Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Sweating Bullets

Okay, maybe I'm not really sweating bullets but it just dawned on me that the Columbia ED review cycle begins in a month! A month! (a month plus a few days but c'mon) I remember thinking about this stuff in January and thinking that there was so much dead time to kill and now it's really hitting me. It's go time.

GMAT is obviously done. My essays are up in the air... I have my goals essay and I'm happy with it (despite being terribly over the recommended word count). I have my passion essay though I'm not happy with it and it still needs a few edits. The other 2 essay topics we won't know until the app is released though some have guessed it will be the same as the J-term questions. I may look at them if I have time and the Columbia app isn't out yet. Crazy that the app should be out in 2 weeks (or so)... no date has been given but late July is the commonly accepted timeframe. From then, it'll be a frantic 2 more weeks before the opening of the review cycle. Ayyyyy!

Sidebar here. You know how there was a big stir when Harvard decided to release their essay topics in May? Then schools like Stanford (and I think Kellogg to an extent) released their essays early as well. The whole online b-school aspirant community was lauding HBS for being forerunners and pioneers once again (first with the case study method and now with the super duper early app I guess). Well I'm kinda glad Columbia stuck to their guns and stayed with their traditional late July release date. They didn't let Harvard sway them to and fro in an effort to keep up with the Joneses. And I'm proud of them for that. Even though CBS gets a ton of flack for their ED policy (and how it lets them inflate their yield slightly) and for being the supposed laggard of the M7, I'm really happy that they didn't follow Harvard's lead like a little lemming. I do understand why Stanford did it though (since they're HBS' primary competitor for the creme de la creme, they understandably didn't want applicants' minds mulling over Harvard's application and falling in love for too long a time before remembering Stanford has an app too)

Anyway, my two recommenders are in place and by tomorrow, one of them will have made some major progress. I gave them last year's set of 10 recommender questions to "prepare with" in the hopes that the questions stay the same. One of them said that they expect to be done tomorrow so at least one guy will be in the bag. I can "encourage" the other one too. One interesting thought here though. I am Asian. Coincidentally, both of my recommenders are Asian. I wonder if this will send up a red flag in the eyes of the adcom? Will they think "oh grrreat, here's anothe cliquey Asian anti-social who is only gonna hang out with other Asians." They better not! I am so not that. I listen to country music and my best friends from high school are all Jewish. Oi vey. Maybe I'm being neurotic but let's pray they don't think that.

On an unrelated note, I've noticed that Samantha and Soni and HappyBunny (fellow 2009 bloggers) have all received offers for "sponsorship" by ManhattanGMAT. I learned this by reading comments left by a ManhattanGMAT blogger on those 3 aspirants' respective blogs. The term "sponsorship" is actually incredibly misleading though. ManhattanGMAT is basically asking them to post a link to ManhattanGMAT on their blog in exchange for ManhattanGMAT posting a link on their own website. Haha! What a ridiculous offer. This is great for ManhattanGMAT because obviously they get more hits and potentially more customers and revenue and profits (since the GMAT prep business has such high start-up costs and minimal continuing operations costs). But is this equally great for the aspirants? Not really... I mean, they get more hits but they don't have the opportunity for great economic gain that ManhattanGMAT would get. It would be more fair if Manhattan GMAT offered to give a tiny, tiny royalty to the blogger if any of their referrals become a paying customer. Now that would be equitable. Thankfully, I don't believe any of them have accepted this dumbass "sponsorship" suggestion. Kudos to them. Or perhaps I'm just being a prickly, jealous idiot who is insulted that I didn't receive such a "sponsorship" suggestion. Haha! I understand they're the standard in GMAT prep but if they don't like my blog, they can... well, let's just say that I shouldn't write about that stuff. :)

Another observation. My blog's hits have been up by something like 50% since the ScoreTop scandal. I wonder if I'm coming up in search engine queries. Maybe I should investigate. Maybe I should shut up and go to bed.

7 comments:

Soni said...

Dude! I got an offer from Manhattan GMAT for WHAT???!!! Where's my cut?

Seriously, Can you give me details? I haven't received anything as far as I know.

Mo Zhou said...

LOL. That's the exact reason why I have not e-mailed them back. Since I never used them during my preparation, I figure it's misleading to have their link on my blog.

I'm so anxious about the application. :( I want to submit in Aug. :(

TienyChesney said...

Soni,
Check out the last (15th) comment on your posting entitled "Re-visits to Chicago GSB and Kellogg". Manhattan GMAT posted under the handle "princess" and apparently her name is Sarah. That's all there is... it sounds like the worst deal in the world. They want you to direct potential $ to their website in exchange for sending you some more hits. Pfft.

HappyBunners,
Haha you're submitting ED in August now? I thought you were submitting in September originally... looks like you fell more in love with CBS eh? ;) How amazing would it be if we were the first two admits in the class of 2011? haha, one can dream...

Soni said...

I like MGMAT and all, but why would I want their traffic? I don't advertise anything on my page, don't really care if 1 person reads it (my mom) or 100 people read it.

OMGparishilton said...

Wouldnt having 2 Asian reco-ers for an Asian candidate working in the US a bit of an eyebrow raiser?
.

TienyChesney said...

OMGParisHilton,

I agree that it could potentially be an eyebrow raiser which is why I brought it up. They have no reason to be concerned (one of the guys is actually born and bred in Chattanooga, Tennessee!) so it really is a coincidence. But I don't see/know how I can get around it. Hopefully they won't put too much stock in the coincidence since Asians are disproportionately represented in MBA circles and consulting/finance anyway. :/

Samantha said...

Haha, I totally agree. For a second I thought they might send me money, but of course not. It drives traffic to their website, but driving traffic to my site gives me nothing. Unless I want to sign up for google ads and get $.25 checks occasionally.

Please don't worry another second about the Asian point you raised. America is a country of immigrants, who cares! We don't choose the people who become our bosses anyway.