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~~~

MIT Interview + the Power of Social Media! (Again!)

So I had my MIT interview today. I think it went pretty well considering that I found nearly all the BEI questions I could find on clearadmit and accept.com and thought of no less than eight stories to answer them...I think I only ended up using 3 or 4. Well, I tend to over-prep for interviews...but as I always say, over-prepping is better than under-prepared. As usual, I will post my interview report after MIT decision, but I will remember to take notes today so that I don't forget everything :P

There was a surprising moment in my interview, when my interviewer told me that MIT Sloan's Admissions Director Rod Garcia knew of my blog and liked it. That was a total shocker. Although I knew b-schools admissions read applicant blogs (see how I found out Haas re-tweeted my blogpost), I never imagined they actually spend the time to put the blog with the face. So much for keeping my blog anonymous :)

While I feel flattered that b-school admission officers find my words and thoughts interesting, I am again overwhelmed by the power of social media. It's really true that you can't hide your identity in the world of Internet and everything you write/post will forever be a search-able reference to who you are (and perhaps be added to your b-school application~) . It again shows that you need to stay true to yourself in every aspects of life, whether online or not. It's also a rule of life in my mind. hum~ I just hope my blog adds points to my MIT application :)

5 down 1 more to go!

Finally I am reaching the end of the six month essay writing saga! With Stanford submitted last night, I only have one more app to go! This whole process feels like an accomplishment in itself!

Gotta prep for Friday's MIT interview first. These BEI questions are such a pain to prep....after writing 4 stories for MIT, I still need to come up with meaningful and preferably recent stories to show my actions and impact...definitely harder to prep than blind interviews...

On the other hand, I think it will be a cool experience though, since I haven't done one like this before. And life is all about experiences right? :)

Wish me luck! (and I wish you luck too!)

MIT still likes me :)

Just got an interview invite from MIT. After my Kellogg admission I was a lot more relaxed and did not fret over MIT and Wharton too much this morning. So the interview invite sitting in my inbox after lunch was kind of a surprise. Although in my heart, I had sort of convinced myself that I would get an invite from MIT because I thought I did a good job on those behavioral questions. Glad that MIT honored my confidence :)

Now with two applications to write and one interview to prep...I am gonna have a busy holiday season! Did I mention I am going to Mammoth for snowboarding as a toast to my first admit? December truly has turned out to be a fruitful month! :)

No news is good news?

I did not know that this waiting process was going to take such a huge toll on my productivity. Since my instrument is broken in lab, I am sitting in front of my computer a lot doing data analysis and other stuff. I kept going back to gmatclub and business week forum to check the latest news for MIT Sloan and Kellogg applicants. Well, hearing other people's invites, admits and dings is not exactly calming. Surprisingly Kellogg sends out a fair amount of dings with admits in the first couple of days, so I guess no news is good news? Come on, let the phone ring before I get hit by an email! :)

Just now, I checked my email and a blue tagged email (I label all school communication with a blue "MBA application" tag in my gmail account) just came in, I swear my heart skipped a beat (since I was just writing not wanting to get an email from Kellogg). Turns out it's my recommendation confirmation from Haas, phew....

I've decided to close up my browser window for the online forums. They are not doing me any good and I am just losing precious time. Now I hope I have some lab work to do so I can step away from my desk~ oh, the waiting game~

What Can an MBA Applicant Do To Stand Out - From GSB's Derrick Bolton

Came across this video today and thought Derrick gave some great advice, not just for applying to GSB but also other schools. I resonate with the comment he made about very very few applicants have the experiences that are truly unique and impressive, most successful MBA applicants are those who have done "ordinary things extraordinarily well". That's what I have been telling people who asked me for b-school application advice. Do not try to impress adcom with your achievements, but really showcase how your experience reflects who you are, what kind of leader you are, what you believe in and what you aspire to do.

MBA PodTV also recently posted an episode on GSB and how to tackle GSB application with advice from Accepted.com founder Linda Abraham.

As for me, I just learned that Kellogg started releasing decisions last Friday. So now I can be super anxious next week waiting to hear from both MIT and Kellogg while trying to focusing on Haas application! Let December be a fruitful month!

MIT Sloan is on the move!

