Calling Fall 2010 Chicago Booth Applicants

These are the guidelines given on the website. As someone suggested you might be able to view the questions once you begin the online application.
What I find interesting is the second letter does not have to be from a professional environment. I wonder if people did some out there stuff like getting their mother/spouse to write them recos .

Does anyone know if there are file size restrictions while uploading the GSB Slide presentation? Including photographs seems to increase the file size quite a bit.
BTW, Great post by Rhyme on Page 2 about the slide presentation (+1). I'm a little worried about mine now.

edit: Found the answer in the online app. It says 9 MB and requests us to use a PDF if the file size is to high . They really do think of everything.

I will attend the information events of Chicago Booth on next Wednesday.

What should i do in that session? Please give me some advice.

Thank you very much

Btw, count me in Round 1, I am from Vietnam

Learn as much as you can about the school, and begin to decide if it's the right fit. Determining whether you can see yourself there for two years surrounded by the people similar to the ones you meet during these sessions is definitely the most important thing you can do during these events.

Count me in for Round 1. My #1 choice.


Good luck everyone!

I will be at the recruiting event next thursday

" Next Thursday's event: Date: 09/17/2009
Time: 06:30 PM to 08:30 PM
Location: Chicago Booth Campus, Gleacher Center, 450 N. Cityfront Plaza Dr., Chicago, IL 60611
We are really excited about this event. So far we have one hundred and twenty one prospective students registered..... " (emphasis mine)

121 in one night, wow.

I'm working on my app now, not sure yet which round I'll submit. R1 if I feel good about my essays, R2 otherwise.

For the extracurricular section, how are people formatting their answers? One question asks to "Describe" and the other asks to "List". I already drafted a list answer, but I'm not quite sure whether I should turn it into a cohesive mini-essay.

Anyone attending the Atlanta reception?

Anyone planning to go to the Booth Live event on September 25th? Was thinking about heading up there - any tips on where to stay?

So Booth happened to visit Portland, in fact the only top school to visit PDX as far as I know. I, of course attended the event, even though I am not even planning to apply. What an experience !!

In addition to the admissions pitch, there were 4-5 alumni who talked about their Booth experience and their career progression. All in all a very good experience. I had no idea how a flexible curriculum would be beneficial. When each of these guys emphasized how the flexible curriculum had helped them not only in their immediate careers, but also in their long term careers- the advantages of a flex curriculum really stood out. They also talked highly about the labs. One alumnus very candidly said 'these labs are not just some name sake projects that companies want to experiment with, these are real problems that the companies are facing and they pay a lot of consulting money to Booth to have the problems resolved'.

What struck me was how down to earth these guys were and they provided a LOT of good career insights, especially in consulting and corporate strategy.

I'm new at Booth but I really love the school! I can't say so far about labs etc, but I love people around me and all activities that the schools provides. Sometimes it would be great to visit school, talk with adcom, students and just look at place and people around. So, I would recommend you to visit school. I think 2-year students and alumni can provide more detail feedback on labs and so on.

Anyway, good luck with application!

Is it a good idea to use speech quotes in the powerpoint slide, to enhance your picture for example?

I thought about that last year also, and althought I didn't even get an interview I believe that it is not a good idea to use quotes of other people in your PPT. First, you only get 4 slides to express yourself, using quote is more of an expression of someone else, unless it's a quote about you. Second, it's been done and I think people do it all the time. All the memorable quotes become cliche. Third, it's actually less creative to use someone else's quote then to come up with one you said yourself.

I would favor trying to express yourself using your own words. If you do use a quote, try to make sure there is a strong tie to something about your, or a very strong connection to who you are.

Since we're on the topic of powerpoint, I wanted to get everyone's opinion of something. Do you think that the powerpoint carries the same weight as the two essays? Unlike most of the other schools where I'm writing 3-4 essays, Booth just had the two plus the presentation. I've got my hands full with writing and have a feeling that I'll end up throwing something together for the slides. On the other hand, it doesn't seem worth deferring to Rd 2 just to fine tune, esp. since Booth has pre-Christmas notification for Rd 1. Any thoughts?

I do think the ppt is pretty important since it can be so broad. I mean, given the number of applications they must see so many goals essays from folks who basically want to do IB, IM or consulting, it probably gets pretty mind numbing. Similarly with the mistake/feedback essay, there's really only so many directions you can take that. But with the ppt, you can put together anything. I'm sure they get all sorts of random stuff from guys with their Star Wars collections to chics modelling bikinis from their fashion lines. The slide presentation just really seems like the place to show some personality, so yeah, i'd say spend some time with it. But i'm feeling your pain... the Wharton rd. 1 deadline is beginning to look particularly ominous.

My vote is to apply now spending like a day on the powerpoint. I think unless you have something amazing for the powerpoint there is only a marginal benefit that it will be better. I personally don't feel the PPT's mean that much unless it comes off obvious that you didn't put ANY work on it. If you spend a couple hours you can probably get like 40-60% if you spend a day it'll probably be 80-90% quality. I think Essay 1 and 2 (especially 2) is the most important.

Good advice, after some more thought I agree that there's probably diminishing returns on spending tons of time on the powerpoint. I'm going to try and focus more on Essay 2, because I think that once Why MBA/Now/Booth are established in Essay 1, that it's the clearest way to stand out. In other words once they have you pegged in your demo, then it's time to show why you're different from peers. Even though it's nice to write fewer essays, in comparison to the other schools, I can't help but feel like a lot will be left out. Hopefully, there will be an interview to fill in the rest!