All In - One Out

Question

Well, I'm done:

UNC - check
Cornell - check
Duke - check
Yale - check

Stanford - ditched out. This hurts my heart, but work fell apart on me this week and I couldn't get it together. I decided that a hurried attempt wasn't worth my time, stress, and money. I feel like I let myself down a bit, so I may throw in for Rd 3, just for sh!ts and giggles. If I get rejected, well, there you go. I tried. If I get in, that'll be better than Immaculate Conception. 

Anyone else have any last-minute bail-outs?

lepium · Answer

Yep. I bailed on Chicago GSB. For 3 reasons: 

1) I was not particularly crazy about the school, I was only applying to somehow "increase" my chances (by serially applying to lots of schools).

2) I could not pull it off. I had some crappy essays and could not make them work.

3) If I get dinged all over, I'll have a couple of fresh Ultra-elites for next year (Wharton and Chicago).

Cheers. L.

PS: g'luck with Stanford R3.

pelihu · Answer

I almost dropped Stanford as well. Their application is really involved (and expensive) and I'm not convinced I have any shot of getting in. I finished up because my recommenders (3 of them for Stanford) all put in big efforts to get my recs done, and if by some miracle I get admitted, I'll be able to hang out with my dogs more than with any other school.

It feels good to be done with this week. All I have is Berkeley which is due on 1/31.

aaudetat · Answer

R3 for Berkeley? Does that feel pretty tough, or are you up for it? R3 seems like such an evil mess, though I guess Haas does have 4 rounds. Can R3 applicants get scholarships?

neo276 · Answer

I decided to drop Stanford last week when I realized that I still had a lot of work to do for my Sloan app and all the effort for Stanford most probably would have been wasted anyway.

R2
Wharton : Submitted
Sloan : Submitted

I am evaluating Haas for R3. I would really like to know more about its international brand value - especially in Europe and East Asia. Does anyone have any insights on it?

jd04 · Answer

I am a pathetic Round 2 loser.

Of the schools I had recommendations sent:
In:
Wharton
Tuck
Duke
Michigan
Yale

Not in:
Chicago (ran out of time)
Berkeley (couldn't go visit, so couldn't answer one of the questions)
Columbia (rolling admissions, so applying after November/December seemed deadly)
Darden (visited campus: this place SUCKS)

Not sure about anyone else, but I felt like a pathetic loser throughout the WHOLE process, and I am elated to now have my life back. First, (after starting on nine apps on Oct 1) I didn't come close to making and first round deadlines. This really bothered me. I felt like a total a-hole. My recommenders went to the trouble to slave day-and-night over my letters to make the mid-Oct deadlines and I sit at Starbucks for two weeks spinning my wheels on my essays. Ok, so now round 2. I spent hours and hours and hours on my essays from Nov 1 to Jan 9. I sacrificed most of my social life, took vacation from work and stopped going to the gym, all so I could finish FIVE of the NINE apps? Today, as the Chicago deadline passed, I felt at peace, but still quite crappy. What if. What if I had applied to all the schools I really wanted in the first round? (excluding Darden, but including UCLA and Stern to the ones above) I would already know where/if I am going next fall. I beat myself up constantly for the hours spent spinning my wheels, making lists of Super Bowl MVPs from the last twenty-five years, looking at Facebook, or playing Solitaire. I feel that if I were really motivated, if I were truly a rock star, IF I REALLY DID BELONG at Wharton or Chicago, I WOULD HAVE been able to write sweet essays in time for round one. I am left to conclude that I am, in fact, a pathetic loser.

All will not be lost, and all of my hours and $$ spent at Starbucks perhaps won't be in vain (well, not the $$ anyway: I own SBUX through the R1000 ETF). If I get into just one of these five, all will be vindicated.

Hopefully all of you had an easier time with your applications than I did, and I wish you all the best of luck on your decisions.

-jd04

eazyb81 · Answer

I was planning on submitting UNC and/or McCombs, but decided to ditch both due to lack of time. My apps would have been subpar without proper preparation time and probably not worth the effort.

pelihu · Answer

Actually, I believe that R3 at Berkeley is more like R2 at most schools. Off the top of my head, I believe that this is the final round that you can qualify for scholarships, and it is the final round for international applicants. I think R4 is the round to avoid.

That said, Haas is a tough nut to crack. Their admit rate is lower than all schools but H/W/S & Columbia and their class size is tiny. They also made positive moves in the recent rankings. The killer for me is that their average GPA and GPA range are all really high when compared to other schools, and that is the weakest part of my application. I get the feeling that they are among the least likely to balance out a low GPA with a high GMAT. Schools like Michigan and Duke seem much more likely.

But, they are right up the road and I wouldn't have to move if I went there. I could just hop on the BART. I'll give it my best shot.

naturallight · Answer

jd04, you're in Tacoma? Me too! How about this snow! There must be 4 inches on the ground. 

also, I can't believe you wanted to apply to 9 schools. that's a lot. I've submitted four (Chicago, Sloan, Haas, UW) and almost done with one more (Stern) and it's nearly killed me. I've hardly done anything else since August.

pelihu, yeah, I'm pretty discouraged on Haas as well. Guess I didn't realize how competitive it is, but it makes sense since it's the 2nd best school on the whole west coast and I'm sure that it's everyone's backup for Stanford. I received interview invites from my other R1 schools right away, but I've heard nothing from Haas.

fluff · Answer

i am an international student from malaysia. I agree that Haas is a tough nut to crack. i submitted for R1 but have not got any interview invite.

