Not Panicking

I am not panicking. Nope, Not at all.

But I am beginning to wonder what I was thinking when I decided to work full-time and plan my cross-continent relocation at the same time. There is a lot to do and I am honestly very tired – most (if not all) of the time!

 

Divergent Roads

“The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost

So which is the road less travelled? I don’t know but I’ll tell you the two roads

 

Tasting the fear

I’ve officially committed to the Booth class of 2017 and I know its a great decision. So why am I afraid? There is definitely no way I will be worse off come 2017 but I’m not all about being rational.

 

I’m here!!!

I’ve been away from the blogosphere for a long while and I apologize for that. Some of it is laziness but most of it is being overwhelmed; by work, plans and decisions. It occurred to me that I never posted my decision here so that’s what I’m here to do. Unsurprisingly I accepted Booth’s offer. Surprisingly, I have decided (haven’t sent the actual email but decision’s been made) to withdraw my Sloan application.

 

I have no pink shoes

First off I’d like to wish all round two applicants the very best of luck in their applications. Hope you get into your dream schools.

Since my admission to Booth, I have being immersed in the Booth culture and I can say that I did not make a mistake in my initial analysis. Also, I am now much more certain that I can flourish in that environment. I have also noted that I am not as open to change as I thought I was. I know I will be going to business school this fall but I’m not as elated about it as I should be and this has nothing to do with the school I got into (which is a great school).

I will be leaving my home, my job, my friends. Everything that is familiar to me. As much as I’m excited, I’m scared out of my wits. And that is the reason why my mind keeps wandering; developing a pro/con list based on the things that I love and the things I don’t

 

My Dilemma

I have a big problem. It’s a good problem but a problem  nonetheless. I can’t decide whether to pursue Sloan’s waitlist or not.

 

Pre-Application Preparation: Letters of Recommendation

If you are not applying to any of the schools that have started their Fall 2015 admission; (HBS, Columbia, Stern & Tuck – are the only ones that I know of, there may be others); you’re in the same boat with me. Except you may have written your GMAT which I am still preparing for but that is for another post.

Apart from preparing for GMAT, I’m also preparing for another aspect of the application: recommendations.

 

Where do I apply?

Well, I’m not done with my selection but I can tell you the three schools at the top of my list. But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll tell you how I chose them and you can decide what’s best for you.

I’m one of those people who like to complicate things so I developed what can be called an algorithm but is basically an excel spreadsheet: On one side (rows); I had the list of things I was looking for and the weight they carried in my decision; on the other side; I had the list of all the schools I had ever considered at any point in time. But that was too long and extremely overwhelming so I stratified it, I picked the top 10 schools which was more manageable, but now I had a lot of attributes and I had no idea what each school scored in each category. Even more annoying, there was no resource I could refer to to get all that sorted particularly since a lot of my requirements were subjective *sigh*

 

Decisions (Part One): Introspection

Most business schools will begin their admission process for the class of 2017 by July. Being the type of person that loves to hit the ground running,  I plan to pick out my schools before then. Here’s my reasoning; by the time the application process has started, we’re racing against time, trying to prepare the necessary materials as well as trying to decide which business school will meet your requirements. Secondly,  as someone who has combined a full time job, writing essays, following up with reccomenders and preparing for the GMAT, I can tell you that I will never put myself in that situation again. Ever.

I will be researching MBA programs now,  so I can come up with my plan of attack for the various rounds and so I can decide if I need to retake my GMAT.