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For reading and reflection

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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.

There is nothing wrong with you.

by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

You do not need to be fixed.

You definitely do not need to be packaged or branded.

You don’t need to be spun, or promoted, or polished up to a shine. (OK, maybe you need a shower, but…)

The problem with this process of applying to business school is that it sends the signal that who you are now is not good enough.

Average GMAT score? Not enough.

Decent grades? Not enough.

You pour your heart out into your essays and you still get rejected?

Clearly the schools are saying, You’re not enough.

You’re not good enough.

You’re not talented enough.

You have not done enough interesting things.

But hold up.

Let’s look at this.

From our perspective, sitting on the snarky side of the fence, there are only two requirements for getting into a good MBA program:

1. You must be willing to work hard.
2. You must give yourself enough time.

If you’re rushing, it’s highly unlikely you’re going to have as much success in this process as you could if you’d not procrastinated the entire fall season away started on the process earlier and kept working diligently until it was done.

But guess what? You didn’t. You had noble intentions, but then Life got in the way, and you had trouble motivating yourself. You were probably THINKING ABOUT your apps nearly all the time since the summer, but you too often got faced with that demon of “ohgawdidontknowhowtodothisorwheretoevenbegin” and you flinched, and you escaped into Netflix again. And that’s what happened to the month of August, and September, and then again in November. That’s not a personal failing. All that is, is being overwhelmed by what seems like a monumental task (WRITING ESSAYS UGGH!) and then the pesky habit of Time took the months away.

When we boil this down, it actually ends up revealing itself to be #1 in disguise.

For most people, procrastination is not a sign that you are a loser. It does not even mean that you’re lazy. It’s just the simple human reaction when faced with fear of the unknown. The brain is wired to seek comfort; to run from risk.

Our ancient ancestors had a thought like this:

“Ooo look there’s a tiger!”

The human brain got deeply wired to react with:

“OMG GET THE F. OUT OF HERE!”

Applying to bschool is just our modern-day tiger.

You’ve set this very big goal for yourself — you want to go on the hunt! Shoot an animal for dinner! Provide for your family!

So you set out on the savannah to find an antelope or a buffalo or a wildebeest.

You make all the preparations. You sharpen your tools (study for the GMAT). You get ready for the expedition (take the GMAT). You learn about your prey and its habits (stalk the adcoms on twitter and facebook). It rains, so you adjust your plans (take the GMAT again). You have all your gear, and you’re committed to the task, and you head out onto the plains, and you scout your targets (decide on which schools to apply). You put yourself in position. You’re all ready to go, you’re going to definitely make a run for it now, and —

“Oh crap what is that oh sh!t no it’s a lion. It’s a lion? YES IT’S A LION RUN RUN RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!”

Well dang. That didn’t work like you’d hoped. Stupid lion. You tried for a gazelle. You end up nabbing a warthog. At least you’re not going to starve tonight.

You’re just super embarrassed when you have to go back to the village without the prize you went out there to hunt.

Talk about ruining your self esteem.

Talk about a great way to make you feel like a total idiot.

You talked up a good game, but when push comes to shove, what do you have to show for yourself?

F*ck.

Now you have to ask your recommender to do more recommendations. Now you have to admit that you failed.

We are here to tell you that you have not failed.

You simply have not succeeded yet.

Getting into bschool is about picking the schools that are right for you, and then working diligently on creating a set of application materials that present who you are authentically.

That is the secret to getting in.

It’s not about saying the right thing or figuring out a formula (except to the extent that yes, this is a competitive process, and things like GMAT and GPA do matter).

It’s not about coming up with the right wording that that school will respond to.

It’s about spending the time and effort to figure yourself out.

How do you know what schools to apply to?

You need to know yourself.

How do you write an essay that the school will respond to?

You need to know yourself.

What is the only fundamental requirement to make all of this happen?

You need to be willing to do the work.

Or really, a truer statement is, you need to be willing to go into the unknown.

Writing essays is facing the tiger. It’s saying, “No no no, I know your tricks. I know you’re just an oversized pussy cat.”

This is true in ALL things. In ALL of life.

Unless you’re someone who is literally hunting her meals on the plains every day. In which case, a tiger is actually a tiger, and we hope you will run from it!!!

But in modern-day life in the 21st Century, in the challenges that most of us humans are facing, the tiger is not really a tiger.

The tiger is only in your mind.

When your brain conjures up thoughts of “Oh sh!t I don’t know what to do, this is a very big project and the whole thing of me going out into the world and doing something this big and this important scares the holy eff out of me” then all of a sudden your brain is seeing TIGER!!!! when one doesn’t exist.

The only thing stopping you from getting into a great MBA program is your thoughts. If you are letting the fear of the tiger prevent you from doing the work that’s required, then let’s go back to square one:

From our perspective, there are only two requirements for getting into a good MBA program:

1. You must be willing to work hard.
2. You must give yourself enough time.

If you did not give yourself enough time, then with almost 100% certainty we can tell you, it’s because you let the FEAR OF the tiger get in the way.

There is no tiger.

You just imagined there is one.

And you reacted as any sane person facing a tiger would do.

So #2 is just that you got confused, and you let fear win.

So what about #1?

If you’re interested in an MBA then you have already been successful to some degree or another in life. At minimum, you have successfully completed college — which sounds basic, but remember, not everyone does that. You know how to work towards a goal. You know how to apply yourself and be productive. It’s also likely the case that you have taken the GMAT at least once and scored something decent, which again shows that you are able to put in the effort to achieve a purpose. You studied for the test (even if haphazardly) and you got a score that is in range for a top MBA program.

So right there, we have two datapoints to prove it. We know that you are CAPABLE of working hard.

Then what could the problem be? If you’re CAPABLE of working hard but you have not yet managed to get into a top MBA program, it boils down to:

A. You’re CAPABLE of working hard on other things, but you DID NOT REALLY work hard on your apps (you may have PRETENDED to work hard, by writing a few essays and sending them in, but you know in your heart if you REALLY worked hard on them or not). If it’s this, then it’s a problem of self-delusion. You fooled yourself. No big deal. We do that all the time, on all sorts of things! (“This first bite of Ben & Jerry’s tastes good! This second one tastes good too! I’m just gonna keep eating it!! [ 5 mins later…] Ugh I should not have eaten the whole pint omg this feels awful.”) The remedy? Work harder!!

Or:

B. The fear of the tiger got in the way, which is another way of saying, you weren’t WILLING.

When fear comes into your skull, it seems like there are no options.

You WANT to achieve this thing, but dang. Real life. Overwhelming. It’s too big.

Or whatever the fear-thoughts manifest as in your own specific incarnation.

If you got stymied by B — not being willing to work hard (which is another way of saying that you were deterred by the fear-thought, since we already have established that you WANT this for yourself, and you are CAPABLE of it) — then we have a trick for you.

You don’t have to know how to do it.

You don’t even have to know how to be willing to know how.

You just have to be WILLING to be willing.

If you’re reading this and it’s not making any sense, that’s OK.

But if you’re reading this and it’s clicking for you in some way, then good.

Most people reading this now are either in an egg nog stupor of celebration around the holidays and having already gotten into one of their top-choice MBA programs, and they’re simply still in the habit of reading the ‘Snark every day.

But there’s a whole slew of others of you who are coming here with a sense of dread and mild panic over all of the work to be done, and many doubts and insecurities about this whole process.

You don’t have to know how to get in. You just have to identify one thing to be done at a time, and go do it.

Maybe that means writing an outline. Just one. For one school. Map out your ideas. Put some structure to it.

Maybe it means figuring out your career goals, and making sure that they are detailed and specific enough.

Maybe it means re-examining your list of schools and making sure you’re tackling the right schools for you, based on the reality of your profile, that you really have a chance of getting into.

Maybe it means filling out the app form for one school. Or going back over the app and verifying and validating the data.

Do one thing. Right now. Be like Nike and just do it.

Then make a list of all of the others.

