Application Nostalgia Revisited

Hello Everyone!  So I'm still waiting to be able to make an announcement, but I need to email someone first - which is the reason I haven't blogged much.  Not to mention that time is scarce in business school, so finding time to blog is difficult, hence the reason it's 1:30am and I'm taking a break from reading a marketing case to write this post.

Back in March about a month and a half after I hit SUBMIT on my applications, I wrote this "Remember When... App Nostalgia" blog post and I wanted to revisit it and now give my perspective.

Remember when... we used to make up questions just to have a touch point with admissions officers?

HAHAHA so true!  And now the admissions officers are our friends!  It's nice to see them in their own element.

Remember when... we would look for someone on your gchat list going through the same experience so you could vent?

Now we look for people on our gchat lists to complain about the work or how busy we are.

Remember when... you had no idea what the consortium was?

most people still don't know!

Remember when... going out was more of a task then the GMAT?

all we do now is go out!  always celebrating something!  1st quiz!  2nd quiz!  1st week of classes!  birthdays!  

Remember when... we would stay up all night complaining about writing essays?

still happens!

Remember when... the GMAT was all we cared about?

unspoken rule not to talk about it!

Remember when... we checked the forums minute(ly)?

can barely remember the URL's.  (although that's not true.. i post like once a week in there)  still feel the need to pay forward the application process experience.

Remember when... we would attend every event that our top b-school was hosting in our area.

clearly doesn't happen now... but it's fun being on the other end of it now.  I'm an admissions ambassador for Johnson and will be bringing students to classes with me and hosting information sessions at school!

Remember when... we would catch every grammar mistake that people made as we prepared for Sentence Correction?

still occurs.

Remember when... we had no social life and had to check our friends that complained about never seeing us?

definitely have a social life now, but it's one with new friends.  the old friends are tough to keep up with.

Remember when... no one believed in "holistic approach?

PLEASE BELIEVE IT!

Remember when... your friends would drunk dial you proclaiming that they weren't getting in anywhere?

now friends drunk dial you - "Where are you?"

Remember when... you practiced sentence correction on your iPhone sitting at my desk because I couldn't let anyone at work know I was leaving?

sentence correction?  What's that....

Remember when... CR, DS, SC, and RC meant something to you?

don't mean anything any more... but now there are soooooooo many more acronyms it's ridic.

Remember when... you had to lug around GMAT books?

now it's Marketing, Accounting, Econ, Laptop, and iPad.

Remember when... you thought you might be stuck in this job forever?

job?  what job?  hopefully I'll get a job!

Remember when... we didn't sleep?

sleep?  haha lots of naps going on in bschool

Remember when... we saw each other ever weekend at a different diversity event?

imagine seeing the same people every single day of the week!

Remember when... we drank to ease the anxiety of the application process?

now we drink just because we're all alcoholics

Remember when... we all thought that the Consortium deadline was the day before it actually was?

thanks to (you know who you are) ::side eyes::  <3 you though!  the person is now at Fuqua.

Remember when you thought the GMAT was the only thing that mattered?

definitely is not the only thing!

Remember when... you thought that no one took supplementary math classes an that it wouldn't help?

A.) sooo many people do it.  B.)  it definitely helped!

Remember when you didn't think you would end up on a waitlist?

hey it happens.

Remember when... you calculated the opportunity cost of buying something vs. an extra tutoring session or GMAT book?

managing one's schedule in b-school is all about figuring out the opportunity cost!

Remember when... your friends in b-school reminded you how unenvious of you they were?

just paying it forward now!  i do not envy you applicants now!  but it's worth it.

Remember when... navigating MBA fairs became a science?

now it's going to be navigating career fairs!

Remember when... you cared about rankings?

rankings are important lol and admissions officers do care about them!

Remember when... you were on a first name basis with the admissions officers?

now there's a genuine relationship there!

Remember when... you took the GMAT so many times that you had the school codes memorized?

LMAO

Remember when... YOU GOT THAT ACCEPTANCE CALL and didn't care about all of that hard work?

TRUE STORY!

Random B_School Thoughts

Hello All!  It's been a while since I've posted an update.  Since I have some free time right now, I figured that now is as good as time as any to do so.  I'm actually watching the MTV Video Music awards right now and there's a commericla, so why not?

