Reflection on HBS Application

First off, I probably will drive myself crazy obsessing over HBS application AFTER submitting it. it’s done, it’s done and nothing I do now can change anything. That being said, I was up till 1 am last night twitching every second and double-triple checking every single alphabet that I put in the application form… until FINALLY I told myself that I needed go to bed because I have to go to work in less than 6 hours…

But then, I had the WEIRDEST dream – that I was in an interview for HBS and the only question I remembered that was asked of me was this “how do we know that you will commit to HBS since you’re applying to other schools?”. I wish I’m some sort of oracle who can read my future through dreams because I would give anything to make that dream come true!!!

Now, moving on I still have another set of essays to worry – that’s for Kellogg. I have a good 3 weeks to outline and write and revise the essays to perfection… that shouldn’t be a problem, rite?....

Class of 2014 vs Class of 2015 Application

My first reservation about submitting another HBS application after rejection from last year was that I couldn’t write much about how much I’ve improved over my last application. I thought that last year, I covered a wide range of experiences throughout my life in that set of essays that spectacularly bombed with the admission committee. I worry that even before they read my new application, they would just put it in another pile that says “stank last year, probably won’t be better this year”… gosh, I was super paranoid!

But boy, was I glad that HBS actually revamped its whole application structure – new essays (well, actually they were similar to old essays but with more words to play around) and that was the saving grace for me this year. I was extremely happy with how my two essays turned out to be and they were enthusiastically endorsed by a HBS alumnus, a future INSEAD MBA, a Stanford GSB alumnus and some of my closest friends. It kinda validated my positioning for this year’s application. If nothing else, I hope the admission committee this year see the maturity in the essay and how far I’ve come since submitting my application last year.

The second part that made the most different this year was my letter of recommendation. I was extremely grateful to two of my managers and another friend whom I’ve worked with on a charity organisation. They have graciously agreed to write my LOR and incorporated most of my inputs and recommendations (I hope so) and submitted their part way ahead of the deadline!

One of the tragedies last year was that my previous superior whom I worked closely for almost 2 years completely and utterly bombed his LOR. He left it to the last minute, refused to talk to me to discuss how to write LOR for US BS MBA application and the result was a lukewarm standard LOR, which did more harm than any good whatsoever at all… But I was glad that I learnt this lesson though. It made my selection of my recommenders for this year way more stringent and it forced me to really find people who share the same level of enthusiasm about my personal growth and development as me and most of all, whom I could totally depend to write a great LOR to support my candidacy!

It’s somewhat anticlimactic when I think about these two situations. I still remember early this year (I submitted Rd 2 application in Jan 2012) where I almost cried in the office of one of my recommender when I knew that on the morning of the deadline, he haven’t even started anything yet and started to be defensive when I gave him an outline of stuff to write. Come to think of it, that was the moment where I knew my application was going to waste… ha ha, and I was right!

Looking Ahead…

So I have to wait till the week of 17^th – 24^th October to know my fate this time around, after which I can move on to other application or if lucky, be invited to an interview, where I will then be paranoid about every single thing that I wrote down in my application and will probably lose many nights thinking about the post-interview reflection. Plus I have the tendency to be too honest in my interviews… so, yeah… we’ll see!

I just wanna give a shout-out to all those who have helped me with my HBS application. I couldn’t have done it without your support, so THANK YOU!!!