And when you’re feeling stuck, and overwhelmed, when staring at the screen full of words that you don’t feel are right and aren’t making any sense and you’re doubting whether any of it will work anyway. And you’re tempted to just close the whole thing down and go back to your WoW game. When you’re feeling discouraged — or just unable to tear yourself away from the party and go upstairs to work on the essay. Even though you told yourself that that’s what you were going to do this weekend, that you’d spend time with your family for awhile but then you were determined to make progress on your apps in the evening, yet here it is, “evening” and you don’t feel like doing it.

Just remember: THE TIGER IS NOT REAL.

The only thing you need in order to be successful with getting into bschool (or getting to any other huge major success in your life) is you have to BE WILLING.

You have to see that it’s your thoughts that are holding you back.

If you are WILLING, then you don’t need to know how to do it. You simply become open to trying.

If you don’t feel like you’re willing — if you feel like the fear of the tiger is too strong — then there’s a solution for that, too.

You just have to be willing to be willing.

Anybody can do that.

And please do not forget.

This process of applying to bschool — even when you’re rejected — this is not a referendum on who you are.

You are perfect. Already.

You don’t have to package yourself up into somebody else in order to get in.

You just have to do the work of uncovering who you are. And sharing that on the page in an essay.

And the only way to do that is to be willing.

($) What if you don’t feel prepared for Round 2?

by EssaySnark

The advice we give to many BSers as Round 1 is breathing down their necks is: If you know you can do better on your applications, then don’t rush them. Don’t submit crap apps in Round 1 just to get them submitted. That advice came with a big caveat, though. It was predicated on the…

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.

($) Wherein EssaySnark lays it all out for you.

by EssaySnark

Q: What does your college GPA tell the admissions committee? A: If you’re willing to play the game. Q: Why does it matter if you’re willing to play the game? A: Because by applying to bschool, you’re saying that you want to play the game MORE. “What on earth are you talking about, EssaySnark?” Here’s…

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.

Please be a thinker.

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Giving advice on MBA admissions applications is not a time to be political.

Besides using some political events as teaching moments here on the blahg, to cover something important in an aspect of applying to bschool — anyone remember when we quizzed you on what the word Brexit means, way back in January 2016 when nobody had heard of it (at least, outside the UK) and the election had not happened?? — we have managed to mostly steer clear of politics and current events here and on our Twitter. Encouraging you to register to vote is not being political, it’s encouraging you to be an adult, and to not take your rights for granted. In this crazy f’ed up world that we’re living in in America, EssaySnark presumes that you’re seeing through the lies and deceit and gaslighting that’s going on from the top down of our government.

But maybe you’re not.

After all, we’re significant numbers of years older than you, and we didn’t always have an awareness or ability to evaluate such things. How do you know what to believe? We had to learn this stuff, too.

This is in the category of critical thinking skills, which some universities try to teach but it’s a tough thing to get across — unless the stakes are high and real decisions are at risk.

Like now.

We were dismayed to hear of a recent study where Americans were asked to identify if a statement was a fact or an opinion. Many Americans failed this simple test. Thankfully, there is hope: Millennials and Gen Z did much better as a group. Older Americans? Not so much.

Because this topic is so timely and interesting — and because we love quizzes and tests (just not the GMAT, please and thank you) — we’ll offer up some of these statements for you to test yourself and see how savvy you are.

Identify each of these as a FACT or an OPINION

Government is almost always wasteful and inefficient.

Democracy is the greatest form of government.

Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally are a very big problem for the country today.

Former President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

Spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid make up the largest portion of the U.S. federal budget.

Socialism is a failed experiment.

Health care costs per person in the U.S. are the highest in the developed world.

Abortion should be legal in most cases.

Increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour is essential for the health of the U.S. economy.

Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally have some rights under the Constitution.

ISIS lost a significant portion of its territory in Iraq and Syria in 2017.

Terrorism is the biggest threat to our country.

Source (mostly): Pew Research — go here for their quiz and for their results

 

Finally, if you did in fact register to vote recently and now you’re wondering “What do I vote for???” we have some quick advice:

Find a source that you trust, whose values align with yours, and use their recommendations.

