Getting down to the wire...

I'm about 95% done with my HBS applications and about 50% done with my Stanford essays. With only 16 hours until Harvard's deadline and 48 hours until Stanford's, I know I need to finish up.

At times I wonder to myself "what's the point, you're probably not going to get into these schools anyway." But I guess I don't ever want to be asking myself "what if?" after the process is over. Plus, I know that my recommenders put in some damn hard work into my reference letters, so I want to put them to good use.

Only two more days. Then I can rest and revert back to my normal life (and finally have time to sleep, hang with friends, work out, shave, stay afloat at my job...).

I'll be back after my applications are finished to reflect on the entire process as a whole.

More later.

3 down, 2 to go...

I just submitted my Wharton Round 2 application. Of all the applications I've submitted so far, I feel the most confident in Wharton. Even though the structure of their essay questions didn't allow me to say that much about my unusual life story, maybe they structured their questions that way because they don't care about no life stories.

Harvard and Stanford are definitely interested, so I'll make sure to slip something in there. Time to put the pedal to the medal on these two - applications are due on Jan 10 and 11 and I haven't finished one essay for either school.

More later.

Chicago application submitted

I finished my Chicago application a few days ago, but I just submitted it now. Now the waiting game begins (Feb 15 is the Chicago mid-decision date). Still need to finish up one more Wharton essay, plus get on to Harvard and Stanford.

More later.

Just invited to interview at Columbia

Just got an interview invite at CBS! I wouldn't have been surprised with the outcome either way, but it's definitely relieving to get that status change email.

Partial text of the e-mail is below.

Dear Applicationist,

As part of the continuing evaluation of your application, the Admissions Committee is pleased to invite you to interview with a Columbia Business School Ambassador. Ambassadors are alumni of the program who volunteer to conduct interviews and can answer your questions about their experiences at Columbia Business School. We strongly suggest that you arrange your interview within two weeks of this invitation. 

Now I need to worry about my other apps. They're due in 2-3 weeks, and I haven't completed a single application package. I also have to start hounding my recommendation writers.

More later.

Columbia application submitted

I just submitted my application for Columbia Business School, regular decision. I feel like a huge weight has come off my shoulders, but now begins the waiting game. My application won't be reviewed until December at the very earliest, so we'll see how that goes.

Now on to Chicago, Wharton, Stanford, and Harvard...

More later.

Why do today what you can do tomorrow?

Been in kind of a dry spell lately with my essays. I feel completely "tapped out" of ideas, and even a lot of the unformed concepts/stories I want to write about, I just don't feel the inspiration to do so. With Columbia at rolling admissions, I want to submit a complete application by early November. That's in three weeks, and by that time I'll really need to book it with the essays for the other four b-schools I'm applying to in R2.

I will get to recommendations eventually.

More later.

Essays, essays, essays

Writing MBA application essays is one of the most grueling tasks I've ever undertaken. From the brainstorming to the drafting to the merciless editing, it's all just one big, daunting exercise. My friends tell me that it doesn't seem that hard, and that I should just "recycle" the same essays for different schools. Wouldn't that be nice? But the huge problem with recycling your essays is (1) the questions bare worded just slightly differently between schools, and (2) the word counts are just different enough so that you have to do some large restructuring. Now don't get me wrong, I definitely think you should have a good 6-7 stories off the top of your head that you can recycle. But in terms of just copy-pasting entire paragraphs, or even entire sentences, it's just not going to happen.

For example, one of Wharton's essays is "Discuss a challenging interpersonal experience (600 words)." I had a great story that I thought I could also use for Harvard's "Tell us about three setbacks you have faced (600 words)." The problem is, for the Wharton app it's phrased as an interpersonal question where I have to emphasize how I dealt with people, while for Harvard it's phrased as a setback where I have to emphasize how I dealt with failure. Not to mention, the word counts between the two are way off (600 words for W vs. ~200 for H). Even though I'm using exactly the same story for both essays, the work effort is still two essays' worth. I didn't even save time in the brainstorming phase, since I still have to realign the essay focus (Wharton --> people, Harvard --> setback).

It's an interesting process, but the amount of introspection, writing, re-writing, and re-re-writing required can be a bit much at times, and I'm hard pressed to find a man who enjoys it.

Next I want to talk a bit about my recommendations.

More later.