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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM TexasWannaBeCali: Sleep.. Wait, what is that Again?


Less than 3 months until my applications are due and panic mode is starting to set in.

With my manager being promoted to a partner of our firm, one senior consultant promoted to be the new manager of our team, the other leaving to work in the California office, and an associate consultant transferring to another team, projects for a staff of 5 went down to a staff of 2 (me and another consultant) rather quickly so my current state of overwhelm is quite the understatement. On one hand, I’m loving all of the responsibility I have, but on the other, mannnnnnnnnnn this couldn’t have happened at a worse possible time. I’m very fortunate that my new manager and I have a great relationship, so coming in a little late or leaving a little early doesn’t bother him as long as my work is finished, but with all the extra workload and travel obligations, it’s been quite the rollercoaster ride of emotions trying to balance everything along with GMAT studying and application prep.

Speaking of the oh so wonderful GMAT, my original plan was to retake the exam early October, but apparently I missed the memo about how far in advance you should schedule before slots are filled. I know…you’re probably thinking “well duh”, but in my defense, I would periodicly check the MBA site to see how long you could wait before selecting a date, and every single time, a week sufficed. But because my life is the epitome of Murphy’s Law, my target test date was unavailable for both testing centers in my area by the time I felt moderately comfortable signing up. So with my calendar for the rest of October and the beginning of November in a state of pure chaos and no upcoming test dates matching my slim availability, my GMAT is going to be pushed super far back. I’m talking late November or December… YIKES! As frustrating as this was, I’ve learned that getting upset over things you inevitably cannot control leads to nothing but headaches and wrinkles, so I limited my rant fest to about 10 min then snapped back to reality and accepted it. Part of me wants to just accept my 680 and focus on the rest of my applications, but at the same time, I know myself, and I know that I will regret that decision if I end up getting dinged at all of my schools. Maybe that makes me incredibly stupid, but only time will tell. I’d rather feel confident that I did the best I could with no second guesses whatsoever, rather than wonder “what if” about anything. My main struggles with the GMAT aren’t really conceptual, but more so constantly making careless mistakes and letting my anxiety get the best of me which is still affecting my timing, so I hope that using more of my GMAT days to take mocks rather than simply study, will not only help me increase my score but also keep it consistent and not vary depending on my emotions that day.

Because I’m borderline psycho about planning, my calendar is now all labeled and color coded to reflect essay writing and editing days for each school, GMAT study days and which topics i’ll be reviewing, mock exam days, travel days, deadlines, and the works. I know I definitely have my work cut out for me, and I might even scale back to 3 schools if I feel too overwhelmed, but I feel alot better having a set plan laid out. These next 3 months are definitely going to be a test to my will power.

In other news, UCLA will finally be coming to Dallas soon which I’m obviously extremely excited about, especially since with my crazy work schedule, I’m no longer sure if I’ll be able to make a campus visit before January :( I’ve also been invited to attend McComb’s Women’s Weekend Forum in a few weeks which will be a great opportunity to not only make connections with students, alumni, professors, and adcom, but also get first hand experience of the MBA program and even some good essay material. The first night, there’s even a scheduled night out in Austin with the other attendees and current students so hopefully some cute boys tag along ;) kidding kidding.

It’s obviously app season because the posts from everyone are coming few and far between, myself included, but I know that just means everyone’s hard at work to become 2015 MBA students. I’m so so proud of the progress everyone has made thus far, and wish nothing but the best to each and every one of you. Also special congrats to Pulling That MBA Trigger for getting an interview invite from Fuqua!! If you haven’t congratulated her already, please do so. She’s kicking major ass!!

