We know many BSers are itching to get started on their apps and we keep getting asked, “When is School X gonna release its questions?”

We did a full post on this last year which covered app / question release dates for 2015. Based on that, here’s what you can expect from here.

Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Ross, NYU and Haas already have released questions and maybe UCLA too (we can’t tell if their site is saying it’s same requirements for 2017 or not). We’ve already released an updated SnarkStrategies Guide for Stanford GSB, Harvard HBS and Columbia, so if you’re trying for any of those, you can most definitely get started now!

(Pro Tip: YOU CAN GET STARTED NOW ON ANY OF THEM!)

This is one reason for a rare Saturday post – it’s the weekend – we’re encouraging you to actually do that! Like, TODAY!

The other schools will all have questions coming out soon as well. How soon? Here’s when that happened in past years.

Unless noted above, these are EssaySnark’s estimates for 2017.

Now let’s get more practical:

Your essays will be better – and you can save $$$! – if you start now.

We try to make both of these points very clear:

1. You need TIME to develop good essays.

We do not recommend waiting till essay questions for your school to come out before starting on your essay strategy! If you read our school questions page for your target school, you will be able to see what they have asked before, and you’ll get an overview of what that school cares about.

Is it career goals? Many schools are very focused on that. Are you able to present your short-term and long-term goals effectively? Like, can you do it right now, reading this post? You need solid career goals for Columbia and Berkeley, and it’s likely that Wharton and Tuck will also have essays on goals. (Want help? The Career Goals App Accelerator or for many of you, the MBA Career Goals Planning Guide for Entrepreneurship, will get you started!)

Is it accomplishments and achievements? All schools are focused on that but that doesn’t mean they’ll end up as essays per se. You still need to be able to show your achievements and professional readiness in the app, even if you’re not writing an essay on it! THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR ALL SCHOOLS! (Want help? The Accomplishments & Achievements App Accelerator is your answer!)

Is it personal qualities, and life experience? Or commitment and values? Fewer schools are outwardly focused on this, and yes, it makes sense to tackle such topics through the confines of an actual essay question. But these schools already have their questions out, for the most part! Yale and Stanford and Berkeley Haas and Ross are all looking for essays on these topics. You’ll want to pick up their respective SnarkStrategies Guides as the best resource — and yes, all of those will be updated soon if they haven’t been already!

In addition: Your first drafts are going to suck.

You canNOT wait to start your essays until two weeks before the deadline and expect them to be as good as they could possibly be. You need time – that composting thing we’ve been talking about recently. You also need time for the standard cycle of:

– Write a bunch of stuff and think that it’s totally good
– Submit it for feedback and EssaySnark tells you it’s actually not
– Cry
– (two weeks go by)
– Come out from the corner where you’ve been pouting and try again
– Read read read and read some more. Devour the blahg. Study the resources we’ve been pointing to all along. Think think think (ouch this part hurts!). Try writing another draft. Throw it away out of discouragement. Sit on it for awhile. Come back – AHA! lightbulb – write something that you think may actually be on target.
– Submit it for feedback and hold your breath
– Cry again but this time in relief because EssaySnark said it’s on track and it has potential
– Revise revise revise

That is how you write good essays. That does not happen overnight.

And oh hey look!

2. You will save MONEY if you start now!

Now that we’ve actually got your attention…

Here’s some data. Two totally different BSers from last season who both made it into the schools of their dreams. One started crazy early like we don’t even know if anyone has ever started this early before (we’re talking YEARS ahead of their planned applications) and the other started ohkindalate.

Here’s how much they paid for the exact-same EssaySnark services:

You see, EssaySnark pricing goes up as we get busier. That’s how this supply/demand thing works. We incentivize you to start early by offering lower prices as encouragement. We’re already so busy with other motivated BSers that we will most definitely be raising prices again soon (we’re even wondering if this might be the first year we have to shut the doors on new sign-ups based on capacity). You can bet that if you wait till August to sign up, it’s going to be more expensive than if you start now (heck, if you even wait till July…).

The other advantage of course is that BSer #1 was done with their essays much much earlier and was not sweating around deadlines. BSer #2 ended up paying significantly more than this in Speedy Review add-ons, whereby you can get super-fast turnarounds, because they were up against the deadlines; we did not include those charges in the above costs because they are optional. These data are core services only. Start now and you’re not going to be at risk for any such add-ons once Snarkville gets crazy and our dance card starts to fill up. You’re going to be done early, and boy, won’t your Future Self be thanking you!

If you’re sitting here thinking, “But wait, how do I work on my essays when the essay questions aren’t out yet and I only have 60 days on the Essay Decimator subscription based on EssaySnark’s terms of purchase?”

Well, there are options:

1. The Complete Essay Package has a whole heckofalotta other steps to start on BEFORE you’re gonna write a single word of a single essay. It includes all the App Accelerators referenced on this page. Those’ll keep you busy for at least two weeks!

2. We can’t guarantee this, but we’re assuming all of the schools will have their essay questions out in the next month. That gives you another month to do the essays. That should be plenty of time to work through the two-stage review process on any of the Essay Decimators we offer (HBS or Standard).

3. If you are diligently working on your essays and you simply run out of time, we will always entertain well-intentioned requests for extensions. If you’re a slacker, an extension can be purchased at an additional fee to reactivate an expired service. No, you can’t warehouse services; you can’t buy stuff now at early cheaper pricing and expect to get a free extension later if you aren’t actively working on them. That defeats the entire purpose of our subscription model and it just won’t work.

So that’s our pitch for today.

Whether you use EssaySnark or not, please take this opportunity – you have the whole weekend ahead of you! – to START ON YOUR MBA APPLICATIONS!!!!

We’re obviously around in case anyone has questions.

Good luck with those apps this year, Brave Supplicant!!