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Don’t click on crap.

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Want to change the world? Here’s what you can do: STOP READING STUPID DRAMA-PORN.

Doesn’t matter how you feel about the Kardashians. By clicking on an article about any of them — good or bad — you are feeding an industry that survives on peddling trash.

It’s not that those people are trash.

It’s that they are not selling ANYTHING.

Or more accurately: What they are selling is an illusion. It is fake.

They are selling a lifestyle, or an image, dangling a fantasy of what your life could look like — from the outside — if only you took the right vacations or bought the right product or had the right filter on your photos.

The reason that there is so much NOT-NEWS in our culture is because people respond to it. All the politidrama hitting the front page of major media outlets about who said what behind whose back is NOT NEWS. It’s cloak-and-dagger conspiracy theories or backstabbing feudalism playing out on a larger stage for all of us aghast spectators to watch.

It is NOT NEWS. It is NOT NOURISHING. It is NOT HEALTHY.

You get ZERO nutrient value from consuming it.

We’re not talking about cat videos on reddit or Let’s Plays on youtube. Those have questionable value but they’re not — at least in our opinion — actively damaging our culture. They’re entertaining. Shallow, perhaps, but essentially harmless (mostly).

You may think that an up-in-arms article about the machinations of the White House or the stupid thing that some Leader of the Free World has tweeted today is also harmless. Or even that you need to follow the tweets of the LotFW so that you know what’s happening out there.

But trust us. You do not. Tweets are not what’s happening. Tweets are tweets; ephemeral; fleeting. Tweets do not create policy or change. Tweets seem to be solely a means of distracting everyone from what’s really happening. If you want to know what our government is up to, read the smaller headlines on the front page of the paper. The ones that talk about legislative changes and rules being rolled back. That’s where the real action is today, yet nobody seems to be noticing. Everyone is caught up in the drama about who said what behind whose back.

Or maybe your fetish takes a different form. Maybe you’re secretly obsessed with Nicki Minaj. Or you binge on prank videos when you’re by yourself in your apartment at night. Or you devour all the articles about the manueverings of your favorite quarterback’s personal trainer who’s trying to take over a whole football franchise. Or you can’t stop watching Ellen DeGeneres and you hope nobody ever finds out. There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with any of those things (though our perspective is that prank videos are just plain mean).

What we’re suggesting today is that you pay attention to what you actually consume on the Internet. Just because there’s a tantalizing breathless headline about some actress who got her personal phone hacked and her photos are now strewn across the Internet, or some ridiculous thing that someone inside or outside the White House is claimed to have said, or some youtuber posted something totally stupid and racist, or this beauty blogger is throwing shade on that one, does NOT mean you have to click on it and read it or watch the whole damn video that lays out the imagined crimes that one influencer has afflicted upon another.

These things exist because people respond to them. They have no value. They are not making the world a better place (or whatever it is you professed you want to do in your MBA apps).

Watching drama videos on the internet is simply perpetuating the drama. There is no redeeming value for others to participate in drama. It’s drama. It’s emotion for emotion’s sake. To be a voyeur on other people’s emotions is not helpful. It’s not helping them, and it’s not helping you. It’s just giving you a cheap thrill. It lets you be In The Know, so that you can be on the Us side of an us-vs-them scenario. These are hardwired feelings that are built into all of us, where we need to know where the power structure is and which alliances will serve us better — but in this social media era, they are being exploited to the detriment of us all.

The worst of all is clicking on articles that profile the latest mass shooter. Don’t do it. Many of these people are doing it for the infamy of the crime. They want to become famous because of the atrocity. Don’t indulge your sick curiosity in this way. It’s not necessary. You will learn nothing useful by reading about a detailed bio of a disturbed person who committed another disturbing crime.

This is not just a national media issue but a hyperlocal one, too. If you see someone in your social network being treated poorly, then instead of being a bystander to it, say something. Stand up for someone who’s being victimized on the Internet. Do it respectfully, in a way that shows compassion to the one who is bullying as much as the one being bullied. Simply reminding people that “I’m sure you’re really a very nice person IRL and I doubt you would say this to this person’s face. If all of us want the world to be a better place, then perhaps we can try make our online world a little better as a first step.”

The right to free speech means that people can say whatever they want, but you don’t have to participate in it.

If fewer of us are responding to the clickbait, then there will be fewer advertising dollars flowing to those who are trafficking in such counterproductive commerce. Is the article whose headline you see going to uplift you? Is it going to teach you something new? Is it going to give you a new skill or help expand your view of the world in a way that will benefit you or some others?

If not, you can still click through to read it. But just before you do, ask yourself: Is this intended to build up or tear down? Is this article contributing to an illusion of the world that NOBODY truly experiences, be it some type of artificial glamour or an airbrushed exclusivity or the imagined prestige of fame? Are you going to read about someone else’s suffering for your own enjoyment?

If so, it’s your choice to make, but do it with awareness. What will this give you? What are you giving away with this click? Don’t be a vacuous cog in the machine.

How to improve yourself

by EssaySnark 4 Comments

It’s so easy to let things slide.

One way to make sure that you advance yourself every year and get better and better as a person, and closer to your own specific goals, is to place a priority on those actions every week.

If there’s something very important to you, that keeps getting pushed off into the future, then make a point to accomplish a baby step on that project every day.

