Hey Everyone, Thanks to avi, Praet, and others' feedback, Praet set up an "Admitted Student's Essay" invite only forum here: https://www.gmatclub.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=110 We hope to strengthen GMATClub's B-school application services (so it grows as strong as the GMAT section), and thought that having essays from people who are admitted to b-schools will help the prospective students greatly! All we have today are those included in books like Bodine, Montauk, MBA Game Plan, and HBS 65 Essays. Those often contain "superhuman" stories that just don't help us "common Joes" much. If we can get a greater sample of what good essays are from common people who do not have Olympic medals or saved the President from jihadists in Iran, it'll hopefully get more GMATClubbers into the school of their dreams! With that said, I think our preliminary requirements are: - Remove all personal info from the essays, so no names of who you talked to, who you are, etc... To protect your privacy - It's probably still good to mention which school you applied to so we know what the school was looking for - Oh yeah, include the question and word limit Submit it to Praet and he'll post it up in the forum (is that correct, Praet?). Or maybe you'll be able to post it yourself in the future. Let's standardize the title of the post. Something like: - - Ex: Stanford - What Matters Most - 2006-2007 Any better suggestions are welcome! For access, similar to GMATClub Challenges, you need a certain amount of HELPFUL posts to be invited by Praet (or you can "apply" for access with Praet). It's not an exact science yet, so stay tuned for that. Alright, hopefully we'll get this going soon!

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2007 Admitted GMATClubbers - Submit your Essays! ;)

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sumande

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23 Aug 2007, 03:56

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Whether we can finally decide the criteria to allow access to successful essays or not, this discussion is definitely going to help us with our essays !! :-D

Sangoman has a point here...people starting off with gmatClub before their GMAT preps obviously have a greater chance to contribute (like me

) than those starting after their GMAT...So the 400 post limit might seem unfair to them. But I think it is even more difficult to assess the useful contribution of members with, say, 200-300 posts or some such thing. There then have to be dedicated people skimming through their posts to make a decision and recommending them to Praet !

I guess it might be a good idea to forward all requests to Praet and he can decide whom to allow. I case he is not sure about some, he can fall back to some regulars of gmatClub and ask them for their opinion. While browsing through the forums the regulars will generally have a very good idea who contributes really well and who not.

Hope, some solution can be reached soon enough so that everyone can benefit from it. :-D

dabots

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23 Aug 2007, 04:13

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it took me almost a year to reach 200 posts, by the time i hit 400 ill already have submitted my apps, got dinged/acccepted, and hopefully be in class

vij101

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23 Aug 2007, 07:34

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Another Suggestion:
Why not put a charge to access (for those with less than 300 or 400 posts) this forum just like we do for the challenges. Its a good way to give to the club and mighty useful for one's apps.
Apart from Senior managers and above, only those serious would buy access to it.
Just a thought !

kryzak

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23 Aug 2007, 07:38

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vij, we did suggest having a charge to access... not sure if there are any cons to that. Praet could want the area to only be open to those who contribute (not in monetary terms) to the site... But I wouldn't be opposed to charging similar amounts for access to the essays area.

BTW everyone, there's NOTHING in the essay area yet, so don't panic yet

Praetorian

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Updated on: 23 Aug 2007, 08:40

Originally posted by Praetorian on 23 Aug 2007, 07:53.
Last edited by Praetorian on 23 Aug 2007, 08:40, edited 1 time in total.

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Money is important for the Club, but these essays are not our work. I dont think money should be involved here.

We can work out all the details about access later.

dosa_don

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23 Aug 2007, 08:13

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Oh well, I have close to 30 posts in 16 days. Would take me almost 7 months to get to 400 posts. Now to find a pic of a dosa....

vikramjit_01

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23 Aug 2007, 08:28

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Charging for access might just work very well. Members could be charged per the posts they have. So someone with 300-400 posts could be required to pay less (say $10) than someone with 100-200 posts (say $20).

This money could be used to perhaps entice admitted members to submit their essays and get this initiative off the ground fast. Here's one suggestion:
All 09ers, 08ers etc. to submit their essays to Praetorian by a fixed date, let's say Sep-5. Praetorian uploads all of them the on same day. The first 5-10 (or any number of essays) to be downloaded a 100 times earn $20 Amazon/eBay evouchers each. So if member X submitted 5 essays and in the list of most dowloaded essays 3 of his/her essays make it to the list of top 10 then memeber X gets $20 * 3 = $60 evouchers.

