Someone correct me if I am wrong, but from what I understand, applying early in the round (like you did) or applying very late, hours before the deadline in the same round (like I did) should have no bearing on the speed of your application getting processed nor getting an interview invite since they don't do rolling admission.

After applying, I received an email with subject line, "Your application to graduate study at the USC Marshall School of Business has been received." In there it says, "We will send you another e-mail within the next few days confirming your 10-digit USC ID number. This number should be included in all future correspondence. [...]" So I guess most, if not all, R2ers should receive IDs soon. Then we wait.

Got my code tonight.

Anyone else think that essay question was awful and super contrived?

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Did any international applicants send Confidential Statement for Financing Studies after just submitting for R2?

The submit confirmation mail said I have to send it, but it's not listed in the requirement list.

@mckc107

I had the same query . I wrote to them and got a reply that financial documents play no role in the admission.
However it is better if you can submit it as this will help speeden up the I20 in case of an admit

I submitted mine on 9th Jan. Hoping for the best. I felt the Marshall essay was the most difficult and vague of the season.

That goes without question, vague, multifaceted, short word limit, open ended terms like "value" which can take the form of many things.

If you look at last years essays, it appears they took all of last year's essays and shoved it into one question this year.

Oh yeah and last year they had 2250 words to explain what we had to address in 750.

Looks as if their Network works like a cult group.
Hope there are some surprises there

It really came off as contrived and arrogant. If I hadn't had the opportunity to sit down with a friend of mine who just graduated from there, I really would have been put off by their essay question and probably wouldn't have applied. I value modesty. Their question was anything but.

I got the same kind of impression when I contacted their admissions office to ask a few questions about the requirements - it was as if they felt above me and didn't feel like they owed me an answer.

It is true though, the Trojan network is a beast unto itself. But I don't know if I want to go to a school that thinks that highly of itself.

Same experience here . I had to contact a student ambassador to help me jot down that essay.
But that guy was really helpful and thanks to him , i could submit.

The school is great . no questions there. They had some problems a year back with their career services head resigning or something.
But i think they are back on track.

Anyone get an interview invite yet for R2 (1/10/14 deadline)?

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No, not yet...

So I have no idea how, but I found it strange that during my USC application I never saw the MBA essays listed anywhere. I think I pulled them off a website and inadvertently wrote all of last year's essays.

I guess Marshall is no longer my safety now Interviewed with UCLA and have Ross in February

Yeah their essay system was strange. They weren't listed on the site, instead you had to open a PDF.. Which was not properly formatted mind you, so if you weren't technically savvy....

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Any R2 applicants with interview invites yet? I'm anxious to hear, let us know when you get one! Fight on!

nothing yet.
Fingers crossed

Same here; don't know what's going on with the Adcom office; I wrote an email to update and clarify a very important issue on my undergraduate exchange transcript, and it's been 8 days; nobody bothers to write back, which is quite different to what I had experienced with other schools

and USC's online recommendation sucks.... my recommender found out last minute that the uploaded attachment was limited to 600K, while his letter in PDF version was 1000K and he didn't have the professional software to size down a PDF......He wrote to Marshall right away to report the technical problem and request they add the letter into his recommendation, but I doubt if Marshall has written back yet.......

@amydl
600kB ; which world are they living in ?
It is ok to trouble the applicants with all these nuances , but not the recommenders.

Anxious long wait for the interview calls.. !! Exciting nevertheless .. Anyone called admissions office ?

Right, that's the point; it's the same file that my recommender uploaded into other schools' systems so he never expected such a file size limit. I mean, seriously, bigger files will bankrupt the system or what? there're other schools require students to upload video essays and stuff and haven't run into any technical problem.

Anyway, what annoys me is that my recommender hasn't heard back from the Admissions, so he doesn't know if they will treat his recommendation letter as part of his recommendation, or they're just ignoring him....