If you’re applying to bschool this Fall, then it’s too easy to say, “There’s nothing for me to do now, since deadlines aren’t till September.” And then you stay a lazy bum all spring and summer, until you go into Panic Mode in August and have a life of h3ll for two months.

Instead, you could be making progress even starting now, by making it a priority to get something small done every week.

For example, identifying your short list of schools, and being clear on the reasons why. This can only evolve through the concerted effort of school research.

There’s lots of steps you can be taking today.

However, today’s post is more general in nature. We’re not talking only about applying to bschool. We’re talking about improving yourself as a person.

Say you decide you want to learn how to program. Now that’s a big goal!

Maybe you get started on it. You take a class and learn about HTML. Or you have this great idea for a website that you actually began working on in college with a buddy, but you both let it lapse when you graduated.

Or you’re a musician, and you love writing songs, but just lately, you haven’t had the time. In fact, maybe you didn’t write one since August.

Or you want to start a blog — or you started one, but it hasn’t been updated since 2015, and you don’t think anyone ever reads it…. And now it’s become like a big downer. A huge ugh. You don’t even want to think about it since it makes you feel like a slug. One more datapoint for how you don’t get stuff done.

But every time you’ve ever made progress on this heart project you’ve got, you’ve felt SO GOOD about yourself.

But maybe it’s tough to get started.

There’s always something else pulling on your time.

Well here’s an idea: (ohnoyeswe’regonnasayit) JUST DO IT.

Meaning, do SOMETHING today – even right now if you can – to advance yourself towards this goal.

Even if it’s just SCHEDULING a time in your calendar for sometime in the next 24 hours where you CAN go do it. ‘Cuz right now, while you’re reading EssaySnark, you know that you really should be preparing for that meeting with your team in 20 minutes, and you don’t have time to do something for yourself at this very moment.

What you can do is set up a reminder in your calendar for later today or tonight (or better yet, tomorrow morning) where you will have the freedom to do it.

And then make it happen!

If there’s something that only your FUTURE SELF will benefit from, it’s all too easy for your NOW SELF to blow it off. Usually your NOW SELF is all about responding to the immediacy, the urgency, the I-just-want-to-take-a-nap-ency. Your NOW SELF is an enemy of your FUTURE SELF. (THIS PHENOMENON HAS BEEN STUDIED! CHECK OUT THIS ARTICLE ABOUT A UCLA ANDERSON RESEARCHER WHO HAS SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN OUT WHAT WE’RE SAYING HERE. )

And what happens, when you live long enough, is you start to look back over the years accumulating and you realize, “Dang, if only I’d started this when I first had the idea, I’d actually be done by now.”

Instead, we blow stuff off and blow it off, and we don’t change. We stay the same.

But if you’re interested in getting an MBA, there’s something about you that’s driving you. That wants to be different.

Why not honor that self?

For many people, the most precious time of the day is the morning. If you make a commitment to yourself to do something – ANYTHING – to further your own personal project as your first task of the day, then that’s guaranteed to let you actually make real progress on it over time. You need to be vigilant. Carve out the time. If it needs to happen before you leave the house for work, then find a way to do it – even if it’s only 5 minutes at first. Even 5 minutes is valuable.

The trick is to establish that as part of your routine. If you ALWAYS take 5 minutes, every morning, for two weeks, then you should be able to easily enough expand it to 10 minutes.

If you’re working on something for 10 minutes in the morning, then you’ll be thinking about it on the commute to work, and you may get some spark of inspiration that hits you during lunchtime, and then you’re so excited to implement that idea that you go home from work and you do more on your personal project that night.

Then the next morning, your 10 minutes grows to 15 minutes, and you’re on a roll with it! And you are so jazzed by it that you actually wake up before your alarm the next morning (omg that never happens!!) and instead of going back to sleep you’re wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and you GET UP and you go to work on your big idea.

And voila, in no time at all, you’ve changed.

Now you’re someone who has energy. Who’s inspired. Who’s excited by life. Now you’re working towards something.

One of the hardest parts is GETTING STARTED.

So today is an invitation.

GET STARTED.

Make tomorrow morning your first day of 5 minutes.

How will you use the time?

What do you do?

by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

Say you’re walking down the hall at your office, on your way to a meeting. Maybe you’re running a tiny bit late, and you’re juggling an armful of file folders and notepads, with your coffee in the other hand hoping not to spill.

You turn the corner and there in the middle of the carpet is a gum wrapper.

What do you do?

If you’re like most people, you keep walking.

You see the gum wrapper, but that’s for someone else to pick up.

Doesn’t matter that it’s trash in the middle of the floor.

Doesn’t matter that this is “your” office.

There’s a janitor or cleaning person of some sort who will eventually come by and whose job it is to pick up the trash.

Not yours.

You don’t need to bother with garbage. Not in your role. Not when you’re already a tad bit on the late side and your arms are full.

* * *

Now visualize this scene:

You’re at home. You’re walking down the hall to your bedroom. There’s a gum wrapper on the floor.

Do you pick it up?

If the answer depends on, “Well, it’s my roommate’s gum wrapper” or “I don’t chew gum” or “My mom’ll get it” then there’s a problem.

But there’s actually a problem with the first scenario, too.

We’re not saying that you need to be picking up every gum wrapper.

