"Dream" schools in R1? "Safety" schools in R2? Really?

kd-

We should chat more offline about this.

I'm intersted in your thoughts on Cornell, since it has made the cut on my shortlist. I honestly don't know much about the campus or Ithaca, but the IM program looks really sweet.

Also, I actually had the opposite impression when I visited Stern. The building, I mean the campus is nice, but at least in my case, I'm looking for something a little more collegial. I don't want to feel like I'm at work (without a paycheck) for 2 years. My opinion may be slightly skewed because I had spent the previous day and a half at Columbia. Now for me, that was love at first sight.

-ryguy

just adding my 2 cents, which I've posted in other places before.

I would strongly recommend applying to 1-2 "safe" (or safer) schools in R1, just so you can be relaxed after R1 decisions come out and not have to panic with zero admits by R2 deadlines.

With that said, You can try what I did, which is work on the R1 application with the LATEST deadline FIRST. This way, you polish your essays enough for submittal (at least you think so at that point ), then apply the knowledge you learned from that first app onto the 2nd app (which could be a safety school or one that has the 2nd latest deadline). Finally, save your dream school apps for the 3rd or 4th app to do. If you do it too late (i.e. 5th app or later), you run the risk of completely burning out and not delivering a good product.

Then, after the dream schools are out the door, you come back and re-polish the 1st and 2nd apps before you submit. You'd be amazed at how "crappy" the application you thought was done looks now.

Just for reference, last year, R1 deadlines for Stanford, Haas, and UCLA were 10/22, 11/5, 10/24. UCLA, while not a "safety" was probably my safest bet. Haas was the latest. So I did Haas first, then did UCLA, then Stanford. Went back and polished UCLA very quickly before submitting the first two. Had another 2 weeks to work on Haas before I submitted it too.

Hope this is useful for some people...

icon, sure - I'm not really considering any "safeties" in the truest sense of the word. As I said, I'm only considering the top 14 schools because I don't feel the investment in an MBA pays off otherwise, but I consider Cornell, Duke and Darden to be "well within reach." Obviously, each of these schools is competitive and you see how kidderek even with his pretty strong profile (on paper, at least) wasn't able to go to Cornell.

I would be happy to go to any of these schools without any reservations. I will say that I have looked at Georgetown as more of a "sure bet," but considering I'll be 27 later this year I probably have it in me to try again in 1-2 years assuming I don't get in anywhere this year.

ryguy, have you spent time talking to Stern students and alumni? I might give Columbia the edge in some academic departments and the breadth of their course offerings, but I'd be very skeptical if someone told me Columbia had a better and more well-knit student community. The "downtown, down-to-earth" thing Stern is so proud of isn't really just a cheesy slogan - all the Stern folks I've met so far have been awesome!

And kryzak, that really is excellent advice that's got me thinking.

Excellent piece of advice about prioritization of apps in R1, kryzak. +1

Not even an interview invite for me!!! That part I was quite shocked about.

Anyway, I'm not 100% sure, but I read somewhere that Georgetown, albeit w/weaker competition, has a low acceptance rate.

Looks like 35% acceptance rate.
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In the same ballpark as Kelly, Fuqua, Texas, and UNC. However I suspect, as an Elite, Duke's app volume last year and this year will be up more than the other 3 schools.

Interesting. I visited Cornell in March and was extremely impressed with the school. My student hosts both seemed very down-to-earth and level headed. Definitely no ego. I guess it just goes to show that even a school visit should be taken with a grain of salt. While visits are extremely helpful, they still are only a one-day picture of the school.

The problem of leaving top choice schools for R2 and doing "safety" schools in R1 is that if you get accepted in the schools in R1 you might have to deposit to ensure your seat until the results for R2 come out. I totally agree with Kry. I did the same thing last year.

I visited Rice earlier this year for an information session and was impressed with the school. I had a chance to speak with the career services director at a reception afterwards and I specifically asked her about IB and MC placements from Rice and she said it is a bit of work to get the top companies on campus. She said the McKinsey's, Bain's, and Goldman's don't recruit on campus because there just aren't enough top students in the program to attract their interest (read 700+ GMATs). Not that there aren't any, just not a significant enough number to warrant recruiting on campus. She said that she does have students that end up at the top IB and MC companies, but they have to really work hard to get an interview. On the other hand, for Simmons and other top Oil and Gas IB's in Houston, it is much easier to get in the door as they do recruit locally, i.e. Rice, Texas.

Yes, I certainly think there's the possibility of you losing your deposit if you end up applying and getting admitted to your "safeties" via R1. But if the next admissions cycle shapes up to be as competitive as everyone is predicting, then I think the peace of mind that comes with having gotten in somewhere while R2 is still going on is, to me at least, worth a couple of thousand dollars.

The deposits for MOST schools are not due until the R2 results come out. I got into both my R1 schools and did not have to pay my deposits till about May. So you can wait for your R2 decisions and DO NOT have to give up a few $'s.

Dosa - you are right. However, there's a handful of schools that keep R1 decisions pending until March, especially if you get interview invites. Some R1 deposit dates are around mid-March. So that might potentially be an issue, for my school choices at least. Consider also for instance that Cornell's R1 deposit deadline is early January.

It all comes down to one's school choice, really.

in support of dosa, many schools also allow you to delay your deposit until the decision (or even ADMIT WEEKEND) dates of other schools they consider their peer school.

I know Haas was willing to delay the R1 deposit deadline until after Kellogg/Tuck and maybe even MIT's admit weekends. Kellogg wasn't willing to delay their R1 deadline, but it was after when most of the March decision dates for R2 were released. So no worries there.

I know some schools are stricter, so you really have to go on a case-by-case basis. Maybe find out and apply accordingly.

Wow, really? I wonder why they would do that though - can't help their yield.

Thanks Kry you covered my next point

I do agree with your thought process solaris1- in the grander scheme of things, a $1k-2k in lost deposit is not much. I know cornell usually has a pretty short window between decision and enrollment deadlines and some schools such as Tuck have a skewed cycle as they have more rounds.

solaris, because Haas is a cool school.

But seriously, the admissions director was VERY understanding and wanted every student to make the most informed choice. Haas doesn't want people to go there and end up hating it or going "what if I went to school X instead?"

I believe there were about 12 of us deciding between Haas and Kellogg, 4-5 between Haas and TUck, and a few here and there for MIT and Chicago. All of us got extensions of 1-3 weeks, depending on the school.