Welcome to this week’s exciting edition of FFF! After a quiet summer, we’re pleased to see that things are picking up; though the start of school and impending deadlines means added work for our blogger friends, this translates into more great content for the reading enjoyment of those of us here at Clear Admit HQ, and for the online community at large.

The GMAT is still foremost on the minds of many applicant bloggers; Math_Guru has just begun preparations in earnest, GuyMBA has gotten back on track in this department, and Brian has outlined his planned study schedule, while Cornfed MBA confesses to a retake, reports the happy news of the increased score, and shares the details of her testing experience. She’s also moving along with her recommendations and thinking about her MIT essays, much in the way Suser McLoser looks back to her exam experience and forward to the weeks ahead, which involve an investigation of Haas among other activities. Similarly, Reveur has his information session schedule figured out. Essay writing is another major concern for those targeting Fall 2007 admission, and applicants are obviously at various stages of progress in and comfort with the process. Juggler has made peace with Columbia while Jatwarrior continues to struggle with perfectionism and that particular program. Meanwhile, UniQpath shares some lessons she’s already learned at this early stage in the season. Finally, ScareCrow is feeling the pressure now that it’s September, but with HBS, Wharton and Kellogg complete, seems to be in pretty good shape!

On the student front, bloggers are finally getting back into a rhythm. The Divine Miss N finally caught up on her sleep (in a city that would seem to make this difficult) and has been embracing the Stern and New York experiences, while Keven issues a full report on his first day of second-year classes at Wisconsin and Y. Gupta laments his early morning schedule at ISB. Second-year student Guillaume lent a hand with orientation at LBS, an event that was tremendously well received by the incoming class. Angel Angie includes the “international game” in her list of LBS orientation highlights (can’t blame her, since the Germans won), Martha recounts some memorable speeches and Manish focuses on sharing some pointers with prospective students from other countries. All the while, Karlitos continues to revel in the international character and diversity of his school.

A number of other students began or finished up with orientation activities, many of which shared interesting similarities: we learned from Brownoski and Jacek that the first days at ESADE and orientation at Yale both involve LEGOs, and just as Angel Angie took on some physical challenges in the great outdoors as part of Away Day at LBS, LL undertook a number of similar nature-based team-building challenges at the Leadership Retreat that ends Wharton’s pre-term. We also enjoyed reading posts about blogger’s pride in their diverse incoming classes at the SOM and at UCLA, Benny‘s account of his initial week at Tuck, and Hallonman’s post about the exciting learning experience ahead of him at INSEAD. He’s also bracing himself for a very hectic semester, though, and is not the only first-year blogger already feeling the heat. Kilgore Trout describes an evening-consuming load of homework after just one day at UT Autin and thinks about workload management strategies, while Axechick relates her thoughts on class so far and tells the truth about recruiting at Columbia. FoobarMe is already dealing with midterms (though, he’s already learned a good deal about networking while at Haas; why not Organizational Behavior?)!

That’s it for this week. We hope that those of you in the blogging community are as excited about what’s in store for the upcoming months as we are about reading about it, and that everyone has a wonderful weekend!

September has arrived, and with it another installment of FFF! While we’re happy that fall is approaching and the weather is changing here in Philadelphia, not everyone is quite as pleased about the passage of time: Forrest Gump is feeling the pressure to finish his Wharton reapplication and Median2K9 spent a late night preparing to debrief his recommender. Though it doesn’t sound as though Nividita is under too much stress just yet, the goal of applying to seven schools in round one is likely to do the trick sometime soon! Meanwhile, Dharu is visiting LBS and making progress on his Columbia application, and ScubaSteve offers some solid GMAT prep advice to those who are still worrying about the test.

While settling into a new school is a potentially stressful process, it sounds like the new group of student bloggers is doing well; we were glad to read that Ashwyn is learning the IESE lingo, that Paxti is pleased with his decision to attend the very international LBS, that Hallonman didn’t have to experience a certain unpleasant INSEAD tradition firsthand, and that BeenThereDoneThat already has a sense of NUS’s pros and cons. In addition to a recap of his move from Brazil, Benny provides a report on the composition of Tuck’s Class of 2008, and Kilgore Trout reflects on orientation week and seems similarly impressed by his mix of classmates at McCombs. Karlitos also recounts the process of getting acquainted with his peers during LBS orientation, while LL bids a bittersweet farewell to Wharton pre-term and shares the outcome of her exemption exams.

Second-year students seem similarly glad to be back at school; Phantom in particular is glad to have returned to Rice, while Nate might be a bit more excited about his football season tickets than the academic aspect of Michigan. Futureguru will return to LBS with a post-MBA job offer in hand, as will classmate KV, who’s also pleased to have finalized his fall term schedule. Finally, Mbwana’s internship has not only been productive in itself, but has led to some thinking about his post-Stanford goals.

Before we wrap things up this week, we wanted to say goodbye to two great bloggers. Olivier reflects briefly on his INSEAD experience and extensive travel in his last post, while BoB winner Marquis ends his MBA blogging career on a high note with a great entry about his personal transformation over the past two years at Stanford and his top ten pieces of advice for students. Thanks and best of luck to these and our other bloggers, and a happy weekend to everyone else!