These sources are easily available once you know what to look for. For example, here’s a list of a few such voter guides (EssaySnark is not endorsing or recommending any of this – it’s just a list of samples):

You’ll need one that’s local, at least to your state, so that includes the ballot measures that actually matter for you. It’s not just about the national offices. Your local newspaper is probably publishing a voter’s guide — but just make sure you’re aware of the ownership of that paper or other media outlet, and that owner’s agenda, before adopting their views. A lot of the newspapers in the U.S. are now owned by those with vested interests and specific beliefs and biases, and these sometimes (actually, increasingly often) are revealed by their voter recommendations. The Tribune Company which owns a bunch of newspapers, and Fox Media which you know from TV, are owned by conservatives; The Washington Post and Time Magazine are owned by liberals. Journalism is supposedly about reporting the facts but as you are likely well aware, everything comes with a slant based on perception and values. An ethical news organization will report the news straight, doing everything they can to remove bias from the reporting and not kowtowing to influence or ownership, but there’s never “pure” news, and even the well-intentioned ones screw it up royally on a regular basis.

What in our opinion is less helpful are the neutral or generic guides that are only trying to explain the issues. While they may be valid, and we tip our hats to the intention of wanting people to decide for themselves, in our experience they’re just too neutral. Because every ballot initiative can be argued multiple ways, and if, for example, it’s an initiative that will raise taxes, and this group says that that’s bad, and the tax revenue that comes in will only be misused, but that group says that that’s good, and necessary, because it’s a problem that needs to be solved…. well, it’s totally likely that you’ll see the value of both of those arguments. That’s why we prefer to outsource (at least some) of this decision-making to smart people who have a mindset like ours, who’ve spent the time investigating and who we trust to give good advice.

That’s not to say that we would only vote a certain way just because some third-party source is advising it. But for us, it’s a time-saver, and as long as (key point!) you trust the third party, then you should be able to trust their recommendations.

But this again is where our main point comes in: Please be a thinker.

Be a smart consumer of the news.

Know how to tell fact from fiction — and fact from opinion.

Figure things out for yourself, or if you don’t have time to dive into the nitty-gritty of all of those details, figure out who you trust to figure things out.

But spend the necessary time figuring them out, and then act.

Vote intelligently. Or if you can’t commit to that, then at least vote!!! Your vote gives you the right to complain later. 🙂

And use these skills of intelligence and thinking before you forward or like or retweet some tidbit you saw on the internet. Don’t make falsehoods go viral, please. Investigate. Use your discrimination. Don’t be part of the problem. When everyone is acting stupid, it only takes one person not doing that to make it so not everyone is doing it. Act that way, and we will all have a chance to be better.

 
 
 
 
If you want an interesting analysis of the techniques used by this current administration, Trevor Noah has some thought-provoking insights.

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

by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

There’s nothing worse than someone 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 infectious 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 really 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. That’s a lot of “What ifs.”

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 still on the hunt for a consultant, we have posted many times before about what to look for, and what to be cautious about.

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!

 
 
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A secret about school. (Any school.)

by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

You say you want an MBA, and we believe you.

But do you want an education?

Do you even know what they’ll teach you in the hallowed halls of Columbia or Kellogg or Cornell or whatever school you end up at?

You’ve read through the website enough to plug the name of a class into an essay to tell the adcom how much you want to go there.

But do you know what any of those classes are actually about?

Here’s a tip:

If you don’t, you may want to start learning!

Because if you make it through this arduous process and you land an admit or two, and you end up with your butt sitting in a business school classroom 11 short months from now…

Do you know what you’re in for?

We can guarantee you this:

If you’re only interested in bschool so that you can get the credential, so that you can have those three little letters “M-B-A” associated with your name, so you can get some plum job with a six-figure salary where you get to sit in meetings all day….

That’s fine, it’s not “wrong” and there are plenty of good people who think that way.

But.

If that’s your entire motivation and you have not thought through the whole possible scenario that involves things like studying and learning and hard subjects and tests then what you’re setting yourself up for is two years of h3ll.

