Miles to go
After a lot of deliberation, I finally decided to apply to Kellogg also in R1. That makes it 5 online applications, 25 essays, 1 resume, transcripts and 12 recommendations to be completed by end of September. It seems like a lot, but I've made a plan which makes it look achievable.
I hope to complete all essays of Wharton and Kellogg by the end of August. I want to finish all parallel essays between these 2 schools before I tackle the disjoint ones. By answering common questions (rather those that have common answers :D) asked by both the schools at one go, I will save a lot time, coz I don't have to think about the same topic from scratch again. I'm taking this approach only for these 2 schools coz I feel I will be customizing the same stories for both. For all other schools I will take same route as I did for HBS, complete the whole set of essays before I move to the next school. W and K in one month is achievable, but I'm stretching it considering that I'm going on a 4 day Kodaikanal trip, which will invariably give me at least a 2 day hangover... Will give it my best shot anyway.
I want to give Stanford's "What matters most..." essay as much time as possible. This essay is particularly special to me. I know the answer to the question, making the reader see my passion is the challenge. So I feel I can edit this essay infinitely. It's going to be really difficult for me to become happy with this one... My plan is to start on this essay right away and keep writing till I'm happy. I have to finish it latest by mid-september, which gives me a month and a half. As for Stanford' other essays, I already have all the content on paper in some form or the other. I will work on these in the first week of September.
That will leave me with Chicago. There are 2 important essays, the other 3 are 100 words each. So I'm planning to do Chicago last and want to finish it by midseptember too. By then I would have written the same career progress, goals, why MBA essay thrice. So fleshing it out a bit shouldn't be too much of a problem.
I want to spend the rest of September, having a look at each school's essays as a single story and add some final touches.
This weekend I will start on my online apps and send out the recommendation requests. One of these weekends I should also work on my resume and transcripts.
Whew that was one big plan!!! I will come back to this post now and then and make sure I'm keeping up these promises.
Essays update:
HBS - ethics essay is pending and some rework is needed on "other info" essay
Kellogg - "Outside of work I..." is almost done
Chicago - "Value to your study group..." is done
I hope to complete all essays of Wharton and Kellogg by the end of August. I want to finish all parallel essays between these 2 schools before I tackle the disjoint ones. By answering common questions (rather those that have common answers :D) asked by both the schools at one go, I will save a lot time, coz I don't have to think about the same topic from scratch again. I'm taking this approach only for these 2 schools coz I feel I will be customizing the same stories for both. For all other schools I will take same route as I did for HBS, complete the whole set of essays before I move to the next school. W and K in one month is achievable, but I'm stretching it considering that I'm going on a 4 day Kodaikanal trip, which will invariably give me at least a 2 day hangover... Will give it my best shot anyway.
I want to give Stanford's "What matters most..." essay as much time as possible. This essay is particularly special to me. I know the answer to the question, making the reader see my passion is the challenge. So I feel I can edit this essay infinitely. It's going to be really difficult for me to become happy with this one... My plan is to start on this essay right away and keep writing till I'm happy. I have to finish it latest by mid-september, which gives me a month and a half. As for Stanford' other essays, I already have all the content on paper in some form or the other. I will work on these in the first week of September.
That will leave me with Chicago. There are 2 important essays, the other 3 are 100 words each. So I'm planning to do Chicago last and want to finish it by midseptember too. By then I would have written the same career progress, goals, why MBA essay thrice. So fleshing it out a bit shouldn't be too much of a problem.
I want to spend the rest of September, having a look at each school's essays as a single story and add some final touches.
This weekend I will start on my online apps and send out the recommendation requests. One of these weekends I should also work on my resume and transcripts.
Whew that was one big plan!!! I will come back to this post now and then and make sure I'm keeping up these promises.
Essays update:
HBS - ethics essay is pending and some rework is needed on "other info" essay
Kellogg - "Outside of work I..." is almost done
Chicago - "Value to your study group..." is done
