The Motivation Thread! Humans in HSW!

This is definitely a funny process...day to day my mood changes violently. Some days I feel like I can hang with top B-school crowd (I'm smart! I've done some awesome-ish things!) and other days I feel like the adcoms are going to LAUGH at my application...and possibly call me to personally laugh at me, so they know I hear it.

Who knows what will happen, but this has definitely been a great learning experience and a good opportunity to do some self-reflection. I'm just going to give it my best and hope the adcoms see a fit.

And now if you'll excuse me, I need to go work on my cancer cure...

I consider myself an average person and am honestly still shocked I got in. I got into Harvard's 2+2 program. 3.76 GPA, 710 GMAT. Not overly involved in school but helped start an engineering club and have been elected president at my fraternity and that engineering club.

I did have a very clear career goal/passion and everything I have done in college/internships back up this passion. Basically, I have a clear story.

The application process sucks. Everytime you feel demotivated, think about the reward. You have already put all this work into the application, why would you half-ass it now?

mrsjonstewart: I know i can so relate! i thikn about this procsss almost 24hours. sometimes i think what i wrote in my essays is TOO authentic. like for my failure hbs essay, i sometimes think they might laugh out loud :S ugh

bryk: congrats happy for you!!! :D hope i meet you in HBS sometime

haha i think everyone except maybe the top .00001% with practically guaranteed admission goes through self-doubt. I have an ivy league degree, 750+ GMAT, a 3.8+ GPA, worked in private equity for 2 years. im applying to HSW this year and expect to get dinged . you're always competing with better and brighter individuals. i graduated from ivy league but not from harvard/princeton/yale. I worked in PE but not at blackstone/kkr/tpg. I have a high GPA but wasnt summa cum laude. I have very limited extracurricular activities and I'm not a board member, nor have I started any businesses...etc.

Point is no matter how accomplished you are, the process make will make you insecure...

i slightly disagree with the above that pe + high gmat + high gpa is a lock. First of all, a lot of people with pe experience do have ib experience since it's often required, and those kids usually have a high gpa and are from an ivy (since those are the traditional paths). It's not as impressive OMG this person has IB AND PE AND IVY because those often come as a package deal (most would argue its more impressive with PE with non-IVY or non-IBD background). So those candidates with good gmat + good experience STILL need to differentiate themselves and often might have more difficult time showing how they are unique compared to someone who started his own business or worked in a niche industry...

Well you got into 3 of the 4 great schools that you applied to AND got a full ride at Booth. I wouldn't quite call that 'normal'. 'Supernormal' would fit better!