We keep reading about college presidents and professors who claim their students don't have adequate writing skills and aren't going to do well because of this. It's amusing, then, to read this article in OpinionJournal about one school you might have heard of - Harvard - that definitely isn't selecting the best writers. And maybe that's a good thing.
Part of the ordeal of a meritocracy is constantly having to prove yourself worthy, especially to gatekeepers who stand ready to exclude you from the Next Big Step Up...only a very few will get in. What is the secret of their admissions success?
Impressive test scores and grades help, of course. But something more is required, something self-promoting and yet modestly revealing, something beyond mere numbers--in short, a personal essay. Even the next Bill Gates might pause at this point in the application process and wonder: What if I am a colorless writer who just cannot make a story come alive? What if I don't really have that much to say?
The answer to such questions is essentially: not a problem. The proof is "65 Successful Harvard Business School Application Essays," a collection pulled together by staff members of the Harbus, the school's daily newspaper. "Upon graduating from college," one essay begins, "everyone expected me to join my father's business because I had been working for him part-time since the age of twelve. However a year before graduation the firm started experiencing financial difficulties that could lead to bankruptcy."
Balzac this is not. The word "dull" even comes to mind. As for the prose itself, it doesn't take an editor to replace "been working for him" with "worked" and "started experiencing financial difficulties" with "had financial difficulties."
And yet, the system works. HBS probably did the right thing to admit the guy who wrote that essay and most of the others in the book. The business school isn't looking for stylish and amusing writers; it is looking for good businessmen.
And, perhaps, for those who show an eagerness to kiss up to the boss:
The fine art of sucking up is taken to new heights by one candidate's blatant rephrasing of points from the business school's Web site. She looks forward to studying "multinational businesses in an academic environment with a world-class faculty and state-of-the-art facilities." Now there is an original thinker...
If you are applying to Harvard Business School, then, forget showing your application to your English-major roommate and certainly don't blow 50 bucks an hour on a professional editor. Just be yourself, gambling mother and all.
Posted by kswygert at August 24, 2004 04:37 PM