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News from the Trenches! A former BSer sends a first-term report with astute observations on NYU Stern

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Just in case you were starting to wonder why you put in all this effort only to have to sit on your hands for what seems an interminable amount of time while the schools figure out if they even want to meet you to interview… Today we have a fun update to share! This person sent in a happy update once they started their first semester at their Dream School last Fall. We are sharing it with permission so that it hopefully can infect you with excitement for what you are working towards.

B-school has pretty much lived up to the hype. And all the things I heard about the first semester are actually true – recruiting hits you earlier than you thought it would, there are some tough courses, and it’s easy to sometimes get blown away by the diversity you see in your class. This last point, more than anything else, has been what I’ve enjoyed most at NYU Stern in the two months I’ve been here. And by the way, the EQ thing seems to be true too. My classmates are highly accomplished in multiple ways, but they are mostly nice and helpful human beings as well.

As you had suggested, this was the right choice for me – I love the people, the exposure to media that I have here, and yes, New York!

But when I was randomly going through some of your latest posts, I find one very interesting comparison between Columbia and Stern (not the first time you’ve pitted those two against each other). I entirely agree with you – Stern is still seen as an ‘inferior’ school by many, even some of my current classmates! There are some who have remarked that they decided to attend Stern only because either they got a sizeable scholarship or that it happened to be the highest ranked school they could get into. This is rather perplexing to me, and even disheartening. Stern was one of my top choices, as you know, and I have been more than impressed by the quality of the student body, professors and the access that I have to all top companies across industries so early in my MBA. What else were these people looking for? This ‘status anxiety’ is rather disappointing.

That being said, I do wish we had some time for career exploration before recruiting began. It starts too early in my opinion, and the process is even more stressful because of the increasing conversion rates for summer internships into full-time offers. Most students see getting a big summer internship as their primary goal, after which the second year promises to be more relaxed. This is not entirely surprising for international students though, as the number of companies ready to sponsor them have reduced significantly in the last two years.

Anyway, I have to get back to work. I promise to be back again for another update in a few months.

All the best for the admissions season!

 
And all the best to you, too, former BSer! And all we can say is: When trying for an MBA, it’s very easy to get caught up in the hype and FOMO and get confused around what an MBA will actually bestow. Going to a “top” school becomes paramount, and there’s a good chunk of Sternies who end up there only because everywhere else that they tried turned them down. Stern remains one of those sleeper schools that flies under the radar, but which in our eyes is an underappreciated gem! But if someone wants an MBA because of the prestige they think it’ll bestow, then an admit to NYU and NYU only is gunna be a letdown. It’s not an ego-enhancing school. Maybe that’s why we appreciate them so much, because they are high quality and innovative and they have been strong carriers of culture and values since the beginning of time. That’s one reason it was so enjoyable to work with this BSer when they were applying to bschools, because it seemed that they were choosing their targets intelligently, for personal and professional reasons that went beyond the shine, to the substance. Always gratifying to see a candidate like that make it in to their top choice institution!! And always fun to get reports like this from the field when they start in on the adventure. All of you now applying: Don’t forget about the ‘Snark, ya hear? We’d love to post updates like this from your experiences, too, when the time comes next Fall. Fingers are crossed for all of your successes to come!! 🙂

($) 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…

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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.

The best way to convey your readiness for bschool

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OK that title is misleading – there’s not one “best way” to convey readiness. Readiness needs to come through in many facets of your application – definitely through the stories you present in your essays, but also in the progression of your career as reflected on the resume, and the individual bullets on the resume itself, and also of course through what your recommenders say…

BUT there’s one important technique that you should be leveraging in how you tell your stories and present your goals in the essays. This is true for any essay, any school.

Since many of you are (better be!) writing essays today, we thought we’d toss out this little nugget of advice to help you along. You maybe have heard it before. We cover this type of thing in the App Accelerators. It’s hugely useful and very important.

This particular advice is actually lifted straight from the creative writing class. If you’ve ever written a short story or tried to put your memoirs down on the page, you’re likely familiar with it. It’s called “show, don’t tell.”

