We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2013-2014 application season. Here is their analysis for University of London (London Business School).

London Business School follows in the steps of a number of top MBA programs this year in streamlining and downscaling its application essay requirements, going from six questions and 1,750 allotted words to three questions and 1,200 words. Two of the current prompts are reminiscent of several questions from last year—asking about applicants’ future plans and potential contributions to the school—but LBS throws candidates a curve with its unique third query, which takes a new angle on the relationship between MBA students and their school. Overall, LBS’s questions are much broader than ever before (and than most other schools’ prompts), which may be daunting to some applicants, but we encourage you to see this wide canvas as an opportunity rather than something intimidating. One of the school’s admissions officers explains on the department’s blog that the change in the scope and style of the questions was meant “to allow you more freedom in the way you go about constructing your essays.” We hope our analysis of LBS’s essay prompts will help you use this leeway to your advantage.

The essays form a major part of your application so we recommend that you spend a significant amount of time reflecting on the questions below and preparing your replies.

The essay questions for the class of MBA 2016 are:

What will your future look like after completing your MBA? (500 words)
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The London Business School recently interviewed Manhattan GMAT instructor and Director of International Development Robert Wilburn. Below is an except.

Q: Are their any common misconceptions about the test you can provide clarity on?

There are a lot of misperceptions about the exam! Perhaps the most common one is that you should spend more time on the first 10 questions. This has floated around the Internet for years. GMAC, the organisation that produces the exam, explicitly discusses this in its Official Guide book, claiming that it is a myth that the first 10 questions are more important for your score. But, students still don’t buy it and want to spend more time on the first questions! The problem is that this leads students to run out of
time at the end of the exam, for which there is a severe penalty, in the words of the GMAC.

There are some great sites out there on preparing for the GMAT, but even with the best sites, you have to be careful of the advice you get.

If you haven’t been a good test-taker in the past, you won’t score well on the exam. I’ve seen lots of students hit 700 through hard work, despite struggling at first with the exam. At the same time, I’ve seen many students who just try to rely on intuitive skill, and don’t score well because they never take the time to prepare for the exam.

The exam is biased towards native-English speakers. We work with a lot of students whose first language is not English, and actually, often these students know English grammar better than the native English speakers! The GMAT recently announced that over the past year it has been deemphasising idioms on the Sentence Correction part of the exam. This is good news for non-native English speakers (Note “ it doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be idioms on the exam anymore, just that they will be tested more infrequently). While you certainly need to have a strong written Englishlanguage capability, I’ve found that most students applying to top business schools have sufficient English skills that they are not at any noticeable disadvantage on the exam.

You can read the whole interview HERE.