Embracing the downtime

Honestly, it’s been a long time since I felt so relaxed. I am definitely making the most of funemployment before school starts. I finished my job at the end of June but have been winding down for a while now. In my line of work, I didn’t really have any projects or work for the entirety of June which worked perfectly as I spent time getting up to speed with my visa, vaccinations requirements, finances, and pre-matriculation math work.

So for those applying this year, my top tip is don’t hang around and work until the last possible moment. Take some time out for yourself. It’s one of the last opportunities you will get an extended period of time off from work or school. Also you may need that time to work on your pre-matriculation requirements. It is definitely not worth that extra pay check or two. You will probably never have a chance at such an extended break again!

Part 4 Recommendations – Elements of an MBA application series

Apologies for my hiatus, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind over the past month or so. I will try and put a post up at some point everything I have been up to. Before then, it’s time to head back to my Elements of an MBA application series. Pretty good timing too as schools have recently started releasing their deadlines and essay prompts for this fall. This post is all about how to plead for a recommendation!

Getting recommendations

Nominated for Clear Admit Best of Blogging 2013-2014

I was saw from my fellow bloggers hamm0, MBAMyWay, and SarahMBAJourney that I had been nominated for the prestigious Clear Admit Best of Blogging 2013-2014. My first reaction was of course shock. Looking at the list of nominees, the quality of my other nominees’ blogs are all extremely high (frankly far better than mine!). I definitely did not expect to be in with a shot of winning a BoB when I started my blog to document my MBA application journey. So thanks all of my readers for all your support!

Voting can be done by following this link, or by tweeting your top three favorites – along with the hashtag #ClearAdmitBoB –  to @clearadmit. Voting will conclude on Wednesday, May 28th. And now, with no further delay, the nominees for the 2013-2014 Best of Blogging Awards:

Timbob 

MBAMyWay

MBAReApplicant

SarahMBAJourney

Two Years at HBS

CoffeeBeansandTeaLeaves

Domotron

MBA Over 30

Boots to Suits

MBAGirlJourney 

Just wanted to add you all are not getting rid of me that easily. This is not the end of my blogging days oh no. Hopefully, I will have a few more fun things to update about like financial aid, visas, health forms and more before the mayhem of Fall A begins. Joking aside, it’s been surprisingly busy making sure I am all set for my move to Hanover in August.

Which leads me nicely onto the last thing. I CANNOT believe that essay prompts and deadlines have already been released for future Class of 2017 Tuckies. Has it really been a whole year since I started stressing about writing essays and meeting deadlines? Good luck to all the applicants this fall, especially GrantMeAdmission a brand new blogger charting his way to successful applications this fall!

Summing up my application experience: Lucky to be a Tuckie

 

Slight obscure reference in this gif: see Jimmy Fallon’s evolution of hip-hop dancing!

This was first posted on GmatClub http://gmatclub.com/forum/lucky-to-be-a-tuckie-169900.html

When

After a somewhat tumultuous period at work, I wanted to answer the question “What’s next?”. I felt like I needed to take some time out to reset and think about what I really wanted out of my career (and probably in conjunction, my life). Some may call this a quarter life crisis! Having graduated at the start of the financial crisis, I didn’t really have much of a steer on my career initially. It was a case of finding something and sticking with it. Fast forward five years and I am no longer sure my short term future lies in my current industry. That’s when I started looking into an MBA.

Part 3 Networking / Research – Elements of an MBA application series

So you’re done with the GMAT and understand your basic “profile”. It’s finally the fun part of reading up on schools and day dreaming about where you may end up.

You can get information about schools a number of ways. I will list them in terms of how useful I found them:

School visit – This is by far the best way to learn about a school and its culture. On a typical visit, you can tour the facilities, sit in on a class, potentially lunch with students and ask questions during a Q&A. Some schools (e.g. Tuck and Fuqua) even allow you to schedule an interview without being invited. Most schools do a very good job of selling themselves via their website and their marketing materials. Visiting will allow you to cut through the marketing spiel and give you a real sense of what the school is about. For example, one of the big differentiators for Tuck is its location in Hanover. When I visited, I loved the location but equally you may visit and dislike the location. Far better to know that before applying than spending your time applying to a school where you won’t be happy or won’t attend.

Dinged at Kellogg, end of my MBA application journey

Kellogg was the last school I was waiting on. It was definitely the best decision day I had in the sense that I did not feel there was a huge amount riding on the end result. As it happens, the result was a ding. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a tiny bit disappointed because hey everyone wants to feel wanted right! However, being completely honest, if given the choice I would have picked Tuck over Kellogg because I have visited Tuck and not Kellogg and just felt a real fit with the community there. This decision was the only outstanding thing to my confirming my place at Tuck. It feels like a weight off my shoulders now that my application journey is over and I am officially a Tuckie!

Part 2 Profile – Elements of an MBA application series

So here we are onto Part 2, an applicant’s profile. Broadly speaking this consists of the following components:

• GPA
• GMAT (as discussed previously)
• Age
• Gender
• Nationality
• Work experience; and
• Extracurriculars

These factors combine to form an applicant’s “profile”.