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Some cool schools give feedback

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Dang. You didn’t make it in. šŸ™ BUT WHY???

Most schools are explicit with a no-feedback policy. All decisions are final, and they’re unable to talk to you about it because they don’t have the bandwidth to field all of those calls.

But some schools are much more generous with their time and attention and encouragement.

For example, if you didn’t make it in to Darden, they’ve often offered the chance to get feedback in case you want to reapply. Usually they make this available in June (mark your calendar now!).

Only a few schools do this. In the past, HBS would do it if they interviewed you and/or put you on the waitlist before rejecting you, though they don’t advertise this policy very loudly and we’re not clear if it’s a one-off thing or a standing offer that they’ll continue to make available if you ask. Tuck will do it too. Yale does it. We understand that Berkeley-Haas is no longer doing it, which is a bummer.

If you go for one of these feedback sessions, just manage expectations. The stuff they say tends to be pretty standard. Unless you’re one of those super qualified candidates who just couldn’t break into bschool this year because there were too many others in your pool, then the adcom is more likely than not going to tell you stuff that you should already know. By the time you go for a feedback session, then hopefully will be able to predict what the admissions person is going to tell you. You should have a sense based on profile self-assessment (or a simple comparison to the school’s class profile) what the issues are. If your college academics are not that strong, or if your GMAT is a little low, then that’s what your adcom person will say. Predictable.

They may also tell you if your essays weren’t up to snuff. Maybe.

Generally speaking, the reports we hear back from BSers who ask for one of these feedback sessions are largely the same. The value of such calls is usually a bit limited. The adcoms aren’t going to tell you REALLY why you were rejected (especially not if the reason was the you came across like a jerk in your app in some way, or if your recommenders did not say nice things about you – it’s unusual but it happens, and these reasons will definitely not be directly disclosed). The adcom peeps are more likely than not going to give you some vague comments about how you’re qualified but it’s competitive, yada yada yada.

It can still be useful to go through the experience but honestly, you hopefully by this stage of the game have done enough self-reflecting and gone back over your candidacy in a more objective light, that you are aware of the deficiencies that may have been in evidence. And, even more hopefully, you’re already taking steps to fix them, in preparation for the coming Round 1 season.

We’re of course always up for taking a look at rejected apps – we have the formal Post-Mortem (aka “Oh noz!!”) review where we go into great detail on every aspect of your application. Or you can just get the Comprehensive Profile Review which lets you understand how things may be perceived by the adcoms in the upcoming cycle.

We do still appreciate the schools that do this. It’s certainly an attempt to be more transparent, and it’s an applicant-friendly policy. But it’s kind of like when someone is breaking up with you; it’s possible you’re going to get some variation of, “It’s not you, it’s me” – or maybe, “It’s not you, it’s your test score.” Sometimes people need to hear that directly from A Person In Power before they’ll decide to actually do something about it, so if you’re skeptical of the assessments you’ve heard elsewhere (ahem), then definitely get some time on the calendar with your friendly admissions person and see what they say. No matter what, taking advantage of the opportunity shows that you are motivated, and if you reapply then they will see that you took advantage of this opportunity, which can only be a positive.

It also gives you something to do. Since you’re probably pretty darned bummed out. šŸ™

Channeling those disappointed energies into next steps and coming up with a go-forward plan is the best way to deal with dejection.

If we can help? Please reach out! There are lots of opportunities to begin working with us. We’d be honored to be part of your reapplicant journey!

 

 
 
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The dejection of rejection

by EssaySnark 3 Comments

Amidst all the high-fives and congratulations flying around lately, there have also been some very sad Brave Supplicants.

If you haven’t made it into bschool this round, you’re probably feeling pretty darned bad about things.

You’re probably beating yourself up. Feeling plenty of regret. Replaying the sequence of events and kicking yourself over one thing or another. It may even be on repeat, drumming into your head with the cruelty that only you know how to inflict on yourself that you’re a worthless loser.

None of that is true.

The despair that can set in when you’ve had your hopes up that something big and happy was going to happen, and it doesn’t, can really do a number on you. That’s especially true if you got invited to interview at a top school, and it might even be worse for those of you who are now on the waitlist instead of getting a clean straight-in admit. Sometimes, we hear from BSers who are waitlisted that it feels worse than if they’d been rejected.

Being waitlisted is kind of like the phenomenon of the Silver Medal Winner at the Olympics.

There’s this thing when a competitor gets second place where they often become REALLY unhappy about it.