But what if that hallway at work is instead the front lobby, and there are important people coming for a meeting. Do you pick it up then?

Under what circumstances do you take ownership for something that technically isn’t your problem?

Why do we have different rules for this? Why should it depend on how big a piece of garbage it is, or if you’re at your office, or home, or you’re at a meeting at some other company’s offices?

At what times or in what situations do you break the rules of social convention and do what you’re not expected to do, what other people typically don’t?

When do you stop caring what other people might think?

If you’re at the airport, no, we wouldn’t expect you to pick up the gum wrapper. If you did, you’d be picking up gum wrappers all day, and you’d surely miss your flight.

(Are you the type who discards gum wrappers nonchalantly at the airport because you can’t be bothered even to make sure your trash goes into the trashcan? Are you the person who tosses your garbage towards or near the garbage can, but doesn’t worry about it if it fails to make it in and lands to the side?)

If there’s a piece of trash in the hallway at work, most people pretend they don’t see it.

But let’s look at this objectively.

There’s a piece of trash on the floor.

In civilized society, we put trash in the garbage. At least, that’s the norm in America, when we’re indoors, and we also frown on littering on sidewalks and in nature if we’re out on a trail. (We understand that norms may be different in other countries. That doesn’t make it OK to discard your waste wherever is convenient. We’re all sharing this thing we call Earth and shouldn’t we equally respect it, and each other?)

You can learn who you are in so many ways.

What do you stand for?

Or in this case: When do you stoop?

It’s the actions of daily life that reveal character. If you want to “change the world” as so many of you claim, are you actively trying to change the world even in some small way today?

The shame of a low GMAT score

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We want to talk about something here today that we’re guilty of contributing to — inadvertently, yes, but we’ve done it.

It’s the shame that many BSers feel about their performance on the MBA admissions test.

We see this in the opposite manifestation: When someone has done well on the GMAT, they’re quick to volunteer that information to us. When someone has done poorly? They often get squirrely with us about not wanting to disclose it.

Or they don’t want to admit to how many times they’ve attempted it.

A (perceived to be) low score on the GMAT can do a number on your self-confidence. It can really wreck with your insides.

You know you’re intelligent, and capable. You tried to study. You took practice tests where you did just fine, subscores decent, above average total.

And yet… the score on the actual test doesn’t budge.

So we want to set the record straight today:

YOUR GMAT SCORE IS NOT A SIGN OF YOUR WORTH.

The GMAT score predicts very little. It certainly does not predict what job you’ll land after the MBA. It does not predict how much money you’ll earn. It has nothing to do with whether you’ll find love in this life.

The GMAT score is a crude measure at best — but it’s all the adcoms have at the moment as a tool that’s “standardized” across populations.

Of course, “standardized” is in quotes because if the GMAT really were unbiased and totally fair, then why do women score lower? Why do younger people do better? And if English is not your first language, there’s no way that’s it’s testing equivalent skills for you as it would an American (though there’s argument to be made that, depending on where you grew up and were educated, you may have an advantage based on the standards, pedagogy and practices of education in your native country).

It’s so difficult when you’re logging onto MBA applicant discussion boards or talking to current students about what it took to get in, and you’re seemingly surrounded by all these 750+ scorers.

Please remember: Those who don’t do as well are not out there broadcasting their score.

It’s the ones who have mastered the art of standardized test-taking, or maybe had a lucky day in how their guesses lined up, that end up with the scores that make you feel sh!tty about yourself.

Mastering the GMAT is not mastering anything noteworthy in life. Period. End of discussion. It is not.

There are two times in the next 50+ years of your existence here on this Earth where the GMAT will matter:

1. When a nameless faceless admissions committee member reviews your application at the school you’re aching to get into — which will happen in a moment in time when you’re not even aware that it’s happening. You will be placing an order at Starbucks or drumming your fingers on the desk waiting for your boss to show up for the meeting he scheduled with you or asleep on a red-eye flying back to New York, and some admissions person will glance at your score and then move on to the important parts of your app. Your score will be seen, and taken note of, and you won’t even know that it happened. It’s not like the clouds will part and the voice of God will boom down on you and you will hear, “Your score has been assessed, and now your Fate for the rest of Eternity is sealed.” No. It’ll happen in some moment, when your admissions person is doing her job, looking at the rest of your application and chewing on the end of her pencil as she considers everything about you that you’ve submitted.

2. When you go for your MBA interview nine months later and you’re sitting across from a recruiter from a top consulting firm, asking you why you are interested in her firm — because by now, you’ve been admitted to that school you so eagerly want to go to. In your interview, depending on the career path you’re targeting and which firm this is, and what the competitive environment is in hiring at these firms when the economy goes up or goes down, your interviewer may ask about the GMAT score. And she’ll make note of it, and she’ll continue on, asking the things that really matter, about your experience and what you’ve done in the past and why you think you’re a good fit to their firm.

That’s it. Two times, one of which you won’t even be aware of (obviously #1 happens multiple times, once for each of your apps, but just work with us, for once, would you please?).

The GMAT is unfortunately near-identical to your weight or your curves or your lack of them. It’s like the biceps you don’t have or the shortness you do. It’s one of those things that the World has taught you to fixate on, as if it Means Something. As if it Matters.

We’re here to tell you, it doesn’t.

Ask someone who’s been out of bschool 10 years if they even remember what they scored on the GMAT. We’d be shocked if anyone does.

