EssaySnark

More experiences from a Round 1 admit!

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We recently shared with all of you some reflections from a Brave Supplicant that we worked with last season (part 1 here in case you missed it).

Today we’ll give you the rest of what this Success Story from the Class of 2022 MBA admissions season has offered — which we imagine should be quite useful for all of you planning on applying to the Class of 2023!

 

 

School research and determining a strategy

Factors important to me:

  • Matriculating in Fall 2020 – waiting another year was out of the question for me. For that reason, I decided to focus all my efforts on schools where I had a reasonable chance of getting in. This also drove my strategy of applying to a good chunk of schools in rd 1, so I would have rd 2 to adjust if needed
  • A tight-knit community
  • Experiential learning opportunities
  • An environment that would enable personal growth
  • Placement at my target companies
  • Geographic proximity to my husband

Determining my targets/rankings

I spent many hours googling different schools, and set an initial list based on my findings. My initial list was

  • #1 choice goal schools: Ross, Fuqua
  • #2 choice (and I live in Pittsburgh): Tepper
  • #3 choice/I won’t explicitly use the word safety, but you know what I mean: Foster

After completing the comprehensive profile review, I expanded that list to include Johnson and McDonough, per a Snark recommendation.

After rounding out my list to 6, I scheduled school visits and reached out to current students at my target schools. Before submitting my applications, I had talked to ~3 students at each school. By the time decisions were released, I had talked to ~5 at each school.

Talking to students and visiting schools played a significant role in determining my app strategy. Johnson was one of my top choices after talking to a couple students on the phone, but visiting gave me a completely different view of the school. Namely that is was so remote, and I realized that wasn’t the experience I was looking for. Because of this, I felt more confident in bumping out my app to Johnson to the November round, and tackling Fuqua, Ross, Tepper, and McDonough in rd 1.

Visiting McDonough (for my interview) was also what bumped McDonough up to my second choice. There is no substitute for visiting the schools. Although it can be time consuming and costly, for me, this was the best way to determine whether the school would be a good fit.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the significant support the snark gave me in terms of providing input on my app strategy and targets, and helping me to think through my approach as new information came to light.

Last point on targets- SO much self-reflection took place throughout the whole process, but particularly in determining my target schools. This reflection on who I am, what I want out of business school, and if/why each school was the right fit was important in both determining my targets, and writing my essays.

My rankings switched many times throughout the application process, but by decision time, they were:

  • #1: Ross
  • #2: McDonough
  • #3: Fuqua
  • #4: Tepper
  • #5: Johnson
  • #6: Foster (ended up not applying after receiving my first acceptance)

 

Executing the apps

ES recommended I tackle Fuqua first (the essay writing skills built on the lengthy Fuqua app paid dividends for my other apps). I spent about three weeks solely on Fuqua, and got it to the 80% complete stage. I also used the essay decimator service for Fuqua, which improved my essays immeasurably. I then tackled Ross (2 weeks- got it to 90%), followed by McDonough (2 weeks- got it to 90%). I used single shots on the main essay for both schools.

I know ES doesn’t recommend moving on to a new app until fully completing the one you’re working on, but I would get so burned out on the essays for one school, that it became helpful to get the app to 90%, take a break for a couple days to work another school, and then revisit with fresh eyes. [Actually… what we usually suggest is to finish THE FIRST APP before moving on to any others; it’s not necessary to only work at one at a time. What this BSer described is a smart way to keep moving forward and making progress in getting everything done when it needs to be! -ES]

All the practice on the above 3 apps made it much easier to knock out new ones. I completed Carnegie Mellon in about 10 days, and then needed another week to finalize Fuqua. I submitted these 4 apps in rd 1.

As mentioned above, I completed Johnson for their November rd (2 weeks to complete, did it right after submitting Fuqua).

I outlined essays for Foster in November, and queued up my recommenders, but didn’t complete the app once I was admitted to Tepper in early December.

 
 

 
 
Well, as you can see, there was a bit of a spoiler there — but we’re gonna hold off and share the actual outcomes that this BSer landed in a foll0w-up post! Please stay tuned for the rest of their story, coming soon!!!

 
 

($) When schools do resume on-campus classes, there will be many changes.

