MBAPrepSchoolTyler wrote:
You've both made some excellent points. Thanks!
So for the record that's three in favor of keeping the essays and one advocating scrapping them. Of course, the one voting against the essays is an editor at Businesweek, Louis Lavelle.
Any others out there in his camp?
I was also just thinking about the value of even the most generic career goals essay. Even if some applicant wrote a single generic career goals essay and submitted it to 10 schools, you would still have a very valuable piece of information.
You would be able to easily assess the candidate's sense of self-awareness and ability to achieve the stated goals. For example, if someone says their long-term goal is to save the whales and the next step in doing so is to join Goldman's M&A group, well, you can probably guess that person is not being realistic and/or honest.
Also, it's pretty valuable just to have a writing sample from someone, even if it was a generic response. Maybe the applicant looks amazing on GMAT/GPA, but they can't organize their thoughts or articulate their ideas. If you scrap MBA essays, you won't have that bit of information.
I recognize that consultants would help someone overcome the issues I mentioned above, but I tend to the think that rogue-consultant ghostwriters are less prevalent than applicants who blindly apply to multiple MBA programs without much introspection.