Nobody Reads Your Essays, Part II: AWA
Most GMAT students we've met really don't worry all that much about the Analytical Writing (AWA) portion of the test, but we occasionally meet somebody who is absolutely neurotic about this section of the GMAT.
If you’re one of the rare students who worries about the GMAT AWA section, please don’t. There’s rarely any need to spend more than a token amount of time on AWA. Here’s why.
Why MBA Programs Barely Care About GMAT AWA
Let’s start with the biggest reason why MBA programs care so deeply about GMAT scores in the first place: rankings. Unfortunately, some MBA rankings schemes penalize b-schools with low average GMAT scores, so admissions committees are forced to obsess over your GMAT composite results.
The AWA section has absolutely nothing to do with your composite score, and it therefore has no impact on MBA rankings. So most schools don’t really give a crap about it. Sure, it might be nice to fill MBA programs with excellent writers, but that’s far from the front of business schools’ minds, and AWA scores have been shown to correlate only very weakly to student performance in MBA programs.
To be fair, it’s probably not a good idea to completely embarrass yourself on AWA, but a solid-but-imperfect AWA score of, say, 5.0 almost certainly won’t keep you out of Stanford or Harvard. MBA admissions committees might start to wonder if your AWA score is below 3 or 4, but I see absolutely no reason to worry if your score is reasonably high. After all, MBA programs are looking for business leaders with decent communication skills, not Nobel Prize-winning novelists.
So what does it take to earn a "reasonably high" AWA score? Not much, really. I've seen some legitimately terrible writers earn scores of 5.0 or 5.5. They took advantage of the fact that nobody really reads your GMAT AWA essay.
How GMAT AWA Grading Works
As you may already know, GMAT AWA essays are graded both by a computer and by a human; if there's a discrepancy between the two scores, then an additional human reads the essay. Obviously, the computer's exact scoring system is a closely guarded secret, but I'm convinced that the program primarily looks for structure using basic keyword algorithms.
From there, it probably counts things like the average number of words per sentence and the average number of letters per word, and then it checks for grammar, usage, variety of words used, and perhaps spelling. I suspect very strongly that a reasonable structure is the most important part of the AWA scoring system; spelling might not even count at all. (Again, I've seen some horrid spellers get really good scores.)
The "human" is ultimately looking for the same things as the computer when she grades a GMAT AWA essay: structure, clarity, correctness, richness of language, and so on. But this human probably doesn't actually read your GMAT essays any more closely than the computer.
Again, imagine that you're the poor slob who gets paid $20-25/hour (as of a few years ago, GRE and TOEFL graders earned $20/hour; I don't know whether the rate is similar for GMAT) to read bazillions of these AWA essays, most of which are tragically bereft of interesting content. Are you going to read every single word? Hell no. You'll skim the introduction, maybe read the first sentence of each paragraph, and then maybe skim the conclusion. (And if anybody asks, you'll surely claim that you read every single word with great care.)
How to Get a Decent AWA Score… With Minimal Effort
When I wrote about the people who read (or skim) your MBA essays, I claimed that you should strive to make your application essays interesting. You want admissions committees to read your application carefully and enthusiastically, right?
For the AWA, you don't necessarily care if the human grader (or the GMAT computer) actually reads your essay. You just want to earn a decent score, without exerting too much effort – especially if you choose to do the IR and AWA sections at the beginning of the exam. If you can conserve energy during the GMAT AWA section, you'll be much sharper when you battle the (far more important) quant and verbal sections.
So focus on structure on GMAT AWA, even if that means that you produce an essay that would, under normal circumstances, seem like a crappy, contrived piece of writing. Don't beat around the bush: every paragraph should start by clearly stating the main point of the paragraph. The entire GMAT AWA essay should start with a crystal-clear thesis statement. Somebody should be able to read the first sentence of each paragraph, and still basically understand the entire essay.
Just make sure that you leave a few minutes to proofread your AWA essay, simply to avoid committing any egregious grammar, usage, and spelling errors. If this means that you don't write a terribly long essay, that's fine – quality matters more than quantity.
Honestly, it's almost that simple. If you lay out your argument in a completely clear, five-paragraph format, you'll be in good shape, especially if your writing mechanics (grammar, usage, etc.) are basically solid.
You might ultimately write an essay that is about as much fun to read as a phone book... but fun isn't really the point of the GMAT, is it?
Learn more about the GMAT: