Walter: It’s Time to Get Introspective
August 21, 2013 :: Admissionado Team
With R1 deadlines approaching, there’s a sense of urgency in the air. Although I did start relatively early, I can feel the urgency hitting me too!
I’ve realized recently that the best essays come out when one is totally introspective, since, after all, essays are intended to get the “real person” out of us. Thus, it’s important to find out some silent moments even among the endless list of actions items from work, extra-curricular activities and applications and just stop for a moment and focus on what I really want to convey in my applications.
[If you’re in the same situation and you feel de-motivated or stuck somewhere, I’m sure you guys would have seen Rocky, October Sky or the Pursuit of Happiness already. Hence, I will really recommend couple of Indian movies: ‘Taare Zameen Par’ and ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ will help you to rejuvenate, learn how hard is gets to learn sometimes, appreciate the opportunities available to us to make a difference and get back into essay-writing mode!!]
Well, coming back to my story. I’ve been following up pro-actively with my recommenders so that they finish on-time with their letters. Glad I started early. I can still take off from work to speed up, but it sometimes becomes hard to push recommenders at a stage when you require them badly! Thus, my strategy is to customize the deadline at least a week prior to the real one for my recommenders. I also make sure that they don’t get afraid after seeing so many recommendation requests from 4-5 schools. I’ve informed them that questions are almost identical and hence, copy and paste will suffice. I’m sure this gives them a lot of confidence. 🙂 I’ve also requested my recommenders to be as detailed as they can be in their examples and show the “impact” of my actions – a word about whose importance I spoke about in my earlier post, too.
I’ve also been discussing on emails with Eric about my essay strategy. However, I didn’t get enough time due to overload of work in the office to put my thoughts and story on paper. This weekend, with relatively lesser client’s action items to follow up on, is a golden opportunity.
Luckily, my client meeting got postponed by 30 minutes, giving me some time to write this blog post and think about my essay. I promise to write more as the intensity reduces! [Will it reduce?!] Now, I need to return back to an introspective stage and think deeply about the incidents where I made the highest impact to my client.
Wish me good luck 🙂
Walter’s your “typical” (in the eyes of the adcom) Indian IT male, fighting his way to HBS. He’s sharing his (re-)application journey and lessons he’s learning from start to finish for 2014. Follow along riiiight here.