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This week, Stanford announced tentative plans for their undergrads to rotate to campus for one out of three semesters starting in the Fall — incoming freshman on campus for the Fall term, outgoing seniors on campus for Spring, undecided who will be on campus otherwise. Most graduate and doctoral students will remain online-only.

For those bschools that are going to attempt an on-campus option (we haven’t actually heard definitively of any yet but we know some want to try) we thought we’d offer some ideas to you folks of what it might be like. What we’ll cover today may seem super obvious but it’s worth spelling out, since we’ve had discussions with some folks who seem not to quite appreciate the impact that coronavirus is having on the experience of getting an education.

The virus isn’t going away, and eventually, all universities will be going back to on-campus instruction. Whether that happens in the Fall with the next start of the year, or not till Fall 2021 as some schools have already announced, eventually, schools will go back to in-person teaching, and it’s highly likely that the coronavirus will still be a threat to the world in some form or another when that happens. Even after a vaccine becomes available, and it’s tested, and distributed, and people have access to it — which is a lot of separate events that need to occur — the virus will still be present and circulating in America. At this point, it’s unrealistic to believe it will be stamped out completely. Even polio still exists in the world after a concerted effort to get rid of it, and as recently as 2019, there were outbreaks of measles in different parts of the U.S. Those are viral diseases for which safe and effective vaccines have existed for a very long time, yet humans are still susceptible to them for a variety of epidemiological reasons.

So. With that as the backdrop — knowing that either sooner, or later, there will be a reopening of schools and when that happens, coronavirus will still be in the picture — what will the student experience involve when it happens?


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What will things look like in the coronavirus classroom?
 
 

 
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What most university presidents want to avoid is to issue an order to open campus, to bring all students and faculty back — and then to have a spike in infections and an overloaded medical system in their region, which forces them to close campus again. They really really don’t want that to happen. That’s like the worst-case scenario because obviously of the risk to health and safety and so many people who could die, and it could also cause lots of students to permanently drop out. Most school administrators see it as far better to not bring students back too early, if there’s a possibility that campus would have to be shut down again and all of them sent home. That disruption is too hard on people, not just because of the difficulty of moving so often (which truly and totally sucks) but also because of the disruption to the actual education. Teachers don’t like teaching online but it’s way worse for them if they are teaching in person and then have to convert to online mid-semester.

Not that teachers have much say in what happens. If you ask, many of them will tell you they feel powerless among all of these changes.

Trying to avoid that flip-flop problem, and the fallout that would occur if schools had to close mid-term again, might mean that more schools opt for online only for more programs or majors. We are still waiting to see how these announcements will actually materialize into re-openings or not.

The march towards uncertainty continues.

 
 

($) Coronavirus and the MBA: What to do if you’re waitlisted

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We do not intend to make yesterday’s post a one-time thing. There are real problems in the world and we will be talking about them. Taking action individually is how society changes, and we’re not going to share with all of you what EssaySnark’s actions have been offline and in the real world, because we’re not interested in virtue signaling. We will however be posting again on the topics of the world when there’s something to say. We hope you will stay engaged, and look for ways you too can act to bring change.

Back to the MBA stuff.

If we didn’t explicitly cover your school the other day, we’ll start today with the broad comment that we’ve seen a lot of schools that offered Flextended rounds in response to coronavirus who have been utilizing the waitlist EXTENSIVELY. There’s been some admits, and there’s been a whole boatload of candidates who are now waiting in the wings, in the ultimate limbo state.


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We’re talking about the waitlist again today!
 
 

 
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If you haven’t already, picking up our Waitlist Guide might be useful — it’s not written specific to covid waitlists but the general advice there totally applies.

What needs to change for diversity and inclusion and a just society?

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White people.

White people need to change.

This post is late. It should have gone up yesterday, or last week — or last year, or every day over the last century.

The protests are for a reason. This has to stop. White people have to stop killing black people and brown people.

The way this change must happen is from white people.

Only when the privileged acknowledge their privilege and use the power of that privilege to change will change occur. Power and privilege collude and hatred and killing result.

We can talk about “diversity” and “inclusion” all day long — and those are important too.

But until white people take a stand against the abject discrimination, bias, and total injustice that is baked into the system today, that is in evident today, in all parts of society today, nothing will change. We will have more black people being shot. Choked. Murdered. All because of the color of their skin.

