B-School Wannabe

Phew! That's it. I am finally done with all of my business school applications. I decided to just apply to Haas and UCLA in round 2. After doing more research I realized that I just am not as passionate about Duke, and so it doesn't make sense for me to apply to that program.

I feel good about the programs that I've applied to. If I don't get in anywhere, I am okay with that. Better that than to apply to a safety school that I don't really want to attend. Now, it is out of my hands.

Round 1 decisions should start coming soon...

Well, not totally done. But I finished my round 1 applications last week. As I said in my last post, I applid to Stanford, Michigan, and Kellogg. It actually went pretty smoothly overall, and so I am targeting three more schools in round 2: Haas, UCLA, and Fuqua.

My biggest piece of advice is to give your recommenders enough time! Fortunately, the recommendation thing will be easier for me in round 2 since these people already wrote recos for me (except for one person, probably). But two different people ended up needing more time past when they said they would be done, and in both cases that was the last thing I was waiting on before finishing my application. I will thank the admissions experts at Your MBA Game Plan again because this is exactly what they said would happen. Even with a head start I almost ran out of time with the recommendations. This time I will get them started in November, so that they should be done by early January at the very latest.

Oh, and I am finding that recycling essays is not as easy as I expected. Or, I should say recycling essays WELL isn't that easy. Don't assume that you will achieve massive economies of scale by applying to many schools!

Sorry that I have not posted in a while. The business school application process is actually going pretty well. This is what I have accomplished since my last post:

• Told me boss that I am applying - This actually went fine. She was very supportive (she has an MBA), and told me that she is available to help in any way that I need. I immediately told her that I will need a few letters of recommendation from her, and she said she would be glad to do it. We agreed to not really tell everyone else in our wokrgroup for a little while.
• Updated my resume -- I had not built a proper resume in a ocuple of years, and this actually took some time. But I think I have it in pretty good shape right now. A friend of mine who is in b-school right now helped me highlight my accomplishments, get rid of the passive voice, etc.
• Organized all of my accomplishments and hobbies -- Doing this before I wrote my resume may have helped. But I took a lot of time to organize everything I have done over the past few years, to help identify my strengths and weaknesses. The methodology outlined in Your MBA Game Plan really helped me here.
• Began my essays -- I got off to a monster start a couple of weeks ago, banging out nearly all of my Michigan essays in one weekend. But then I went back and looked at them a few days later (I highly recommend doing this), and realized that I was all over the place. I decided to go back and outline my essays a little more methodically before I write any more.
• Contacted people about recommendation letters -- This does not seem like a big deal, but a lot of people keep warning me to stay on top of this, so I am now using my list of accomplishments to create a mini dossier on myself, which I will send to my reco writers by the end of this weekend.

I think I will apply to Stanford, Kellogg, and Michigan in round 1, and then save UCLA and Haas for round 2. I may also add Duke (Fuqua) to the mix, depending on how I feel after my round 1 applications are in.

I think I have narrowed down "The List" to the following schools:

Stanford
Haas
Kellogg
UCLA
Michigan

I am interested in these MBA programs for their ability to turn out strong general managers, their culture, and their reputation in my fields of interest. My west coast bias is probably pretty obvious, too. If I had to rank them in order of preference (not in order of my chances of sucess), I would probably put them in that order. I have only visited Stanford and Haas so far, but plan on visiting the others before the end of September.

I have not decided if I will apply to all of them in the first round, or if I will apply to UCLA and Michigan in the second round. My preference is to get it all over with, but I don't want to spread myself too thin.

Next up, I need to get my recommenders geared up, which means telling my boss...

Ha ha... Okay, so I took the GMAT last Friday, and I got... 690... again. So I guess that test really is an accurate predictor of one's ability.

I am not really disappointed, especially since a 690 is a "good enough" score to get me into a top school. But I did expect to do a bit better after so many practice exams.

No matter... I am done with the GMAT!