Grad School Application Update

It's been almost a month since I updated you all on the status of my grad school apps, so I thought it would only be fitting to do one to complement my recent GMAT update. After retaking the GMATs, I thought it would be relatively easy to have the schools that I applied to consider my new score with my application. Sadly, it's been MUCH more challenging than I had previously noticed.

Fuqua has been the only school that has made this process easy and guaranteed that my score will make it into my file and be considered with my application. Kellogg will do their best to make sure that my new score gets considered with my application, but they cannot guarantee it. MIT apparently didn't consider my score because they rejected me just 4 days after supposedly receiving my updated score. Oh well, MIT wasn't my top choice.

Haas, however, has been much more challenging. It took me several emails to get through to the admissions office and when I did they told me that I'd have to move my application from Round 2 to Round 4 to have my new score considered. That seemed odd. So I consulted Clear Admit and they agreed that I should attempt to get my score to them and not move it to R4. Sadly, I learned today that after all of that, my scores didn't make it into my file and may have contributed to the reason that I didn't receive an interview invitation for Super Saturday at Haas this past weekend. At this point, it's looking like I pretty much have to move my application so I can avoid being denied from Haas in R2. All of this is particularly sad since Haas is my top choice and I know that my chances of being accepted are much less in R4 than they would have been if Haas had just considered my new GMAT score in R2.

So, now I'm down to just 3 schools. I'll hear from Fuqua in the next week or so, then Kellogg by the end of March, but I will have to wait until the end of May to hear from Haas now that I'm moving to R4. Oh well, I'll just have to find some patience. Good luck to the rest of you waiting for them to decide your fate for next year!

Grad School Update

I know I've been posting about all sorts of things lately from the etchings that my grandparents gave me to Dessert Night's first birthday, but I haven't let you know what's been going on in my life on the grad school front. Honestly, it's been a bit quieter lately which is refreshing after all of those nights being up super late working on essays. That aside, there have been 3 major things that have happened lately:

1. Stanford rejected me. Honestly, I wasn't super surprised about this one, just rather disappointed as I had been hoping that Stanford would be my new home as of next year. They seem to be one of those schools where everyone who would consider applying has a chance of getting in, but really no one has a GREAT chance. So, it was worth the shot to apply. I think I liked their application the best of all of them too.

2. I had my Kellogg interview! Before any of you go getting too excited, getting an interview for Kellogg doesn't mean what it does for other schools. Kellogg interviews everyone who applies (assuming you don't live in a remote village in the middle of Sudan or something). Luckily, there are a lot of alumni scattered about so not everyone has to make the pilgrimage to Chicago in the middle of winter. I met with my alumni interviewer at a local Starbucks and we chatted for about an hour. All of the questions that he asked me were questions that I had prepped for care of the ClearAdmit interview wiki. I felt really prepared and we had a great discussion. All in all, a good contrast to my Stanford rejection.

3. I'm retaking the GMAT. Did you let out a groan too? I can't say that I'm excited about this fact, but I could use the opportunity to bump up my score a few points. Historically, I've been a bad test taker, but it's all mental so I want to use this opportunity to change that for myself. (Though it's not going great so far, as I'm writing this post to procrastinate taking a practice test.)

That's all of the recent happenings on the grad school side of things. I will be sure to keep you updated as I hear back from my other 4 schools. Good luck to all of you fellow applicants!! The end is in sight!

Another App Down!

Well, really just a piece of an app. I finally submitted Part I of my Kellogg application. I had been almost done with it for a week now, but needed to confirm my recommenders and work just completely got away from me! I'm getting ready to start in on the rest of this application as well as the two others that I'm working on so we don't hit too much crunch time come 2009!

Good luck to all of the other MBA applicants out there! I hope you get some time to enjoy the holidays in between figuring out what you want to do with your future careers and writing about leadership experiences and failures and why X school.