If most of the members downloading the essays are from the 400+ club and that means GMATClub ends up paying money from its own pocket for these prizes then thats fine too because sooner rather than later I figure GMATClub will recover its investment.

riverripper

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23 Aug 2007, 08:29

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I hope anyone denied access does not take it personally. Whatever way people are chosen to be allowed in, it is going to be open for debate. Selling access while a good idea to make money for the site it goes against the idea of the forum as a support of information. Sadly it probably will be an exclusive area, which is actually a good thing. There are a lot of people who come contribute for a short time then leave, some who lurk but never add anything, some who really don't try to add anything to conversations, and some who even take away from discussions (hopefully they are chased away quickly)...it really is going to be a reward for people who put in a great deal of effort to this forum.

What makes this place great are the users, its pretty much a simple messageboard but without the high caliber of members it wouldn't be what it is. While some people don't post much but they do add a great deal of value it will be tough if you are excluded. However, it would be a lot worse to allow people who post just to get the numbers to get into the site. I hope that if its numbers based that it doesn't lead to LOL, I agree, ^ what he said, and all those typical useless posts you see on a lot of forums.

The more dedicated users that this place gets the better off we all are. Now please don't post just for numbers and for those who don't have the numbers and probably wont reach it anytime soon please continue to contribute as much and as often as you can...you never know when Praet will decide to give access to certain people based on high value posts they make. Besides there isn't anything there yet so there is no need to feel excluded. Its a forum that while is a great idea will probably take a few years to develop into what the hopes for it are.

Praetorian

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23 Aug 2007, 08:39

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riverripper

Well said.

mNeo

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23 Aug 2007, 08:46

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Praetorian

Well said.

There there .. people already started increasing their post-count by posting one/two-worders :roll:

riverripper

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23 Aug 2007, 08:47

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mNeo

Praetorian

Well said.

There there .. people already started increasing their post-count by posting one/two-worders :roll:

HAHA

alright thats enough post count whoring...we already have enough and don't want to set a bad example.

mNeo

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23 Aug 2007, 15:46

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Almost all the 2007ers must be busy with the school prep work already. And once classes start (If they haven't already), they wouldn't even realize how a month passes by. And then, from October, a lot of them will have to start looking for internship jobs (Based on what a Columbia alumnus told me).

So, the 2007ers visits to these forums might become very rare very soon. So if there is any 2007er who may want to voluntarily donate his essays to the GMATClub's cause, then we should get in touch with him now.

zakk

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23 Aug 2007, 17:39

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I understand that need to keep freeloaders at bay, but there are many of us that get a lot out of the website that don't post on every question. I guess I could tell everyone I back solve these hard ones, or go toe to toe with bmwhype2 when I say that "B" sounds icky and that is why I didn't pick it.

even getting to 100 posts that are worth is tough.

riverripper

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23 Aug 2007, 17:48

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I feel the need to post this since so many people seem to be worried they are missing out.

For all those who can't get in to the forum. There is absolutely nothing of value in there yet and there probably wont be for a while. It is going to be a long process to get people to contribute materials so in reality it wont be much use until R2 at the earliest and the real value wont be until next years applications when this years people submit materials. Long term it will be a great addition to the site but in the immediate future it is probably not going to have any great secrets.

nervousgmat

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23 Aug 2007, 17:51

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I guess I don't have access

mNeo

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23 Aug 2007, 19:49

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Guys, As riverripper said, there is nothing of value in that section yet. And chances are that there won't be anything till R1 deadlines. For now, we are just planning to ask 2007ers (In the most polite way possible) to submit some essays, if they feel like it

And if you guys continue contributing as well on these forums as you have done in the past, there's no reason for you to not have access by the end of R1 deadlines anyway.

yogeshsheth

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24 Aug 2007, 02:53

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Hey Guys,

I have a post count of >650 still I am not able to access the forum.
Mods please help!!

Regards
Yogesh

sangoman

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24 Aug 2007, 05:20

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mNeo

Praetorian

Well said.

There there .. people already started increasing their post-count by posting one/two-worders :roll:

I tried that (very subtlly in this very thread yesterday).......an someone cleaned them up an even removed the count from my posts.

For once admin's/mods doing their job is working against me

Fig

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24 Aug 2007, 07:48

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I appreciate to read all the thread and the idea is nice by itself

Yet, It could sound weird or paranoid but what if someone is copying/pasting the content of a former essay to his own one.... and then, of course, the ADCOM see this and as an effect, the B School decides to act against not only the applicant but also the original writer, turned to be a alumn at best or a current student at worst?

shmegs

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24 Aug 2007, 08:03

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Fig

I appreciate to read all the thread and the idea is nice by itself

I agree that it may be a bit paranoid, but people could use the syntax and style for a few sentences. Even the same strucutre. I know that there a bunch of books out there, Paul Bodine's and Richard Montauk's come to mind, that have sample essays. But I think it is a bit different when it comes to viewing other people's essays especially those who have just applied or are applying to bschool. I don't think that anyone from these forums would do something like that but it doesn't hurt to be safe.