Calling all Cornell 2008 applicants

"Hint: Compose in a Word processor, then paste into the browser"

I loved this hint part in the application.

R they serious or do they think we are pretty stupid not to do this.

lol

The instructions are useless for people dumb enough to need these instructions anyway - cos there is no instruction to "copy" the text before "pasting"

mNeo, lol. That was awesome!

That was awesome! <-- It is high time some of my essay reviewers give me that kind of a feedback

I was expecting the Cornell essays to be more meaty - not that I will complain about writing 400 words, but thats my problem.

2 essays (400 words each) to show how good/bad I am. Isnt that pushing things a bit.
I know that ad-com pple dont want to read any more essays.. or has this whole essay writing process pushed me over the edge where I am asking to write more stuff!!!!
Time to see a shrink

I am so with you on that. Getting it down to 800 words was brutal. Write your story, and then set it aside for a bit. Then go through it and see what is truly necessary. Wait and repeat. And at the end, wordsmith the hell out of it to get a 10 word sentence down to 8 or whatever.

Has anyone tried to add recommenders yet? I added the first fine, then went to "Add New" and it had all my first recommenders details filled in, and I couldn't change it....

Am I just stupid or am I missing something?

Nevermind, I got it, just took a minute to figure out. I hate confusing web interfaces.

Is Cornell considered a 'tough curriculum' school ala Darden, MIT?

So question 2 doesn't ask you why you want to pursue an MBA at this point and why now is the right time for an MBA.


And you also read essay tips that say most applicants don't answer the question being asked....

so should we explain why an MBA right now?

Can you post the exact question? I took a quick look at Cornell's site, and it looks like you need to sign in to see the questions now.

What career do you plan to pursue upon completion of an MBA degree and why? How will the Johnson School help you achieve this goal? (Required; 400 word limit) : *

if you highlight key points of your career and explain the "why" of the MBA part, a good essay should have already answered the "why now" part too. It should be a coherent and clear path of you trying A, then B, then C, and thus you decided that you needed an MBA. Since you did A, B, and C, you only need 1 or 2 sentences to say why "it's time" to get an MBA...

Hope that's clear. Paul Bodine's book has a section for "Why Now" that lists 5-10 of the common reasons for "why now" that fits most people's profiles.

Agreed. To rephrase Kryzak:

What have you done so far? What made you decide you needed an MBA? Why now? What are you going to do with the MBA? And why our MBA?

I think there are two tricky parts to this question: make sure the "career progression" piece is short, especially when your word limits are so limited. And "why Cornell" needs to be tailored to you. It's about you and the school, not just about the school.

I attended the Forte Forum event in Chicago last night. I was really excited to talk with the person about Cornell and to see what information they had. I have to say, right away, I was slightly disappointed in them. You know at these events every school has a tablecloth with their logo and school name on it? That way you can see the school from across the room and go over to them. Cornell was the only school with no tablecloth. Did they forget it? Did it get lost? Did they just want to look ghetto and have no one come to their table since you didn't know it was them until you went over there? I have to say, as much as I would like to go to Cornell and I still think they're program is great, this one thing was a disappointment to me.

You are judging by the lack of table cloth??? Oh boy, then I want to see what your reaction will be when you visit UCLA and hear their information session!!!!!

Come on..Cornell does not bring its own table cloth to these presentations. Maybe the presenters simply ran out of space and did not have extra table cloths.. Cornell was the unfortunate one.