EssaySnark

  • about
  • contact
  • help
  • sign up
  • login
CLICK FOR MORE!
  • Essay Questions
    • Harvard
    • Stanford
    • Wharton
    • Chicago Booth
    • Kellogg
    • MIT Sloan
    • Tuck
    • NYU Stern
    • Columbia
    • Yale SOM
    • Berkeley Haas
    • UVA Darden
    • Duke Fuqua
    • Michigan Ross
    • UCLA Anderson
    • Cornell
  • Strategy Guides
    • MBA Reapplicant Guide
    • Pitching Entrepreneurship as Your Post-MBA Career
    • Applying to European Business Schools
    • School-Specific MBA Application Guides
      • Harvard 2022 MBA Strategy Guide
      • Stanford 2022 MBA Strategy Guide
      • Wharton 2022 MBA Strategy Guide
      • Kellogg 2022 MBA Strategy Guide
      • Chicago Booth 2022 MBA Strategy Guide
      • Columbia 2022 MBA Strategy Guide
      • *MORE SCHOOL-SPECIFIC GUIDES HERE*
  • MBA Consulting
  • My SnarkCenter
    • My Strategy Guides
    • My Favorite Posts

It’s now or never, baby. (No, Round 3 won’t cut it.)

November 28, 2016 by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

This was posted in 2016 but the advice is still pretty darned near perfect for any applicants in November of the MBA admissions cycle (the school references notwithstanding).

Whether or not you have apps pending in Round 1, you should be putting at least tentative plans in place for Round 2. If Round 2 will be your first apps (or if none of the Round 1 apps have worked out thus far) then you really (really really really) need to be getting busy, like, NOW.

You need to:

  1. Figure out which schools to apply to
  2. Figure out which to do first

But really, none of that matters. You just need to GET STARTED. Round 2 is your last opportunity if you’re aiming to be sitting in a bschool classroom in the Fall. Round 3 will simply be too late.

Do you think you want to apply to Columbia this year? OK great, do that app.

Right.

Now.

Get started on those essays today.

Or, do you think you want to apply to Ross?

Great!

Do that one.

It honestly does not matter at this point which schools are on your list. If you’re thinking you’re probably going to apply to a certain school, then that’s a great place to begin.

The point is, BEGIN.

As you know all too well, time has this crazy habit of moving fast.

It moves especially fast when a deadline you’re trying to avoid is on the horizon.

Well, guess what?

That deadline is more than just on its way.

It is HERE.

If you are serious about trying for bschool this season, you need to get serious NOW. You do not have the luxury of time any more.

Yes, Round 1 is an advantage. Whether you took advantage of that advantage or not is at this point irrelevant. Round 2 is what you’re left with. Unless you have an admit in hand, you must be planning to also apply in Round 2. If you haven’t applied anywhere yet and thought you had two more rounds to choose from, well, hate to break it to you buddy, you don’t.

If you want to be in the MBA Class of 2019, then you’re in one of these categories:

  1. Applied and admitted – woohoo! Congrats! There are a few schools that have issued decisions on early apps already, and some of you are in this enviable position (but most BSers are not).
  2. Applied and interviewed – another woohoo, you’re still in the running! Lots and lots in this category. If it was a by-invitation school, then you must’ve done something right. But, no counting chickens till they’re hatched, old boy.
  3. Applied and interviewed – at an interview-everyone school. This is also a good position to be in since you now have some experience in writing essays and also with interviewing, and that’s valuable if you don’t make it in, but the problem is that you have literally no idea if you’re going to make it in or not.
  4. Applied and rejected – uh-oh. That’s a super bummer. But! At least you got the rejection part out of the way early! You know that you’ll be doing Round 2 and that’s some valuable information there.
  5. No apps submitted yet. Well, better late than never, BSer! But we’re definitely talking to you when we say that Round 2 is your time. Round 3 just won’t work for the vast majority of applicants to the very best schools.

The highest-risk class of BSer is #3, and of course #5 since you have no prior experience in this process to build from. If you’re in the #3 group, then please take this advice seriously and get moving. Don’t get lulled into complacency by the fact that you interviewed at, say, Kellogg. That does not mean anything! It’s the admit that matters.

To the #2 group, we’re feeling more confident on your behalf but we also don’t want you to get blindslided. Applying to bschool is like dating – you keep going with the process until you find The One – and until The One says yes to you!

Why are we rattling your cage now? It’s still November! Don’t you have time? After all, the Ross adcom is fond of saying that you don’t need to spend a whole lot of time on the essays. However, they clearly do not appreciate what goes into writing a good set of essays. The BSers we know who get admitted to Ross put just as much effort into their essays as they do for the “harder” schools – which means, they put in A LOT. And, over and over again each year, the ones who we see winging it with their apps are the ones who end up with few (or zero) options.

Except for Ross, every other adcom wisely advises to put some serious time into this essay-writing endeavor.

That means, do it now.

That does not mean applying to all the schools. It means applying to the schools that are right for you. Hopefully you have a sense of which those are by now. If not, you’d better get busy on that, too! (Our Comprehensive Profile Review offers some real-world assessments of whether your current list is in line with reality or not.)

That being said: Part of a viable strategy is to NOT submit apps everywhere just to get them submitted. This is not a numbers game. We strongly suggest that you hold back on at least one of your top-choice schools, and NOT apply right now.