You wouldn’t think that would happen. From the outside, you’d assume, “Dang, they’re good, they made it in second place!!!!” Like, no, they didn’t hit first, but they are the second best in the whole wide world! How awesome is that!

Turns out, it doesn’t feel awesome. Because the second-place winner gets tormented with all of the second-guessing in the world. They don’t get to feel proud of the fact that they are really really really good; they only get to feel the woulda-coulda-shouldas and if-onlys and other forms of regret and self-hatred and cursing of fates. Because if they’d just done THIS or THAT or THIS OTHER THING then it could’ve turned out differently. Instead of being proud of the performance, they have all these crappy thoughts about how they should’ve been able to do more to knock the winner off their perch.

Apparently this doesn’t happen with the Bronze Medal Winner. Apparently if you come in third place, you’re just thrilled to be on the winners’ podium at all. You feel grateful for making it in the top three. You see the reality of the two other competitors who did better than you and you know that you put in all that you could have, and you’re glad you came out with the bronze.

If you’re sitting here with no admits and only one (or more) waitlist offers at the end of Round 2, then please remember what we say all over the place: IT’S NOT OVER YET! You still have many months ahead where this could tip in your favor. The schools are using the waitlist quite liberally these days because there’s significant uncertainty in how their class rosters will be shaping up. (You can read through our Waitlist category to learn more of our analysis and advice for those in your shoes.)

If you’re sitting here with only strikeouts and no chances for any of your Class of 2021 apps at all, then we really do understand how disappointing that can be. If you know in your heart that you put in everything you could in all aspects of each app, from tests through to essays and resume and everything, and you still came up empty-handed, then the very basic assessment is that it was the profile or the pitch. That boils down to either a mismatch in your profile to the school you were targeting, and/or that the positioning of your message in the essays especially wasn’t done effectively. The fix for that in the coming season will be to either adjust your sights so that you’re aiming to an appropriate level of school (our Comprehensive Profile Review can help you determine the right match) and/or starting over with learning the skills of presenting you on the page in the essays you’ll develop (our Complete Essay Package is ideal for taking you through that learning curve).

Alternatively, if you’re sitting here with no options for the fall, and you know in your heart that you cut corners and rushed things and didn’t start early enough or for whatever reason could not prioritize the work needed on your apps, and ran out of time and slammed in some apps in a panic, then you’re likely to be beating yourself up the most.

You may expect us to be telling you now that yeah, that’s the outcome you should’ve seen coming. You may assume we’re going to chide you for being sloppy or doing all that procrastination, and that we’re going to add more reasons for why you should be beating yourself up at this point.

But we’re not going to do that.

Whatever decisions you made that got you to this point, those are over and done. You made the most of what you were operating with at the time.

If you had great intentions of putting together really strong apps last summer, and then work and family or maybe a blown-up relationship or whatever interfered with your ability to focus, and it didn’t happen the way you had planned, then fine. That’s what happened. You made the choices that you could in the moment that you had to make them. Even if you spent all of last summer playing video games instead of writing the essays you knew you had to write, please don’t hate yourself for doing that. For whatever reason, you could not get yourself to do the thing you wanted to do then. Maybe it was an overload of stress and you just didn’t have the energy. Maybe it was feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to begin, so you didn’t begin until it was really late. Maybe it was overconfidence, or a sense that this would be easy, so you didn’t allocate the time and put in the work. Maybe it was the exact opposite, and you succumbed to the sense that you’re never going to make it in anyway, and who are you to even be trying. So you just didn’t start when you knew that you should have.

No matter what the cause, it was the best you could do at the time.

If you could have done differently, you would have done it!

We’re not trying to give you a pass. If you screwed up, then yes, you need to acknowledge that. This isn’t our attempt to give everyone who tried for bschool a Participation Award. No. It’s just about recognizing that life is for learning, and to try and offer perspective and (hopefully) a dose of reality (the good kind, i.e., the one that really exists).

The person you are today is not the one who made those decisions; the person you are today does not deserve the suffering you are instilling on yourself. The person you are today is the victim of those unfortunate choices made before, but the person who made them does not exist. That person lives only in a past time that is no longer here. So don’t let that person continue to f_ck with you. They already did plenty of that. Don’t let them continue doing it now that their time is over and done.

You live here now.

You are the one who gets to live your life today.

Sometimes it takes a royal screw-up or some overly optimistic assumptions or playing a gambling game that doesn’t pan out in order for us to learn lessons.

