After finishing all my Round 1 applications,
now I’m waiting on their results and preparing for the Round 2 schools. I decided
to take some time to relax after Round 1 application, but it seems that relaxing
in a journey to B-school is far from reality. The anxiety level is at all-time
high, because every day while you wait to hear from the schools, you see people
getting interview invites, while at the same time, no notification about your
applications; hence adding up a lot of frustration and anxiety. I got a quick
notification on my Duke application; however, the news was not pleasant. Now with
all the waiting and anxiousness, it is really getting hard to concentrate for
Round 2 school applications, so I thought of kick starting again with writing
about the my Round 1 journey and plan for Round 2 applications.
I planned to apply to 6 schools –
Duke, Yale, Tuck, Darden, Columbia and UCLA in Round 1 but then ended up with
applying to only 4, skipping Columbia and UCLA. I decided to let go Columbia
because I missed the early action round deadline due to the application load of Darden and Tuck. Columbia is anyways a stretch school for me, so I decided to
concentrate on other 2 realistic applications. After Darden and Tuck, UCLA was
next in the line for the round 1. I started researching about it, connecting
with Alumni and AdCom to find if it is the right program for me. I found out
that the UCLA teaching style is “Lecture-based”, which is a definite down for
me as I’m sold on for “Case-based” style. I also found that UCLA is at a
disadvantage compared to other East coast School, for someone who is seeking a
position in Financial world; another down for UCLA. I choose UCLA for its
strong footprint in Media and Entertainment industry, but as I was not sure if
I wanted to pursue a career in this industry, I let go UCLA for its 2 down to 1
up.
Now, as I’m waiting for my Round
1 application decisions, I shortlisted schools for round 2 applications. Here is
the list –
- NYU
Stern
- ISB
- Michigan
Ross
- Cornell
- UNC
Kenan-Flagler or Carnegie Mellon Tepper (not sure about them)
NYU is my replacement for both
Columbia and UCLA. It is located in the world’s financial capital, New York City,
with a strong foothold in both Finance and Entertainment world; however,
cracking NYU seems a bit tough task because of its applicant’s higher mean GMAT
score. Two of these schools – NYC and
ISB – have deadlines in November, and with the waiting time adding to the
anxiety, making this round tougher than the Round 1. Let's see what the future
holds.
If you
want to know anything specific about my application progress, or want to learn
about my research, do drop me a message.