Chicago Booth overhauled its full-time MBA application essays, replacing traditional longer essays with four short-answer prompts limited to 300 characters each, plus an optional 300-word essay for applicants who need to explain gaps or low test scores. Required prompts focus on immediate and long-term post-MBA goals, the meaning of an image, and a fun fact or unique element. The change reflects admissions’s broader generative-AI reckoning: several business schools have added AI-disclosure requirements or leaned on detection approaches after essays began to look overly polished and generic. Booth’s compression reduces the room for narrative-style drafting while maintaining basic evaluative targets—goals, values signals, and personal context—according to the reporting.