2014-2015: The Year of the LOR Consortium

I'm not sure if this was a purposeful group decision among the schools involved or more a case of follow-the-leader, but it looks like the following MBA programs are all using the same two (and only two!) Letter of Recommendation questions this year:

Chicago Booth

Columbia

HBS

Kellogg

Stanford

Michigan Ross (only one letter required)

UCLA Anderson (kind of, they added an additional questions, only one letter required)

Wharton

And those two questions are straightforward:

1) How does the applicant’s performance, potential, background, or personal qualities compare to those of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? Please provide specific examples.

2) Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response.

However it happened, applicants and recommenders should rejoice that the LOR process will be much easier to manage, at least for these schools. In addition to making the application process easier, I'm sure these MBA programs are also hoping the change will lead to more recommenders writing their own letters, instead of just signing off on something drafted for them.

The following are some of the schools that seem to be* sticking with their own LOR question sets:

Dartmouth Tuck

Duke Fuqua

MIT Sloan

NYU Stern

UC Berkeley Haas

UNC Kenan Flagler

Yale

Darden

Will some applicants decide not to apply to these schools because of their specific LOR requirements, and if so, how many? If we see more schools move towards a "Common LOR Set" next year, the answer will probably have been "Yes" and "Too many".

* They have not published their questions online.