The Consortium Fellowship D-Day

Remember waaay back when... it was actually in January.. when I posted about What the Consortium was? Well in it I mentioned that there's an uber important meeting that goes down where they decide who of the applicants gain membership into the Consortium and ultimately get a fellowship to one of the member schools.  THIS MEETING HAPPENS TODAY 3/1 (really tomorrow as I write this) in St. Louis!  It's important because historically 70% of ADMITTED applicants have received a fellowship.

The people in that room hold the fate of many many many applicants on their legal pages and notebooks!  I received a push notification message earlier today on twitter (my name is Money9111) from Jonathan Fuller who works in Admissions at Michigan rubbing in the fact that he was travelling to St. Louis!  I took a screenshot:

Lol yes I follow a lot of GMAT related people!  But now that I don't have to take that exam anymore I can probably unfollow them!  In any event... yeah... So right now I imagine all of the Admissions representatives from each school are just sitting in the lobby of some posh hotel downtown talking about "Hey... did so and so apply to your school?"  "Hey... what did applicant X write for your essay?  Did it sound anything like this?"  

I'm just joking I don't really think they're comparing applicants just yet!  But what will happen when they all go into that room and get down to business is left to the imagination.  The reality is simple.  There are some Consortium applicants who have found out decisions from different schools and there are other Consortium applicants who have not heard back from any Consortium member schools yet.  I don't think there's anything that one can read into that because it just varies by school.  Some schools notify Consortium applicants before they go meet in St. Louis.  Other schools notify after they meet in St. Louis.  The truth of the matter is... ALL OF THE CONSORTIUM SCHOOLS KNOW WHETHER OR NOT WE'VE BEEN ACCEPTED.  

So for me yes I applied to... Yale, Cornell, Tuck, Haas, Ross, and NYU.  All of those schools know whether or not I've been rejected, accepted or waitlisted.   They HAVE to know in order to be able to make a decision on whether or not to offer me a fellowship.

So while the last couple of days I've been on a high because of the Cornell acceptance... the reality has set in that I need $$$,$$$ so that I can go to school!

When all of the admissions representatives are sitting in that room I wish I could be a fly on the wall and just observe.  It's funny (not really) because none of us Consortium applicants knows exactly how the "Draft" is facilitated.  I will tell you the two ways that I think it could go down!

OPTION 1 - So we have all of the admissions reps in a conference room with their notes on which applicants they want that they've admitted.  So then the Applicants name and Stats and Rankings flash up onto a screen with the list of the schools the applicant has been admitted too by ranking.  (No sorry folks I'm not telling you my ranking even though the schools will know in a couple hours).  So once the applicants information is up on the screen then facilitator says "Hey... School _____  Richard ranked you first.. and you admitted him... you gonna show him the money?"  then School _____ says "DUH OF COURSE!"  And then they move on to the next candidate and any other school who had me on their "Must GET" list would cross me off their list and then give the fellowship they had planned for me to someone else.

OPTION 2 - All of the admissions reps are in the conference room.  Then the facilitator says "Ok we're doing 1st rankings first"  And then they turn to School _____ and say "Ok... persons A,B,C,D,E, and F all ranked you 1st.  Do you want to give any of them whom you've admitted a fellowship?"  Then the school decides and they do that for all schools.  Then they move on to 2nd rankings.  So then the shitty part comes when you're down in the 4/5/6th rankings and the schools don't have any more fellowships to give out.  

I know which one of these options would work best in my favor but then again... that depends on other schools I'm accepted too, AGAIN WHICH I DON'T KNOW.

Then on top of that...  us Consortium applicants don't know when we will find out decisions.  Some people are saying that we'll hear tomorrow about all of our acceptances + fellowships.  Some other people are saying that we'll hear by this Friday.  Some others are just saying that we'll get a letter in the mail shortly after March 15th!  We're all over the place lol... is it too much to ask for a decision just so we can all breathe?!?!

Who knew Tom Cruise had such bad teeth?!?!