Bumping Stanford to Round 2

I have mentioned that I've been having difficulty with my Stanford essays. Doing an assessment of my progress today, I made the decision to bump the application to the next round. I have been very aggravated with my lack of progress on these essays. I was somewhat surprised because the Harvard essays came relatively quickly and easily to me. The universal advice though seems to be don't rush your applications to hit a specific round. Since I am only applying to two more schools this year, I am going to push both of them to the next round. Of course the key issue will be to make sure I keep my motivation up and really push to get these essays done long before the round 2 deadlines.

I've also been somewhat concerned how light the extra curriculars look on application. I have several ideas that I have been mulling around for a while now. By giving myself some extra time, I am going to get some of them rolling, and if nothing else I'll have a few more non-work related stories to tell.

I'm sort of bummed out that I need to bump it to round 2, but that puts Stanford in good company with Wharton. Ultimately, I think getting the application done right trumps getting it done soon. Let's hope this strategy pays off in the long run.

Now that I have a little more spare time, I will finish my writeup of the school visits last month.