Or at least, a solid one semester, and parts of another, and then a summer break in between where at least you’ll have an income again, and then another year of school that’s mostly electives and so shouldn’t be that bad…

But if you go into this only focused on that end result of having the fancy initials after your name (which honestly aren’t that impressive, you just are enamored of them now) and you forget the part about it being a CLASSROOM and maybe they even will force you to buy BOOKS though maybe not because these days books are overrated but who knows, and then you find yourself in a year sitting there staring at an equation on a white board and not understanding a single word that the professor has said in the last 20 minutes and wishing you actually had taken that class that you told EssaySnark yes you were going to take but hey you got in anyway so must not’ve needed it! Except that there’s all those Greek symbols on the board and you can’t remember which one means what.

And you’re not there because you WANT TO LEARN SOMETHING and expand your mind and get smarter and learn how the money supply is a lever of government and how interest rates work with inflation or what dual-entry accounting means and why it should matter or what the time value of money is and how it affects decisions and and and and and and and

If you’re unable to get motivated to push past the hard part of “OH HOLY F NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE WHAT HAVE I **DONE** I HATE THIS LET ME OUT” and actually do the WORK of learning…

You’re gonna have a rough go of it.

So.

All we’re saying today is that sitting on the “before” side of the picture where you’ve got this dream and you’re fixated on winning and it’s all you can think about and you’ve already done all this work and the GMAT is over and some essays were written and you clicked Submit on a number of apps…

And all the schools hype up their international travel and the culture and community and happy hour and how much FUN!! everyone has…

If you don’t find a way to get motivated on THE LEARNING as well then, well, we just don’t think it’s gonna be what it could be.

It takes a certain level of maturity to embrace learning for the sake of learning alone. Not all subjects are fun, and not all professors are interesting. Doing school full-time is a massive opportunity and what a luxury and an advantage, and a privilege to even have a quality of life that you can be considering it. You’re taking a break from Real Life for two full years to go focus on building yourself.

It’s not just the job and all the recruiters that will want you. It’s not just living in some fun new city for two years. It’s all of those things, but it’s none of them.

It’s what are you going to put into it?

That’s what you will get out of it.

And in order to know that, and be truly prepared, you need to know WHY you are doing this.

Is it just to coast through so you can get rubber-stamped and spit out the other side?

Or is it to LEARN STUFF?

We’ll tell you, LEARNING STUFF is hard. You’ve been out of school for awhile — and this is graduate school. This is no Intro to Econ or whatever.

Do you want to do it because you’re actually interested?

If you can’t say you’re interested, that’s okay too, but can you still motivate yourself even if you’re not?

If the answers to these questions are “Hmm” or “Never thought about it” or “Now that you ask…” then you may want to do some self-reflection. Be ready for what you’re pursuing.

Maybe even start by taking a class now. Like a practice one. To get in the groove, to remind you.

Were you someone who loved school so much that you were able to self-motivate for the thrill of it? The achievement of a good score on a test could make you hit the books like you needed?

Or was each class like pulling teeth and you were the clock-watcher scrunched down in your chair at the back of the room, praying you wouldn’t get cold-called?

Just be honest with yourself.

If you haven’t been in school for awhile, look to Coursera or some other MOOC to get back in the swing of things. Find a way to challenge yourself, if that’s not a habit you’ve had just lately.

Remember that what you experience in school (as in life) depends at least the orientation and attitude. It’s not just about showing up. It’s about doing the work.

When learning switches on it’s totally awesome and you get fired up, even if it’s a subject you don’t like. And when it’s resisted and you’re trying to just get by then it can be a nightmare of days. Either is your choice.

Just remember what you’re signing up for.

 
 
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($) More on international and U.S. competition in MBA admissions – plus, reapp strategy (that you need to know now)

by EssaySnark

We recently went over some trends in admissions as revealed by the Class of 2020 profiles being released by the top American MBA programs and we gave some cautions and lookouts for international vs U.S. candidates. And we’ve been fielding questions from some concerned BSers as a result, among them: If the competition is getting…

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You have to show up for this.

by EssaySnark - Discusses Leave a Comment

This is gunna come too late for many of you — or maybe not.

