Strategic Mistake?

 I’ve always been optimistic about my chances in long-shot situations.  I periodically buy a lottery ticket with the idea that “somebody is going to win, my chances are as good as anyone’s!”  What I fail to realize is that that equal chance is 1 in 84 million.   In my optimistic view, 1 in 84 million is a GREAT chance!  I will stay in a poker hand believing that my chances are irrationally high for getting the card I need on the river.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, of course.  And I imagine my incidence of drawing the winning card is roughly equal to the statistical probability.

Now I fear I’ve taken the same approach with my MBA applications.  Seven months ago (is that all?), everything about applying for my MBA seemed to be going my way.  I got a pretty good GMAT score.  I anxiously informed my supervisor of my plans, and he encouraged me to, by all means, go to school if that’s what I wanted to do.  He even graciously agreed to write my rec forms.  I reached out to a local HBS alum, who happens to be an interviewer and the former president of the alumni board.  I made the decision to apply to four schools, all top-ten schools, on some sort of emotional high about my chances.  One student I know at one of my target schools will no doubt remember being put off a bit when I said I considered that school my “safety school.”

Regardless, comparing my so-called stats to the class profiles on the top schools’ websites convinced me that I, all around, was planted squarely in the middle of the applicant pool–above average academics, good ECs, average WE, and I knew I could write decent essays.  So I figured, with a roughly 50% chance at 4 different schools, I could probably count on getting into one of them….RIIIGHT????

Wrong.

Here I am, 40 or 50 days out from R2 decisions, and I am feeling decidedly unconfident about my shots of getting in anywhere.  Due to a very poor interview and a missing answer on my application, coupled with some baaad essays, I’ve all but given up on Tuck.  I thought I had a chance at HBS, but waiting for an interview invite is draining my confidence day by day.  20/20 hindsight tells me I could have done better essays.   I have NO feeling for my chances Northwestern–my essays were rushed, and I still have to schedule my interview.  At this point, I consider UM my best shot, having been interviewed by invitation.  But even there, I feel I have a good application, but my interview was just ok, nothing too great, and I noticed recently that people with my undergrad major only make up 4% of their class.  In short, I still feel I have a strong candidacy to some schools, but I’ve had a reality check that I’m not a shoe-in anywhere.

So if I don’t get in anywhere, I will survive, but the point is that in my optimism, I may have discounted the value of applying to more schools or a real safety school, or otherwise making a good, solid Plan B.  It’s only a problem because for 7 months, I’ve been looking forward to this light at the end of the tunnel where I can quit my job, move out my house, live in a new place, meet new people from dozens of countries and all 50 states, and just really step into the next part of my life.  So if I’m not accepted anywhere, all of that hope just falls out from under me.  I work in IT, and making a career change is immeasurably more difficult without the degree.

I should have made a Plan B.  It might not be too late, but it definitely IS too late to improve my WE and ECs for this year’s app cycle.  It’s too late to make a last minute app to a school or two in the next tier, simply because I’ve milked the recommender cow quite dry.  I’ve really only had one real supervisor since graduating from college, and I don’t work with “clients,” so finding another professional recommender is really difficult.  This is my time, in other words, and if it doesn’t work out for b-school now, my opportunity for a top ten school may be essentially over.

There are a lot of other options.  I could go to grad school for another degree.  I could go to a lower-ranked b-school.  I could go do the same sort of work I do now in Iraq and make a lot of money for a year or two.  I could join the Peace Corps or sacrifice a good salary to go be a social worker.  It’s not the end of the world if I don’t get in, it’s just that I have to go back to square one and figure out another plan.  Applying to b-school, you get so focused on WHY MBA, WHY NOW? that it’s hard to convince yourself that doing something different could be just as rewarding.

As my confidence wanes, it’s hard, but it’s probably good that my expectations are falling so that it’s not such a hard blow if I get dinged.  But man, it’s getting hard to keep up hope in this waiting season between the app deadline and the decision day.  Blech.  Good luck to those of you going through the same things…but even better luck to me for the next 55 days!