Another interesting and curious thought is whether they would still continue to have the short essay writing just before the interview starts... By the way I never understood the purpose of having that short essay right before the interview... and how/whether it added any significant value to the application...
This would anyways be clear once we have the first puy sharing his/her IV exp.... another week or two to go...!
I asked this question to one of the adcom members at an info session in delhi. He told me that they make you write on an abstract topic to compare the language of the application with that of the essay. Another reason is to evaluate your thought structure. How well can you express your thoughts on an abstract topic in a short duration.
@MissWorld : GMAT is an adaptive exam and its scoring ought to differ over a period of time considering factors like the difficulty level of que and the pool of candidates deciding your percentile.GMAC accounts for all this intangible factors through their complex algo and then finally doles out a score.