Today we’re gunna talk about Stanford and every other “reach” school — but especially Stanford. And oh yeah, every other reach school. And probably every school you apply to that is competitive.

So we’re talking about everything.

The not-helpful advice for today is, You have to show up for this.

Phoning it in on your apps will not work.

That’s especially true for Stanford because of what they need to see.

You know how you were planning on talking about Touchy-Feely in Stanford Essay B?

Yeah, you and the other 8,171 people applying.

The very basic techniques that you’ve heard about telling the adcom stuff that you like about their school simply aren’t enough for a school like Stanford.

If you use that standard technique to mention Touchy-Feely for Stanford Essay B, then you a) need to know what Touchy-Feely is really about, and b) your Stanford Essay A better be showing some touchyfeelz*.

And the only way to do THAT is to a) take the time and b) be willing to dig deep.

Superficial answers are not going to cut it at Stanford.

If you’re sitting here now wondering, “Well shoot. EssaySnark just last week said I have to do the work or I’m not gunna have a chance. I know I haven’t done the work. I also know that Round 1 is an advantage for a school like Stanford. But if I haven’t done the work, I should just put it off till Round 2. Right?”

Wellll…..

Sitting here today, when the clock is counting down to a deadline in a few days, then you’ve probably already made the decision for your Hail Mary or not. But if you haven’t, and had decided to go for Round 2 instead, then we hafta warn you:

Every year we work with at least a small handful of BSers in your shoes who recognize that they were phoning it in up to this point, that they hadn’t buckled down to actually focus on the hard work of figuring out this essay stuff. So they decide to punt. Round 2 it is.

And then what happens is, come middle of December, they suddenly wake up like a bear being roused from its winter’s nap too early, and they look around with blinking eyes and they’re all, “How did that happen? How did we get to December already?”

And then they futz around for another week, with even more easily-justifiable excuses like holiday parties and Christmas shopping, and then it’s time for eggnog and Rudolph and they still haven’t managed to write any essays.

So if in your heart of hearts, you know that that’s you…. Please do not punt till Round 2. Please just revert to your college days and do an all-nighter tonight.

Because if you’re gonna end up cutting corners and doing a mad dash at last minute craziness full of adrenaline and panic, you’d be in a better position to do it NOW when you do in fact have Round 1 shining its smile on you. It’s way better to do a half-a$$ed application in the earliest round when you’re competing against far fewer other half-a$$ed-ers. You’ll be just one of many half-a$$ed-ers in Round 2, whereas now, you’ll be more in the minority. Way better to stand out against a smaller pool of half-a$$ed-ers than to drown in the midst of them and not even get noticed at all in Round 2.

Or, maybe today’s post is not for you at all. Maybe you’re one who realized in August that “OMG IT’S AUGUST! ROUND 1 IS COMING!” and while it would’ve been better to have that realization in June, it’s still a valuable realization to have had then. And you got cranking on some essays, and maybe you sent them in to EssaySnark who said, “Nope, this ain’t it,” and you cried, and pouted, and cursed at us for awhile. And then you got to work. And when we saw your next drafts and said, “Huzzah! Yes! You’ve done it!” then you wrote back something like this that a real-life Brave Supplicant shared recently:

I am glad you like Essay A. After reading your initial comments, I realized [something specific to their Stanford essay topic]. Your advice allowed me to be authentic. Now I understood what it means to be authentic. It was a valuable lesson if it were not for Stanford application.

 
 
 

This process of introspection and digging deep really is not that much fun when you start. But when you get into it, and you keep digging, then often it becomes…. almost exciting. There’s something magical that happens when the pieces click together and you start to understand. When that magic happens, it’s vivid and visceral and very much detectable on the page of your essay.

Maybe you can get there in a furious mad-dash of writing tonight.

