So whaddya do NOW??!?

For many of you, Round 1 apps are done. Essays have been written, recommendations gathered, after-submit video questions completed. You’re looking around and you’re wondering, “What next?”

You’ve been so busy for so many months (errr, so many weeks for some of you) that you had this massively overloaded to-do list and all this excess stress of deadlines driving you every day.

Now what?

What in the heck do you do with yourself?

It can be a weird sensation, when you’ve been pushing so hard, and now you look up and you have nothing to focus on.

But never fear. EssaySnark has some suggestions!!

We made the biting suggestion in our series of HBS posts last week that BSers should “get a hobby” if they came up short on the Harvard interview, and we actually were only somewhat kidding with that.

The very best time to launch yourself full force into something you’re interested in — nay, passionate about — is right now, when you’re coming off the high of being productive in working towards a personal goal.

What most people do when they achieve a success is they coast. They celebrate. They pull out the plug and go on autopilot, and they quickly fall back to stasis. They resume the level of (non)motivation and (semi)productivity that they’d been at before.

In other words, they go back to being banana slugs.

“What success?” you may be asking. “I haven’t gotten in yet. There is no ‘success’ happening for me. All I did was submit my apps, and not even as many as I planned.”

Oui, oui, ma cherie, that is indeed a success!

You set a goal — apply in Round 1 — and you did it!!

You got one or more apps in.

Or, if you didn’t pull the trigger on any yet, you are still in the “apply now mode” of the admissions cycle. You have made some sort of progress, even if it’s only realizing that yes, you need to take the GMAT again, or coming to the stark recognition that no, you’re not ready yet, and you need to hold back and not jeopardize your chances with erratic applications.

Most of you though got in at least two or maybe four or even five applications over the last six weeks, and yes that is indeed a success. You set a task for yourself, one that requires long-term planning and many steps of execution, and you did it.

Time will tell how good those apps were and if you were aiming appropriately, but no matter what, you did something impressive, more than the vast majority of others in the world are doing. You’re in a minority of people striving for more, and it’s something to be proud of.

And, the best way to leverage that energy and momentum is to harness it towards the next thing.

Think of it like climbing a mountain: You’ve just established your base camp, and started to lay down the route to the next phase, and secured your sights on the top.

What do you do next?

You don’t lay down and take a nap. (OK, you can take a short one. One day. Not multiple napdays in a row though!)

You figure out what else needs to be done, and you do it.

The obvious things to be focusing on with your MBA apps are:

1. Interview prep – don’t take this lightly, it’s a big task in itself!
2. Round 2 strategies – yes it’s good to be putting a Plan B in place, just in case!
3. School visits – because October and early November are prime time for getting those in!

HOWEVER. That’s not all you could use this fabulous energy and determination for!

Please circle back to the blahg tomorrow edit: HERE! for more suggestions on the best ways to leverage your current position in life.

Shameless plug! If you did not get as many apps in for Round 1 as you had planned, or you’re any of the various breeds of procrastinator that exist among the BSer population, then we can suggest the Round 2 MBA Application Countdown which has just gotten underway! This is a week by week reminder from EssaySnark of what to be working on and how to maximize the time you have available from now till the make-or-break deadlines hit us in January. We’ve also reduced the price of the Complete Essay Package to the lowest it will be for the remainder of the year, in case you want even more support on every aspect of your essay development process! Or just keep coming back to the blahg for tips and tricks. We’ve got plenty of advice coming your way on these pages in an effort to support you towards your MBA dreams!