Brevity is the soul of wit, they say. It also seems to be the mantra for this year’s MBA application process.

While most people look forward to July and August as a time to lie on the beach and soak up the sun, would-be MBA students hoping for a place at a top business schools in 2014 will spend the summer swotting for entry exams, writing essays and flattering potential referees as they research the schools that best suit their needs.

The good news for them is that this year almost all the top schools have streamlined the application process, cutting down on the applicants’ workload. As Betsy Ziegler, associate dean of MBA programmes at the Kellogg school at Northwestern University, puts it, the school has shortened the wordcount of its essay questions “so people get to the punchline”.