In at Duke (Fuqua)!

I found out yesterday that I had been admitted off of the. Duke waitlist. So happy.

Congrats on Ross and Consortium admit

Two posts in one day!

I just want to say Congrats to my friend M. who found out a little while ago that she got into both the consortium and Ross. She worked super hard and was so deserving. Hopefully she will share some of the scoop from Consortium Orientation Program (OP) with me since I won’t have the chance to participate. Congrats M.

Update on the WAIT…

Sorry it has been far too long, but life happens.

Cheetarah1980 and others have asked for updates and since I started this journey with you all I feel it is only right to finish it.

Here is what has happened since I’ve been gone…

 Still Waiting for Duke

I am still on the waitlist at Fuqua. I thought applying for business school was stressful. Being on the waitlist is like 10x more stressful. I don’t know if I should start planning to be a student next year at a school or plan to be a re-applicant. My hope is that it is the first one rather than a last one. I think I realize more and more that Duke is where I really want to be. The culture of the school appeals to me the more I hear people talk about it. Also I am not a fan of cold weather so not being on the East Coast is also a big plus in Duke’s favor!

I’m also still waiting on YALE

Yale is worse because I was waitlisted without an interview so it is a pretty high chance that I will be denied, unless they come and interview me. I am thankful that all my Yale SOM friends helped me through this process. I think I have a Yale SOM mafia supporting my business school efforts. The great thing about the school is that people really seem to support one another and there is definitely a community. I was welcomed into the community and I don’t even go to the school. I would love to be an official part of the school, so the admissions people should just let me in already.

I was accepted to one other school, but don’t know if I will take it. After much consideration I realized that the school may not be as great a fit as I originally thought and being on the waitlist makes you reconsider things…like I would be mad if someone who got into Duke went even though that is not where they really wanted to be. So I don’t want to be that person.

So it looks like I may be a re-applicant. If this is the case I would apply early decision wherever possible and first round everywhere else. I definitely couldn’t wait another year to figure out what I am going to do with my life. The only benefit of this is that I might be eligible for some MONEY the next time around.

In non-MBA news work has been hectic. We are gearing up for summer which means lots of working until 11pm nights. I am also in the process of finishing a class at the community college near my house, all of this equals no time for myself and especially no time to BLOG.

So I decided to stop complaining and take a trip! I am super excited. I am going to spend two weeks away from work and away from the cares and worries of business school. Who knows maybe when I get back from my trip I will know what I am doing in the fall. One could only hope.

Waitlisted at Yale SOM

I thought for sure this would be a ding since my application said incomplete up until yesterday.One thing I know may have raised red flags is my quant score on my GMAT. I really don’t want to re-take my GMAT so I am just going to do my best in my math class and hope that is enough to get in.

I am still holding out hope for the other schools who I have not heard back from yet… The waiting continues.

Calculus and Carebears

For the most part I loved my high school experience, I had amazing teachers many of whom I’m still friends with. However, the one thing that went wrong was my math classes. My high school believed in the Care Bear approach to teaching…teaching wasn’t just the job of the teachers, but also your fellowt  students. So when I didn’t understand why ax=2 in Algebra I, I had to ask each and everyone of my group members before I was allowed to ask my teacher. Finally when I could ask the teacher the answer they would give me left me more confused than ever. This method of teaching made me Hate Math! So much so that I took a test to pass out of math in college so I would never have to take it again.

The bad news: most b schools require that I complete a college level calculus course before being admitted. Which means back to math class for me. Finding a math class that fit into my math class was a big challenge, finding one with space was a bigger challenge and finally a professor who I could understand was impossible so I didn’t even try. All this to say that I am stuck in a Calculus class with a Professor who is hilarious, but unclear. All because my high school wanted to teach math the new age way.

Invited to interview at Tepper and Fuqua

YES I am alive! And I was invited to interview and CMU Tepper and Duke Fuqua! I was so excited to receive the Duke Interview invite because I put the most of myself into those essays. So if Duke hadn’t invited me I would’ve felt direct rejection, but thankfully that didn’t happen.
So I will be making the trip up to Pittsburgh to interview with Tepper oncampus during their Women’s weekend.
I will be interviewing with Duke out here in San Francisco since I have visited campus once and at this point in the process am really low on funds.
So very excited. I promise promise to write an overview of both interviews.