That way, you’ll have one school in reserve to do as a “fresh” application for Round 1 in the Fall if none of these Round 2 attempts work out this season. It’s always easier to get in as a new applicant rather than a reapplicant, particularly when the original app is submitted in Round 2 which is only a few months away from when Round 1 apps will be due next season (it may seem like forever away to be talking about Round 1 next year but honestly it will be here very quickly!!! remember how fast the summer went this year, and how Round 1 snuck up on you? yeah, that.)

If you have more than one Round 1 app still active and in play, then congrats to you for being set up so well in this hypercompetitive season. You still don’t want to assume anything about those apps. At least sketch out a preliminary plan, and take a look at the deadlines, so you know what you’re facing if the news coming down the pike in two weeks’ time does not go your way. Obviously we hope that it does, and that you end up with an abundance of riches and the dilemma of which to choose! But taking the conservative approach, it would be wise to have a short list of targets prepared, and start having a look at their essay questions, and even a plan of attack of how you might proceed, if worse comes to worst and you walk away empty-handed when all the decisions come down.

If you do have apps in play, then the next few weeks are going to be brutal; you’re probably done with the interviews and all you can do is to wait. And drink egg nog. Many BSers tell us every year that the waiting is the hardest part.

We don’t wish more essay-writing on any of you. But we also don’t wish any panicked essay-writing on you either. Walk through your options, so you come into this prepared. You do NOT want to end up facing down a boatload of more applications with only three weeks to complete them.

When you get the happy news of successes, we will be here to celebrate! We hope that time comes soonest for all of you.

 
 
 


You might also be interested in:

  • “How many apps should I be doing?” Round 2 edition
  • When your safety school is actually a stretch school
  • You got in somewhere good. Should you try for somewhere better?

Filed Under: Round 3 Tagged With: cheerleading

« Previous: ($) More on career goals with all those MBA apps you’re doing
Next: Your recommenders must write the recommendations. Not you. »

So who the heck is EssaySnark, anyway?!

We're the snarky experts in MBA admissions!

Sometimes amused and often appalled by what candidates write in their MBA applications to top bschools, EssaySnark created this little blahg to share common mistakes. Learn from them and avoid making admissions directors laugh (or want to hurl) when they read your essays. If you are hoping to have your essay reviewed anonymously on the blahg for free, submit it for consideration.

Want EssaySnark's personal assistance with your MBA applications? Start with our menu of consulting services and please read the Help FAQ to learn how we operate. Still have questions after doing all that? Email Team EssaySnark at gethelpnow at essaysnark dot com.

Good luck on your apps, Brave Supplicant!

Tell us what you think. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

UPCOMING MBA APP DEADLINES

  • (expected) Columbia J-Term/ED app to open
    in 0 weeks
  • INSEAD Jan '24 Intake Rd 3
    in 3 weeks
  • INSEAD Jan '24 Intake Rd 4
    in 2 months, 0 weeks
  • Harvard Round 1: Sept. 6
    in 3 months, 0 weeks
  • Harvard Round 1: Sept. 6
    in 3 months, 0 weeks
  • Stanford Rd 1: Sept. 12
    in 3 months, 1 week
  • Columbia J-Term: Sept 13
    in 3 months, 1 week
  • Wharton Round 2
    in 6 months, 4 weeks
  • Harvard Round 2 (FINAL HBS RD!)
    in 6 months, 4 weeks
  • Stanford Round 2
    in 6 months, 4 weeks
   
   

CLASS OF 2025 MBA APPLICATION STRATEGY GUIDES

From a former BSer:
"love the guide books!"




    The 2022 Stanford MBA Application Guide - for "what matters most" in your MBA application!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Stanford GSB for the Class of 2025
   
    The 2022 Harvard MBA Application Guide - updated for the Class of 2025!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Harvard Business School!
   
  The 2022 Wharton MBA Application Guide - even more advice on how to get to a win with those essays!
SnarkStrategies Guide for The Wharton School - with clear guidance for the 2022 essays!
   
  The 2022-2023 Columbia MBA Application Guide
SnarkStrategies Guide for Columbia Business School for 2022-2023 applications
   
    The 2022 MIT Essay Guide covers the org chart, the cover letter and 'introduce yourself' video, plus the new optional short-answer question on "the world you come from" -- and everything else you need to know!
SnarkStrategies Guide for MIT Sloan MBA - totally revised for the Class of 2025!
   
    The 2022 Kellogg Essay Guide - with a full methodology to identify your 'lasting impact' and your 'values'
SnarkStrategies Guide for Kellogg MBA - revised for 2022!
   
    The 2022 UVA Darden MBA Application Guide gives insights on the essays, Early Action, the possibility of a test waiver, and everything else going on here!
SnarkStrategies Guide for the Darden MBA - updated for the Class of 2025 requirements!
   
   
The Yale SOM MBA Application Guide for Class of 2025 candidates!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Yale SOM - updated for 2022
   
    The 2022 Berkeley-Haas MBA Application Guide - updated for the Class of 2025 application!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Berkeley Haas - refreshed and updated, with brainstorming exercises and structured maps to help you focus your stories!
   
    The 2022-2023 NYU Stern MBA Application Guide that covers the essays, the EQ Endorsement and test strategies!
SnarkStrategies Guide for NYU - discusses your requirements for the Class of 2025 essays!
       
   

EssaySnark® is a registered trademark. All content copyright © 2010–2023 Snarkolicious Press · Privacy Policy