GMATCLUB selection bias

In talking with all you intelligent folk I've gotten the impression that of all the thousands of people I'm competing with for spots at business school, there are lots of impressive, bright people out there.

But I work with this kid who's applying to business school and he literally did everything at the last minute, he banged out all his HBS essays in two days, contacted recommenders a week before the deadline, got all his transcripts mailed in late. He did basically no research (i.e. didn't spend time on forums like this, or reading books about b-school).

So I imagine his applications aren't that great. So if he is on one end of the spectrum, and then you have addicts like us who overanalyze everything (which actually yields some little gems, last minute ideas on how to improve apps, etc...) on the other end of the spectrum I wonder where the bulk of b-school applicants fall.

I think my applications are like a "9". If I hadn't spent a lot of time on message boards and reaching out to current students and reading Montauk's book etc... I think I would have naively put together applications that are like a "5" or a "6." Research was crucial. You think the majority of people are doing a lot of research and agonizing over every detail or are the majority like the guy I work with.