Also I would love to know writing schedules of those of you that have already submitted applications. I’ve heard writing a little each day helps, so is it protocol to write one essay per sitting and spend subsequent days editing? I couldn’t imagine writing a little here and a little there on an essay, once these fingers get to typing, they can’t be stopped until I’ve expressed everything I could. I’m sure that’s wishful thinking considering how intricate admission essays are, so suggestions are welcome :)

 

 


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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM Pulling That MBA Trigger: How I approached writing my essays
My buddy Texaswannabecali was asking the blogosphere about how to approach the daunting task of writing essays for b-school apps and I thought I’d make an entire post of it instead. I will put in a disclaimer here – I absolutely love writing and I do it on a regular basis i.e I probably churn out about 800 words per day on average, so it was probably easier for me than it was for most people. With that said, some essay topics were definitely easier than others. For instance, Fuqua was a joy to write but Yale, not so much.

I started with my Yale essays first, I figured get a good round of practice in before pulling the big guns for Duke. It’s a good idea to work on your number one choices after you’ve had some experience with schools that aren’t as high on your list of priorities. By then you should have a good sense of what works and what doesn’t, and also a better sense of clarity about your career goals.

Before you start writing, make sure you read the essay analyses that all the admissions consultants have put out there. Grantmeadmission has an amazing resource where he’s compiled all those links and which I’ve personally bookmarked. Whether or not you use these guidelines, I found them tremendously useful just to align my thoughts in the right direction. I started off on my essays by jotting down points that I knew I had to put in there. Nothing fancy, just bullets in my text editor of choice. I didn’t sit down actively in one session and do this because my brain tends to wander when I do that, but I kept adding to the list at random times when I was bored at work, or right before I went to sleep, I’d quickly type out those points on my phone and sync it up later. So by about the end of a week, I had a list of about 15 – 20 odd points that I wanted to expand on for each essay. Then I got down to writing my first draft.

I wasn’t really concerned about structure or brevity at this point. I just wanted to get my content down. I just expanded on every point that I had written down so depending on the essay topic I had a bunch of stories from work, some from volunteering, some stuff that I liked about the school and basically a few lines or more about every aspect of my profile that I wanted to cover. At the end of this exercise, I had a full two pages of text with random paragraphs and no flow whatsoever. I let that sit for a while, about 3 or 4 days and I didn’t look at it at all. In the mean time, I had some more ideas which I made sure to document lest I forget.

So after the requisite 3 to 4 days, I came back to my essay with a clearer head. The time gap in the middle helped lessen my attachment to the words I’d written, so I could easily get rid of stuff I knew wasn’t relevant or important. Looking at the essay with a fresher pair of eyes also helped me spot grammatical flaws that I might have missed otherwise. I put in the new points and I started arranging the essay structurally by moving paragraphs around in a way that made sense to the reader i.e gave it a logical flow. So I had a pretty rough second draft at this point, with the content and a decent structure.

I let it rest for a few days again before going back to it. This time I focussed on starting and ending with a bang and ensuring smooth transitions from one paragraph to the next. The last thing I wanted was to have a clunky set of unrelated stories shoved together in my essay. Up until this point, I hadn’t really bothered with the word count specifically, although I always kept it at the back of my mind. I knew I overshot the limit by about 200 words or so but that’s about it. I wouldn’t advice going over by more than 400 words because cutting it down can be a herculean task. I know because getting the word count down by 200 words was a major pain. But I did it in this iteration. So now I had the beginnings of a pretty good essay, but up until now I hadn’t taken any external opinions so I sent it off to about 7 – 8 friends and advisors for their inputs. None of my friends have MBAs so it was more of an exercise about making sure there were no dumb mistakes (repeating words, missing letters and commas) and also so to see if they could tell that the essay could have been written only by me and no one else. I think that’s a good way of judging to see whether you’ve really poured your heart and soul into the essay. Trust me, this makes a massive difference.

My friends took a few days to get back to me and they were super helpful. Some of the feedback I implemented and some I just ignored. Stick to your guns on this. At this point my essays were looking great! I went over them, polished them up, made sure the formatting was right and I saved them all ready to submit. But of course, I didn’t actually submit it right then and I spent a good 3 days reading it once every 3 hours and scouring my eyes out trying to find any errors I’d missed. Then about two days before the deadline, I hit submit and that was it!

