I spent the entire day today – except for attending a yoga class and doing a few loads of laundry – on the Wharton essays.
Those essays are a special animal. The other schools practically beg you to tell them wonderful things about yourself. They have open ended questions, they are positively slanted, and since I happen to have a relatively good mistake/failure story, the few that include that one don’t even faze me.
But alas, Wharton does no such thing. Figuring out how to answer those prompts, particularly the first and second, felt like some kind of self-therapy session. For starters, 750-1,000 words is a LOT. And as I wrote, I kept having to delete and reconsider – how did I really feel/react? Why am I really doing this or that, or what is truly my motivation here or there?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good process. I now have a much deeper grasp on my career goals, why I have them and what it will take to achieve them, but I am also mentally exhausted.
I know I’ve said it before, but honestly, it warrants another mention. Essay #2 is killing me. I suppose it’s all relative – I have a good failure/mistake story, but I’m sure some of you are struggling with that but have a fantastic adapting perspectives story. I did manage to put a full essay down for #2 today, although I’m not entirely convinced that it’s truly a good example of adapting. The problem is, I don’t have anything better. This concerns me since it’s clearly such an important point for them and that’s my first choice school, but it is what it is, I suppose…not much to do about it now. I plan to ask everyone I know for ideas over the next couple of days to make sure there isn’t some wonderful story out there that I’m not thinking of, and if not, I will go full speed ahead with what I have. Maybe multiple rounds of edits later, I’ll even be happy with it. A girl can dream, can’t she?
Read the full article: Long Day of Essays