The Application Process

Just got the call from UCLA. I'm in! Now there are some serious decisions to be made between my top choices! I am STOKED.

No flights scheduled for me today and a pilot friend flew missed his connection last night and ended up in San Francisco. Anyone local feel free to join us in a MBA-acceptance afternoon pub crawl starting at noon at Lucky 13 on Market and working our way back to the Mission. Celebration!

After an afternoon turned late night I awoke to a phone call from Orange County. The UCI admission's director was calling to invite me to attend their program. She even sweetened the deal by saying they were also offering a Faculty Fellowship in the amount of $40K. Like they say, "When it rains, it rains pretty hard." Or something like that.

I'm stunned and don't quite know how to handle this situation. $40K is a lot of money to me right now and it would mean lower student loan payments later. But UCLA is larger and in a better place to live and I could realistically expect to earn a higher salary, if the schools stats are accurate, canceling the effect of the higher cost of attendance. It's a good problem to have, I suppose.

I still need to wait to hear back from every school before I can make a final decision. So I'll just have to let this simmer until Feb. 1st.

Stanford: Denied w/o interview
UC-Berkeley: waiting
UCLA: Admitted
Kellogg: Waitlist
Chicago Booth: Waitlist
UW Foster: Admitted
USC Marshall: Interviewed
UT-Austin: Admitted
Darden: Interviewed
UC-Irvine: Admitted +$40K

Congrats on the UCLA admit!

That 40k is a good problem to have!!

Ultra, did you get a call yet?

I got a call from Cherl Jones from Darden, but I was skiing and didn't have a signal so I missed it! Her message simply said to call her back. Looks like i need to wait for midnight to check online. But I think a call is never a bad sign!

I was also officially dinged from Haas so I can start making some decisions very soon it looks. Buuuu, Berkeley.

Congratulations! I'm excited to see the message board become more active with people hearing about about decisions! I'll be in that boat next year...

Thanks, money9111! It is really exciting to hear back from schools and finally figure out where you will living for two years and what program you can manage to gain acceptance to. It's a big accomplishment and takes a lot of work. But, like I did and recommend, you can have an excuse to go out and celebrate for every submission, interview invite, interview completion and admit! That could be a lot of celebrating if you apply to a lot of schools!

Cherl from Darden called me on her cell phone from home yesterday to let me know that I'm in at Darden! She said that they are sending out an admit packet with any scholarship/fellowship offering information today. I will be waiting for the mailman every day until I get it. Of all of the schools I applied to, Darden is by far the most generous with their scholarship money. Their website said that they give away 70 full tuition scholarships to Round 1 applicants only. That's a large percentage of the admits. So anyone wanting to apply here, dmateer24, do it Round 1!

I don't know how competitive I was in the group and am happy to just have gotten in, but if there was some sort of financial offering, I would do backflips for hours. (I can't do backflips, so this probably won't happen...)

The last school remaining, USC, has their Decision Day on Monday and I hope to have received my Darden offer by then, so it looks like the application process will be done for me soon.

Thanks for the encouragement guys, and best of luck in your b-school adventures.

this is too difficult. i don't think i'll be able to do all this. most schools' hit their deadline in mid march and that's the earliest i'll be giving my gmat. plus, i thought recommendation letters were just sent by post, but getting them to go to a website would be rather impossible here.

good luck to u. i thought all universities wanted the same essays, didn't know about the changes required for all.. guess i should drop the MBA dream for a year at the least.

ultraeasy wrote:Thanks, money9111! It is really exciting to hear back from schools and finally figure out where you will living for two years and what program you can manage to gain acceptance to. It's a big accomplishment and takes a lot of work. But, like I did and recommend, you can have an excuse to go out and celebrate for every submission, interview invite, interview completion and admit! That could be a lot of celebrating if you apply to a lot of schools!

Cherl from Darden called me on her cell phone from home yesterday to let me know that I'm in at Darden! She said that they are sending out an admit packet with any scholarship/fellowship offering information today. I will be waiting for the mailman every day until I get it. Of all of the schools I applied to, Darden is by far the most generous with their scholarship money. Their website said that they give away 70 full tuition scholarships to Round 1 applicants only. That's a large percentage of the admits. So anyone wanting to apply here, dmateer24, do it Round 1!

I don't know how competitive I was in the group and am happy to just have gotten in, but if there was some sort of financial offering, I would do backflips for hours. (I can't do backflips, so this probably won't happen...)

The last school remaining, USC, has their Decision Day on Monday and I hope to have received my Darden offer by then, so it looks like the application process will be done for me soon.

Thanks for the encouragement guys, and best of luck in your b-school adventures.

Congrats, Ultraeasy! Hopefully you get that full scholarship too.

I will keep that in mind and be sure to apply in R1 to Darden!

Congrats ultraeasy! It's been fun living vicariously through your interviews and campus visits. I think you're semi-insane for doing that many round 1 apps (I did four round twos and barely made it!) but it looks like it's paid off!

Any thoughts on where you're leaning towards going (pending $$$ from Darden)?

I'm anxiously waiting for your USC decision. I can't believe how nerve-wracking it must be. But at the very least you know that you ARE going to B-school! So that's definitely gotta be a load off your back...

mehtaprem, waiting a year may be the best option for you. You can give yourself lots of time to get the best score possible on the GMAT and write some good essays. Lots of them. BUT...every B-school says that Round 3 (or 4) has room for exceptional candidates. So it would be harder to get in this year, but certainly not impossible. You could just focus hard now and save yourself a year.

Right now I'm leaning toward UCLA, unless more scholarship money starts appearing in my inbox. And Darden sent me a tracking number for their admit offer, which I am very anxious to read, and it should be here next Weds. I'm hoping for sooner. But, I need to wait for USC, too, before making a decision.

Speaking of appearing money, UT-Austin came through with a $42K Merit Scholarship out of nowhere. I thought that they were supposed to notify you upon admission notification. I guess not. Or maybe they gave it to someone else first who ended up declining. This makes me think that I should let these schools hang as long as possible to see if they start sweetening their deals. Does that make sense?

Stanford: Denied w/o interview
UC-Berkeley: Denied w/o interview
UCLA: Admitted
Kellogg: Waitlist
Chicago Booth: Waitlist
UW Foster: Admitted
USC Marshall: Interviewed
UT-Austin: Admitted + 42K
Darden: Admitted
UC-Irvine: Admitted +$40K

So I have a question for you... If ou get less money from kellogg and booth but you get in... What will your decision be?

I was hoping to still get into Booth or Kellogg up until UCLA called me in. UCLA was higher on my personal rankings especially for it's fit, location and program. AND they are cheap compared to the Chicago schools. So at this point if one of the Chicagos were to accept me, there would be no scholarships and an expensive bill!

I'm pretty set on UCLA, with pending scholarships from comparable schools being a potential game-changer. Gotta keeping waiting until Weds for Darden's letter!

so you'll only find out if you get $ from Darden on monday correct?

can't beat UCLA's weather!!!! i'm not sure where you're located now, but i'm in NY and this weather is brutal!