A lot of great things happening here.

• Accepted Senior Editor Paul Bodine will answer your questions tomorrow Thursday at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/ 5:00 PM GMT. Paul is the author of Great Application Essays for Business School, a practical guide for writing winning MBA application essays. Indeed the focus of the chat tomorrow is great application essays and how you should write them. You aren't sure how to do so? Please join us tomorrow.

• On deck: Wharton Admissions on Monday September 15 at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/ 5:00 PM GMT

For a complete schedule of upcoming MBA admissions chats, please click on the link. Better yet, join our MBA Admissions Events mailing list and receive notification of all our MBA events.

Finally, we posted the transcript from the recent 2009 Michigan Ross MBA Admissions Chat with Soojin Kwon Koh. It was a well-attended (100+ applicants) and very informative chat. Lots of questions about Ross' MAP program and action-based learning. I was impressed with how many applicants were asking questions that showed a real knowledge of Ross' program.

A few highlights:

ahembeea (Aug 20, 2008 12:00:27 PM)
Zach and Mike: Hello Ross team, can you please tell us in what ways do the students at Ross co-create their MBA experience, apart from MAP ? How exactly is action based learning a core feature of Ross ?

MikeZarrilliROSS(Aug 20, 2008 12:05:35 PM)
Ahembeea - In response to action based learning, it is at the core of everything you do at the school. For example, in the classroom you are constantly working in teams with your classmates and outside the classroom, there are numerous opportunities to gain real life experience. An example of this in the Wolverine Venture Fund, which invests REAL money in start-up companies. In addition to that, there is the community consulting experience, which pairs teams of students with local non-profits to improve their business.

AbhishekSengupta (Aug 20, 2008 12:12:58 PM)
Soojin: How much of an importance is paid by the school to an applicant's involvement in social bodies and charity organizations? Is one at a disadvantage if one has not been involved in some sort of social work?

SoojinKwonKohROSS (Aug 20, 2008 12:16:12 PM)
Abhishek - extracurricular/community involvement is one of the things we look at. We recognize that in some industries or some countries, outside activities are not the norm or are not possible. What we're trying to understand is what an applicant does with his/her time - what drives him/her, what is he/she interested in and passionate about. That could be work, it could be something outside of work.