If that’s what happened, fine. Now choose to learn them, and move on.

Beating yourself up about it is counterproductive and hurts no one but yourself.

It’s probably way easier for us to sit here telling you not to do it, than it is for you to actually redirect all that negativity, but we’re offering you the possibility of looking at things differently. If you feel bad about yourself, just ask yourself WHY you do. What is the thought that’s running nonstop through your head?

Identify that.

Is it: “I am a failure”?

Take that thought out of your head and look at it.

“I am a failure.”

Is that true? Look at everything in your life. Do the facts add up to support that assertion of failing?

Or maybe you’re thinking, “I am a loser” or maybe it’s “I’m never going to be anybody” or “I’m going to be stuck here and everyone is passing me by.”

Look at what’s underneath these feelings of dread or doom that is weighing on you like a blanket.

Write it down. What is the thought that’s fueling this horrible feeling?

Clearly articulate it — and then examine it.

Is that thought representing reality?

Is what you’re thinking something that’s honestly accurate, when you step back and look at it?

Try this process with the scripts that are running in your head. It often allows for an opening, a crack in the darkness where a beam of light can break in, and help soothe the worry and bring a modicum of peace.

If you haven’t gotten where you are trying to go, that only means it’s not yet your time.

Maybe this coming admissions season will be different, if you choose to make another go at bschools then.

Or maybe Life will take you in a whole new direction, if you let go of the attachment to this MBA thing that hasn’t materialized in your life.

No matter what, one thing is certain: You’re going to be just fine.

Anyone who’s ever in a position to try for a high-end MBA program is by definition a success story.

You’ve already got yourself to this point, through your smarts and determination and willingness to work. You have already achieved something, right where you’re sitting today.

Don’t lose sight of that.

Because of those skills and abilities that we know you already have, we also know you will continue on to a life full of good things. It’s inevitable.

It may not look like you thought it was supposed to.

But everything is taken care of, and you’re going to be okay.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: All MBA decisions are independent events.

by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

Now that the craziness of the first round deadlines is behind you, we wanted to make an important point clear:

All school decisions are independent events.

We have touched on this at regular points throughout the life of the blahg, including this post on “I got into one school, should I now try for a better one?”

It matters most to remember this once decisions start coming out and people start getting rejected.

Just because one school rejects you does not mean you’re doomed for all of them to do so.

(Well, that’s true if you’ve done your homework and submitted a strong application to each of the schools. If all your apps are crap then please don’t expect any of them to work out differently.)

Assuming you are a) qualified, and b) presented well and c) did your research to show the school why they’re a fit (not mandatory at all schools, but high priority at most) — then just remember that each school has its own idiosyncrasies and priorities and will be screening your candidacy through at least a slightly different lens.

Typically, if someone makes it into Stanford, they’re also highly likely to get into Harvard. Or at least Wharton.

Or if someone gets into Columbia, then Tuck could easily say ‘yes’ as well.

That’s just because those particular school pairings are more similar than different.

But if Columbia rejects you … that does NOT mean you’re not going to have any luck at Kellogg.

One season we had a BSer admitted to Duke who was turned away from Ross. That was a surprise. But there are often surprises.

We’ve had plenty of people get the interview at Stanford and not at Harvard.

Or make it into LBS but not INSEAD.

These are the same people, with the same profile, and generally similar essay-writing skills, applying to schools that are more similar than different – yet they are able to convert at one place and not another.

See? Independent events.

Happens all the time.

So before you read too much into any one school’s decision on your application – either for or against – just remember that they’re all different. Which is what you’ve already gained an appreciation for, based on all the work you’ve put in in researching them. Well, those differences extend to how they will be interpreting your pitch and the decisions that they make on your candidacy.

Of course, all this is predicated on the presumption that you did a good job on the apps.

If we’ve never reviewed your work before, then you can always hit us up for a Post-Mortem Ding Analysis if you start getting those rejects and don’t know why. Or better yet, have us do a Sanity Check on the apps before you submit. We are in the best position possible of answering the “What are my chances?” question through that service. We also always tell people going through the Essay Decimator essay review process if the drafts that they’ve submitted are so far off the mark that they won’t likely work out. We’re big on dealing straight with people.

We also know that this whole thing becomes this massive emotional roller coaster torture chamber experience. So we are trying to help you manage expectations – and better interpret the input that you’re going to be receiving in the coming weeks and months.