If they did, it’s because they did well, and they fixated on that as a Sign that they have something to offer.

That’s just as much a fallacy as thinking a low GMAT means you’re crap.

EssaySnark is guilty of GMAT-shaming in some of our older posts on the blahg, where we’ve said things like “If your score is too low, suck it up and take the test again.”

While, hey, there is some value to that advice, if someone scored poorly on the GMAT out of an absence of trying.

If you don’t put in the mental effort and learn the things that they’re testing you on, if you’ve been a slacker and a skater where you do the just-enough-to-get-by thing because you’re sharp and a quick study and that’s worked for you all of your life… well then, yes, the GMAT does say something about you, but not what you think. If you repeatedly get a lame-O GMAT because you’re going through the motions and not actually trying, then we don’t have much sympathy for that.

But for the many, many BSers who really do put in the effort, who sign up for courses and pay tutors and take all of the practice tests they can find, and they STILL do poorly on the actual exam… Then please know, we’re talking directly to you when we say: It’s not your fault. It’s just the GMAT is a crappy exam.

If they let you take it in your bedroom in your pajamas with your fuzzy slippers on, it’s likely you’d do just great. But no, they have it in this inconvenient test center where the AC is on too high or not at all, with a weird dude next to you making sniffly noises, when you’re all tussed up about it because you’ve already tried three times and it’s now built up to a “thing” in your mind…. Yeah. You don’t do well on it again, well, that’s NOT YOUR FAULT.

It’s the silly fight-or-flight mechanism in your adrenocortex going haywire because you’ve made this into a massive obstacle (that isn’t even real) and you prevent your own self from success because of the fear mechanism hardwired into your brain. Because we are all animals and because we’re social creatures and because there’s an instinct you’re reacting to that goes way back in time, that you need to be successful and respected in the eyes of your peers so that you won’t be kicked out of the herd.

Yeah, that.

All that is wrapped up in this one little three-digit number. The GMAT.

It’s like your entire life depends on it.

But it does not.

Remember, most people who take the GMAT flail fabulously!! The average GMAT score is only a 556! We can practically guarantee that if you’re sitting here reading this blahg, you scored at least 100 points better than that, and probably significantly more.

You have accomplished much in this life.

You would not be in a postition to even consider a high-end MBA if you hadn’t.

You have much to be proud of, dear whippersnapper.

So next time you feel ashamed or embarrassed when someone asks about your GMAT or (same issue) what schools you made it into, hold your head high, and tell them, “I did the best that I could.”

It’s none of their business what score a computer screen spit out at you.

It does not matter.

It is irrelevant.

What counts is acting from love.

When you do that, then you are affirming your true nature.

When you don’t, then you feel horrible, and you vow that next time you will.

It’s terribly difficult, especially when you’re young, and the world is uncertain, to keep focused on what’s real.

But truly, Grasshopper, you are a wondrous being, and we know you are bound for great things.

PSA: How to email

by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

Our customer support folks at Team EssaySnark got this email recently:

 
 

here's a fun email to talk about

 

Today we’ll offer up some Curmudgeonly Old-Person Snark advice on how to email.

“‘How to email’?!? C’mon EssaySnark, I’ve been emailing since I was born! I know how to email.”

Ah, Grasshopper, but do you?

Please go back to that email and think through what it conveys.

 
 
 

You can scroll down to see what WE think it conveys after you have done so.

 
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No really, did you think about it? What are your thoughts? Or are you just scrolling straight to what we think? Use your own thinking first, Grasshopper!

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Let’s start at the beginning. Here is the situation.

1. This person is emailing a generic customer service account at some company.

2. This person is likely frustrated that they don’t have access to the product that they thought they should have access to, and harumph dang it, they NEED access, and now have to frickin jump through some hoops and d@mn what a hassle.

Who knows if that’s all of it, but likely that covers 75% of what was going on in the head of the sender. Writing this email is a reflection of that person’s state of mind at the time, which — we’re only guessing here and extrapolating based on very few facts — was probably some form of irritation, impatience, and possibly anxiety too, if this person is sending this note because they were either a) invited to interview at Stanford (yay!) and want the help of our essay guide, or b) put on the waitlist at Stanford (F__k!) and need the help of our essay guide. Or, it could simply be a Round 3 applicant who realized that the deadline is fast approaching and got wound up with the stress from that (ack!! sh!t!!).

Regardless of which it is, we can assume that some degree of emotions and a sense of franticness may have been involved, thus the brevity of the request.

Let’s move on.

As a recipient of this email, what would be going on in the head of the Team EssaySnark person?

Well, think about it. If you were a customer service type worker, what would be your reaction to getting that email?

Because — and here’s our #1 point to offer today: Even when you’re sending an email or request to some big (or small) corporation on the internet, it is always a person who reads it.

This email-sender clearly was taught good manners by their parents. There’s a “please” and a “thank you” in this message.

There’s even a modicum of a salutation.

But on the whole, well hm.

It does not exactly come across as a request now, does it?

This person was asking for assistance on their account. It wasn’t that there was a technical issue with the EssaySnark servers. It’s not that the EssaySnark service had let them down or was not functioning properly. This person had bought a subscription to one of our essay guides, and that subscription had expired. They were asking for a gimme. “Please give me access even though the access that I have paid for is over.” (Plus, 10 minutes to 5 on a Friday. That’s fun.)

