Well folks... the journey is partly over! I would like to tell you all about my day today because it was EXHAUSTING. I’m not sure how long this post is going to be, but I have a lot to get off my chest, so you may need to grab a snack and a drink.
AS YOU READ THIS... IF YOU HAVE NOT APPLIED YET... TAKE NOTES AS TO WHAT NOT TO DO THE DAY BEFORE AND DAY OF YOUR APPLICATION DEADLINE. I’M TELLING YOU THERE ARE SOME GOOD NUGGETS IN HERE.
Ok so let me just pick up where I left off. My last post was around 11:30 when I posted about my blog’s 1 year anniversary right? Yes, that’s right! At 11:30 I was still working on my essays. As I said previously, I was working in tandem with my friend who would read my essays for grammar mistakes and then send them back. This may seem like an easy plan, but when you fix one thing with grammar, it may change your original intended meaning, so then you get into editing sentences. Well sentences are part of a paragraph so...--- you get the point.
Now...multiply that by I think it was something like 13 essays. So it went like this. I would edit and essay... send it to her...and then start working on another one. Then I would send that one to her and she would send back the first one. Repeat this over and over again for 13 essays. Then once I got through all 13, I went back to the first one she sent back to me and redid that one. So we essentially went through 26 essays in one night.
I finally finished my essays and felt good about going into today only having to enter the essays into the application. Easy stuff right? HAHAHAHAHA Yeah... you’ll see. I figured I had gotten by the hard part.
I finally turned my light out at 1:15am because my eyes were closing from the all nighter the night before. At this point my computer was on my bed and I was picking up something off my floor when I see that I have a message from my friend who is also applying. (There were about 6 people on my buddy list who were all working on essays last night.) Anyway... so the message said “GET ON SKYPE I AM FREAKING OUT!”
I thought that she was just overwhelmed with everything and needed someone to talk her off the ledge. Little did I know that her next words to me would make me want to GET ON the ledge. On Skype she said something to the effect of “someone on Facebook posted that the Consortium application is due at 3am for us!” So I was like “UM.... COME AGAIN?” She’s like “yeah someone said that on the email from the Consortium it said that the application was due 12pm Pacific time. I’m like “yes that’s right... 12pm Pacific time is technically 3am for us on Thursday.” So then of course the doubt set in. I was like... ok what if I misunderstood and this person is correct? At this point I was not stressing out about it because it was 1:30 and I thought I would have enough time to input my essays. I mean I had just finished them right? Hhahha YEA...You’ll see (lmao).
She and I tried calling the Consortium phone number in hopes of someone being there, and of course no one was there! Granted it was the middle of the night, so I don’t know why we even tried. I said to myself “ok hhmm.. how cna you find out? Ok let me check Facebook!” So I go on the Consortium Facebook page and see that 12 minutes before I checked Facebook there was a Tweet from the Consortium that was filtered through the page status that said “APPLICATIONS ARE DUE TODAY - SUBMIT NOW!”
Ok so this is when I started to think that this random person was right. I then go to twitter and send a message to #cgsm asking “Does this mean 3am on the 5th for people on the East coast or essentially 3am on the 6th for people on the East coast?” I was hoping that since the person tweeted (Or they could have scheduled that tweet) not too long ago, that they might respond. But no such luck! Then I went back to the Facebook page and posted asking the same question, again hoping that someone would respond. Again... NO RESPONSE. So I look for my friend who lives in California to check his FB status and a couple hours prior he posted “JUST APPLIED TO BUSINESS SCHOOL.”
Then I started freaking out but moreso in a pissed off manner. I thought “THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING TO ME RIGHT NOW NOT AFTER EVERYTHING I’VE BEEN THROUGH!” By this time it was 2am, so I thought I only had an hour to get everything submitted. I went into the Consortium system and started filling out my information. That was easy then I realized that my updated resume was on my work computer!!!! (insert curse words here) I was so pissed at myself. Then I remember that I had a copy in my person email. Whew!
I email myself everything because my thought is that I trust Google more than I trust my laptop. If my laptop were to be stolen, since I bring it everywhere, then at the very least I would still be able to submit my applications because everything would be in my inbox. Anyway, I digress. Ok so I had my updated resume...I had my essays... I filled out the boxes that I could fill out....and I had my transcripts. Perfect right? Just have to upload everything.
So first I tried uploading my transcript. The day before I scanned a copy and emailed it to myself, so I thought I was good. NOPE.... FILE WAS TOO LARGE! The file size limit was 1000kb and mine was 1500kb. The only way I know how to compress PDF is with adobe and I don’t have adobe on my computer. (insert curse words here) Then I started giving up hope thinking to myself “ok I’ll just apply Round 3 but will have to write all new essays.” I then figured maybe they’ve had this problem before and I can send my transcript later...let me get my essays in.