Sometimes, a reject is a fluke, and every other app turns into an admit.

Sometimes, the rejects stack up – in which case it’s likely that there’s an unrecoverable flaw in the pitch. Which means, you need to change course before submitting additional applications.

When these rejects are coming TO YOU then understandably, it can be hard to interpret them accurately. That’s what we’re here for. We’re happy to help out if we can!

 
“Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way”

ā€“ J.K.Rowling

 
“There’s a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.”

ā€“ Lou Reed

“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”

ā€“ Winston Churchill

Success Story! “I could present myself as a better applicant…”

by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

After issuing congrats to a very happy Brave Supplicant last year who wrote to us with news of their success, we asked if we could share their story on the blahg, and this is what we got!! Figured all of you toiling current-crop BSers might appreciate a pick-me-up story of where your hard work will be (hopefully!!!) leading soon.

Thanks Snark! I took my acceptance call while snowboarding and I think my husband and friends were concerned I was going to fall down the mountain from excitement.

Sorry for the delay getting back to youā€“ hereā€™s a write up of my experience. Please feel free to suggest any edits.

ā€”ā€”-

I took the GMAT a few years ago and half-heatedly decided to apply that year. I was ambitious with my school selection and underprepared as an applicant both from a personal and professional stance. Although I worked hard on my applications, I was outright rejected without an interview from the two schools to which Iā€™d applied. I was disappointed, but knew I could present myself as a better applicant with a bit of time on my side.

Fast forward to Round 1 of this yearā€™s [2016] application cycle. I knew I had to do things differently this time around if I wanted a better result. I read the Blahg previously and decided Iā€™d go for the Complete Essay Package for my favorite school (which is one Iā€™d applied to the first go around as well).

Although I didnā€™t enjoy the application process much at all, I appreciated that Snark broke it down into accomplishments and career goals before I started my essays. The feedback I received was at times frustrating, but always accurate. By the end of the process I was really proud of the application Iā€™d put together and felt like the content represented me well and in a concise way I just wouldnā€™t have arrived at on my own. It did feel like an ā€œintrospectiveā€ process too in the sense that I feel like I have a better idea what I want to do with my life today than I did ~4.5 months ago when I started thinking about school.

Iā€™m excited to report that I applied to three schools and was admitted (only) to my top choice with a very generous fellowship! I was waitlisted at my second choice and rejected without an interview at my third. I am absolutely stunned by the result and canā€™t wait to begin my MBA in the fall.

To everyone in the midst of application season, good luck!

This obviously came over to us some months back and we’re certain that many of you who have gone through the process fully understand the sentiments expressed!! What this shows though is that despite how much you don’t like the writing and rewriting (and getting difficult feedback!!) that it’s really necessary to suck it up and go through it. That’s where strong essays are born! The difference between the first drafts that this former BSer sent in for review and the last ones that they ended up submitting with their apps is like night and day. It’s only through the teeth-gritting effort that most people get to that place. So, if you’ve felt like DANG THIS IS PAINFUL!! then yeah, that’s a common experience, and yeah, it’s really really worth it to just keep plugging away!!!

Good luck to this BSer too – maybe at some point we’ll get another update from the in-person experience of being on campus at this top school.

The major problem with the way Harvard Business School manages admissions.

by EssaySnark - Discusses 13 Comments

We are reblahgging this from when we originally posted it three years ago because all of you current-crop of BSers need to hear this right about now.

 

We’ve frequently applauded HBS for improving the process for Brave Supplicants, and for being more transparent, such as with GRE and GMAT scores in applicants and students done in 2014. The changes that HBS made to admissions over the years, particularly with the “mid-cycle release”, really revolutionized how the process works for all of you, and several other schools followed their lead and implemented similar changes. This is super-applicant-friendly. Round 1 candidates benefit tremendously. You get to find out really early in the season if you’re moving to the next stage with them.

Before this innovation with the mid-cycle release, you had to wait till December if you were going to be rejected — or actually, January, since at the time, that’s when Round 1 decisions came in. Yup, you had to submit Round 2 apps at other schools without even knowing if your Round 1 apps were successful or not. Don’t have to tell you how much THAT sucked. Can’t recall which school was the one that started pulling decision releases into December but we’re thinking that was Harvard too.