The whole thing took about 20 odd days, I think you should probably budget at least that much or you’ll find yourself scrambling towards the end. Unless of course, you’re one of those people who writes the entire thing in one shot and that’s that. Well, this was long and rambling but I hope it helps anyone who’s confused about how to start.

Best of luck with essays!


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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM Road To My MBA: Letter of Recommendation
It has been a good week so far. After the disappointment with my GMAT score, I have started to study again, re-schedule the new test date and talked with my boss about the Recommendation Letter.

Rescheduling the GMAT

25th of November will be THE date. There´s no time to lose from now, it´s only studying and practicing.

Recommendation Letter

Asking for a Recommendation Letter is one of the most feared aspects of one´s application, specially mine, and the reason is that I´ve not talked to anyone in my work that I´m applying to MBA programs. Since I work for the same company for 4 years, my options really should be around there.

Well, I spent a long time thinking about whom I should ask to be my recommender and the reasons below helped me to make my decision towards my manager:

  • Native English speaker: although he´s Brazilian, he moved to Canada at a young age, so he has a perfect English. Besides that, he lived in NYC for a good while to work at an investment bank before joining our Firm here.

[*]MBA Abroad: believe it or not, he´s the only one in the company who earned an MBA abroad (in Canada), which is interesting since I work for a Big 4 Consulting Firm. Besides that, during our conversation, he mentioned he has done several recommendation letters before and remembered when he was the one asking for it.[/list]

[*]Technical knowledge: he has profound knowledge in corporate finance and has the CFA (which I aim to have in a couple years). I´m not sure whether this would improve the RL, but shows that he is qualified.[/list]

[*]Works with me for about 3 ½ years: a couple months after I started to work here, he was hired to be one of the managers in our area. We have worked together in several projects, so he knows a lot about my business performance.[/list]

[*]Trustworthy: this sounds obvious but I do not want my colleagues to know that I´m applying to MBA right now and I truly believe he´s someone I can trust.[/list]
All that mentioned above, our conversation went smooth, I told him the reasons I want to earn a MBA and we discussed the other aspects of the application for a while. It was a good talk, which made me feel confident of the choice of him. I will use the GrantMeAdmission “Killer Recommendation Package” to help him through the letter.

I know it is safer (and sometimes required) to have at least two recommenders, but I cannot think of anyone else at the moment.

That´s it, good luck to everyone!


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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM Scott Duncan: How I Handled the Kellogg Video Essay Questions
Is my two-week break really over?

After submitting my last two applications, I decided to take some time off before I started working on my Round 2 (and late Round 1) apps. The one thing I got done in the meantime was the Kellogg Video Essay questions.

Last Year’s Approach
If you have been following my blog, you know that I applied to Kellogg last year as well. In the one-week window I had in between submitting my application and the deadline for the video essays, I sat in front of my iPad and recorded my responses to the various questions that people were reporting back from their own video essays. I practiced…and practiced…and practiced. This was great in theory, but the questions I got for the real video essay component were NOTHING like what I had practiced! Unfortunately, this caused me to stumble through my answer more than I would have liked.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be, and why?
That was my actual essay question last year – how are you supposed to prepare for this? And this is where I think my method was fundamentally flawed last year. I spent a ton of time preparing the “right” answers for questions that I knew other applicants were being asked. The whole point of the exercise is to give off-the-cuff, spontaneous answers that show your personality and thought process. There is no “right” answer! Preparing answers for these questions puts you at odds with the process. As long as you have built a solid profile, you should have no issues answering any typical questions that might come up: Why MBA?, Why Kellogg?, What will you contribute? etc. Any other questions you cannot prepare for, and that is exactly the point. You really do have to be yourself, just like they tell you to do!

However, it is far easier to be yourself on camera and under pressure if you practice.

My mistake was expecting and practicing for a certain type of question. But, the amount of time I put in behind the camera meant that even though I was not ready for the question being asked, I was comfortable enough with being recorded to be myself on camera.

What I did differently this year
I didn’t practice until the morning the questions were due. Seriously.

