The Application Process

brianm wrote:Got my ding from Kellogg this afternoon. Sort of had a feeling it was coming, but it's still pretty devastating to actually read the letter after waiting 2 1/2 weeks for a decision. Sigh.

Sorry to hear about the ding. So are you just waiting on UCLA now?

Yep, just UCLA now. They've been pretty straightforward with their communication about admissions so I don't expect to hear one way or the other until early next week or on the deadline day of 3/31.

I'm still pretty bummed about Kellogg but I realize I just have to move on. There are a few things I think I did wrong with my application, and at the same time, they really turned me off in a few different ways throughout the admissions process. I don't mean for this to sound like "Kellogg didn't accept me so I'm going to hate them forever wahhhhh" lol, but some things Kellogg did rubbed me the wrong way. I talked to a current Kellogg student about it and he agreed. I know you can't let a few people dramatically affect your impression of the school, but it's hard not to let them sometimes.

Anyways, my dad sent me an article this morning in the WSJ about how to deal with rejection from your #1 school and some famous peoples' stories. It's worth a read: https://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000142 ... _nonsub_pj

brianm wrote:Yep, just UCLA now. They've been pretty straightforward with their communication about admissions so I don't expect to hear one way or the other until early next week or on the deadline day of 3/31.

I'm still pretty bummed about Kellogg but I realize I just have to move on. There are a few things I think I did wrong with my application, and at the same time, they really turned me off in a few different ways throughout the admissions process. I don't mean for this to sound like "Kellogg didn't accept me so I'm going to hate them forever wahhhhh" lol, but some things Kellogg did rubbed me the wrong way. I talked to a current Kellogg student about it and he agreed. I know you can't let a few people dramatically affect your impression of the school, but it's hard not to let them sometimes.

Anyways, my dad sent me an article this morning in the WSJ about how to deal with rejection from your #1 school and some famous peoples' stories. It's worth a read: https://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000142 ... _nonsub_pj

Any chance you would be willing to talk with me about what turned you off about Kellogg? I would be very interested in hearing what happened.


Great article your dad sent you. Seems like just about everybody gets dinged from Harvard!

dmateer25 wrote:Any chance you would be willing to talk with me about what turned you off about Kellogg? I would be very interested in hearing what happened.


Great article your dad sent you. Seems like just about everybody gets dinged from Harvard!

Sure, I can go into it a little bit of detail. This was just my experience, and I may have had just a string of bad luck on some things. I know from the people I've talked to that it's a great school, but some parts of the admissions process were frustrating for me.

1. I'll get this one out of the way right away - delivering admissions decisions over the course of three weeks is just torture. I don't think a top tier program should deliver results over that long of a window. I understand their class sizes are relatively big, but my personal opinion is that they should release decisions over the course of one week tops.

The big frustration was around my interview (on campus) - it could have been better. Part of it was my fault since I was nervous and it was my first interview. But my interviewer (a first year student) made me sort of uncomfortable. I talked to a current Kellogg student who also interviews, and he said I had almost the exact opposite experience of what they aim for. Since I knew my app was 'on the bubble' so to speak, I knew I needed a good interview. It was unfortunate it wasn't quite up my alley. Since I've interviewed at a few other schools since then, I've seen them conducted much better (in my opinion). Things that turned me off include:

2. The interviewer doesn't see your resume until 15 minutes before your interview. Other schools ask for it a few days in advance. My work is pretty complicated and can be difficult to explain, so that didn't help me during my interview. Also, my interviewer had nothing in common with me, so I had a hard time finding any common ground and had to really simplify my accomplishments, which I think made them sound less impressive. Meanwhile at Texas when I interviewed, they matched me with someone who had a similar pre-MBA background and post-MBA objectives, so I felt much more comfortable talking about things like I usually do.

3. My interviewer was very, very stone faced. I can't expect them to be all friendly to everyone, and I'm very much ok with that, but it was pretty much a strict Q&A, Q&A, etc. for the whole session. Honestly it didn't seem like my interviewer was excited to talk to me from the get go. It didn't seem conversational and I couldn't get a good sense of a collaborative, Kellogg community. My UCLA interview was the complete opposite, and I believe showed the personality and community feel that Kellogg has, but didn't come through in my interview.

