Calling Chicago GSB 2008 applicants

Hey '08 Chicago applicants. I've recently decided to add Chicago to my list of 5 schools and there is only one thing that scares me about the decision. Not the school, community, career opps or anything like that. Nope. I'm frieked out by one thing.... PowerPoint. How tough was it to do the PowerPoint slides last year? What kind of ideas did you guys come up with? I've thought of something but I feel like its pretty lame. Does it need to be creative or can you basically just showcase your interests/passions/accomplishments?

Thanks for your input.

P.S. I think I'm also going to post this as its own topic

I saw a lot of powerpoints last year. Some were lame and I thought just tried way to hard. Some looked like crap graphically but did a good job of telling a story. One or two actually blew me away. Some people have really good graphics skills.

I talked to and adcom about them briefly a quarter or two ago. The advice he mentioned was:

1) Don't be inappropriate. He didn't elaborate, but he said a surprising number contained inappropriate content. I assume this is people trying too hard to show themselves being social and maybe pushing the envelope with photos that are probably a little too "facebookesque"

2) Don't say whats already been said. If its in your essays, we already know about it, tell them something new.

Don't sweat the ppt, at least not yet.

Thanks Rhyme!

https://www.thechicagospire.com/

Have I told you already that my wife is an architect?
Man this is going to be huge!

What about the Olimpics games? People in my country are hoping to be in Rio. I personally wish that it doesn't happen there, we better spend the money in education and health for those who need...

When I was in Chicago this past year we walked right by that site and after seeing the size of the lot compared to the sears tower its going to look that much taller since its going to be so skinny that it will seem that much taller. I am curious how they will finally set the building up, with the collapse in real estate and a glut of condos in Chicago already I wouldnt be shocked to see a lot of turn to office or maybe a hotel.

So, finally heard something about the waitlist today and it's not very encouraging:

"It is hard to say for sure whether or not we will go to the waitlist again, but there is always that distinct possibility."

It seems that some people were rejected today while some others continue to remain on the contracted waitlist. However, they are not sure whether they will be looking at the contracted WL.

Anyone here have advice on what (if anything) I can do now? I've been in touch with the adcom and have sent them periodic updates and let them know that I am still interested.

Yellow, don't despair....

Unfortunately, there isn't much more you can do than just make sure you stay on their radar by continuing to express your interest, sending the occasional letter, etc. Just hang in there....

Thanks rhyme!

I've been thinking about reapplications and am not sure if I should apply R1 or R2 next year (although I'm still hoping it doesn't come down to that). I applied R2 and am still on the WL, which makes me think I should apply R1. However, I've provided them every possible update and am not sure how I can show any growth between July and October.

Also, there is a strong possibility that I will be promoted (title and significant raise), but not until Febraury. Is that something I can talk about in an R1 or R2 app (even if it is not 100% certain)?

Hopefully you won't have to make that decision..... but I would personally vote for R1. Although R1 applicants tend to be strong (GMAT long since done, plenty of time to work on the essays, often have their recommendations lined up rather than rushed, etc), you'll be in the same position (or better since you'd have gone through it once already).

Waiting for R2 does just lumps your application in with more people, and it begs the question (to an adcom), if you really wanted to come to Chicago why couldn't you get your things in order and reapply in R1? I'd personally wonder about that if you were a reapplicant -- there's really no reason that you shouldn't be able to get your app ready for R1 and I'd at least ponder the possibility that you just didn't care enough to get it done, or that maybe Chicago wasn't your top choice after all.

As for unattained promotions, I think its fine to say that you are on target and expect it.

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.

Wow.. Thanks for the awesome advice Rhyme. You convinced me - I am definitely applying round 1 since Chicago is my first choice anyway.

Now, I need to think about what I need to address with my weaknesses. (got a 14 hour flight tomorrow - this is definitely a better thing to do than watch a movie I've already seen).

Thanks for helping the future applicants out. I am vissiting Chicago over the Labor day weekend and was wondering if any of the current students would be able to spend some time with me to learn about the school and the application process.
Please let me know.

No one is around right now - its totally dead, but feel free to PM me if you want to chat.

Thanks Rhyme!

Working on filling out my application of Chicago GSB. Likely will be round two at this point but you never know.

What is the significance of waiving your right "examine" your letter of recommendation? It appears that it is a required input, but not sure what impact it would have. Would reviewing the LOR discount the value of the recommendation? Why do they ask this question?

Thanks

I would stress out too much about that q, I doubt much if any weight is put on it, but why not just play it safe and waive your rights?

If your boss was going to show you it anyway, who cares? And if he/she wasn't, then would you want to go behind their back and get a copy from your school? Finally, you probably wouldn't care what it said unless you were denied admission, at which point its kind of pointless anyway.

That's what is so confusing, why would a school care if I read the LOR or not? There shouldn't be anything in there I don't know already anyway. There's just something I don't like about "waiving" my rights to anything.