Round 1 vs. Round 2 Applications

Apply to your reach schools in R1 so that you can still get in your apps to your safety school in R2, if you are admitted to a reach school in R1, you won't have to bother applying anywhere in R2..

If you are going to apply to a range of schools then I suggest applying to one reach and one safety in the 1st round. If you get into your reach school and you definitely want to go, then you're done by Dec/Jan and can move on with your life. If you do not get into your reach school but get into your safety you have an admit in your back pocket which eases the stress of R2. If you don't get into the reach or the safety then you can see that there is something wrong with your application strategy and you can correct it for R2.

I like that approach - seems to make sense!

Getting early acceptances (whether safety or not) is never a problem,....the amount of stress involved w/ waiting can be unbelievable. Honestly though,...i think strategizing exactly which schools to apply to in which rounds is a little overrated. As long as you put together the absolute best app possible, in whichever rounds, you should be good.

Valid point! If I can get my best product out by R1 then I might as well do that I guess.

I would like to point out two things to consider:

- Applying to a "safety" school in round 1 might leave you with a deposit that you have to pay while you wait for your other decisions to come back. If you wait until round 2, you will still have a good chance of getting into your safety school anyways.

- Your application will most likely improve as you go through the process of revising & thinking through your essays for each school, not to mention adding in any accomplishments/updates in between. Your first application will NOT be your strongest, so don't send it to your reach school. Apply to a solid fit first, and save your reach for towards the end. You'll have much better clarity in your writing by then.

Agreed. Your essays get better as you go along. I will say that if you are planning to apply across rounds then be prepared to pay a deposit that you might forfeit. My application strategy wasn't based on the reach/target/safety method, but I did have to pay a R1 deposit before knowing the status of my R2 apps. MOST (not all) application deposits are between $1,000-$3,000. Considering that the MBA will cost $100K+ forfeiting a deposit is a negligible cost.

I'd still avoid having to pay any deposit until it is totally unavoidable. After anyone is admitted the ball is in the admitted students court. They run the show at least up to a reasonable point. It's unlike waitlisted students where the adcom has the ball in its court and it runs the show. Ask the admissions committee if they'll delay a week or so. Most will likely be flexible with you to a point. If that fails, tell them that you don't have the cash to dish out immediately. These deposits are generally not cheap, and they will probably let you pay a portion of the deposit. That way you don't lose all your money.

$1K may not be that large compared to the total cost of tuition, but it's still easily one month's rent or two car payments and insurance combined. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I can't afford to just pay 1 to 3 K like the money came from trees.

Yeah $1K def ain't cheap. I recently asked a school for an extension and I received it: 3 additional days. Schools are very serious about shoring up their classes as soon as possible. The problem with R1 deposit dates and R2 decision dates is that they are often weeks, not days apart. I had to deposit for Kellogg on March 6 but would not hear back from Booth until the 20th (at the earliest) and Wharton until the 30th. There's no way I could have held off depositing at Kellogg for that long. But I knew the timelines going in and made a conscious choice to not only to split my applications into 2 rounds but also apply in R2 after knowing I'd been admitted to Kellogg in R1. It was definitely the right decision for me, but it may not be the right move for everyone.

Honestly, I recommend keeping all of the apps to one round if possible. If you're doing a large number of applications or if you strike out in R1 then it makes sense to go for R2 as well. However, you can still work on your applications in reverse order of preference if you start early. Schools release their essay questions in the summer. If you start on the release date and can avoid endless hours of procrastination you can get a feel for writing essays as you work through each schools apps. It's not really the round that makes your writing better, it's the experience of having done it multiple times.

Thats a great piece of advice cheetarah1980

On a side note : Your blog posts make a great read

Read your blog as well. Congratulations on getting a fellowship to Booth!

Thanks novanative @ Zynga. I'm really happy and grateful. I was not expecting this at all. My decision became quite clear and that's the biggest relief of all.

Yeah that's amazing - congrats!

And thanks for your advice, I think I'm going to stick to applying to a reach and a safety school in each round. But then again we'll see how it goes once applications come out. Is it true that most school don't make substantial changes to their applications Y/Y?

From your blog its pretty evident that you have a flair for writing and I bet that would have reflected well in your essays.
I had read somewhere else that in
Round 1 : apply to schools where you are guaranteed(if there is such a thing) admission/ or at least have a very good chance of getting in.
Round 2: apply to your dream schools
Round 3: If all the above fails

So would you rather send all your apps. in round 1 instead ?

I really think it depends on the person, how many schools they're applying to, and how far in advance they began preparing. I know people who have been very successful applying to all of their schools in R1. Others have done what I did and split their apps between rounds for whatever reason. Some people apply to all of their schools in R2 (which can be a lot of pressure and definitely ratchets up the levels of crazy).

Like I said before, people who apply in R1 and R2 do so for a myriad of reasons. For example, I split my applications simply to cut down on the work load for me and my recommenders. Another person may do it because they were completely unsuccessful in R1 and regrouped to give another batch of schools a go in R2. Someone else will have a strategy of applying to a target, safety, and reach school in R1 and then 1 safety and their remaining reach schools in R2 (depending on how R1 goes). There really is no one size fits all strategy. Each individual has to determine their own risk tolerance. I can't tell you not to apply to your dream school in R1. Many people do and get in and are done. Remember R2 is the longest round in terms of submission deadline to decision day. Waiting is miserable and if you can get the misery in a shortened time period and over sooner then why not do so? But only apply to all of your schools in R1 if you're ready. If not, then either wait to do them all in R2 or split them up between the rounds using whatever strategy makes you comfortable. Hope this helps.

Michigan's R1 deposit deadline this year is on 5/1, while Cornell's was on 1/31. Therefore, if you are planning on applying to one of your target/safety schools in R1, I would recommend that you do Ross first. This way, you can wait for the MIT, Northwestern or LBS (whichever of the three you do in R2) R2 decision dates before you are forced to decide on whether or not to pay for any deposits.

I didn't know that! That's great information actually thanks! I tried looking for the deposit deadline online where did you find it?