Racism is not black people’s problem. It is not something that POC need to figure out how to solve.

Racism is white people’s problem.

Racism is hatred.

It must end.

We stand with the protesters.

This is not antifa.

This is uprising against state-sanctioned murder that happens over and over again.

Black Lives Matter.

To all of the white people: We have blood on our hands.

 
 

($) Coronavirus and the MBA: What have we heard about waitlists?

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Not all schools are created equal.

While all schools reacted the same (eventually) in March by closing campus and sending students home, and all schools have kept students off campus for the remainder of Spring and through Summer, that’s about where the commonalities end.

How they’re handling things now is a crapshoot and it depends on so many factors, including largely the political reality of the place where the school is located.

The fact is that yes — despite the very real dangers — the schools want and need students back on campus. The schools are in trouble financially, and having on-campus classes is seen as the way out of their crises.

You keep hearing news in the media about risk to schools going belly-up and closing if they can’t get students back in the classroom. Then, it seems like in the very next article, there are lamentations about how students won’t come back even if the campus is open.

Can you go off of what you’re reading in newspapers? Sort of, maybe, but not entirely. That’s because the reality of business school economics is different from higher ed as a whole which usually means “college” and undergrads. And, so much of this is regional, and dependent on whether it’s an urban or suburban or rural location, and many many other factors.

Basically the message to all of you is don’t believe everything you ready in the hyped-up media world. (That’s a good caveat to keep in mind generally as you move through life!) A lot of the hand-wringing about how higher ed is going to collapse is concerned with the undergrad experience and all of these college kids who were supposed to be getting their 4-year degrees. It’s not that those factors don’t apply to the MBA. It’s just that it’s different.

So, given all that, what’s happening so far with the business school admissions and what have we heard about waitlists for those hoping to start their MBAs this coming Fall? Here’s what we had shared about three weeks ago on scenarios being entertained by a selection of universities and let’s talk today about what trends we’re seeing at a handful of top MBA programs at this point in time.


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Let’s dig into some known facts and yeah a little hearsay about current admissions trends at universities and MBA programs.
 
 

 
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The media is hyping up the damage being done to higher ed, and that is part of the picture, absolutely. However, some universities are seeing very stable demand, as manifest by actual undergraduate deposits coming in, and that signals a strong situation for the schools to be filling their MBA classes, too.

 
Update: This discussion continued here – what to do if you’re on a waitlist in the era of coronavirus

 
 
 
 

Coronavirus and the MBA

 

 

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So what are you going to do about it?

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Probably the hardest part of all of this coronavirus stuff is the massive uncertainty. (Unless you have experienced the loss of a family member personally, in which case, the hardest part is absolutely what you are going through, and EssaySnark is very, very sad for that.) We’re doing our best to offer straightforward fact-based analysis and discussion of what might happen next, with business school admissions, with waitlists, with your own strategies, with university re-openings, with the experience you can expect as a student in an online curriculum, and again yesterday, with the economy. Basically we’ve become a full-time “how to deal with coronavirus if you want to go to business school” blahg. And, we’re trying to offer a smattering of posts offering advice about stress and emotions and the very real difficulty of just dealing with life right now.

We’re grateful for all of you who’ve been along for the ride!

So here’s another reality check:

WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MAN?

We asked point-blank in yesterday’s post, “What are you going to do about it?”

We wonder if that was received as more of a rhetorical question. It wasn’t meant as one. So today we’re making it explicit: WHAT ARE YOU DOING RIGHT NOW?

A common reaction we’ve perceived among many people is to go into near-hibernation mode. It’s all about the turtle pulling into the shell, or the ostrich and the head in the sand.

It’s not so much about denial, but just feeling overwhelmed, and so the instinct is to withdraw. To hunker down in the shelter-in-place mode with the potato chips and the Netflix or video games and the Zoom cocktail hour with friends, and to become very passive. The attitude seems to be, “Okay, I am powerless, I have no control over what’s happening, I just need to wait this thing out.”

As many of us are coming to terms with the idea that there is a new normal at hand, yet we’re not really able to cognize what that “normal” will be, we are in wait-and-see mode.

We’re relinquishing control of our own lives.

We’re stalled out.

We’re waiting for a savior to come.