We find this is  a very difficult concept to relate to for most people — that little “show, don’t tell” phrase is incredibly mysterious for some reason, it’s a hard puzzle for the brain to crack.

What “show, don’t tell” means is that you want to demonstrate (“show”) that something is true – not just claim that it is. You want to paint a little picture for your reader through something tangible, instead of lobbing out empty words.

The “show, don’t tell” advice applies to all your essays. Whenever you’re writing about who you are and how you got to be that way, whether it’s a personal “who” or a professional “who”, you want to be giving concrete EVIDENCE that that’s how things are for you. It’s way more impactful to use a hardcore example to illustrate a point.

So, instead of tossing out the claim that you have the “ability to find new opportunities, manage projects, yada yada yada” you would use an example:

“When I pursued the opportunity of X and managed projects by doing ABC, it prepared me for the next challenge of blah blah blah”.

When you just say stuff, it’s not helpful. When you SHOW STUFF, it’s awesome.

You can’t use this technique everywhere or your essays would bloat to monster size. But you want to scatter these around – they’re the most impactful way to communicate your actual skills and accomplishments.

OK, enough procrastinating. You should not be hanging out at the EssaySnark blahg today. You should be WRITING! Go to it, Brave Supplicant! Get it done!

And if you want to get your stuff reviewed, make it snappy – prices will go up very soon and our review queue is getting full.

The power of positivity

by EssaySnark 3 Comments

EssaySnark doesn’t want to get all metasophical on you or anything (yes that’s a word, we just made it up) but…

We have this one client.

He tried to get in last year.

He started too late, and he got bad advice, and he submitted some really lousy apps. And of course he targeted the very best schools.

(Oh wait – you’ve heard this story before? Yeah, so have we.)

So then he comes to us and wants help this year. And we go over a strategy and he’s bound and determined to reapply at some of those schools he bombed at before, and OK fine, we say it’s unlikely but go along with it, and we keep encouraging him to try elsewhere too. At other really good schools. Like UCLA Anderson.

(Maybe this kid is a little too big for his britches. LA isn’t good enough for him. It’s New York New York New York for this one.)

Whatever. He tries again this season, with Round 1 apps like he’s supposed to, and…

Here we are in March and he’s not been accepted anywhere yet.

And do you wanna know what we think the reason is?

(Besides the aforementioned too-big issue.)

This kid has lost the faith.

This guy has a screamin’ GMAT score, his academics are decent to good, he’s done the standard pre-MBA career track and his goals are in line with what we’d expect. He’s got some relatively OK stories to tell in his apps, nothing earth-shattering, but some above-average examples of having an impact and doing good. On paper he’s competitive with his peers.

And he’s not getting in.

If a Brave Supplicant finds him- or herself in this situation, then in our brutally direct assessment, there are two possible causes:

#1. The BSer is arrogant. Yes, we’ve detected a smidgeon of that in this dude, but, nothing extreme. However, if the arrogant vibe comes out too strong in an interview, it can be the kiss of death. Perhaps there’s some of that going on.

More likely though it’s:

#2. The BSer doesn’t believe. In fact, the BSer not only does not believe he’ll get in to bschool — he actively imagines and fears and fantasizes about not getting in. 

While EssaySnark does not have direct access to this kid’s thoughts, we are quite confident in our assessment that this is what the problem is.

This guy has gotten his confidence trampled, and now he believes the worst. He has decided that he is a bschool loser, and he’s doing all in his power to create that as his reality.

If someone is in this situation, if someone has convinced himself that he’s not gonna make it, if the underlying thought patterns are of doom and gloom in someone’s mind, well… sorry Charlie, there ain’t nuthin’ we can do.

Yes, we’ve tried the cheerleading rap, we’ve tried all the rah-rah and go get ums and all. There is NO REASON why this person should not be getting an offer (at least, for the schools he finally resigned himself to in Round 2, which were much more in line with where he should’ve been targeting from the beginning — yes, we’re now talking Kellogg instead of Harvard).

