University of Chicago MBA applicants must submit a PowerPoint show

I wish I was mak­ing this story up, but it’s true.

Accord­ing to the AP, the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago, one of the world’s lead­ing busi­ness schools, will require each MBA appli­cant to include a four-slide Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion with their portfolio.

Slideshows can be good tools when they’re used well. I hope the Chicago MBA admis­sions staff will use the slideshows as just one piece of sup­port­ing evi­dence. that seems to be their intent, accord­ing to asso­ciate dean Rose Mar­tinelli: the slideshow is just “four blank pieces of paper” that lets an appli­cant have a broader can­vas to state their case. I do agree with John Koet­sier that Pow­er­Point is a “tra­di­tional appli­ca­tion”.  Grade school stu­dents can build a basic PPT file, after all.

Per­haps appli­cants should try build­ing some­thing more ele­gant, like a well-constructed wiki site or a blog on a spe­cific topic.

What I fear is a mad rush of adop­tion, as other busi­ness schools ask appli­cants to tack on a PPT file. Pow­er­Point slides with­out speak­ers notes or sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion can be worse than use­less. A show full of overly ani­mated slides and ran­dom fonts won’t impress me much.

Tagged as: Chicago, Illinois, MBA, PPT, student, teaching, university, USA