Invitation To Interview At Chicago!

HOORAY!

I am not sure that I could be more excited. Or relieved, for that matter!

It is so nice to get some validation that my applications are actually ok.

Dear Ad Comms,

Dear Ad Comms,

It's been a while since I've heard from you. I'm wondering how you're doing. I hear you are starting to be in touch with other applicants. Perhaps you'd like to send me a note, too? I know, why don't we get together for a chat? Perhaps you might even call this chat an interview. If you are amenable, please send me a note at your earliest convenience. I'll be checking every few minutes or so. Please don't keep me waiting too long!

Best,
EightSchools

Frank Assessment Of My Chances

This may be about as frank as this blog gets. I'm going to share my honest assessment of how likely I think I am to get into the schools I've applied to. This is the kind of stuff that's banging around my head lately, and I would really like to get it out. Thank you in advance for bearing with me. :)

Here's is my appraisal of how my applications look in general:

• What I have going for me: Untouchable performance at an amazing job most 50yos in my industry would love to have. High 90s GMAT verbal score, high 90s GMAT overall. Amazing college extracurriculars. Really well-written, well-conceived essays. One outstanding recommendation from someone very senior at my company.
  
• Neither good nor bad: My immediate supervisor's recommendation isn't very well done, even though it says good things. My extracurriculars since college are ok, I think, but I haven't been elected mayor or anything. I have an average (for these schools) GPA in the Ivy League.
• What I have going against me: Low 70s GMAT quant score. Humanities major.
  

Here's what I think about my chances at each school:

• Berkeley: This is the hardest one for me to estimate. I think that my career plans make me a really good fit for Berkeley. But I'm not entirely clear on how selective they are. If I had to guess, I would put my chances somewhere around 20%, but that's probably the wildest of all these guesses.
  
• Chicago: I get the feeling that Chicago cares more about GPAs and quant skills than other schools, and that might tank me. But I do think my PPT and essays were good. I really like Chicago and I hope that shows. Plus, they have a higher admission rate at 25% than schools like Harvard and Stanford. I give myself a 30% chance.
  
• Dartmouth: I had a great interview here, and I think I'm a good fit for the school. However, a friend of mine was told that her 70-something percentile GMAT quant score got her waitlisted. She hadn't taken any quant courses, though, while I've done so and done well in them. I'm guessing my chances are 40%.
  
• Darden and Duke. I'm think my chances are similar for Darden and Duke -- I'd guess about 50% or more. I'm much more into Darden, though. I really like the case method and how hard the students work.
  
• Harvard: Long shot. The scores and GPAs I see in online forums for Harvard admits depress me. And someone from my firm who had a very similar role to mine didn't even get an interview last year. However, this person also admits to having done a "shitty" job on the essays. I give myself a 20% chance of admission.
  
• Kellogg: I think I'm a good fit here. My essays do a good job of making the case, but I'm not sure my interviewer will back that up. I feel ok about my chances here. I think it could go either way, so let's say a 40% chance of admission.
  
• Stanford: Very long shot. The GMATs and GPAs for Stanford admits that I see on mbabuzz.com and Admissions411 make me feel pretty pessimistic about my chances. And I'm special in my industry, but I haven't founded a nonprofit that is close to curing cancer, which seems like the type of thing most Stanford students have done. I'm going to give myself a 15% chance of admission.
  

I guess we'll never know how right or wrong I am, but this is how I'm feeling right now. It's hard to stay optimistic, especially as Harvard interviews start to go out. (Today was the first day, and I didn't hear anything.) I'm trying hard, though, let me tell you.

Wish me luck!

Poll Results & Kellogg Info Sesssion

Thank you to everyone who's voted in the poll to the right! I've really enjoyed watching the results come in. It is downright fascinating how Harvard and Stanford stay neck-and-neck. Sometimes I wonder whether people are voting for one or the other specifically to keep them tied!

I also wonder whether the results would be any different if Wharton were on the list (it isn't because I'm not applying there.) I know that "other" has a decent number of votes, but people are less likely to vote for "other" than they are to just pick the closest fit for them on the list. I'm tempted to say that Wharton would be coming in third if it were listed, but I don't really understand enough about Wharton's appeal to be sure.

I'm also a little surprised by Kellogg's strong showing! I'd expect it to be closer to tied with Dartmouth, which apparently is less popular with you all than it is with me.

I'd love to hear why you're voting the way you are. If you'd like to share, leave a comment below.

I went to a Kellogg information session, though, and I understand what you all like about Kellogg. The info session was much better than my interview. In fact, I really wish I'd done a Kellogg info session before the interview, both to know more going in and to be more confident that I understood what Kellogg folks were like.

Some good news from the Kellogg info session -- the ad com rep there said that decisions are often released early, starting from "six weeks after you submit your Part II app." I'm guessing they also need the interview report to be in, though, which would be at least two weeks after my Part II app. So that means I COULD hear as early as March 1. I won't count on it, but I won't be stunned by it either.

She also said that they WILL applicants you a decision is made and that we don't have to check our status online every day. That's nice to know, and backs up a comment someone made about his status not changing until the decision was in.

Kellogg Interview Report

I had my Kellogg interview recently. While I'd love to share every last detail and paint a vivid picture for you all, I'm also concerned about maintaining this blog's anonymity. I'll give a sketch of the outlines, though.

I emailed the alum, who works and lives in my city, to set this up in late December. Good email exchanges, and he said not to worry about dressing formally. (Phew.)

I prepped using the questions folks have posted on the great interview wikis at ClearAdmit. The one for Kellogg, which is obviously the one I used, is right here: http://www.clearadmit.com/wiki/index.php?title=KelloggInterview.

