HBS Teasing

As many of the other bloggers do, I have an SMS alert set so that any e-mail received from hbs.edu will message me right away on my cell phone. This morning I got an SMS saying that I had mail from HBS. My heart was pounding as I checked my inbox, hoping it was an invitation to interview.

Nope.

It was an invitation to a web enhanced conference call for round 1 applicants. I enrolled for the conference call, because I am interested to hear what they have to say. I'm somewhat surprised about this e-mail because I didn't expect to hear anything beyond interview / no interview or accepted / dinged at this point. I highly doubt this conference call portends anything significant other than an update on the process.

Laying low

I've been torturing myself and spending time on the BusinessWeek forums. During my self flagellation I saw that the HBS round 1 invitations have started going out. A lot of people have started to make panicky posts, wondering if they will or won't get in. After reading through a lot of old posts though, it's pretty clear that HBS continues to issue invites right up to the round 1 deadline of January 19th. In fact there are some posts about people that got their invitation just after the deadline and were admitted several weeks later. It seems that if HBS isn't interested you will get a ding on January 19th. No ding is good news I suppose. At this point, I've done all I can do, I put every ounce of energy into my application, so I'm not holding my breath to get an invite immediately.

Maybe my perspective is somewhat different than some other people though. Even if I don't get into one of my top choices this year (Harvard, Wharton, Stanford), I won't be crushed. I will continue to work on my plan which involves several business ideas that I currently have. I think getting into these schools does involve a bit of luck, and if you don't get in this year, you can always apply again. It doesn't mean you aren't good enough. I don't think you should let any person or entity decide how much self esteem you'll have. Of course we'll see if I'm singing this same tune if I get dinged. :)

Get out and vote

I voted earlier today, and wow the turnout was big. It took me an hour to wait through the line just to get to the poll. I highly encourage everyone to get out and make your voice count in this election.