Chicago Business School levels the playing field

Check out this excerpt from Michael McVey’s post at LeaderTalk. So very, very sad…

‘I read that the prestigious University of Chicago Business School will accept four-slide presentations

from applicants to their program. Just as I was about to lament the

technology gap between Colleges of Education and Business Schools, a

few lines deep in the article caught my eye:

Rosemaria

Martinelli, associate dean for student recruitment and admissions for

the school’s full-time MBA program said, “The slides will be printed

and placed in each applicant’s file for review, which means all the

bells and whistles such as Flash, video clips, embedded music and

hyperlinks won’t be considered in the evaluation process,” she said.

“This clearly levels the playing field for everyone.”

‘I

began to feel a little lightheaded. What the Business School was doing

not only leveled the field, it flattened it, cropped it, and sucked the

very creativity out of it. This, I believe, is the pitch-black and

dizzying chasm, the point at which the world of the digital native

meets the world of the digital immigrant and they stand in stark

contrast to each other.

‘This is the difference between a butterfly in the wild and one

pinned to a board in a display case. As a method of gauging the

creative energy of an applicant to your program, making a four-slide

presentation might be a good start. However, when you evaluate this

creativity based upon two dimensional screen captures devoid of the

very creative energy you sought to assess, you might as well have

students submit their test scores and forego the technology charade.’