Early Announcement of application Essays

Every year the business schools publish their application essays at the end of summer or beginning of fall for the next year’s fall intake. This year, it is just the beginning of summer and many schools have already published their essay and admission deadlines.
Harvard started this trend by publishing the essays first (http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/writtenapplication.html). Kellogg (http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/admissions/admissions/index.htm), Haas (http://mba.haas.berkeley.edu/fall2009.html), Stanford (http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/admission/essays_activities.html) and Wharton (http://adcomblog.wharton.upenn.edu/admissions/2008/07/fall-2009-appli.html) have also published their essays.

Many other schools such as Columbia, Chicago, MIT, Ross, etc have published their deadlines for applicants to plan their application cycle.

The rush by the schools to publish their essays early could be seen as a sign of possible increase in number of applications for the 2009 intake. The schools want to attract more students to apply for their schools, which would reduce their yield (and hence better ranking) and increase revenue from application fee. I could hardly take a breath after my last application season and not the 2009 application season has begun. Good luck for your applications.