bsd_lover wrote:
Thanks for responding sv - what were the biggest changes that you made to your application this year in terms of your essays ?
bsd,
Short answer - not a whole lot but here's the long-winded story of my applications.
My biggest change from last year was the selection of schools. I had some personal limitations and decided to apply to only mid-west and north-east schools, Darden being the lone exception. I got interview invites from both Cornell, Chicago and Darden besides self-initiated ones at Kellogg and Tuck. At Cornell, I had applied for the 2-year MBA program but was ultimately offered AMBA (reasons: advanced degree, goals that didn't require an internship). Also, Ross waitlisted me without interview. My biggest takeaway - you need something to differentiate yourself. You probably know that already
This year, I applied to Anderson, Duke and Haas besides reapplying to Cornell, Tuck and Ross. In terms of essays, Anderson was probably the most personal ones I had written. Between the 6 applications last year, I probably wrote 12-15 different essays, but I had to start all over for Anderson. Same goes for Duke's "Leader of consequence" essay. Looking back, I think reading Montauk and a few other books had unconsciously molded my essays to the point where they turned out to be detached not reflecting what I really wanted to say. I didn't worry about sounding as polished this time. I also was fortunate to connect with an old college-mate who was a sounding board for the personal essays (Thanks to Yahoo for free transatlantic calls).
For both Tuck and Ross, I completely rewrote many essays along with reapplicant ones. I thought that my Tuck ones were the best of the lot this year, especially the goals essay. Result: Ding. At Ross, I was inexplicably waitlisted after R1 and then dinged in R2. In short, the lessons I learnt from last season helped with the new schools but not the old ones.
-SV