UCLA Class of 2011 Applicants

[mayonnai5e]

Starting a thread for the class of 2011 Applicants. Talk about anything you like including why this schools, the application process, essay question tips, etc.

[mayonnai5e]

Applied R1. Submitted application a few days before deadline. Interview request roughly 1 month later on campus with a second year student. Interview was informal and very fluid.

Admitted December 23rd as part of the early admits notified before the actual notification date. $20k fellowship awarded.

I considered UCLA to be a safety school with about 90% chance to get in. Now that I've been admitted it's a 100% chance. =P

Focus: Entrepreneurship and international business.

[Ancientmtk]

I am interested in applying for UCLA. Can you kind of go over your credentials?

Mine is:
2 year work exp in IT/Application Engineer
GMAT 740
GPA 3.2
BS. in Electrical Engineering


How did you package your apps?

[mbandai]

I applied well before the 2nd round deadline and have recently received an invitation to interview.

Can you give specifics on what sort of questions were asked? I assume the standard questions were definitely asked. Were there any curveballs though?

Thanks in advance!

[mayonnai5e]

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mayo-s-admis ... 26434.html

You can check out my thread there - I put more details into my applications so far.

[gkammaje]

Mayo,
First, congratulations on your UCLA acceptance. I have read both your gmat studies blog and applications blog and I think they are great and very insightful!! I think some of my interests and goals are quite similar to what your have mentioned in your blog. I would like to focus on entrepreneurship and IB and will be joining my family business in switzerland and India.
I plan on applying to 4 schools and I am trying to get down to one 1 in california. Realisticaly speaking, Haas is out of my reach and I am trying to decide between UCLA and USC. I have heard that USC has a great entrepreneurship and IB programs. Did you ever consider USC and why did you pick UCLA over USC?
The other schools on my last are NYU (#1 choice), UT- Austin, Thunderbird (safety).

Thanks

[mayonnai5e]

Hey it's great to hear you're interested in the same stuff I am. In fact, many of your picks were also on my list: Haas, NYU, UCLA, USC, and Austin. But I had to pick and choose 4 or 5 for which I felt I had a realistic chance to get into (with some reaches) and were still top schools.

I ranked my choices like so:
Columbia (reach)
Haas (decent)
LBS (decent)
UCLA (safety/decent)
NYU (safety/decent)
USC (safety)
Austin (safety)

So my plan was 2 safety, 2 decent, 1 reach: Columbia, Haas, LBS, UCLA, USC. Austin is too regional in my opinion. NYU is basically an east-coast version of UCLA (same ranking/rep consistently through the years). But I'm a CA resident with roots in So Cal so I felt that would help my story more. In-state public tuition for UCLA makes Anderson far more affordable also.