CitiAssist Out, so is Duke (for me)

Now with Cornell and Ross in I just have not been able to concentrate and move on with the rest of the applications. As a result, Duke is postponed to Round 2 (a big MAYBE even then). More inclined towards UNC and Notre Dame at the moment.

I feel totally drained out and not motivated enough. Plus work, other commitments, festivities and family keeping me totally occupied.

The latest buzz for international students right now is the discontinuation of the CitiAssist non cosigner loans at Ross and MIT.
My 2 cents on this:
1) The loans stand discontinued from Nov 2nd onwards. And students have been asked to apply before that. The ones disbursed will not be recalled. So I am hoping not too many students are affected by it.
2)Schools will definitely try their best to come up with alternate sources. And hopefully something should be worked out by the next academic year.Else there will be a slump in international applications which will be a huge drop for schools in terms of statistics and diversity.
3) Round 2 in tier 1 schools (esp schools that had non cosigner loans) mite see a slowdown in international applications (mostly Asian). Though total volume will still surge (US applicants and some European will make up for it)
4) A lot of potential applicants will now look at Europe and Asia.
5)One imp. input I got from Owen adcom at the World MBA fair was that their school and certain others have decided to cut down on international students to ensure that finances are available for those admitted. This till now was not really the case with tier 1 schools. But maybe they might rethink strategy.

A lot of uncertainty, a lot of if's and buts out there. Life is not very beautiful right now.

On my way to Going Blue!!!

Yes!!! Finally my Ross application is in with recos and all... Ideally I would have loved to submit Ross 10-15 days ago but as Mr. Murphy would have it, things had to go haywire...

Last minute while re reading my essays I realised something was amiss. Just took a minor change in structure to make my team skills explicit but nonetheless took me ages to get it perfect.

One of my reviewers (a current student at Ross) got back to me this morning with comments, hours after I had submitted it.Thankfully he liked my essays and we were in sync on my weakest link (the leadership essay -- it was more mechanical and not as reflective as it should be). I had taken care of it before submitting.

One of my rec's was totally into hibernation, realised this evening that he hasn not had net access for the past 3 days, so all my frantic SOS mails were lying unattended in his mailbox. Left him a voicemail and voila! in 40 mins the reco was in. Hope he had it all filled up earlier and was just waiting to hit submit... else I'm doomed.

The good thing about the Ross application is that it is pretty compact, the bad thing- 100 characters and at times 4 lines of text is not enough!

Now that Ross is in some how I just cant get myself to work on other apps.. I'm just waiting to Go Blue!!!

I am seriously contemplating postponing Duke to Round 2 . Need to check the consequences of doing so (scolarship consideration, application volume, competition etc etc).

At the Stern Reception , the adcom rep. said that there is absolutely no advantage on submitting on 20th Oct instead of 15th Nov. However, I read in some forum that its rolling. Need to confirm this too, else will work on Stern from 30th Oct. Need to complete essay 3.

Now I need to finish what matters the most to me and why in the next few days!

All the best fellow bloggers!!!!

Of my first submit, some palpatations, a lot of excitement and more......

I just clicked on the Submit button in my Johnson application!!!

I momentarily lost a heartbeat and had a panic attack (have I filled in correctly... am i sure there are no spelling mistakes... have I goofed up anywhere.... and blah blah blah)
But now I feel so much better and lighter..Irrespective of the outcome..I know I gave it my best shot.

A couple of inputs to those who are yet to submit the Johnson app:
1. Johnson is one of the very few (or should I say only school) that gives some room (read words) to the applicant to fill in activities and ECs. Make the most of it but yes do not go overboard just coz u see 5000 characters!
2.There is no point is agonizing over formatting coz the word processor just does not allow it. This really messed up my table of contents and all the hours I had spent in sprucing it up and making it look real were an absolute waste. You are better off spending your time in proofreading the app.

Now its one down and 4 to go.....

Its now time to Go Blue!!!!