Or maybe this post inspires you to step back and decide that yes, you can do this introspection thing, and you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and put in the time, and you know that Round 1 is useful but a stronger app in Round 2 is way better. And you start to work on that Round 2 application NOW and you keep working on it every day from today until it’s finished. And maybe that’s in two or three weeks, and you’ll have that app ready to roll in October. Or maybe it’s still not ready until almost the actual deadline in January. But you work it constantly, refining and thinking and being willing to throw it all away again and start over if necessary.

You decide to show up.

That can happen now, or next week, or not at all. But if you’re serious about schools like the Stanford GSB, it’s almost a 100% rule that it’ll have to happen at some point, if you’re gunna develop the quality of materials that the adcom will say yes to.
 
 
 

*Like, not literally. Your Stanford Essay A need not be about some kind of fraught emotional or distressing topic. But it needs to RESONATE. It needs to be real. Maybe we shoulda said that it has to be showing some touchyrealz.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Stanford MBA Application Help!!

What leadership is (not).

by EssaySnark 2 Comments

EssaySnark spends very little time on social media and we were reminded of why this is when we stirred up a hornet’s nest yesterday among, of all people, college professors. After seeing their responses to our tweet we are very happy that you Millennials are making your way through the workforce and will one day soon be in charge.

Because the attitudes of these professor-people got us royally depressed.

Any admissions folks out there who happen to click onto EssaySnark, we hope you’ll share this with your faculty — or at least use it as a point of conversation.

Or maybe we’re totally off base in which case we hope that people will use rational arguments to show us the light.

Here’s where it started – we’re recreating the exchange in this post because some of the tweets have been deleted. The original thread is here .

1. A College Professor account retweeted another professor’s tweet that retweeted this — this is from a student:

Student making soft joke about terse reply from prof to her email

What the student was complaining about, in case it’s not clear, is that she spent time trying to make her request to her professor politely, and (EssaySnark imagines) she felt somewhat dismissed by the response. You can see from her subsequent tweet here that she was just making a joke. It’s not that big of a deal — but apparently us calling out the professors about it is!!!!

We’re extrapolating here but: A two-word reply to a carefully-crafted email has a way of making the recipient feel like the effort they put in was not worth it. (The “sent by iPhone” thing became an unfortunate distraction; this isn’t about replying by iPhone, it’s literally what the reply was. This happens just as much through Outlook or gmail or whatever.) The professor’s reply wasn’t rude; it just wasn’t thoughtful. It did not demonstrate respect for the student. There was no malice, but it also was unnecessarily terse.

It’s kind of like when you’re out at a restaurant and the waitress comes to take your order and you read what you want off the menu then put the menu aside and go back to talking to your friend, without making eye contact or saying “thank you” to the waitress. It’s the same sort of behavior. It’s purely transactional, it’s here’s an answer to your question now go away behavior.

It’s particularly ironic when so many professors on twitter complain about their careless, thoughtless, frivolous, ungrateful students who have unreasonable expectations.
 

2. Naively, EssaySnark replied saying we’re on the student’s side:

EssaySnark tweet: "Actually, we're on the student's side on this one."

Because Earth to Professors: You’re working with kids! You’re supposed to be the adult in the room!

And OMG did this thing blow up (at least, as far as the tiny little insignificant slice of the universe where college professors complaining about their students dwell!).

We foolishly replied back to a bunch more but it was distressing to see how far afield the debate got flung within mere moments, and also how flawed the reasoning was from so many of these professors (and how some of them chose to take our generalized statements very personally as if we were attacking them on how they interact with their students — um, no?).

 

But this.

This is why we decided that we needed to post.

Because students are PEOPLE and you are MODELING BEHAVIOR to them.

 

“My time is more valuable”?????

And then this…

tweet from professor b!tching about student

And finally, let’s just all take our toys and go home why don’t we:

Twitter reply from professor: "Okay you win, next time I'll do that and deny the student's request"

Dang we’re bothered by this, not because we think this twitter-professor-person would actually do that, but at the reaction.

We point out that being polite and treating students as equals is good behavior, and this is how they respond?

The claim that “my time is more valuable” is ridiculous. No wonder you’re all bent out of shape about your students emailing you. How dare they! You are a very important person!! “DYKWIA??????”