It’s like walking into your gym after you canceled your membership and demanding to work out. For free. When you have not paid anything for it.

Therein lies the rub: This email comes across as a demand. Not a request.

When you’re asking for help, then the tone of your ask kinda matters, don’t it?

Yes we understand, this person was in a hurry. They were probably emailing from their phone and we know how sucky it is to try and write an email on a mobile.

But we didn’t even get a subject line on it, and we definitely didn’t get any warm-fuzzies or sense of gratitude in how it was phrased.

Technically there’s nothing wrong with what they sent in; again, they have the requisite “please” and “thank you.”

But it’s kinda like when you’re in an argument with someone and they pop off with an “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

As if the “I’m sorry” in that sentence counts as an apology.

Um, no. That “sorry” is not a “sorry” it’s a backhanded attempt at asserting your own righteousness.

 
 
 

EssaySnark may be of a dying breed, of those who care about good manners, who believe that taking a bit of time in crafting even an email correspondence is the right way to interact with a fellow human. We have a surprising number of posts talking about such things here on the blahg.

But check it out, Grasshopper.

At least for now, and into the foreseeable future, the people who control your destiny are more likely than not to be wired like EssaySnark. Those making the admit/deny decisions on your MBA apps. Those determining whether you’re a good fit for their company. Those wanting to offer you a job or who you will report to up the chain in your new company.

Not all of them care. But a lot of them do.

Call us the dinosaurs who are still occupying space in corporate America, but we exist out there. And until you Millennials have completed your takeover of the world, you’ll have to deal with us.

Making us dinosaurs happy — or at least, not being an irritating schmuck in your interactions — might help you get where you want to go in life a tiny bit easier.

 
 
You probably are totally not interested in but you may want to read anyways:

 

PS: If you’re really wanting to be kind to a customer service person on some internet site, and efficient in getting your request addressed, then include the username you used to register or the correct email address that you signed up under. Don’t make that poor schmuck dig around to figure out who you are. It may also help to keep in mind: You’re probably paid way more than any customer service person in a public-facing role is — and your job even on its worst day is probably way better than theirs. It’s always nice to be nice.

 
 

Final PS: The BSer who wrote the email that prompted this post ended up writing a very quick but very sincere thank-you after their question was answered. So we know that they were not intentionally being curt! But that’s why we’re writing this reminder, as it’s when we’re not thinking that it matters most.

Avoiding the false positives: Worst case scenario when an admissions consultant steers you wrong

by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

There’s nothing worse than some admissions consultant telling you you have a shot at a top school and then not even getting the interview. It can REALLY tick you off.

And understandably so!

After all, that’s what you PAID THEM for!

MBA admissions lacks so much transparency and having a so-called expert help you focus your efforts can be a massive benefit.

Unless of course, they’re wrong.

If you’re working with someone who does not have a depth of experience to truly assess YOUR profile against the schools you’re in love with, then they can be doing more damage than good.

We’ve made our share of bad calls before, notably this one that we posted about publicly. We’ve never gotten it that wrong before or since. That was a learning experience for sure.

This is one reason why our Comprehensive Profile Review will tell you which schools are in range for you — but with a gazillion caveats, reminding you that it’s the execution that will be the determining factor. If your core stats and the essential background you are presenting shows you as QUALIFIED for a top MBA program, it’s still up to you to put the application together in a way that makes the admissions reviewer say “Yes!”

You may remember from some long-ago science class that a false negative is when a test comes back as a “no” when it’s actually a “yes” — and when you’re testing for life-threatening diseases, then this is a problem! If a test says “No, you do not have cancer” but really you do, then that’s bad.

A false positive is when the test says “Uh-oh you do have it!” but you actually don’t.

In medicine, that’s not necessarily so bad — the main issue being of course that you’re subject to treatment that you don’t actually need, and sometimes the treatment is damaging.

But in this case, a false positive would be, “Oh yes, you definitely have a shot at Harvard!!” when actually, you don’t.

Man, that one hurts, when October comes around.

In medicine, a false negative is a major problem, particularly if it’s an infectious disease. A false negative says “You’re healthy!” when actually you might be walking around spreading it to others.

In MBA apps, a false negative is something you will never, ever know about because if you believe your consultant and trust in him, and he says “Nope, not a chance, don’t even bother” and so you never apply…. and if they were WRONG….. nobody ever will know. If your consultant says “Sorry, I don’t see Harvard as being a fit” and you don’t try for Harvard, then dang. Apparently he was right! BEcause now you have not applied to Harvard, and so the consultant has made Harvard’s decision for them. The consultant decided you weren’t gonna get in, and you never tried, and so of course, you didn’t. (And yes, we frequently have the deep-seated opinion that a BSer won’t get into Harvard, and we do advise them of such, but we try to do so in a way to make them feel empowered to still apply if they are motivated to do so. Because it’s their life, not ours, to be living.)

More often, we see consultants being unrealistically optimistic, sometimes this may be intentional, but probably in most cases it’s because they have an unconscious bias: If they’re talking to you FOR FREE during a pitch for their services, then a) they’re usually looking at very limited information, often only GMAT and GPA and maybe the resume; and b) they’re trying to get you to sign up with them. Even if they are authentically wanting to only provide value to you as a person and are not fixated on making a sale, it is only human nature that they are trying to make a sale. It’s really hard (impossible?) to set that aside. And it’s also really hard to be speaking to someone on the phone and telling them, “Nope, you’re crap, nobody is going to want to admit you.”