I made sure I had ready answers to all of the questions and I practiced the slightly tough ones a bit. He asked standard questions, so I was pretty well prepared, I think. I don't think I could have prepared much better. The only one I didn't expect was about experience working internationally. My response wasn't the absolute strongest I could have given, but I think it was ok.

That said, it was really hard to judge how this alum felt! He was watching me like a hawk while I was talking. I'm not sure I've ever felt so carefully inspected or throughly judged. It definitely made it hard to feel like there was any connection, and I'm not sure that there was. In fact, I'd say there definitely wasn't.

This was very unlike my Tuck interview, which was intensely warm and friendly.

I feel like an interview is a success if you connect with the interviewer and make them like you. I don't feel that I did this with the Kellogg alum. But who knows? Maybe he's always like this and he doesn't really "connect" with anyone. It's certainly possible.

He was very unlike my stereotype of Kellogg or other Kellogg alums I've known!

Interestingly, my Kellogg app is still in "received" status. I submitted both Part I and Part II well before the respective deadlines. Maybe the interview report has to be in before it's
"complete."

What News When?

I've assembled the key dates that I know of so far:

• Jan 30: Chicago interview invites start going out
• Early Feb: Berkeley interview invites start going out
• Feb 20: Chicago mid-decision point (no interview invite by this date = ding)
• Mar 7: Duke decision
• Mar 19: Darden decision
• Mar 21: Tuck decision
• Mar 24: Berkeley decision
• Mar 26: Harvard decision, Chicago decision (if interviewed)
• Mar 31: Kellogg decision
• Apr 3: Stanford decision

I find it interesting how much the time it takes these guys to make decisions varies. The Berkeley R2 application deadline was Dec 11, but they don't decide any sooner for all that extra time.

I also really appreciate Chicago's mid-decision points. I've seen the BW forum postings where people hold out hope they'll still get into schools at which they weren't invited to interview. They're usually desperately asking whether there are still interview invitations going out -- and who knows, maybe there are.

The good news is that I'll be traveling during most of this period, which will keep my mind off of things. I'll be with clients all day for some of these days. I can easily envision myself fighting back the desire to log in and check my status.

Well gosh, now what?

I knew it would be like this. Just one day after submitting my final app and I'm already completely stressed out over not having anything else I can do to improve my chances. At least when I was working on my apps I could always improve them.

My dad asked me, "Well, what would you do if the stress got to you?" My honest answer is that I'd probably apply to more schools! Bad answer, but honest answer. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

I've seen other bloggers make lists of things they're going to do, so I'll follow in that pattern:

* Volunteer . They'll take as much time as I can give them.
* Take an accounting course. I'm not sure how much time this will take, though, as it's just a single course.
* Run. I'm coming back from a stress fracture, though, so I'll have to be sure not to overdo it. Mixing in swimming and elliptical should keep me safe.
* Cook. Always relaxing. If only I had more people to cook for.
* Read even more. Nothing is as distracting as a good book!
* Focus more on my job. Oddly, there isn't any real need to do so. My performance at work has remained steady even as I spent all my nights and weekends on apps. I think I've just gotten better about being productive during the workday.

Plus I'll cram for interviews!

Last app submitted!

Hooray! I just pressed "submit" on the University of Chicago application. I am very pleased with how it turned out, especially given that I only chose to apply to Chicago about a week ago. Either the Chicago application was a lot simpler than other schools or else I've gotten frighteningly good at this. Or maybe I just missed stuff! (Perish the thought.)

If you've been reading this blog, you know that I have trouble not letting my feelings toward application influence my feelings toward the school. Well, Chicago's app definitely made a good impression. A lot of the little quirks in other school's online applications were absent from Chicago's.

It is stunning to be done. Eight applications all in round 2 was an awful lot. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself now, other than worry. And, of course, prepare for interviews. I have Kellogg and Duke coming up.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering what to get my recommenders. I have some ideas, but I'm wondering what other people have done. I don't want to do anything offensively lavish, but I want to show just how ridiculously grateful I am! Your suggestions much appreciated!

I Heart The Chicago PowerPoint

It is such a pleasure not to have to type up another essay. I think this PowerPoint conveys who I am about 10x more effectively and convincingly than any essay I've written. I think that's partially due to the slightly richer medium and partially due to the completely open-ended question. ("Who are you?" is better than "What matters most to you?" in my book.)

That said, Chicago makes up for the PPT by giving you a 1500 word max on the goals essay. That's an awful lot of writing. I'm finding I need to pull in content from other essays I've written for other schools. The challenge is to do so, taking tagents here and there, without ending up rambling too much.

Some applicants are so well-designed that they leave you with a more positive impression of the school. I feel that way about Chicago, for sure. Berkeley, UVA, and Duke had the opposite impression on me. I don't know how much it was their application interfaces (theirs were the worst, despite being on the same platform as others), but I really didn't enjoy doing those applications much.

Admissions Office Bedside Manners

I've had a few random questions for some of the admissions offices, and their responses have varied pretty dramatically in tone. Stanford's responses have been outrageously speedy and really very. And the mass emails I get from them are really almost heart-warming: "We look forward to learning more about you."

In comparison, Harvard copied and pasted an answer into a form letter when I emailed them a question. You could even see which part of the email was the normal template (blue font) and which part was from their book of stock answers (black font). I get that they're in a rush, but if it's such a frequently asked question why not post it on their FAQ page?

I hate to judge from this type of interaction, but it's hard not to. That said, my experience visiting Harvard was nothing like this email interaction.