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The hardest part is starting the essays. The rest is a matter of compiling information (dates on ECs, requesting and scanning transcripts, etc). So if you already know in your head how you're going to structure your essays, it shouldn't take too long. Also budget plenty of time for getting your recommendations. You'll probably be sending 3-5 reminders each.
Believe it or not, it takes a long time to perfect the essays. Going into the process, I read that you should expect to spend about a month per application. When I first read this, I thought it was insanity. However, given the limited free time you have while working, combined with the fact that essays sometimes need to be re-written and edited over and over again, a month per application is pretty reasonable. Depending on how well you know your employment history, you can probably pull together all the miscellaneous items and forms in a single day -- it's the essays that will swamp you.
Hi weeds499,
Although the time MBA aspirants take to generate their applications varies greatly depending on writing ability, general work efficiency, and other factors, you should basically plan on spending 40- to 60 hours in front of your computer working on your collection of, say, four to eight applications. This amount of time generally covers the writing, revising, editing, proofing, formatting, and inputting of essays.
Someone currently immersed in writing and editing as a part of his or her career—maybe someone authoring investment reports or working in corporate communications—will probably have a much smoother process than a person who has been solely focused on excel for the last few years.
Hope this was of help.
Cheers,
Conrad and the Stacy Blackman Team
Comp - thanks, this is what i expected, and am since working backwards to apply R1 next year.
StacyB - Thanks, good to have a rough ballpark of hours.
Kind of tied to this question but how close should you be to the target word counts on your essays? Obviously I'm not going to write 900 words on a 600 word essay prompt of 100 words for a 300 word essay prompt but is there a +/- margin of some extent? Most of mine are under somewhat (I figured they would rather read less than more) but 1 or 2 are over the limit a bit as well. Should I really be concerned about it?
5 percent over at the most is what I've heard, cut the fat and set it up differently to eliminate wordiness
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