Harvard has also been the school to move Round 1 app deadlines into September; they did so tentatively at first, moving it from the beginning of October which had been everyone’s standard, up to September 24 in 2012, and then to September 16 in 2013, and then in 2014 a full month earlier than many other schools’ deadlines. (In 2017 the Round 1 deadline was September 6.) This we also feel is to the benefit of EVERYONE in MBA admissions, because it lights a fire under the BSers’ butts much much earlier than ever before. Several other schools now have apparently felt empowered by Harvard’s bravery to also place their Round 1 deadlines in September, which provides further benefit since it means more of those deadlines are spread out over a longer timeframe – which in our experience, results in better apps to every school, since all the workeffort isn’t all lumped together in one two-week period for all of your apps. We noticed this specifically this year with the increase in quality we saw in BSers’ Rd 1 apps. So again, “Thank you, Harvard Business School.”

But the biggest innovation came in 2010 with this mid-cycle release thing. Before Harvard implemented that, you’d just submit the app in October and wonder. And wonder. And wonder. You’d finally get the “no” in December confirming what you would by-then know was inevitable – you’d basically resign yourself to being rejected if you didn’t get an interview invite by the end of November, but that’s a very long sequence of grueling undefined and doubt-filled days to go through before you get the actual word “No” on your app. This is still how a few schools do it, which is pretty lousy, as many of you will be experiencing in the weeks to come. For Harvard and several others, the process is now different.

We are of course referring to the vast majority of Harvard applicants here – not the ones who are getting the interview invitations this week, but the ones who did not, and will not. For that second group, the mid-cycle “release” seems very kind. You’re hearing really really early in the cycle that you’re a no-go for Harvard. Blat. OK well, shoot, that hurts. But at least you can regroup and move on. You can start your Round 2 planning early enough to actually fix the issues and create a competitive application.

So why is the title of this post referring to some “major problem” with how HBS does it?

It is this:

On the “release” day – which for any of you hiding under a rock, will be tomorrow – scores of people will get the news that they’re not moving forward at Harvard. In fact, just based on numbers, a vast majority of those applying to Harvard will have a bad-news email come in at noon Eastern time on Thursday.

The “major problem” is, a very large percentage of those people are actually TOTALLY QUALIFIED and will UNDOUBTEDLY (if they play their cards right) MAKE IT IN TO ANOTHER REALLY GOOD SCHOOL. One without the word “Harvard” in its name, but a good school nonetheless.

Yet on the “release” day, all these well-qualified and capable Brave Supplicants turn into the most self-doubting and dejected group of people on the planet.

In fact, if you got all of them together in one room on that release day, you’d probably see the world tilt off its axis due to the weight of the depression and despair.

Despite all of our warnings and cautions and the work we do in trying to help set expectations among the lot of you, we know it doesn’t help. You get rejected – when you thought you’d be The One – and it is downright awful. (This is particularly sharp given that those who are rejected from Harvard, despite being so qualified, have typically been success stories in life, so this is sometimes an unusual set of circumstances, and emotions, to be dealing with.)

Those more-reasonable schools have barely begun releasing any interview invitations, though. It’s very possible that hot on the heels of a Harvard rejection, you are going to get news that a different adcom is interested and wants to meet you. And yeah, that can help. However, it’s unlikely that that happen news has hit your inbox quite yet.

So this week, on the second day of HBS interview invites, things are often quite awful for many applicants. We appreciate how early HBS gives this news, but we do sort of wish that it happened a tiny bit later in the cycle, so that people would already have a few invites from other schools racked up, and they wouldn’t go off the emotional deep end quite so much.

All we want to do is remind you that all decisions are independent events, and most people are rejected from Harvard, and lots and lots of that group make it into Very. Good. Schools after that rejection.

If Harvard doesn’t happen, there will still be lots of opportunities out there!

Dang, that was not very helpful.

by EssaySnark

In case you read yesterday’s rant post about when to time your waitlist updates to the adcom and felt like we were too much of UnsupportiveSnark and not enough of HelpfulStrategySnark, today’s post is for you. The BSer in question can totally make it into bschool – but given where we’re at in the current…

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($) Round 1 decision questions (aka “Uh-oh.”)

by EssaySnark

A whole bunch of (now former) BSers were celebrating last week! As you are probably well aware, the first Round 1 admit decisions were announced by schools like Chicago Booth and Yale SOM. Columbia Early Decision decisions have of course been happening all along. There’s been some happy Brave Supplicants coming around to let us…

While much of the blahg is available completely for free, the content here is reserved for members with full blahg access only ($9.95/month for six months, cancel anytime). Please login to view this content or purchase a membership.