Not Repeating in Essays is an Art

I'm going to call out the most appropriate title of an MBA Consultant out there.  No she is not the one I am using nor did she ask me to say this, but the title of her company is ON POINT!  Kaneisha Grayson hit the nail on the head by using the title "The Art of Applying."  I could not agree more and there is definitely an art to applying to business school, and yes I'm sure law school as well and every other masters program.

In any event, what I'm struggling with right now is figuring out what I want to include in my essays that I did not include in my interview, or even if what I included in my interview will make it to the admissions committee table.  I wish someone would shed some light on how much information from the interview actually makes it into ones file, because yes you go through your resume, but if you interview correctly you add so much more context.  Then all of the schools say "We want a holistic view of the applicant, so you don't want to just regurgitate your resume or something you said in your interview."  But how do I know that something I said "in passing" while getting to another point will actually make it into my file?  So should I include that in my essay but in more depth?

I know in my interview I touched on a lot of things because it was a very conversational interview.  Now while writing my essays (I've done 3 first drafts tonight) I'm finding it hard to "tip toe" around topics that are very important.  This is the hardest with my video essay for Tuck, because there are so many things I want to say, but just don't have the time.  I literally do not have the time... I have 90 seconds!

In any event, I'll figure it out and will see what my reviewer say.

On that note, I have to begin packing!  I'm off to visit Michigan tomorrow!  My flight is at 6pm from LaGuardia, so I'll probably leave work at 3:45 and then by 8pm I'll be in Detroit headed to A2 (Ann Arbor).  I've been emailing back and forth with my friends there and they are patiently waiting my arrival!  Excuse me.. that's a lie.. they are recruiting and interviewing and symposium(ing), but with it being Thursday and all, I know that they don't have classes and some are up for showing me the town.

It won't be a late night because I have to be up and at'em early in the AM for the start of the LGBT preview events.  But... Friday night... I make no promises!

Until next time!  Peace playa!

Management Consulting

So although I have no plans to go into management consulting ($ is tempting) I was just reading up on it.  The learning curve for me from where I've come since last year has been tremendous.  Last year this time I had no idea what consultants did.  I have a friend who is a consultant for Capgemini and I was like "wait... so do you work at _______ or do you work for Capgemini?"  I couldn't wrap my head around the whole thing.

Then I believe either last year or earlier this year Conde Naste' hired McKinsey to audit their portfolio.  The only reason this was big news for me and my industry (Luxury Retail) is because there were many articles written in the NY press about how Anna Wintour, the Editor of Vogue, was worried about losing her job.  That's a different story in and of itself because Vogue would be stupid to fire Anna now.  In any event, so yeah that's when I was like "Oooohh that's what McKinsey does."

But now that I know more about consulting, I would advise ANY and EVERY ONE thinking about getting and MBA to research this profession.  There's no way you can go into business school and not know what consultants do.  One important reason is that you want to have something to talk to your friends about.  As you progress through the application process and meet new people you'll inevitably meet those who want to go into consulting.  By knowing the basics, you'll be able to have an intelligent conversation with them.

Also - by researching what consultants do and how they think, the GMAT will make more sense and it will be easier to break down!  I kid you not.  So here is the basic website I was perusing just now about Management Consulting.  I was also on Bain's website looking at some of their case studies through this widget they have:  Bain Consulting.  I promise that if you go through these resources you'll understand why b-schools want people who think a certain way!

That's it for now... I'll update you on Day 2 of SMX tomorrow and I'll also tell you why I am up at this hour!  My schedule is messed up because of work I had to do late last night - for work!  Ugh...

Ugh Be Quiet!

G'evening... today I'll talk about my Statistics Class and the Accepted.com MBA Telethon I participated in today.

Statistics - I must vent a little bit. I had my 2nd Statistics class tonight. It went well despite me not having done the homework because the bookstore is closed for renovations. It'll be open on June 1st, so I'll be the first one in line. Tonight we discussed more Standard Deviation, Variance, and Coefficients. Then towards the end of class we touched on probability.

What's weird is that during my MGMAT class, when we did probabilities I would get a pit in my stomach. Not necessarily because it's THAT hard of a topic, but more because I knew how important it would be for my GMAT prep. This time around I was more calm and not antsy. It was weird. I'll just try to take everything in. She said for next week we would do more probabilities as well as permutations and combinations.

But what really irritated me was the - I must answer everything before everyone, while i sit with my laptop open - Girl...Today this event occurred maybe 14 times. I was so pissed off. In all honesty we all know how to calculate the mean, median, and mode...why doesn't she realize that she's not impressing anyone by blurting out the answer to a RHETORICAL question? The 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th time she did it, I turned my head and looked at her, so she would realize my frustration. Then she answered a question wrong and we all corrected her! Just be quiet and take notes!!!

There was a girl just like that in my Algebra class last fall and I combated her by beating her to the punch. I won't do that this time because I'm not invested. I'll just complain to you guys.

Accepted.com MBA Telethon - So I had the intention of talking about this but I just realized that I left my notes at work. I'm not sure if anyone else called in today for a 15 consulting session but I decided too. All I had to do was answer 6 questions and send my resume, and I got to speak with an Accepted.com person and ask her any questions I had. I thought she would tell me what I needed to do in order to improve my candidacy, but it was more of me asking her questions. That was fine too except I've done so much research that I could finish her sentences. I knew everything she was going to say before she said it. I didn't get one thing out of it, but that's not to say that other people didn't.
- I just know that my weakness is my GPA. I know that I should take classes to help that situation - I didn't tell her that I was taking classes already.
- I knew who I should ask to be my recommenders...
- I knew that schools are now accepting the GRE...

Veritas Prep - Oh... BTW... This weekend is very exciting. I'll be taking the Veritas Prep weekend course. It's this Saturday/Sunday and next Saturday/Sunday. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm hoping it will fill in the holes and supplement all of the other knowledge I've acquired. Then it'll be crunch time and my hiatus will be over.

Sidenote - on the editing nav bar at the top of my editing screen there seems to be some options missing - IF ANYONE KNOWS HOW I CAN ADD PICTURES AGAIN CAN YOU LEAVE A COMMENT? Thanks...

T T T T THAT'S ALL FOLKS! Tomorrow/Today I'm going to see Sex and The City... pretty pumped about that!