...it depends on Business School

At this point in time I don't want to complain about "The Waiting Game" per se because I understand that I have to wait.  I'm not anxious about decisions YET.  I'm more concerned with the fact that my life is on pause right now.

In the new year everyone begins to plan for the Spring and Summer whether it be long vacations or short trips.  All of the birthday invites and wedding invites come out etc etc.  This is even the time when people start looking for new jobs and furthering their careers....but nope.. not for a business school applicant.  Every sentence ends with "...well it depends on if I get into business school."

For me this is very frustrating because I am someone who constantly looks for what my next move will be in life!  At this juncture I cannot do such things.  I have to focus on my Cornell interview next week.  Not to say that I don't want to think about it because obviously I do!  But I mean when I think to my life in May right now it's a black box.  I could either preparing to go to business school or something else.  It's just frustrating for me not knowing what path I'm going to be taking in a couple months.  I will find out next month though.

I'm not even anxious about finding out decisions any more.  I'm not being cocky and saying "oh im going to get in everywhere" because we already know that that is not the case.  But there's no need for me to be nervous or anxious.  The chips will fall in the right manner that's supposed to be right for me and that's that.  I'm at peace with that now.

I'm fortunate enough to have a Director who has her MBA degree from Kellogg so we were talking today about where I was in the process and what not.  I was telling her about how it's tough to just have one's life on Pause.  She said that after she submitted her applications she got a second job just to kill time.  I do not have a second job, but I am heavily involved in the BeatTheGMAT community and am working on a couple of projects right now.  So I guess my activity to "get my mind off this process" is heavily indebted to this process lol.  Counterintuitive don't you think?  Oh well... the projects are great ones...so don't judge.

Sorry I was in the middle of this post and then had a 2 hour long phone call with an old friend.  I don't remember what I was really talking about so that's that....

So on that note - I'm going to watch Hulu!

The Waiting Game

This whole waiting thing is brutal.  Well actually since I'm still coming down from last week the waiting game hasn't been that bad.  I've been catching up on a lot of drinking and even planned a vacation to Fort Lauderdale next weekend with two of my best friends.  We're staying here at the Westin Diplomat hotel:

This vacation will help me get my mind off this waiting game.  Even though I'm waiting now... I have friends who are not.  The people who applied Early and I believe R1 are beginning to find out their decisions.

I have decided to stop trying to figure out how someone gets accepted.  It's too much of a crap shoot.  My friend whom I first met at the HBS event last April just told me that he was rejected from NYU.  I thought his profile was incredible.  I mean...730+ GMAT and a liberal arts background you would think B-schools would eat him up right?  Hopefully NYU was an anomaly and he'll be admitted to all of the schools he's applied too.

He told me "If I put as much effort into this process as you did the outcome may have been different."  he's not thinking about what he's going to do if he's not admitted to any schools.  It's funny FROM MY PERSPECTIVE because I'm like... "If I only had a 730+ GMAT my outcome may be different!"  The grass is always greener on the other side I suppose.

This is not all that goes on post-submission.  Now I'm beginning to walk myself through my essays in my head asking myself "Did I include this... did I include that?" etc.  This is the worst feeling in the world because you know that you can't do anything about what you've submitted.  So what I do is just tell myself that yes I included everything that has been coming to mind.  BUT there is one essay that I wish I could rewrite because I remembered something post-submission that would have made that essay sooooooooo much better.  But there's nothing that I can do about it now - or is there?

Ok so I have a notebook that I started waaaaaay back in September 2009 when I attended my first MBA fair.  Since then this is the notebook that I've brought to every MBA event so I have all of my notes in it.  Even if I forgot the notebook at home I would transpose my notes from said event into that notebook.  There is still one more part of the process that I may have to go through.  Even though I had my Consortium interview back in October, some of the schools may request an additional interview.  I'm not upset or anything by that because I know that I can rock interviews - more so than essays, or so I think! ;-) So all of the things that I'm thinking about post-submission, I'm simply writing in my notebook.  If an opportunity arises in my interviews for me to speak to these things then that would be phenomenal.

Always plottin!!  So while the process is pretty much over... it's really just beginning!!!  Couple weeks folks until R1 Decisions come out (Beginning of February I believe)....  mine won't come out until the beginning of March so I'm still breathing but I make no promises how I'm going to feel mid-February!  March is just going to be a mess for me... I'll probably lose so much weight from stress and not eating.  I wonder if I should weigh myself on the 1st and then weigh myself again on the 31st!  hhhmmmm hahaa