ESSAY - TIME!!

Well any MBA aspirant would know that this is the toughest part of application. I am presently considering the applications of ISB and HEC Paris. However, 3 weeks down the line I have been able to complete only 3 essays. One look at me is enough to say how these essays have harassed me.
Noteworthy among these essays is the one which asks the applicant to write about a book that he felt should not have received the acclaim it got. The choice of book was easy but re-reading it was tough. "God of small things " was the clear winner for this category and Arundhati Roy found herself under the scalpel. Though her style is nice and metaphors out of the world the story was dark and paper thin almost like a formula bollywood flick. After suffering through the book when I started writing a critique words seemed to flow and 250 words looked too little.

The problem however lies in in knowing how much is too much . Criticism needs to look learned , balanced and incisive, most importantly one needs to support it with examples. All this in 250 words without diluting the incisiveness was a herculean task. I quiver when i think about the other essays that lay ahead.
To quantify the task lets look at the numbers :

avg no. of words per essay : 400
avg no. of essays per application : 5
avg no. of applications per candidate : 5
avg no. of drafts per essay :4

= (10,000 words of crisp pure sense )*4
= 40,000 words.

Well people time to pity the poor MBA aspirant tearing his hair apart.
OOPS!! I forgot to include the 900 words "Optional Essay" in the equation!! ;)