Why can’t MBA students write?
Business Schools Put More Emphasis on Writing Amid Employer Complaints. While M.B.A. students’ quantitative skills are prized by employers, their writing and presentation skills have been a perennial complaint. Employers and writing coaches say business-school graduates tend to ramble, use pretentious vocabulary or pen too-casual emails.
Meanwhile, the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the Graduate Management Admission Test, says average essay scores on the GMAT fell to 4.4 out of 6 in 2010, from 4.7 out of 6 in 2007. Writing quality is difficult to measure and it’s unclear why it may be slipping. According to a GMAC spokesman, the drop in test scores may be partly attributable to an influx of international applicants taking the exam. In the 2009-2010 testing year, 136,918 international students took the GMAT, up 35% from 2007, GMAC says.
At employers’ urging, many schools are taking steps to try to improve their students’ writing. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania plans to double its communication coursework to 12 classes starting in 2012. Last fall, all first-year students competed in a mandatory writing competition, which asked students to write short pieces in response to prompts. It will become a fixture in the new curriculum.
To address the problem in a fair manner, I would just like to add that there are more MFA’s and Liberal Arts Masters who cannot figure out a simple balance sheet or perform rudimentary bookkeeping! The curriculum for Liberal and Fine Arts majors needs to be improved as well. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to add some basic accounting and math courses to the program! Sometimes I wonder how they get by in life.
The answer is to take a holistic approach to learning.