Adding University of Chicago to the list

Last night around 5pm I thought I had just one school (Kelloggg) outstanding, and I was getting closer and closer to completion.

But by 7pm I'd decided to apply to University of Chicago as well. What's wrong with me? Am I afraid to be done with applications?

In all fairness, I should have had Chicago on my list from the very beginning. But I'd stereotyped it as too quantitative, which I think was unfair.

Their goals essay is a lot longer than other schools', so that will require some more work. Their "whose shoes would you wear for a day" is similar to Berkeley's "who would you like to have lunch with" essay. But PowerPoint thing I'm baffled by, but I make PowerPoints for a living so I don't think that'll be a problem.

I hope I'm not going to do a shoddy job on this one, though.

And I've decided not to retake the GMAT. I think I did as well as I possibly can, and I can't possibly imagine studying even more than I did before .

Only Kellogg Remains

I'm ready to hit submit on Stanford, UVA, and Tuck. I'm feeling great about each and every single one of them. I have really done everything I possibly can. And I have turned out some really nice essays.

Kellogg is still outstanding, but it's not due until Jan 11. Plus, the essays all overlap with other schools, so there's less greenfield writing to do.

At this point my thoughts are turning a bit toward likely outcomes.

Here are the schools I'm applying to in order of my perceived likelihood of admission, which may be completely off base:

1. Duke
2. UVA
3. Kellogg
4. Berkeley
5. Tuck
6. Harvard
7. Stanford

And here are the schools I'm applying to in order of present preference (I say present because this seems to change nearly every day):

1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Tuck
4. Kellogg
5. UVA
6. Berkeley
7. Duke

You may find it interesting that these lists are almost perfectly inverted. I just find it annoying!

Should I Retake The GMAT?

I am torn about this one.

I'm at 96% overall -- a great score, right?

But I'm at 73% for quant. Not super. And I've heard that some schools want to see quantitative scores in at least the 80th percentile.

It's funny how 99% on verbal plus 73% on quant = 96% overall.

I've been thinking that after all of my apps are in -- and they almost all are -- that I'll retake the test with a focus on the quant section. But I don't want to do so if it's not worth my time .

I have one quant course on my undergrad transcript with a bad grade, but three from evening courses after graduation with good grades. And I use stats pretty heavily in my work.

Any opinions? Retake or not?

I Love My Reviewers

You may have good reviewers, or maybe even great, but I'm pretty sure I have the best.

I am truly in awe.

Retraction?

My reviewer had great feedback on one of my Dartmouth essays, and it happens to be one that I already used for Harvard.

Of course, I already hit the SUBMIT button on the Harvard app.

I had a feeling this would happen! Then again, I probably would never have gotten to the Dartmouth app if I hadn't submitted Harvard's. I could easily have obsessed over that one until March.

Meanwhile, I've got a first draft down for Stanford.

And I'm experimenting with color coding school names -- if you hadn't already noticed!

Merry Christmas to everyone out there, and good luck to those of you who like me are spending your holiday break working on applications!!!

Finding More Reviewers

I've been fooling myself thinking that my mom is enough of a reviewer! Of course she likes everything I write.

So I've gone out on a hunt for tough love, and I think I've found two good folks who can give it to me.

It's hard to share these essays, though. They feel so intensely personal, even when they're not about particularly personal subjects.

UVA And Dartmouth Done

Both apps are complete, though I won't submit them until I've got the recommendations done. See this post for why.

I think they're pretty good applications.

The trickiest one for me is Dartmouth's "How will you contribute to culture at Tuck?" It's hard to know just how widely to write. How can you cover personality, values, background, and life experiences in 500 words without resorting to a bullet list? I am not sure you can, unless you've got some perfect story that happens to encapsulate them all. This means that you have to sacrifice a few.

Same issue with the same essay for Duke, although they say "diversity" instead of "culture." I'm pretty sure they mean the same thing.

I rather liked the UVA essays, but I'm concerned that they don't paint the whole picture. There's no room to talk about my career experiences, for example, except to whatever extend they support my point about leadership experience. Bummer.

So at this point I've got three apps submitted (Berkeley, Harvard, Duke), two apps done (UVA and Dartmouth), and two apps outstanding (Kellogg and Staford).

