Patty’s Path to Wharton: Which Round? (Part 7 of 8)
This is part 7 of a series featuring b-school advice gleaned from one of Manhattan GMAT’s own. Until recently, Patty managed marketing and student services for our sister company, Manhattan LSAT. But she chose to return to business school and started at Wharton last fall. She has agreed to share her application experiences with us in a series called, “Patty’s Path to Wharton.”
Read Part 6 here.
It’s a decision many students agonize over: Should I apply for everything round 1? This week, our own Patty weighs in, based on her application experiences. She says apply to your top choices—but be prepared to try again in round two. But sometimes, getting rejected the first time can provide the focus needed for successful second-round application.
She decided to “triage it,” applying to the three schools she thought would suit her best. But when Patty was rejected from two and waitlisted at the third, she dove back into the process for round two and came up with better results.
I stepped back to refine my story, took another round of self-reflection to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. It was sort of like, repeat step one. But my essays I’m very proud of, because my story became much clearer. Because I did the three schools first, I was able to refine the message on the second round. It took me that first round to really distill the heart of what my message was going to be.
While Patty hesitates to say she wouldn’t change a thing, she still feels her approach was the right one: “I couldn’t have gotten what I did out of round two without round two.”