them a false sense of hope.
I agree that schools are beginning to deprioritize essays somewhat (HBS, Stanford, Kellogg, and I think Wharton all reduced overall word counts for their essays).
I also agree that the growing influence of admissions consultants has some impact on this. But I think there are other factors as play as well. For example, several schools eliminated or reduced the Career Goals essay. I think this is an acknowledgement that many students don't know what they want to do post-MBA. Additionally, a cynic might argue that schools are responding to several years of declining applications by making it "easier" to apply.
I believe the true test of whether schools are deprioritizing essays is if they increase the number of interviews they conduct. If schools are truly interested in getting to know "the real you", they will do more interviews. We'll see.
In any case, I think these changes are good for the traditional blue-chip candidates (good undergrad university, high GPA, high GMAT, gold-plated work experience candidates). At worst, the changes are neutral for these candidates, because it is harder for people with more unique stories to stand out.
All that said, I don't think this will diminish demand for admissions consultants. I think that a the continued demand for top programs and b the proliferating supply of admissions consultants (there are SO MANY now) will offset any impact of smaller essay word counts. In fact, one could argue that now, every word matters even more, so a consultant becomes even more valuable.
Just my $0.02.
I've always thought that GMAT is more important than the essays as a whole. I think b-schools are realizing that a lot of their essay questions were kind of dumb and did not add that much depth to an applicant's profile. Wharton has added a new team interview where applicants discuss business issues in a group setting. Pretty cool stuff.
Wrong thread
Here's something to think about: admissions committee members always gave your application about 30 minutes to read. That is, the whole folder: data sheet, resume, recommendations, essays, and whatever else (PowerPoint?) You get the same amount of attention whether your essay is 800 words or 1200 words or 1800 words. That actually means that your shorter essay will have more impact. Standard best practices in any business communication:
LESS IS MORE
I actually think the reduced word count has very little to do with admissions consultants, despite what Poets & Quants has to say. I think it has to do with reality. It's about good communication skills. If you cannot get your point across in a succinct and effective way in an application, you won't be able to do it in the classroom, in a job interview, or in your career.
Dagwood Deluxe's comment is right on
MIT Sloan was one of the first schools to get rid of the goals essay openly. An adcom there told me that he didn't see any correlation with what people said they wanted to do and their success in business school and beyond. So yes, there are fewer goals essays floating around.
Brady isn't wrong here -- in a sense
The GMAT will determine whether you get the ball over the net, at least at the top schools. They DO look at mitigating factors, such as whether you have a 3.9 gpa in a STEM curriculum. Seriously, no Pulitzer prize winning essay will make Stanford swoon if they worry about whether you can do the work. The heartbreaking part is at the margins, where someone misses the GMAT by a few percentage points and then doesn't get as serious a consideration as the next guy. Don't know how that will change.
Betsy is that also true in the sense of work experience as far as your analogy of getting the ball over the net. If you are a two year guy versus a three year does that make all that difference in getting things rolling?
No, it doesn't work like that with work experience. That's a case of the what you do in those two vs. three years. Anthony Penna, an admissions director for Wharton, said it best at a panel where he pointed out that it was the quality of the work experience that matters. Face it, he said. Some people do more in 2 years than others do in 5.
So if you think you can show career progression (an increasing level of responsibility, if not promotion) in 2 years, AND you feel ready, then why not?
The thing about applying too early by a year or so is that if you get rejected because you are too inexperienced, you will be able to change that by raising your hand for more challenging projects and working harder and smarter. Then you have lots to talk about the following year. The only real risk to applying early is your ego and possible recommender fatigue. And $250 per application fee -- unless you are military, and then it's discounted or free!
Did I understand your question correctly?
You did, thank you for your response. -That's the viewpoint I was going with prior to my application for a part-time (FEMBA), but I was wait listed and later dinged. Doing some research I found out the averages were stacked a little higher than I thought as far as work experience total (80 month median) versus my 2. On the wait list I was asked to give more as for as promotions/responsibilities at work, take classes (which I did and did well in) but I couldn't produce a promotion and I was asked to stay on task with what I was currently doing.
-What I'm trying to determine right now is where I stand compared to applicants for full-time (LBS, Anderson, Kellogg). I will have a few new responsibilities to add my to my credentials in biotech business development, but my work experience won't be astoundingly different in the next year.
can I ask you to repost this q over on my Q&A thread? don't want to hijack this thread, which has some good stuff on it, http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/b-school-qa-w-betsy-massar-of-mas…
Many thanks!
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