The first interview invite has gone out for MIT Sloan according to gmatclub and business week forum, how exciting! Now I am getting really antsy! It seems like they release invites according to geographic locations, hum, I wonder if they will host local interview in LA. I wouldn't mind that since I am not sure how much I would enjoy visiting Boston in winter...oh well, jumping ahead of myself, have to get an interview first! :) I hope I get one, I like MIT Sloan.

Wharton Interview Invite!

My watched pot finally boiled!

I actually debated this morning sitting on the toilet with my iPod Touch in hand~ I have developed the habit of checking email first thing in the morning on Touch to see if my Wharton invite came in. But after weeks of disappointed mornings, I decided to take a different approach, that is deliberately ignoring the issue, not checking my email every 10mins and logging into the application site 5 times a day. Most importantly, I resisted checking those online forums where all the anxious b-school applicants go and speculate.

Then, it came. It almost caught me by surprise as I was expecting another disappointed morning. Although this invite only means I am among the top 40~50% of the applicants and by no means indicate admission, it got me just a little closer to my dream. I think what I really needed was the re-assurance, sort of an outside validation of your application quality. As my boss brutally put it, "your application is at least worthy of a Wharton interview~".

So the journey continues, R2 time frame is tighter, with more essays to write and interviews to prep. I am confident though, that I will be worthy of an admit, somewhere :)

oh, and today turned out to be even better, I got into the Biotech Women's Career development program in bay area in December, all expenses paid for and guaranteed a great time! I will use this opportunity to visit Haas too, it's been awhile, last time I visited the school was October 2006. I signed up to sit in one of its "Innovation, Creativity & Entrepreneurship" class, given the focus on innovation at Haas, this should be very interesting. (certainly will beat the unfortunate Wharton class I've visited...that's a story for another post...)

Also got an email from MIT confirming my application status. it feels like MIT's process is not as defined as Wharton's, well, don't need to stare at the calender then, less stress for me.

So much has happened today! I hope good news keep coming :)

Charging forward, girl!

R1 finished!

As I clicked the submit button on MIT Sloan's application at 12:10am this morning, I officially completed all 3 of my R1 applications. After some 200 hours of endless essay writing and editing and re-writing and re-editing, 13 essays were sent out and sitting somewhere on some admissions officers desk.

Since tomorrow is my 25th birthday, marking my life journey towards the 30s, I am going to take the day not worrying about the next rounds of essays, interview prep and actually getting those interview invites. But unfortunately I do need to spend tonight writing yet another essay (gasp!) for a biotechnology leadership workshop that I want to attend in December.

Last night when I went to bed around 1am, my mind was still so hyped up from submitting Sloan's application that it took me quite awhile to fall asleep which never happens on a normal day. I think this whole application process is bringing me so much stress and anxiety that it's hurting my health. I need to stay grounded and not let whatever results get me. My friend had a really good attitude when she applied to grad school. She basically said this is who I am and if you don't like who I am, then maybe it's not a good fit. Given that her grad school app is not half complicated as the darn b-school application, it's still the right attitude to have for any applicant. I believe I stayed true to myself through my application and showcased a real me. If the school didn't pick me, then be it. I should not let the b-school decisions define me, for I am much more than just that person on paper.

gotta love MIT Sloan's simple application

I always fill out the MBA application a couple of days ahead of time before my official submission. This is actually a well known suggestion for MBA applicants, to avoid last minute scrambling during submission as you pull freshly finalized essays together and try to squeeze out 200 character description of your extra curriculum activities on those tight spaces on the application 5 minutes before the deadline. Trust me, this seemly trivial part of application filling actually can take up hours!

So as I was filling out MIT Sloan's application three days before the deadline, I was pleasantly surprised to find out the application is so straight forward with none of those describe your key activities, awards, honors stuff. That is what a resume is for! I remember trying to fit the long (4 words) extracurricular organization's name into a 10 character box over frustration.... to me that is just unnecessary. I especially dislike those dreadful requests to describe your job responsibilities for which I have to think of different ways to re-illiterate what has been said on the resume. I am sure ad com officers complain to their friends (maybe secretly) about how much materials they have to read through. Why not cut the redundant information and focus on the fact, resume and essays?

MIT just gain another level of respect from me~

On the side note, I did have a dream about MIT sending me a short email denying me last night (I haven't even sent the application yet!) along with other fragmented surreal dream piece about vegas..... too much pressure~ deep breath....