Interviewed for Ross, scheduling interview for Mc Combs. Admitted to UW, Seattle.

rhyme · Answer

Congrats to everyone who has completed their application process. If you thought the essays were bad, wait till you get near the decision dates. You will all sympathize with my pants pooping in due course.

luminos24 · Answer

well....i initially aimed to apply to four schools (Haas, Tepper, McCombs and Sloan) in R1...barely managed to complete one (Sloan)...

some how managed R2 for rest of the apps but the result was that Stanford and Harvard got pushed to R3...now i do not even feel like completing those gruelling applications....i feel like a burn out...no strength left to write...What matters most to me?!...i'll tell you what...what matters most to me at the moment is to complete the @#$%$ applications and get done with it!

I may not even apply to HBS and Stanford but my recommenders have already sent their recommendations....what am i going to tell them?! that they slogged for nothing and am not even applying?!

tough decision! ...maybe i'll take a poll :wink:

lhmcjen · Answer

JD04 - What did you hate so much about Darden?

mylady · Answer

Hey guys, I admire you all and anyone who went successfully through multiple schools really! Congrats! I have applied to MIT and Stanford only. (no correlation to my profile really, just a pie in the sky dream). And I think my second preference for MIT was so obvious in my application

. Even with two schools, I was getting confused about "biggest achievement", "challenging siltation", "compromise".....whatever other sh#$. I can't even begin to imagine what would have happened if there was more than one school in the fray. And now I feel I'll be too old for any Top-10 school by next year....so at this point it all feels like a lost cause. 3 most stressful months in a long long time.. Good luck to you all...

dukes · Answer

I did eight R2 apps. Looking back it seems sort of insane. But I started in September and kept plugging away. I probably could have sent in a couple R1s, but liked the idea of hearing back from all schools at once and figured that each app would benefit from me waiting to submit them together. For example, I might have finished app A and B but then written something for app F that really would have gone well with an early app. All in all, I feel pretty good about how they went. I'm not 100% convinced that I nailed the "why school X" and "why MBA now" questions. I definitely addressed it, but it always felt a little contrived. I guess itâ€™s a function of that fact that there's not a single career for which an MBA complete necessity. Now the waiting starts. Every single school I'm applying to has March decisions dates.

cmns18 · Answer

I managed 4 applications for R2.
Michigan
Northwestern
Chicago
UNC

I was going to do one for Notre Dame as a fall back but decided that if I don't make it into UNC as my fallback I'll apply to Notre Dame's R3. Earlier on in the process I was going to apply to Duke but because of time/money constraints on a non-profit paycheck decided if I couldn't visit the school and interview, I probably wasn't going to make it in. Plus the office staff sort of pissed me off.

I added Chicago late in the process, which I hadn't orginally considered because I'm looking into strategy-sustainable enterprise. Chicago has little to no sustainable enterprise classes but I decided to play off the "Challenge Everything" mantra of the school and talked about how I wanted to not only be challenged by those who disagreed by my views but I also wanted to challenge my classmates and the administration to consider sustainability more. Is this a bit dumb, probably but perhaps it will work.

jd04 · Answer

Let me clarify:
It sucked  relative  to Fuqua, Tuck and Wharton (the other schools I visited)

At Darden, everyone seemed less cool, less smart, less motivated, and they looked like they were having A LOT less fun. I could have just come on a bad day, but it was enough to convince me I didn't want to spend the time/$ on the app, b/c I knew if it was my only admit, I wouldn't go.

On the other hand, I happen to know two recent Darden alums, and they are totally awesome, bright and motivated people.

I might be giving Darden an unfair assessment (based on only one trip), but it  is  a data point. It might also reflect how much I liked the other three schools. Not sure...you decide.

Additionally, while the people were really nice, I am not a big fan of Charlottesville or "hick-ville USA" in general. I know what you're thinking: "Then JD04, why Duke?" The research triangle has a totally different feel than the rest of the south, IMO.

rhyme · Answer

I dropped Darden after speaking with an IBer from a top firm who said "Yea, I figured I'd be practicing my golf game... as it turns out, it was worse than IB." 

Having been in IB, this was all I needed to hear.

eazyb81 · Answer

Virginia = Hickville USA? Wow.

aaudetat · Answer

I spent a week in the area of Charlottesville last spring.

The pedestrian area is really nice - cool music scene, fun restuarants and stores. Plenty of non-hick types around. A few dirty hippies. A surprising shortage of obvious lesbians - I am used to that in Ithaca.

But the campus was another story. I was completely grossed out by the fake-blonde-fake-tan sorority-girl types all wearing one of three pastel strapless dresses. Their frat-boy boyfriends were all wearing one of three pastel button-down shirts. Gross. I didn't even consider Darden.

All In - One Out

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards