One step forward, two back

This weekend was such a loss. I had to work all weekend and in any free time I did have, I was meeting up with people who were in town and I wouldn't see again for awhile. I managed to write one 150 word essay for LBS. Wow. WOW. Good progess (note the obvious sarcasm there). Now I'm involved in three projects at work, so I may not see the light of day again for several months. I just hope I don't have to work every weekend... I need to write essays!

Tomorrow night, there is a Penn Alumni Club B-school admissions panel in DC. I'm not part of the Penn Alumni Club but they let me sign up anyway. :) Adcom members from Penn, Harvard, Stanford, Sloan, and Kellogg are going to be there to answer questions (and I have a lot!) I'll post anything of particular interest on here.

Recommender Info Packet

Rungee needs to give her recommenders their info packets and she needs help...

I have the following already prepared for them:
1. Very brief intro of schools to which I am applying, including BOLDED deadlines
2. Process for writing recs for each school (e.g., online, paper, etc.)
3. My career vision/goals essay
4. My resume

Anything else? I want to make sure I give them as much as they need w/out overwhelming them.

Being so focused on essays, I just was looking through other application requirements yesterday and noticed that Harvard and Stanford both require 3 essays rather than 2. Only diff. is that HBS lets you choose anyone (I'd rather have a manager, I think) while Stanford requires a peer. I remembered Harvard's requirements so I have someone in mind, but I forgot about Stanford. Hmm... a peer? I'm not sure who I want to write that one... this will require some more thought.

Back to work!

Spin it like a pro

Well, the essays continue. If I could progress any slower on these, I'd be moving backward... sooo frustrating! I'm trying to tailor my general vision essay to fit different schools. It's the same basic story, but I'm trying to spin it so it fits well w/ the program. Who knows if this is a good plan or not. I'm going to farm out several of these drafts and ask my reviewers to make sure I don't lose my overall message w/ the spin. I've taken my Columbia essays (w/ their very liberal word limits) and whittled them down to the more restrictive word limits required by some of the other schools. I find this makes things go a little easier (though strangely not any faster).

One of the reasons I've fallen behind was because a good friend came up to stay with us for the weekend (obviously, this is a good reason to fall behind!). It is so much fun to catch up with close friends when it's been awhile. She's currently still in school and she's going to apply for her masters next year, so we were commiserating on the application process.

And now I'm going to go make double fudge brownies to procrastinate further! :)

Well the landslide will bring you down, down

So, now Wharton has released essays. I'm starting to feel the weight of the landslide here as schools start releasing essays and I struggle to catch up. Word limits are currently the bane of my existance. I realize I'll probably have a better, tighter essay because of them, but trying to be that succinct is seriously difficult.

Well, I soldier on... hoping to continue making progress.

Back on Track!

I feel fresh and invigorated. I'm not even sure why. Maybe it was getting the deliverable out the door, maybe it was playing softball this weekend (it's been forever since I've played) in the sunshine, or maybe it is just the extra coffee I had this morning, but I am in a great mood and full of energy.

I worked my essays this weekend. I have a decent rough draft of the Harvard and Columbia essays. They are certainly still in development and somewhat rough, but I can say that there was definitely progress made this weekend! I aim to send those to friends/family for a first revision by the end of the month (I can't be this slow with all my essays but I figure once I get the first few under my belt, the others will be easier... I hope!). Also, I just saw that LBS essays came out... sweet... now I can get started on those too.

I also officially asked one person to be my recommender today. He's a bit farther afield (read: not at my work) so I wanted to get in touch with him early.

With these updates, I am back in line w/ schedule I set for myself: http://rungee582.blogspot.com/2006/04/timeline.html. I love being on schedule!