Admissions Bored

Every now and then, you see something that reminds you how steep the hill really is. I was about to upload a post about handouts last night when I came across a story that took the wind out of my PowerPoint sails (the handout post is coming).

You can read the AP story here…but I’ll give you the short version and why you should be careful about listening to any of my PowerPoint advice.

The school of business at the University of Chicago now requires applicants to submit, with their applications, four “PowerPoint-like” slides. They can cover any topic and must follow only two rules: no hyperlinks (let’s not encourage interactivity) and no video (God forbid). Surprisingly, pictures are allowed.

Not only does the story illustrate that the world has accepted that presentations are awful but necessary, it is now clear that I could never get accepted to graduate school today.

So be careful. If you’re planning to apply to a top-notch b-school, you might want to ignore all of my crazy posts about stories, pictures, simple design and verbal narrative. All that crap wouldn’t be understandable much less compelling if a stranger double-clicked on my .ppt file and ran through my slide show. He’d see four pictures and maybe a word or two. My presentations would get the boot in the first round. I never thought I’d say this, but I’d recommend the Template Wizard. After all, you should give the audience what it wants, right?