Unfortunately those last two really are completely outstanding. The only work I've done on them is really work that I've done for other apps that happens to transfer well. There isn't an awful lot of that. Even when I have good raw materials to work with, I'll still have to a lot of reshaping.

What If I'm Done Before My Recommenders Are?

Some schools (Berkeley) specifically say that if I finish my app, I should press submit -- even if my recommenders haven't submitted their recommendations yet.

One school (Stanford) explicitly says that I shouldn't do this.

I wonder whether there are schools that don't say either way even though they DO have a preference.

For example, after I submitted Duke's I got email saying they'd be contacting me to let me know what materials are outstanding. Well, I know my recs are outstanding, and they will be until early Jan. I hope that isn't annoying to Duke. And I hope it doesn't mean they put my app at the bottom of the pile!

It would be great if this were in every school's FAQ.

Haas Complete, Kellogg Interview Impending

Received notification from Haas that my app is complete. Now nothing to do but worry!

Also received alum contact interview for Kellogg. The interview cramming begins. It was time to do that for Kellogg anyway, since I need to write those essays next week.

Perfect age for an MBA

A business partner mentioned today that college is utterly wasted on his college-age kids. I think that's probably always the case.

His proof point, however, was his wife's experience in business school. She got her MBA after she had some work experience under her belt, and he said that her experience was far better than the people in her class who came straight from college. So I guess she wouldn't be a fan of Harvard's 2+2 program.

This prompted a former colleague of mine to observe that he's biding his time and applying to business school at 60, immediately after retirement, when he's reached his maximum number of years of work experience. :)

In all seriousness, do you think there's a perfect age to go to business school, all other things being constant? If so, leave a comment.

Essay Security

I'm on the road this week for work, and I'm finding that I'm scared to touch my essays. I've got this irrational fear going that somehow something will go wrong with my laptop and I'll lose my work.

This is too bad, because I usually get my best writing done in airports and on planes.

I should have printed out my essays to read on planes. After all, it's hard to do permanent harm with just a printout and a pencil. And I do find that I read them best when I read them printed out.

Extracurriculars: List Or Essay?

Both UVA and Berkeley ask for lots of information about extracurriculars, but neither provides any guidance as to format. Some schools just give you forms to fill in, but Berkeley asks you to upload a Word doc and UVA gives you lots of blank space to paste an answer into.

In my Berkeley app I provided it in list format. For UVA I'm writing about a paragraph's worth of text for each extracurricular instead. I think this is better because it gives me more room to explain why the extracurricular and the work I did with it are special.

I guess my concern is that I might be giving the Ad Comm more essays than than they wanted -- and annoying them in the process.

Anyone have any experience doing one or the other?

What's Wrong With Round 2

Beyond being more competitive, submitting all your apps in Round 2 is also a bad idea because you don't get any feedback on how well you're doing before you have to submit every last stinking app. If the deadlines were staggered by a few months, you'd at least know whether you were heading in the right direction. Instead, they are Dec 11, Jan 3, Jan 7, Jan 9, and Jan 11.

I can imagine applying to seven schools in Round 2 and not getting into a single one of them. At that point the only remaining options would be Round 3 and next year -- neither of them particularly attractive.

But it's very hard to finish 7 apps using the same strategies and tactics when you don't actually know whether your strategies and tactics are effective.

I guess this is why people pay thousands for coaching services, something that I am far to proud to do.

The Starting Point

There's no way around it: I've got to blog about my MBA applications.

I'm starting to do so pretty late in the process. I'm past the point of pondering whether to apply, wondering which schools to apply to, or even worry much about what to write. At this point I'm writing essays and submitting apps for Round 2 at seven schools.

Yes, I said seven. I really want to go business school, and I don't have a good sense of what my chances are.

Here are the schools I'm shooting for and a brief run down on what I've done so far for that school:

• Berkeley: Visited, submitted app.
• Dartmouth: Visited, interviewed, wrote essays, haven't yet submitted app.
• Duke: Submitted application.
• Harvard: Visited (3x -- I live in Boston), submitted app.
• Northwestern: Submitted Part I.
• Stanford: Visited.
• UVA: Wrote essays, close to submitting app.

My stats: 28, Harvard, consultant, 730, 3.3.