Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Haas oh Haas~

It's been very quiet on Haas front~ Super Saturday is coming fast~ and I still haven't got that coveted interview invite. I kept going back to my folder and read and re-read my Haas application. The fact is, I still love every word of it. Ok, maybe not every word, but it's certainly one of my strongest applications. So I keep being optimistic as I wait, although the time is running out...

To those still waiting patiently for Haas invite out there, best of luck to all of us!

p.s DAK post will be coming soon~ just need to focus on HBS interview prep right now~

Sunday, February 14, 2010

HBS interview invite

Last Friday, HBS released about 800 interview invites to R2 applicants. I was lucky enough to get one of them. Since I was attending DAK at Kellogg, I was perfectly distracted from worrying about the invite. In addition, after R1, I was more realistic about my expectations and was psychologically prepared to not get an invite from HBS. So when I signed into the Kellogg wifi with my admit account(I thought that was a nice touch for Kellogg), and saw that invite sitting in my email, I was pleasantly surprised.

I felt honored to be selected by HBS to move on to the next stage in this almost cruel admission process. At the same time, I plan to continue staying humble and grounded, because I know there are so many applicants out there with amazing achievements, great aspirations and big hearts who didn't make it this time. And I am by no means better than them.

I also want to continue through the process with a realistic expectation. After-all, about half of all interviewed applicants don't make it in the end. Most applicants do well in interviews and a lot of time it will come down to factors outside of our control at this point. Therefore, all I aim to do is to try my best at the interview and be ok with whatever the final result would be.

btw, I had a great time at DAK. It was exhuasting but extremely informational and very fun. I will write a detailed post later this week with pictures!

Hope you had a great valentine's day or/and Chinese New Year! :)

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

DAK here I come!

I thought I would have plenty of time to write blogs once application season finished. Reality proved otherwise. In between work, social events, running, snowboarding, cooking and volunteering, I somehow ended up with no time to write a decent blog entry! Just imagine how hectic life can be in b-school! Hopefully I can keep up with blogging then!

Another reason I haven't written many entries lately is because I am experiencing a little bit of a writer's block. I have been writing basically just about anything that came to mind. As much as I like reflecting on my random thoughts, I also want to improve the quality of my post and have a more defined focus. It's just that I haven't found it yet.

So in the meantime, please allow me to ramble on~ (as you can see this entry has already deviated far from the title...)

I am meeting a group of Gmatcluber tonight and will be leaving for Kellogg to attend DAK with bf tomorrow. I have been bombarded with emails from DAK section leaders and Kellogg student club leaders about all sorts of social gatherings during the weekend. Looks like the weekend is shaping up pretty well! The real challenge of this weekend to me is the weather. Living in soCal, you don't experience canceled flight or road block due to bad weather that often. I am renting a car due to the location of my hotel and it will be interesting how that would pan out...thanks Jeremy and Orlando for the weather/driving advice btw.

As far as DAK goes, I am really looking forward to it. During KPW, I had a great time, and that was when I was still an applicant :) This time, I will bring a camera, take lots of pictures and report back with details! Until next week, ciao!

p.s. I know I promised to write an entry about interviews. After thinking more about it though, I realized that I need more time to really come up with content with real values without repeating myself or information you can find elsewhere online. So I am going to wait on that.

(picture courtesy of Kellogg website)

Thursday, February 4, 2010

The forever Mac and PC debate

image taken from http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jshersh/

My poll on "Mac vs. Pc" has been interesting during the past days. The competition started out neck to neck in the first few days, occasionally one took a 1 vote lead, but the other always quickly caught up. Yesterday, Mac was leading by a solid 3 votes and seemed to be eying for the triumphant finish. But guess what, it's back to 50:50 again!

I am actually very interested in your opinion on this. Is a MacBook or a PC laptop better for b-school students? Let me give you a little bit of background. I am long overdue for a laptop. My current HP pavilion is 7 years old. The hard-drive had been swapped out and so was the powerjac. It runs as slow as surfing online on a dail-up. And some of the side buttons haven't been working for long time. As a long time PC user, I am ready for something new, refreshing, reliable and fast. The main problem I have with PC is the windows system. It runs super fast when it's new, but the speed usually drops pretty significantly once you start using it for awhile and run more programs. Recently my two year old windows mobile system on my cell phone started acting up strangely, and I don't even surf the web or use any programs other than sending text messages on my cell phone!

Of course I see the upside of buying a PC for b-school. With all the excel and statistics programs that we are supposed to use in b-school, PC is probably a better choice for compatibility reason. Plus I do have a tiny bit of knowledge about how to troubleshoot a PC gone haywire~ (although sometimes that becomes the problem...).

But MacBook is so tempting! From what I heard, it's just a superior operating system, in addition to all the "cool" features that come with it. I can see myself picking up making video projects in school if I have a MacBook. After all, having a "fun" machine might just take away a little bit of the boringness navigating through spreadsheets :)

And then there is the price difference. I have been used to using large screens and am a little hesitant about a 13" MacBook. The 15" MacBook though, drives the price gap bigger between my two options.

So what's your opinion? I would love to hear from a converted Mac user about their first-hand experiences comparing the two operating systems. I am more concerned about mid to long-term performance. Given that I will be broke after bschool, I am not looking to buy another laptop anytime soon after this purchase! Thanks in advance guys! :)

Monday, February 1, 2010

More waiting on MIT ~

After an unproductive day constantly staring at my phone, I opened up the MIT online application expecting to see a rejection letter~ turned out I was deferred to R2 for decision. I know this happened to some R1 applicants without interview, so now it's my time to join the club.

I am a little disappointed I guess. I haven't got a chance to visit MIT when school was in session and sit in a class. I was actually looking forward to doing that if I got admitted. There are a lot of aspects of Sloan that I am excited about~ too bad I don't get to explore it more in the R1 decision time frame, since R2 decision deadline is in April and Kellogg's deposit is due end of March...this deferral just made life a lot more complicated...

So with three interviews, one admit, one rejection and one pseudo-waitlist, my R1 concludes in the most diverse possible way~ I feel extremely thankful for Kellogg offering me an admit so early in the season so that I had a great holiday (despite not doing much but writing essays) and a peace of mind while waiting for Wharton and MIT (was still pretty anxious though, waiting is never fun). Looks more and more like I will be heading to the wind city~~~