4. On the sheet they have you fill out when you get there, you write down your short and long-term goals. For long-term I wrote something about eventually working my way up to becoming CMO of a consumer electronics company. During the interview, my interviewer legitimately asked me what a CMO was. I was sort of dumbfounded, but answered. Then the interviewer moved on to the next question. That was weird...

5. At the end of my interview, my interview closed basically saying, "Ok, I think that's all I think I need to make a decision. Thanks for your time." (quote isn't 100% accurate, but that was the gist of it) I had to rein my interviewer back in to ask my questions - no time was offered to me. I should probably read that as writing on the wall that I didn't do well for the first 30 minutes, but I think they should still offer you time to ask questions.

So, one of the most important interactions with Kellogg turned out to be somewhat underwhelming for me. They probably had the same impression talking to me (lol) but those are the breaks sometimes.

That is interesting that you had such a bad experience. I believe student admissions is very competitive, so I am thinking you might have caught the interviewer on a bad day?? I have a hard time believing that admissions at Kellogg would allow someone with that general attitude interact with perspective students. Regardless, it didn't help your chances that the interviewer acted as he/she did.

Aaaaaaaand waitlisted at UCLA. AAAAAARGH. I'm in a pretty awkward spot now that is going to cost me a decent chunk of change no matter what.

Texas deposit is due April 15 (I'm not 100% sold yet, especially with slight hope for UCLA and Berkeley)
Berkeley additional info is due April 28 for May 8 decision (want to fly there to interview)
UCLA R3 decision is made in mid-May

Thinking my 690 GMAT with Q42 isn't cutting it at these schools so I'm looking to revive my quant knowledge for 2 weeks and re-take the GMAT.

Scenario 1: If by some stroke of pure luck I get into UCLA or Berkeley, I'll go and I'm out my Texas deposit.
Scenario 2: If I don't get into UCLA or Berkeley, I spent a lot of money flying to Berkeley and retaking the GMAT.

Sounds like time for an EV model. Results to come later.

I'm trying not to think about it too much tonight since the UCLA wound is still fresh from this morning, but I'm going to have to decide soon.

Hi everyone! I just took my GMAT a few weeks ago and looked at this forum fairly frequently in the weeks leading up to the test. I plan on applying for Fall 2012 but thought I'd go ahead and join the party here.


Age: 23
Gender: Male
Current City: Austin, TX
Nationality: American - Chinese
GMAT: 710
GPA: 3.84
Full Time Work Experience: Almost 2 years
Industry: High Tech
Job Function(s): Marketing/Operations
Application year: 2012
How far along in application process: Researching programs.

For target schools I'm still not quite sure. Optimistically I'd like to go to a top 10 (Berkeley sounds pretty ideal to me) but still in the research phase to see how I stack up against the typical candidates for a top tier school.

Everybody here seems really nice/helpful, I look forward to joining in on the forum fun!

Supplements wrote:Hi everyone! I just took my GMAT a few weeks ago and looked at this forum fairly frequently in the weeks leading up to the test. I plan on applying for Fall 2012 but thought I'd go ahead and join the party here.


Age: 23
Gender: Male
Current City: Austin, TX
Nationality: American - Chinese
GMAT: 710
GPA: 3.84
Full Time Work Experience: Almost 2 years
Industry: High Tech
Job Function(s): Marketing/Operations
Application year: 2012
How far along in application process: Researching programs.

For target schools I'm still not quite sure. Optimistically I'd like to go to a top 10 (Berkeley sounds pretty ideal to me) but still in the research phase to see how I stack up against the typical candidates for a top tier school.

Everybody here seems really nice/helpful, I look forward to joining in on the forum fun!

Welcome to the forum! What schools have you started to research other than Haas? Now is a great time to get started so you can be ahead! You already have your GMAT finished, so that is a positive.