So I open up my essay and here is my inner monolouge:
“.... copy it.... click into the dedicated box within the application and click paste. Hhmm... it didn’t paste.... That’s odd let me try again. Copy...Paste... didn’t paste. Oh I think I’m using the wrong keys. COPY.......PASTE. I think I need to restart my computer.... ok let’s try this again. COPY PASTE... WTF IT’S NOT WORKING!!!!! Let me try typing a couple of words in the box to see if it works.... WTF WHY DID THAT WORK while the other one didn't?”
By this time it was 2:50, so I tried to convince myself that this person had actually gotten the times mixed up. By this time with the lack of sleep really really hitting me at this point, I tried to go to sleep. 2 hours later and many pillow punches, I fell asleep.
Hahaha 2 hours go by and it’s time to wake up! FML, but honestly I don’t feel tired because I’m still on that adrenaline high! So I wake up and immediately get sick to my stomach. I keep thinking the worst. What if that person was right and I’ve totally fucked up the deadline?!?! (you know it’s serious when I curse on my blog, but that doesn’t begin to describe how I felt this morning). So I get dressed....and didn’t even work on anything on the bus ride going in. Normally I look over essays or something, but I was so pissed off that I could not think straight.
I was pissed because I thought that I had missed the deadline....pissed because I thought that I would have to TYPE all of my essays into those small boxes in the application....and pissed because I was tired!!! I get to work and immediately call the Consortium and ask what the deadline is and she said today! I had the biggest smile on my face and said “ok I can do this....” in attempt to pump myself up to TYPE all of my essays. When I got to my desk, one of my recommenders came over and said “you know what’s dumb... that you can’t copy and paste from a document!” I said “YEAH I KNOW...BUT I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE I HAVE TO TYPE ALL OF THESE ESSAY INTO THE APPLICATION!”
Needless to say I was livid! I signed onto gchat and was venting to everyone on my buddy list. It’s a good thing I did that because when I asked my friend who is also submitting today, she said “No... I was just able to do it.” So then I’m like “what? how!?!?” Then I realized... WAIT A SECOND - I’M USING CHROME! I asked her what she was using and she said INTERNET EXPLORER. So I immediately opened up Internet Explorer as well as one of my essays and the Consortium application. I COPIED.... and IT PASTED! You can imagine my relief.
Let me stop here and say that no where within the application did I see that “It’s recommended that you use Internet Explorer.” I don’t know what I would have done if my friend did not mention that she could do it prompting me to try in a different browser. Thankfully at work we have PCs (I never thought I’d say that), because at home I have a Mac and there is no internet explorer on my Mac. I have Safari! I think there will be some very surprised people tonight when the deadline approaches and they are not able to copy and paste their essays. Hopefully they read my blog and see before they go through what I went through not too long ago.
Ok so... the essays were “pasteable”. Now all I had to do was copy and paste all of them.... upload the 3 Core essays... send my transcript to my friend to have her compress the file... upload the transcript... upload my nyu transcript... fill out some more personal information...upload my resume.. and fix the last part of an essay. HAHAHAH I know right? Although that paragraph sounds more crazy than it actually was.
Yeah... I was at work, but I was doing this inbetween doing work. At one point my manager came over and saw me and said “hey Richard I’m sorry to bother you but I just have a question about something.” Again...I’m blessed to have understanding people at work, although had this been the beginning of December things would have been different.
From the time I got to work, I was on gchat talking to my friends who were also submitting. I had to convince my one friend to call the Consortium to inquire about how she could submit one of her essays. She thought that she could email it and read the instructions a different way, so I told her to just call because it would make ME feel better. ;-) I knew that would work honestly... she did call and turns out that she had to submit it the same way as the other ones. It’s good that she asked because that meant that she needed to cut down the word length.
After that fiasco, the day went on and I was just fixing up things here and there... formatting essays... etc etc. Then I reviewed each element of the application about 10 times. I didn’t want to leave anything out. I must have uploaded - then deleted my core essays 4/5 times. But I got them JUST RIGHT! At this point it was 4pm! Yes.... it takes THAT long to get everything situated. And I am not an isolated case, because all of my friends who also submitted today finished +/- 30 minutes from me.
Strictly because I don’t know if anyone else felt this way and I’m not embarassed by it... I clicked “Preview full application” and then printed it out... and I felt myself get misty eyed and then had to get tissue and go to the bathroom. It had nothing to do with being nervous about hitting Submit, but was more of a release of over a year of hard work. I told my friend Brandon (osirus) that it would probably happen, but I didn’t think it would happen like that. I thought about all of the people who helped me get to the point when I could press submit and it was a good feeling.
My saga was not over yet because then yeah... I still had to pay $300 hahah. That’s how they snap you out of your fantasyland of “YES I’VE APPLIED”.. because then they’re like.. OK that’s great that you uploaded everything but can I have your money please?
So I paid my $300 since I applied to 6 schools and then was ELATED TO SEE THIS:
So now I should find out next week right???? hahahaha... Time to open the bubbly. I'm going to drink some champagne and edit my friends essay lolol..
I am no longer PROSPECTIVE APPLICANT - I am an OFFICIAL APPLICANT!
Tomorrow I will post a checklist for other applicants of things I wish I knew going into today...but as for now... I need a drink!!
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