GMAT Club Legend
Joined: 05 Apr 2006
Affiliations: HHonors Diamond, BGS Honor Society
Posts: 5916
Schools: Chicago (Booth) - Class of 2009
WE:Business Development (Consumer Products)
Re: Calling Chicago GSB 2008 applicants
[#permalink]
16 Jul 2008, 17:35
As for things you can do to strengthen your app between now and then, I think there are absolutely ways you could....
Spend some time thinking about what you think is weak. Odds are, you probably know what fell short. People are fairly good judges of themselves in this respect. Ideally identify two things that you think were either lacking entirely or otherwise weak - and these have to be things in your profile that are about you -- not things like "essays" and "recommendations". If you think those were problematic, then just make your list 4 items long, but still come up with 2 that you think are important to your personal and professional development. Things that directly address the perceived weakness. Whatever they are, it doesnt matter. Now that you've identified two things, initiate change. You aren't going to move mountains in the next three months, but you can hike a hill. For the sake of argument, lets say that you identified lack of leadership in extracurricular activities and a lack of sufficient exposure to a team oriented environment. Both of these can be remedied. For instance, you might reach out to whoever IS the leader of a particular extracurricular you are involved in, and you might chose to help them with the next big event. Or, if they are really small, just ask them what they need help with. Often, it might be interesting - I knew one guy who ended up helping a local dog rescue write up a business plan. That's at least three birds, one stone: community service, relevant to business school, and probably interesting too. For the other you might approach your boss at work and ask to take on a particular task that's been sitting in a box for a year (there are always things like this), recruit a couple of others from the firm to help and talk about that. Or if you feel you needed something more touchy feely, maybe you can start a bike to work club and maybe even get some executive support for it. That might sound tricky to figure out or to start - but its really just a question of going to a director in HR and asking how you can get started. Odds are, they'll be happy to help. Stuff like that is good PR (if you have a PR department, go to them). If you work in a small firm, just ask the boss if he'd support it.
Point is, you aren't going to become the new Director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in three months, nor are you going to be named Team Lead of the Year and promoted to Senior Teamwork Guru... but you'll have done something - and *that* will let you talk about how you've plotted a path for personal growth that will continue for the year and has not only further prepared you for an MBA education, but also made you want to participate in X and Y or Z (the all important tie in the school). (In the above fictional case, you might mention how you want to further refine your team skills at the GSB and hope to be a LEAD Facilitator your second year, or if you do cycling crap then maybe you want to start a "bike to the GSB" club or whatever). Finally, as you might imagine, talking about how you've identified a weakness or area for growth and are pursuing it is pretty good stuff for an application.
Don't think about things in terms of "what can I really fix between now and then?" think of things in terms of "What can I start to change that will demonstrate introspection, understanding of my weaknesses and a concerted genuine and meaningful commitment towards my personal and professional development?"
If you reframe your challenges with that in mind, I'm sure you can find a lot of things to talk about.