I knew that practicing typical interview questions would just constrain my answers when I was being recorded. I’m very confident with the message I want to deliver to the adcom since I spent so much time working on my profile. And I put in the time last year recording my responses that I had worked out a lot of the fear of being on camera.

Maybe some of these things aren’t in place yet for you. I’m not advocating that you shouldn’t practice – you absolutely should. Fire up your webcam and start recording and reviewing your responses. It will be painful, humbling, and embarrassing. But it will pay off. You can’t practice a spontaneous answer, but for me (and I’m sure many other applicants), getting to the point where I could give a truly authentic spontaneous answer meant a lot of practice time on camera.

The Questions
At 7:00AM, I took my computer into the lab at work, closed the door, and put a Post-It note with a huge smiley face on it next to my webcam to remind me to smile.

The first practice question came up, to which I responded: “Hi, my name is Scott. I like candle-lit dinners and long walks on the beach.” Clearly, I was more relaxed this time around. I pressed “next”, and the first question appeared:

What is your special talent?

My mind started racing about what I though Kellogg would be looking for. I’m the Microsoft Excel guy at work…I’m good at manufacturing process development…And I realized – does this really add anything to my profile?

So I went with the answer I would give to a friend – I have been playing guitar for 14 years. I talked about the song that made me want to start playing. I talked about how over the years I worked hard and was eventually able to play that song. It was a genuine answer, and because of that, it came easily.

I don’t remember my second question verbatim, but it was something along the lines of:

What will your greatest contribution be at Kellogg?

This one was tougher. Fortunately, I was sitting in the research and development lab and described how what was behind me on camera gave a totally different perspective than most applicants to b-school.

After that it was over. All in, it probably only took about 15-20 minutes.

What was your experience with the video essays?

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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM My MBA Journey: The First Test
Well, this is it. The day has finally come. I’m taking my first official GMAT test later today. I’ve never been this nervous for anything. I’m usual pretty good under pressure. Whether it was a big exam or a big presentation, I usually kept my cool in undergrad.

There was one exam that I was a bit anxious about. My first exam in my undergrad program was a calculus exam. It was scheduled for 8AM on a Monday morning, of course. We had typical Michigan weather, a snowstorm. The drive in to the school was enough to make me anxious, let alone taking my first exam. The student in front of me had a cold, so for 3 hours straight all I heard was a sniffing noise. Usually those things don’t bother me. But as we all know, we’re not always ourselves in these types of situations. I wonder what I’m going to remember about today when I look back.

I have been very dedicated to my studies lately. I even studied on my birthday. Who-hoo. But, I still think I should’ve began studying a few months earlier. I am hoping this will be an exam to get my feet wet. I already scheduled another exam for the end of December.

I’ve done quite a bit of reading about what to do to prepare for the test day. They say you should relax the night before and do something fun. I heard the same advice before taking the ACT. How can you relax when you’re about to take a really big test? I want to cram in as much studying as possible. I studied quite a bit last night and even this morning. I did get a lot of sleep though, and ate a good breakfast. Hopefully that helps. I’m also lucky that there are several test facilities nearby so I won’t have a long drive. I also picked a mid-morning test time. I’m not a morning person. They do say it’s best to schedule a test as early as you feel comfortable with. The test alone is 3.5 hours and you have to be there a half hour early. Add in the commute time and half of your day is almost gone. No one wants to be taking a test during the “afternoon crash” time.

We’ll see what happens. Wish me luck!


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FROM Grant Me Admission: Back from the dead…
  I’m BACK!!! Sorry for my hiatus everyone. I just got done with 5 weeks of 5 applications. I wanted to hit on some initial thoughts…
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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM My MBA Journey: It’s Over


It’s over. My first GMAT test is officially over. I don’t really feel relieved. Well, I’m not exactly sure what to think of my GMAT score. I took the test last week for the first time after studying for about two months. I knew I wasn’t ready for the test, but with the shortened timeline I’ve given myself, I wanted to take the test twice.