They Should Have a Support Group for this….

I admit it I have a problem. An obsession an addiction even and it is not healthy.

When I started this MBA process 10 years ago (Not 10 years, but at this point that is what it seems like), I thought the hardest part would be studying for the GMAT. I was wrong. The hardest part is waiting to receive an interview invite. Every morning I wake up and scour my inbox for any sign of an invitation, any glimpse of hope an email from the school might give me and every morning I am greatly disappointed. Then I proceed to look at the message boards to see if anyone from the schools I applied to received an interview invite, if they did I repeat step one of the process and re-check my email for any sign of an invite. If people who are applying for schools that I didn’t apply to, like Cornell recieve an interview invite I secretly wish that I had applied to that school because THEN I would have heard back by now.

It is a serious problem it is affecting my relationship with others and my productivity at work. I admit I am powerless over interview decisions! The funny thing is according to the schools websites none of them are suppose to release interview invites until next week, so I am being super obsessive about it for no reason.

I had my interview for Tuck over a month ago so that is one school I won’t have to worry about, but waiting for the other schools to contact is causing me to age like 20 years overnight!

Just a recap I am waiting to hear from

Wharton

Yale

Fuqua

Tepper

Olin

Someone, please anyone email me.

Recommendation Update 2

My supervisors have scheduled a meeting to make sure they aren’t duplicating comments on my recommendation. Have I mentioned I have the best bosses ever and the best job ever!

Recommendation Information

As I mentioned in previous post I was very fortunate that my recommendors  approached me to ask for information about writing my letters of recommendation and not the other way around. In order to aid them in the process I put together a information packet (adapted from a template one of my friends who is using a consultant was kind enough to let me borrow). In the packet I made sure to include:

1. Why I want an MBA?
2. What I plan to do after I receive my degree.
3. Key projects I had worked on during my time at the company.
4. Schools I am applying to
5. How each school would contact them
6. Updated Resume

Also, since I am applying through the consortium I made sure to include a brief paragraph on what the Consortium is and why I am applying through the program. In the letter I wrote them I made sure that my personality shined through. I am fortunate that these individuals know me really well which means they are also very familiar with my sense of humor and it would be so unlike me if I didn’t include a joke or two in my letter to them about the joys of the application process.

I’m pretty sure all of them will get the recommendation in on time, especially one of my supervisors who is always amazingly  punctual, but I’ll be sure to give a little reminder a week out just to make sure.

Now the hardest process will be deciding what to buy for thank you gifts. Maybe I will take a cue from my summer interns and have trees planted in their name 🙂

The Final Application List

Now that the school visits are done I have managed to narrow down my school list considerably. So without further adew… in no particular order I will be applying to:

-Fuqua

-Yale

-Wharton

-Tuck

-Washington University in St. Louis

-Emory

For four of the schools (Tuck, Yale, Washington U, Emory) I will be applying through the Consortium, so my hope is that I save some time in the essay writing process and also save money in terms of application fees.

This whole business school process has been way more intense then I could have ever imagined. I am very happy that I took my Business School Extravaganza trip and went to see all my potential schools. I can now write clearly about why I want to attend each of the institutions and why I think I would be a good fit at each of them. The trip also really help cement the fact that I want to go to business school, I really loved the time I spent in the classrooms the discussions with the current students and other applicants. I can see myself at business school, now hopefully the feeling is mutual with at least one school. I also became really good at trip planning, so if this whole MBA thing doesn’t work out I think I am going to go into business as an MBA tour guide.

I have started writing my essays, but after I take the GMAT one last time and finish my MacroEcon final I will devote my whole heart and soul into the process. I don’t worry about writing about myself, I now have a clear idea about why I want an MBA and what I hope to accomplish with the degree. Plus, thankfully words have always come easy to me, I feel the only essay writing difficulty will be making sure I stay within the word limits 🙂