Initially maybe you waited for the government to step in and fix things, and you assumed that that would happen fairly quickly. But the one thing that’s become most apparent in all of this is that our current government in the U.S. is beyond inept. The federal government not only has not made things better, it’s almost like they’re actively trying to make things worse. (Don’t even get us started. There would be unending rants about hydroxychloroquine which actually led to GREATER mortality rates, and injecting bleach – what the actual F – and timelines for when a vaccine will be ready, and how many lives will be lost, and what’s acceptable in number of lives lost, and being the one person not wearing a mask when visiting someone in A HOSPITAL and yeah we could keep going here but ok we’ll stop.)

It’s not like we needed proof that the so-called leader of the free world is an absolute narcissist and the policies being implemented from January 2017 to this point were harmful to society. If you want to figure out what to write in an MBA essay asking for an example of you being a leader, then think of any one of the literally hundreds of examples from this administration of how NOT to be a leader, and think of the time when you did the opposite.

If you’re waiting for the government to fix this situation and restore some form of normalcy back to everyday existence for us all, that just is not going to happen.

And yet, it’s a really common reaction.

The thought process goes like this:

“This is really bad. The virus is dangerous. My company-county-state has issued orders to shelter in place. I’m going to do the right thing and stay home.”

That was what most of us did in mid-March.

We went along with it because we are rational human beings who respect science and the physics of the material world, and understand what it means that this is a “novel” coronavirus, and that if we haven’t gotten it already, we will at some point, and even if we’re in an age bracket that doesn’t typically get hit hard by it, we still are responsible for not spreading it to others who are more vulnerable.

And the thinking was, “Wow, this is scary, my life is totally impacted, I wonder how bad the virus is going to be, what are the symptoms, dang, I think I have a sore throat, am I sick?” And there was a lot of panicky feelings and stress levels rose, and it was weird going to the grocery store which was a total mob scene when we knew we were supposed to be distancing but nobody was because they were doing a mad dash to the toilet paper aisle which was empty. And everything was weird and it felt very surreal.

And March sludged its way to April, and we all willingly did the restrictions, and started wearing masks when we went out in public (thank you to those who are doing that), and we maybe held out hope that we’d be able to get back to a “normal” life in May, since many areas that had locked down were set to have those orders lift.

And now…. it’s May…. and in lots of places where lots of you live, the lockdown orders are getting extended.

 
 

SO WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?

 
 

Maybe you spent a few weeks learning how to bake, or you have completely detailed your car from top to bottom to burn off some of your pent-up energy, or you have leveled up in your favorite game in a way that you never thought you could do.

Not bad projects, each of them.

Or maybe you’ve been sleeping… a lot… and having trouble motivating yourself to get out of bed, or shower regularly.

Natural reactions to anxiety and stress. Understandable. It makes so much sense, to want to crawl under the covers and hide.

But here’s the deal, Brave Supplicant:

Outsourcing all decisions for direction in life to the Powers that Be, while you wait for a lockdown order to be lifted in your area, is a recipe for becoming a slug.

Right now we are in an incredible moment of opportunity.

In what way can you CHANGE???

Maybe you’re already doing this, and if so, then kudos to you, and keep doing it.

But maybe you’ve relegated yourself to the Waiting Room.

You know the place. Dr. Seuss warned us about it.

About three years ago, on March 31, 2020, we posted a hypothetical essay question that business schools might ask for their Class of 2023 candidates. The gist of that post was the same challenge as we’re offering today:

This is your life.

Yes everything sucks, and it’s super difficult to plan for the future when we don’t know what that future might be.

But what are you doing about it?

What are you doing TODAY to make yourself a better person?

What are you working on to build skills? To improve?

What projects have you embarked upon to increase your marketability to a future employer?

If you’re interested in an MBA, then by definition, that says you’re interested in an education. To gain something. To change.

In what ways are you walking the walk in what you’re engaged with right now?

There are classes you could be taking online to buff up your resume, to fill those gaps, to address weaknesses that all of us have.

There are ways you could be giving back and contributing. Are there projects in your community to take groceries to seniors? Yes, yes there are, we know that to be true because we’re hearing about them happening everywhere.

Could you do some mentoring with someone more junior? Is there a new hire at your company who is likely feeling a little lost on how to navigate things in a work-from-home environment, who maybe is too nervous to even know who to ask for help on a new project? Or is there a way to get involved with your college as an alum?

