2008 applicants - post your essays in the Essay Vault!

Question

Hey everyone, for those of you with access to the vault, check out Kwam's post for Sloan and GSB. Hopefully more of us will post (I will do my part once I get back from Asia in late June) and help out the 2009 folks. For those of you who are curious, you need 400 posts or lots of Kudos to get access directly from Praetorian to get into the Vault. There aren't many essays in there yet, but hopefully we'll change that in the next few months. If you don't have the posts or kudos but want to contribute your essays, you can also PM Praetorian for special access. The Essay Vault: 113 Guidelines for those interested: Hi Everyone, 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 applied 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! Note: You do NOT need to be admitted to contribute. Just make sure you clearly state whether you are admitted to the school you wrote the essay for or not. Update on the forum: Discussions are OK, but we will delete the non-essay (or offers of essay) posts after a week or two to reduce clutter in each school's thread, so it's easier for people in the future to find essays they're interested in. Security/Privacy/Format: - Remove all personal info from the essays and as many proper nouns as possible; so no names of who you talked to, who you are, etc... To protect your privacy - Mention your status with the school's application: admitted, rejected, waitlisted, deferred, withdrawn, etc... - Include the essay question at the top of each essay. - Please try to submit in password protected PDF file if possible. You can then decide to give out the password on an individual basis (by PM) or post it in a thread. - Praetorian controls who can see this forum at all, so that's another level of security. - If you're worried about people associating the essays to you, please send Praetorian your essays and he can post them up for you anonymously. - If you're going to do the "River Method" of offering your essays to those who PM you and fit the criteria , could you please put your Member Profile link in your signature or in the post where you offer your essays? This way people can see if they're interested in your essays in the first place (e.g. if you're a banker or consultant and they want to see how those people apply, etc.). Thanks! File Name Format/Organization: - Let's standardize the title of the post. Something like: - - - Ex: Stanford - Essay A - What Matters Most - 2008 - Admitted (I wish) - I have created threads for each UE/E/TE school, and NE/NEF schools as needed. Please post your essays in those threads to keep this forum organized. Access: For access, similar to GMATClub Challenges, you currently need 400 QUALITY posts to be invited by Praet to the forum. Here are Praet's words:

riverripper · Answer

Personally I am willing to share, but I posted personal requirements to get my essays in vault, and its going to be tougher than getting access. After I did that many others willing to shared followed my method of sharing via PM. Since I am basing my sharing on recognizing names and their contributions a hint, get a memorable avatar. I never really look at screennames but avatars stick in my mind. Honestly to get the essays from pretty much any of us its going to be a steep hill to climb so you better really take part in this forum...

Remember these are only to be used as a way to see how we attacked the questions...not as a way to get ideas or wording. Another little deterrent about using them...remember some of us will be doing some of the student admissions things at the schools we are at. We also read a lot of each others essays this years, I READ TONS of essays. I know if any of us sit on a committee and read something that we sort of recognize it may be questioned...if it comes out that it was even remotely plagiarized phone calls will be made to our buddies at all schools you apply to, if you name a school there will be at least one GC member there.

I am going to request people I share my essays with provide me a final edit of theirs so I can verify that nothing of mine was used...this also gives you a benefit since I most likely will provide a few hints, not full on reviews but my opinion on if you need more work or not on certain aspects.

kryzak · Answer

Well said river, amen to that!

sm332 · Answer

thanks guys ... I look forward to reading these essays ... and I promise not to plagiarize!!!

kwam · Answer

I agree that the minimum requirement you used and many of us copied before is tougher than the vault access; however, as right now I’m finished with application and I’m afraid that I won’t be as present next year as I’ve been so far here, I decided to post everything - also because I'm lazy and I've been receiving many PMs asking for them - changing some names, some details and still giving the whole idea. As you can see I didn't post the Essays 2 and 3 of the MIT essays, because these I can't change names and details, as it has many personal info.

With the democratic spirit here, I believe that everyone should do the way he or she fell more comfortable with, I fell comfortable with the vault requirements, and those who just copy our essays will get burst, adcom will for sure spot it, especially because many of us may be there :twisted:

.

I have already posted my GSB and Sloan applications; I’m thinking if it is appropriate to post also my CBS and Stanford, what do you guys think?

. I have already posted my GSB and Sloan applications; I’m thinking if it is appropriate to post also my CBS and Stanford, what do you guys think?

kryzak · Answer

well said kwam. why not post the other two? I'm considering posting some of my Stanford ones (a few of them are too personal to post publically) even though i didn't get in, to show what "not" to do, haha.

bsd_lover · Answer

A "what not to do" forum would receive tons of posts from yours truly ...

GK_Gmat · Answer

hi - I'm trying to get access to the essay vault but praet hasn't responded (couple of msgs). I've been a member for over an year with over 800 posts. Please advise. Thanks

bsd_lover · Answer

Try contacting riverripper or kryzak.

bhatiagp · Answer

Hope to learn a lot from your essays, and share mine as well ...

Im still a few posts away before praet gives me access, but will surely be there in the next few days, requesting for access to this elite forum...( Wouldnt want to call it [vip ] , its now notorious... ) :lol:

Raabend · Answer

Isnt 400 posts a bit much? Shouldnt it just be at the discretion of the admin? Of course I would love access but I am not going to post replies and topics just to "up" my post tally. I think it should be pretty obvious to the admin who is legit and who isnt......the newer regulars here are quite known from alot of the most active topics and even the chats......

kidderek · Answer

Can either authorize access?

kryz? rr? Can I get access to the essays? I've PMed Praet and had no luck.

terp26 · Answer

I think praet is the only one with authority to grant access to that forum

It's not just post count , but quality posts + kudos as well.

riverripper · Answer

I control the member profile area but we specifically asked NOT to control the essay vault. Its hard enough when people want into the member area and I dont give them access and the limit on that is much lower.

Remember guys once you get access, its no guarantee that you will be getting essays...not many people are going to share and those that do usually have even more stringent requirements to get them than Praet's access requirements.

kryzak · Answer

yeah, only Praet has the authority to do so. He may be busy these days which is why he's not responding. River and I have explicitly relinquished the power to add people to that list.

There are some essays and some offers to put essays up, but not a whole lot yet. Hopefully more will come, but it's definitely a slow building process that will make it better over the years.

MBAbot · Answer

Hello from the GMAT Club MBAbot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.

2008 applicants - post your essays in the Essay Vault!

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