This is why EssaySnark does not do free consults as part of a pre-sales process, and it’s why we do everything in writing.

It is much much easier to be honest and forthcoming when we can type it out on a screen and deliver the news. It’s just hard to shatter someone’s hopes in Real Life one-on-one conversation. Yes, good consultants find a way to say this but sometimes it’s couched in so many platitudes that the message is not heard.

And very often, a consultant who is working closely with a candidate over many weeks or months gets to the end of the process with them and is looking at the final product of the essays that they have created together with the applicant (because many consultants get their fingers very deep into the pie) and they have lost objectivity. They see how far the client progressed from the beginning and yes, the final drafts are better, but maybe they’re still not good enough? And they’ve been subject to how many rounds of review? The consultant is tired. They just want the project to be done with. They sign off on the essays with a note of confidence, and the client submits an app that still has no chance at all. But whether the consultant consciously knows this or not, they have tacitly given their approval and rubber-stamped it, so the client/applicant thinks they have a real shot. After all, there was a tremendous amount of WORK involved – they MUST be good essays by now!!

Or so the thinking goes.

False positive.

And yes, this is a self-serving post, and here is where we plug our Sanity Check review that gives you our unbiased opinion of whether your application has come together in a way that this school will respond to.

And if you’re on the hunt for a consultant, we have posted many times before about what to look for, and what to be cautious about (and also this).

Your consultant needs to have experience with the tier of school that you’re targeting — with the understanding that someone who is truly HBS material is likely going to make it into HBS with or without a consultant!! There are absolutely cases where the consultant helped someone who is borderline get tipped over into the HBS pool, but there are many consultants who managed to only not hurt the applicant’s chances. The applicant was going to get in, regardless, and the consultant perhaps helped them with polish and presentation.

Your consultant also needs to have extensive experience with the type of applicant you are. If your consultant has never worked with military candidates, or has only done so here or there, then honestly, how much help can they offer? Particularly when this segment of the applicant population has been booming and the competition has ratcheted up.

If your consultant has never helped someone with a really low GPA make it into a school like Columbia or Duke or Kellogg, how much help can they be if that’s the challenge you’re facing?

These are the questions you need to ask.

And yes, obviously we’ve helped people in your shoes before — regardless of what shoes you’re wearing! We’ve been doing this practically for-ev-er and we have high confidence that we’ve seen a profile EXACTLY like yours before. Whatever uniqueness you bring or challenges you offer. You can find out in our Comprehensive Profile Review, or if you just want a confirmation before you dive in with even the most basic service, hit us up with a question about your profile and how you’re so special and we will let you know yay or nay if we’ve never seen one like you before (who got in! as a result of our efforts).

Every year we get comments like this after doing a final-hour essay review for someone:

Lastly, I know you probably still feel this is a polished turd, but considering I submit tomorrow please help me get to the best product I can in the next 18 hours. (I fired my consultant because I’ve had this essay done for a month and he loved it).

Obviously that BSer sensed that perhaps something was off on the essay they’d created, enough to seek out a second opinion — but not everyone has that premonition.

Even more often, we get people sign up for our Post-Mortem Review at the end of November after their previous consultant told them they were a shoe-in, and they got nowhere on all of Round 1.

So yeah, this is a self-serving post — but honestly, we want all of you to be successful!! You found your way over to EssaySnark by some turn of fate and we feel very invested in helping you get in. We shoot straight. We keep it real. We offer feedback and advice to help you aim higher when warranted, and tools to support you in climbing. We want you to get into the best school you can!

If there’s more we can do, please ask!

 
 
You may also be interested in:

($) Cleaning up the vibe (cont’d)

by EssaySnark

To continue the “What can I do now?” conversation, we’ve got more to say on the social media front. If you don’t have anything negative to push down to the second page of search results, then you can turn your attention straightaway to the actual content. Do you have a strategy for what you are…

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.

And….. the moment is near!!

by EssaySnark 2 Comments

Can you believe that Round 2 admit decisions are starting to happen?

Can you believe that Round 2 admit decisions still haven’t happened?!??

Some schools like Columbia, NYU and INSEAD have been issuing decisions for awhile now, but dang, if you’re in the Round 2 pool and have been invited to interview at one or more schools, you must feel like the clock has gotten stuck in molasses and are incredulous at how slow the calendar pages are turning.

When you apply in Round 1, everything seems to happen more quickly. Partly that’s because — in the US at least — there are a bunch of holidays in the fall that capture the nation’s collective attention. These keep you busy. There’s Halloween that offers the fun diversion of perhaps some dress-up or parties and candy in the office, and Thanksgiving where many people have a long weekend and significant travel. And planning for the December holidays, and, well, just all kinds of stuff going on. That makes it easier to stay distracted, and distracted means the time goes by quicker.

By comparison, the sequence and timing for Round 2 is experienced in a very different way.

After the flurry of apps getting submitted after the holidays, there’s a welcome breather where you get a break from all the app craziness, and you were likely grateful to be able to resume your regular life at least a little. Maybe you even got to watch some football on Sundays.

