There’s a debate going on here in Snarkville around how to best respond to this crisis in the world today. Do we try and offer advice on how to navigate it? Do we post fact-based news about the virus to help offset some of the misinformation going around? Do we try to reassure those BSers who may be feeling anxious?
Do we ignore it, and keep on keepin’ on, with posts about getting into bschool?
On the one hand, continuing with our standard content for this time of year around Rd 2 admit decisions that are coming, and what to do if you end up on the waitlist, and how to think about your chances for Rd 3, and steps to be taken today if you’re looking at an app in the Fall… All of these things are needed. And, maintaining a sense of normalcy when it seems that all of life has become totally whacked can offer some comfort, in a way.
Business schools still exist.
The MBA is a valuable and desirable educational goal.
At some point, the world will go back to normal — though it may look different in certain ways than what we had lived in before.
All of these things are true. Which means that there can be value in marching forward with content around how to get in.
But.
If you’re worried that you’re going to get sick — if the neighbor in the next apartment is coughing so often that it wakes you up at night, and you have to assume that he has it — if you’re halfway across the country from your mom and she went through a cancer scare last year, and you don’t know if that means she’s more susceptible to this thing. If your grandpa is in total denial about it and keeps going to the bingo hall every day because he thinks it’s a scam or a scare tactic from the opposite political party.
What do you do?
You’re not exactly going to be able to focus on your GMAT test prep today.
You’re going to be too distracted.
Anxiety. Yeah, it’s real. It affects us.
So we’re stuck.
If we sit here talking about “What are your chances of getting into Harvard for Round 1” then it just seems like we’re being stupid. Because who is really focusing on whether they’re going to get into Harvard right now?
Except of course for those Rd 2 BSers who got the interview and are now awaiting decisions. Which Harvard Admissions has reiterated will be coming as planned on March 31.
Most admissions teams at most schools around the country and the world are now working from home, and most of them are trying to stick to their decisions release schedules for Round 2 as originally published.
But then, if you get in, what does that even mean?
Almost every school in the U.S. has announced that it will be going to online instruction for at least a month in March and April, and EssaySnark is willing to bet that they stick with online until their classes are done for the year in May or June (depending on what their academic calendar is).
If you get into Harvard, do you want to go to Harvard if you won’t be going to Harvard and instead will be taking classes in your pajamas in your living room where you currently live now?
Hm.
Is it still an MBA if you get it online?
Hm.
Undoubtedly, all of these schools will have significantly more flexible deposit policies this year — not just for candidates who get in during Rd 2, but also for any who got in for Rd 1 and already paid. There will be an ability to defer, or they will allow you to cancel your enrollment and get your deposit back, which hardly any school currently does.
There will be changes.
But nobody — literally nobody — knows what they will be.
What we can say is what you may already have figured out: The “official” numbers of infections of COVID-19 in this country are GROSSLY underestimating the reality of how many people have contracted it.
Because hardly anybody has been able to get tested so far, unless they’re a celebrity or are so critically ill that they’ve been admitted to a hospital, that means that there are lots and lots among us all who are sick and have spread it, or who are asymptomatic and have spread it, and it’s also quite likely that many who have recovered are still spreading it. Because nobody knows the truth of how this virus works.
It’s new.
So here we are, wondering what we can offer to serve all of you.
Many if not most of you are probably working from home now. Let’s hope the internet holds up!!!
Many if not most of you are probably finding it difficult to concentrate. So we should revise that sentence above and say “Many if not most of you are probably sitting at home, supposed to be working, but really just dickering around on the internet.”
Because that’s all you’re able to do. Maybe you’ve never been very disciplined during that whole work-from-home thing in the first place. Or maybe you’re just reacting as lots of us are, by feeling this low-grade sense of dread and worry, and not really knowing what to do with yourself, or how to react to the situation.
It’s an evolving situation, both out in the world, and here on the EssaySnark blahg.
We will keep posting, on some topic or another, which hopefully you find useful, or at least to serve as a distraction for the 3.7 minutes it takes you to read through each day.
Getting more anxious about this won’t make it easier to deal with, but sometimes it feels impossible not to feel anxious. Or maybe you’re not aware that you’re anxious.
Or maybe all of this that EssaySnark is hand-wringing about is not your experience at all, and you’re feeling that we’re all overreacting.
(We hope you’re right. But we fear that you’re not.)
You can come back tomorrow and we’ll see if there’s something more constructive or productive or usable we can come up with, as we all figure out how to ride out this bizarre situation we’re living through.
Tell us what you think.