So life in business school is incredible!  All I've been doing lately is studying, going to class, and drinking.  A LOT of drinking!  I knew coming into it that sure, my classmates and I would do a lot of drinking, BUT I had no idea that it was THIS much.

But aside from all that I would like to say that things are beginning to pick up.  I've already been through a week of classes and have already had a Marketing quiz.  I have an Economics quiz tomorrow....Accounting quiz on Tuesday... and an Economics paper due on Friday.

On another note, I just looked at one of my blog posts from August 28th (today) LAST YEAR and it was about an MBA Application Readiness.  (http://money9111.blogspot.com/2010/08/mba-application-readiness.html)

I would like to address a quote from the last paragraph that I wrote - "At this point I'm in this for the long run.  I realize that the next 6 months, will determine the rest of my life.  If I cannot continue to sacrifice and see this process through to fruition then THAT'S when I don't belong in business school.  But for now... I'm In!  I'm All In!  and THAT is all she wrote folks!"


I'm glad I was able to realize how important the application process would be for me.  It is not a joke and I can fully atest to it not being a joke now that I'm in business school.  There IS  science to the application process and once one figures out what that is, then one will get into A business school.  Should anyone have specific questions, please feel free to email me at richardbattlebaxter@gmail.com.  The I find it unfortunate when people don't fully grasp the application process and then ultimately get declined as a result.  This is why I try to talk to as many people as possible to shed light on the process that can be a black hole.


Also, the last time I made a blog post, I offered to review essays for any school.  I had one person email me and I've given her feedback on an essay twice.  I'm usually pretty quick about the feedback, so if anyone out there wants a second pair of eyes on an essay just shoot me an email.


I'm being pretty vague on here about my experience here at Johnson, because I'm waiting for something to get completed.  Then I'll be able to continue and give some more insight.  That's why there is no structure to my latest blog posts...

Core Classes Start Tomorrow

Just really quickly, because I must be going to sleep shortly!  MY CORE CLASSES START TOMORROW!  All of that hard work over the past 2 years has paid off!  My.. how time flies right?  Also, how quickly one's priorities change.  Now all of that research and reaching out that was done for business school.... yup - transitions to companies now.  Time for sleep!  8:40 Microeconomics class tomorrow at the S. C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University!!!  Go Big Red!!

Hindsight is 20/20

WOW is all that I can say after these last couple of weeks.  Again, I must apologize for not keeping my blog updated since I've gotten to school but I have some good news coming down the pike very very shortly!

I cannot even begin to speak about the great time I've had up until this point between math camp and orientation activities, so I won't try to cover it all.  But what I will say is that NOW I completely understand why the application process is what it is.  I cannot begin to tell all the new applicants how important it is to be incredibly candid and tell YOUR story in the applications.  It is only now that I realize that when admissions officers say "We want to get to know you" - that they really mean it.

My peers are incredible and I'm excited to find out who is in my core group tomorrow.  I have faith in the two women, who have created the groups according to our results from StrengthFinder 2.0, that we will be able to play off of each others strengths and mitigate each others weaknesses.  It should be a fun time...

I will say this though...there is a ton of drinking that goes on in business school.  :-)  ....at least during orientation haha.  I have my Core schedule now and I'm happy that even though my classes start at 8:40am it's still better than me having to wake up at 6:30am to head off to work!  Oh... my classes?  So for the first part of the Core I have Micro Econ then Marketing and then Accounting.  Fun fun...

As I wind down this blog (no this is not my last post just yet) I want to make sure that people still know that I'm available to give advice should one need it.  I'm also willing to take a look at people's essays (for any school not just Johnson) and make suggestions in crafting your story.  Note - I do not correct grammar.  But I do believe that I have a good handle on how to bring out the true meaning of what one is trying to say in an essay.  I'm 98% positive that I will not be able to get back to you within 24 hours, but definitely within 48 hours.  My email is richardbattlebaxter@gmail.com.

It's "funny" to look back at my blog and see that a post that I wrote a year ago around this time was about the level of introspection needed for essays.  Here is the post:  http://money9111.blogspot.com/2010/08/am-i-cut-out-for-this.html

Stop Spamming!

Hello everyone...  As I sit here in Math Camp, I keep receiving emails via my blog from someone who keep Spamming my blog.  So to that I say, would the username - AMIYAWILLIAMS please stop posting links on my blog.  I know what you're trying to do and it's very irritating and not cute!  Thanks a bunch...