But once we get past the Superbowl in early February, then it seems like everything slows to a crawl. Yes you were getting invited to interview, and yes there was lots of excitement and stress and work preparing for that, and discovering that your suit doesn’t really fit you anymore and dealing with that, and traveling to the schools, and maybe some intense winter weather somewhere along the way. But then once those are over, the thumb-twiddling begins in true earnest.

And for most of you, the time just d-r-a-g-s on.

Part of this must be because of the very nature of the experience: You started the MBA process at least a year ago now (some of you, many many years ago!) and now that you’re finally at this stage where you’ve got apps in the hopper and those apps have been hopping! to the extent that at least one or two of them resulted in interview invites. It’s like being on the longest of road trips, where mostly you’re just crusing across the Great Plains of flat highways and bad truckstop coffee, and the time puts you in an alternate universe of working towards something that’s seemingly never going to get here. But then suddenly, you realize that the highway has changed and now you’re on the 405 in Los Angeles and there are Priuses all over and major traffic, and you’re almost at that destination that you’ve been aiming towards. Suddenly we’re in March, and all of this is becoming real — but it hasn’t actually happened yet. It does a number on the mental state. It feels like all of your adult life you’ve been working on GMAT application stuff and now suddenly it’s about to be over — hoping and praying that that means you’re actually going to get in. You go back and forth between utter confidence that yes you’re definitely going to get accepted, after all you got the interviews at these top schools and you didn’t totally embarass yourself in the interview. And alternating from the assumption that yes it must work out, to abject fear that oh sh1t after all this work and (re)app attempts, it’s gotta pan out this time…. but what if it doesn’t?!??

We’re often told that the waiting is the hardest part. Well, that’s why. You’re in this weird limbo-state and the brain doesn’t know what to do with itself.

So today’s post is only to say, yes, this feeling of neurotic manic-depressive-schizophrenia is absolutely normal, and don’t worry, you’re not going crazy! (at least, no more so than you were before you started)

Moodswings and utter depressive moments and really wild debilitating doubts are par for the course at this stage.

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, get through today, and you’ll have only a few more such days ahead of you before these actual results start popping in.

And we’re betting that yes indeed, this will be your year. 🙂

Keep us posted! Please fill us in when you get the news! Go to SnarkCenter and update your School Targets so we know where you get in!

And keep those cell phones charged up and turned on at all times starting this week! Many adcoms like beginning their congratulations you’ve been accepted calls early! If you don’t recognize the number or it’s from a ‘private’ number, jump on it! Answer anyway!

You may hear lots of robocall telemarketing recordings this week, but one of them will surely be an admissions person with exciting news to deliver.

You are being brainwashed and used.

by EssaySnark - Discusses Leave a Comment

This is admittedly an odd post to be publishing on a blahg selling services to help you get into business school, but there it is.

Go watch this Exhibit A video:

Transiting to a new industry by leveraging transferable skills

 

Of course, that advice is 100% sound. It’s what we help applicants do in positioning themselves for success in their apps!

But that video….

That video is SO polished. It is SO slick. It is so obviously intentionally produced as MARKETING.

Not marketing Harvard Business School. Marketing the companies that are featured in it.

You get three beautiful students who are so incredibly amazing that they made meaningful contributions in entirely new industries in only 10 weeks during summer internships.

Yeah, we know, that’s the premise behind the summer internship experience that most MBA students at all schools are supposed to be going through.

EXCEPT IT’S NOT.

An internship is where you’re an intern — someone new to the field who is learning how it works. Who by definition knows little to nothing about it.

Yes, the companies that hire interns are hoping to get a return on their investment and have the interns actually be productive.

But who are we kidding. In your first three months of any new job, did you really learn much more than where to find the restroom?

Yet this is touted as if these ah-ma-zing Harvard students are so fabulous that they hit the ground running and learned a full statistical programming language (R) and used it to product insights on a new industry they’d never worked in before.

We’re really not trying to harsh on these students. This is ALL the fault of the marketing department at Harvard Business School who came up with this ridiculous concept and sold it to the companies that come recruiting on campus.

THIS IS A PROMOTIONAL VIDEO TO EMBELLISH THE BRAND OF HARVARD AND BOOST UP SOCIAL MEDIA SIGNALS FOR THE COMPANIES WHO DO THEM A FAVOR BY HIRING THEIR GRADUATES.


 
 
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Have you ever seen a video featuring students promoted by a business school where the students talk about how hard it is?

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

How they really didn’t like their pushy overly competitive classmates?

 
 
 

How all the partying was a turn-off?

 
 
 

How they partied so much that they effed up their grades?

 
 
 

How they suffered from imposter syndrome for weeks and got borderline depressed?

 
 
 

How they were endlessly sleep-deprived and always feeling guilty about FOMO and thinking they were losers for not doing enough?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

How they were BROKE and hated it?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

How stressful it was to land on campus the first semester and have to almost immediately begin worrying about interviews for the summer?

 
 

 
 
 

How they ate like crap from being too busy and free pizza and ended up putting on weight?

 
 
 
 

How they STILL didn’t know what they wanted to do with their life, and had next to no time to figure it out or any spare time to sit down and work through it?

 
 
 
 

How their relationships suffered with family and friends from their previous life?

