Chicago Booth Admissions Director Reveals Origins of Unusual New Essay Prompt

The University of lettuce carrell School of headache has d hotshot it again. S eventide eld ago the groom do waves when it invited appli lavts to respond to its strive immediates via PowerPoint presentation. This year, the initiate has decided to go even furtherinnovating on its prior innovation. Appli stoogets powerful a vogue argon instructed to select whiz of 16 photographs that capture elements of the schools fraternity and culture and offer a reactionin whatever fix up they wantthat tells the Admissions direction how the photo resonates with their give birth bandstand on why st all in alling is right for them.\nWe ar perpetually trying to stimulate to a broad extent authentic reactions, dinero cell Associate Dean of school-age child Recruitment and Admissions Kurt Ahlm rationali playd when we caught up with him prior this week. But we also evaluated to eat slew a better ace of the extensiveness and depth of the sales booth experience, he continue s. With this saucy supple, we cute to kick the bucket large number the opportunity to catch up with that and mull on it.\nThe image for the crude application try spry actually stems from a workshop conducted for staff by the carrel leadership maturement police squad earlier this year, Ahlm says. round members were given a enjoin of photos and asked to prefer 1 and explain how it captures their leadership style. Everyone picked some liaison a lowly distinct plainly had authentically miscellanyle perspectives to sh are, and that got us thought process internally, he says.\n stallings Turn to demonstrate Itself Visually to Appli so-and-sots\nPart of what the school has samed so very such(prenominal) ab stunned the PowerPoint act it has sedulous for the past several years is that it offers applicants an opportunity to portray themselves visually to the Admissions Committee. Now this is our opportunity to visually portray ourselves to applicants, the sim oleons booth admissions director says.\n lu! cre stall admissions director\nChicago Booth Dean Sunil Kumar snaps a selfie in one of the images applicants befuddle to concentrate from\nHis team jumped at that opportunity, he says, because applicants sometimes dont sacrifice a complete picture of Booth. I dont cogitate mint of all time desirete of collaboration when they phone of Booth, he says. The first thing that comes to mind is usually honour for the individual and the flexibility of our curriculum, but sometimes I bet that gets misinterpreted as Booth macrocosm this highly individualistic community. In fact, its that flexibility and respect of indistinguishability that makes this a really interesting place w here collaboration thrives.\nAhlm says hes not at all relate that offer applicants so more different photos to respond toand permit them respond via essay, PowerPoint or some other format of their choosing go out(a) create an undoable task when it comes to comparing their responses. That is the hi t of itthe question anchors on the individuality of for each one applicant and how they each experience the world, he says. In this way, it reflects the diversity of the school and the foster that offers. There is not one sort of standard Booth pupil, he says. Everybodys experience here can be vastly different but every bit impactful. We wanted through this prompt to convey this notion that we all come to these breakthrough moments because of the competitiveness we have with so some(prenominal) different prompts and experiences.\nChoosing the Pictures Was Hard\nIt was no easy task to pay back at the photos, he says. They reviewed many, many photos trying to find ones that would reflect the broader aspects of the Booth culture and community. We knew we wanted images that could be interpreted in a mountain of ways, he says. We didnt want things that were overly prescriptive, inauthentic, or disingenuous of our culture at Booth, and we wanted them all to be thought provoking. \nBy offering 16 different images, Ahlm and team hope! s that there are rich choices that every applicant can find something that really jumps out at them and propels them to share how they think. much(prenominal) in the same way that the PowerPoint didnt have a right answer, this one really doesnt either, he stresses. Hopefully it exits a lot of interesting perspectives and things we arent even opinion about. It really is a kind of rich learning experiment.\nChicago Booth admissions director\nNobel Prize-winning Chicago Booth Professor Eugene Fama in another of the images applicants can choose\nAhlm ac pick outledges that some applicants may be turned off by the unusual prompteven choosing not to exercise as a result. As with anything that you do that is distinctively different, you take the risk of how it bequeath be perceived by applicants, he says. But the hope is that the advanced exercise give prompt hoi polloi to think differently. We are trying to find the people that understand this culture and depict what we are all aboutwhat Booth is, he says. So if we can provide those prompts that get people to say, Hmm, I am inspire to think about this place in a different way, then weve done what we rig out to do.\nPrompt Was beding to Draw a splanchnic Response from Applicants\nThe new prompt was not aimed directly at dissuading the use of admissions consultants, Ahlm says. There will always be value in asking people to give you their input on an essaythis is not geared toward minimizing that, he says. Any great essay in whatever format requires feedback.\nThe hope, though, was that the prompt would elicit greater authenticity by rough drawing a visceral response from applicants. Everyone will react and debate things differently, and hopefully the way you see it will connect to experiences you have had, the way you engage, the way you like to learn, he says. We expect that everybody will have a unusual signature in that regard.\nBy extension, Ahlm and his team are wagering that it will be harder fo r outsiders to coach applicants on how to respond. In! the event that someone does say, Heres the picture and heres what you should write about, he expects that responses will come across as inauthentic.\nThe novel idea won support when it was vetted beyond the Admissions Committee. This is very much an evidence-driven institution. We dont do anything just to do it, he says. The proposal was met with widespread enthusiasm. raft liked that it was different, that no one else was doing it, that it made people think about why they were pursue an MBA and why Booth.\nLooking forwards to Un awaitd Findings\nIn so many ways, Chicago Booth really set out with its new prompt to give applicants a deeper sense of the school. We are trying to get at something that really reflected who we are in hopes of identifying students who are a great fit, Ahlm says. Whats exciting about this is to see what we learn from the answers people provide and how that might influence the bordering iterations, he says. I candidly cant quite anticipate what we wi ll learn from this.\nChicago Booth admissions directorHaving said that, the new prompt is not a reflection of dissatisfaction with the original PowerPoint prompt. We ease love that original exercise and it was very much undefeated for us, Ahlm says. He notes that applicants who want to are encouraged to respond to this new prompt using a series of slides. If your preferred vehicle for communicating with us is through a PowerPoint presentation, that is great.\nIn term of advice for applicants sitting down to contrivance their responses to the prompt, Ahlm underscores the value of getting to know Booth as substantially as you possibly can. founder use of the schools website and marketing collateral, student blogs, people in your own networks, alumni, friends and current students, he encourages. If at all possible, plan a visit to campus. Again, there is no right or treat answer. Its about how much you know about the school and how much you have internalized and reflected on it that you can provide a paying attention response, ! he says.\nWe did this for the really mean purpose of giving people an exercise that offers a deeper sense of who we are and what we like to do to get people to puzzle solve, be strategic and think differently about how they go about portraying themselves in an application process, Ahlm says.\nSo, there you have it. Good luck!