Last night as I was sitting at a coffee shop working on Stanford essay A, I finally found my theme! After reading the myriads of blogs discussing their "theme" and their "story" I was getting a bit frustrated trying to think of my own. I kept getting off on so many tangents. I was convinced that my life couldn't be boiled down to a simple "story" with a "theme" that can be told in a just a couple of essays! But alas, last night I found my own theme! I found a recurring theme on all of the important and even not so important decisions I have made throughout my life. It was so clear to me. I think I may have shouted "Yippee" at the coffee shop because when I looked up from my computer I had the entire coffee shop staring at me. Oops :-)
So now that I have found my theme/story it's just a matter of writing it in a clear, concise, yet interesting manner. Let's hope this part doesn't take as long as the first part!
As I was having trouble with my essays I would go back and forth with the Stanford application. I find the actual application almost as difficult as the essays. For the life of me I can't remember the names of the organizations I used to volunteer at while in university. I guess that is a sign that they weren't that significant. But I was working almost a full time schedule (had to pay for school on my own, minus some scholarships and loans of course) while getting a degree in engineering full time as well so my time was quite limited. But I know I volunteered every once in a while when I found myself with a few spare hours. I know I tutored at an elementary school for a quarter once a week. I also volunteered with a rape prevention group too. I just don't know the details of the organizations. So do I leave those out of my list of activities? I'm going to do a class visit at Stanford in the near future so maybe I'll ask the student or maybe I'll have some contact with an adcom person.
In other news, if you hadn't noticed my list of schools has grown. I am no longer sure about NYU or Columbia but I have added UCLA and Ross to my application list for sure. I've scheduled an info session, class visit, and interview at UCLA that is coming up soon. I'm a bit nervous about the interview. I'm planning on working on my resume the next few days and refining my answers to some standard interview questions. I think I need to make my answers a little more brief (or is that briefer? Maybe this is why I did so bad on my GMAT!...uggghh that's another problem I'm going to have to deal with soon...yuck!).
Enough of this procrastinating...now that I actually have a theme to write about I better get to it!
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9 comments:
Bad Gmat score? Right, you probably got something like a 680.
Great so u have ur story i place.. I think you have that it doesnt take that much time to get a draft ready.. but after the first draft it is the subsequent drafts which are killer. I find it difficult to improve what I have already written :) Not that I give it my best in the first shot..but still after one or two revisions it gets very tough..
Enjoyed reading your Blog. All my best wishes on your Apps and essays.
good luck with your apps and the upcoming interview.
I checked out my blog after a few weeks today .. thanks for your comments! Are you shooting for R1 or R2? All the best for your applications!
Not to worry! The toughest part is stringing your story together. Once u've done that, rest all fall in place.
Best of luck! :)
BTW, I like the way you write :)
Yelllooo!!! No post for a long time?
ahh Hobbes..thanks for noticing :-) i've just been so busy with work and apps no time to update my progress. but i will soon!
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