If these are the prevailing attitudes among professors then there are major problems within the culture in colleges in America.

Distressing indeed.

All the bschools we’ve ever experienced are very, very focused on culture. Apparently that’s not universal in higher ed. Certainly the student population in MBA programs is older, they’ve been out in the world, they’re at a different place in life, presumably they won’t be making frivolous requests or wasting professors’ time. Like, apparently, asking for an appointment to meet, like the student did who started all this. The nerve!! But hey, folks, college kids are people too! Perhaps part of this is that college students today are younger, and/or many times have unrealistic expectations or demands or need more hand-holding, or are just in a different place and mindset than the aging faculty who are teaching them. That whole generation gap thing, and this is how it manifested yesterday on social media.

Or perhaps it’s as the Dalia Lama has said, that compassion is only felt between equals.

Dunno.

But we sincerely hope that grumpy professors do some soul-searching around what their mission in life is and who they seek to serve, and how they might do that. Aren’t you a teacher because you want to teach? Yeah we get it, lots of demands, maybe you really want to be doing research. Or maybe it was just a bad morning.

This terse-email-reply thing is not important. It appears to be a symptom though.

Here’s our hope for all of you:

As you progress in your career and assume positions of greater power, please don’t also assume an attitude of superiority. Yes, professors are busy, as are senior managers in a firm. Yes, as someone who works under that person, you should be respectful of their time, and not send unnecessary emails, or whatever.

But no matter what!!! NO MATTER WHAT!!! When you are in a position of power, it is YOUR DUTY to earn people’s respect every day. You do not get to be flippant or rude or dismissive just because you’re earning a high salary. If someone calls attention to something you’re doing that others might interpret this way, then a better reaction, instead of getting defensive and petty, would be to please stop and examine it and question maybe the way you’re coming off is not ideal. THAT MAYBE OTHERS HAVE FEELINGS and that the way those in power interact with them does matter. It does matter.

Oh we’re so bothered by this.

While we’re on this rant, from the ‘snarchive for those writing essays: If you are human, you do not have underlings.
 
 

We soon realized the error of our ways in responding to something on twitter and backed out:

We’re still getting notifications of dozens and dozens of replies so if you’re looking for a drive-by experience, go ahead and click over to those threads. We’re not participating anymore. Apparently we can’t take the heat in the kitchen.

This was an unplanned post today. Thank you for reading to the end. For MBA applicants, perhaps this can gain insight into possible topics for your essays for schools that care about teamwork and interpersonal skills and being NICE (thank you Tuck!). Interpersonal interactions MATTER.

Where did you encounter an unpleasant situation? How did you turn it around? Or if you failed to do so, as EssaySnark clearly did, how did you navigate through thereafter, what action did you take if any to try to make change to the system, or at minimum what did you do to channel your own feelings of frustration?

What small injustice in the world have you helped to right*?

The stories you tell in your MBA essays need not always be these huge massive gold-ribbon accomplishments. Sometimes a very small incident can lead you into a fascinating topic that the adcoms (at certain schools) would be eager to have you discuss. What goes on in your workplace that you thought was wrong, and how did you change it?

To wrap up our soapbox diatribe today, this is what we were proposing be done in the situation of the original student’s emails – it’s not difficult:

It’s simple recognition that it’s a PERSON on the other end of your inbox.

It’s something that you can start to adopt into your email practices today.

 
 

*Not trying to imply that we did any righting of wrongs or fixing of injustices in the world with our tweet; if anything, our calls for politeness got voted down by the mob. The “right a wrong” thing is to prompt you to do some further thinking!! And also to examine your own values. Maybe EssaySnark is off on all of this, maybe a professor’s time is more valuable and should be protected!! Clearly we don’t think so but if you have a different view then find out what it is, and use that as your investigation into your own character and behavior and mine all of that for your essays!! This is what they mean when they say that essays require self-reflection. You start in on a topic and you think about how you feel on it, and what ways you’ve acted, and what examples from your life are related. Presenting evidence of your own behavior is how you demonstrate your character to the adcom in whatever way is relevant to the questions they’re asking.

 
 

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