Hot off the wire, Chicago GSB became the first school to require a PowerPoint component to their application. The interesting part? There are only three general guidelines:

• Four slides
• No video
• No hyperlinks
• No flash

Other than that, go nuts.

Reminds me of Stanford’s up-to-7 page application essay #1 (“What matters to you most, and why?”), or NYU Stern’s Personal Expression essay (“Please describe yourself to your MBA classmates. You may use any method to convey your message”). This seems to be a good middle ground – fun and open, yet not so unstructured that you would need to struggle with logistics and choice of medium.

My guess is that the school is going to let in more consultants and fewer engineers with this requirement. The idea is interesting and I think it will be fun to watch. Perhaps more interesting will be the MBA applicant community’s response to this.