Most people aren’t as open about their progress and wouldn’t even think about sharing their scores. I’m going to be honest because I think it’s part of the story I’m telling. I got a 570. Obviously I’m far from where I want my score to be, but for a first try, I’m not devastated.

Overall I performed better on the Verbal section than Quan. Not surprised there. I did especially well at IR, and I think I did pretty well on the writing section. Typically schools don’t look at those sections too closely. I’ve heard they really look at the overall score (the 400-800 number) and the individual scores for the Quan and Verbal section.

One immediate learning point I noticed is I did not manage my time well. I had to guess for quite a few questions at the end of each section. I’ve always been a slow test taker. In high school they gave us as much time as we wanted to take tests. Maybe the luxury was really an evil.

Well, time to hit the books again. My next test is in just over a month.


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FROM TopDogMBA - A Reapplicant's Tail: I want to tell you …INSEAD interview invite!
Just wanted to share that bit of good news with y’all!

INSEAD has a very quick and personal application process. I’m now waiting to hear who my interviewers will be in my home city.

Very exciting news! It makes the pain of the last few months (or years) a lot more bearable.

Good luck to anyone waiting to hear in Round 1. Lots of invites still to come I’m sure! :)


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FROM Grant Me Admission: My thoughts on the 5 Applications (HBS, Yale, Kellogg, Wharton, Tuck)
  Hello everyone, today’s post focuses on the five applications that I completed. These are solely my opinions, but hopefully they can help some R2ers and…
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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM MBA Reapplicant: MIA
I have been out of the blogging game for a bit, but I promise that won't be a regular thing.  With classes and recruiting in full swing, I have had little time for anything else.  That being said, I have had the chance to blog a couple of times for the Anderson MBA Student Voice.  Check it our here!
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FROM My MBA Journey: Post Test
Since I have about a month before my next test, I’ve decided to try a new study technique. My friend used a tutor to help with studying. I have never had a tutor for anything before. And to be honest I’m a bit unsure about this. There’s nothing wrong with getting help from a tutor. It doesn’t mean you couldn’t eventually learn it on your own. You’re utilizing a tool to help evaluate your weaknesses and quickly gain knowledge.

I’m going to try using a private tutor. It’s much more cost effective than going through a big name GMAT prep company. We’re going to meet at a local coffee shop. Thankfully I didn’t even have to request that. I’m old fashioned but in this day in age it’s always good to meet new people in public. Unfortunately, it’s a busy season right now so he cannot even meet for a couple weeks. He’s offering a free “evaluation session.” Wish me luck!


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FROM Grant Me Admission: MBA Journey Update!
  Hello everyone, short post today to update you on my applications.   We are sorry . . . So I ended up getting the “ding”…
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FROM My MBA Journey: Tutoring Sessions
I’ve had a couple tutoring sessions so far and they seem to be going well. The tutor has evaluated my strengths and weaknesses and he’s creating modules to address my weaknesses. What I’ve found most helpful is the strategies he’s teaching me. I might have known how to solve a Quan problem, but he’s teaching me quicker more efficient ways to get the correct answer.

Learning problem solving strategies seem to be a popular trend for GMAT prep. If there was no time limit, I could probably answer most of the questions correctly. The strategies come into play because on average you should only spend about 2 minutes or less on each problem. Sometimes it’s suggested to not even solve the problem, but instead “strategically guess or estimate.” I am not too keen on “guessing” unless I don’t have enough time to solve the problem. However, what I’ve learned is that if you miss problems consecutively, it hurts you a lot worse than missing the same number of problems spread evenly throughout the test. So when I guessed on the last 5 or so problems of the real exam, it killed my score. If I would have noticed I was behind on time earlier on and guessed right then to make up for time, my score wouldn’t have dropped as much. Only a couple more weeks before exam #2, so it’s back to studying tonight!


