The passing of another week marks the arrival of yet another edition of FFF, your regular review of the latest in the MBA blogging world.
Let’s begin by taking a look at what’s happening on the student side; bloggers’ experiences have really run the gamut of MBA life this week! In terms of general overviews, MJ‘s detailed account of a packed week involving a case competition at Duke is a prime example of the juggling act that the MBA can be, and Chicago second-year The Dirty Canuck checks in with a broad comment about conference and recruiting season at the GSB. Feeling the job pressure on a more individual level, Sean writes about his efforts to balance school with his internship search at LBS, and Zanat0s seems a bit overwhelmed by his ever-expanding to do list at INSEAD. Other students are more focused on academics, presenting both the positive and negative elements of their experiences. Though Hallonman was cold-called yet again (is that two weeks in a row??) and John Galt is finding that his Wharton expectations aren’t quite being met, most bloggers sound quite enthusiastic about their classroom experiences. Yale student brownoski has some favorable things to say about the new SOM curriculum and the Divine Miss N, in New York on exchange from LBS, shares a very detailed description of “Advertising Management,” her favorite class at Stern. We were also glad to hear that FromCali has been pleasantly surprised by the current team-focused term at Michigan, and that the lessons learned at Owen are falling into place for Sharran.
While recruiting and classwork are undeniably core components of the business school experience, there’s been a good deal going on the social side as well! With midterms finished at IESE, Ashwyn and classmates partied quite heartily last weekend while Karlitos took a break from b-school to spend time with family in London, Auris traveled to Bali with INSEAD classmates and Angel Angie took a trip to Cambridge to visit a friend and scope out Judge Business School. In other on-campus events, Jacek is looking forward to the Student Association-sponsored Holiday party at ESADE (and shares the poster he designed for the event), Noelle recaps the inaugural meeting of IESE’s Cigar and Whiskey Club, and classmate IESE MBA 2007 provides an illustrated summary of the past few weeks in Barcelona. He also shares the details of his planned impact as part of the Responsible Business Club’s Environmental group and, also looking toward the future, LL shares some interesting but secretive comments about the Wharton Follies writing team retreat. Also extracurricularly, Tim takes a time out from his work at McCombs and looks back to his application experience, offering some great advice for applicants.
Applicant concerns, meanwhile, have again focused primarily on interviews this week; after weeks of waiting many Round 1 applicants are finally hearing back from the schools. The news is, as it tends to be, mixed, as some happy applicants received interview invitations or completed their on-campus and alumni interviews this week, while others dealt with the beginning of the Round 1 dings. Wharton applicants in particular had a lot to say, since the school notified applicants at noon yesterday whether they would be interviewed or were dinged. Forrest and Iday both received deny without interview decisions from Wharton this week, but are glad the wait is over and are turning their focus to their Chicago applications. In happier news, several of our applicant bloggers are celebrating recent interview invitations from Wharton. UniQPath is debating whether to interview with an alumnus vs. on campus, Hobbes received interview invitations at Wharton, Darden and Ross after breaking the obsessive email and s2s message board checking habit, Nivedita also pulled an invite hat trick with Wharton, Tepper and Duke, and Juggler is opting for Wharton’s Hub interviews in Mumbai over the hassle of an alumni interview. Meanwhile, a few lucky Wharton applicants who received interview invitations early on have already completed their interviews and reported back this week on how things went. Opting for an alumni interview, Scarecrow feels pretty confident about the experience and has some good details to share about the style and focus of the interview. Rungee582’s interview on campus with a second-year Wharton student also seems to have gone well – she shares some of the questions posed by her interviewer, as well as the exciting news of interview invites to HBS and Ross. Finally, AsiangalMBA’s entry offers a good reminder that not everyone is focused on the interview decisions as she reports on the upcoming local Wharton Info Session and ponders what she might do to continue learning about Wharton.
Despite this Wharton-mania, applicants have focused on other schools as well; at least, we think so, as Suser McLoser describes her interview for her top choice (and apparently top secret) school. Celebrating a Chicago invitation, Jatwarrior wonders whether to make the trip to Hyde Park – and might want to take a look at Juggler‘s very positive account of her interview with a GSB alum before making his decision. Columbia was also covered, but unfortunately not as happily; Hobbes found himself reeling from a ding, while GuyMBA is eagerly awaiting a status change on his CBS online application. After a false alarm from MIT, Stress Tensor reviews the interview invitation timing for his other target schools. Meanwhile, righty is fretting over ISB and Nivedita is expecting the worst from Cornell.
Best of luck to those about to interview, waiting for word, or engaged in other elements of the application process (like GMAT prep, essay writing and recommender management)! We hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend, and that we have some more great news to report in our next installment!
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