 
 
 

How they broke up with their pre-MBA significant other because the relationship couldn’t survive the pressure?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

How their classes were SO HARD and there was no support available and everybody else was pretending like it was easy, and they were embarrassed to admit they were barely hanging on?

 
 
 

How they HATED corporate finance and accounting?

 
 
 
 
 
 

How this new city is so expensive?

 
 
 

How they keep getting lost?

 
 
 

How they don’t know anybody?

 
 
 
 
 
 

How they feel so alone?

 
 
 
 
 
 
No. Didn’t think so.

Instead we get taken on a tour of trendy offices with open-floor layouts and smart-looking people in white lab coats. The video is pretending that this is everyday life and how all interns breeze through their days. How brilliant they all must be! So successful!

OMG no.

This is so polished it’s ridiculous.

Truly, we apologize to those three HBS students — this is NOT directed at them. We know they must be incredibly accomplished or they never would’ve made it to Harvard!!!

But that’s kind of the point.

Why does HARVARD need to produce a video like this?

C’mon people, IT’S HARVARD!

We know your students are smart. We know they’re super accomplished.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS VIDEO?

Who is the intended audience? What is the reaction supposed to be?

The only thing we can tell is it’s intended to boost social signals FOR THESE THREE FIRMS in a modern-day quid pro quo.

They may all be wonderful companies.

This may have been produced with no conscious ill intent.

It’s just marketing. It’s just showcasing our students.

But puh-lease people. Why the need for this – what is it meant to actually convey?

Yes this struck a chord.

Why?

Because it just seems so disingenuous.

Like, Harvard Business School needs to market in this way?

They’ve already got 10,000 poor souls a year falling over themselves trying to get in.

This video, dunno, for some reason it comes across as really pompous and smarmy. The students are being taken advantage of, like they’re the product that this gleaming machine is spitting out.

It just feels somehow a teensy tiny bit evil, like we should be looking closer, opening up the hood, examining.

What is really going on here?

Is this our 2019 Stepford Wives???!?

 
 
 
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And so, a challenge.

For any bschool admissions folks who may wander into this post:
 

Why not BE AUTHENTIC yourselves and share what the MBA really is like?!???

 

And for all of you interestd in bschool, for those of you wanting to change the world, for all of you professing your interest in making a difference, for those gearing up to this next exciting phase of your careers:

Maybe what the world needs is less spin and more real.

For reading and reflection

by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

Since all of you now have your Rd 2 apps done if not nearly done, and while we still have your attention here on the blahg, before you go, we wanted to offer you a few links to worthwhile articles that we think would be valuable to spend time with.

We frequently lament the attitude of the BSer who is overfocused on school brand and prestige as their first priority in choosing where to apply, and this first post may help you better understand where we’re coming from with that attitude:
 

Taming the Mammoth: Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think

 

That article is from Wait But Why? which is one of the most brilliant resources on the internet today.

We don’t often post links to Wait But Why? because most people go there and don’t surface again for hours or sometimes even days. When you’re in the throes of writing your essays, you cannot afford such distractions. Now that you’re done, we can guiltlessly send you that direction.

Those posts are immensely useful when you’re trying to procrastinate, including the post that perhaps made Tim Urban famous:

Why Procrastinators Procrastinate

 

Again, don’t go there if you still have essays to write or some other critical task to complete! Learning about procrastination is the most sickly wonderful way you can procrastinate.

Both of those posts are meaningful, but the first one especially where you learn about the Wooly Mammoth has the potential to truly change your life.

We see the Wooly Mammoth in the Real World in working with BSers all the time. Whenever a Brave Supplicant has an extreme reaction to the feedback we offer in the Essay Decimator process, pretty much 100% of the time it’s because their Wooly Mammoth has been threatened in some way. (Note: Ironically this seems to happen quite often to the extreme overachievers — the ones who should not feel so threatened, because they’ve already proved themselves; the WBW article may offer insight into this.)

At this point in early January when you’ve got some MBA apps in and you’ve already accomplished more in the first two weeks than many folks will accomplish all year, we will offer some additional advice: Find a project to spin yourself into the moment those Round 2 applications are all done.

This is advice we offer every year and it’s important. You’ve built up momentum with the frenzy of focus that you’ve been deploying. That focus is a muscle; it’ll get atrophied and weak again if you neglect to keep using it. It’s just like working out, it’s always easier to keep going with your fitness routine than it is to start over and build it up again when you slack.

So find some project, especially ones at work that will let you grow and develop and contribute more. And some in your Real Life too. Dive into whatever you’re passionate about. Don’t know what you’re passionate about? Then just dive in with something. Action reveals values. Waiting for life to happen does not.

Here’s one post in a series on what we’re literally suggesting you do, along with actual suggestions for things to, like, go do.

That should keep you busy for awhile.

While we’re on this topic of self-improvement and discovery and figuring out who you are:

We’ll also take a quick moment to make a pitch again for a possible program that may eventually get launched. Last year at this time we called it EVERYBODY GETS IN! and it was meant to be a structured success network of like-minded BSers who would support each other with input from us. We are still toying with this idea and may be breathing real life into it at some point this year. If you’ve enjoyed any of the advice that EssaySnark offers, beyond just the practical tips for MBA admissions, you’re invited to log your interest via the form at the bottom of this post (no obligation, we don’t even know what we’re selling if anything) and we’ll keep your contact info on hand for the if/when of anything happening.