Cornell Essays - Short and Unique

I started (and finished the first drafts) of Cornell's essays tonight. Other than the bane-of-my-existence Wharton essays #2 & 4, those were the only ones I had yet to write a first draft of, primarily because the topics came out later than most.

Based on my cursory review of the questions, I wasn't expecting it to be too difficult or different than the previous four schools. Wrong I was. For starters, cramming my "story" into three 400 word essays was a challenge (that I didn't yet meet, actually, being that my first drafts left out some things). Also, the Table of Contents for your Life Story was an interesting exercise. I have to admit, I did some staring at the blinking cursor on the page before starting that one. I'm still not sure that I'm pleased with what I put together - their "note" about being creative and authentic is somewhat daunting to me - I suppose I know that I'm being authentic, but creative? Other than a small ironic joke I made towards the end, not sure I have any color in this one yet. I suppose that's what editing is for.

That means it's time to come back around to Wharton tomorrow. A wonderful co-worker gave me a nugget of an idea for Wharton's #4 (complex problem), so I'm going to try to put it on paper tomorrow and see what happens.

I've also recently realized that I need to do some resume tweaking, being that almost all (all?) of the schools want one. Clearly, this isn't a place to slack - nowhere on the application is a place to slack - so I'll be spending the rest of the night researching and rewriting that.

Anyone else look at the calendar this weekend and realize we're t-minus three weekends away from the big H and W deadlines?? Whew...time to go underground a bit, I'm afraid. I'll still be blogging, as it seems to help organize my thoughts and saves my family and friends from endless chatter on my part about MBA admissions. It will be a flashback to GMAT time, though...not so much with the plans outside of work unless it's 1) mandatory or 2) time sensitive.

Happy end of Labor Day weekend, everyone...enjoy the short work week!

Posted in: , on Monday, September 07, 2009 at at 9:43 PM  

5 comments:

  1. Steve On 8:19 AM Wrote

    The 3rd Cornell Essay was very hard to start, as conceptualizing a creative table of contents is not exactly easy. I think that letting your personality show through in some of the chapter headings or where your life takes you is an easy way to be "creative" or at least unique. I commiserate with you on this one...

     
  2. The Dreamer On 7:46 AM Wrote

    Hi..It's good to see a gal blogger in the MBA applicant blogosphere...Loved your writings.
    Have you edited the list of your schools yet?

     
  3. achint On 6:33 AM Wrote

    Hi I want your help on the essay 3 of cornell. Can you suggest how to find a format in which we should present the table of contents. What resources did you use in deciding this?

     
  4. ardentmeerkat On 9:57 AM Wrote

    steve - glad to hear i'm not alone in struggling with that essay. i was toying with some ideas along those same lines...

    dreamer - thanks for pointing that out, i forgot that i hadn't edited my main list on the blog. there is a post that details out my school choices if you have any interest called "School Picks: The Breakdown," and I edited the blog list as well.

    achint - i didn't use much, resource-wise, other than trial and error and opening up a few books at random to see how various tables of contents are formatted. steve, another commenter on this post, had some advice that may be helpful for you.

     
  5. achint On 12:14 AM Wrote

    I am confused do i write only the table of contenst or provide a small description about the chapters as well?

     

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