Age: 22
Gender: Male
Current City: Piscataway, NJ
Nationality: Asian - Indian
GMAT: scoring around 550 on practice tests, hope to improve a 100 points in the nxt 2 weeks (wish me luck!)
GPA: 3.53
Full Time Work Experience: 6 months
Application year: 2010
How far along in application process: Submitted (waiting on professor to send recommendation, and to take the GMAT).

Schools interested in:

Queens School of Business (Canada)

Richard Ivey School of Business (Canada)


any1 applying to the canadian b-schools? or am I the only fool in the bunch?

brianm wrote:Aaaaaaaand waitlisted at UCLA. AAAAAARGH. I'm in a pretty awkward spot now that is going to cost me a decent chunk of change no matter what.

Texas deposit is due April 15 (I'm not 100% sold yet, especially with slight hope for UCLA and Berkeley)
Berkeley additional info is due April 28 for May 8 decision (want to fly there to interview)
UCLA R3 decision is made in mid-May

Thinking my 690 GMAT with Q42 isn't cutting it at these schools so I'm looking to revive my quant knowledge for 2 weeks and re-take the GMAT.

Scenario 1: If by some stroke of pure luck I get into UCLA or Berkeley, I'll go and I'm out my Texas deposit.
Scenario 2: If I don't get into UCLA or Berkeley, I spent a lot of money flying to Berkeley and retaking the GMAT.

Sounds like time for an EV model. Results to come later.

I'm trying not to think about it too much tonight since the UCLA wound is still fresh from this morning, but I'm going to have to decide soon.

So I'm quoting myself...sorry about that. I paid my Texas deposit to reserve my spot there.

I flew out to Berkeley last week to interview and was extremely impressed with everything - the people, facilities, professors, interviewer. I'd go there in a heartbeat. It is definitely a top tier school in every sense of the term.

I also just took my GMAT again and got my 690 up to 710 - same V score but upped my quant a few points. Still below the 80th percentile but I'm not complaining (Q44 V42). Feels good to finally break 700 even though I've done it at least 8 times at home. I feel like I almost have a significant sample size of tests to do some statistical analysis haha.

Now just got to submit my update to Berkeley, have my recommenders submit their recos, and cross my fingers!

I took the GMAT a few weeks ago and scored 640 (Q-48, V-28 and AWA 4.5/6.0). I plan on doing my MBA in operations and logistics. So far I have shortlisted the following schools and am yet to start working on my essays, resume, recos etc..

McCombs @ Texas
Stern @ NYC
Darden @ Virginia
Tepper @ CMU
Foster @ Univ. of Washington

I have four years of work experience as a Mechanical Engineer in energy and infrastructure industry. I also have a Master's in Mechanical Engineering with a GPA of 3.67 and an undergrad GPA of 3.56.
I have been advised by some of my friends to retake the GMAT and get a score closer to 700 if I plan on applying to the shortlisted schools. I am still in a dilemma
Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
-Thanks

Well it looks like I might have been the first person dinged off Berkeley's waitlist for this review period. I guess it was an easy decision for them. I got the email around 3 CT today and nobody else on BW or gmatclub is reporting anything. I can't say I'm surprised. I felt like I had nothing to lose since I didn't even expect a waitlist.

Now it's down to UCLA waitlist vs. Texas admit. I'll hear from UCLA by the 19th and then I'll finally have closure. Thank God.

Hi Brianm
Could you please share some experience with the Texas admission? I am very much interested in the Texas MBA and wondering what all they look for in terms of credentials and experience. I have a GMAT score of 640 and still in a dilemma over retaking it.
Thanks in advance....
-2001MBAspirant

2011mbaspirant wrote:Hi Brianm
Could you please share some experience with the Texas admission? I am very much interested in the Texas MBA and wondering what all they look for in terms of credentials and experience. I have a GMAT score of 640 and still in a dilemma over retaking it.
Thanks in advance....
-2001MBAspirant

On page 4 of this thread I have my basic profile, and on page 7 I shared my UT visit and interview experience. Those should give you a good start. If you have any other questions after reading those I'd be happy to answer them.

Hey Brian,

Out of curiosity, did you use any mba consulting services for your app?