If you’re feeling too overwhelmed yourself to even imagine how you might help others because your anxiety and/or depressive symptoms are affecting you, that’s OK, we’re not assigning more to your to-do list today. But, we’ll also offer the observation that often, helping someone else has this unintended byproduct effect of improving our own mood. Getting outside your own pain and frustration by contributing what you know to another could give you that sense of connection you’ve been missing.

Mostly though, we’re asking you: What is your plan?

Are you just going to wait around until the world changes again and then you’ll start working towards the goals that you have?

Why not start that work now? What’s stopping you?

Difficult mental states are legit, and we are sensitive to how hard it can be to break through a fuzzy brain, and we’re not saying all of this to lay some massive new guilt trip on everyone, that you’re not doing more.

But…

We would propose…

Maybe this moment in time presents real opportunity?

How can you change?

What person do you want to be at the end of it?

Imagine yourself in 2022, looking back, telling the story of the person you are now.

“During coronavirus, I responded by….”

Is your Future Self going to be proud of the changes you’ve put in place now?

If not, how can your Today Self make adjustments, to get better in alignment with the potential you know that you have??

 
 

As trite as it sounds, all we have is today.

To put an even finer point on it: All we have is RIGHT NOW.

What will you do with it?

How can you change?

What more can you make of this moment?

 
 

Most folks don’t want an online-only degree. But if you did…

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We tossed out some names of some schools the other day that, even pre-covid, had started to embrace online education for business.

What questions should you be asking if you’re considering an online MBA or any degree program delivered natively online?

The first is, what is the format? How is designed?

Yes it’s online, but how exactly is the teaching implemented and delivered? What will be your experience as a student during the program?

Some online programs are what’s called asynchronous, which is the epitome of convenience: You log on and go through the coursework whenever you have time, submitting your assignments by uploading them into the learning management system. There are often other assignments and you may have a standard academic textbook that you have to purchase as well (textbooks, for whatever reason, have been really really slow to migrate to an ebook format for online learning, though that seems to be finally changing these days).

In this async model, the majority of your interactions with your professor and other students are through a discussion board or forum software. You never actually meet them except through text or, sometimes, pre-recorded video by the instructor. This is the model that most people think of with “online education” and it’s very limited. It’s essentially the Khan Academy format that many current students have been so unhappy about.

Other program formats include that type of asynchronous material, combined with a synchronous session which is a real-time class period with your professor holding a lecture and all students in the class together at the same time. These require you to use your webcam through a platform like Zoom (or for some more antiquated systems, WebEx), where everyone is on screen at once. You’re able to have a real classroom experience in this way.

Who is creating the content?

Is the professor doing their own webcam recordings? Or was the curriculum professionally produced? The quality of your education may not be dependent on the production quality of the videos, but it sure does make for a different experience if it seems like your professor recorded the lecture on her phone, versus having it built out in an actual studio with some editing and the PowerPoint slides timed to the delivery of the material.

Also, a Pro Tip: If the program requires an actual application, where they review your transcripts and everything and (usually) ask for an interview, you’re much more likely to get more out of the actual experience. Why? Because there will be less attrition (student drop-off where people quit the program) and the overall cohort is going to be of higher quality. If you go for a program that only requires a registration where they have you sign up and they take your money, it’s still potentially valuable, but your fellow students might not be as personally invested and they might not stick around. These are very broad-strokes generalizations (there’s plenty of students who drop out of by-admission programs too, and there’s lots of amazing people taking open-registration courses).

But it’s something to keep in mind, depending on what you’re looking for through this educational opportunity.

There’s a lot of talk in higher ed right now that this entire coronavirus thing is going to disrupt education for good. Some are saying that it’s going to force schools to discount tuition, and that a whole tier of university system will move to an online model.

But college kids go to college at least in part for the social experiences. For everything that’s involved in that stage of life. For the fraternities and sororities and late night parties. Maybe to meet someone. In many cases, they really really really want to do college away from home.

For folks who are looking at graduate education, the priorities change. All those social reasons still apply for many bschool students, but there’s often also a lot of other pulls. Many are already married or in significant relationships, and some even have kids. The priorities for school are not the party scene.