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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM Coffee Beans And Tea Leaves: Guess who’s back?
4 Apps – 2 Campus Visits – 1 Product Launch – 1 Job Offer/Promotion later, I am back. I am hoping that this gives everyone a bit of a flavor of what has kept me occupied in the last few months. I actually had to take a crash course in prioritizing and start axing things […]
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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM Pulling That MBA Trigger: Fuqua Interview Report
So I finished my interview yesterday and it went better than I thought it would! I had to fly in to a different city so I flew in on the 14th, spent the night, woke up well rested and headed for the interview which was scheduled comfortably at 10.15 a.m on the 15th. I was actually a full 25 minutes early, but it worked out great since my interviewer showed up early too! He was a young-ish guy, about mid to late 30s if I had to guess. After a few minutes of small talk, he jumped right in. Questions asked included:

  • Tell me about yourself
  • Tell me about your current role at work
  • Why MBA
  • Why Duke
  • Tell me about some constructive feedback that you received
  • Tell me about the time you showed your leadership skills (in and out of work)
  • What do you think makes a team successful
  • What is your role in a team
  • Tell me about a time you handled a conflict in a team
  • What kind of a leader are you
  • What are your career goals
  • Why do you think this is the right time for an MBA
  • Which other schools have you applied to
The interview lasted about 40-45 minutes, including the questions I asked him at the end. Initially, I didn’t think he was very responsive but as I found my groove, I saw him nodding and agreeing with stuff I said. I didn’t have any issues coming up with stories and I was very well prepared with my answers to why Duke and why an MBA. He opened up when I started asking him questions about the Duke experience and by then, we had a good rapport. He even told me to call him if I ever needed any help regarding Duke or even otherwise.

Overall, a nice friendly chat with a chilled out vibe. No curve balls and no unexpected questions. I was kind of flipping out right before because some guy (interviewing in the same city as I was) was asked a case question and grilled for 1.5 hours, so I guess I got lucky. I think I did my  best and there isn’t much I would change about the interview. I guess only time will tell now! Good luck to everyone else interviewing at Fuqua!


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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM GNPTH: Journey So far!! & All the best to my friends who got shortlisted for Interviews!!
It’s been a long time, since I posted. A busy schedule at office and the GMAT preparation, fully tied up with all my free hours.



Anyways, now I’m back after a long break. I’m just going to share my progress in GMAT preparation. Overall I’m very much track with my schedule. I feel I’m gaining confidence on Verbal part, which is my Achilles heel. I’m done with my Critical Reasoning and Almost about to complete all the rules in Sentence correction. Now and then I keep practicing the Quants so that I don’t forget the concepts I learnt almost a month ago.

I have planned to take up a mock this weekend to assess my Quant and Verbal (only CR & SC) Skills, as I’m almost done with my preparation for both and if at all I see any areas of improvement. I had planned to work on those as well after that mock test.

Nothing much to say as of now. I tried to keep this post small and simple. See you all in next post.

Oh Wait!! I almost forgot.

Congratulations and all the best for my fellow MBA applicants on submitting their applications. Especially to GrantmeAdmission(Sorry about the HBS ding, but you will sure rock the Tuck & Kellogg interview Buddy!!), Naija MBA Gal, Pulling that MBA trigger (All the best for the Fuqua interview), TopDog(All the best for the INSEAD!!).

Also thanks to my fellow MBA Applicants—Road to MBA(All the best for your GMAT on 25th November- I will be taking it up early December), TexaswannabecaliPro GMAT, MBA on MIND(All the best for your GMAT on October 31st), and Hugo.

See you all in next post J. Till then bye for now!!


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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
FROM Scott Duncan: Deferred to Round 2 At HBS
Just a quick update today.

Yesterday, HBS let all of the Round 1 applicants know whether they would be interviewing or getting dinged…I was in neither of those groups. My application was deferred and will be reviewed again after Round 2 closes.

So I didn’t get rejected, but I didn’t get an interview. Not great news, but definitely not bad news.

Overall, I’m taking this as a positive! There’s nothing I can do other than finish up my UCLA app, prepare for my Kellogg off-campus interview next week, and start thinking about those Round 2 applications.

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Re: Directory of MBA Applicant Blogs [#permalink]
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