Sometimes, it just takes time. Some people don’t make it in the first time through, and they get up, brush themselves off, and try again. As long as you do that with clear eyes and a realistic plan, you WILL get in — eventually. There is room for everyone at the bschool inn, you just have to find your proper home. Swear to G., this is what EssaySnark believes.

And we will be there to help you. We WANT you to be successful. (At least, the non-arrogant, non-greedy, non-unethical ones of you.)

But we canNOT help at all if you do not believe in yourself.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

Ya gotta believe. If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else can do it for you.

Some perspective on receiving feedback.

by EssaySnark 2 Comments

When ANYBODY gets feedback about ANYTHING that they care about, it’s personal. It’s just how the human brain is wired. Or maybe more precisely, the reptilian part of your human brain. Your amygdala, to be exact. That’s the part of the brain that deals with emotions, and that’s what’s triggered when we hear feedback, and what makes us get defensive.

Want to see how this works in other people?

Go read this . It’s a review of a high-end restaurant that recently opened in Washington, DC. You don’t have to read it in detail; you can skim it (unless you’re a foodie, of course, and then you might be more interested in the details of what the reviewer is saying).

Now, go here and read the first post. That second link is to an online chat where the food critic takes questions from anyone about stuff. We’ll go ahead and paste in what someone wrote about the restaurant review:

“One of my good friends is a line cook at Mirabelle. To cut a long story short he was pretty devastated last week when the review was published. From what I gather, the kitchen staff worship Frank and think he’s a genius. So they were understandably upset when the restaurant received less than 3 stars. I’m in a difficult situation. On the one hand he’s a good friend and I want to be supportive and side with him. On the other hand, I thought what you wrote was balanced, gave credit when credit was due, and was for the most part objective when it came to what you didn’t like. When I mention this to him he has had… lets just say animated responses. However, beneath the profanity he does make some counters: [details about the chef’s defenses removed for brevity]”

The food critic, Tom Seitsma, who we find to be very balanced in his reviews of these restaurants, and a genuine nice guy in how he interacts with the public on his chats, responded in part with this:

“[details about why the review was still accurate removed for brevity] Your chef pal probably does [not] want my advice, but the best thing to do in situations like this is to re-read the review — there’s lots that’s positive therein — and just keep striving to do the best work possible.”

That advice is spot-on and wonderful.

We invite you to read his review and see for yourself how it comes across. Do you see it as an attack? That’s how (apparently) the line chef did. Or do you see it as one person’s opinion — an obviously educated one, from someone who has a long history in that market and lots of experience with doing that type of review?

If you get feedback from the ‘Snark, we hope you’ll be able to see that in a similar light.

We may have to adopt the words of the food critic as the takeaway message we offer to all BSers:

When you get feedback saying your essays are not strong enough, then the best thing to do in situations like this is to re-read the review — there’s lots that’s positive therein — and just keep striving to do the best work possible.

($) Should you contact admissions about a bad interviewer?

by EssaySnark

Your MBA admissions interview was awful. It was not just bad; it was horrible. The reason? BECAUSE YOUR INTERVIEWER WAS LOUSY. What do you do????? Before deciding to complain about an MBA interview experience, make sure to evaluate as much as you possibly can from the other side of the table. You need to get…

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($) All those “humble” BSers.

by EssaySnark

There seemed to be a trend hitting Snarkville last season, particularly in Round 2, where we had all these BSers writing in their essays to the top business schools about how “humble” they are. While we certainly appreciate that quality in a person – no really, despite the snark often coming from our direction, we…

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“There’s too much stuff to go through on your website so I’m just going to ask you here.”

by EssaySnark 2 Comments

That statement is usually followed up by:

“Hope it’s OK.”

And then the BSer proceeds to ask us their pressing question, often about low GPA / poor academics, or about not getting a recommendation from their current supervisor, or some other topic that’s covered a bunch of times on the website.

Well guess what.

It’s not OK.

What you’re saying is, “I’m lazy. Just spoonfeed me the answers.”

Or: “I’m busy. Much busier than you! My time is more important. It doesn’t matter that you already worked hard preparing answers to all of these questions to post on the site for me to research on my own. Just spoonfeed me the answers.”

