Most of you who’ve been accepted to bschool this past season have likely already done this — but just in case! It’s always good to get reminders of the basics sometimes.
If you got in to bschool — and even more so if you didn’t (eek!) — be sure to circle back and inform the people who wrote for you!
Hopefully it’s news of the happy kind, and it is one more chance to celebrate. It’s also good manners. 🙂 Mostly though, these are people in your professional network, and they cared enough about you to do this thing for you. They showed by agreeing to write for you that they’re on your side and in your corner and rooting for you. They want you to succeed!
At some point in the future, you will probably be the one who is writing the letters, and you’ll discover then the great joy of hearing back from a former employee or mentee with the news that they accomplished an important next step in their journey. It’s so exciting to be a witness to that! Don’t cheat these people of that opportunity to celebrate with you. It also is important so they don’t have that weird wondering feeling, whenever they think of you, which they will do occasionally since there’s this outstanding business hanging between you, until you circle back and fill them in on what happened.
If you didn’t get in 🙁 that sucks, but it’s still important to inform them. It’s not a fun email to write, but do it anyway. You can be brief, just say it didn’t go as planned, it is indeed a competitive process so that’s a reality. You don’t have to rake yourself over the coals with reasons you think it didn’t work. The recommender deserves to know the outcome, though. You may not need to use them as a recommender again, however you don’t want them left wondering what happened.
It’s a small world out there! Who knows if you’ll ever end up connecting with them again, but you might!
Really, this advice is about cleaning up the loose ends in your life, as you live it. This may seem like a very small thing, however it’s good to tidy up as you go. And, if you ever do need to tap them for another favor, then you’ll have smoothed the way to doing that down the road.
Hopefully that’s not necessary, though; hopefully the apps that they recommended you for turned into winners! You probably blasted the news all over eternity already, but in case you had one of those recommenders from further back in your past, then yeah, drop them a note about how things turned out for you. Depending on the effort you asked of them, you might even want to send along a gift card or something to show your appreciation — it wouldn’t hurt to be generous!
A lot of you are now in the heavy lifting of figuring out where to put down your deposit, which is pretty exciting and fun! If you’re reading this and somehow forgot to update EssaySnark on your outcomes, we’d love to hear about it, too! You can log onto My SnarkCenter and update your School Targets. It would be awesome to celebrate alongside you!
Tell us what you think.