Obviously yes, the network the network the network. But honestly, we see gobs of candidates touting “the network” in their apps for bschool and the more we learn about them, the more we learn that they’re introverts who cannot stand networking! (doh!) It’s definitely true that an online education is completely different than the experience IRL. We’re not trying to suggest that they are interchangeable. But, we are suggesting that perhaps priorities have changed for you as an individual? This experience is shaping all of us in ways large and small.

This pandemic is certainly also going to change higher ed. EssaySnark is not convinced it’s going to create a massive wave in remote-only learning. However, one very probable outcome is that it’s going to remove the stigma from ‘online program’ and lots of schools are going to innovate, and get better at, the delivery of an online education. If you’re looking around right now and the convenience of an online degree is appealing, then there are some schools that had started down that path earlier, that might be good to look at first. We also expect to see more and more changes in the overall landscape, on an accelerated or even frantic pace through the rest of 2020, and then on a continuous basis going forward. You might be one who will benefit!!

And… Many of you are looking towards

($) Heads up international students and prospects…

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This is not established policy yet but, it’s not looking good. Remember how we were talking about the STEM option a few months ago? (The STEM program allows for a longer term for the automatic post-graduation F1-B work visa, to let you stay in the U.S. for up to three years.)

Well darn it, there may be changes coming down that affect things.


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Hmmm…. some changes coming from the government that might affect you?
 
 

 
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As always, please keep in mind that we’re not ImmigrationSnark — we do our best to deliver accurate info, but if you’re in need of practical advice on your specific situation, you’ll need to consult with an actual expert!!

 
 

($) AUTHENTICITY

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We’re for realz doing this, peeps.

It’s time to be thinking about MBA applications for the Fall.

We’re going to kick off our MBA admissions season here in Snarkville with a perennial topic: AUTHENTICITY IN MBA APPS


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Wherein we begin to mull over this idea of authenticity….
 
 

 
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We hope you’ll keep coming back ‘cuz we have plenty more to offer on this topic!

The Countdown is starting!

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Hey BSers!

Today is the Memorial Day holiday here in the States so it’s an abbreviated post from Snarkville, mostly just to reiterate a message that is likely a little bit surreal for you to hear: It’s a great time to be getting started on your MBA apps!

We also want to acknowledge that this day in the U.S. is about honoring our war dead. We have kind of forgotten that as a culture. Maybe some member of your family died in a war or in some other military action. That loss must have been incredibly hard for your family when it happened. Today is about remembering that, and acknowledging such sacrifice. A moment being quiet in respect for the price paid for our freedoms is warranted*.

And… around here, the arrival of Memorial Day also means that schools are starting to release essay questions and deadlines — HBS and Wharton have done so, with more to come as we move into June. Can you believe it’s almost June??

So yeah, life is apparently continuing onwards, even in this new world that we’re trying to assimilate to. And if you were planning on trying for an MBA this year, well… apparently it’s going to be time for that soon!

Need a kick in the pants to get started?

The Round 1 MBA Countdown launches today – full details are here – sign up now and you’ll get all the goodness from Week 1 till D-Day!

Countdown subscribers, look for your first installment today!
 
 
We’ve also started our annual update project to our SnarkStrategies Guides, and EssaySnark’s MBA application guide to Harvard Business School for the Class of 2023 will be out in a number of days!! We’re including special sections in each school guide this year on ramifications of coronavirus and how that might affect your choice of the school and your strategy in building out your application. If you pick up the 2019 version of any guide, you’ll get free access to the updated 2020 version as soon as it’s published!

We’ll be back for another post tomorrow with actual usable content, as we do every weekday. If you’re looking for a head start, and week by week guidance, motivation, and pro tips as you work towards getting some apps together, check out The Countdown — we’d love to be on board in support of your big adventure towards your dreams of getting in this year!

 

 
 
*We try to be respectful around here, and acknowledge important events when they come around, but we’ve never in the past made a big deal about Memorial Day, because this blahg has a specific purpose in life, and that’s to help you get into business school. Talking about national traditions in the U.S. seems a little off topic. However, there’s a place for tradition and remembering the ways of our culture, and since leadership in this country seems to not make that a priority, we thought we’d make mention of it, just briefly, here today. It’s important that we not forget.