Before you write this off as yet another of EssaySnark’s Get off my lawn! posts (of which there do seem to be a fair amount these days, don’t there?) please let us explain why this matters in the context of your MBA applications.

First, when you throw your hat in the ring for consideration for admission to a top business school, you’re essentially saying, “Hey! I am one of the best!”

Because it’s only the best who get in. Right?

So, EssaySnark’s definition of “the best” may be slightly different from yours, but our definition encompasses qualities and traits like motivated and self-directed and resourceful. Just to name a few.

Being able to leverage the resources already available to you, to do your own research and come up with your own answers (especially when the questions are, uh, kinda basic), well, all of that sounds like abilities that a capable candidate to a top MBA program would have.

Or if you don’t have those abilities, you better learn ’em quick. Bschool is not about spoonfeeding. It’s about drinking from a fire hose. You will be completely and totally overwhelmed if you’re not able to manage priorities, sift through extraneous data, find the nugget of usefulness, and apply it lickety split.

Here’s another example which thankfully does not occur all that often (but when it does… sigh):

A new BSer stumbles into Snarkville and signs up for something, and within a moment or two of their purchase, they email Team EssaySnark for help. “I can’t find such-and-such on your site.”

(We do have one unfortunate technical limitation on essaysnark.com which sometimes prevents new purchases from being made accessible to new clients and we’re not talking about the specific cases where that happens, which we try to minimize.)

Anyway, new BSer, email for help. Or another instance is where they buy the Essay Decimator service to get their essays reviewed, and they submit the essays but they skip the part about also submitting their profile information, so that we can do the holistic review that’s required. Or they buy the Reworking the Resume App Accelerator and they skip the “reworking” part and just send in the resume they already had on hand.

In each of these cases, much frustration and delay would be avoided if the person simply stopped to RTFM.

That’s “Read the F___ing Manual” — or in this case, the Directions.

Yeah there’s a lot to read on this site. We try to communicate everything you might possibly need in advance of making a purchase, and then we give you more to read as you’re working on your strategy.

Some of the bschool applications are pretty involved too. (Have you seen Cornell’s? Whoa.)

We know – because they tell us – that the admissions offices get email after email from applicants who are stressed out and panicking over something in the application – usually because they didn’t bother to read the instructions.

Why does that matter? Isn’t it OK to email the admissions department if you need help on the app?

Yes, of course it’s OK – but if you first took time to work the problem on your own, by actually reading what they have already produced for you, then it’s likely, in many cases, you would solve it by yourself. Without having to involve anyone else (and without the risk of sending a pushy-sounding, impatient, or otherwise not-handling-yourself-as-you-could-be email in – which, yes, will get added to your file in many cases).

These are all aspects of what’s called “emotional intelligence.”

The adcom only wants to admit adults to their program.

They don’t want high-maintenance – ohshitImissedtheFAFSAdeadline or whatever else it is people that they have to go fight fires for. There’s always going to be a handful but it’s nice when the administration can reduce that proactively.

Mistakes happen. Stressed-out BSers miss stuff. Nerves are raw when deadlines approach. But how you handle yourself in these situations – and the effort you expend on your own behalf to help make sure you don’t end up in the pressure cooker environment of OHCRAPDEADLINE!!! in the first place – these are positives that help you convince the adcom (and EssaySnark before the adcom even gets you) that you’re the type of candidate who will be a pleasure to have on board in their community.

Or, not.

 
 
 
ETA in response to the commenters: Please feel free to explore! Specifically, have you seen the link at the top that says “help”? There’s even a topic there on how to find stuff on the blahg. The sidebar has a list of historical posts by month (titled “See posts at this time in past years”) and there’s also a sign-up box to get the feed.

($) Breathless bloat and gloat can backfire.

by EssaySnark

This is most frequently an issue with the older MBA applicant though we see it across the board. You’ve been involved in some high-profile projects. You have a sense that the adcoms want to hear about “impact.” You combine those two into an essay that talks about how “we helped millions of people by launching…

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