College application essays for undergraduate degrees vary a lot by country.
The UK UCAS admission system used for all undergraduate admissions requires an application text. It is much freer in its form than how I understand the US system with a very specific prompt.
As for Norway, to pick another random example, there is no requirement to submit any piece of writing to explain your motivation. Your grades do all the talking for you, so to speak.
If your budget allows I'd recommend combining Kindle with Audible. This is what Amazon calls "Voicewhisper". I find that applying multiple senses helps keep distractions out. Also nice to use Kindle's highlighting which you can look through on Goodreads afterwards.
I find that this approach works really well for books on e.g. on design, architecture and management. Can be slightly more awkward for books with a lot of diagrams and code, but usually just a matter of pausing the audio over certain sections.
Depending on the difficulty of the language used I can often play on 1.7-2x playback speed.
Seven years later he is appointed to the board of directors at Amazon... and Amazon customers who ask to download their data get access to the full audio files from every recording done by their Alexa device
https://twitter.com/AlinaUtrata/status/1485194962027388929
I used to think I couldn't read on a Kindle, but it removes all the distractions and feels more like a proper book. Especially coupled with an audio version I find that I can often finish books in 1-3 days where it would have taken me weeks in the past.
That being said I fully appreciate a good physical textbook for cases where there's a lot of diagrams, etc.
There's also the argument that business and technology is "the same thing" now. A majority of businesses cannot operate without technology. Technology often does not come to fruition without business.