vikram4689 wrote:
I see many successful re-applicants. I am dinged w/o interview and i am going to apply next year. Some info: my friend at kellogg told me that you have good chances of scholarship but i was hit right on face.
1. Any tips on what should i do ?
2. how did you guys make full benefit of feedback opportunity that darden gives to denied applicants. I mean can i clearly ask adcom "why i was not admitted". i don't want to be arrogant but i want some constructive feedback because every other b-school student i tell my story feels i have good chances and that is something that makes me more perplexed in identifying the area i need work on
As you can see in my profile, I was dinged last year but came back as a reapplicant, and was admitted in R1. I think the feedback that Darden offers is incredibly valuable - I was just stunned that I didn't even get an interview from Darden last year, and this was the perfect opportunity to hear straight from those that matter. So for everyone who was dinged, sign up for the feedback! It really helped me.
I made sure to sign up for one of the earliest timeslots so whoever I was going to be speaking to was fresh, since I'm sure there were tons of requests for feedback. The lady I spoke to last year said that she was a member of the adcom, but was not one of the initial readers of my app - all she had during my call was the notes in my file. It sounded like this was on purpose. She started off by telling me that my "GMAT was slightly below the average this year of 715 and our GPA of 3.5" (I was so shocked I wrote this down which is why I still remember). First, it sounded mechanical, like every feedback begins with a rundown of GMAT and GPA, and you shouldn't read too much into it. Second, and this may give waitlisters some hope, there must be a fair amount of "summer melt" going on, since the actual numbers turned out to be lower than this. We discussed a few more points related to my app (lack of showing leadership and impact), but an important takeaway for this board is that she strongly encouraged me to re-apply to Darden in R1. Admittedly I had to read between the lines a bit, but it sounded like applying in R1 is the best way that reapplicants can show interest in Darden, and that waiting until R2 for your reapp is not a good idea.
Hope this helps someone out there for next year!