Monday, October 18, 2010
Last one...
Everyone had always told me that the last application is the easiest. You had all this material to work with. You've defined your themes and key messages. Now it's just molding all of it to fit the next group of questions. I approached this last first round application as a simple task. I knew exactly how to sum up my candidacy and the points I wanted to hit. But here I am, days away from the deadline and not confident in the package. The biggest issue I have is that I've repeated my story so many times now that I don't want to bend it. It is what it is. They should either accept it or not. Well, unfortunately, that's not how this all works. I need to prove to them that I want to go to their school. That I'm committed to them. And the best way to do that, provide a convincing application that is tailored to their school and answers their questions...ok, back to recrafting this thing. Devoting the time now will be well worth it. No regrets.
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I think you're right -- in some ways the last application can be the hardest. You may be better off trying to think of fresh ideas and fresh experiences rather than trying to regurgitate the SAME material that you've used in other applications in yet another one. In other words, if you think catering old material to a new school will make your material sound drab and unoriginal, don't do it. Instead, pretend that this is your first application and approach it with a fresh perspective.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck to you!
Sarah Pritzker
www.accepted.com
Accepted's Judy Gruen responded to your post on Accepted's blog at http://bit.ly/9ePBni . Hope her suggestions help.
ReplyDeleteBest,
Linda Abraham
Thank you all for your comments and support through this process. I didn't realize the impact of this blog until now.
ReplyDeleteThe comments were helpful. As you both mentioned, it's great to look at an application with a fresh perspective. Each time I took a step back and tried to answer the question I kept coming back to the same general idea but with a bit different take on it. I reworked, reworked, reworked and reworked the beginning and ending until I felt like each addition was not moving the ball forward. I then took a step back, outlined my general thesis again and reread my essay. By doing this, I realized it was a lot closer than I thought. With a few more touches I passed it along to a pair of friends for their review. I told neither about my issue that the content was reused or the trouble I was having internally. Each came back with a resoundingly positive critique. Now, they are friends so they may have just been being nice to me but I trust them to be as harsh as possible (which is required of all reviewers). With that vote of confidence I made my final edits and hit submit on my final application.
The fatigue and uncertainty of the whole process can be paralyzing at times. It's that moment that support from others and reassessing your own desire for an MBA is paramount. For me, that quickly pulled me back into it. That allowed me to open my eyes again for a fresh look. Thank you both again for your timely advice.
JM