MIT no more

A few people have asked me why I decided to drop Sloan so I thought I might as well cover it here. Well, the short story is I don’t think I will have time to make the Nov 2 deadline, seeing that it’s less than 2 weeks away and I haven’t even worked on it yet (although I can probably reuse one Wharton essay). Since Sloan only has 2 rounds, that makes the next one the equivalent of other schools’ R3, which doesn’t spell good odds for me.

The long story: I’ve been working on my Wharton app since the end of August, and I am still midway through the fourth and final essay. I never expected the whole essay writing process to take so long, and it has seriously taken a whole lot out of me. Especially with a punishing work schedule, the wedding, and the apartment. I have been tempted several times already to just put all my eggs in one basket and submit Wharton and only Wharton. Essay writing sucks. Period.

Fortunately the rational part of my brain realizes the suicidal nature of this plan and I have to send out my other applications just in case. Well not quite. I really want to go to Tuck, and I would just as happy if Wharton dinged me but I get admitted to Tuck, so I definitely have to get that out (just over 30 days left…). Chicago also gives me a good vibe with the flexibility in its curriculum. But MIT was pretty much never a good fit to begin with. The two things that attracted me were brand name and location. But I really don't think I would enjoy slogging through the quant intensive curriculum (I already went through 4 years of engineering hell during college so I know). Who wants to pay 120k and be miserable? And given that I’ve discovered how horrible I am at writing essays, I’ve decided to alleviate some of my pain and bid my Sloan hopes farewell.

That’s it. Hopefully I get into one of the remaining three, so I won’t mope and think: if only I’d applied to Sloan…

Wharton postponed

Not sure about the other Wharton R1 aspirants, but this one couldn't make the deadline. I've postponed my app to R2 because I couldn't get my essays and one recommendation to a satisfactory state in time. I want to submit the best application can vs. rushing it for the sake of making it in R1. This way, whether I get the admit or dinged, I know I'll have done the best I could. I think it would be a lot worse if I get dinged and have this nagging feeling that it could have been because I didn't put forward my best work.

I went out last night to celebrate my relief from the postponed submission, but now I'm having a killer hangover. It's like there're these little dwarves inside my head pounding at my skull with a sledgehammer. Anyway, I am back to work on Monday, so I hope to at least do some more essay editing before then. Tuck is looming up closely now with the Dec 1 deadline (I've dropped Sloan). Good luck to all the other R1 hopefuls for your schools.

late nite break

It's past 3am, 2 days away from the Wharton deadline. I am STRESSED. I've completed Essays 1 and 2, but Essays 3 and 4 still need work. In fact, I only finished my first draft of Essay 4 a couple hours ago!! One of my recommendations has been drafted, but I haven't been able to contact my other recommender recently so I have no idea what the progress is on that. And I haven't started on the actual application yet. I've heard that filling in all the info about employment, activities, etc. is an ordeal in itself. Now Round 2 is beginning to look more realistic. shit. i have no idea how my fellow blogging applicants are doing - i just moved and I'm stuck on a dialup - but hopefully they're in better shape than me. good luck to you all. now back to essay 3.

Da Big Day

It's wedding day. Showtime. I'm 4 hours away from making the biggest step in my whole life. I'm not nervous yet... but I think that'll change two hours from now!

Busy

Haven't been blogging for the past couple weeks because i've been completely swamped with work and haven't had time to work on anything MBA related. I'm moving to my new apartment today, and I am getting married tomorrow!! So that's been taking up the rest of my time. I am a little worried about making the Wharton deadline though, since I've only completed 2 essays and am halfway through the third. Will write more once things slow down...